SITES
She is not any common earth,
Water or wood or air,
But Merlin’s Isle of Gramarye
Where you and I will fare.
…
A. E. Houseman
There are two kinds of geography of Britain: the outer, visible one of hills, valleys, trees, rivers, and plants, and the inner, mysterious, myth-haunted one that consists of places that are often no more than names. Camelot is such a one, as are Camlan, the supposed site of Arthur’s last battle, or Badon, the site of his greatest fight against the Saxons. Rivers of ink have been spilled by various commentators in their efforts to identify these places, many of which remain undiscovered for the simple reason that they were never in this world at all but belonged to the inner Britain of myth and legend.
The land remembers its heroes in many different ways—through story and song and folklore—but most of all through the places associated with them, which evoke particular tales. In Britain this is especially the case in the many places associated with the figure of Arthur. Britain has had many names in the past—Logres, Albion, the Isle of the Blessed—some mythical, some historical. One name above all others—though you will not find it in on maps or guidebooks—has been inscribed into the land itself: the land of Arthur. There follows a very small few of the many places connected with Arthur. You may never get to see them in person, but you can always go there in dream or meditation. There are many more than the ones listed here; they await your own discovery.
Glastonbury, Somerset
Crouched in the lea of three hills, the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey are all that remain of what was once the greatest monastic foundation and church in all of Britain, second only in wealth and size to Westminster. At the height of the Middle Ages it was a shrine second to none in Europe, considered by some to be as important as Rome itself.
Here, according to tradition, came Joseph of Arimathea, the uncle of Jesus who gave up his tomb to house the body of his nephew and who later has given into his keeping the Holy Grail, that most mystic and wonderful vessel which had been used to celebrate the Last Supper and the first Eucharist, and which later caught some of the blood of the crucified Christ as he hung upon the cross. After the events of the Resurrection, Joseph fled to Britain, taking the cup with him, and there founded the first Christian church on the ancient island of Ynys Witrin, sometimes known as the Glass Isle or Avalon, better known today as Glastonbury.
A much later tradition claims that the body of Arthur was brought here after the Battle of Camlan, and to this day a plaque marks the spot where, in 1191, his tomb was reportedly uncovered by builders working on the restoration of the abbey after it was almost destroyed by fire in 1184. This was almost certainly a forgery perpetrated by the monks to help raise funds to rebuild their half-burned church. A lead cross, last seen by William Camden in the eighteenth century, used to be displayed in the abbey. It read:
Here Lies Buried the Renowned King Arthur
in the Isle of Avalon
There are those who believe it a forgery and those who think it was a genuine gravestone of the great king.288
Rising like a beacon over the town, Glastonbury Tor seems to beckon the pilgrims who journey in the thousands to this remarkable spot, once described as “this holiest earth.” Here people come in search of many things—the Grail, enlightenment, inspiration—and many claim to have found it and remain in the peaceful market town to the surprise and bewilderment of the local inhabitants. Beneath the Tor is said to lie a subterranean kingdom ruled over by the Lord of the Wild Hunt, Gwynn ap Nudd, a powerful otherworldly figure who was once banished by the Celtic St. Collen but who is still believed to haunt the hills around Glastonbury. A recent theory claims the existence of a manmade sevenfold maze carved out of the Tor itself. This, it is said, was once a sacred processional way used by priests and priestesses to reach the stone circle that then crowned the tor. Modern pilgrims still trace its path to the summit and speak of visionary experiences when they have done so.
According to medieval tradition, Joseph of Arimathea came to Glastonbury, carrying with him the Grail. Arriving by ship near what was then an island, Joseph walked inland and climbed the lesser of the three hills, of which the Tor is the highest. Here, tired from his long journey, Joseph planted his staff, which promptly burst into leaf and flower. Thereafter the hill was named Wearyall, and a scion of the original thorn tree (the product of Joseph’s staff) may still be seen there today. Of the three hills (Chalice Hill, the Tor, and Wearyall), this one has a special feeling of tranquility.
