Fig. 3.—Reproduced from the 25-inch Ordnance Map.

The Romancers of Britanny may easily have heard of a place so well known as Tintagel, and woven it into their fictions; but Damelioc seems to have attracted little attention, though mentioned by Gilbert in 1838, until it emerged from obscurity to find name and place in the last edition of the Ordnance map. Thus unknown or disregarded, it would scarcely have been selected as the scene of a purely imaginary romance. To me, the finding of Damelioc where and what it should be according to the story is an indication that this was dictated by something more substantial than imagination, though this faculty no doubt had much to do with its embellishment.

I have already quoted from the Welsh Triads assigned to the sixth century a reference to Arthur as ‘the chief lord at Kelliwic,’ and have referred also to other Welsh compositions, probably of little less antiquity, in which Kelliwic or Celliwig is spoken of in the same connection. Professor Rhys finds in the Triads an account of a raid made by Mordred[28] upon Arthur’s Court, apparently in Arthur’s absence, where the intruder left neither food nor drink unconsumed so much as would support a fly, and where he outraged the Queen. This is said to have occurred at Kelliwic in Cornwall, though it must be admitted that the association of the northern king with the southern fortress is suggestive of doubt. Kelliwic is elsewhere referred to as a place from which a certain marksman of exceptional ability was able to hit a wren in Ireland. Dismissing this as one of the super-additions to which tradition is liable, I revert from the archer to the king. If there be any truth in the tradition which places Arthur’s court or camp at Kelliwic, we ought to find some trace of it. If Kelliwic could be found as a place of defence in the Arthurian country, we might at least say that the coincidence was remarkable, unless the tradition had some substratum of fact. Now I venture to suggest that we have Kelliwic still with us under the name of that remarkable earthwork known as Kelly Rounds.

Kelly Rounds or Castle Killibury is about five miles from Damelioc, to which it bears a general resemblance, though possessing only two ramparts, with no traces of a third. The work is situated near the road between Camelford and Wadebridge, about 2½ miles from the latter, which is a well protected port. It consists—or rather I should say consisted—of two concentric circles, each with rampart and ditch. It is obviously a British camp. A road now cuts it into two nearly equal parts, of which that on the south has been nearly obliterated, while the northern segment is comparatively uninjured. The ramparts, of which the inner is the higher, present a maximum height of perhaps 15 feet, judging roughly by the eye. The diameter of the remaining semicircle is about 210 yards, measuring from the inside of the outer rampart, while the semi-circumference in the same position is 290 yards. On the west side are the traces of an outwork, or partial enclosure, which was evidently designed to protect the entrance.

The extravagance of the archer who ‘shot with a lusty longbow’ from Kelliwic to Ireland is not quite without significance, for it may be held to show that Kelliwic, like Kelly Rounds, was opposite the Irish coast.

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Fig. 4.—From the 25-inch Ordnance Map.

We may with some confidence identify Kelly Rounds, or Castle Killibury, with Kelliwic, and discern in it, as in Damelioc, a definite association with Arthur.