Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

288 Myths and Legends of the Celtic Racesee or to know everything without suffering everything.... Andthere can be no full and perfect love that does not produce thosethings which are necessary to lead to the knowledge that causesGwynfyd.”Every being, we are told, shall attain to the circle of Gwynfydat last. 207[336]There is much here that reminds us of Gnostic or Orientalthought. It is certainly very unlike Christian orthodoxy of thesixteenth century. As a product of the Cymric mind of that periodthe reader may take it for what it is worth, without troublinghimself either with antiquarian theories or with their refutations.Let us now turn to the really ancient work, which is notphilosophic, but creative and imaginative, produced by Britishbards and fabulists of the Middle Ages. But before we go onto set forth what we shall find in this literature we must delay amoment to discuss one thing which we shall not.The Arthurian SagaFor the majority of modern readers who have not made anyspecial study of the subject, the mention of early British legendwill inevitably call up the glories of the Arthurian Saga—theywill think of the fabled palace at Caerleon-on-Usk, the Knights ofthe Round Table riding forth on chivalrous adventure, the Questof the Grail, the guilty love of Lancelot, flower of knighthood,for the queen, the last great battle by the northern sea, the voyageof Arthur, sorely wounded, but immortal, to the mystic valleyof Avalon. But as a matter of fact they will find in the nativeliterature of mediæval Wales little or nothing of all this—noRound Table, no Lancelot, no Grail-Quest, no Isle of Avalon,until the Welsh learned about them from abroad; and though therewas indeed an Arthur in this literature, he is a wholly differentbeing from the Arthur of what we now call the Arthurian Saga.207 “Barddas,” vol. i. pp. 224 sqq.