SOME POSSIBLE ARTHURIAN PLACE-NAMES IN WEST PENWITH.

by HENRY JENNER.

     The subject matter of this paper has arisen out of my endeavours to interpret Cornish places-names.
     I must disavow all claim to being an Arthurian expert. I have, it is true, read most of the Arthur literature, from Nennius to Tennyson and Hawker, at one time or another, but though no doubt one cannot help unconsciously forming theories as one goes along, theories which may vary from time to time, I have read the stories primarily because they were such very good stories, such very excellent literature, and did not 'apply them to establish any doctrine,' and I have not followed all the Arthurian and Grail controversy with any minuteness. I approach the subject only as something of a Celtic philologist and student of place-names.
     Though I have called this paper 'Some possible Arthurian place-names in West Penwith' (and these possible place-names are the occasion of it), it will be necessary to say a certain amount about the existence of similar names elsewhere, and about the various theories that have been held as to how such names illustrate and elucidate the Arthur legend generally. For that reason, if one goes by the number of words employed, the proportion really devoted to West Penwith is comparatively small, but that I may say, to start with, is the only part of the paper for which I can claim any originality. I do not think that part has ever attracted the attention of anyone else, and I am glad of an opportunity of putting forward a rather startling tentative theory, which I certainly think has something in it.
     It seems to me that the best theory on the subject of the Arthur legend as illustrated by place-names or otherwise is that which points to three Arthurs:
     1. The Mythological Arthur, a culture hero of sun-myth, or whatever he may have been.
     2. The Historical Arthur, a real leader of the Britons against the Saxons and Picts, and of the Christian and Romanized Britons against a recrudescence of Paganism.
     3. The Arthur of Romance, a mixed conception founded on the mythological and historical Arthurs, with additions from various sources and a considerable amount of imagination.
     The Mythological Arthur is an obscure idea. It is not at all clear what he represented, and there are various theories. But whatever he may have been in his origin, it is to this Arthur that constellations, hills and other natural objects are dedicated, and after him were called many of those mysterious giant structures of a bygone age which the Saxons as Pagans called after Woden, either by that name or by the epithet 'Grim,' and when they became Christians attributed to the Devil.
     The Historical Arthur was undoubtedly a real man, a Romanized Briton or a Britonized Roman. When the Roman legions were finally withdrawn from Britain in the early part of the fifth century, the Britons seem to have continued to elect Emperors of their own, as they had tried to do even earlier. These were given in British the title of which the modern Welsh form is 'Gwledig,' derived from the word of which the Welsh form is now 'gwlad,' a country. Gildas uses 'Aurelianus' in the same sense in the cases of Ambrosius and Conan, and Nennius,¹ though he uses 'Gwledig' of Ambrosius and Cunedda, calls Arthur, whom the early poems call 'Gwledig' and 'Amherawdwr,' (that is, Emperor) 'dux bellorum.' The title 'Gwledig' is also applied in Welsh to Maximus, the Emperor who was first set up at the Roman Wall against Gratian and Theodosius, and afterwards ruled over Britain, Gaul and Spain, until he was defeated and put to death by Theodosius at Aquileia in 385. After the fall of Maximus the Britons, or the army in Britain, elected three Emperors in succession, Gratian, called 'Municeps,' and Marcus, both of whom had very short reigns, and Constantine, who was more successful. Constantine took over to Gaul the remainder of the Romano-British army, and his subsequent career does not concern us now. The Britons were left to defend themselves, and they seem to have continued to make the Wall and the Saxon Shore (the east coast) the principal military points, as the Romans had done. They elected Cunedda to be 'Gwledig,' probably in 407 or 408, after Constantine went to Gaul with his army, for he was certainly going on in 410, when according to Nennius he came from Mannau Gododin (on the shore of the Forth) and drove the Scots (i.e. the Irish) out of South Wales. There is a 'Gwledig' mentioned in the Welsh genealogies who may have come next, Anlawdd, but Gildas, Nennius and the early poems do not mention him. He married Gwen, daughter of Cunedda, and was the father of Eigr (Igraine). The next of whom we hear anything is Ambrosius or Emrys, who according to Gildas and Bede was a man of Roman descent—Gildas says he was the only one left in Britain—whose relations had worn the purple, and, according to Gildas, had been slain in the late troubles. Nennius makes him say, in a story which is a variant of the Merlin and Vortigern legend, and seems to confuse Merlinus and Aurelius Ambrosius,² that his father was a Roman consul. Geoffrey of Monmouth makes him one of the three sons of Constantine, the last of the British Emperors of whom writers other than British tell. (Those who identify Constantine with the Cystennin Gorneu of the Welsh genealogies make him the father of Erbin of Damnonia). One of these sons, Constans, is known to Greek and Roman writers. He became a monk, but had to give up the religious life when his father became Emperor, and eventually was put to death at Vienne in 411 by Gerontius,³ a rebellious general of his father's. Geoffrey, who had evidently got hold of the story of the real Constans somehow, perhaps from the 'Historia Francorum' of Gregory of Tours, confuses it into his being taken from a monastery to succeed his father in Britain, and being deposed and murdered by Vortigern, who had ruled the kingdom under him. The whole Vortigern episode comes in at this point, but Vortigern is always King, not Emperor or 'Gwledig,' and seems to have represented the Pagan rather than the Christian party among the Britons. Ambrosius became 'Gwledig' after the death of Vortigern, whose story is given by Nennius in substantially the same form as that in which Geoffrey gives it, and is alluded to by Bede. The story of the check given to the Saxon invaders by Ambrosius is told by Gildas, Bede and Nennius, but it is only Nennius who has anything to say about Arthur, and he gives no clue to his origin, but only says that he was chosen 'dux bellorum,' though there were many of higher rank than he. Geoffrey appears to be the first to give the romantic legend of his parentage, or to make him out to be the son of Uthyr Pendragon, the brother of Ambrosius, and apparently 'Gwledig' after him. Uthyr is mentioned in one or two of the early poems, but he is a very shadowy character, except in the romances, and there are those who say that his whole origin is that some of the copies of Nennius call Arthur 'map uthr,' which may be only the Welsh for 'enfant terrible.' Whatever the parentage and relationship of Ambrosius and Arthur may have been, they seem not only to have led the resistance to the Saxon invaders, but to have represented the Christian and Romanized party among the Celts, first against Vortigern and later against Modred, the son of that Llew or Lothus, who is called in the Life of St. Kentigern, 'vir semi-paganus.' Arthur, having defeated the Saxons in the twelve battles mentioned by Nennius, evidently meets his end in a battle against a coalition of Pagan Britons under Modred, who was perhaps an apostate, with Picts, Saxons and other heathen. There would seem to have been a considerable survival and revival of Paganism after the Britons were left to themselves. The kings whom Gildas scolds were by way of being Christians of sorts, though the most important of them, Maglocunus, or Maelgwn of Gwynedd, was evidently 'hedging,' but there was plenty of Paganism going on in his day. The battle of Ardderyd in 573 seems to have been the death-blow of the Pagan party and resulted in consolidating the Strathclyde Britons into one kingdom, which lasted until the Saxon King Edmund conquered it in 946.
     Our authority for the historical Arthur is chiefly Nennius, the 'Historia Britonum' attributed to whom was probably written in the late seventh or early eighth century, though the MSS., the oldest of which are of the tenth century, are continued down to the time of their writing. It was probably composed in Welsh and translated into Latin. There are also allusions in five or six of the poems in the 'Four Ancient Books of Wales.' The MSS. of these are only of the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, the period of the development of the romances, and some of the contents are certainly Welsh adaptations of French romances; but the internal evidence of some of the poems shows that they contain matter of early origin, though in a modernized form.
     The Arthur of Romance. While the historical Arthur was living, and for some time after, the country in the possession of the Britons extended without a break, except the Channel, from the Clyde to the Loire. Intercommunication was complete, and the history of the whole empire was in common. Later events broke up this British territory into separate kingdoms, Brittania or Llydaw, divided into Leonais, Cornouailles and other temporary counties and duchies; Damnonia, later to be called 'Cornubia' and shorn of half its extent; Cambria, in its divisions of Dyfed, Gwynedd and Powys; and Cumbria or Strathclyde, all isolated one from the other. In each of these the tradition of their great leader, who had kept them together at a critical period of their history, might well go on independently, especially in what was probably his native country and his own kingdom, Cornwall; for the constant later form of the tradition, which developed into the romances, represents him as a Cornishman. To Brittany there were many later migrations from Cornwall, though, as Dr. Hodgkin pointed out in his address to the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic last year—and I quite agree with him—there is a large basis of historical truth in the story, told by Geoffrey of Monmouth and alluded to by Gildas, of an earlier migration under Maximus and Conan Meriadoc at the end of the 4th century. There is evidently a stage in both decadence and progress when geography does not matter much, and traditional events tend to be localized in the country of the narrator. It was in Brittany, the largest, the most populous, and perhaps the most British of the Brythonic Celtic districts, that the legends were