The Footprint of the Bear

King Arthur was born at Tintagel in Cornwall, according to many versions of the story. During the game period, Arthurian stories were in high fervour. The grave of Arthur and Gwenivere was miraculously discovered at Glastonbury in 1191, making that site popular for pilgrimage (which is what rich people do instead of tourism). The stories about Arthur are popular: Chretien de Troyes’s works were finished in about 1190 and a slew of imitators and retellers are constructing the Matter of Britain as the game period arrives.

Arthur’s story has yet to cohere into a modern form. He is recorded as a giant killer: in some versions he is the reason they are now extinct in Cornwall. In the east of Cornwall the vast rocks which, in the west, are attributed to giants are instead attributed to Arthur. Jack the Giant Killer was the tutor to Arthur’s son and Tom Thumb was his favourite dwarf.

Plot hooks

On Tintagel there are two Arthur Stones, Arthur’s Throne and Arthur’s Cups. Each may be a vis source.

He had various odd relatives this early in the story, including a maternal half-brother called Constintinus who was a tyrant and Duke of Cornwall. Hunt suggests the parish of Constantine (pronounced Cust-ten-ton) may be named after him. Oddly, and Hunt doesn’t note this, Geoffrey of Monmouth gives Arthur’s heir as a blood relative (of unspecified type) called Constantine. Later writers often call him “Constantine son of Cador” and suggest he’s Arthur’s nephew, which requires Cador to be his half-brother.

Plot hook: If Arthur had a son, there could be some of his royal blood still about in the population, acting as a source for Virtues. One of his children might be away in Faerie, recoverable with sufficient bravery and guile. I grew up loving The Dark is Rising Sequence, and wish to mention it here as the first time I saw that idea.

Boons and Hooks For a Covenant at Tintagel

Divine Aura: There’s a little chapel on Tintagel, to St Materiana. She’s not well known, even in Cornwall.
Faerie Aura
Monster – there are things in that sea.
Mundane politics / Favours – if drawn into Richard’s alliances.
Natural Fortress
Powerful Ally or Enemy: Richard of the Romans
Unknown Regio – Merlin’s Cave. This cave isn’t the one in which the old enchanter was imprisoned, unless the stories told about its locations were lies. Then again, if you’d trapped an enchanter in a cave, would you tell people where it was?
Tame nobleman: a local knightly family owns Tintagel, but do not live there.
Warping to a Pattern – the Enchantment of Britain: As the Matter of Britain becomes more firmly fixed in the public mind, echoes of the golden age may begin to warp those who live in this place. Tristram, Prince of Lyonesse, was also born here, and parts of his tragic relationship with Iseult were played out at Tintagel. Similar stories of love potions and woe may become common.

Danish landing and banner fires

Hunt recounts a story where the Danes land in Genvor Cove to pillage the hamlet of Escols. The locals light a beacon-fire, and the beacons burn along a route to Tintagel, to tell Arthur of the threat.

A holy woman called a great storm that threw the fleeing Danish ships high up the rocky beaches, where Arthur and his companions massacred the Danes near Vellan-Druchar. “So terrible was the slaughter, that the mill was worked with blood that day.” Arthur and the Kings then make some binding oaths with the waters of St Sennen’s well and at Table-Men.

Not all of the Danish arrivals were exterminated by Arthur. In Saint Sennen there’s a community of red-headed people who do not speak the local language or interbreed with the Cornish. Hunt says they might be descended of the Danes, but it might be the population of a covenant.

Story hooks for this section

Anywhere there’s been tremendous pagan bloodshed is filled with useful material for necromancers.

The Danes presumably owned Caer Dinas (literally “Castle of the Danes”) so it’s likely also filled with Danish spirits.

The mill being run with a stream of blood must somehow create an infernal aura, or attract faeries for the odd bread it makes.

Can you relight the beacons to call forth the ghosts of Arthur’s horde, or faeries pretending to be them? It seems easy to do via magic, but does the presence in the line of St Agnes Beacon, which has a Divine aura as an act of perpetual charity by a saint, make this more difficult? Hunt records the beacon sites as The Chapel Hill, Castle-an-Dinas, Trecrobben. Carn Brea, St Agnes Beacon. Belovely Beacon, the Great Stone, St Bellarmine’s Tor, Cadbarrow, Roughtor and Brownwilly, which is the highest mountain in Cornwall.

Who has the covenant of redheads?

Arthur’s death and grave sites

Hunt mentions an inscribed rock marking Arthur’s death site at Slaughterbridge. He also mentions Arthur dying at Camelford, then being buried at Glastonbury. He then quotes Bale’s Acts of the English Votaries

“In Avallon, anno 1191, there found they the flesh bothe of Arthur and of hys wyfe Guenever turned all into duste, wythin theyr comnes of strong oke, the bones only remaynynge. A monke of the same abbeye, standyng and behouldyng the fine broydinges of the wommanis heare as yellow as golde there still to remayne. As a man ravyshed, or more than halfe from his wyttes, he leaped into the graffe, xv fote depe, to have caugte them sodenlye. But he fayled of his purpose. For so soon as they were touched they fell all to powder.”

Plot hooks: One false Arthur to confound another

Is this convenient discovery a fake? Is it a pious forgery to dispel a faerie claiming the role of Arthur, which has been slumbering at the bottom of a lake for a few hundred years, feeding on the story of the secular saviour? Does this rouse the faerie Arthur, or can he not act directly against the priests?

In 1191 Richard I gave a sword to Tancred I of Sicily, claiming it was Arthur’s sword Caliburn. It might be worth stealing that back, but the scabbard is worth ten of the sword.

Arthur as a chough

It’s thought unlucky to harm choughs, because Arthur’s soul is said to have taken that form at his death. Imagine a crow with a red beak and red feet, then mix in folklore that indicates this colour is related to blood.

Plot hook: A Court of Choughs

Is Arthur is now like one of those Bjornaer magi who become a terrible, titanic version of their heartbeast? He might lead a circle of knights that take the form of ravens or choughs or crows. This cult could be part of House Bjornaer, or a little fragment tradition in Ex Miscellanea. They might be omen-bearing Merinitas or courtly Jerbiton magi. Were they driven to extinction with the Diedne, as a druidic remnant or a strike force? Can they keep their kit when they change shape, like some faeries, and can they teach that trick to the Bjornaer magi?

If the Knights of the Future King still exist, what do they want? Are they guided by the prophecies of Merlin to prevent some great calamity which would force Arthur to return? Do they have a base of operations?

English heritage has a wonderful interactive map of the castle at http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/tintagel-castle/history-and-legend/medieval-1240/