belief in such statements, we need not admire, that in the native country of Arthur, assisted by the strong tendency of mankind to connect those events that give an extraordinary exercise to their sympathies, with the scenes of their passing existence, the locality of his final history became widely and variously assigned. We may allow to the Welsh, the merit of the original draft of the story, provided they claim no monopoly. The legend has been well pourtrayed. “In the cavern under the hazel tree on Craigy Dinas, king Arthur and all his knights are lying asleep in a circle; their heads outward; every one in his armour, his sword and spear and shield by him; ready to be taken up whenever the Black Eagle and the Golden Eagle shall go to war, and make the earth tremble with their affray ; so that the caverns shall be shaken, and the bell ring, and the sleepers be wakened and come forth."* Again, we find his warriors, each beside his coal black steed, immured in "Eildon's caverns vast." Leyden has sung of them. Scott had written of them before Waverley saw the light. † "Some reliques of the ancient lay," are referred to the dreary dungeon over which Fast Castle (the presumed Wolf's Crag of Romance) frowns in solitary and desolate grandeur, and "eternally Holds its blind visage out to the lone sea." On the coast of Northumberland, which is more immediately our present theme, it is not unknown on "Dunstanborough's caverned shore," but the more particular details of its history have settled down upon the ruined strength of Sewingshields, and mingled their interesting bewitchery with the shadows of its basaltic crags, in whose pillars, the evidence of the exertion of a power even more gigantic and dreadful, than the utmost prowess of enchantment, stands for ever memorialized.‡ The Northumbrian legends on the topic of Arthur vary in several interesting particulars, but all of them are accompanied with such strong features of affinity, that they may be easily reduced to one primeval type, which time, accident, and the opposite characters of relators have contributed to diversify. They bear the most fraternal likeness to the German and Welsh narratives already cited, and to those variations of the tale preserved in other districts, to which reference has been made. An outline of the scene, which in traditionary record they have rendered famous, will serve to place those legends in L. C. F. Lactantius. Englished by Gilbert Burnet, D. D. Amsterdam, printed by J. S. 1687. Chap. 2. p. 59. 60. VOL. II. • Annual Review for 1804 of Sir W. Scott's Sir Tristrem. The allusion is to the volcanic nature of basalt and other trap rocks. G their most favourable point of view, and will the better exhibit their more prominent characteristics. Sewingshields lies between the Roman Wall and the military road, near the 28th mile-stone from Newcastle, and at the western extremity of Warden parish. Of Sewingshields castle, Mr. Hodgson informs us, "a square, low, lumpy mass of ruins, overgrown with nettles, still remains. Its site is on the end of a dry ridge, and overlooked from the south by the basaltic cliffs, along the brow of which the Roman Wall was built. There are also some traces of trenches near it; and on one side it has a sike, and on the other, flat, swampy ground extends a long way to the east; but to the north and west, the surface is thrown into dry gentle hills and ridges, with intervening bogs." "Near the farm-house of Sewingshields, several basaltic columns rose very proudly and remarkably in the front of the high and rugged cliff that The Wall has traversed, and one of these in particular, was called by some, King Arthur, and by others King Ethel's Chair.+ It was a single, many-sided shaft, about ten feet high, and had a natural seat on its top, like a chair with a back; but was most wantonly overturned a few years since by a mischievous lad, well known in the neighbourhood, but unworthy of punishment by the mention of his name. Vulgar malignity loves to torment the orderly and ingenuous, by destroying works which time has sanctified and rendered objects of their veneration. "Though the history of Sewingshields castle is blended with legends of British days, its size never entitled it to a higher name than a to. Hist. Northd. Pt. ii. Vol. III. + Others of the natural curule seats of monarchs in former times may be here alluded On the summit of a green hill in the vicinity of the unpretending hamlet of Humbleton near Wooler, there is pointed out an eminence whereon a king sat, and viewed his army fighting in the valley below, for adds the legend it was the custom for king's in those days to sit." A similar chair exists on Twinlaw, one of the Lammermuir range, in Berwickshire—a hill celebrated in the tradionary annals of fraternal discord. (Statist. Acct. of Scotland, Parish of Westruther). The unfortunate James IV. of Scotland, occupied a kindred position during a part of the fatal day of Flodden-field, and posterity, with true attachment to a theme so melancholy, still "offer to the passing stranger's gaze," the King's Chair. "It is," says Wallis (Vol. ii. p. 471) “a natural rock, on the highest part of Flodden hill, from which he had a good view of his own, and of the English army, and of the country round him." Arthur's seat near Edinburgh, has also its tradition of this class. But on this subject it would be prosaic to insist. It has been "married to immortal verse." "A king sate on the rocky brow And when the sun set where were they?" BYRON. tower, of which description of border strengths many were much more formidable than this.