Curiously enough, Sir Edward Strachey, in his preface to the “Globe” edition of Caxton’s Morte Darthur, uses almost the same image to describe Malory’s prose-poem that Matthew Arnold handled with such effect, in his _Study of Celtic Literature_, to point out the real nature of the Mabinogion. “Malory”, he says, “has built a great, rambling, mediæval castle, the walls of which enclose rude and even ruinous work of earlier times.” How rude and how ruinous these relics were Malory doubtless had not the least idea, for he has completely jumbled the ancient mythology. Not only do gods of the older and newer order appear together, but the same deities, under very often only slightly varying names, come up again and again as totally different characters. Take, for example, the ancient deity of death and Hades. As King Brandegore, or Brandegoris (Brân of Gower), he brings five thousand mounted men to oppose King Arthur;[454] but, as Sir Brandel, or Brandiles (Brân of Gwales[455]), he is a valiant Knight of the Round Table, who dies fighting in Arthur’s service.[456] Again, under his name of Uther Pendragon (Uther Ben), he is Arthur’s father;[457] though as King Ban of Benwyk (the “Square Enclosure”, doubtless the same as Taliesin’s _Caer Pedryvan_ and Malory’s _Carbonek_), he is a foreign monarch, who is Arthur’s ally.[458] Yet again, as the father of Guinevere, Ogyrvran has become Leodegrance.[459] As King Uriens, or Urience, of Gore (Gower), he marries one of Arthur’s sisters,[460] fights against him, but finally tenders his submission, and is enrolled among his knights.[461] Urien may also be identified in the Morte Darthur as King Rience, or Ryons, of North Wales,[462] and as King Nentres of Garloth;[463] while, to crown the varied disguises of this Proteus of British gods, he appears in an isolated episode as Balan, who fights with his brother Balin until they kill one another.[464]