best preserved. mediæval Cornwall was not sufficiently cultured to have much of a literature, Wales had other things to sing about, and other heroes, who were more to the Welsh than Arthur, and the British language and thought died out comparatively early in Strathclyde, what there was of it being transferred to Wales, for it was the Strathclyde tradition which was the source of much of the inspiration of Nennius, and of the few Arthurian allusions in the early Welsh poems. When Brittany came in contact with the great literary movement of the twelfth century and onward, what were originally folk-tales, folk-ballads, and historical traditions formed a basis for new romances, and were embroidered to suit the new chivalric setting, so that stories of various periods were jumbled up together and were given a mediæval mise-en-scène. The Arthur of the romances was no longer a sixth century Romano-Briton, but a twelfth century and later Norman or Frenchman. With the Arthur legend were mingled others, not necessarily connected in their origin. Among these were the Welsh Melwas story, which perhaps became the foundation of that part of the Lancelot which does not relate to the Grail; the Merlin legend, which perhaps belongs originally to the St. Kentigern story; the Cornish Tristan romance, a story which comes through Brittany, and in its historical setting perhaps belongs to a later period than that of Arthur; and last, but not least, the great Eucharistic allegory of the Holy Grail, which is only accidentally Arthurian, and, whatever there may be of pre-Christian elements in its symbolism—and I do not think there is anything like as much as many people try to make out—is really only the answer of romantic and popular Christendom to the teaching of Berengarius, as the definition of the Fourth Lateran Council was the answer of the theologians. The romantic Arthur is fore-shadowed by the page or so of Nennius, which tells of him and his Twelve Battles—a suspicious number, though it is meant for history—and by four or five allusions in early Welsh poems, of which the manuscripts are in no case earlier than the twelfth century, and the basis of the contents may be of any date from the sixth onward.
     The history of Geoffrey of Monmouth, professedly and perhaps truly derived from a Breton source, with suggestions, not always understood by him, from Gildas, Bede, Nennius and Welsh tradition, became the principal foundation of the legend, which was afterwards developed, with direct help from Breton legends and lays, by Chretien de Troyes, Marie de France, Robert and Elie de Borron, Walter Map, the Germans Gottfried von Strassburg, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Hartmann von Aue, and the rest. Geoffrey's wild story of campaigns on the continent against the Romans seems to be founded partly on the exploits of Maximus and Constantine, and partly on battles of the historical Arthur, which really happened in Britain. The legends in their romantic form 'caught on.' In insular Britain they were found to agree in some respects with stories already current there, on which they possibly reacted, and the folk-lore of the mythological Arthur was mixed up with them. The romances did not pretend to be history. They were frankly fiction, and are of no more value for the personality of Arthur than Thackeray's amazing libel in 'Esmond' is for the personality of that later 'blameless king,' albeit uncrowned, James the Third and Eighth. But they have history, and geography in the form of place-names, mixed up with them, muddled up though they are through long descent of popular tradition. I think that that tradition came from Britain by way of Brittany to the world outside of Celtia, and that Cornwall, apparently the only place where possible Arthurian place-names, other than those containing the name of Arthur himself, are fairly common, and where the popular tradition seems to be the most definite, was probably the original home of it. It is for this reason that it is worth while to pay attention to any Cornish place-names which appear to refer to the Arthur story, especially when the localities in which they occur are the scenes of unliterary popular tradition as well.
     The romances naturally contain also many names of followers or enemies of Arthur. Of these some are taken from other romances which, as I have said, have been interwoven with the Arthur story, and others have been invented for fiction purposes. There remains, however, a considerable residuum of historical characters, whose existence may be inferred from earlier records. Kay, Bedevere, Urien of Rheged and his son Owain, Llew or Lothus of Lothian and his son Modred or Medrawt, Angusel or Arrawn, Gawain or Gwalchmai, Cador and Constantine of Cornwall, Hoel of Armorica and others of the principal characters, are persons concerning whom the developed romances are not our only sources of information. They were probably some of them real leaders in the historical Arthur's campaigns. Whether they did all or any of the deeds attributed to them in the romances is another matter. Some of their names seem to come into the place-names of which I am going to speak.
     The identification of the sites in the Arthur legend by means of place-names and local traditions has been a very common object of study, and theories have been formed about several districts throughout Britain and Brittany. Perhaps the most elaborated is that put forward with great clearness by Skene is his 'Four Ancient Books of Wales,' and by Stuart Glennie in a dissertation attached to the Early English Text Society's edition of the English 'Merlin.' These, working partly on Nennius, partly on the early Welsh poems attributed to Aneurin, Merddyn, Taliessin and Llywarch Hen, and partly on place-names and local stories, came to the conclusion that the historical Arthur was a North British chieftain, the scene of whose exploits was principally in the country between the two Roman Walls, that is to say, between the Forth and the Clyde on the north, and the Solway, Cheviots and Tyne on the south, with occasional overlappings into the country immediately north and south of those boundaries. They identified the sites of the twelve battles, and placed them entirely in this district. Even 'Mons Badonicus ' is not Bath or Badbury, but Boudon Hill in Linlithgowshire, and the last battle, Camlan, which is not mentioned by Nennius himself, though it is mentioned in the later chronicle attached to one MS., and is alluded to in some of the aforesaid poems, they placed at Camelon, on the Carron near Falkirk. They found localized folk-tales in abundance, some of which coincide rather closely with incidents in the romances, and any number of seats, stones, ovens, chairs, wells, hills, and other things called after Arthur. The folk-tales may have been borrowed from the romances in mediæval times. The natural and pre-historic objects are probably called after the mythological Arthur, and are of no more value to history than Mrs. Quickly's theory of Falstaff's destination, 'He's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom.' But the identifications of the twelve battles, though not all quite convincing, have sufficient verisimilitude about them to make it probable that, wherever the events really happened, it was a Strathclyde tradition that Nennius got hold of. Skene, whose 'Four Ancient Books of Wales' is a book of which one can hardly speak too highly, without necessarily agreeing with all that he says, has worked out the history of the Britons of the North, from the middle of the sixth century down to the conquest of Strathclyde by Edmund in 946, in a manner which is at once consistent and convincing. But for the more shadowy period from the departure of the legions onward, that which includes the reign of Arthur, he has less to go upon. Though even Geoffrey and the romancers who followed him put some of the incidents in Scotland, even as far north as Loch Lomond, I must confess that I do not follow Skene in making the events of Arthur's career take place wholly in the north, and his argument from the silence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which chiefly concerns itself with South-Humbrian events, seems insufficient. There is one peculiarity of that chronicle which is not shared by the Welsh histories. It records victories, but takes little or no notice of defeats such things are better forgotten. Arthur was uniformly victorious over the Saxons, so it was better not to mention him. But if, as seems by his title, he was 'Gwledig ' or Emperor over all the Britons, he could hardly have confined his attention wholly to keeping the Roman Walls, though no doubt the principal military centre was there.
     In Wales the Arthurian sites are in a somewhat different position. There are a fair number of place-names which include Arthur's name, but they seem for the most part to refer to the mythological Arthur. Even in the Triads and so-called Mabinogion the Arthurian events, excepting some of those in the Tale of Cilhwch and Olwen, and those associated with Caerleon on Usk, do not usually happen in Wales. Of the five Arthurian tales in the Red Book of Hergest all except the 'Cilhwch ac Olwen' and the 'Breuddwyd Rhonabwy,' are adaptations from Chretien de Troyes, and therefore represent the Breton or Grail tradition. The 'Breuddwyd Rhonabwy' is a story of the dream of one Rhonabwy, who was one of the men of Madoc ap Meredudd ap Bleddyn, lord of Powys, who combined with Henry II. in the attacks which he made on Wales in 1159, and he dreams a number of wild and rather mixed-up Arthurian incidents, under the direction of Iddawc Cordd Prydain, who is here said to have been Arthur's ambassador to Modred before the battle of Camlan. The incidents do not seem to be related elsewhere, but there are allusions to historical events, Camlan, Badon Mount and others, and a considerable number of personal names are introduced. The wild tale of 'Cilhwch ac Olwen,' with the hunting of the 'Twrch Trwyth,' is of great interest. It seems to be a mixture of fairy tales and mythology, with what may be an allegorical account of incidents in the career of the historical Arthur. Whatever the story of the Boar Trwyth, who is hunted by Arthur from North Wales over into Ireland, and then back to South Wales and through Cornwall, may have been in its origin, it is a very early story. It is alluded to in one of the 'Gododin' Poems attributed to the sixth or seventh century Aneurin, and in the 'Memorabilia' of Nennius mention is made of a stone bearing a footmark of Cabal, Arthur's dog, made when the boar 'Troit' was hunted. The name of this dog, there called 'Caval,' comes into the tale. This story also is full of personal and place-names, but with one or two exceptions the places mentioned are not called after the Arthurian events which are alleged to have happened in them. It seems to be a Strathclyde legend localized in Wales. In a poem in the twelfth century 'Black Book of Carmarthen' there are allusions to what may be the semi-historical events on which the allegory is based. The principal characters, besides Arthur, in the poem are Kai and Bedwyr, and so they are also in the tale. In this tale and in the Triads the principal seat of Arthur is 'Gelliwic in Cornwall.' This has been identified with Callington, I do not know on what arguments, and with Kelly Rounds in Egloshayle. Mr. Owen Rhoscomyl, the well-known Welsh novelist, has a theory, expressed in an interesting but not very convincing pamphlet, entitled 'Dewi Sant,' that the Arthur of Gelliwic was not the 'Gwledig,' but a ruler whose country was the Lleyn peninsula of Carnarvonshire, a country very like Cornwall on the map, and he shews that that peninsula, with part of Anglesea, was once called 'Corneu' or 'Cornyw.' He certainly does find a 'Llanfair yn Nghornyw' in north-east Anglesea, and, which is still more remarkable, a 'Gelliwic' now existing in Lleyn, a little to the north-west of the road from Pwllheli to Aberdaron. His pamphlet would be more valuable if he had given his authorities more freely. In Welsh folk-lore Arthur comes in to some extent. 