It's Geoffrey of Monmouth, the Merlin section. Alas, I lack access to my
books to give you chapter and verse. But they find a white dragon and red
dragon forever battling beneath the earth, at the city's foundations,
causing its downfall. The Arthurian material, especially the Prophecies of
Merlin, were popular throughout Europe.
At 10.34 19/06/97 EDT, you wrote:
>Assistant Professor of History
>Phone: 852-6817
>
>I emerge from the shadows to tap the collective erudition of the List. I
>wonder if anyone might tell me whence originates the following story, related
>in a sermon preached by the Dominican Pierre de Palme in the private chapel of
>Cardinal Pierre de Prez in 1340:
>
> In Britania maiori fuit quidam rex qui multos inimicos habebat. Ideo
> de consilio quorundam uoluit edifficare in quodam loco multum forti
> unam ciuitatem, in qua ibi se et suos contra inimicos tueretur. Sed
> quidquid pro edificio illius ciuitatis multo tempore parauerat, una
> nocte dispergebatur. Et cum hoc pluries fecisset, et semper totum
> dispergeretur, habuit consilium cum quibusdam qui sibi consuluerunt
> quod queret puerum, qui haberet matrem et non patrem, et de sanguine
> eius aspergeret fundamentum illius ciuitatis; et edifficium staret,
> nec amplius minaretur ruinam.
>
>I suspect, of course, that the Venerable Bede has had a Venerable Hand in
>this, but I have not as yet been able to find this story in his _History_. I
>would be most grateful to anyone who can point me in the right direction. Many
>thanks,
>
>Blake Beattie
>
>
>
____
Julia Bolton Holloway, Hermit of the Holy Family,
via del Partigiano 16, Montebeni, 50014 FIESOLE, ITALY,
http://members.aol.com/juliansite/Juliansite.htm
Gregory on Benedict: 'quia animae videnti Creatorem angusta est omnis creatura'.
Julian of Norwich: 'For a soul that seth the Maker of al thyng, all that is
made semyth fulle lytylle'.
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