“And so they rowed from the land; and Sir Bedivere beheld all the ladies go with him. Then Sir Bedivere cried, Ah my Lord Arthur, what shall become of me now ye go from me, and leave me here alone among mine enemies? Comfort thyself, said the King. For I will go into the vale of Avilon, to heal me of my grievous wound. And if thou never more hear of me, pray for my soul.”--_Malory._
“Whether the Kinge were there or not, Hee never knewe, nor ever colde, For from that sad and direful daye Hee never more was seene on molde.”
“O, three times favoured isle, where’s the place that might Be with thyself compared for glory or delight Whilst Glastonbury stood?... Not great Arthur’s tomb, nor holy Joseph’s grave, From sacrilege had power their sacred bones to save, He, who that God in man to his sepulchre brought, Or he, which for the faith twelve famous battles fought.”--_Drayton._
A quaint old-world look is upon the face of the city of many legends, King Arthur’s “isle of rest.” It lies deep in a green well-watered valley, and its steep sudden hill, the Tor, rising abruptly to a height of over five hundred feet and crowned with a lonely square tower, seems to shelter and keep watch upon the traditional apple-island. The orchard lawns are seen everywhere with their deep-green carpet and the crooked branches of innumerable fruit-laden trees casting grotesque shadows upon it. The whole year round the western airs are balmy, though in spite of hoary legend and poetic eulogy Glastonbury has felt the effects of terrific storms, whirlwinds, and earthquakes. Its history--a history of marvel and wonder, inextricably mingled for many centuries with superstition--takes us far back into the misty past when the ancient Britons named the marshland, often flooded by the water of the Bristol Channel, Ynyswytryn, or Inis vitrea, the Glassy Island; either, it has been surmised, on account of the “glasten” or blue-green colour of its surface, or from the abundance of “glass” (or woad) to be found in the vicinity.[30] On the other hand Professor Freeman believed that Glastonbury was the abode and perhaps the possession of one Glæsting, who, on discovering that his cattle strayed to the rich pastures, settled in that part, which in the natural order of things became Glæstingaburgh. That it was veritably an island admits of no doubt; the circuit of the water can still be traced; and when the Romans in turn made discovery of the fruitfulness of the region enclosed by the waters of the western sea, they denominated it Insula Avalonia, or Isle of Apples. This was the “fortunate isle,” celebrated in the ancient ode of which Camden has given us a version, “where unforced fruits and willing comforts meet,” where the fields require “no rustic hand” but only Nature’s cultivation, where