Gorlois, the husband of Igraine, had been the possessor of two castles, Tintagel and Terabyl (or Damaliock), which may be judged to have been at no great distance from one another. Terabyl is untraceable, though it has been suggested that while Tintagel Castle was solely upon the peninsula (Barras Head) which juts into the sea, Terabyl was the castle upon the mainland. This theory is untenable. It is only in comparatively recent times, with the widening of the chasm between the peninsula and the mainland, that a division of any importance can be noticed; and it is safe to assume that there was never more than one castle at Tintagel. The rent in the rocks was spanned by a huge bridge, as the crenellated walls now reaching to the edge on either side and in a direct line with each other plainly attest. Terabyl, in which the Duke entrenched himself when Uther Pendragon brought his hosts against him, was evidently further inland than Tintagel, and the latter, distinctly avowed to be “ten miles hence,” was selected as the refuge for Igraine. Uther, marching southward from Camelot, reached Terabyl first and laid siege to it; to reach Igraine at Tintagel he had still to ride some distance. “The Duke of Tintagil espied how the king rode from the siege of Terrabil, and, therefore, that night he issued out of the castle at a posterne”—(Terabyl was noted for its “many issues and pasternes out”)—“for to have distressed the king’s host. And so, through his own issue, the Duke himself was slain or ever the king came at the castle of Tintagil.” Geoffrey of Monmouth calls Terabyl “castellum Dimilioc,” but under this name it is no less a mystery. As it receives incidental mention only twice afterwards we may well be content to rank Terabyl among the cities of romance, the names of which alone existed. It may have been as unsubstantial as the enchanted cities created by mysterious maidens for their courteous and faithful lovers, which cities vanished in a night if vows were broken or false words uttered.
It is said in some of the romances that twice a year the Castle of Tintagel became invisible to the eyes of the common people. To-day it is only in imagination that we can perceive the real castle of Arthur, for whatever British fortress may ever have risen on these heights has long since vanished—crumbled away into dust which is as nothingness. Authentic history takes us back only to the time of the Norman Conquest, when Tintagel was entered in Domesday Book as Dunchine, or Chain Castle. It is the firm opinion of archæologists that the Romans entrenched themselves here and left signs of their occupation, and there are the strongest reasons for believing that Tintagel was a British place of defence before the Roman invasion. Nature had marked out the rocky height as a stronghold, and a race like the Britons could scarcely have failed to avail themselves of all the advantages it offered. But when we first read of Tintagel Castle apart from the romances we find it in the occupation of English princes, notably of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, otherwise known as the King of the Romans, who in 1245 gave noble entertainment to his nephew, Prince of Wales, then carrying on a desperate war for freedom against the English king. The use of Tintagel as a prison from which escape was almost impossible was recognised from early times until the reign of Elizabeth, at which era it began to fall into decay; and it was within the loneliest and most exposed portion of the island that John Northampton, Lord Mayor of London, who had abused his office, was immured for life by order of Richard II. A sculptured moorstone, now moss-covered and illegible, commonly called the altar-stone of King Arthur’s Chapel, is believed in reality to be a monument of John Northampton’s own carving, wrought to pass away the dreary days in his dungeon, and now marking the place of his tomb. What is known as King Arthur’s Chapel is a spacious chamber fifty-four feet long and twelve feet wide, the outline of which is barely traceable. It is supposed to have been dedicated to Saint Uliane.
In Leland’s time Tintagel Castle was “sore wether-beten an yn ruine,” and whether it was ever the stronghold of Arthur history does not determine. The name was formerly Dundagil, meaning “the impregnable fortress,” and Geoffrey of Monmouth did not exaggerate when he wrote of it: “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 of the kingdom.” Leland, less interested in the matter, testified that “the castelle hath bene a marvelus strong and notable forteres, and a large thinge.... Without the isle rennith alonly a gate-house, a walle, and a fals braye dyged and walled. In this isle remayne old walles, and in the est part of the same, the ground beying lower, remaynith a walle embateled, and men abyve saw thereyn a postern dore of yren.” The chronicler and antiquary Carew supplies further evidence of the strength of the structure. “The cyment,” he says, “wherewith the stones were laid, resisteth the fretting furie of the weather better than the stones themselves,” a fact which is strongly commented on also by Norden, who thought that “neither time nor force of hands could sever one from the other.” “Half the buildings,” continues Carew, “were raised on the continent (the mainland) and the other halfe on an island, continued together by a drawbridge, but now divorced by the downfalne steepe cliffes on the further side.” There is a consensus of opinion as to this drawbridge, Camden and other trustworthy historians all confirming the report as to its existence, and this further proves that there were not two castles at Tintagel.[17] The gigantic impression of a foot is pointed out to credulous pilgrims; it is the print left by King Arthur’s foot when he strode across the chasm—backwards. This is as much to be relied upon as the fact that the basins worn by the winds and waves in the rocks were King Arthur’s cups and saucers, and that a dizzy dip of the heights over the sea constituted his chair. It is surprising that the immense and awe-inspiring caverns have escaped the fate of being called King Arthur’s drinking-bowls. Yet all these conceits have their value as proof of the deep-rooted belief in the king’s might as a monarch and his stupendous stature as a man. The hero is rapidly passing into the myth when such attributes are ascribed to him.
Photo: R. Webber, Boscastle]
KING ARTHUR’S CASTLE, TINTAGEL
[To face p. 96
Tintagel must have been even more impressive a scene a few centuries ago than it is to-day, despite its wild sublimity in ruin. One more witness of old time may be called forth to give his evidence of what it was before the walls had been so buffeted and brought so low.
“A statelye and impregnable seate,” is Norden’s testimony, “now rent and rugged by force of time and tempests; her ruines testifye her pristine worth, the view whereof, and due observation of her situation, shape, and condition in all partes, may move commiseration that such a statelye pile should perish for want of honourable presence. Nature hath fortified, and art dyd once beautifie it, in such sorte as it leaveth unto this age wonder and imitation.” Tintagel is to be visited rather than described, though our most luxuriant poets have painted it with lavish richness of words, and artists have depicted some of its natural beauties in the most radiant of colours. From many a rocky verge can be seen the dark remnants of Arthur’s fortress, inaccessible on all sides but one; from the deep base the ocean spreads out without bound, surging and boiling and casting up steam-like fountains of hissing foam. Only a few arches and rude flights of steps, surmounted by a frail-looking wooden door, now remain, with some fallen walls which imperfectly outline the shape of what were once spacious royal chambers. On a carpet of turf wander the small mountain sheep, and pick their way about the narrow precipitous paths which wind around the jagged sides of the cliffs. The fortifications are in ruin, and the battlemented walls which encompassed the massive steeps are now nothing but disconnected strips over which the curious traveller looks into the angry waters grinding and regurgitating far below. The noble bridge which once stretched across the yawning chasm dividing the two promontories must alone be imagined, though its beginnings on each side may be traced by the line of low stone arches reaching, and stopping abruptly at, the edge. The hills “that first see bared the morning’s breast,” the heights “the sun last yearns to from the west,” as Swinburne has sung, are eternal, but Arthur’s castle has gone, and Tintagel, “half in sea and high on land, a crown of towers,” is even called by the dwellers no more by its old inspiring name.