King Arthur at Tintagel

King Arthur being taken by Merlin - The Boy's King Arthur: Sir Thomas Malory's History of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, Edited for Boys by Sidney Lanier (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922). Scanned by Dave Pape.

"Arthur was born in Tintagel, and kept his court in manhood here, at times, surrounded by his famous knights. Fuller gives us this quaint account of the King of British chivalry.

"King Arthur," he says, "son of Uther Pendragon, was born in Tintagel Castle, and proved afterwards monarch of Great Britain. He may fitly be termed the British Hercules in three respects : (1) for his doubtful birth; (2) painful life - one famous for his twelve labours, the other for his twelve victories against the Saxons, and both of them had been greater had they been made less, and the reports of them reduced within the compass of credibility. (3) Violent and woeful death: our Arthur's being as lamentable and more honourable, - not caused by feminine jealousy, but masculine treachery - being inurdured by Mordred near the place where he was born,-

'As if no other place on Britain's spacious earth
Were worthy of his end, but where he had his birth.'"

Valentine (Undated)

Map - Tintagel