VIII. LANCELOT

The main sources of information concerning Lancelot are the "Morte
d'Arthur," Newell's "King Arthur and the Table Round," and the
publications of the Early English Text Society. See also Rhys's "Arthurian
Legend," pp. 127, 147, etc.


IX. THE HALF-MAN

The symbolical legend on which this tale is founded will be found in Lady
Charlotte Guest's translation of the "Mabinogion" (London, 1877), II. p.
344. It is an almost unique instance, in the imaginative literature of
that period, of a direct and avowed allegory. There is often allegory, but
it is usually contributed by modern interpreters, and would sometimes
greatly astound the original fabulists.


X. ARTHUR

The earliest mention of the island of Avalon, or Avilion, in connection
with the death of Arthur, is a slight one by the old English chronicler,
Geoffrey of Monmouth (Book XI. c. 2), and the event is attributed by him
to the year 542. Wace's French romance was an enlargement of Geoffrey; and
the narrative of Layamon (at the close of the twelfth century) an
explanation of that of Wace. Layamon's account of the actual death of
Arthur, as quoted in the text, is to be found in the translation, a very
literal one, by Madden (Madden's "Layamon's Brut," III. pp. 140-146).

The earliest description of the island itself is by an anonymous author