'Telyn Arthur,' Arthur's harp, is the constellation of Lyra, 'Aradr Arthur,' Arthur's plough, is the Great Bear, and 'Llath Arthur,' Arthur's Wand, is Orion's Belt. At Craig y Dinas in the Vale of Neath, there is a legend, very like certain German folk-tales of Charles the Great and Frederick Barbarossa, and the Danish story of Holge, of a cavern in which Arthur and his twelve knights are held in a magic trance until they are wanted to deliver their country. The usual peasant finds his way in and strange things happen. This is of course the mythological Arthur, and the story is mythological 'common form.' It seems as if, putting aside the mythological part, the Arthur tradition came into Wales in three ways—first, as Nennius got it, from the Strathclyde tradition; secondly perhaps from Brittany, and before the general popularization of the romances, when Rhys ap Tewdar returned from Brittany in 1077 and became king of South Wales; and thirdly, after Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chretien de Troyes and the rest had given the Breton tradition, amplified and romanticized, to the world. The legend does not, I think, belong to Wales at all. There Arthur, except in mythology, is only a second class hero. It is curious that out of the poems in the 'Four Ancient Books of Wales' only five mention him at all, and we do not know the real date of these.
     In Brittany there are not very many Arthurian sites, and there the mythological Arthur seems hardly known. Paulin Paris long ago identified places mentioned in the romances with places in Brittany and Western France. There is a castle of 'Joyeuse Garde' on the banks of the Elorn river, near Brest, with local Lancelot traditions. The Forest of Broceliande, near Ploermel, on the borders of the Morbihan country, and the Well of Baranton in it, are full of Merlin memories, and there is a whole nest of Tristan names in the Douarnenez neighbourhood. But the Breton Arthurian place-names and folk-lore of the present day have a literary flavour about them, and seem to come from the romances.
     There is a district in Somersetshire in which some Arthur names are found, a little to the north-east of Ilchester. At Queen's Camel there is a camp or hill-fort on a hill called 'Camelat' or 'Cadbury,' which is known as 'King Arthur's Palace,' and an 'Arthur's Well' is there also. An old variant of the name is 'Castle Camellek.' The river Camel close by has an 'Arthur's Bridge' over it. The association of the place with Arthur is as old as Leland's time at least. To Malory the 'Camelot' of Arthur is Winchester, which may be a confusion with Caer Went in Monmouth; but geography is not Malory's strong point, as the 'down by the sea close to Salisbury' witnesses. Those who substituted 'Camelot' for 'Carleon' or 'Cardnel' in the romances may have had this Somerset 'Camelat' in their minds. Of course Glastonbury is also in Somerset, the reputed burial place of Arthur. But the associations there are chiefly of the Grail, which is another development altogether, with no historical foundation, except the just possible truth of the St. Joseph tradition, and the discovery of the grave of Arthur in the time of Henry II. has every appearance of being a political 'fake ' of that astute king. Arthur is buried in so many places that one more would not matter much.
     The chief recognised Cornish Arthurian locality is the district the nucleus of which is the Tintagel country, with outlying spurs extending to the St. Columb Castle-an-Dinas, Bodmin Moors, Callington, and even more distant places. The romance writers from Geoffrey onwards took it for granted that Tintagel was the scene of Arthur's birth and of a good deal of his story, and such local tradition as there originally was has no doubt been largely improved and amplified by the romantic and mediæval form of the legend. Gorlois, the husband of Igraine, the mother of Arthur, has two castles, 'Tintagel' and 'Dimilioc,' or, as the French romances followed by Malory call it, 'Terrabil.' A hill fort in St. Kew has therefore been identified with Dimilioc, and is marked as 'Damelioc,' on no discoverable authority, in the 25-inch Ordnance Survey map, but there is also a 'Domellick' in St. Dennis, called in Domesday 'Dimelihoc,' and a 'Demelza,' where there is a small hill fort, in St. Wenn. These are both in the neighbourhood of Castle-an-Dinas, which, according to local tradition, was a hunting seat of Arthur.⁴ In William of Worcester's Itinerary of 1478 there is the following passage: 'Castellum Dynas super altum montem dirutum et fons in medio castri ubi Tador dux Cornubiæ maritus matris Arcturi fuit occisus, juxta villam sanctæ Columbæ.' There is here a curious apparent identification of the Duke of Cornwall whom Geoffrey calls 'Gorlois,' but whom Malory and his originals do not name, but only call 'Duke of Tintagel,' with Teudar, the Pagan king who put to death the Irish missionaries at Riviere. It seems to embody a tradition independent of Geoffrey.⁵ In the St. Meriasek drama it is Teudar's opponent, an unnamed Duke of Cornwall, who dwells in 'Castle an Dynas in Pydar,' and has another castle 'up the country' (war an tyreth uhel) which is called 'Tyndagyel,' and is his chief dwelling, while Teudar has only Lesteader in Meneage (in St. Keverne, near the Nare point) and Goodren in Powder (in St. Kea). The latter, as we shall see, is mentioned as his place in the life of St. Kynan or Ke, in Le Grand's Lives of Breton Saints. It was in Dimilioc or Terrabil that Gorlois was killed, according to the romances. There is nothing to show that this was near Tintagel, and it was while the disguised Uthyr, with Merlin and Ulfin of Ricaradoc (a place mentioned as a Cornish manor in Domesday), had gone off to Tintagel to deceive Igraine, arriving there at dusk, that Uthyr's followers slew Gorlois, who had made a sortie, and took the castle. This seems to indicate that the distance was something more than the eight miles between the St. Kew 'Damelioc' and Tintagel, though under the magical circumstances it was small blame to Uthyr's men that they could not find him, however near he might have been. It may be that Castle-an-Dinas, the strongest hill fort in all Cornwall, was in the minds of those who wrote the story. If 'Tremodret'⁶ in Roche (a Domesday manor) is 'the town of Modred,' which it seems to be, 'Trekenning' in St. Columb is the 'Town of Kynan,' and 'Enniscavan' in St. Dennis is 'the Island of Gawain,' which is possible, there are other Arthurian names near by.
     The Bodmin Moors district has several Arthurian traditions. I do not know whether Callington can be truly identified with the 'Gelliwic in Cornwall' of the Welsh tales and Triads^a, or whether Mr. Egerton Phillimore, a good authority, is right in thinking that the 'Caradigan' of the Welsh stories is not Cardigan, but Cardinham, where there is certainly some Arthurian tradition. Cardigan in Welsh is 'Ceredigion,' but Cardinham is, I believe, shown to derive its name from the Breton family of De Dinan, of whom it was the seat in the middle ages, and place-names outside Wales in the Welsh tales are not much to be relied on. But it is in the Bodmin district that there is a definite tradition which can be traced back to a time before Geoffrey of Monmouth. In 1113, twenty-five years before Geoffrey's first recension, and forty years before his second recension popularized the Breton form of the Arthur legend, a small incident is recorded which shows a Cornish knowledge of Arthur quite independent of the Breton, Welsh or Strathclyde tradition. It was in that year that some monks of Laon visited Cornwall on what seems to have been a begging tour. They stayed at St. Petrock's at Bodmin, and were taken to see 'Arthur's Chair' and 'Arthur's Oven,' and were told that this was indeed his native land 'secundum fabulas Britannorum regis Arturi,' as the contemporary writer Hermannus, who tells the story in his 'De Miraculis S. Mariæ Laudunensis,' rather rudely puts it. At Bodmin itself the monks got into serious trouble, and narrowly escaped being 'knifed' because they would not believe that Arthur was still alive. They do not appear to have seen 'Arthur's Hall' in St. Breward. Their chronicler mentions that similar stories were known in Brittany.
     The scene of 'that last weird battle in the West,' has been commonly placed at Slaughter Bridge on the Camel, a little above Camelford. There seems to be little doubt that this was the place that Geoffrey and those who followed him had in their minds, though we do not know on what already existing tradition the idea was founded. Geoffrey speaks of Arthur pursuing Modred to Cornwall 'usque ad flumen Cambulam.' Wace in 'Le Roman de Brut' calls the river 'Cambla,' Cambre,' 'Tambre,' and ' Tamble' according to various manuscripts. Layamon calls it 'Tambre,' and Robert of Gloucester makes it 'Tamar.' In the 'Vita Merlini,' probably also by Geoffrey, the battle is called 'Bellum Camblani,' and in this poem Merlin and Talgesinus (Taliessin) discourse of how after the battle they carried the wounded Arthur in a boat steered by Barinthus (identified with Barindeus, abbot of Druim-Cuillin, a friend of St. Brandan) to the 'Insula Pomorum,' which is of course Avalon, the beauties of which Taliessin describes:—

