Hey Blog! This week is a first for Home Ed In A Shed – as the post was written in CORNWALL!
Yes, we’re on holiday, and in this post I will document our time here so far. I’ve already started a diary of our time here, which helps me remember what we’ve done, as so much is crammed in I forget what happened two days ago! Hang on, that’s wrong. I can remember what happened two days ago, as we went to a place I’ve wanted to go to since I heard about King Arthur!
Tintagel castle is “a place where legends are made”. I can’t remember the Cornish translation except for “legend” – Henhwedhel. It sounds like something Tolkien made up! That’s not surprising – he studied languages extensively, and one of his elvish languages (more on magic in a later post) Sindarin, was inspired by Welsh, which is the closest language to Cornish. The reason for this is that when the Saxons came over the sea they pushed the native Romano-British people to the western extremities – Wales and Cornwall, the latter of which was known as west Wales. Cornish people prospered in the Dark Ages, building a settlement on a promontory known as Dintagel, which became one of the most important ports in the western seaways. The deep harbour next to it is a perfect place for ships, which meant that a booming trade industry built up. At that point Dintagel had around a hundred houses, and thereby a larger population than that day’s London!
It was in these days that the great warrior Arturus first emerged. Possibly conceived at Dintagel, we don’t know much about him, but we do know that bards and troubadours were telling “henhwedhel”s about a certain Arthur by the 1200s, as it was then that Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote down Historia regum Britanniae, better known as A History of the Kings of Britain. Someone needs to write an updated version, but in the first edition Geoff wrote about Arthur, the High King (strange that the post ‘High King of Ireland’ existed until at least the 1400s – any connections?) of Britain, trueborn son of Uther Pendragon and victor of the British, unfortunately (myth-buster and spoiler alert) most of which is ‘Uther’ rubbish. There’s no factual backing up, or any evidence whatsoever, of a round table and group of knights, or the ‘Golden Age’ the land supposedly enjoyed, or even that Joseph of Arimathea came here to leave the Holy Grail. Sorry. Either way, Arthur was supposedly conceived at Dintagel, which is the same as what The Always King, which I covered in my first book review, says. Immediately after his birth, the great magician Merlin (see my last post) spirited him away to the manor of a nearby knight. This family brought Arthur up until he pulled the sword from the stone (either a ceremonial sword or Excalibur, depending on the stories). Though I am a firm supporter of the old myths and legends, this was likely exaggerated – perhaps he was fighting and dropped his weapon, was about to be killed and snagged a random sword from the floor, saving himself. Either way, when the castle now standing on Tintagel Island was built, the location was chosen to link with the old myths and local folklore.
