72 CORNWALL It is quite likely, as experts say, that the present ruins date only from the twelfth or thirteenth 1 century. Arthur may never have set foot on the tufty grass of the cube-shaped island ; there may never, for that matter, have been an Arthur at all, but lying in the grass above the slaty ruins and looking through the serrated arch to the onyx- green sea, fretting the black rock, all these doubts seem simply silly and fly away light as the spume flying inland in great balls. The spirit of Arthur and his fighting men lives here still. It may possibly have been summoned up by the thoughts of the countless host of pilgrims who have come expectantly to the most beloved of all the shrines of British history. For thoughts if repeated may conjure up visions. And the vision of Tintagel, that needs no seeking, but comes pressing on you as insistently as the sea-laden air, is one of old-time warriors im- pregnably ensconced. With their castle standing on the very edge of the gulf narrower then than now which separated them from the mainland. Guarded by a drawbridge crossing that sharp space so that three men could well hold back an host. Protected on all other sides by the sheer cliff, with a fortification at one point where it was just
