Note 11 — Chapter I · THE EARLIEST ARTHURIAN RECORDS

Rhys, Arthurian Legend, p. 48. In Chap. I. of the same work Rhys puts and answers the main question suggested in these pages as follows: “How did Arthur become famous above other (Welsh, or British) heroes, and how came he to be the subject of so much story and romance? The answer, in short, which one has to give to this hard question must be to the effect, that besides a historic Arthur there was a Brythonic divinity named Arthur, after whom the man may have been called, or with whose name his, in case it was of a different origin, may have become identical in sound owing to an accident of speech” (A. L., p. 8).