John Cuming Walters

“ His fame has been made imperishable by mighty pens, and many a mountain fastness holds his [3] name and gives it forth to the world; many a towering rock preserves his story; many a frowning height perpetuates his deeds; many a wild torrent proclaims his name. So by a hundred contrivances does the memory of King Arthur endure, and he looms, a giant, behind the mist of ages. Six hundred localities in the British Isles alone, it has been computed, cherish traditions of King Arthur, and his praise is sung by a multitude of voices, and in every region where Celtic influence has been felt. ”

“ The bridge which connects Camelot with Almesbury is made up of the greatest achievements and the deepest tragedies of Arthur’s reign. It is a bridge of ascent and descent, its highest point marked by the puissance of the Table Round and Galahad’s achievement of the quest of the Grail, its lowest part dipping into the eternal gloom which followed the last battle in the west—a gloom from which the Britons were destined never to emerge. ”

“ Yet some of the dust under which lies the golden-domed city, and some of the ruins beneath which sleeps slain romance, mingle with the dust and ruins of history; and a little of that history may be deciphered still in the Isca Silurum of the Romans, where Caractacus held his court, where the Præter deposited the eagles, where justice was dealt out in the name of Cæsar, where Saxons and Britons met in one of their last deadly struggles, and where the dragon of the Cymry ultimately prevailed, and Arthur Pendragon rose and had his name set “high on all the hills and in the signs of heaven.” ”

“ As we find him in history, and as he is represented in romance, he is so noble a figure that we should dread to lose him or the conjuring influence of his name. The proud and triumphing Roman reeled for a time under the shock of Arthur’s hosts. The Saxon felt his almost invincible power. Christendom hailed his noble order and rejoiced in his imperial sway. Now, where he ruled and made his kingdom, are submerged cities, fallen towers, the wash of waters, the “trackless realm of Lyonnesse.” The sea has swept over his territory, and the deep shadows of centuries have fallen upon his deeds. ”

“ Then Sir Bedivere swooned, and when he awoke prayed that he might abide there henceforth and live with fasting and prayers. “Far from hence will I never go,” said he, “by my will, but all the days of my life to pray for my lord Arthur.”
Glastonbury to-day, amid all its ruin, spoliation and change, hints everywhere of the glory of its past. The charm of it lingers though the excellence of it has vanished. In its stillness and seclusion it retains an old-world air of beauty and of simplicity; time which has overthrown so much has tainted nought. ”

“ The simple lover of the legend will be content to find King Arthur’s favourite haunt in the fair domain of England, amid the sleepy vales and the undisturbed hills of restful Somerset. On the Mendips, within sight of a long range of wooded verdant hills, many a tower and steeple dotting the vale which sweeps away until lost in the bluish haze of distance, here and there a bright homestead twinkling on the heights or nestling in the bowery hollows, there is a deserted place called Cadbury Camp. ”

“ But given a day of sunshine when the sea is a sparkling emerald or the deepest of blues, when the sky is clear or only softened with diaphanous rings of cirrus-cloud, when the moss glistens on the rocks and the expanse of meadowland is a vivid carpet of green, when the winding hilly lanes flanked by tall hedges are white and shadowless, and the little tinkling runlets are silver gleams, and then this tract of Arthur’s Cornwall is almost the land of faerie which poets have sung. ”

“ The dust of the heroes is scattered, and
“The attributes of those high days
Now only live in minstrel-lays.”
Everything is past but the names of men and places—names that we have and ideals that we make. A ford with Arthur’s name, a stone associated with his deeds, a city where his temples were reared! Tranquilly flows the river and washes the unfrequented banks; and Caerleon-upon-Usk, like a wave that has been spent and dies upon the shore, has ebbed into the quietude of tideless time and has been lost. ”

“ But this people has passed away and not even a tradition of its existence is extant. It was at a much later period, though, looking backward, the time seems far distant, that the first legend of Glastonbury took root and flowered. So pure, fragrant, and beautiful is that treasured blossom that it would seem ruthless to attempt to pluck it by the roots from the ground, and to cast it aside as a worthless weed of ignorance and superstition. ”