* But as its tale belongs to times nearer the Romans, than these degenerate days, we will enshrine it here within the sound of Roman trumpets, and in sight of the armies of the Mistress of the World, as they make their well-defended marches from sea to sea. For the broad outline of the story, I am indebted to the enquiries and graphic pen of Miss Carlyle, of Carlisle for parts of its detail and colouring to old inhabitants of the neighbourhood. "Immemorial tradition has asserted that king Arthur, his queen Guenever, court of lords and ladies, and his hounds, were enchanted in some cave of the crags, or in a hall below the castle of Sewingshields, and would continue entranced there till some one should first blow a bugle horn that laid on a table near the entrance into the hall, and then, with "the sword of stone," cut a garter also placed there beside it. But none had ever heard where the entrance to this enchanted hall was, till the farmer at Sewingshields, about 50 years since, was sitting knitting on the ruins of the castle, and his clew fell, and ran downwards through a rush of briars and nettles, as he supposed, into a deep subterranean passage. Full in the faith, that the entrance into king Arthur's hall was now discovered, he cleared The picture which the survey of Sir Robert Bowes, and Sir Ralph Elleker, in 1542, (Hodgson's Northd. Part iii. Vol. II.) gives of Sewingsheilds, and the neighbouring territory is too curious, and too strikingly illustrative of the uncivilized, lawless, and unsettled state of that part of the country, at the period to which it relates, to be here omitted. The castle was then the property of John Heron of Chipchase, and was found "in great decaye both in the roofes and floores." While the peel-house was thus dilapidated, the extensive grounds of the attached demesne, (fitted says the record “eyther for corne or pasture") to which it might have afforded a protection, were in an equally deserted and unoccupied condition. "Both the said house and grounde lye waste and unplenyshed at this presente." And there was sufficient reason for both remaining "dyssolate and waste." For such was the lamentable state of that "wylde " country, that the "true poore men that got their lyvinge, eyther by labour in husbandrye, or by pasturage of their catall,” had so great dread of the "theves" of Liddisdale and Tyndale on the one hand, and of those of Gilsland and Bewcastle on the other, who made this district "a Goole (qu? open, from goulet Fr. a strait, a hole?) passage, and common entry" to their spoil, that none of them could be induced to "aventure theyr lyves, bodies, and goodes in suche remote houses where small relefe can come to them in theyr extreme necessyties." To give warning of these inroads, and for the better preservation of the whole Border from "theves and spoylles," Sir Cuthbert Radclyffe, deputy warden of the East Marches - devysed" a watch to be "suerly kepte endlonge all the mydle marches." Amongst other places of more conspicuous merit, two watchmen were appointed to "stand at the Sewynge shealles cragge," from "the sonne sett untyll the sonne aryse," upon payne for every defaulte to forfette vis viijd." And in order that no one should protect his own or his neighbours property unremunerated, each man's services were rated at a iiijd. for a nyghte." Whether from this wise measure, it resulted that this "troublous quarter” was "stablyshed in better order," the document does not specify. 