The Arthurian epic, it is certain, has plenty of foundation in fact, and perhaps poor King Cuneglass himself, the Bear and Butcher, wielded a valiant sword in spite of his family troubles. The Britons were, it is quite certain, prone to internal dissensions, which greatly assisted their defeat and conquest. But they had one bond of union. Their enemies were pagan; they were Christian. Gildas addresses a nation of Christians, not a church planted among idolaters. Christian symbols and emblems have been found everywhere on the site of Roman towns, not, it is true, in large quantities, but they are found; while, though altars have also been found, and pagan emblems and statuettes of gods, there are no ruins anywhere in Britain, except at Bath, of Roman temples. Their faith, like the Catholicism of the Irish, was their national symbol. It separated them broadly from their enemies; it gave them contempt for barbarians. The faith therefore flourished with great strength and vigor. But the popular Christianity seems to have been in Britannia, as everywhere, a very mixed kind of creed. As in Southern Italy among the peasants there linger to this day traditions, customs, and superstitions of paganism which the people call the Old Faith, so in Britain there lingered among the people ceremonies and beliefs which the Church vainly tried to suppress, or craftily changed into Christian observances. Such things linger still in Wales, though the traveller regards them not. In the same way the folk-lore of our own time in our own villages is still largely composed of the beliefs and superstitions inherited from our old English--not British--ancestors. What happens is always the same, and must be the same. In times of religious revolution the common folk change the name of their God, but not his nature or his attributes. Apollo becomes the Christ, but in the minds of the Italian peasants he remains the old Apollo. The great Sun-God, worshipped under so many names and with so many attributes, remains in the hearts of rustics long, long centuries after mass has been said and the Host has been elevated. Nay, it has even been said that the mass itself is an adaptation of pagan ritual to Christian worship. But the people, whatever their old beliefs, called themselves Christian, and that one fact enabled them to forget their jealousies and quarrels in times of emergency, and sometimes to act together. They were Christian; their enemies were pagan. It is significant that in one passage Gildas--who is quoted by Bede--reproaches them for not converting their conquerors, among whom they lived. This proves, if the fact wanted proof, (1) that the Britons were not exterminated by their conquerors; (2) that they were allowed to continue unmolested in their own religion; and (3) that they kept it to themselves as a possession of their own, a consolation in disaster, and a mark of superiority and dignity.