“ At such time Tintagel is telling its own story, weaving its own romance; and words seem vain when those shattered columns, those fallen walls, that unbridged chasm, are there to make the tale. Of the after-history of the place what matters it? [110] We would fain have the story end, as it began, with Arthur and Guinevere, King Mark, Mage Merlin, and Tristram and Iseult. Every roll of the breakers is a voice from the past, and every crumbling chamber a chapter in that history which only the true poet transcribes. ”

“ The desolate aspect of the land, the poverty-stricken appearance of the few tiny villages passed on the way, the barrenness of the hills, the scantness of the population, all serve to reveal the history, past and present, of this portion of England where only the hardiest of the race could live, and live somewhat precariously. The land itself yields little; there are no rivers upon which a boat could be used, and the line of rough hills which form the spine of the county pent the people as within a prison. Even now, Camelford and half a score of like places seem shut out of the world. ”

“ About a mile from Tintagel, along the hilly road leading to Boscastle, and passing the wonderful little Bossiney cove with its elephant-shaped rock, there is a small rapid stream which winds through the Rocky Valley and falls like a torrent at low tide into the sea. The Rocky Valley, with its three huge boulders, its narrow walk now leading to the side of the stream and now mounting far above it, and ending only where the iron cliffs beetle above the roughest of bays, is one of the most sublime spectacles that Nature has to display in that enchanted region. ”

“ Pilgrims find their way to that lonely spot, and resting near the huge stone, they may reflect at will upon the wondrous possibility of there being, after all, by the side of this stream, a tangible link with King Arthur. The stone lies in a nook between two rocks, and three graceful and luxurious trees watch over it as if they were the metamorphosed three Queens who received the wounded king in the magic boat which glided to Avalon. All around is a profound calm ”

“ There is no doubt that Merlin’s death, which is no death, but a blind grovelling and eternal uselessness, was the mark of scorn put upon the magician who might have been prepotent, but who prostituted his powers—a feebleness and a degradation which were intolerable to the sturdy race who prized courage above all other qualities, and were incapable of realising the meaning of defeat or despair. ”

“ Glastonbury withstood the heathen, and boasted to the last of never having fallen into sacrilegious hands. It was Christian always—the Church of martyrs like Indractus, of saints like Cuthbert, Patrick, David, and Dunstan, and of kings like Ina, Edmund, and Arthur. The massive walls nobly withstood the assault of time, and the ruins of to-day are the work of the iconoclast, due to desecration and not decay. The remnants are pathetic in their significance; the scene of mutilated beauty is mournful beyond expression. ”

“ Joyous music concludes in a minor key or is broken by a sudden note of pathos. The Celtic bards sang of war, but though the [36] heroes always went forth bravely to battle it has been recorded that they “always fell.” Victories are less frequently celebrated than defeats are mourned. The glory of the Celt was vast and transcendent, but from minstrel-times it was a fading glory. Work as the history-weavers might with the golden shuttles of romance their tears mingled with the gleaming strands, and the tissue as it left the loom was a medley of broken lights and shadows. ”

“ The “Camaletic Mount” is one of Nature’s hallowed places, a place of wondrous stillness and magic charm, a place to regard as the stronghold of romance, and yet not the place that poets have sung. One can easily imagine the Lady of Shalott prisoned here in her bower, and seeing all the moving world as shadows in a mirror; and one can deem the scene appropriate for the meeting of Lancelot and the Lily-maid who lifted up her eyes and lov’d him [182] with that love which was her doom. It is not well to inquire more deeply and more closely into the past of Camelot, but to heed the poet’s warning ”

“ At sunset the scene is delightful. The high meadows are kindled with brilliant light, but not a ray comes to that hollow where, it is said, Arthur was laid. His grave is in perpetual shadow, and when I last saw it a long, gaunt, withered branch stretched over it like a spectral arm. The edacious tooth of time has bitten away the letters, and moss has overgrown a portion of the stone, so that the inscription is barely decipherable, but the words are known to be ”

