♪ (Sweet Nightingale, Lisa Knapp) ♪
The Cornish coastline. 400 miles of rocky coves, windswept headlands, rolling sanddunes
and rugged granite cliffs, all engaged in a perpetual battle with Atlantic brawls.
On a headland on Cornwall's north coast stands Tintagel Castle, a site that has
become inextricably linked to a legendary figure who continues to dominate England's mythical past.
Visitors to these striking ruins are invited to leave the mainland behind by crossing a footbridge
peering over into the natural chasm below before entering a medieval world of myth and magic.
This is a castle that really owes its existence to a myth. Tintagel was named in Geoffrey of
Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, written in the middle of the 12th century,
as the place where King Arthur was conceived and this came about through a mixture of sorcery
and through clever words and it inspired Richard the Earl of Cornwall
to build a castle here in the early part of the 13th century. King Arthur would have been
something of a role model to those growing up in royal and noble households in the 13th century.
In building a castle here at Tintagel Richard was clearly expressing his commitment
to the chivalric ideals of the time that could be seen as embodied by King Arthur.
The castle itself was used for a number of purposes including a prison but it was often
in ruins and then sured up again and then in ruins. By the early 17th century it was appear
as if the land bridge connecting the two parts of the castle had been eroded away and anybody
who wanted to gain access to the castle had to climb down and back up the precipitous cliffs.
These ruins with their mythical origins might seem ancient to us
but if we look deeper back into the past we discover clues about this
site that relate to lives lived here many centuries before this castle was built.
Long before the castle of Earl Richard, Tintagel was occupied. There really isn't much evidence for
prehistoric or Roman occupation, but the fact that there isn't evidence does not necessarily mean
that people were not here at that time. But during the early medieval period,
the 5th to 7th centuries, or the 'dark ages', we know that Tintagel was occupied. Far from being
a 'dark age' one writer has suggested that this period is really a Cornish Golden Age.
The evidence suggests that the people living in and trading from Tintagel were extremely well
connected and were enjoying some of the finest things in life such as olive oil,
wine and high status tablewares and we need to bear in mind that this trade
might also have meant that they would have met people from these far-off places so there's this
idea of diverse languages and diverse traditions mixing at this place. This was
a place that was characterised by imports, exchange and international connections.
In gentle compliment of the grandeur of Tintagel Castle is an iconic slice of Cornish history.
Often thought of as a Cornish anthem, Sweet Nightingale. It's sung for us by the wonderful
Lisa Knapp. Affirming Cornwall's international stature, this song isn't actually local at all:
it's a German import brought back to the south west of England by Cornish miners
who must have heard this beautiful tale while working in German tin mines in the 1800s.
And neither is the nightingale local. They are migrant birds flying to Africa each year
and ironically have never actually made it as far west as Cornwall.
But then again, there was probably no King Arthur there either.