head resting on the knees of the aged Druid, who said to him, "Never
again, O king! must you encounter the danger you have barely escaped. Had
you failed, you would have become subject to your opponent, whose strength
has been maturing for years to overpower you. Had you yielded, you would,
although a king, have become but as are those dark-browed men who till his
fields and do his bidding. For know you not what the name Hanner Dyn
means? It means--Habit; and the force of habit, at first weak, then
growing constantly stronger, ends in conquering even kings!"



X

KING ARTHUR AT AVALON


In the ruined castle at Winchester, England, built by William the
Conqueror, there is a hall called "The Great Hall," where Richard Coeur de
Lion was received by his nobles when rescued from captivity; where Henry
III. was born; where all the Edwards held court; where Henry VIII.
entertained the emperor Charles V.; where Queen Mary was married to Philip
II.; where Parliament met for many years. It is now a public hall for the
county; and at one end of it the visitor sees against the wall a vast
wooden tablet on which the names of King Arthur's knights of the Round
Table are inscribed in a circle. No one knows its date or origin, though
it is known to be more than four hundred years old, but there appear upon
it the names most familiar to those who have read the legends of King
Arthur, whether in Tennyson's poems or elsewhere. There are Lancelot and
Bedivere, Gawaine and Dagonet, Modred and Gareth, and the rest. Many books
have been written of their deeds; but a time came when almost all those