Fables about Arthur he himself says that
he had heard, as we have seen, and from these he adds to Geoffrey's
narrative two that bear unmistakable signs of a Celtic origin, and
that were destined to become important elements in later romance; for
he gives us the first literary record of the famous Round Table, [9]
and the first definite mention in literature of the "hope of Britain." [10]
Wace is not to be regarded as one of the great contributors to our
knowledge of Arthurian legend, but without a familiarity with his
work, later French romance can scarcely be appreciated, so important
is his place as a delicate transformer of the story, the harsher
elements of which he veiled with the courtliness familiar to him,
while he diffused throughout it the indefinable spirit of French
romance; and this he did with the naive simplicity and grace that were
his by birth and temperament.
II.--LAYAMON
To Wace we owe still another debt, for the _Roman de Brut_ served as
the direct source for one of the greatest members of the Arthurian
literature of any period. This is the _Brut_, written in the first half
of the thirteenth century, after the year 1204, by Layamon, an English
priest of the country parish of Lower Arnley in Worcestershire.
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