66 the briary portal of its weeds and rubbish, and entering a vaulted passage, followed in his darkling way the thread of his clew. The floor was infested with toads and lizards: and the dark wings of bats, disturbed by his unhallowed intrusion, flitted fearfully around him. At length his sinking faith was strengthened by a dim, distant light, which, as he advanced, grew gradually brighter, till all at once, he entered a vast and vaulted hall, in the centre of which a fire without fuel, from a broad crevice in the floor, blazed with a high and lambent flame, that showed all the carved walls, and fretted roof, and the monarch, and his queen and court, reposing around in a theatre of thrones and costly couches. On the floor, beyond the fire, lay the faithful and deep-toned pack of thirty couple of hounds; and on a table before it, the spell-dissolving horn, sword, and garter. The shepherd reverently, but firmly, grasped the sword, and as he drew it leisurely from its rusty scabbard, the eyes of the monarch and his courtiers began to open, and they rose till they sat upright. He cut the garter; and, as the sword was being slowly sheathed, the spell assumed its antient power, and they all gradually sunk to rest; but not before the monarch lifted up his eyes and hands, and exclaimed, "O woe betide that evil day, On which this witless wight was born, "Of this favourite tradition the most remarkable variation is respecting the place where the farmer descended. Some say that after the king's denunciation, Terror brought on loss of memory, and he was unable to give any correct account of his adventure, or the place where it occurred. But all agree that Mrs. Spearman, the wife of another and more recent occupier of the estate, had a dream, in which she saw a rich hoard of treasure among the ruins of the castle; and that for many days together she stood over workmen employed in searching for it, but without success." The version of the story that has fallen under our notice, has less of the "pomp of sceptred State," than the preceding, and has evidently inherited from a baser original, but its verity is not the less to be depended upon. A shepherd one day, in quest of a strayed sheep, on the crags, suddenly had his attention aroused, by the scene around him assuming an appearance he had never before witnessed. There seemed to be about it a more than wonted vividness, and such a deep solemnity hung over its aspect, that its features became as it were palpably impressed upon his mind. While he was musing on this unexpected occurrence, his steps were arrested by a ball of thread. This he laid hold of, and pursuing the path it pointed out, found it led into a cavern, in the recesses of which, as the guiding line used by miners in their explorations of devious passages, it appeared to lose itself. As he approached, he felt perforce constrained to follow the strange conductor, that had so marvellously come into his hands. After passing through a long and dreary vestibule, he was ushered into an apartment in the interior. An immense fire blazed on the hearth, and cast its broad flashes with a wild-unearthly glare, to the remotest corner of the chamber. Over it was placed a huge caldron, as if preparations were being made for a feast on an extensive scale. Two hounds lay couchant on either side of the fire-place, in the stillness of unbroken slumber. The only remarkable piece of furniture in the apartment was a table, covered with green cloth.* At the head of the table, a being considerably advanced in years, of a dignified mien, and clad in the habiliments of war, sat, as it were fast asleep, in an arm-chair. At the other end of the table lay a horn and a sword. Notwithstanding these signs of life, throughout the chamber there prevailed a dread silence, the very feeling of which made the shepherd reflect that he had advanced beyond the limits of human experience, and that he was now in the presence of objects that belonged more to death than to life! The very idea made his flesh creep. He however had the fortitude left, to advance to the table and lift the horn. The hounds pricked up their ears most fearfully, and the grisly veteran "started up on his elbow," and raising his half unwilling eyes, told the staggered hind, that if he would blow the horn and draw the sword, he would confer upon him the honours of knighthood, to last through time. But such unheard of dignities from a source so ghastly, either met with no appreciation from the awe-stricken swain, or the terror of finding himself alone in the company it might be of malignant phantoms, who were only tempting him to his ruin, became too urgent to be resisted, and therefore proposing to divide the peril with a comrade, he groped his darkling way, as best his quaking limbs could support him, back to the "blessed" daylight. On his return with a reinforcement of strength and courage, all traces of the former scene had disappeared; the crags presented their usual cheerful and quiet aspect; and every This piece of domestic garniture, perhaps now confined to the "pauperum tabernas," was once deemed not unappropriate to statelier abodes. In the inventory of Sir William Hilton, of Hilton, Knt., 7 Oct., 1600, at Hilton, we are presented with the following gratifying glimpse of the detail of a very important department in the mansions of those times. In the Parlour: one olde large table, with a grene clothe; xviii buffit stooles; an olde chare; three litle formes of firdale; 4 tables with armes: a litle liverie cupborde; a pair of virginalls." (Surtees' Durham, Vol. ii. p. 34.) This was the sum total! |