"To be by the translucent green, the blue
Deepening to purple where the weed is dense!
To hear the homing call as the brave sweep
Of wings is folded on a sea-girt rock!
To lie in golden warmth while tow'ring waves
Break with a lazy roar along the cliffs—
To lie and dream."
It is here that Swinburne, venturing on a swim, was nearly drowned. The same story is told of him on the French coast, only there it was Guy de Maupassant who brought him back in safety. The great French writer is reported to have said that the little English poet, with his bladder-like head and attenuated body, struck him as hardly sane. Yet it was Maupassant who died mad, not Swinburne.
An Inscribed Stone
At Tintagel was discovered in 1888 a stone on which is inscribed IMP C G Val Lic Licin, i.e., Imperatore Cæsare Galerio Valerio Liciniano Licinio, who reigned 307-324 a.d. It is evident therefore that whether Arthur was here or not the Romans were. What a pity that no one has been able to discover any satisfactory evidence in enduring stone of the British king's existence!
The cruciform church on the cliff is largely Norman, but portions of it belong to almost every succeeding age and period. Some have even held that it contains Saxon work, but the authorities are not agreed.
A Dangerous Occupation
On the way to Trebarwith along the cliffs—and Trebarwith is a narrow rocky opening up which the tide rushes with tremendous force—are quarries. It is strange to see men, with the carelessness of long habit, walk to the very edge of the cliff, lie down and, with their legs hanging over, feel with their feet for the rough ladder that leads down the rock-face to the quarry opening; or to see them stand on a plank that juts out over the sea, and is maintained in its position by a chunk of rock, casually adjusted. If the plank should give, or the rock roll aside! But a man stands there from morning till night loading and unloading slates.
The Battle of Gafulford
Inland from Tintagel is Camelford, with its local tradition of a battle. At Slaughter Bridge, near Worthyvale, one and a half miles from Camelford, fragments of armour, ornaments of bridles, weapons, have been found, and in 823 a battle was certainly fought at some place then called Gafulford between the Saxons of Devon and the Celts of Cornwall, a battle in which the Cornish were defeated. May not this unknown Gafulford be Camelford? Writers have suggested that this may have been the scene of Arthur's last battle; but the weight of tradition is against this theory, a more likely place having been pointed out in Scotland.