Cornwall, it’s not Arthur’s I’m afraid.

I love all the mythology of the UK, with thousands of years of history we are very lucky to have such a rich and varied story telling history, but sometimes there a few things within the mythology field that just, well it irritates me. One such thing is the whole Arthurian subject, remember the knights in armor galloping away on war horses saving damsels and fighting mythical beast across the land, yes that fella.

I’m no historian or archeologist, but I am someone who knows a great deal about mythology and love the stories of history.

For my Birthday this year we booked a weekend at the amazing Jamaica Inn, a place that promises smugglers, ghosts and stories of the murky underworld and murders that lives and breathed in 17th C onwards Cornwall.

Being slap bang on Bodmin moor, you are very spoilt for the shear number of historical monuments there, literally you cannot throw a stone without hitting a stone circle or a hill fort. For instance behind the pub lies a lake with its very own Arthurian links and not more than 30 minutes away is the reputed ‘birth place’ of Arthur the mighty Tintagel.

Now Tintagel has taken full advantage of the less than provable links with the character and why you may ask, well its predominantly based upon the works of one Geoffrey of Monmouth and if you have read his great work the History of the Kings of Briton you will realise that it is at best described as pseudohistorical.

Full of dragons, giants, wizards, otherworldly beast and demons to name but a small few of what lies within, he also places Arthur at Tintagel, his Birth place and starts this all off with some very spurious links to a legendary leader of the Greek Troy who escaped here post trojan wars.

So lets take a look at the actual story, as written by Mr. Monmouth with an extract from that very story.

Tintagel the great striking and foreboding castle on the headland cut off from the land but only for a bridge, provided an almost impregnable fortress and according to Geoffrey and the legend, Arthur's father was Uther Pendragon, the king of all Britain. He goes to war against Gorlois, the Duke of Cornwall, to capture Gorlois' wife Igraine, with whom Uther has fallen in love. Gorlois defends himself against Uther's armies at his fort of Dimilioc, but he sends Igraine to stay safely within Tintagel Castle which is his most secure refuge, according to the legend and Historia Regum Britanniae. Uther besieges Dimilioc, telling his friend Ulfin how he loves Igraine, but Ulfin replies that it would be impossible to take Tintagel, for "it is right by the sea, and surrounded by the sea on all sides; and there is no other way into it, except that provided by a narrow rocky passage—and there, three armed warriors could forbid all entry, even if you took up your stand with the whole of Britain behind you." Geoffrey of Monmouth's story goes on to explain how the wizard Merlin is summoned and magically changes Uther's appearance to that of Gorlois to help get them into Tintagel Castle, while also changing his own and Ulfin's appearances to those of two of Gorlois' companions. Disguised thus, they are able to enter Tintagel where Uther goes to Igraine, and "in that night was the most famous of men, Arthur, conceived."[43]

As nice as the tale put forward by Monmouth is, there are a number of glaring mistakes, inaccuracies and laughable accounts that he had put forward, aside from the fact that ‘magic’ was not used, there was no castle and no knights in shinning armor.

So what is the truth!

The truth is well very murky, you see Arthur is such a complex mythology that it is hard to tease out what is truth and what is fiction, but lets try and have a look with more documentable and provable facts, the actual ‘castle’ you see today are the remains of a medieval structure built in 1230s by Richard 1st Earl of Cornwall and son to King John and Brother to King Henry, when he set about building the castle, no doubt he was inspired by the stories told at court and with the popularisation of Monmouth’s stories from 100 years earlier began to bring to life the legendary tale.

The castle itself served no defensive purpose at all being in such a place that served no strategic importance to the British empire, it does not sit on on any cross roads, protects no harbors or important inlets. Little is known about its function during this time other than being assumed it was a place of stature and known be a place to accept other Royalty and it is fair to say invite subjugated kings to see the English claims and links to the legendary Arthur and cement their right to rule over the kingdom.

What is interesting, if we take a massive step back to Monmouth’s reasons for writing such a work, you have to place yourself in his mind set and thinking, you see in 1135 when he starts to write about Arthur, the current King of England (Henry 1) had died and his Nephew Stephen of Blois became King, this was against an oath himself and other barons had sworn, he was unpopular and despite his good looks and prowess as a warrior he was thought of as lack luster and uninspiring and definitely receive much in the way of loyalty, at the same time the Welsh were rising again and starting to cause problems inspired by the story of the very Welsh legend of King Arthur and their claim to rule the kingdom, therefore making Arthur English would help to secure England’s claim to the throne.

