The Romances of Lyoness

The Parting of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, by Julia Margaret Cameron.jpg The Parting of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere 1874 (Illustration to Tennyson's Idylls of the King and Other Poems). Sitters are Andrew Hichens and May Prinsep.

he Land's End is romantic and beautiful in the extreme, and the prospect from it is one of indescribable magnificence. Tradition says that it formerly was connected by land with the Scilly Islands. The sea has carried away the ridge of rocks and point of land which is said to have been the fabled Lyoness that now lies beneath the waves. All Cornwall is full of King Arthur, who was born on and lies buried in its soil; and as we gaze along the reef of rock that projects beyond the vast irregular bluffs, we think of Tristram and Lancelot, of Galahad and Percival, and of their great leader. What a charm hangs about the Arthurian romances! We are glad that they have been the subject of a great poet's genius, for the stories are full of great deeds, of noble ideas, of chivalrous feeling; a grand foundation for the character of a nation."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Lands End

19th century story tellers

'The wandering minstrel, story-teller, and newsmonger appears to have been an old institution amongst the Cornish. Indeed Carew, in his "Survey of Cornwall," tells us that "the last of the Wideslades, whose estates were forfeited in the Rebellion, was called Sir Tristram. He led a walking life with his harp to gentlemen's houses." As the newspaper gradually found its way into this western county (the first one circulated in Cornwall being the Sherbourne Mercury), the occupation of this representative of the bards was taken away; but he has only become extinct within the last twenty years. These old men wandered constantly from house to house, finding a hearty welcome at all. Board and bed were readily found them, their only payment being a song or a droll (story).'

Hunt 1903