In so far as the probable personality and exploits, and the almost certain tradition of such exploits and such a personality, goes, there is no reason for, and much reason against, denying a Celtic origin to this Legend of Arthur. The best authorities have differed as to the amount of really ancient testimony in Welsh as to him, and it seems to be agreed by the best authorities that there is no ancient tradition in any other branch of Celtic literature. But if we take the mentions allowed as ancient by such a careful critic as Professor Rhys, if we combine them with the place-name evidence, and if we add the really important fact, that of the earliest literary dealers, certain or probable, with the legend, Geoffrey, Layamon, and Walter Map were neighbours of Wales, and Wace a neighbour of Brittany, to suppose that Arthur as a subject for romantic treatment was a figment of some non-Celtic brain, Saxon or Norman, French or English, is not only gratuitous but excessively unreasonable. Again, there can be no reasonable doubt that the Merlin legends, in at least their inception, were Celtic likewise. The attempt once made to identify Merlin with the well-known "Marcolf," who serves as Solomon's interlocutor in a mass of early literature more or less Eastern in origin, is one of those critical freaks which betray an utterly uncritical temperament. Yet further, I should be inclined to allow no small portion of Celtic ingredient in the spirit, the tendency, the essence of the Arthurian Legend. We want something to account for this, which is not Saxon, not Norman, not French, not Teutonic generally, not Latin, not Eastern; and I at least am unable to discover where this something comes from if it is not from the Celtic fringe of England and of Normandy.