modernises and moralises too much, I willingly admit; what I deny is
that he introduces gentleness, courtesy, and conscience where his
sources have none. Indeed this is not a matter of critical opinion,
but of verifiable fact. Any one can read Malory and judge for
himself. But the world in which the Idylls move could not be real.
For more than a thousand years different races, different ages, had
taken hold of the ancient Celtic legends and spiritualised them after
their own manner, and moulded them to their own ideals. There may
have been a historical Arthur, Comes Britanniae, after the Roman
withdrawal. Ye Amherawdyr Arthur, "the Emperor Arthur," may have
lived and fought, and led the Brythons to battle. But there may also
have been a Brythonic deity, or culture hero, of the same, or of a
similar name, and myths about him may have been assigned to a real
Arthur. Again, the Arthur of the old Welsh legends was by no means
the blameless king--even in comparatively late French romances he is
not blameless. But the process of idealising him went on: still
incomplete in Malory's compilation, where he is often rather otiose
and far from royal. Tennyson, for his purpose, completed the
idealisation.

As to Guinevere, she was not idealised in the old Welsh rhyme -


"Guinevere, Giant Ogurvan's daughter,
Naughty young, more naughty later."


Of Lancelot, and her passion for him, the old Welsh has nothing to
say. Probably Chretien de Troyes, by a happy blunder or
misconception, gave Lancelot his love and his pre-eminent part.