Chalice Hill is the third and gentlest of the three hills that form the heart of Glastonbury’s sacred landscape. It stands between the town and the Tor, effectively hiding the bulk of the taller hill from within the town itself. It has long been considered the most sacred of the hills and is believed by many to have been the final resting place of the Grail. A spring rich in iron that turns the water red rises here, and a peaceful garden has grown up around this in the past decade, owned and looked after by a local trust that opens the gardens to visitors on most days of the year. Within the garden, which is surrounded by medieval stonework and rises up the lower slopes of the hill, are a number of sheltered spots in which the visitor may stop and meditate or dream of the Grail and Arthur. The well head is covered by an elaborate lid with a fine wrought-iron sculpture of the vesica piscis, a sign interpreted as representing the overlapping of the inner/outer and upper/lower worlds.
St. Govan’s Chapel, Dyfed, Wales
St. Govan’s Point is the most southerly point on the Pembrokeshire coast. Nearby lies St. Govan’s Chapel, a tiny cell measuring eighteen feet by twelve. The majority of the building dates from the thirteenth century, but parts of it—the altar and a seat cut in the rock—may be much earlier, possibly even as early as the sixth century, when the saint reputedly established a hermitage here after miraculously escaping pursuit by pirates. The rock itself, so the story goes, opened and closed around him, keeping him hidden until his pursuers had gone.
Another story connects no lesser person than Sir Gawain—Arthur’s nephew and the first and most famous of his knights—with the site. According to local tradition, he is buried here, having retired to live out his days as a hermit after the passing of Arthur. This conflicts with other stories that place Gawain’s death before the final battle in which Arthur met his end. There is a further conflict in that no one can decide whether Govan is a corruption of Gawain—in which case the saint is probably fictitious—or the reverse, so that one would assume that Gawain’s name became attached to the place some time after the end of the Arthurian era.
Dinas Bran, Glamorgan, Wales
Above the north side of the Vale of Llangollen rises the high and remote hill of Dinas Bran, named after the great Celtic god whose head was buried beneath the White Mount in London (now the site of the Tower of London), from where it kept watch over the land and prevented invasion from across the channel. However, Arthur ordered it dug up in the belief that he alone could defend the land of Britain. Despite his efforts, the Saxons did eventually overwhelm the country.
On the brow of the hill stands the dramatic remains of a medieval castle, believed by some Arthurians to be the original model for the castle of the Grail, the mysterious fortress to which the knights of the Round Table came in search of the holy relic. This is interesting since Bran, who was wounded in the thigh by a poisoned spear, may have been the origin of the mysterious Fisher King, the Grail’s guardian who also suffered from such a wound. The thirteenth-century romance Perlesvaus mentions Dinas Bran in terms that lead one to suppose that it was recognized as a type of the Grail Castle.289
St. Michael’s Mount, Cornwall
Believed to mark the site of a great battle between Arthur and a local giant, this dramatic building rises above the sands of Mount’s Bay in Cornwall, where tradition had it that Joseph of Arimathea used to come to ply his trade as a tin merchant. Joseph is later believed to have brought the sacred relic of the Holy Grail to these shores and to have built the first Christian church at Glastonbury in Somerset. A firmly entrenched tradition says that on one of his many trips to Britain he brought his young nephew, Jesus, with him. Since biblical testimony is silent about the life of Jesus before his ministry, there could be some truth in this.
According to local legend, the hermit Ogrin, who dwelt at nearby Roche Rock, brought about a brief reconciliation between the estranged King Mark and his Queen Isolt, who had been living in the wilds with her lover Tristan. As the queen had only rags to wear, Ogrin bought fresh clothing and a horse for her at a fair on the Mount of St. Michael.
