CHAPTER XXIV. GLASTONBURY AND THE WYE. WE Come now to the legendary portion of Old England, where it is enveloped in the dim mists of mingled ecclesiastical and heroic fables. The region about Glastonbury is the seat of the earliest traditions of the English Church, going back almost to apostolic days; and with these, the armed heroic forms of King Arthur and his " Knights of the Round Table," are strangely blended, with half childish and half poetic glory upon the picture. Glastonbury meant originally, it is said, "Isle of the Glassy Water;" and it was also called "Avalon," or "Avilion," thus alluded to by Tennyson in the " Morte d'Arthur:" "To the island-valley of the Avilion; Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, To this peaceful Eden of rest King Arthur was gently borne over the lake, after his grievous wound in fighting with the traitor; and, lost for ages to the sight of men, he is here at length to reappear among men, for the glory of his native land. Here, in all probability, was really the scene of the earliest home of Christianity in England, although myth and fable make it difficult to come at the truth of history. The story is, that while Glastonbury was still an island, hidden amid the marshes and thickets of a vast morass, a company of pilgrims from the Holy Land, led by "Joseph of Arimathea," landed on the western shore of England, somewhere in North Wales; and journeying on south, through the wild and rugged land, they at length stopped here, and established themselves as a religious community. Mrs. Jameson thus relates the legend: "Some hold that when Philip, one of the twelve Apostles, came to France, he sent Joseph of Arimathea with Joseph his son, and eleven more of his disciples hither, who with great zeal and undaunted courage preached the true and lively faith of Christ, and when King Arviragus considered the difficulties that attended their long and dangerous journey from the Holy Land, beheld their civil and innocent lives, and observed their sanctity and the severities of their religion, he gave them a certain island in the west part of his dominions for their habitation, called Avalon, containing twelve hides of land, where they built a church of wreathen wands, and set a place apart for the burial of their servants. These holy men were devoted to a religious solitude, confined themselves to the number of twelve, lived there after the manner of Christ and his Apostles, and by preaching con verted a great number of the Britons who became Christians." Joseph planted his staff as a sign that they had reached a place of fixed abode after their weary wanderings; the staff immediately took root, and like Aaron's rod budded and flowered. The visitor is still shown stocks descended from the "Holy Thorn" of Joseph of Arimathea, which is said to differ from the common hawthorn but in one respect, that it blossoms amid the snows of winter at Christmas! Succeeding the humble wattled dwellings of the earliest missionaries, and the ruder Saxon structures, at length a great abbey arose, one of the most complete, wealthy, and famous in all England, as its present ruins amply testify. It was in its prime a religious establishment of magnificent power and riches. It acknowledged no jurisdiction to Rome, but looked solely to its own metropolitan bishop of Caerdon-on-Uske, claiming that its authority was derived direct from the Holy Land and the Apostles. The remains of its edifices, for solidity and majesty, are assuredly unsurpassed by any of the ruined abbeys of England. Tintern Abbey is more beautiful, and Fountains Abbey has possibly more of its walls still standing, but Glastonbury Abbey is superior to all in massive grandeur. Some of its walls are very high and solid still. The original church, whose outlines are distinctly marked, measured from the end of St. Joseph's Chapel on the west, to the Retro or Ladye Chapel on the east, is five hundred and ninety-four feet in length. Two of the piers which supported the central tower of the nave are standing, with parts of the great arch, towering ragged and weed-fringed against the sky. There is some beautiful carving of oak leaves about one of the side-doors of the choir. The walls of "St. Joseph's Chapel " are almost entire, strong Norman work of the time of Henry II. at the end of the twelfth century. Two of the small square towers that stood at the angles are still almost perfect. With their vertical lines and pyramidal pinnacles, they have an elegant look. The exterior walls of the chapel, with their simple round mullioned windows, projecting piers, and vertical side lines, ending in bow-kneed intersecting arches, together with the deeply recessed and rich portal adorned with the chevron moulding, have that austere majesty which despises feeble external ornament, and which is so characteristic of the masculine Norman style. Many kings were buried here, the grandfather of Constantine the Great, Edmund the First, Edgar and Edmund Ironsides; and here, if ancient chronicles are true, King Arthur himself was buried. Camden says that Arthur's tomb was discovered with a leaden tablet above it in the shape of a cross, with this inscription: -"Hic jacet sepultus Rex. Arthurus in insula Avaloniæ." Another English chronicler (Fabyan's Chronicle, p. 81,) gives this account of his death and burial: "Whenne relacion came to Arthur of all this trea son wrought by his neuewe Mordred, he in all haste made towarde Brytaine, as it is redde in the Englysshe Cronycle, and landed at Sandwyche, where he was mette of Mordred and his people, which gaue vnto hym stronge batyll in tyme of his landyng, and loste there many of his knyghtes, as the famous knyght Garvain and others; but yet this notwithstandynge Arthure at length wonne the lande, and chaysed his enemyes, and after the enteryng of his cosyn Gawyn and other of his knyghtes there slayne, he sette forwarde his hoost to pursue his enemyes. Mordred thus beying ouerst of his vncle at the see side, withdrew hym to Wynchester, where he beying furnysshed of newe sowdyours, gaue vnto Arthure, as saith Gaufride, the second fyght; wherein also Mordred was put to the worse and constrayned to flee. Thirdly and lastly, the sayd Mordred faught with his vncle Arthure beside Glastynberry, where after a longe and daūgerous fyght Mordred was slayne, and the victoryous Arthure wounded vnto the deth, and after buryed in the vale of Aualon, beside Glastynberry beforesaid." This same chronicler thus speaks of his exploits : "Arthure faught xii. notable bataylles agayn the Saxons, and of theym all was victoure. This noble warayour, as wytnesseth holy Gilda, slewe with his owne hande in one daye, by the helpe of oure Lady Seynt Mary, whose Picture he bare peynted on his shelde, c. and. xi. Saxons; whiche shelde he called Pridwen, bis sworde was called Caliboure, |