CHAPTER XVI TINTAGEL AND BOSCASTLE WHEN we come to the region that is specially- sacred to traditions of King Arthur we find ourselves in the presence of wonderful natural charm and of considerable historic perplexity. Those who are content with the ordinary guide- books, and who have no conception of Arthur beyond what they may have gained from snatches of Tennyson, will not be troubled by this per- plexity ; they will take the crumbling walls on Tintagel heights to be the actual castle in which the Celtic prince was born, and any round table will suffice them as being that around which the king and his chieftains sat. But something a little better than this is desirable. We want Arthur to be something more than a mere ghost, something even more than the blameless hero of a beautiful Victorian poem. Yet if we go to the learned authorities the ghost becomes more ghostlike, the phantom becomes more dim ; it is mainly destructive criticism that we meet with, and assertions that are largely negative. In spite of this, there must be something tangible behind so persistent a rumour as this tradition of Arthur. Wherever the Brythonic tribes extended, there we find traces of him. The Gaels know nothing of him. Finn, Oisin, Cuthullin, Cormac — 335