St. Nectan’s Keive, Cornwall
The life of St. Nectan or Knighton does not mention Arthur, though he was probably a contemporary. Curiously, however, a story clings tenaciously to this beautiful spot, designating it the starting place for the holiest of all the quests undertaken by the Round Table Fellowship—that of the Holy Grail. Here at the foot of the falls, the knights are said to have bowed their heads in prayer before setting off on their long hard road. Possibly the name “Knighton” may have suggested this idea.
Tintagel, Cornwall
Perhaps the most familiar of all the sites associated with Arthur, local tradition (founded largely on the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth) claims this as the birthplace of Arthur, from where Merlin came and took him to be fostered in secret. The dramatic ruins of the castle, which date from the twelfth to the thirteenth centuries and are thus too late to have anything to do with the real Arthur, have nonetheless inspired a good deal of romantic inspiration. The anonymous medieval writer of The Folie Tristan says that the castle was built by giants and that it used to vanish twice every year, once at midwinter and again at midsummer.290
A much earlier monastic site on the island promontory behind the castle dates from a time more or less contemporary with Arthur, while excavations carried out at the site in 1994 indicated that it may have been a Celtic site of some importance.
Merlin’s Cave, Cornwall
Tennyson made this place famous in his Idylls of the King when he described waves bringing the infant Arthur to the shore, where he was plucked forth by Merlin and carried to safety.291 Local legend has long associated this cave—which fills with water at every high tide—with the great enchanter. It is certainly a place of considerable atmosphere, where one might indeed expect to see Merlin coming towards one with his shining staff held up to illuminate the darkness of the cave. A recent sculpture of Merlin’s face was added to the rocky cliffs outside the cave.
Bardsey Island, Gwynedd, North Wales
Set in the sea off the coast of Wales, local legend tells that this was the island to which Merlin retired to live in his observatory, which was provided with seventy windows through which he could observe the stars and the affairs of men. Another story tells that here are hidden the Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain, including the Cauldron of Diwrnach the Giant, the Whetstone of Tudglyd, and Arthur’s Mantle of Invisibility. Merlin is said to be their guardian.292
Dinas Emrys, Gwynedd, North Wales
According to tradition, Vortigern—the usurping king of Britain in the fifth century—fled here, pursued by the Saxon mercenaries he had invited into the land to help him against the invading Picts and Scoti. Attempting to establish a fortress on the hilltop, it consistently fell down as fast as his masons could build it. Consulting his Druids, he was told that only the blood of a child without a father, spilled upon the stones, would enable it to stand. This child was Merlin (then known as Emrys), who, when brought before Vortigern, challenged his advisers to disclose the real reason why the tower would not stand. He then revealed the presence of two dragons, imprisoned in a stone coffin at the bottom of an underground lake beneath the hill. This was proven true, and the dragons were set free to fight in the air above the site. Prophesying the death of Vortigern, Merlin then gave vent to his first and greatest visions, many of them later recorded by Geoffrey of Monmouth and therefore still extant. The remains of a tower are still to be seen on the hilltop, and though these seem to be medieval rather than Dark Age, they lend credence to the story.293
Other traditions speak of Merlin’s treasure, a golden vessel and a golden chair, buried somewhere beneath the hill, awaiting discovery by a golden-haired youth.
Stonehenge, Wiltshire
Among the many legends clustering about this famous site is one that tells of its construction by Merlin. Asked by Arthur’s father, King Uther Pendragon, to construct a fitting memorial for his brother Ambrosius and the warlords of Britain felled by Saxon treachery in the massacre known as the Night of the Long Knives, the enchanter journeyed to Ireland in search of the fabled Giant’s Dance. This circle of huge stones were believed to possess curative properties if water in which they had been washed was then used to bathe the sick. After a great battle Merlin conveyed the stones by magic to the shore of the sea, then floated them on rafts across to Britain and set them up in the plain near Salisbury. It has been suggested that this story may retain a distant memory of the method by which the ancient bluestones, quarried in the Prescelly Mountains far to the north, were brought along the coastline of Wales and then taken inland on huge wooden rollers to their present site. Despite numerous theories that claim them to be anything from an ancient observatory to a Druid temple, little is known of the true origin or purpose of this mighty circle of stones.
