An exploration of the Arthurian legends - of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, the Sword in the Stone, the Quest for the Grail, and Merlin - from pre-Celtic times to the present. The legends have an extraordinary power and persistence which can be seen from the many different genres in which they appear - poetry, music, literature, art, film.

This work includes the following themes: the origins of legends in the pre-Celtic age; the emergence of the historical Arthur as leader of the Britons against the Saxons after the collapse of the Roman Empire; the stories of Arthur and Merlin found in Welsh chronicle histories, poetry and romances; the spread of legends through Europe, particularly France and Germany during the time of the Crusades, when they assumed a holy purpose; the invention of the Grail story; the dwindling influence of the legends in Europe in the later Middle Ages, followed by a politicization of legends in Britain in the 16th century, and an upsurge of a British national mythology in the Elizabethan Age; the revival in the 19th and 20th Centuries - in romantic evocation of the Golden Age - in various guises: from Tennyson and the Pre-Raphaelites to 20th-century fiction and films.