     In the chronicle attached to the tenth century copy of Nennius in the British Museum, which ends with 977, the battle place of Medrawd and Arthur is called 'Camlan,' and this is the form which is usual in Welsh. Giraldus Cambrensis ('Speculum Ecclesiæ' and 'De Institutione Principis') prefers the form 'Kemelen.' Malory's original, the French 'Morte Arthur,' the fourth part of the prose 'Lancelot,' attributed to Walter Map, calls it 'le champs de Sallebries,' which Malory, whose topographical knowledge leaves much to be desired, makes into 'a down by the sea close to Salisbury.' There may be some traditional confusion here with the battle which, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Cynric of Wessex, the son of Cerdic, fought against the Britons at Searobyrig (Old Sarum) in 552. But it was reserved for Tennyson, on what authority, if any, I have been unable to discover, to put the Last Battle into an apparently new setting:—

Then comes that marvellous description of the battle, which ends:

Whatever may have suggested this setting, whether it was some little known form of the legend, or whether it was a poetical intuition of his own, it was certainly not the Camelford site that was in Tennyson's mind when he wrote those lines. He was extraordinarily well acquainted with the whole of the Arthurian literature, and as a rule uses his authorities with a curious accuracy. I am inclined to think that he must have had some reason, other than mere caprice, for transferring the scene from the more usual Camelford site to what would do very well, whether he meant it so or not, for the Land's End country.⁷
     The Camelford local tradition may have been acted upon by the romances. Arthur's grave is shown there, but unluckily the stone was found to be inscribed in commemoration of one Latinus, the son of Magarius. But Arthur's grave is found in so many other places that it was no wonder that the author of 'Englynion y Beddau' (the Stanzas of the Graves) gave it up, and said 'Anoeth byd Bedd yr Arthur' (a world's mystery is the Grave of Arthur). It is said that weapons and other signs of a battle have been found in this place. But according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Ethelwerd, and Henry of Huntingdon, Egbert fought a battle at Camelford in 828 against the Cornish, and it may also have been the field of that battle of 'Gardmailank,' 'Gardmaelawc' or 'Gwarch-maelawc,' called by Camden, I know not why, 'Gaffelford,' which Ivor, son of Alan, King of Brittany, and Ynyr his cousin, as allies of the Cornish, fought against the Saxons, according to the 'Brut y Tywysogion' in 720 or 721. Except that, as Borlase expresses it, 'everything that is grand, uncommon or inexplicable is attributed to this Arthur,'there is really very little in the local traditions of the immediate neighbourhood of Tintagel and Camelford which might not have been borrowed from the romances, when once the idea was established that this was the Arthur country. There are apparently no names which suggest any of the other characters in the stories, and the names which there are suggest in many cases the mythological rather than the historical Arthur. The romances into which Tintagel fits best are those of Tristan. As King Mark's castle it is well identified. But, as I have already said, the Tristan story does not really belong to the Arthur cycle. King Mark comes independently into the life of St. Paul Aurelian (St. Pol) of Léon, as a king in insular Britain to whom St. Paul was chaplain, and to whom a set of little hand-bells, one of which is still shown in his cathedral, had belonged. This would make him much later than Arthur.
     There is a small possibly Arthurian centre a little to the south of Truro. Carlyon, in Kea parish, has been held to be the 'Carleon,' wrongly placed on the Usk, and called in the French romances 'Carduel,' at which Arthur held that Court on the Vigil of Pentecost, when the knights set out for the great Quest. One of the twelve battles of Nennius, the ninth, was 'at the City of the Legions which is called Caer Lion.' The tenth battle was at 'Trat Treuroit,' which puzzled both Skene and Stuart Glennie in their Scottish identifications. They make it out, rather lamely, I think, to be the Links of Forth, near Stirling, but apparently only on the ground that 'Trat' was no doubt 'traeth,' which would do for 'links,' and these were the only ones in the neighbourhood. Of course it does not follow that it need be in that neighbourhood at all. This battle is mentioned in one of the Welsh poems in the twelfth century Black Book of Carmarthen, a poem which is chiefly a glorification of Kai. I agree with them that 'Trat' is 'traeth,' as it would be in Welsh, or 'treath,' as we should write it, and the word means a 'strand or sandy shore.' Is it too fantastic to suggest that Arthur and Kai drove the Saxons from Carlyon northward, across the creek at Colenick, and came up with them and beat them again at 'Traeth Truro,' the strand of Truro? Not much is known for certain about the Kea or St. Kea after whom the parish is called. Stanton's ' Menology of England and Wales' says that he is not identified.⁸ Is it possible that he was no saint, but only Sir Kay the seneschal, who according to the Welsh poem took an important part in the tenth battle?
     A little to the north of Kea Churchtown is 'Nansa-vallen.' 'The Valley of Appletrees' is too likely a descriptive name to be necessarily Arthurian, and may be compared with the name of 'Appledurcombe' in the Isle of Wight. But it certainly suggests 'the island valley of Avilion.' Nor far off is Goodern, which according to the Cornish drama of St. Meriasek and Maurice's Life of St. Kynan, in Le Grand, was a castle of the pagan king Teudar or Tewdrig. If William of Worcester is right in calling him whom Geoffrey calls 'Gorlois' 'Tador,' and does not mean 'Cador' by it, here is another slight Arthurian association. There are several camps and barrows in the neighbourhood. I do not know the district, except from passing by it on the river, and have not yet exhausted its place-names.
     Passing westward, I have not found much that can be Arthurian, whether in place-names or local tradition, in Meneage, but I have not examined that country very much as yet. The parish of Constantine, on our way thither, is probably called after Constantine, son of Cador, the 'immundæ lænæ Damnoniæ tyrannicus catulus' of Gildas, who succeeded Arthur, slew the two sons of Modred, and, after a somewhat stormy life, repented, perhaps as the result of the scoldings of Gildas, and retired into St. David's monastery. He is an historical character, whose existence is fairly certain. 'Lestowder' in St. Keverne, near Nare Point, may mean, as the St. Meriasek play implies, 'the court of Teudar,' but one does not know the sixteenth century author's authority for attributing it to that king. Most likely he got his information from the 'Legenda' book of Camborne, which contained the Lessons of the Second Nocturn of the patron saint's feast. If these books had been preserved, we should be able to get a good deal of early Cornish history out of them and to check the Breton legends of saints, and their destruction is one of those things for which one does not thank the Reformation. There is a 'Carleen' in Mawgan, but there are several others about, and there is not much to be made of that, any more than there is anything to be made of the numerous 'Bareppers' (in Mawnan, Camborne, Gunwallow, and elsewhere). This is probably 'Beau Repaire,' fair retreat, but it is too obvious a name to have necessarily any reminiscence of the 'Castle of Beau Repaire' from which, according to Chretien de Troyes, Perceval liberated Blanche-fleur. It seems to have been a favourite mediæval name of the suburban villa sort. It is curious that in Wolfram's 'Parzival' Kingron the seneschal, after the taking of 'Pelrapar,' finds Arthur at his hunting lodge called 'Karminol.' It is not a far cry from Barepper in Camborne to 'Carnmeneles,' where there is a hill fort, and Barepper in Gunwallow is only a mile from 'Carminow' in Mawgan. But Wolfram puts his 'Karminol' in 'Briziljan,' which is evidently 'Brocéliande' in Brittany. Tregonning Hill, whereon is what Leland calls 'Cair Cinan, alias Gonyn and Conin,' may be called after Conan or Cynan. Leland says Conan had a son called Tristram.
     We cross the Hayle river, passing by where 'Rovier' or Riviere, the traditional castle of King Teudar, lies buried in the drifting sand of Phillack Towans. Across the estuary we may see Trevethoe, 'the Town of the Graves,' on the top of the slope of which is a rather good, but little noticed, menhir, with a hamlet called 'Mennor' (which is evidently 'menhir') on one side of it, and one called 'Longstone' on the other. There ought to be traditions here, but I do not know anything about them.
     Beyond the isthmus of low-lying land between the northern and the southern seas is a strange and separate hill country, full of memorials of a distant past. On its many round-topped hills there are generally signs of fortresses, some of them in good preservation—Trencrobm, the western Castle-an-Dinas, Chun, Caer Brane, Bartinney, Chapel Cam Brea, and the rest. The map is dotted all over with 'ancient British village,' 'stone circle,' 'cromlech,' and 'barrow.' Often a hill fort on the top, a cromlech on the shoulder of the hill and the remains of a village at the foot are found together. Perhaps the best specimen of this is at Chun, where the castle and cromlech are in good preservation and the foundations of the huts are easily traced. Round the coast are cliff-castles. St. Ives Island, the Gurnard's Head, Bosigran Castle, Kenidjack, Cape Cornwall and Castle Treryn (the Logan), and possibly others, seem to have been fortified headlands. There are 'allées couvertes' at Trewoofe, Chapel Uny, and Pendeen, a-considerable number of menhirion, and several stone circles, one of which, at Boscawen Ûn, in Buryan parish, is mentioned in an early triad as one of the three principal 'gorsedds' or session places of the Bards of the Island of Britain. And of all these very interesting remains, in which the district is richer for its size than any other part of Great Britain, there are next to no historical traditions. There are observances attached to some of them, which in spite of the modern spirit in education and religion still go on, though they are not easily got at by outsiders. Those who know are not always willing to tell, for example, why little heaps of pebbles are to be found on an altar-shaped stone, or at the foot of a menhir. Such stories as there are seem to be generally connected with piskies and giants and matters of that sort. But if, as is evidently the case, some 'fragments of forgotten peoples,' pre-Celtic folk like the Bigaudens of the Penmarc'h and Pont l'Abbé district of Brittany, do still dwell in Zennor, Morvah and St. Just, there are fragments of forgotten faiths as well, faiths with pre-Celtic magic, black or white, at the bottom of them. And of stories that can be connected with any known history there are very few. Are there any such stories enshrined in place-names? I cannot tell for certain, but it looks rather as if there were.
     The district has not as yet been accounted an Arthurian one. There is one Arthurian folk-tradition, of which I shall speak presently, and one undoubted Merlin association. But that appears at first sight to be all. But I think I have found a certain number of names which seem to commemorate characters in the Arthurian cycle of romances, and in what may be real Arthurian history. I do not say that this implies that any events connected with Arthur really happened in this district. That would be too large an assertion, and there are other-ways of accounting for the fact, if fact it be, that Arthurian names should have been given to these places.
     I will take the names more or less by their position.
     1. Bosigran. This is on the north coast, a short way to the west of the Gurnard's Head, which is the modern rather vulgar name of what, as the name of the neighbouring village shows, was once the cliff-castle of Treryn, or, as it is pronounced, Treen. It is a fine headland of granite, at the foot of Carn Galvar, the nearest approach to a real mountain in appearance in the district. Mr. J. B. Cornish, in his account of the embankments and forts of Cornwall in the Victoria County History, doubts whether it ever was a cliff-castle, and thinks that the so-called vallum and trench are only a modern hedge and ditch. He may be quite right, but it is only the name with which I am concerned, though it seems to be always called 'Bosigron (or Bosigran) Castle' now. 'Bos' is dwelling-place, house, and 'Igron ' or 'Igran,' as is common in words beginning with 'bos,' may well be a proper name. If so it recalls the name of Arthur's mother, Igraine. 'Igraine' is the Frenchified form of the romances. Geoffrey calls her 'Igerna,' and the Welsh form is generally 'Eigyr,' or 'Eigr.' The epithet in Bosigran may possibly be connected with the Cornish 'egr,' a daisy, or with a Cornish form of the Welsh 'eigren,' a young girl. The Iolo MSS., a poor authority, mention 'Eigron' as one of the sons of Caw, the father of Gildas, and say that he founded a church in Cornwall, but nothing is known of him, and the church has not been identified. But a name not far off adds to the possibility of the mother of Arthur being commemorated in this name.^b
     2. Bosworlas. This is a farm in St. Just, which is in the same district. The husband of Igraine was 'Gorlois,' and in composition an initial g not infrequently changes to w, if, as also happens after 'bos,' it does not change to c. 'The House of Gorlois' would therefore be either 'Bosworlois' or 'Boscorlois.' The former is the more likely of the two, if, as is very probable, the Cornish form of the name was 'Gworlos.' It has been suggested that the place was originally 'Boswollas,' lower dwelling, and in that case we ought to find a 'Boswartha' somewhere over against it, for these two names generally go in pairs. But there does not appear to be any such name near.^c
     3. Botallack. This may have a quasi-Arthurian association, though it belongs, if my conjecture is correct, to what I believe to be another set of stories, added to the Arthur cycle after the popularization of the romances in the twelfth century. The father of Tristan has various names given to him in the romances. The Breton tradition makes him 'Rioallen,' a name which may be the same as the 'Biwallus,' who is identified with Hoel (Ri-Hoellus, King Hoel) who came to Brittany in 513. The French tradition, in the 'Tristan' of Luces de Gast and the 'Palamedes ' of Élie de Borron, makes him 'Meliadus,' and this is the name which Malory represents as 'Meliodas.' But the Welsh allusions to Tristan in Triads and elsewhere invariably make him 'Tristan' or 'Drystan ap Tallwch.' There may be some confusion here with the name of a king of the 'Gwyddel Ffichti' (Picts), Drust mac Talargan, who just comes into Welsh history. But Botallack in St. Just may well be 'the dwelling of Tallack,' though not necessarily of that Tallack or Tallwch, who was the father of the Tristan of the romances. If, as is possible, 'Tallack' is an adjective derived from 'tal,' a brow or front, a word which is common enough in Welsh place-names, the name is otherwise accounted for, and would be fairly descriptive, for the place is on the front of a cliff. Also there exists still a Cornish surname 'Tallack.' It is only the accumulation of Arthurian names, or of what are possibly such, that would make one see any reason for including this one.^d
     These are all that the northern part of the peninsula supplies. Leaving the north coast we go to the south. On the edge of the district is St. Michael's Mount, which, or its namesake across the sea, it is not quite clear which, comes into the Arthur story. It was here (or there) that Arthur fought with the giant, who had carried off the daughter or niece of Hoel, King (or Duke) of Brittany. But that derived its present name, not as the romances tell, from a church founded in honour of St. Michael by Arthur after his victory, but from the legend of the apparition of the Archangel on the Mount, which, according to William of Worcester, happened in 710, and seems to be the 'Michaelis in monte tumba' of October 16 in the Salisbury calendar, though this is disputed, and the day and vision are claimed by the Breton Mount. In Arthur's time our Mount was certainly 'Dunsul,' 'the Mount of the Sun,' or, as it continued to be as long as the Cornish language lasted, 'Carrak Lûz en Cûs,' 'the Hoar Rock in the Wood.' Just above Penzance station is a hill-fort called 'Lescudjack' or 'Lescaddock.' This is clearly 'the court of Cadoc.' Cadawg ap Gwynlliw, Abbot of Llancarvan, called 'Doeth' or 'the Wise' is associated with Arthur's knights in late and not very authoritative Triads. The historical St. Cadoc was certainly a contemporary of Arthur, and we know from his life in Cott. MS., Vesp. A. xiv, that he visited the Mount. Mr. Baring-Gould conjectures (Lives of the British Saints, vol. ii, p. 40) that as one of 'the three knights that kept the Holy Grail' he was the original of Sir Galahad. But that is as may be.
     I am not going into the question of the submerging of Lyonnesse in historical times. I know nothing about geology, and it is better to avoid subjects one does not know anything about. I believe in a vague sort of way that granite is an igneous rock, and that a granite country is a 'land of old upheaven from the abyss by fire,' but of whether any of it may have 'sunk into the abyss again' in historic times I am no judge. From what some geologists have told me it seems to be against the rules of the game, as at present understood, though there is some difference of opinion. But geological evidence or not to the contrary, there is a persistent tradition of a subsidence in Mount's Bay, its previous state is probably the reason for the Cornish name of the Mount, and, as is well known, trunks of trees have been discovered in the Bay below high-water mark. If any such subsidence did take place within historic times, not perhaps 'by fire' or any volcanic agency, but by the inroad of the sea into low-lying land, and in the usual exaggerated form gave rise to the legend of Lyonnesse, the story probably relates to a tract of land or a fringe of coast from Cuddan Point across to Newlyn and Mousehole, and perhaps along the coast towards Lamorna and the Logan. It would not take much to submerge some more between Penzance and Marazion. It is at Mousehole that we begin to find Arthurian names.
     4. Men Merlin or Merlin's Rock. This is a name about which there is no question, though one does not know how old it is. In the Ordnance Survey maps a rock is marked 'Merlyn Rock' between the south-western end of the town of Mousehole and the cavern called the 'Mouse Hole,' but there is reason to suppose that the original 'Men Merlin ' was broken up to make the pier. I think Borlase mentions that somewhere. There is an often quoted prophecy in Cornish, which with restored text, for it is generally spelt all anyhow, reads:—

