CIGARETTE PAPERS.

Southland Times, Issue 21715, 30 May 1932, Page 8

CIGARETTE PAPERS.

THE PLACE OF ARTHUR. Behind the fabulous tales of “La Morte d’Arthur” is said to be some fact, and if that is so Arthur died at Glastonbury on May 30, 542, after his bitter struggle in Cornwall with Sir Modred, who had married the king’s consort and seized the kingdom during his absence. Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote in 1147, was the narrator or Arthur’s history, and he was not troubled by the fact that no chroniclers in Britain prior to the arrival of the Normans was aware of any king of that name. Arthur, it is believed, belonged to the mystic historv of the Bretons, and was translated to England by Geoffrey of Monmouth or some earlier romancer. According to the legend, Arthur was the son of Uther Pendragon and Igerna, the wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall. Uther obtained access to Igema through the arts of the magician, Merlin, by appearing to her in the form of her husband. This may have been a borrowing from the earlier mythology, for thus it was that Jupiter was supposed to have visited Alcmena. Subsequently Gorlois was killed and Uther married Igerna. Arthur succeeded to the throne ' Uther’s death and was crowned at Silchester. He fought th’ Saxons and finally drove them out of England, after which he subdued the Picts and Scots and conquered Ireland, Iceland, Gothland, the Orcades, Norway, Denmark and Gaul, parcelling these countries out among his followers. When Lucius Tiberius of Rome demanded tribute and the return of Rome’s colonies on the continent, Arthur decided to exact ir.bute of Rome and it was while he was away on the expedition to Italy that Sir Modred, ’.•‘s nc ’lew, betrayed him. Such is the outline of the fabulous history and if Geoffrey of Monmouth is discredited as an historian, there is left to him the honour of a magnificent romance, which Malory, Tennyson and Bulwer enhanced with their genius so that Arthur, removed from the history, has become entrenched as one of the great characters of our literature 6 CRITICUS.