Although Geoffrey’s book found so much acceptance in his own time and afterwards, it is significant to note that, even soon after its appearance and in the very heyday of its repute, a few shrewd critics ventured to question its authenticity. William of Newburgh, as we have seen, denounced it unreservedly as a tissue of impudent lies. He, at any rate, had no scruple in treating the work as a deliberate experiment in fiction under the guise of a chronicle. A different attitude towards the book might have been expected from Giraldus Cambrensis, a Welshman proud of his race and of its “old and haughty” traditions, who was himself not unskilled in the art of fiction. Yet it is Gerald who, of all Geoffrey’s critics, says much the unkindest thing on record of the _Historia_. He tells us of a Welshman at Caerleon named Melerius, or Meilir, who had dealings with evil spirits, and was “enabled through their assistance to foretell future events.” “He knew when anyone spoke falsely in his presence, for he saw the devil as it were leaping and exulting on the tongue of the liar.... If the evil spirits oppressed him too much, the Gospel of St John was placed on his bosom, when, like birds, they immediately vanished; but when that book was removed, and the _History of the Britons_ by Geoffrey Arthur was substituted in its place, they instantly reappeared in greater numbers, and remained a longer time than usual on his body and on the book.” Geoffrey, in the epilogue to his _History_, hands over the task of writing of “the kings who succeeded in Wales” from the time at which his narrative closes to “Caradoc of Llancarvan, my contemporary.” Caradoc was an undoubted Welshman, but no Latin continuation by him of Geoffrey’s chronicle dealing with the Welsh kings is known to exist, and it is very doubtful whether a Welsh compilation bearing his name, and bringing Geoffrey’s narrative down to the year 1156, is a genuine work of his. It is, however, highly probable that he was the author of the Latin _Life of Gildas_, preserved in a twelfth century MS now in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. This work is of peculiar interest as containing certain Arthurian traditions which were apparently unknown to Geoffrey. Gildas is represented, in this fictitious biography, as being a contemporary of Arthur, king of all Britain, whom he loved and obeyed. He had, however, twenty-three refractory brothers who refused allegiance to Arthur, and the eldest of them, Hueil,[86] or Huel, King of Scotland, fought a battle with him in “the isle of Minau” and was killed. Gildas, who was in Ireland at the time, was much distressed to hear of this, but, as became a saint, he prayed for Arthur, and, returning to Britain, granted the king the pardon which he besought. Further on in the _Life_ we get a version, probably the earliest in literature,[87] of the story of the abduction of Guinevere by Melwas (the Mellyagraunce of Malory), “the