     The fulfilment of the prophecy is supposed to be the Spanish raid of 1595, when all these things were done, but the verses as recorded are in corrupted middle Cornish, and so may be earlier, though popular prophecies which 'come off' are generally written after the events. The connection of Merlin with a rock on the coast of Cornwall is certainly much older. There are several stories about the disappearance of Merlin, and there were at least two Merlins, Merddyn Emrys (Merlinus Ambrosius) and Merddyn Wyllt (Merlinus Sylvester or Caledonius). In a Welsh Triad the second of the three disappearances (tri difancoll) of the Island of Britain was that of:—'Merddyn Bardd Emrys Wledig a'i naw Beirdd cylfeirdd a aethant i'r mor yn y Ty Gwydrin, ac ni bu son i ba le ydd aethant.' Which is, being interpreted, 'Merlin the Bard of Aurelius Ambrosius and his nine fellow Bards, who went to sea in the House of Glass, and there was no report of where they went to.' There would not be, under the circumstances, though conjecture is not difficult. This is certainly Merlinus Ambrosius. In the 'Vita Merlini,' where the two Merlins are confused, Merlin flees after the battle of Ardderyd (573) into the 'Nemus Caledonis,' the 'Coit Celidon' of Arthur's seventh battle, which is considered to be the great Caledonian Wood, of which Ettrick and Selkirk Forests were a part. Here he lives for some time in a house built for him by his sister Ganieda, the Gwendydd of the 'Afallenau' poem and the dialogue in the Red Book of Hergest. He is visited here by Talgesinus (Taliessin) and the conversation takes place of which I have already spoken. A 'regulus' or chief, called Meldredus, seizes him, and he offends the wife of his captor, who employs some shepherds to kill him. They pursue him with sticks and stones, and he falls dying over a bank of the Tweed, and is impaled on a salmon stake in the water, so that he dies by a combination of three different deaths, which he had prophesied previously for himself. In this story, the latter part of which comes into the prose narrative of the meeting of Merlin and St. Kentigern attached to the 15th century copy of the 'Vita Merlini ' in Cott. MS. Titus A. xix., he is much associated with St. Kentigern. The death-story is evidently that of Merlinus Sylvester. There are also two versions of the enchantment, the one by Vivien la Fay under a hawthorn in the forest of Brocéliande, which is well known from the poems of Tennyson and Matthew Arnold, and the other, told by Malory and in a curious alliterative Scottish poem of the 15th century, according to which Merlin is 'closed in a crag on Cornwall coast.' I suppose there is little difficulty in identifying that 'crag' with the 'Men Merlyn' at Mousehole. Further along the coast, near the Logan, there is a headland called 'Merthen Point,' which seems to give the Welsh form of his name. It was Bagdemagus who found Merlin under the rock and could not get him out, 'for,' as Malory says, 'it was so heavy that a hundred men might not lift it,'but it was Gawain who found him in Brocéliande, and the next headland to Merthen is 'Boscawen Point,' of which presently.
     In the country to the west of Paul there is a definite Arthurian tradition. The tale, as told by Bottrell, is to the effect that Arthur fought a battle with the 'Danes' on Vellandruchar Downs and that the slaughter was so great that the mill—'Vellandruchar' means 'wheel mill'^e—was turned with blood. The mill was on the stream which divides Paul from Buryan and eventually flows into Lamorna Cove. Arrow, spear and axe-heads are said to have often been found in the peat moss there, and the neighbourhood is noted for adders. This is a small point, but it is curious to note in passing that it was because a knight was 'stung' by an adder and drew his sword to kill it, that according to Malory and his original the Last Battle of Arthur began, before the other side, who took the sword-drawing for a signal, were ready. There is another battle tradition at Boleigh or Boleit, not far off, and the menhirion and barrows there are popularly supposed to commemorate the slain. The name is said to mean 'the place of slaughter.' It is possible that 'Boladh,' which would have that meaning, was the original form, but it might equally well be 'Boleath,' milk place, or dairy farm.^f The name is old, as the 13th century tombstone of Clarice de Boleit in Buryan church testifies. Here the present story is that the battle was between Athelstan and the Cornish in 936, and it is connected with the foundation of the collegiate church of St. Buryan. But this may well be a modern explanation of the battle tradition. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says not a word about any such battle, or about Athelstan penetrating far into Cornwall at all. All we get from the English side is that he drove the Welsh out of Exeter and set the Tamar for their boundary. From what one knows of the Saxon writers they might have claimed a victory which did not happen, but they were very unlikely to omit to mention one which did. I am inclined to connect this tradition with that of the Vellandruchar fight, and to consider it to be part of the same battle. And here it is that I find a whole nest of possible Arthurian names. To continue,—
     5. The stream which runs down from Vellandruchar to the Lamorna Valley is as often as not called the Kemyel river. Three farms that stretch from Lamorna nearly to Mousehole are 'Kemyel Wartha,' or Upper Kemyel, 'Kemyel Cres,' or Middle Kemyel, and 'Kemyel Drea,' or Home Kemyel, the cliff is 'Kemyel cliff,' and the mill in Lamorna Valley is 'Kemyel Mill.' The name has never been satisfactorily explained. It has been said by Bannister to mean the 'honey hedge,' but that is not a material out of which hedges are usually constructed. Is it the 'Kemelen' of Giraldus, the 'Camlan' of the continuator of Nennius and the Welsh writers, and the 'Cambula' of Geoffrey? The name is not further off than 'Camel' is.^g
     6. Rosemodress. This is a place a little beyond Boleit. It can hardly mean anything else but 'the Heath of Modred,'^h with the common change of d to s. The usual interpretation, 'the Heath of the Ring,' in allusion to the circle called the 'Dawns Myin' or 'the Merry Maidens,' will not do at all. 'Moderuy' means a thumb-ring in later Cornish, though the Cottonian Vocabulary translates it 'armilla,' a bracelet, and it is not a likely name for the circle of stones. Moreover, the change from 'ruy ' to ' res ' is too improbable to be regarded. I do not say that it was necessarily called after Arthur's nephew and enemy, for some later person may have borne the name, though it is odd that so discredited a name should have been given to anyone. Still, such things do happen, and people do get called after very queer characters in history. As I have already mentioned, there are 'Towns of Modred' in the older form, 'Tremodret,' in Roche and Duloe.
     7. Boscawen Rose. This is close to Rosemodress. There is another Boscawen called 'Boscawen Ûn' to the north of Buryan churchtown. The first means 'Boscawen on the Heath,' the second 'Boscawen on the Down.' It is usually interpreted to mean 'the Dwelling of the Elder-trees,' but that would be 'Boscaw,' for 'scawen,' an elder-tree, is one of those words which form their singular from a collective plural by adding the individualizing syllable 'en.' Still, 'the Dwelling of the Elder-tree' is not an impossible name. But 'bos,' a dwelling, is one of those words which sometimes cause 'provection' in composition, and change a broad initial into a thin one. Other prefixes ending in s do the same. Thus we get 'Rospannel' for 'Ros bannel,' 'Nanspean' for 'Nans bean.' A b becomes p, a d becomes t, and a y, hard, may become c or Ji. I do not find a single name in Bannister's Glossary beginning with 'bosg,' though there are certainly several which show that this prefix also causes softening of the initial, which in the case of g means omitting it altogether, or, as in the case of 'Bosworlas,' 'Bosworgy' and others, adding a w, and I have not found a case of hardening the initial g, though there are cases with b and d. If this hardening is possible, it may have happened in this case, and 'Boscawen' may be 'Bos-Gawen,' which I should have little hesitation in translating 'the Dwelling of Gawain.'⁹ I do not profess to decide whether it is called after Arthur's nephew or after someone else of the same name the proximity to the 'Merry Maidens' would have suited the Gawain of the Round Table right well or whether it was here that Gawain's ghost appeared to Arthur before the battle, but I do say that the name will bear that meaning.ⁱ According to William of Malmesbury ('De Gestis Regum,' anno 1087) the grave of Walwinus, the nephew of Arthur, who is certainly Gawain, was found in a part of 'Wales' called 'Ros,' by which he is generally supposed to mean Rhos in Pembrokeshire. Does he really mean 'Boscawen en Ros,' the Dwelling, the last dwelling, of Gawain on the Ros, or Heath? The 'Englynion y Beddau' say that the grave of Gwalchmai, which is the Welsh form of Gawain, is 'in Peryddon, where the ninth wave flows,'wherever that may be.
     8. Roseluken, or Roslukem. This is between Boleit and Rosemodress. It will be remembered that two knights were with Arthur at the last, Bedevere and his brother Lucan. Roseluken is the Heath of Luken, whoever Luken may have been. Was he Lucan?
     9. Tregadgwith. This name may refer to a battle. It is perhaps 'the Town of the Battle Trees.' 'Cadg' is for 'cas' (the Welsh 'cad'), battle, and 'with' is for 'gwidh' or 'gwedh' (Welsh, 'gwydd'), trees. The word 'cadgwith' comes into place-names elsewhere in Cornwall, either by itself (as in Ruan Minor) or in combination with prefixes. I do not put very much on this interpretation, for there is a Welsh word 'cadwydd' which means 'a bushy or brambly place, though it is not found in Cornish and Breton, and is not very common in Welsh.^j Words compounded with 'cad' or 'cas,' battle, are very common in all three languages, so 'cadgwith' for 'battle trees,' meaning, no doubt, a wood or clump of trees in which a battle took place, is not at all unlikely. The place is between Vellandruchar and Boleit.