Alderley Edge, Cheshire
Here, according to a local tradition, in the ground below the great outcrop of sandstone known as the Edge, is a cave in which Arthur and his knights lie sleeping. The story goes that a farmer was on his way to market at the nearby town of Macclesfield when he was stopped by an aged man who offered to buy the white horse he hoped to sell that day. Refusing what he thought of as a poor offer, the farmer rode on, but despite much interest, no one bought his horse. On the way back the same mysterious man appeared, and this time the farmer accepted his offer. Leading him to the hillside, the man laid a hand on some rocks, which opened to reveal iron gates and a way into the hill. There the wondering farmer saw the great king and his knights, together with their mounts, asleep in a vast underground cavern. The horse was for one of the knights, and the farmer received a bag of gold for it before he fled, hearing the gates clang shut behind him.
Hart Fell, Dumfries and Galloway
Here, in the center of an area rich in sites associated with Merlin, lies a precipitous valley leading to what one of the leading authorities on Merlin, Nikolai Tolstoy, has identified with the cave where the celebrated sage took refuge after the battle of Arfderydd. Here, according to the Vita Merlini, he went mad and fled into the mountains. Hart Fell lies in the center of what was once the extensive Forest of Celyddon, where once again tradition places Merlin in his period of inspired madness. In the medieval romance of Fergus of Galloway294 can be found a description of its hero’s journey from the Moat of Liddel to the summit of the Black Mountain, where Merlin is again to be found. This fits so well with the local landscape as to be virtually conclusive in identifying the site with Merlin’s refuge.
Pendragon Castle, Cumbria
The ruins which crown this hill among the moors of Mallerstang near Kirkby Stephen are said to have once belonged to Uther Pendragon, Arthur’s father in the legends. There seems little grounds for believing this, as the castle is, in fact, a medieval edifice that belonged to Hugh de Morville, one of the murderers of Thomas à Becket. There may be the remains of earlier fortifications, however, and there is also local legend that tells how Uther tried to divert the nearby River Eden to fill a moat around the hill. A rhyme commemorates this:
Let Uther Pendragon do what he can,
Eden will run where Eden ran.
What may possibly be the remains of trenches can still be seen around the base of the hill, suggesting the truth of this story. References to a character named Uther (or Gorlasser) exist in early Welsh tradition, though nothing is known of him other than the tradition that makes him the father of the future king.
Cadbury Castle, Somerset
Cadbury has been associated with Arthur since at least the sixteenth century, when the distinguished antiquarian John Leland described it in his account of ancient British history. He wrote: “At the very south end of the church of South-Cadbyri standeth Camallate, sometime a famous town or castle…The people can tell nothing there but that they have heard say Arthur much resorted to Camalat…”295 Camallate or Camalat is, of course, Camelot, the famed citadel of Arthur where the Round Table was housed and from where the fellowship of knights rode forth in search of adventure and wrongs to right.
Whether the association of Cadbury is a genuine one has been hotly disputed for a number of years. There are those who think that Leland invented the connection from the close-lying place names of Queen Camel and West Camel. Others would have us believe the identification a true one. An archaeological investigation that took place there in the 1960s indicated that the hill, which is really an Iron Age camp, was refortified with extensive earth and timber defenses during the crucial period of the sixth century, when Arthur is believed to have flourished. The foundations of an extensive timbered hall and what appear to be the beginnings of an unfinished church add further to the speculation, as does the closeness of the site to Glastonbury Tor. A causeway known as King Arthur’s Hunting Track links the two sites, and a plethora of local legends support the Arthurian connection. As late as the nineteenth century, when a group of Victorian “archaeologists” came to investigate the stories clustering about the hill, a local man asked if they had “come to dig up the king.” Folklore still retains a memory of Arthur and his knights sleeping under the hill, while it is said that if one leaves a silver coin with one’s horse on Midsummer’s Eve, it will be found to be shod in the morning.
Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland
Towering above the tiny village of Bamburgh on the bare sandy coastline of Northumberland, the massive walls of this medieval fortress are one of two such places believed to be the original site of Lancelot’s castle of Joyous Garde. Interestingly, there was a Dark Age stronghold on the same site, which may account for this tradition. In 547 it became the capital of the Northumbrian “kingdom” of the Angles, who had settled there in the early part of the sixth century. As such it would have been a stronghold of the Saxon alliance, who were Arthur’s prime enemies in his fight to maintain British rule. At the time the site was not called Bamburgh but seems to have been named “Din Guayrdi,” which may have suggested Joyous Garde to Sir Thomas Malory, who first described it as Lancelot’s holding in his fifteenth-century Arthurian novel, Le Morte d’Arthur.296
Alnwick Castle, Northumberland
Alnwick is the second of two possible sites for Lancelot’s castle of Joyous Garde, the other being Bamburgh Castle some little way farther down the windswept coast of Northumberland. Sir Thomas Malory, in his great Arthurian romance entitled Le Morte d’ Arthur, mentions both: “Some men say it was Anwick and some men say it was Bamborow.” The present castle dates from the eleventh century, and like its neighboring fortress it was first settled by the Angles around the middle of the sixth century. If it was fortified before then, no sign of that occupation now remains.
On the whole, the suggestion of Bamburgh as the original site of Lancelot’s home seems more plausible—although, since Lancelot was himself said to have been a native of France, neither place seems particularly appropriate as anything more than a temporary base. A more interesting recent Arthurian association is that it was while staying in the present castle (the home of the Duke of Northumberland) that the American author John Steinbeck decided to make a new version of Malory’s great book for twentieth-century readers. He spent a total of twenty years working on this massive undertaking, which gradually grew to have less and less to do with Malory. Unfortunately, Steinbeck died before the work was completed, though the first two thirds were subsequently published after his death in 1968 as The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights.297
Wetton Mill, Staffordshire
In the great fourteenth-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight the hero encounters a fearsome figure with green skin, red eyes, and green clothing, who carried a great axe and rides a green horse.298 This is the Green Knight, a spirit of winter and of the otherworld, who offers a dreadful challenge to Arthur and his knights: to strike a blow with his axe that shall be returned in a year. Gawain cuts off the green man’s head, only to see him pick it up and to hear the mouth speak words, calling him to a return match at the Green Chapel a year hence.
More than one attempt has been made to identify the site of this mysterious chapel, which in the poem is no stone building but a cave amid deep delved rocks. One of the most convincing is Wetton Mill, also known as Nan Tor or Thurshole. It lies not far from the old Roman city of Chester on the Staffordshire moorland, where Hoo Brook runs into the River Manifold. Its local name associates it with the Norse god Thor rather than the Green Knight, but this is certainly a later addition. The scholar Mable Day was the first to point out the similarity between the description of the Green Chapel in the poem and this actual site. The poem was almost certainly composed in the area, and it is likely that the author knew the area around Wetton.
Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh, Scotland
This huge crag that rises to a height of 822 feet above sea level above the city of Edinburgh has been known as Arthur’s Seat since the fifteenth century. Part of Holyrood Park, it offers a tremendous view of the surrounding country and of the sea to the east. The “seat” itself is said to be the notch between the highest point of the peak and a secondary point a little way to the south. In fact, it is probably named after a local hero who happened to bear the name Arthur. Interestingly enough, Edinburgh is identified with the Castle of Maidens in several Arthurian tales. This is probably because one of its medieval names was Castellum Puellarum (Castle of Women). In the stories it is sometimes a place where a number of female prisoners are kept and at others seems to be occupied by seductive women whose function is to tempt knights who pass that way. In at least one version Arthur’s half sister, the renowned enchantress Morgan le Fay, is its mistress.
