After the withdrawal of the Roman legions, Stirling Castle dimly appears in the haze of half-real history. King Arthur is claimed as a local prince in Brittany, Cornwall, Wales and Cumberland, but southern Scotland seems to have, on the whole, the best right to the hero of romance. His tenth battle, it would seem, was fought in the neighbourhood of Stirling, and his victory over the Saxons gave him possession of the fortress. Tradition has always associated his name with the Round Table, which afterwards became the King’s Knot, and William of Worcester, who flourished in the fifteenth century, wrote that King Arthur preserved the Round Table in the Castle of Stirling or Snowden.[1] A less famous, though not a less real, person than the great British warrior chief was Monenna or Modwenna, a high-born saint of Ireland. At least two women bearing this name devoted themselves to the religious life, and some confusion has arisen as to which of them it was who became connected with Stirling. The Monenna who lived in the ninth century, however, apparently visited both England and Scotland, and she seems to have been the one who built, among other churches, the chapel in Stirling Castle.[2] Perhaps because the fortress was so obviously a place of strength the early chroniclers have associated with it events which possibly never took place. Boece mentions that Kenneth MacAlpine laid siege to the castle during the Pictish wars; and the same historian asserts that King Osbert of Northumbria occupied Stirling for a number of years, and established a mint in the fortress. A “cunyie-house” at one time did exist in the castle, but the oldest coins known to have been struck at Stirling date from the reign of Alexander III. A site so favourable for a stronghold, however, must have been the scene of many unrecorded fights, so that “the place of striving,” which was formerly thought to have been the meaning of the citadel’s name, would be no inappropriate appellation. “Stirling” is now held to be a corruption of the Welsh _Ystre Felyn_, signifying “The dwelling of Velin,” old forms of the name being _Estrevelyn_, _Striviling_ and _Struelin_.[3] The more poetic “Snowdon” or “Snawdoun,” a corruption perhaps of some Celtic appellation, or else meaning merely the “snowy hill,” was the name given to Stirling by some of the old chroniclers, as well as by Sir David Lyndsay in _The Testament of the Papingo_.