ABSTRACT
Early traditions of King Arthur were mainly oral and were probably built on a historical foundation. The pieces of scattered evidence, however, do not add up to much. From the outset there has been an assumption that at least part of the Arthurian legends reflect some historical truth. Paton notes that Wace (1152), who claims to have heard the story of the Round Table from the Bretons, thought that the legends of Arthur were "not all lies, nor all true, all foolishness, nor all sense; so much have the storytellers told, and so much have the makers of fables fabled to embellish their stories that they have made all seem fable." 1
