The parish church of Camelford, two miles off, is Lanteglos. The
dedication is to S. Julitta, but this would seem to have been a
rededication, and the true patroness to have been either Jutwara or
Jutwell, sister of St. Sidwell, or of Ilut, one of King Brythan's
daughters.
There was a royal deer-park there, as the old castle of Helborough,
though not occupied, was in the possession of the Duke of Cornwall.
This is really a prehistoric camp of Irish construction, and in the
midst of it are the ruins of a chapel to S. Sith or Itha, the Bridget
of Munster. Itha had a number of churches ranging from the Padstow
estuary to Exeter, showing that this portion of Dumnonia received
colonists from the south-west of Ireland. Her name is disguised as
Issey and as Teath. She was a remarkable person, as it was she who sent
her foster-son Brendan with three ships, manned by thirty in each, on
an exploring excursion across the Atlantic to the west, which,
possibly, led to the discovery of Madeira in the sixth century. But the
truth is so disguised by fable that little certainty can be obtained as
to the results of the voyage. Brendan made, in fact, two expeditions;
in the first his ships were of wicker, with three coats of leather over
the basket frame; the second time, by Itha's advice, he made his boats
of timber.
Itha never was herself in Cornwall, her great foundation was Kill-eedy
in Limerick, and she was taken as the tutelary saint or patroness of
Hy-Conaill, but there were establishments, daughters of the parent
house, what the Irish called daltha (_i.e._ pupil) churches, enjoying
much the same rights as the mother house.
Camelford has by some been supposed to be the Gavulford where the last
battle was fought between the West Welsh and Athelstan; but there was
no reason for his advancing into Cornwall this way, where all was
bleak, and by no old road.
There is, however, a Slaughter Bridge on the Camel, but this is taken
to have acquired its name from having been the scene of the fight
between King Arthur and his rebellious nephew Mordred, _circ._ 537.
King Arthur is a personage who has had hard measure dealt out to him.
That there was such an individual one can hardly doubt. There is a good
deal of evidence towards establishing his existence. He was chief king
over all the Britons from Cornwall to Strathclyde (_i.e._ the region
from the Firth of Clyde to Cumberland). He was constantly engaged,
first in one part, then in another, against the Saxons; but his
principal battles were fought in Scotland. He occurs in the Welsh
accounts of the saints, but never as a hero, always as a despot and
tyrant. His immediate predecessor, Geraint, in like manner is met with,
mainly in Cornwall, but also in Wales, where he had a church, and in
Herefordshire. He had to keep the frontier against the Saxons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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