[40] But because of the myths which have grown
round him, he suggests that there must also have been "a Brythonic
divinity named Arthur," and we are thus introduced to a dual study of
history and myth which does not appear to me to take us very far, and
which, in fact, just separates history from myth, instead of showing
where they join hands. This dual conception of myth is indeed a rather
favourite resort of those scholars who cannot appreciate the evidence
that proves a character in a mythic tradition to be an actual
historical personage. It is the basis of the famous Sigfried-Arminius
controversy. It does duty in many less important cases,[41] and most
frequently in connection with northern mythology, where the line
between mythic and historical events gathering round a hero is
generally so finely drawn as to be almost imperceptible. But it is so
obviously a piece of special pleading on self-created lines that other
explanation is needed. And another explanation is to be obtained if
only students will rely upon the evidence of tradition itself instead
of appealing to every fancy derived from sources which have nothing to
do with tradition.

The history of King Arthur has been the subject of inquiry too
frequently for it to be possible in these pages to discuss the dual
theory as it has been applied to him, but I will attempt to show that
it is quite unnecessary thus to explain the history of King Arthur by
turning to the history of another of our great heroic figures, one of
the greatest to my mind, who, like Arthur, has secured not only a fair
share of special tradition belonging to himself personally, but a
larger share than others of that corpus of tradition which has
descended from our earliest unknown ancestors, and become attached to
the historical hero of later times--I mean, Hereward, the last of the
Saxon defenders of his land against William the Norman.[42] The
analysis of the Hereward legend affords a good example of the process
by which tradition is preserved by historical fact, and in its turn
helps to unravel the real history which lies at the source. Instead,
therefore, of attempting to travel over the voluminous literature
which is the outcome of the King Arthur story, I will use for the same
purpose the shorter story of Hereward the Englishman.

We start with the fact that Hereward is unknown to history until his
great stand in the Island of Ely against the might of William, the
conqueror of Engla