his perplexity; they will take the crumbling walls on
Tintagel heights to be the actual castle in which the Celtic prince
was born, and any round table will suffice them as being that around
which the king and his chieftains sat. But something a little better
than this is desirable. We want Arthur to be something more than a
mere ghost, something even more than the blameless hero of a beautiful
Victorian poem. Yet if we go to the learned authorities the ghost
becomes more ghostlike, the phantom becomes more dim; it is mainly
destructive criticism that we meet with, and assertions that are
largely negative. In spite of this, there must be something tangible
behind so persistent a rumour as this tradition of Arthur. Wherever
the Brythonic tribes extended, there we find traces of him. The Gaels
know nothing of him. Finn, Oisin, Cuthullin, Cormac--such as these
were the great Goidhelic heroes. But the British tradition reached
from Armorica to the Forth, and carried Arthur with it. The Welsh
claim him, the Bretons, the Cornish, the Lowland Scotch. Cornwall,
with Tintagel as an asset of faith, claims his birth; Somerset, with
Cadbury on the river Camel, claims Camelot; and Glastonbury boasts of
his grave. Of these claims, that of Cornwall is the most powerfully
supported; there is not only Tintagel, but Kelly Rounds, Damelioc, and
Cardinham. One of the Welsh Triads speaks of the three chief palaces
of Arthur as being Caerleon-on-the-Usk, Celliwig in Cornwall, and
Penrhyn Rhionedd in the north. Celliwig may safely be identified with
the partially effaced earthwork near St. Kew Station, known as Kelly
Rounds (probably from the Cornish _killi_, meaning woods or groves),
standing in what may be described as a Kelly district, for we have
here in a cluster such names as Kelly Green, Kelly Farm, Bokelly,
Kelly Brae, Calliwith. The Rounds have been cut across by a road, but
there are distinct traces of two ramparted circles, with some remains
of a sheltering earthwork to the west. Damelioc, a large and strong
entrenchment with three concentric ramparts, lies about seven miles
south-west of Tintagel; and it was here that Gorlois, Duke of
Cornwall, took up his position after placing his wife Igerne for
safety within Tintagel itself. The common story says that Uther, mad
with love, overcame and slew Gorlois at Damelioc, and gained admission
to Tintagel in his guise, thus becoming the father of Arthur. Of
course, there is the other tradi