Onward he rode, the pathway still Winding betwixt the lake and hill; Till, on the fragment of a rock, Struck from its base by lightning shock, He saw the hoary sage: The silver moss and lichen twined, With fern and deer-hair check'd and lined, A cushion fit for age; And o'er him shook the aspin-tree, A restless rustling canopy. Then sprung young Henry from his selle, And greeted Lyulph grave, And then his master's tale did tell, And then for counsel crave. The Man of Years mused long and deep, Of time's lost treasures taking keep, And then, as rousing from a sleep, His solemn answer gave. "That maid is born of middle earth, And may of man be won, Though there have glided since her birth Five hundred years and one. But where's the knight in all the north, That dare the adventure follow forth, So perilous to knightly worth, In the valley of St. John? Listen, youth, to what I tell, And bind it on thy memory well; Nor muse that I commence the rhyme Far distant 'mid the wrecks of time. The mystic tale, by bard and sage, Is handed down from Merlin's age." [17] Dunmailraise is one of the grand passes from Cumberland into Westmorland. It takes its name from a cairn, or pile of stones, erected it is said, to the memory of Dunmail, the last king of Cumberland, who was slain and buried there. [18] A circular entrenchment, about half a mile from Penrith, is thus popularly termed. The circle within the ditch is about one hundred and sixty paces in circumference, with openings, or approaches, directly opposite to each other. As the ditch is on the inner side, it could not be intended for the purpose of defence, and it has been reasonably conjectured, that the enclosure was designed for the solemn exercise of feats of chivalry; and the embankment around for the convenience of the spectators. [19] Higher up the river Eamont than Arthur's Round Table, is a prodigious enclosure of great antiquity, formed by a collection of stones upon the top of a gently sloping hill, called Mayburgh. In the plain which it encloses there stands erect an unhewn stone of twelve feet in height. Two similar masses are said to have been destroyed during the memory of man. The whole appears to be a monument of Druidical times. [20] Ullswater. LYULPH'S TALE.