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Tintagel, Dundagel, or Dundiogl, the Dunecheniv of Domesday, seems certainly to have belonged to Gorlois when Uther was Pendragon or Head-king of Britain; it would have been a cliff-castle such as that on Pentire Head. As years passed the rock probably became more insular, and when the Norman stronghold was built it was connected with the mainland by a drawbridge.
Here let them say, by proud Dundagel's walls 'They brought the Sangraal back at his command, They touched these rugged rocks with hues of God, So shall my name have worship, and my land." And after the king had spoken: "That night Dundagel shuddered into storm The deep foundations shook beneath the sea." And we have the grand final picture:
Never did I hear the sea talk poetry and legend as it does round those dark rocks of old "Dundagel." I thought as I leaned out from my balcony, a lonely, unappreciated Juliet that the sound was like the chanting voice of an ancient bard, telling stories of the golden days to himself or to all who might care to listen.
Sheep feed within the enclosure to which we scramble by a ragged path. Sentiment may resent the hotel and the golfers, but any jarring note can easily be ignored. Yet even Tennyson seems to have been disappointed at first; afterwards, the spirit of the place sank into him and prevailed. Perhaps old Hawker has described it best, in few pregnant words: "Hark! stern Dundagel softens into song.
How Dundagel meant the "Safe Castle," and how the "Arthurian believers" say it was built by the Britons in earliest Roman days; how David Bruce of Wales was entertained by the Earl of Cornwall on the very spot where we were sitting, and how the great hall, once famous, was destroyed as long ago as when Chaucer was a baby.
I am Alfred Tennyson who wrote Locksley Hall, which you seem to know by heart. So we grasped hands, and the Shepherd's heart was glad.... Then, seated on the brow of the cliff, with Dundagel full in view, he revealed to me the purpose of his journey to the West.
I fancied I could hear the words: They found a naked child upon the sands Of dark Dundagel by the Cornish sea. I could see the ruined castle, on its twin cliffs, below the hotel-castle cliff and between me and the sea; and the very meagreness of what remains seemed to increase the interest and mystery by stimulating the imagination, forcing it to create its own pictures.
"There stood Dundagel, throned; and the great sea Lay, a strong vassal at his master's gate, And, like a drunken giant, sobb'd in sleep." There was a time when Trevena, with Bossiney and Trevalga, formed a borough, and sent members to Parliament, of whom Francis Drake was one.
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