take place in their own country—on the contrary, we are led to suppose that the brothers are far from their home. Their troubles are brought about by the Lady of the Lake and the Lady Lile of Avelion, and these two women are the same as the Modron daughter of Avallach of Welsh mythology. Thus we have at the outset a connection with Avalon, and we are further told that in the place of their death Merlin builds the Perilous Bridge and institutes the Lit Merveil of the later romances. This Lit Merveil, kept at Castle Corbenic, is indubitably the same as the Bed of Ba'al in the great temple of Borsippa; and when Sir John Rhys identified Corbenic miscopied from Caer Vannawg as Glastonbury Tor, the Castle on the Pointed Hill, it may be that he put into our hands a master-key. We have established Corbenic, home of the Grail and the Lit Merveil or Bed of Ba'al as a temple of Life Cults, and the two theories united point to Glastonbury Tor as the former site of such a temple. Allowing the undoubted Ba'al-worship and Phoenician influence in Ireland and Cornwall, it is not hard to believe that this particular religion was one of the many cults of a kindred nature that once held sway over Glastonbury or Avalon, especially when we know that the village of Pilton, some miles distant, was a notable port founded by Phoenician merchants who traded with the Mendip tin-miners, and are said to have given the name of one of their gods to this very range of hills. The site of Pilton Harbour is still pointed out. But can we say no more?
First of all, let us take into account the mise-en-scène of the various fights which recall the ritual of the Nemi Grove.
The Irish stories and the story of Owain place the scene of the encounter at a well or pool, sometimes on Upper Earth, sometimes in Land Underwaves. In Balin and Balan it is on the shores of a lake or river surrounding an island; in one or two other Arthurian examples, such as Perceval and Lancelot, it is by a ford, and in Perceval's case the soul of a bird-woman accidentally slain in the fight is carried back to Avalon. Now the confines of the territory actually called the "Isle of Avalon" to-day are not wide, and hardly extend beyond the limits of Glastonbury itself. Their western extremity is bounded by a curve of the River Brue, which passes between Glastonbury