     10. Trevider. This is to one side of Tregadgwith and Vellandruchar. It might be 'the Town of Bedwyr,' the Welsh form of Bedevere's name, or it might be called after Ider or Edeyrn ap Nudd, who is called 'Hider' by Geoffrey.^k He was sent to rescue Gawain, Boso and Guerin, when they were treacherously attacked by Lucius Hiberius. But 'Trevedran,' of which presently, may contain the other form of his name. It is never quite easy to decide, in the cases of words beginning with 'Trev,' whether the v belongs to the prefix or to the epithet, the full and original form of 'tre,' a town, being, as in Welsh, 'trev'.
     11. On the other side of Vellandruchar is Trevorian. This is either 'Tre Vorian,' in which case the personal name with which it is compounded is probably 'Morian' (a name found in 'Englynion y Beddau' and in the 'Gododin')¹⁰ or 'Trev Orian,' which certainly suggests Urien of Rheged, who married 'Morgan la Fay, that was King Arthur's sister.' There is another Trevorian in Sennen.^l
     12. Trelew. This is to the north of Vellandruchar. Bannister suggests 'the sheltered town,' which would do very well, if it did not happen to be on a wind-swept down, close to the appropriately named 'Chy an Gwens,' the House of the Wind. If there was even a fair-sized pond there, which there is not, one might suggest 'Tre-Lugh,' Lake Town. One has to fall back upon 'Army Town' ('lu,' army) or 'Lew's Town.' Now Llew or Lothus was the father of Modred and Gawain, and the brother of Urien of Rheged. Is Trelew called after him?^m
     12. Bojewan, close by, seems to be 'Bos Ewan,' the Dwelling of Ewan.ⁿ Ewan is not a very uncommon name, but there was a son of Urien of Rheged, the 'Sir Ewaine' of Malory, who bore it, and he was the 'Owain ' of the tale of 'larlles y Ffynnon' or, as the Red Book of Hergest calls it, 'Owain a Lluned,' the 'Iwaine' of Chretien de Troyes's
'Chevalier au Lion,' and the 'Iweine' of Hartmann von Aue.
     13. Trevorgans. This is on the other side of Buryan Churchtown. The personal name in it is, I think, 'Morgans.' The Welsh form of the name would be 'Morgant.' There was a Morgant at whose instigation Urien was killed. He is mentioned in Llywarch Hen's 'Song of Urien' in the Red Book.^o
     14. Boskennal. This is a little to the west of the battle site, due south of Buryan Churchtown. Bannister says it is 'the house on the ascent of the cliff.' Being in the middle of a wide and fairly level down, there seems to be no particular reason to call it so. He also suggests 'Sechnall's dwelling,' but I think it is more probably 'Kennal's dwelling.'^p This is well known as a Cornish surname. Carew mentions 'Dr. Kennall the civilian,' who was probably John Kennall, D.C.L., Archdeacon of Oxford, as the last great authority on Cornish. The Welsh equivalent is 'Cynwyl.' According to the ' Cilhwch ac Olwen' there were three men who escaped from the battle of Camlan, of whom the third was Cynwyl, 'ef a ysgarwys diwethaf ac Arthur y ar Hengroen y march' (he separated the last from Arthur on Hengroen his horse). The Triads agree about the first two, but make the third not 'Cynwyl Sant' (Cynwyl the saint), but Glewlwyd Gafaelfawr the porter. Cynwyl was the son of Dunawd, son of Pabo, 'the Pillar of Britain.'
     15. Trevedran is a little to the south of Boskennal, and its name suggests Edeyrn ap Nudd.^q
     16. Trevervyn, to the west of Trevedran, suggests Erbin, king of Damnonia, the father of that Geraint, who was the hero of the romance of 'Geraint and Enid,'and the subject of the well-known elegy by Llywarch Hen.^r Erbin was the son of Custennan, who is Constantine, identified by Welsh writers and Geoffrey with the usurping emperor who succeeded Gratian Municeps and Marcus. There is another form, 'Treverbyn,' near St. Austell. Independently of Arthurian traditions, this is a likely man for Cornish places to be called after, for Cornwall was in his kingdom. But he is made out to have been a near relation, perhaps an uncle, of Arthur.
     17. Tregonebras. This is to the north of Buryan in the parish of Sancreed. It is probably 'the Town of Goon-Ebras,' and 'Goon-Ebras' is the Down of Ebras, whatever or whoever Ebras may be.^s It is curious to note that in the 'Brut Tysilio' the first person mentioned as having been slain on Arthur's side at Camlan is 'Ebras vrenin Llychlyn' (Ebras king of Norway). The chronicle in which this occurs is not of any great historical value, for it is really an abridged translation of Geoffrey, pretended to be a translation back into Welsh by Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, of the book which he had once translated from Welsh and given to Geoffrey to found his history on. Its attribution to Tysilio (son of Brochwael, and bishop of St. Asaph in the 7th century) does not date before the publication of the 'Myvyrian Archeology of Wales' (1801) in which the 'Brut' appears. The oldest MS. is in the Book of Basingwerk, 1461. In the original of Geoffrey 'Ebras' is called 'Olbricht, King of Norway,' and in the Welsh 'Brut Gruffydd ap Arthur,' which is a complete translation, as well as in the intermediate 'Brut y Brenhinoedd,' he is called 'Etbrict.' 'Ebras,' with its final s for the final t of the others, looks very like a Cornish form.
     There is a field in Dormennack, between Rosemodress and the sea, called 'Tristram's Down,'^t and another called 'Top Tristram.'^u This can have no allusion to the battle, for Tristram (or Tristan) was not there, but it is Arthurian as far as the romances are concerned. I do not know whether 'Barn Gallek,' the edge of Kemyel Cliff, overlooking Lamorna Cove, which is 'Bar an Gallek,' the summit of the 'Gallek,' whatever 'Gallek' may mean, can be connected with Gallawg ap Llennawg, who in the 'Triads of Arthur and his Men' (Trioedd Arthur ae Wyr) in Hengwrt MS. 536 (circ. 1300) is one of the 'Three Battle Pillars' of Britain, and was one of the four, of whom Urien, Llew and Arawn were the others, who were put in command of districts recovered by Arthur from the Saxons. Geoffrey calls him 'Galluc of Salisbury.' But it would be only a coincidence of no import that Malory calls Camlan 'Salisbury.' It is said that 'Bosava' in the Lamorna valley is 'Bosaval,' the Place of Apples, which suggests Avalon, but I do not think much can be made of that, for names with the word for 'apple' in them are too likely to be descriptive to build theories on, nor can I go so far as to connect 'Banns,'^v in Buryan, just north of Trevorgans, with King Ban of Benwick, the father of Lancelot, 'Pellas' Down, in Bosfranken, 'Pelles' Croft, in Tresidder, and 'Pillas' Cliff, in Boskenna,^w with King Pelles 'of the foreign country, and cousin nigh unto Joseph of Arimathie,' the keeper of the Grail, whose daughter Elaine, was the mother of Galahad. Or to go further north, one would hardly dare to connect 'Caer Brane' in Sancreed, with either Bran the Blessed, the 'Brons' of the Graal story, or the Bran ap Melleyrn who comes into the Urien Song of Llywarch Hen. 'Pelles' means bare or bald, a likely epithet for a down in that country, and 'Caer Brane' is probably 'Crow's Castle' or 'Ravensburg,'¹¹ though 'Bran' may be a personal name, it certainly comes into the composition of one not far off on the Men Scrifa Rialo-Bran.
     To sum up. There are two battle traditions, which I believe to refer to the same battle. Of the names of 'Men Merlyn' and 'Rosemodress' there is no doubt whatever. 'Danes' in the one tradition is near enough for popular history to the mixed host of Pagans, Picts and Saxon pirates led by Modred. 'Boleit,' the Place of Slaughter, if that is its true meaning, might be supposed to be where the battle was hottest, the Heath of Modred might be where Modred was slain, and 'Rosluken' where Lucan died in the singularly unpleasant manner described by Malory. The menhirion and circle have probably nothing to do with any historical battle, though they might be attached to the tradition of one by the unlearned, especially as even the learned are not decided on their age or what they were for. The barrows may be connected with the battle, whenever or whatever it may have been, on which the tradition is based. Then 'Kemyel' may well be 'Camlan,' though this is less certain than my interpretation of 'Rosemodress,' and 'Boscawen' may be 'Gawain's Place.' If a certain number of names can be established with reasonable probability, others, which by themselves would not have suggested Arthurian associations, may really have them also. The evidence must needs be cumulative.
     The conclusions are sufficiently startling, and I must admit that I have come to them with some reluctance, for they are against all my prejudices on the subject of place-names. The district in which they occur is a very small one two miles and a half by about a mile and a half—chiefly in Buryan parish, but to some extent in Paul, and I have not found any other district, with the possible exception of Kea, in which I can make out similar etymologies. It may be noted that the name of Arthur himself does not come into any place-names here, whereas in other districts associated with him, his is almost the only name that occurs. This seems to dispose of any connection with the mythological Arthur.
     It may be that some of these derivations can be upset by earlier forms of the names. But certainly not all of them, and least of all 'Rosemodress,' which, combined with the battle tradition, was what originally called my attention to the district.
     Perhaps it would be wisest to have no theory on the subject of how the names got there, and simply to say that there they appear to be, and neither I nor anyone else can tell why they are there. But there are several possible explanations, between which it is not easy to decide.
     1. It is possible that the 'Last Battle of Arthur' really did take place there. This is a very large supposition, for the localities of the events in the career of the historical Arthur must in the present state of our information be largely, if not altogether, a matter of conjecture. There is every reason historically to place many of them, but by no means all, in the neighbourhood of the Roman Walls.
