From the Introduction.
THE 'Tales' in this volume are an attempt to put within the reach of younger readers the substance of the cycle of Arthurian romance which is contained in Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King,' preserving as far as possible both the letter and the spirit of the late Laureate's work, with some 'faint Homeric echoes' of the ancient chronicles that form the basis of each story. It is hoped that these 'Tales' may affect two objects dear to the writer's heart — one, that they may induce the few who look at them to read the ' Idylls of the King' for themselves, if they have not already done so, and to re-read them if they have; the other, that they may awaken some further interest in the legendary history of that mysterious King whose name, as we tramp or cycle through the British Isles in our holiday rambles, starts up before us from hill and crag, cairn and cromlech, and grassy mound, and has become a household word to most of us from the fairytales of the nursery.
Who was King Arthur? Was there ever a King Arthur at all? If so, when did be live, and what was he like? Let us look at these questions in the light thrown on them by a well-known living critic. 'Regarding Arthur,' he says, 'little of real fact has been ascertained; all that modern research can tell us with any certainty is that there was, in the sixth century, a war-leader in Britain called Artus, or Arthur, who, after the departure of the Romans, headed the tribes of Cumbria and Strath Clyde against the encroaching Saxons, Picts and Scots; and that five or six centuries later the name of King Arthur had come to stand for an ideal of royal wisdom, chivalric virtue, and knightly prowess.'
There seems no reason to doubt that the legends have a historic basis; in fact, so widely and indelibly is the name of Arthur stamped upon the map of the British Isles, from 'Arthur's Seat' by Edinburgh, to Arthur's Castle of Tintagil in Cornwall, that the question seems not so much whether there was an Arthur at all, but whether there were not more Arthurs than one. This possibility is suggested by Judge Hughes in his 'Scouring of the White Horse' (see his discussion of the probable origin of the 'Dragon's Hill'). Sir Thomas Malory, who in 1470 collected the Arthurian legends into the famous 'Morte d'Arthur,' is at pains to identify some of the place-names given in the old stories with names existing in his own day: thus, Camelot, the Royal City, is Winchester; Astolat, the home of the 'lily maid Elaine,' is Guildford in Surrey; and throughout the book the scenes of the adventures are localized over the length and breadth of the land....
