But we have been long enough away from that golden window by which Geoffrey of Monmouth sat and wrote his immortal stories. Geoffrey was called a chronicler. And what he was supposed to be doing was jotting down accurately historical events year after year. Some of the chronicles written in this way have become the chief sources of English history. Among the men who wrote these chronicles were William of Malmesbury and Matthew Paris. And between them came Geoffrey himself. It will never be known, unless it should prove possible to roll time back some seven hundred years, just what Geoffrey did see from his window as he looked out upon the busy town of Monmouth, or all that went on in his nimble mind. In any event it is plain that he had the best of good times inventing or retelling stories in his chronicle. There is to be found the story of King Lear and his three daughters, Regan, Goneril, and Cordelia--Lear, the hero of Shakespeare's play, "King Lear," written over four hundred years later. There, too, is the story of Ferrex and Porrex. Geoffrey had a nimble quill pen with which to follow his nimble wit. He writes of Julius Cæsar and of how he came to Great Britain. What Geoffrey of Monmouth says may be ridiculous enough in the light of history, but there it is, and there is Cæsar himself, not only looking upon the coast of Britain but actually standing upon it. We become familiar, too, with many names known in stories about King Arthur. Perceval is one of these. And Uther Pendragon, who was the father of King Arthur, is another. One of the marvelous facts about Geoffrey is that when he looked out of that golden window he could see so much farther than just Monmouth. He could see all the way to the sea, and on its shores that beautiful city Tintagel, where Queen Igraine, the mother of Arthur, lived. But in Geoffrey's chronicle she was called Igerna. A name is sometimes like a long, long journey, not only in its romance, but also because it takes you to other lands and other people, and passes, even as the road upon a long journey, through many changes. * * * * * Geoffrey saw from his golden window not only Tintagel, that beautiful South Welsh city by the sea, but also a little village in North Wales called Beddgelert. This little village is set down in the midst of mountains like a lump of sugar in the bottom of a deep cup. Outside this little village is a hill called Dinas Emrys. Geoffrey looked northward out of his golden window in Monmouth, and what do you think he saw? He saw the magician, Merlin, the youth who had never had a father. And this lad was quarreling with another lad in Caernarvon, a Welsh city thirteen miles away from the little village of Beddgelert. Now Vortigern had been attempting to build a tower on Dinas Emrys, but whatever the workmen did one day was swallowed up the next.