We begin our search for Arthur and end up in a Bath

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After breakfast and the usual meandering in an attempt to get out of a town with no exits, we headed north across the Cornwall peninsula to Tintagel Castle. Growing up, I was very aware of two myth/legend traditions from England - King Arthur and Robin Hood. I won't cover much on Robin Hood here, since his stomping grounds were far to the northeast of Cornwall. There is little evidence of an historic Robin Hood, although he has been a stock character in English literature and other arts since the Piers Plowman poem written in the 1370's. The well-known attribute of stealing from the rich to give to the poor appears to be a later concept. Perhaps we shall get back to him later. For now, we shall focus on King Arthur.

Things are somewhat different for Arthur, possibly tending more toward legend than myth. (A legend is a tale, possibly with much embellishment, but based on some kernel of fact, while a myth is a symbolic story that is completely fabricated.) The Arthurian legends relate to a king who was fighting against the advancing Dark Ages, or, in more concrete terms, defending the native Britons against the invading Saxons from the Continent some time around the late 5th to early 6th centuries CE. The starting point for most of the known Arthurian legends is Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th century Historium Regum Britanniae. There were many earlier sources, and it is unclear how much of Geoffrey's tale was fabricated by him and how much was from these earlier sources. Geoffrey gave us many parts of the legend, including the sword Excalibur, Guinevere, Merlin, Arthur's conception at Tintagel, Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, and Arthur's Death and burial at Avalon. A somewhat later French writer named Chrétian de Troyes added Lancelot and the Grail Quest, and Mallory's 15th century Morte d'Arthur consolidated many of the sources and legends and essentially gave us the romantic king figure with his Knights of the Round table and chivalric court. Mallory's volume is generally the source of most modern re-workings of the Arthurian legends. Most modern historians consider the historical figure of Arthur to be unlocatable, and some question whether there ever was such a king. However, there are some new facts that lead to perhaps a different conclusion.

First, we know that there was a thriving trade with the continent and even the Mediterranean that was centered at Tintagel, implying a strong leader class, from which Arthur could have sprung. Multiple sources refer to a great battle at Mt. Baden in which a great leader of the Britons defeated the Anglo-Saxon invaders, and that 50 years of relative peace and prosperity followed. The location of Mt. Baden has been lost, but there is general agreement that the battle took place. Cadbury Hill is a fortified hill not far from Glastonbury. At around the time of the reputed Arthur (late 5th-early 6th century CE) it underwent a massive refortification, with construction of a 16 foot thick stone wall around the flat top of the hill. It would have required a strong leader to get that done. Furthermore, it is estimated that it would have taken 800 men to man the fort, at a time when the average war band in England at that time was around 100 men. About 50 years after the time of the Mt. Baden victory (traditionally thought to have been in 449 CE) the name Arthur in various forms began cropping up in royal families, indicating respect for someone of that name. Finally, in 1998 archaeologists discovered a part of Tintagel that dated from the appropriate time, and there found a stone with an inscription that read "Artogonou, father of a descendant of Coll, had this made". Taken altogether, these things suggest that there was a real Arthur who fought to prevent the overtaking of the Britons by the Anglo-Saxons. Guinevere may or may not have been real, but certainly the rest of the Arthurian legends that include a democratic court and knights in armor was purely the stuff of entertaining literature. Balancing the evidence for a real Arthur is the fact that having an Arthur made for good propaganda for various and sundry people. For instance, during the Norman conquest Arthur was invoked in the explanation that the Normans were coming to liberate the Britons from their Anglo-Saxon conquerors, just as Arthur had defended them from those original invasions. After all, many of the Normans were actually Bretons, descendants of Britons who had fled Britain to the area of Brittany (little Britain) in the face of the Roman and later Anglo-Saxon invaders.

Tintagel is an enormous complex, now reduced to low ruins. It appears to have mostly been constructed of stacked flat pieces of rock. It occupies several areas an a hill overlooking a small relatively protected cove where ships could be more safely brought in for unloading. It would have been easily defended at the time of its building, since it was on a promontory connected to the mainland only by a very thin land bridge. That has since collapsed and now a modern pedestrian bridge has been built to allow access. In the cove is a cave known as Merlin's Cave, where Merlin reportedly lived. There is nothing in Tintagel specifically connected to Arthur, but it is his reputed birthplace.

As we were leaving Tintagel, we stopped in a small shop there and grabbed a Cornish pasty. These traditional filled pies are shaped like a half circle with a crimped curved edge. They may be filled with almost anything these days, but traditionally were filled with meat, potatoes, onions, swedes (yellow turnips), and spices. There are references to pasties going back to around 1300, and by the mid-1800's were known as Cornish pasties. After a concerted campaign by local pasty makers, the EU granted Cornish pasties the designation of Protected Geographical Indication, meaning the designation could not be used for similar pies made in other locales. Not sure what has happened to that designation since Brexit. The Cornish pasty is considered the "national dish" of Cornwall. All other considerations aside, they are delicious.

