Among the stories of world-wide renown, not the least stirring are those that have gathered about the names of national heroes. The
Æneid
, the
Nibelungenlied
, the
Chanson de Roland
, the
Morte D'Arthur
,—they are not history, but they have been as National Anthems to the races, and their magic is not yet dead.
In olden times our forefathers used to say that the world had seen nine great heroes, three heathen, three Jewish, and three Christian; among the Christian heroes was British Arthur, and of none is the fame greater. Even to the present day, his name lingers in many widely distant places. In the peninsula of Gower, a huge slab of rock, propped up on eleven short pillars, is still called Arthur's Stone; the lofty ridge which looks down upon Edinburgh bears the name of Arthur's Seat; and—strangest, perhaps, of all—in the Franciscan Church of far-away Innsbrück, the finest of the ten statues of ancestors guarding the tomb of the Emperor Maximilian I. is that of King Arthur. There is hardly a country in Europe without its tales of the Warrior-King; and yet of any real Arthur history tells us little, and that little describes, not the knightly conqueror, but the king of a broken people, struggling for very life.
More than fifteen centuries ago, this country, now called England, was inhabited by a Celtic race known as the Britons, a warlike people, divided into numerous tribes constantly at war with each other. But in the first century of the Christian era they were conquered by the Romans, who added Britain to their vast empire and held it against attacks from without and rebellions from within by stationing legions, or troops of soldiers, in strongly fortified places all over the country. Now, from their conquerors, the Britons learnt many useful arts, to read and to write, to build houses and to make roads; but at the same time, they unlearnt some of their own virtues and, among others, how to think and act for themselves. For the Romans never allowed a Briton any
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