TINTAGEL AND BOSCASTLE 341 of a wound then received. Not many miles distant is an earthwork still known as Mordred's Castle ; and at Carron, nearer still, there was formerly a mound or cairn known as Arthur's Oon (oven). All the picturesque detail in Tennyson's wonderful " Passing of Arthur " must be attributed to Cymric bards, to the genius of Malory, and to the poet's imagination ; we must be content with the con- clusion that Arthur was born but did not die in Cornwall. In any case nothing of the present ruins at Tintagel existed in the time of Arthur. Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote about the year 1150, says of the stronghold that "it is situated upon the sea, and on every side surrounded by it ; and there is but one entrance into it, and that through a straight rock, which three men shall be able to defend against the whole power of the kingdom." Even Gorlois, we remember, only gained admit- tance by stratagem. Tintagel, Dundagel, or Dundiogl, the Dunecheniv of Domesday, seems certainly to have belonged to Gorlois when Uther was Pendragon or Head-king of Britain ; it would have been a cliff-castle such as that on Pentire Head. As years passed the rock probably became more insular, and when the Norman stronghold was built it was connected with the mainland by a drawbridge. From earliest times the castle attached to the Earls of Cornwall, one of whom protected David, Prince of Wales, during his re- volt against Edward I. Later it was used as a kind of prison, a Mayor of London being confined within it. Elizabeth had some thought of re- storing it, for it had already become ruinous ; Leland says : " The residue of the buildings of the Castle be sore wetherbeten, and yn mine ;
