The Danes and the Cornish are reported to have concentrated their forces to oppose Egbert the Saxon. In 835 the combined body are reported to have met, and fought a pitched battle on Hengistendane, (now Hengistondown,) near Callington. The Cornish were so totally routed, that Egbert obliged the Danes to retire to their ships, and passed a law “that no Briton should in future cross the Tamar, or set foot on English ground, on pain of death.”[34]
In 997 the Danes, sailing about Penwrith-steort, landed in several places, foraged the country, burnt the towns, and destroyed the people.[35]
Many of the traditions which are given in different parts of these volumes have much of the Danish element in them.[36]
KING ARTHUR IN THE FORM OF A CHOUGH.
I quote the following as it stands:—[37]
“In Jarvis’s translation of “Don Quixote,” book ii., chap. v., the following passage occurs:—
“‘Have you not read, sir,’ answered Don Quixote, ‘the annals and histories of England, wherein are recorded the famous exploits of King Arthur, whom, in our Castilian tongue, we always call King Artus; of whom there goes an old tradition, and a common one all over that kingdom of Great Britain, that this king did not die, but that, by magic art, he was turned into a raven; and that, in process of time, he shall reign again and recover his kingdom and sceptre, for which reason it cannot be proved that, from that time to this, any Englishman has killed a raven?’
“My reason for transcribing this passage is to record the curious fact that the legend of King Arthur’s existence in the form of a raven was still repeated as a piece of folk lore in Cornwall about sixty years ago. My father, who died about two years since, at the age of eighty, spent a few years of his youth in the neighbourhood of Penzance. One day he was walking along Marazion Green with his fowling-piece on his shoulder, he saw a raven at a distance, and fired at it. An old man who was near immediately rebuked him, telling him that he ought on no account to have shot at a raven, for that King Arthur was still alive in the form of that bird. My father was much interested when I drew his attention to the passage which I have quoted above.
“Perhaps some of your Cornish or Welsh correspondents may be able to say whether the legend is still known among the people of Cornwall or Wales.