ckly growing grass--the
foot may sometimes strike against them, but the eye perceives them not.
These are all the vestiges which remain of the once mighty castle; all
the signs that are left to point out the site of the old halls, where
the bold knights of Arthur gathered for the feast or prepared for the
fight, at their royal master's command.

The Cornish legends tell us that the British hero held his last court,
solemnized his last feast, reviewed his last array of warriors, at
Tintagel, before he went out to the fatal battle-field of Camelford, to
combat his nephew Mordred, who had rebelled against his power. In the
morning, the martial assemblage marched out of the castle in triumph,
led by the king, with his death-dealing sword "Excalibur" slung at his
shoulder, and his magic lance "Rou," in his hand. In the evening the
warriors returned, fatally victorious, from the struggle. The rebel army
had been routed and the rebel chief slain; but they brought back with
them, their renowned leader--the favourite hero of martial adventure,
the conqueror of the Saxons in twelve battles--mortally wounded, from
the field which he had quitted a victor.

That night, the wise and valiant king died in the castle of his birth;
died among his followers who had feasted and sung around him at the
festal table but a few hours before. The deep-toned bells of Tintagel
rang his death peal; and the awe-stricken populace from the country
round, gathering together hurriedly before the fortress, heard
portentous wailings from supernatural voices, which mingled in ghostly
harmony with the moaning of the restless sea, the dirging of the dreary
wind, and the dull deep thunder of the funeral knell. About the heights
of the castle, and in the caverns beneath it, these sounds ceased not
night or day, until the corpse of the hero was conveyed to the ship
destined to bear it to its burial-place in Glastonbury Abbey. Then,
dirging winds, and moaning sea, and wailing voices, ceased; and in the
intervals between the slow pealing of the funeral bells, clear
child-like voices arose from the calmed waters, and told the mourning
people that Arthur was gone from them but for a little time, to be
healed of all his wounds in the Fairy Land; and that he would yet
return to lead and to govern them, as of old.

Such is the scene--strange compound of fiction and truth, of the typical
and the real--which legends teach us to imagine in the Tintagel Castle
of thirt