ALFRED TENNYSON, _The Coming of Arthur_.


For the first hundred and fifty years of their life in this island our
ancestors were heathens. This time has no place in the English memory
through any legendary or literary tradition that is associated with the
Saxons. The legends of this time which retain a place in literature are
not Saxon but British. This is the era of Arthur and the Knights of the
Round Table. There is no book or piece of Saxon literature that can in
any substantial sense be ascribed to the heathen period; for I cannot go
with those who assign this high antiquity to the "Beowulf."

There is a book that claims to be a product of this time, but it is
neither Saxon nor heathen. It bears the name of Gildas, a Briton, and it
is a fervently Christian book, written in Latin. It has two parts, one
being a Lament of the Ruin of Britain, the other a Denunciation of the
conduct of her princes. Its genuineness has been questioned, and it has
also been ably defended.[39] The strong point in favour of the book is,
that it existed and was reputed genuine before the time of Bede, who
used it as an authority, and cited it by the author's name, saying that
"Gildas, their [the Britons'] historian," describes such and such evils
in his "lamentable discourse."[40] Through Bede the information of
Gildas has fallen into the stream of English history, and we cease to be
aware of the original source. For example, the familiar tradition of the
Saxons coming over in "three keels," ordinarily ascribed to Bede, is
taken from Gildas. The date of this author and his work, as now
generally accepted, is this:--That he was born in 520, the year of the
battle of Mons Badonicus, and that he wrote about 564. But this rests on
an ill-jointed and uncertain passage, which was misunderstood by Bede,
if the modern interpretation is right.