     2. There is a familiar process by which folk-tales, traditional legends and even historical narratives of events which happened elsewhere, tend to be localized by tale-tellers in their own districts, and if there should be to start with any similarity of names, other supplementary names are added to complete the identification. Malta and Meleda, off the Dalmatian coast, divide the honour of being St. Paul's 'Melita,' and in each there is a 'St. Paul's Bay,' answering (more or less) to the description in the Acts, and the places are shown where the events related by St. Luke took place. I believe each island claims to have snakes which commonly behave as St. Paul's viper did. There is a well-known folk-tale, occurring with local variations in the Sanscrit 'Hitopadesa,' in a French 13th century story of 'Saint' Gwenifortis, and in several other places, which has actually given a name to a village at the foot of Snowdon, where 'Bedd Gelert,' the Grave of Gelert, the faithful greyhound, is still shown, and a very slight study of the distribution of folk-tales will supply many more instances. The late Mr. W. Copeland Borlase, in his book on the Irish Dolmens, attempted, apparently with some success, to show reason for thinking that the Irish legends of Partholan, Nemed, the Firbolgs, Fomorians and the rest of them, were transferences as to both time and place, and recorded events which happened on the Continent in the early centuries of the Christian era, not in Ireland in the 15th century B.C. In so prosaic a work as the Post Office Directory for Cornwall for 1902, under the parishes of St. Eval and Paul, exactly the same story is told in almost the same words of a party of Royalists taking refuge from the troopers of Fairfax in a 'fogou ' still to been seen on an estate called in each 'Trewoofe or Troove.' The measurements of the 'fogous' are exactly the same, and each is said to be surrounded by a triple entrenchment. In each the situation is given, one 'in a secluded valley near Porthcothan,' the other 'in a romantic valley which terminates in Lamorna Cove.' Of course if two sets of Royalists really did hide from Fairfax in two 'fogous,' each 36-ft. by 6-ft. by 5-ft., in two secluded (or romantic) valleys on estates called Trewoofe or Troove, in two widely separated localities in Cornwall, this is not an instance, but I strongly suspect that both accounts refer to the story, given by Hals under Buryan (in which Troove manor-house is, though the 'fogou' is in Paul), of which the Levelis of the period was the hero. There is a good modern instance on the borders of Exmoor, which shows what developments of nomenclature may be produced by a thoroughly popular romance. Blackmore built up his 'Lorna Doone' on the slender foundation of a vague local tradition concerning a gang of very ordinary robbers. The rest is his own very excellent invention, and he magnified and idealized both scenery and robbers. Yet, though the romance is only about forty years old, a system of place-names founded on it has grown up, and tourists at Lynton and Lynmouth are seriously taken to see the actual places where events, which had no existence outside of Blackmore's imagination, really happened. They are no doubt in most cases the places which he had in his mind, as the Tintagel and Camelford district was probably in Geoffrey's mind, and as it may be that the Buryan district was in the mind of some unknown teller of folk-tales in olden time. The process is so familiar that it is not necessary to go on multiplying instances, and there is no reason to consider that what we have seen going on in our own time with the influence of Blackmore on Exmoor, with the Prince Charlie legend (for there is plenty of that, besides his real historical career) in the Highlands, and with the influences of Scott in Scotland at large, was improbable with the Arthur story in the Middle Ages.
     3. It is possible that at a comparatively late period, after the Arthur legend had settled down into its romance form, some literary-minded landowner, with an enthusiasm for these stories, gave names chosen from them to new houses. As a variant one may conjecture a fashion for Arthurian personal names. We still have the names of Arthur, Gawain, Lionel, Lancelot, Tristan, Perceval and others, which have gone on more or less continuously since the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. There are also modern revivals, chiefly Tennysonian, such as Enid, Elaine, Ysolt, Vivien and others and the Cornish name 'Jennifer,' which is certainly 'Guinevere' is always with us. In Cornwall the names of the hero and heroine of the most certainly Cornish of the romances, 'Tristan (or Tristram)' and 'Ysolt' are found not infrequently in the medieval parts of pedigrees. 'Tristram' is still not uncommon here. If these names were used, why not others? So it is possible that the places were named after Arthurian characters only at second-hand, that is to say, after owners and occupiers who bore the same names. That some are the names of the less estimable characters, such as Modred, matters very little. After all, the Gawain, Lancelot, Tristan, Guinevere, Ysolt .and Vivien of the romances were not precisely saints, though they must have been nicer people to meet than Modred.
     The .two last suggested theories have one point in common. They suggest the existence of local folk-tales, presumably in Cornish, once well known, but now lost, probably for ever, for they probably were never written down. Judging by the analogy of the folk-tales in other Celtic countries, such as those collected by the late J. F. Campbell of Islay, in the West Highlands, the form of a story was constant. It was told by various tellers in exactly the same words. Any variation would be telling it wrong. Therefore, being in Cornish, and no English form being current, the stories would naturally disappear with the cessation of the language. It is, as I have said, the common practice to localize such tales. The one specimen of a Cornish folk-tale that is left, the story of 'John of Chy an Hur,' is a common tale all over Europe. It is known as the 'Tale of the Three Advices,' and as told in various places is generally localized, and the scene laid in the country in which it is told. Its earliest form is probably that which occurs in the episode of Grimaud, found in some manuscripts of the prose 'Saint Graal' of Robert de Borron. It therefore just touches the Arthurian Cycle. In the Cornish form the hero lives at 'Chy an Hurdh'^x in St. Levan. He goes east seeking work. On his return he meets with merchants from Treryn, in his own parish, coming from Caresk (Exeter) Fair, goes with them across St. Hilary Downs to Marazion, where adventures happen, and leaves them where their ways divide at 'Kuz karn na Huila' (now Cotnawhilly) in Buryan. The tale survived because John Boson of Newlyn gave it to Llwyd and to Gwavas, to help to teach them Cornish. This particular tale seems to have been circulated in English also, for Bottrell gives a version of it (with a curious touch, found in the Grimaud story, but not in Boson's Cornish, that the villain of the piece is a red-haired man), and some of his other tales look as if there must have once been a Cornish form of them. 'Droll-tellers,' as they were called, would go about telling these tales at meetings like those which under the name of 'ceilidh' still take place in the Highlands. The Cornish word 'daralla,' a tale, is perhaps the origin of the word 'droll' as applied in Cornwall to a story, unless 'daralla' is a Cornicized version of 'droll,' which is less likely, for there is not necessarily anything 'droll' in the ordinary English sense about these tales, and the word as applied in English to a literary composition means a farce or comic interlude. Among these 'darallow' there would naturally be Arthurian stories, either indigenous or borrowed from Wales and Brittany, at first hand perhaps, but also, no doubt, at second-hand through the romances which had become the common property of Europe. It being accepted everywhere that Arthur was a Cornish hero, the droll-tellers would have the more reason for putting the incidents in places known to their audience. If the district that I have been describing was fixed upon as the scene of the 'Last Battle,' various points in it would come to be called after the various actors in the story, by the very process that we might have seen actually going on in the 'Lorna Doone' country, or in the 'Lady of the Lake' country round Loch Katrine and the Trossachs. I do not say that this certainly did happen in the Buryan and Paul case, but it seems to commend itself as the best conjectural hypothesis. If it is to be accepted, another point of interest arises. Several of the names incline to the forms in which they appear in the Welsh Arthurian stories and poems, rather than to those which occur in the French and English romances, which are generally in the Breton form, and some of them seem to be names which are found only in the Welsh. How did that come about? There is no answer to the question at present, but it looks as if some of the so-called 'Mabinogion' of Arthur were known in Cornwall also. Mediæval Celtic Cornwall is very little known to us. Between us and it there is the barrier of a lost language, and perhaps a lost literature as well, for in a change of language, as in moving house, a good many things get broken and lost. But many names do occur in the Breton form, and there is one case in which apparently both forms of the same name are found, for we have 'Men Merlyn' and 'Merthen Point' (cf. Welsh 'Merddyn' or 'Myrddin') not very far apart. The occurrence of so many names in this one very small district is also in favour of the localized legend theory, and this seems to me to be the 'lode' that looks the most 'keenly,' and I think it may be worth following up, though I do not at present see how we are going to get much more information to go upon. Also I would warn all enquirers, and myself among the number, that it may be taken as a general axiom, to which there are but few exceptions, that when there is a choice between an interpretation of a name which is romantic, historical, mythological or poetical and one which is commonplace and prosaic, the latter, especially if it is at all appropriate and descriptive, is more likely to be correct.
     I leave my suggestion at this for the present. I should be very glad to have it tested as much as possible by others. There are several ways of doing this, and one is by finding older forms of the names, which may confirm or upset my suggestion. Another is by trying whether the same thing cannot be done with a number of other places in Cornwall. Whether that would prove or disprove the theory it is not easy to say. But I wish to make it clear that I do not consider the theory as proved, but only as a tentative suggestion that may be worth going into.