“ These facts, however, are not insisted upon by Malory, though such claims for Arthur were made by the credulous and less scrupulous writers. Romance has entirely remodelled his character, and has filled in all the gaps in his life-story in that triumphant manner in which Celtic genius manifests its power. The legendary Arthur is made to realise the sublime prophecies of Merlin, and as those prophecies waxed more bold and arrogant in the course of ages the proportions of the hero were magnified to suit them. ”

“ The more popular and more befitting tradition deviates entirely from any commonplace termination of King Arthur’s career, and gives a magical end to his miraculous history. The king’s brand, Excalibur or Calibur, the emblem of his kingship and the symbol of his power, the sword which he alone could wield, and by winning which he had gained his crown, was given to Sir Bedivere by the dying chief to return unto the Lady of the Lake. ”

“ 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, [217] 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 noble bridge which once stretched across the yawning chasm dividing the two promontories must alone be imagined, though its beginnings on each side may be traced by the line of low stone arches reaching, and stopping abruptly at, the edge. The hills “that first see bared the morning’s breast,” the heights “the sun last yearns to from the west,” as Swinburne has sung, are [99] eternal, but Arthur’s castle has gone, and Tintagel, “half in sea and high on land, a crown of towers,” is even called by the dwellers no more by its old inspiring name. ”

“ Renan reminds us that it was not Arthur the King who has been adopted by all peoples, but Arthur who charmed the world as the head of an order of equality in which all sat at the same table, and in which a man’s worth depended upon his valour and his natural gifts. ”

“ If, however, we may place the slightest credence in the “Astolat, which is now in English called Gilford,” as much can be said for “Gilford” being “Gafolford” or Camelford, as for its being “Gyldeford” or Guildford. The stretch of low-lying level fields on either side of the Camel, the sharp-peaked hills in the distance, the dark meres among the hills, and the angry sea lashing against the rocks visible a mile or two away, all accord with the typical scenery of King Arthur’s realm, and make us not unwilling to believe that famous Astolat was here to be found. ”

“ Yet the beauty remains, though it is not the beauty of spirituality and life, but of the ethereality of death. As we gaze we are with a bygone age and generation, and that age seems to imbue our thought and tinge our reflections. Everywhere may be seen mementoes; all sounds are like echoes, faint and far; all sights are dim with haze. Glastonbury is for retrospection. The air is full of traditions; its history deals with phantoms and its opening page is of myths. ”

“ Where, indeed, could be this new Eden save in the imagination of the romancer who conceived a fitting scene for King Arthur’s Court? It is like the fairy gold which vanishes whenever a hand reaches out to touch it. ”

“ It was when Merlin and Vivien were going through Brécéliande hand in hand that they found a bush of white thorn laden with flowers; there they rested, and the magician fell asleep. Then Vivien, having been taught the art of enchantment by Merlin, rose and made a ring nine times with her wimple round the bush; and when the wizard woke it seemed to him that he was enclosed in the strongest tower ever made—a tower without walls and without chains, which he alone had known the secret of making. ”

“ There stretch the long level meadows of deep emerald, there glooms a forest of trees whose twisted branches are bright with apple-blossoms. The high Tor hill looks stern and bare, but cosy and inviting is the town below with its rows of irregular houses, many of which date back to long past days, while others, constituted of stone with which the architects of Dunstan’s and of Becket’s time wrought, seem to bear mute tribute to the famous era when the Abbey was in its glory and reverend pilgrims from afar came to bring oblations to that hallowed shrine. ”

“ It is fitting that here, therefore, romance should maintain one of its strongholds and that traditions of the master-magician should linger.
There is yet one other legend which should be noted. It represents the magician as perpetually roaming about the wood of Calydon lamenting the loss of the chieftains in the battle of Arderydd; while yet another tells of a glass house built for him in Bardsey Island by his companion, the Gleam, in which house of sixty doors and sixty windows he studied the stars, and was attended by one hundred and twenty bards to write down his prophecies. ”