The same features recur in later writers who might be or have been supposed to have had access to British sources.

Geoffrey of Monmouth--to take only the most famous--asserts that he used a Breton book which told him all manner of facts otherwise unknown.

The statement is by no means improbable.

But, for all that, the pages of Geoffrey contain no new fact about the first five centuries which is also true.[2] From first to last, the Celtic tradition preserves no real remnant of recollections dating from the Romano-British age.

Those who might have handed down such memories had either perished in wars with the English or sunk back into the native environment of the west.[3] [Footnote 1: The story of Vortigern and Hengist now first occurs and is obvious tradition or legend.