known as "Pseudo-Gildas," supposed to be a thirteenth-century Breton
writer (Meyer's "Voyage of Bram," I. p. 237), and quoted by Archbishop
Usher in his "British Ecclesiastical Antiquities" (1637), p. 273, who thus
describes it in Latin hexameters:--

"Cingitur oceano memorabilis insula nullis
Desolata bonis: non fur, nec praedo, nec hostis
Insidiatur ibi: nec vis, nec bruma nec aestas,
Immoderata furit. Pax et concordia, pubes
Ver manent aeternum. Nec flos, nec lilia desunt,
Nec rosa, nec violae: flores et poma sub una
Fronde gerit pomus. Habitant sine labe cruoris
Semper ibi juvenes cum virgine: nulla senectus,
Nulla vis morbi, nullus dolor; omnia plena
Laetitiae; nihil hic proprium, communia quaeque.

Regit virgo locis et rebus praesidet istis,
Virginibus stipata suis, pulcherrima pulchris;
Nympha decens vultu, generosis patribus orta,
Consilio pollens, medicinas nobilis arte.
At simul Arthurus regni diadema reliquit,
Substitutique sibi regem, se transtulit illic;
Anno quingeno quadragenoque secundo
Post incarnatum sine patris semine natum.
Immodice laesus, Arthurus tendit ad aulam
Regis Avallonis; ubi virgo regia vulnus
Illius tractans, sanati membra reservat
Ipsa sibi: vivuntque simul; si credere fas est."

A translation of this passage into rhyming English follows; both of these