Last year, as part
of a degree course in Tourism, I was asked to write an assignment on Cornish
writers. I chose those associated with Bodmin Moor and started off looking at
the King Arthur connections.
The Loneliness of the Spot
In Arthur Norway’s late
19th century account of traveling around Cornwall, ‘Highways and Byways of
Devon & Cornwall’, he concentrates on collecting folklore, with few pages
going by without the retelling of some myth or legend. Whilst on Bodmin Moor he tells his version
of the story of Tregeagle and Dozmary Pool.
This tells of how it was decided to punish Tregeagle’s ghost for
misdemeanours whilst alive. He was
given several tasks, one of which was to empty the pool using only a limpet
shell with a hole in the bottom.
It is one of many
tales involving Tregeagle and also one of many involving Dozmary Pool. The pool lies in a shallow bowl towards the
centre of the moor. These days it can
be easily reached by car from the A30 at Bolventor but for many years was a
fairly inaccessible place, ripe for inspiring myths and legends. Many believed it to be bottomless
“a thorn bush that had been cast into it not
long before having been found floating in Falmouth
harbour” (Norway 1897, p
208),
“Legend
maintains that it is connected underground with the sea, and one reading of the
name seems to support this; dos meaning drop and mer or mari the
sea” (MacArthur 1948, p 39)
The same book later
goes on to explain that the pool nearly dried up in 1890.
However, the tales
of Tregeagle and arguments over how deep the pool is pale into insignifigence
when told alongside another age old legend.
It is the story of King
Arthur and the Lady of the Lake that has constantly brought many to Dozmary
Pool over the last 100 years or so.
Around the middle of the 19th century the pool began to be
associated as the place that Sir Bedivere threw the sword Excaliber as Arthur lie dying.
A book about St
Neot parish published in 1833 makes no mention of
Arthur
“Michell in his Parochial History of St Neots
(sic) refers to the Tregeagle legend when describing Dozmary, but makes no
mention of Arthur, for he was writing before Tennyson had given the Arthurian
legend a fresh wave of popularity”
(Axford 1975, p 82-83).
But Tennyson himself had never made any mention of
Dozmary Pool and
“is said to have stated that he had in mind
Looe Pool near Porthleven”
(MacArthur 1948, p 40).
Certainly the description given in The Passing
of Arthur bears much more resemblance to Loe Pool than Dozmary.
So all day long the noise of
the battle roll’d
Among the mountains by the
winter sea.
Until King
Arthur’s
Table, man by man
Had fall’n in Lyonnesse about
there lord,
King
Arthur. Then, because his wound was deep,
The bold Sir Bedivere
uplifted him,
And bore him to a chapel nigh
the field,
A broken chancel with a broken
cross,
That stood on a dark straight
of barren land:
On one side lay the ocean, and
on one
Lay a great water, and the moon
was full.
(Tennyson 1875, p 102)
Tennyson though does seem to be the instigator of the
myth, whether he meant it or not.
“This piece of water is generally considered
to be the traditional lake into which Sir Bedivere hurled Arthur’s sword….The
loneliness of the spot is well described in Morte d’Arthur of Tennyson” (Brent 1880 (Inside
Merlin’s Cave 2000, p 121)).
In 1906 J Henry Harris in his book Cornish
Saints and Sinners says of the pool,
“This is the place that Tennyson
selected for the King’s death, and the mysterious disappearance of his famous
sword Excaliber”(Henry
Harris 1906, p 301).
Another traveller,
visiting around the same time, writes
“Twilight is not the best time to visit alone
this Middle Mere, into which, as local legend claims, Sir Bedivere flung
Excaliber” (Lewis Hind 1907,
p 288).
A hundred years on
the myth is still being told in countless books and films and on every website
that mentions King
Arthur. The
Cornish Gorseth, where people meet once a year to celebrate the Cornish culture
still requires bards to swear their loyalty to
“the
sword of King Arthur,
which came from the lake, and went to the lake again” (ceremonies of the Gorseth of the bards of Cornwall 1928 – present (Inside Merlin’s Cave 2000, p
191)).
But despite the fact
that the most important Cornish cultural ceremony still uses this image, it seems that
“strange women lying in ponds distributing
swords is no basis for a system of government.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from
some farcical aquatic ceremony.”
(Monty Python 1975)
and similarly the
link between Dozmary Pool and King Arthur has never actually existed in literature.
Leaving Dozmary Pool
aside, King Arthur still haunts the moor. Not far to the east of Dozmary Pool is a
natural rock formation named King Arthur’s Bed and high on the moors near St
Breward is King Arthur’s Hall. Discussions
as to what this site was used for and how old it is have been going on for many
years. It may be that it dates back to Arthur’s time, or even earlier, but its association
with him is as weak as the links with Dozmary Pool, even though it was known as
Arthur’s Hall as far back as the 1600s when it was
described as
“a place so called, and by tradition helde to
be a place where-unto that famous K Arthure resorted” (Norden 1610 (1966 edition p 49)).
However this is not
the earliest connection of Arthur to the moor, this honour is believed to fall
to John of Cornwall. He wrote in the
mid 12th century, The Prophesy of Merlin, reported to be
translations of old Cornish manuscripts.
In it Brentiga is mentioned,
“Brentiga is a certain wilderness in Cornwall
and in our language it is called the Down of the Tree, in the language of the
Saxons, Fowey Moor” (John of
Cornwall 1150 (Inside Merlin’s Cave 2000, p 47)).
Whether fact or fiction, the truth is that
Arthur brings many a visitor to Cornwall and be it 12th century
translations or 21st century blockbusters, his shadow shows no signs
of disappearing from the landscape.
© MCamp 2006
In May
2008 Mark worked with Classical Pursuits, tour operators from Toronto,
in guiding a group of North Americans around the Cornish landscape that
inspired the Arthurian legends. Click here for more info on Classical Pursuits tours