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The Ormulum and Layamon's Brut, both written probably during the first decade of the Thirteenth Century, have become familiar to all students of Old English.

Layamon, who in his translation of Wace treats his original much as Wace treated Geoffrey, says that there was a tradition that she had drowned herself, and that her memory and that of Mordred were hateful in every land, so that none would offer prayer for their souls.

In the next century the influence of Geoffrey is unmistakably attested by the Brut of Layamon, and the rhyming English chronicle of Robert of Gloucester.

But even this found its way into English by means of a French translation; the Brut of Layamon, a long poem in irregular alliterative verse, is adapted from a French rhyming translation of Geoffrey’s History.

The verse of Layamon’s Brut is unsteady, never to be trusted, changing its pace without warning in a most uncomfortable way.