The Zeus of the later cycle, Emrys or Myrddin, appears in the Morte Darthur under both his names. The word “Emrys” becomes “Bors”, and King Bors of Gaul is made a brother of King Ban of Benwyck[488]—that is, Brân of the Square Enclosure, the ubiquitous underworld god. Myrddin we meet under no such disguise. The ever-popular Merlin still retains intact the attributes of the sky-god. He remains above, and apart from all the knights, higher even in some respects than King Arthur, to whom he stands in much the same position as Mâth does to Gwydion in the Mabinogi.[489] Like Mâth, he is an enchanter, and, like Mâth, too, who could hear everything said in the world, in however low a tone, if only the wind met it, he is practically omniscient. The account of his final disappearance, as told in the Morte Darthur, is only a re-embellishment of the original story, the nature-myth giving place to what novelists call “a feminine interest”. Everyone knows how the great magician fell into a dotage upon the “lady of the lake” whom Malory calls “Nimue”, and Tennyson “Vivien”—both names being that of “Rhiannon” in disguise. “Merlin would let her have no rest, but always he would be with her ... and she was ever passing weary of him, and fain would have been delivered of him, for she was afeard of him because he was a devil’s son, and she could not put him away by no means. And so on a time it happed that Merlin showed to her in a rock whereas was a great wonder, and wrought by enchantment, that went under a great stone. So, by her subtle working, she made Merlin to go under that stone to let her wit of the marvels there, but she wrought so there for him that he never came out for all the craft that he could do. And so she departed and left Merlin.”[490] Merlin’s living grave is still to be seen at the end of the _Val des Fées_, in the forest of Brécilien, in Brittany. The tomb of stone is certainly but a prosaic equivalent for the tower of woven air in which the heaven-god went to his rest. Still, it is not quite so unpoetic as the leather sack in which Rhiannon, the original of Nimue, caught and imprisoned Gwawl, the earlier Merlin, like a badger in a bag.[491] Elen, Myrddin’s consort, appears in Malory as five different “Elaines”. Two of them are wives of the dark god, under his names of “King Ban”[492] and “King Nentres”.[493] A third is called the daughter of King Pellinore, a character of uncertain origin.[494] But the two most famous are the ladies who loved Sir Launcelot—“Elaine the Fair, Elaine the lovable, Elaine the lily maid of Astolat”,[495] and the luckier and less scrupulous Elaine, daughter of King Pelles, and mother of Sir Launcelot’s son, Galahad.[496]