I.

It is said by some ancient historians, and by those who have bestowed
much pains in examining and comparing old conditions, that several
kings reigned over Britain before Julius Caesar landed in the country.
Lud Hurdebras is supposed to have been the eighth king from Brute, whom
the Bards, and after them, the monkish historians, report to have been
the first monarch of Britain. I am going to tell you a story of Prince
Bladud, the son of this Lud Hurdebras, which, there is reason to
believe, is founded on fact.

Bladud was the only child of the king and queen, and he was not only
tenderly beloved by his parents, but was also considered as a child of
great beauty and promise by the chiefs and the people. It, however,
unfortunately happened that he was attacked with that loathsome
disease, so frequently mentioned in Scripture by the name of leprosy.
The dirty habits and gross feeding of the early natives of Britain, as
well as of all other uncivilized people, rendered this malady common;
but at the time in which Prince Bladud lived, no cure for it was known
to the Britons. Being highly infectious, therefore, all persons
afflicted with it were not only held in disgust and abhorrence, but, by
the barbarous laws of the times, were doomed to be driven from the
abodes of their fellow-creatures, and to take their chance of life or
death in the forests and the deserts, exposed alike to hunger and to
beasts of prey.

So great was the horror of this disease among the heathen Britons, and
so strictly was the law for preventing its extension observed, that
even the rank of the young prince caused no exception to be made in his
favor. Neither was his tender youth suffered to plead for sympathy;