Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/166

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122
CAMELFORD


was also in Wales, where he is spoken of in the lives of some of the saints, as we have seen, always as a bully. And he was in Scotland opposing the advance of the Bernicians. His father, Uthr, had been head king before him, but Geraint had been chosen as Pendragon on the death of Uthr ; Geraint fell in 522, and it is held that Arthur perished in 537. There are several reminiscences of King Arthur in the district. At Slaughter Bridge he is thought to have fallen. Above Camelford rise Dinnevor (Dinnas-vawr), the Great Castle, and King Arthur's Downs, with a singular oblong rectangular structure on it called King Arthur's Hall, the purport of which has not been discovered. At Tintagel are his cups and saucers, hollows in the rock, and his spirit is said to haunt the height as a monstrous white gull wailing over the past glories of Britain. At Killmar is his bed. Near Tintagel is Porth-iern, which is either the Iron Port or that of Igerna, Arthur's mother; at Boscastle is Pentargon (Arthur's Head). The Christian name of Gwenivere, his faithless wife, is still by no means rare, as Genefer.

Tintagel is but a fragment. There was anciently a rift with a bridge over it between one court of the castle and the other; but the rift has expanded to a gaping mouth, and rock and wall have fallen to form a mound of débris that now connects the mainland with what, but for this heap, would be an islet.

Tintagel, properly Dun-diogl, the "Safe Castle," has been built of the black slate rock, with shells burnt for lime. A few fragments of wall remain on the mainland, and a few more on the island, where