KING ARTHUR AND KNIGHTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 December 1939, Page 10

KING ARTHUR AND KNIGHTS

HAILED AS REALISTIC HEROES. BY PAN-CELTIC CONGRESS. King Arthur and all his legendary round table were hailed as realistic national heroes at the Pan-Celtic Congress which met recently in France, Descendants of the Irish Kings of Tara, and of Lancelot and the unfortunate Iseult were among the modernday Celts who attended, according to a National Geographic Society bulletin. They represented such centres of ancient Celts as the mediaeval coastal town of Vannes in Brittany, which lies in one of the pockets of geographic mystery where once lived the colourful people who dominated France and the British Isles before Caesar launched his campaign against all Gaul. From Vannes the red-sailed fishing boats can ferry the 20th century visitors to islands where Druidic stones of a pre-Christian era stand in unexplained Stonehenge-like circles, or in the pattern of a figure 8. An ancient church near Vannes has a covered gallery expressly for the fair folk. The Celts who came tinder Roman rule for the first four centuries of the Christian era modernised their lives to keen up with their conquerors. But in the outer fringes of the Roman Empire stubborn isolated Celts were encouraged by their Druid leaders to keep their old-fashioned musical language and fantastic folklore of fairies and giants. Legendary King Arthur represents the sunset of Celtic supremacy in south-western England. Some of Ihe ancient culture survives in out-of-the-way places in Brittany in northern France, Cornwall, in western England. Wales, and Eire (the southern fourfifths of Ireland). The old language has left its traces in Gaelic. Welsh. Breton. Cornish and Manx, and the newly official Irish tongue of Eire as well as certain Scottish dialects. The largest group of modern-day Celts are Irish, who are reviving the lore of their ancestors through the study of folk talcs and old manuscripts.