Notes by Henry Jenner.

1. The 'Historia Britonum' commonly attributed to Nennius is here (and hereafter) called 'Nennius,' without prejudice of any question of the real authorship.

2. He makes 'Embresguletic' (Emrys Gwledig) to be the British form of his name.

3. Mr. Baring Gould in the final volume of his 'Lives of the Saints ' conjectures that this Gerontius was one of the 'Geraints' of Damnonia. If the conjecture is founded on anything more than the name, it is an interesting point. Gibbon refers to Orosius, Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus, Zosimus, Olympiodorus, Sozomen, and Philostorgius, as contemporary authorities. I have not examined these to see if any of them give any hint that Gerontius was a Briton.

4. Many years ago, I think in 1867, I was told of an old man at Quoit, near Castle-an-Dinas, who had seen the ghosts of King Arthur's soldiers drilling there, and remembered the glancing of the moonbeams on their muskets!

5. Possibly, by a common copyist's mistake, 'Tador' may be 'Cador.' Certainly a Cador was Duke of Cornwall after Gorlois, and may have been his son. Teudar appears as Tewdrig and Theodoric in some authorities. He comes into the legend of St. Petrock also.

6. There is another 'Tremodret,' now 'Tremadert,' in Duloe.

7. At the time of the reading of this paper the Rev. St. A. Molesworth St. Aubyn stated that Tennyson had told the late Mrs. Rogers, of Penrose, that Loe Pool was the 'great water,' and Loe Bar the 'dark strait of barren land' according to his mental picture of the scene.

8. In the 'Lives of British Saints' by Messrs. Baring-Gould and Fisher, Kea is identified with Cynan, son of Ludun, who is considered to be Lleudun Luydog, and seems to be the same as Llew, Lot or Lothus, the 'vir semipaganus' of Joscelyn's Life of St. Kentigern. The legend of him, as told in Albert le Grand's Lives of Breton Saints, seems to point to Kea, Roseland, and Goodern being associated with him, and even mentions his starting for Brittany from Landegu, which is very close to 'Landege,' the old name of Kea. He was a contemporary of Arthur, and visited Guinevere at Winchester (or Caer Went). Of course if he was the son of Llew he was a brother (or half-brother, for his mother's name was Tegu) of Gawain and Modred. In Keith Johnston's Dictionary of Geography, 1851, I find Kynance Cove (s.v. Landewednack) called 'the singular cove of St. Kynan,' which is the most satisfactory interpretation of the name that I have seen yet, if there is any authority for it.

9. The oldest form that I know of (in 14th century Exeter Registers) is 'Boschaweyn.' The 'eyn' of the last syllable is rather in favour of my suggestion.

10. The name 'Morion' as a surname has been found in Cornwall. In 1337 Johannes Morion, Capellanus, granted a moor and a quay on the Fowey river in the Borough of Penknegh (Penkneck, part of Lostwithiel). See 'The Caxton Head' (J. Tregaskis) Catalogue, No. 720, p. 20.

11. An ingenious suggestion, which need not be accepted, makes Castle Corbenic, the Grail Castle, a French derivative of a Latinization of 'Caer Brane,' 'Castellum Corvinicum.' 'Corvinus' one knows as an adjective from 'Corvus,' but I have never met with 'Corvinicus.' Robert de Borron, the reputed author of prose 'Saint Grail' romances, says that Corbenic is the 'Chaldæan' for 'the most holy vessel.' Possibly he is right in its being 'Chaldæan' (i.e. Syriac) and its origin may well be the Corbana (Treasury) of Vulgate Latin St. Matth. xxvii. 6. This is still the Syriac word, in the sense of 'offering,' for the Eucharistic service.

12. A story with the same three maxims in a quite different setting is told in the 'Gesta Romanorum ' concerning the Emperor Domitian.

Notes by Chris Bond.

a. Padel (Cornish Place-Names, 1988) states that this interpretation was applied to Callington in error, and was taken from an Anglo-Saxon manor in the 10th century called Cællwic or Cællincg, and that there is no evidence as to where the manor was.

b. Pool (Place-Names of West Penwith, 1973 & 1985) concurs on this as a possible derivation for the name.

c. Pool also suggests Bos Gurlois as a possibility.

d. Pool gives the derivation as Bos and the personal name Talek, meaning big-browed. Padel suggests that Bod Talek may be interpreted as 'dwelling on a steep brow', although he also admits the possibility of its being 'dwelling of Talek'.

e. Or Melyn droghya, tucking-mill (Pool) and fulling-mill (Gover, The Place-Names of Cornwall, 1948).

f. Pool and Gover both give Bos legh, or dwelling by a flat stone.

g. Pool gives Ke Myghal, meaning Michael's hedge.

h. Pool and Gover both offer the same interpretation.

i. Pool gives both Bos scawen, dwelling by an elder tree, and Bos Gawen, the dwelling of Gawen, as possibilities.

j. Pool gives Tre caswyth, meaning farm by a thicket. Gover offers either 'farm in the place of brakes and bushes' or that the second element is derived from the personal name Cadwith.

k. Pool offers no derivation for this place name, but the earliest variant he gives is Trevergheder in 1302 and Gover gives Trewyder in 1318.

l. Pool gives the interpretation of both as Tre Beryan, meaning the farm of Beryan, this being the same name as that given in St Buryan. Gover offers the Old Breton personal name Uurien or Uuorien. There is yet another Trevorian in Sancreed and also one in Breage.

m. Pool also suggests Tre Lew, the farm of Lew, and also Tre lugh, farm by a calt. Gover suggests the personal name Leu, Lleu, Llewetc.

n. Pool also suggest a personal name. The earliest variant of this place name he gives is Bosuyon in 1302.

o. Pool concurs on the place name being derived from a personal name and gives the variant Trewurgans in 1323. Gover offers the personal names Wurcant (Old Cornish) and Gurcant (Old Welsh, from Vor-cantos, meaning 'very white'.

p. Pool again concurs.

q. Pool is uncertain of the meaning of this name. Gover states that the last part is uncertain and offers either Tre gwith rin, meaning farm by the trees on the point of land or that it derives from the Old Welsh personal name Gwytherin. He gives the variants Treuwydren, Trevudrun and Trewydren, all 1284.

r. Pool also suggests that the name is derived from a personal name. Gover offers the personal names Mervyn and Berwyn, both being Welsh.

s. Pool again suggests a personal name. The earliest variant he gives is Tregenhepres in 1327.

t. Trestram's Downs in the tenement of Boleigh, field number 3137, in the Tithe Apportionment for St Buryan, 1844.

u. Top Testram, also in the tenement of Boleigh and field number 3141.

v. Pool gives Bans, meaning high place, and Gover suggests an bans, the hollow. This name also occurs in St Agnes.

w. Both Pool (The Field-Names of West Penwith, 1990) and Padel (Cornish Place-Name Elements, 1985) give these names as being derived from Pylas, meaning naked-oats, a crop commonly grown in the area.

x. Pool (The Place-Names of West Penwith) gives the variant Chyenhorth, meaning 'house of the ram' in 1349 and the name survived as Chyenhor in the 1842 Tithe Apportionment for St Levan (Chyanhor Field, no. 89, and Chyanhor Downs, nos. 106 and 108, in the tenement of Trengothall.)

Extracted from the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, Volume XIX, Part 1., 1912, pp46-89.