（外文电子版资料）Chapters 5 - 8.pdf

C H A P T E R V THE MYTHICAL HISTORY OF BRITAIN ‘WHEN Britain first, at Heaven’s command, arose from out the azure main,’ her name was Clas Myrddin, that is, the Place, or Enclosure, of Merlin. In later days, she became known as ‘ the Honey Isle of Beli,‘l and it was not until safely occupied by mankind that she took her present designation, from Prydain, son of Aedd the Great, who first established settled govern- ment. All this is told us by a Welsh Triad, and it is from such fragmentary sources that we glean th.e mythical history of our island. With these relics we must make what we can ; for the work has not been done for us in the way that it was done by the mediaeval monkish annalists for Ireland. We find our data scattered through old bardic poems and romances, and in pseudo-hagiologies and hardly less apocryphal .’ Beli seems to have been sometimes associated in Welsh legend with the sea, which was called the ‘ drink of Beli,’ and its waves ‘ Beli’s cattle.’ 42 THE MYTHICAL HISTORY OF BRITAIN histories. Yet, without perhaps using more free- dom with our materials than an early writer would have done, we can piece them together, and find in them roughly the same story as that of Irel