Third, and perhaps most wonderful of all, is the delicacy of the feminine feeling breathed in these romances. There is nothing sensual in the love here portrayed. It is angelic. Never an impropriety or gross word is to be met with in all these pages, never a prurient suggestion for all the roughness of that rude age. Women figure as divine, the most charming creatures in the world, to protect whose honour and win whose love and esteem, danger and even death are freely braved. This was a new element introduced into European literature—the creation of woman’s character and the place given her in chivalry. “Nearly all the types of womankind known to the Middle Ages,—Guinevere, Iseult, Enid,”—says Renan, “are derived from Arthur’s court.” The influence of these tales upon the literature, the taste, the social life of the whole of Western Europe has been immense, and they are still as fresh and enchanting to the intelligent reader as any Arabian Nights’ Entertainment. Lady Charlotte Guest’s literary monument is for English readers the standard classic. There we find a charming translation with luminous notes of these famous Mabinogion, a collection which Renan has called “the pearl of Gaelic literature, the completest expression of the Cymric genius,” and for the early Welsh poetry, both in the original and in translation, we have the sumptuous edition of Dr. Skene, culled from _The Four Ancient Books of Wales_, to delight us. The poetry and romance of the Cymry are really two literatures essentially distinct from each other. Springing from the same soil, each reflects in its own way the same national character which had so much in common with that of our own ancient Gaelic ancestry, so that we feel to-day with regard to that long past, that “distance only lends enchantment to the view.” CHAPTER XIII CELTIC LITERARY REVIVALS Sixth century awakening throughout Celtdom—Illustrious names—Brittany’s wonderful cycle of song—Charming examples—Dearth of tenth century—A strange trait of Celtic life—The brilliant medieval renaissance—Output of Ireland, Wales, and Brittany—The Cornish dramas—Last speaker of that dialect—Period of inactivity and decline—Recrudescence—1745–1800 the high-water mark of Highland production—A galaxy of poets—Splendid lyrical outburst—New Ossianic cycle—Seana Dana—Caledonian bards—The Welsh Eisteddfod—Latest Celtic renaissance—Some characteristic features, results, manifestations—Antiquity, thou wondrous charm!