KING ARTHUR IN CORNWALL BY W. HOWSHIP DICKINSON , M.D. HONORARY FELLOW OF GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1900 All rights reserved...

The following pages present an attempt to bring together what may be accepted with regard to the personality and actual life of King Arthur, while putting aside everything that is obviously or probably fabulous. I have endeavoured to give due weight to the evidence, both positive and negative, rather than to work up to a pre-determined conclusion. With regard to the evidence of a positive kind, if so it may be called, I have given especial weight to the details of topography, more particularly i

INTRODUCTORY Ex nihilo nihil fit. For the story of King Arthur there must be some foundation, however the primary facts may have been distorted and exaggerated. Two rules may be safely laid down with regard to tradition: it usually has some truth to rest upon; that truth is not accurately presented to us, but has been altered and probably magnified by verbal transmission. We may believe that Troy was besieged and captured by the Greeks, though we hesitate to accept the many instances of divine i

TRADITIONS AND HISTORY BEARING UPON THE LIFE OF ARTHUR Apart from the evidence of names, we may inquire what is to be found in the way of history or circumstantial tradition. Arthur has been regarded as a somewhat shadowy character; it has even been doubted whether he was not wholly imaginary. Milton [3] thus expresses his uncertainty: ‘Who Arthur was, and whether any such person reigned in Britain, hath been doubted heretofore, and may again with good reason.’ It is said that Tennyson, who has

ARTHUR’S LAST BATTLE—THE DOUBTS WHICH SURROUND HIS PLACE OF BURIAL The last battle attributed to Arthur has obtained more prominence than the most famous battles of antiquity, has been connected with its supposed place by geographical particulars, has been enriched with romantic detail, made the subject of poetry, and so much glorified in English literature from Geoffrey to Tennyson, that it seems like sacrilege to hint that the only fight on the Camel of which we have sure information, took pla

TOPOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATIONS I do not propose to follow in detail the romancers of the twelfth and succeeding centuries, excepting where they may be taken in concurrence with surviving structures and geographical peculiarities. I have said something in this sense both of the Cornish and the Scottish localisation of Camlan. Turning from the conclusion of Arthur’s career to the beginning of it, I must again have recourse to Geoffrey of Monmouth, a writer who sometimes finds the corroboration which h

CONCLUSIONS To piece together the dislocated fragments which are all that remain of the life of Arthur, they thus present themselves. Arthur, though unknown or unrecorded by the Saxon chroniclers of the invasion, who say nothing of what went on in the west and north, finds abundant mention among the Welsh bards and poets assigned to the sixth century, who speak of him by name, attribute to him great fame as a warrior, and briefly refer to certain details which connect him with places some of whi