A Day With King Arthur

A steep walk down to the coast and the entrance to the ruins of Tintagel Castle, the supposed birthplace of King Arthur.

An old house built inside the original great hall of King Arthur's time. Not much left of either but you can see a shorter wall in the front of the house that extends farther out from the photo on either side.

Looking out from the ruined great house to more of the town's houses. Watch your toddlers! A mis-step here is fatal.

The view across the bay. Merlin's cave, where Arthur was found, is a cave underneath the hillside I'm standing on but similar in looks to those I'm looking at. There was quite a booming sound coming from the waves splashing in and out in those caves. The whole area has more recently than Arthur been a tin mine. It's long silent now.

Somehow though the silence on the hillside is not quiet. The wind buffets and blows. Birds fly and call: mostly seagulls flying below us standing high on the cliffs but also a hawk hovering silently until it was chased off by an upset gull. The whole landscape is rugged. Not what I had expected to see in England although I've read that it is so. The countryside is bare of all except a hardy grass that somehow withstands even the salt air. The rocks are slate and worn down but also sharp where new parts have broken off. We spent quite some time walking around looking at the various foundation ruins. A fire swept through some years ago and revealed about a hundred foundations that had been previously undiscovered. There is no sign now of the fire. As we walked we noticed the enormous variety of flowers. Small, tiny little flowers but tenaciously hanging on and spreading everywhere. How does this stuff survive up here? There is also evidence of animals living up here. Again. On what? When we asked an attendant later he said that in addition to what are likely mouse or vole holes there is a fox's den at the bottom of a cliff near the water. Huh!

We were sad to leave the area but the shop was closing in a few minutes and the boys had swords and spears to buy and we had grandparents to pick up from the tea shop. So much left unexplored--the church, the other building on the other hillside.

Oh, I kept the first for another day, but knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever be back. *

*Robert Frost