From Tintagel we backtracked a few miles, then headed northeast to Glastonbury, another stop in the Arthur legend. Glastonbury Abbey is old. Its real age is uncertain. There are pottery fragments and other artifacts indicating occupation of the site going back to early times of the Roman occupation of Britain. There is clear historical evidence that there was a church here in 601 CE, which was referred to at that time as the "old church". By the time of the Norman conquest, Glastonbury was the richest abbey in Britain. It was taken over by the Saxons in 658 CE, and a few Saxon kings were buried there. In 1184 the wooden monastic buildings burned, and a new stone building program began. The Abbey was stripped of its valuables and the monastery disbanded in the Dissolution of the Abbeys. The abbot objected, and for his troubles was taken to nearby Glastonbury Tor where he was hanged, drawn, and quartered, to his great discomfort.

The early wealth of the abbey stemmed form the many pilgrims who came because of the legend of the abbey having been started by Joseph of Arimathea, the rich man who was reported in the Gospels to have claimed the body of Christ and buried it in his own planned tomb. Legend has it that he came to Britain and introduced Christianity to the Isles. He is reported to have stuck his staff in the ground and it miraculously sprouted. This grew into a singular cultivar that blooms twice a year, unlike the other hawthorns that only bloom in May. All of the trees in this area that bloom twice a year are thought to be cuttings from the original tree. Because the second blooming is at Christmas time, it was associated with Christ as a miracle. (The pilgrim ship the Mayflower was named for the hawthorn flower.) The legends Joseph of Arimathea did not enter any historical record until the 12th century CE, but the tales were told long before that. Some of the legends even include him bringing Mary Mother of Jesus to Glastonbury. Since she is also said to have gone to Ephesus for the final years of her life, this would have made her the most peripatetic traveler in the 1st century.

After the 1184 fire, the abbey was in need of funds to rebuild, and pilgrim visits had fallen. At the most fortunate of times, the monks discovered a buried hollowed oak trunk containing two skeletons, and on the trunk was a lead cross with the inscription "Hic jacet sepultus inclitus rex Arturius in insula Avalonia" ("Here lies interred the famous King Arthur on the Isle of Avalon"). The attraction of the famous King Arthur's tomb restored the finances of the abbey. Of course, historians are of the opinion that both the Joseph and the King Arthur connections to the abbey are fabrications. At the very least, they came at particularly propitious moments for the finances of the abbey. Avalon was the island where Arthur was supposedly buried. Glastonbury is not an island, but in the time in question this area was a swamp, since made dry land by numerous drainage projects. Both Glastonbury and Glastonbury Tor would have been virtual islands, particularly at high tide. Recent excavations have shown evidence that the monks really did dig where they said they found the bones of Arthur and Guinevere, and that they found a burial site. Multiple accounts place the bones at the high altar up until the 16th century, but they are lost now.

Glastonbury is also the place where the Arthurian legends and the Holy Grail legends became commingled. Joseph of Arimathea reputedly brought the Holy Grail with him to Glastonbury. There is a well there that run red because of iron oxides, so it is called the Grail Well (the Grail was the chalice that caught Christ's blood from the cross). This is all almost certainly purely the stuff of myth.

We got to Glastonbury just in time to join a guided tour, and the guide made it so much clear just what the place was like. Although the underlying foundation was religious, this was a thriving community of men who were, for the most part, living pretty well. They may have renounced personal possessions, but they had kitchens and staff preparing their food, and living quarters were provided. They had a large pond where they raised various food fishes and eels. Farmers were required to tithe 10% of their production to the Church, and great barns were built at Glastonbury for the tithes. Most of the Glastonbury Abbey is now just a ruin, with the only surviving building being the Abbot's Kitchen.

Leaving Glastonbury we drove through the popular tourist destination called Cheddar Gorge. This was carved by streams during glacial periods, when frozen rock strata prevented the water from taking its usual path through the porous underground rock. There are several caves that may be visited by tourists, some of which have been the site of paleontological discoveries. The oldest complete human skeleton found in Britain was Cheddar Man, found in one of the caves here. The gorge is home to many species that are rare elsewhere, and small goat herds have been introduced to keep down the growth of invasive trees. The gorge runs along the south side of the village of Cheddar, the origin of cheddar cheese, today the most popular cheese in the world.

Our final destination for the evening was Bath. We arrived too late to do anything other than check into our hotel and go out to dinner. We shall plunge in the town's attractions tomorrow.

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