We know that there has been evidence of human habitation from at least the 4th C with further evidence of Roman visitation but these are very small finds and cannot say for certain there was anything other than a passing occupation, there is virtually no evidence to suggest anything before the Romans and with many local hill forts in close proximity its unlikely it was used for anything strategic or for habitation.

Moving through and into the post Roman period, was left of the Roman world and the Brittonic peoples made this their home and no doubt would of felt safe here cut off from the main land, it became a thriving place with recent archeology work finding 5th C stone building complexes and possibly being one of several strong holds for the rulers of Cornwall, with its post Roman trade links to the Mediterranean it remained a rich and powerful place to live and rule over. This carried on well into the 7th C and it’s hard to imagine that stories or tales from this period of a rich and powerful ruler would not be used as part of the Arthurian legends.

In amongst all of this we know the Saxons began their colonization of the England around 410, with the West of England being under Britonic control and the western edge being under Saxon rule, (see map)

Its easy to see from the map that with only a small proportion of England being under Saxon control and this was very loose as each Saxon group also hated each other and there was no singular group. It could be surmised that Dumnonia was a strong hold out against the Saxon tide, that along with the Welsh, Northern and Scottish groups would perhaps pool armies and fight against the invasion giving rise to the myths of Arthur and in some cases Arthur is not a King but actually the right hand man of a lord or King who led armies to great victories.

Arthur which ever story you follow will of been a Britonic character, not a king but more likely a strong leader of men and second to the King of which ever land her hailed from.
Another issue with Monmouth’s story, their were no knights, the closest that existed were cavalry brought over as part of the Roman contingent who in some tales is suggested as being the inspiration for Arthur, these horse men were formidable even to the Romans and were well armored and to the British and even the Saxons such sights would of been shocking.

It’s unfortunate that as it’s name suggest the ‘Dark ages’ very little is actually written and what is has been told within the ark of Saxon poems and these themselves pose an issues as they were commissioned by which ever Saxon lord wanted a little fame and so stories were either altered or embossed to provide favoritism.

During the 14th C, the castle was a shadow of its former self, with a small staff and Chaplin employed to look after the once magnificent ruins but by the 1600s it was largely abandoned.

This remained so up until around the 19th C when Victorian England fascinated by the Romance and chivalric stories of Arthur and his knights, interestingly the post office actually gave Tintagel village its name, as Tintagel was the the name of the headland and not the main land, it was thought easier to name the village itself this way, in 1894 Rev Kinsman was honorary constable and built a court yard and a guide was employed and in the late 19th and early 20th C excavations began on naming certain areas such as King Arthurs footprint which legend says was used as Arthurs place to leap from one side the to the others and although it has been worked by human hands, possibly for some reason as far back as the dark ages it was romanticized by the English.

In the 1980s a fire raged on the headlands which helped to reveal much more of archelogy than first thought and in 1998 the Artognou stone spuriously described as Arthurs stone was uncovered. You may remember this from the news articles at the time which claimed it was linked to Arthur owing to the Latin name scribed into it, it was pushed by mainstream media at the time as evidential proof of Arthur, however when translated and examined it was believed to have been a practice stone for another purpose, broken in 2 and then used as part of a drainage system, even the name Artognou is suggested to be a very weak link to the actual name of Arthur and is translated as "Bear Knowing", from the Brittonic root *arto "bear" plus *gnāwo- "to know", and is cognate with the Old Breton name Arthnou and Welsh Arthneu.

This is only a very short insight into Arthurs, the story is so vast it stretches from Cornwall all the way into Scotland with stops in Cumbria and the Peak district, there a numerous other accounts, stories and tales written by multiple people which stan hundreds of years and I believe there will be no real one story of Arthur, my view is that Arthur was never a singular character, he was an amalgamation of stories and folk lore told by Britonic peoples, told through the many different periods of occupation of England and each telling was grown or expanded upon, Monmouth no doubt took Normal Chivalry and ideas of courtly and knightly behavior and imposed that upon his story to make is more of the time, make it more relatable for the Norman population to understand.

I’m hoping to create a road trip based around some the more notable legendary characters of the British isles and some that you may not know but are no less important.