Callington is a town with a past; whether it has a future is problematical. Its past is remote; and if it has a future, that will be equally distant. Issachar was a strong ass couching between two burdens; and Callington lies low between the great bunches of Caradon and Hingesdon, two huge masses of moor said to be rich in minerals. In the times of Callington's prosperity it throve on these lodes of tin and copper. But now the mines are abandoned and the population has leaked away. Should the two mountains be again worked, then the profits will go to Liskeard, seated on a railway, on one side, and to Gunnislake, planted on the Tamar, on the other.
CALLINGTON
Callington occupies the site of the royal residence of the kings of Cornwall as princes of Gallewick. Here Selyf and his wife S. Wenn had their residence, and here S. Cuby was born. Here it is asserted that Arthur once had his court. And here also at one time was Caradoc Freichfras with his wife Tegau, the most honest woman in Arthur's court.
Who can say that it was not here that the boy appeared with the mantle, the ballad concerning which is in Percy's Reliques, though indeed in that it is said to have occurred in Carlisle?
"'Now have thou here, King Arthur,
Have this here of mee,
And give unto thy comely queen
All-shapen as you see.
"'No wife it shall become