Merlin, the narrator of The Hollow Hills, the “enchanter” and healer gifted with the Sight, is able to move in and out of the different worlds at will. And as Merlin's legend is linked with the caves of glass, the invisible towers, the hollow hills where he now sleeps for all time, so I have seen him as the link between the worlds; the instrument by which, as he says, “all the kings become one King, and all the gods one God.” For this he abnegates his own will and his desire for normal manhood. The hollow hills are the physical point of entry between this world and the Otherworld, and Merlin is their human counterpart, the meeting point for the interlocking worlds of men, gods, beasts and twilight spirits.
One meeting of the real and the fantasy worlds can be seen in the figure of Maximus. Magnus Maximus, the soldier with the dream of empire, was a fact; he commanded at Segontium until the time when he crossed to Gaul in his vain bid for power. “Macsen Wledig” is a legend, one of the Celtic “seeking” stories later to flower into the Quest of the Holy Grail. In this novel I have linked the facts of Arthur's great precursor and his imperial dream to the sword episodes of the Arthurian Legend, and lent them the shape of a Quest story.
The tale of the "Sword of Maximus" is my invention. It follows the archetypal "seeking and finding" pattern of which the Quest of the Grail, which later attached itself to the Arthurian Legend, is only one example. The stories of the Holy Grail, identifying it with the Cup from the Last Supper, are twelfth-century tales modelled in their main elements on some early Celtic "quest" stories; in fact they have elements even older. These Grail stories show certain points in common, changing in detail, but fairly constant in form and idea. There is usually an unknown youth, the bel inconnu, who is brought up in the wilds, ignorant of his name or parentage. He leaves his home and rides out in search of his identity. He comes across a Waste Land, ruled by a maimed (impotent) king; there is a castle, usually on an island, on which the youth comes by chance. He reaches it in a boat belonging to a royal fisherman, the Fisher King of the Grail Legends. The Fisher King is sometimes identified with the impotent king of the Waste Land.
The castle on the island is owned by a king of the Otherworld, and there the youth finds the object of his quest, sometimes a cup or a lance, sometimes a sword, broken or whole. At the quest's end he wakes by the side of the water with his horse tethered near him, and the island once again invisible. On his return from the Other-world, fertility and peace are restored to the Waste Land. Some tales figure a white stag collared with gold, who leads the youth to his destination.
[1] History of the Kings of Britain, translated by Sebastian Evans and revised by Charles W. Dunn (Everyman's Library, 1912)
[2] See Roman Britain and the English Settlements, R. G. Collingwood and J. N. L. Myres (Oxford, 1937); Celtic Britain, Nora K. Chadwick Vol. 34 in the series Ancient Peoples and Places, ed. Glyn Daniel (Thames and Hudson, 1963).
[3] Published by Collins, 1960. See also The Quest for Arthur'sBritain, ed. Geoffrey Ashe (Pall Mall Press, 1968)
For further reference see Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages; A Collaborative History edited by R.
S. Loomis (Oxford University Press, 1959); and The Evolution of the Grail Legend by D. D. R. Owen (University of St. Andrews Publications, 1968).
SOME OTHER BRIEF NOTES
Segontium, Geoffrey of Monmouth in the Vita Merlini tells us of cups made by Weland the Smith in Caer Seint (Segontium), which were given to Merlin. There is also another story of a sword made by Weland which was given to Merlin by a Welsh king. There is a brief reference in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 418 A.D. “In this year the Romans collected all the treasures which were in Britain and hid some in the earth so that no one afterwards could find them, and some they took with them into Gaul.”
Galava. The main body of legend places King Arthur in the Celtic countries of the west, Cornwall, Wales, Brittany. In this I have followed the legends. But there is evidence which supports another strong tradition of Arthur in the north of England and in Scotland. So this story moves north. I have placed the traditional “Sir Ector of the Forest Sauvage” (who reared the young Arthur) at Galava, the modern Ambleside in the Lake District. I have often wondered if “the fountain of Galabes [Fontes galabes] where he (Merlin) wont to haunt” could be identified with the Roman Galava or Galaba. (In The Crystal Cave I gave it a different interpretation. The mediaeval romancers make “Galapas” a gaint — a version of the old guardian of the spring or waterway.) The fostering of Arthur on Ector, and the lodging at Galava of Bedwyr, are feasible; we find in Procopius that, as in later times, boys of good family were sent away to be educated. As for the “chapel in the green,” once I had invented a shrine in the Wild Forest I could not resist calling it the Green Chapel, after the mediaeval Arthurian poem of Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, which has its setting somewhere in the Lake District.
Ambrosius' Wall. This is the Wansdyke, or Woden's Dyke, so called by the Saxons, who saw it as the work of the gods. It ran from Newbury to the Severn, and parts of it are still traceable. It was probably built some time between 450 and 475 A.D., so I have ascribed it to Ambrosius.
Caer Bannog. This name, old Celtic for “the castle of the peaks,” is my own interpretation of the various names — Carbonek, Corbenic, Caer Benoic, etc. — given to the castle where the youth finds the Grail.
There is a Celtic legend in which Arthur carries off a cauldron (magic vessel or grail) and a wonderful sword from Nuadda or Llyd, King of the Otherworld.
Cei and Bedwyr. They are Arthur's companions in legend. Cei was Ector's son and became Arthur's seneschal. Bedwyr's name was later mediaevalized to Bedivere, but in his relationship with Arthur he seems to be the original of Lancelot. Hence the reference to the guenfawyvar (white shadow: Guinevere) which falls between the boys on page 342.
Cador of Cornwall. When Arthur died without issue, we are told that he left his kingdom to Cador's son.
Morgause. On the subject of Arthur's unwitting incest with his sister, there is a rich confusion of legend. The most usual story is that he lay with his half-sister Morgause, wife (or mistress) of Lot, and begot Mordred, who was eventually his downfall. His own sister Morgan, or Morgian, became “Morgan le Fay,” the enchantress. Morgause is said to have borne four sons to Lot, who later were to become Arthur's devoted followers. This seemed unlikely if Arthur had lain with her when she was Lot's wife, so I have taken my own way through the confusion of the stories, with the suggestion that after leaving the court Morgause will lose no time in taking her sister's place as Lot's queen. I believe there was in the fifth century a nunnery near Caer Eidyn (Edinburgh) in Lothian to which Morgian could have retired. This could be the “house of witches” or “wise women” of legend, and it is tempting to suppose that Morgian and her nuns came from there to take Arthur away and nurse him after his last battle against Mordred at Camlann.