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[Illustration: _Photo: R. Webber, Boscastle_]
KING ARTHUR’S CASTLE AND EXECUTION ROCK, TINTAGEL
“On the one hand we have the man Arthur, ... on the other is a greater Arthur, a more colossal figure, of which we have, so to speak, but a torso, rescued from the wreck of the Celtic Pantheon.”--PROFESSOR RHYS.
“There is truth enough to make him famous besides that which is fabulous.”--BACON.
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK
Within a small area in the West Country may be found the principal places mentioned in the written chronicles of King Arthur--places with strange long histories and of natural charm. In these pages an impressionist view is given of the region once called Cameliard and Lyonnesse. We have ventured into by-ways seldom entered, and we trust to have gathered a few details which may not be wholly without interest in their place. Facts are meagre about King Arthur, and romance has so overlaid reality that his realm seems now to be veritably a part of fairy-land. In this respect the journey is profitless, save that, by taking Malory as a guide, we are led to a few delightful and half-forgotten localities out of the ordinary route, from which romance has not been wholly dislodged and where tradition survives and is strong.
III. OF ARTHUR THE KING AND MERLIN THE ENCHANTER 61
VI. OF THE ROUND TABLE AND KING ARTHUR’S BATTLES 130
VIII. OF ST. KNIGHTON’S KIEVE AND THE HOLY GRAIL 183
X. OF GLASTONBURY AND THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 216
King Arthur’s Castle and Execution Rock, Tintagel _Frontispiece_
Mouth of Rocky Valley and Long Island, Tintagel 202
St. Joseph’s Chapel, Glastonbury Abbey 224
Ruins of St. Joseph’s Chapel, Glastonbury 254
“What an enormous camera-obscura magnifier is Tradition! How a thing grows in the human Memory, in the human Imagination, when love, worship, and all that lies in the human Heart, are there to encourage it!”--_Carlyle._
No pretence can be made that a complete or exhaustive history of King Arthur is given in this and the following chapters. Only parts of his story and parts of the story of his most illustrious knights are woven into this mosaic of fact and fiction. Sometimes only a few threads of the romance are to be discovered; at other times many are gathered into the fabric.