But the more cautious student will confine his attention to a group of but half-a-dozen places in South Wales, Devonshire, and Cornwall, and will doubt the truth of tradition even when it mingles with the nomenclature of the romance. Of Lyonnesse whelmed beneath the waves we have no knowledge; it is a lost and perhaps half fabulous region. Cameliard, whose boundaries are fairly well known, is strewed with doubtful relics, and preserves a multitude of strange stories. These are all that remain to us when we have traversed King Arthur’s land. Lyonnesse is reported to have been a region of extreme fertility, uniting the Scilly Isles with Western Cornwall. The hardy Silures were the inhabitants of this tract, and were remarkable for their industry and piety. No fewer than one hundred and forty churches testified to the latter quality, and the rocks called Seven Stones mark the site of their largest city. Tradition is untrustworthy as to any great cataclysm, but the Saxon chronicle declared that Lyonnesse was destroyed by a “high tide” on November 11, 1099. The assumption is that where the sea now sweeps with tremendous force, between Land’s End and the Scillies, once lay a fair region, another Atlantis, which formed no unimportant part of King Arthur’s realm. The etymology of the name Scilly is more or less doubtful. The word has been identified with Silura, or Siluria, the land of the Silures—that is, South Wales. Malory’s Surluse, or Surluce, reminiscent of the French Sorlingues, if it be not Scilly must remain unidentified. The first mention of it is in the history of La Cote Male Taile, where it is said that Sir Lancelot and the damsel Maledisant (afterwards known as Bienpensant) “rode forth a great while until they came to the border of the county of Surluse, and there they found a fair village with a strong bridge like a fortress.” A later reference shows that it was in and about Cornwall that the knights were at this time staying and seeking adventures with the king; and the “riding forth a great while to the border of the country of Surluse” would fit in with the idea that Cornwall and Scilly were not then divided by the sea, but formed part of the kingdom of Lyonnesse. Sir Tristram, who is essentially a Lyonnesse knight, was sought in the country of Surluse when he had vanished during the period of King Mark’s treachery; and there seems no doubt that, though an accessible part of the kingdom, it was a considerable distance away, and perhaps somewhat out of the beaten track. Sir Galahalt, “the haut prince,” was its ruler, and he was resorted to by the knights; but we are distinctly told that “the which country was within the lands of King Arthur,” and for that reason Sir Galahalt could not even arrange a joust without obtaining his sovereign’s consent. Again, Sir Galahalt was known as Sir Galahalt “of the Long Isles,” which admits of a fair deduction, and seems not without its significance in this argument.
The “guarded Mount,” dedicated to St. Michael, overlooks the long Atlantic waves, the waste of waters, and “towards Namancos and Bayona’s hold,” and this Ultima Thule is thronged with traditions of Arthur and his lost territory. Grim, cavernous Pengwaed, or Land’s End, with its granite rocks; the Lizard, and Penzance, the last town in England, are all stored with these old memories; and the waves flooding the bays tell of that younger time over which hangs perpetual shadow. This is the Lyonnesse of Tennyson’s imagining, the
“Land of old, upheaven from the abyss
By fire, to sink into the abyss again,”
where long hillocks dip down to the sea-line, where the coast spreads out into shifting treacherous sand, and where amid the dreary plains the Silures fought their battles for life and freedom.6 At Vellan, Arthur slaughtered so many Danes that the mill next day was worked with blood. Land’s End still shows its “Field of Slaughter,” and by the coast Arthur and Mordred met during the last conflict. Lyonnesse may have included Armorica also, still rich with its incomparable traditions and its unsurpassed folk-songs. For once the people of Brittany, Cornwall, and Wales, speaking practically the same tongue, lavished all their poetic wealth upon the Arthurian cycle of legendary history, claimed the knights in common, and each still claims to possess the more famous shrines. Merlin’s forest thus becomes a part of Lyonnesse; Joyous Gard (as we shall presently see) can still be found in Brittany, instead of Northumberland; and Avalon, instead of being a pilgrim’s resort in Somerset, is an island off the Breton coast, seen dimly from the wild moorland country, strewn with dolmens, and reaching down to a shore of silvery sands. Between the orange-coloured rocks “the sea rushes up in deep blue and brilliant green waves of indescribable transparency. On a bright summer day the whole scene is one of unspeakable radiance. Delightful little walks wind round the western headland, where more groups of rock appear, as weird and fantastic as the first.”7 And across the stretch of azure sea lies the dim islet which Breton legend affirms is King Arthur’s resting-place. When we consider the French sources of the history compiled by Geoffrey, Wace, and Map, the reasonableness of believing that Avalon was at first located in Brittany becomes at once apparent, and the wonder is that in this and many other cases the transference of the scenes to England should have been so complete or that English equivalents should have been so readily accepted.
The more obscure names of places would doubtless be identified if the search were more assiduous in Brittany than in Britain, and if the original Breton nomenclature were used as a basis. Tristram, Iseult, and Lancelot at least are French, and the prevailing tone of the romances in which they figure is French; we must look to Brittany for some part of the scenery.8 At various times it has been stated that Sir Lancelot’s Joyous Gard was none other than Alnwick, or else Bamborough Castle, in Northumberland, a structure which dates from the year 554, and may have been the site of an earlier stronghold.9 But why Sir Lancelot, a Breton Knight of Arthur’s Court, whose exploits are confined to Lyonnesse, the southern portion of King Arthur’s territory, should have had his castle located in the north cannot be determined, unless we so far revise our opinions as to credit (as some have done) the existence of a Scotch knight of that name. Instead of looking to Northumberland for Sir Lancelot’s stronghold, and endeavouring to identify Bamborough as his residence, why not turn straightway to France, his native land, and accept such facts as are there to be found? The chronicle of Malory itself says that Joyous Gard was “over sea.” Beyond the forest of Landerneau may still be seen the traditional site of a Chateau de la Joyeuse-Garde, with an ancient gateway and a Gothic vault of the twelfth century remaining. Here at least we find the name; the Breton regards the spot as that which Lancelot, the Breton knight, claimed as his own; and the scene is in that Armorica from which the original traditions sprang, or, at least, where they took earliest root.10 In addition to Joyous Gard, Brittany boasts of its Tristan Island in the Bay of Douarnenez, named after the “Tristan des Léonais” who was the rival of King Mark. King Mark, too (“Marc’h,” in the original, signifying horse, and so named because of his pointed ears), has his own locality, for according to Breton legend he was not ruler of Cornwall but of Plomarc’h, which place lies a little to the east of Douarnenez and contains the ruins of his “palace.” But Renan justly inquired, if Armorica saw the birth of the Arthurian cycle, how was it that we failed to find there any traces of the nativity?
Cameliard is a tract in some respects not so hard to define or locate as Lyonnesse. The town of Brecknock, three miles from which is Arthur’s Hill, seems to have marked one of its borders, and its capital was a now undiscoverable city, Carohaise. Ritson believes that Arthur’s kingdom could not have been considerable, and he is disposed to grant him the lordship only over Devon and Cornwall, with perhaps some territory in South Wales, the land called Gore or Gower. Be that as it may, his name, by a series of links, extends from Cornwall to Northumberland, from the Scillies to London, and from London to