Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion

hough, from time to time, the vision of it was granted, as in the story, to the pure in heart.

In later days, legend said that where Joseph's hermitage had stood, there grew up the famous monastery of Glastonbury, and it came to have a special importance of its own in the Arthurian romance. In the reign of Henry II., by the king's orders, the monks of Glastonbury made search for the grave of King Arthur, and, in due time, they announced that they had found it, nine feet below the soil, the coffin covered with a stone in which was inlaid a leaden cross bearing this inscription: "Hic iacet sepultus inclitus rex Arthurius in insula Avalonia." Some, however, suggested that the monks, less honest than anxious to please the masterful king, had first placed the stone in position and then found it!

One more feature of the tales remains to be mentioned: their geography. There is no atlas that will make it plain in all cases; and this is hardly wonderful, for so little was known of this subject that, even in the