some of the mythological traditions of the Druidic age are to be found amongst them. This continual accession of fable tends to render still more obscure that which a redundancy of imagination had already sufficiently involved.
The name of Gwenhwyvar, under the various forms of Guenever, Genievre, and Geneura must be familiar to all who are conversant with chivalric lore. And it is to her adventures, and those of her true knight, Sir Lancelot, that Dante alluded in the beautiful episode of Francesca da Rimini
Porter.—Page 3.
The absence of a Porter was formerly considered as an indication of hospitality, and as such is alluded to by Rys Brychan, a bard who flourished at the close of the fifteenth century.
"The stately entrance is without porters,
And his mansions are open to every honest man."
Lewis Glyn Cothi also (about 1450), in an eulogium upon Owain, the son of Grufiudd ap Nicholas, says, that his establishment was complete in every respect, with the exception of a Porter:—
"Every officer there is to the great Knight
Of the South, except a Porter."—I. 139.
Glewlwyd Gavaelvawr.—Page 3.
"The dusky hero of the mighty grasp" is said to have escaped from the battle of Camlan by means of his extraordinary strength and stature. There is nothing of his real history known: indeed, from the construction of his name, he appears to be altogether a fictitious character; and it is not impossible that he may be one of those mythological personages who formed the subjects of the Welsh legendary tales, before the adventures of Arthur had assumed the character of fiction, and that when those adventures became objects of fabulous composition, this and other ancient Druidical traditions were incorporated with them.
Among the Bardic remains there is a poem, called a Dialogue betwixt Arthur and Kai, and Glewlwyd, some lines in which are considered by Davies to have reference to some Druidical mysteries. Although it may appear presumptuous to differ from