Cornwall (England : County) -- Description and travel
"The evidence which is wanting with regard to Arthur's battle on the
Camel comes to light on the Firth of Forth. There is reason to suppose
that tradition did not err in the fatal association of Arthur and
Mordred, though the place of the last scene was not Cornwall but
Scotland. The name Camlan which has been freely given by later writers
to the supposed battle on the Camel, is not to be found there, nor, so
far as I can ascertain, in Cornwall.
"Skene and Stuart Glennie maintain with much converging evidence that
Camlan is Camelon on the river Carron in the valley of the Forth, where
it is said are the remains of a Roman town. Here, according to Scotch
tradition Arthur and Mordred met. We have evidence which appears to be
sufficient that Mordred was King of the Picts, or, as he is sometimes
termed, King of Scotland, and the head of a confederacy of Picts, Scots
and Saxons, or, as some authorities have it of Picts, Scots and renegade
Britons. With this composite army he gave battle to Arthur and his
faithful British force, in which the latter were defeated and Arthur
slain.
"It is worth noting as in favour of the Scottish location of the battle
that Geoffrey [of Monmouth] who places it on the Camel states Mordred's
force to have consisted of Picts and Scots. It is surely improbable that
Arthur could have been confronted in Cornwall by a great army of these
northern savages.... It may be added that an earthwork with double lines
of circumvallation in the neighbouring valley of the Tay now known as
Barry Hill, is designated by tradition as Mordred's castle."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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