Badbury Rings, Dorset
This Iron Age hill-fort has long been among the contender for the site of Arthur’s greatest battle against the Saxons: Badon Hill. The claim is based primarily on the similarity in the names, but there is also a degree of incidental evidence based on its strategic importance and the fact that it was, like Cadbury and Castle Dore, refortified during the Arthurian period. Others argue that it was too far west to be the site of an important battle between the Saxons and the British, as the Saxons rarely, if ever, came this far inland at this point in time. However, they, like their British opponents, were perfectly capable of long marches.
Dozemary Pool, Cornwall
Here, according to local tradition, Sir Bedivere finally threw Arthur’s famous magic sword Excalibur. It took him three attempts, so drawn was he to the mighty weapon, but when he finally complied with the wounded king’s wish, a hand rose from the lake, caught the sword, and brandished it three times before vanishing again beneath the water. In fact, this is one of several sites where this event is supposed to have taken place (Pomparles Bridge at Glastonbury is another, as is Looe Pool and Llyn Llydaw). In reality, despite its atmospheric setting high on Bodmin Moor, Dozemary is one of the least likely sites for the last resting placed of Excalibur. For one thing, it is too far from any of the traditional sites of the Battle of Camlan, where Arthur received his fatal wound; for another, despite stories of the lake being bottomless, it is far from that and, in fact, dried up almost entirely in 1859, making it an unlikely home for the Lady of the Lake.
Lyonesse, Cornwall
To stand on the tip of Land’s End and look out towards the Scillies Islands is to view all the remains of a once-thriving kingdom. It was named Lyonesse, and tradition records that it was ruled over by Tristan’s father. After his death the young man became heir to this rich land, but he was never to come into this inheritance since the land sank beneath the sea while Tristan was still at his uncle Mark’s court in Cornwall.
Lyonesse has been variously identified with Lothian in Scotland, which was written in Old French as Loonois, and with Leonais in Brittany, while in Cornwall it is called Lethowstow. It is one of several such drowned lands, another being the Cantref Gwaelod, which once lay where Cardigan Bay now stretches. The sixteenth-century antiquarian William Camden collected a number of stories from the local people and recalls that they referred to the Seven Stones reef off Land’s End as the City of Lions (Lyonesse). They also claimed to be able to hear the bells of the drowned city ringing out during rough seas, a story which is still current today. Certainly if one takes a boat out on a quiet day it is possible to catch an occasional glimpse of walls beneath the water, while what are clearly the remains of fields can be seen when the waters are clear enough.
288. Carle, J. P. Glastonbury Abbey: The Holy House at the Head of the Moors Adventurous (Gothic Image, 1996).
289. Perlesvaus: The High Book of the Grail, trans. N. Bryant (D. S. Brewer, 1978).
290. Folie Tristan in Early French Tristan Poems, volume 1, ed. N. J. Lacy (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 1998), 259–302.
291. Tennyson, A. Idylls of the King (Penguin Books, 1983).
292. 13 Treasures of the Island of Britain (Tri Thlws ar Ddeg Ynys Prydain) ed. and tr. R. Bromwich, Trioedd Ynys Prydein (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1978; rev. ed. 1991), appendix III, edited from Cardiff MS 17, 95–6.
293. Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain, trans. L. Thorpe (Penguin, 1966).
294. Fergus of Galloway: Knight of King Arthur, ed. and trans. D. D. R. Owen (Phoenix, 1991).
295. Chandler, J., ed. John Leland’s Itinerary: Travels in Tudor England (Gloucester: Sutton, 1993).
296. Malory, T. Le Morte d’Arthur, ed. J. Matthews (Cassell, 2000).
297. Steinbeck, J. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (Hodder and Stoughton, 1977).
298. Gawain and the Green Knight, trans. S. Armitage (Faber, 2011).