“No other place on Britain’s spacious earth Were worthy of his end but where he had his birth.”
Pilgrims find their way to that lonely spot, and resting near the huge stone, they may reflect at will upon the wondrous possibility of there being, after all, by the side of this stream, a tangible link with King Arthur. The stone lies in a nook between two rocks, and three graceful and luxurious trees watch over it as if they were the metamorphosed three Queens who received the wounded king in the magic boat which glided to Avalon. All around is a profound calm; not a sound but the occasional buzz of an insect comes from the long grasses of the meadows above, or from the ferns and ivy which spring from the shady channel below. At sunset the scene is delightful. The high meadows are kindled with brilliant light, but not a ray comes to that hollow where, it is said, Arthur was laid. His grave is in perpetual shadow, and when I last saw it a long, gaunt, withered branch stretched over it like a spectral arm. The edacious tooth of time has bitten away the letters, and moss has overgrown a portion of the stone, so that the inscription is barely decipherable, but the words are known to be--
The actual history is best given in the words of the local antiquary Borlase, who in his noted 1769 volume gave an illustration of the relics and said--
“This inscribed stone, nine feet nine inches long, and two feet three inches wide, was formerly a foot-bridge near the late Lord Falmouth’s seat of Worthyvale, about a mile and a half from Camelford. It was called Slaughter Bridge, and as Tradition says, from a bloody battle fought on this ground, fatal to the great King Arthur. A few years since, the late Lady Dowager Falmouth, shaping a rough kind of hill, about 100 yards off, into spiral walks, removed this stone from the place where it served as a bridge, and, building a low piece of masonry for its support, placed it at the foot of her improvements, where it still lies in one of the natural grots of the hill. This stone is taken notice of by Mr. Carew in the following words: ‘For testimony of the last battle in which Arthur was killed, the old folks thereabouts (viz., round Camelford) show you a stone bearing Arthur’s name, though now departed to “Atry.” This inscription has been lately published; but so incorrectly that it may still be reckoned among the nondescripts. It is said there, “that this stone lay at the very place where Arthur received his mortal wound.” All this about King Arthur takes its rise from the last five letters of this Inscription, which are by some thought to be _Maguri_ (_quasi magni Arthuri_), and from thence others will have it, that a son of Arthur was buried here; but though history, as well as tradition, affirms that Arthur fought his last battle, in which he was mortally wounded, near this place, yet that this Inscription retains anything of his name is all a mistake. The letters are Roman, and as follow: _Cotin hic jacit filius magari_. By the _i_ in _hic_ being joined to the _h_, by the _h_ wanting its cross link, the bad line of the writing, the distorted leaning of the letters, I conclude, that the monument cannot be so ancient as the time of Arthur.’” It seems quite clear that what is now called King Arthur’s tombstone was originally called, when in position, Slaughter Bridge, a name which has been transferred to the modern structure. That the stone once served actually as a funeral monument is also pretty obvious, but whom it commemorates is a mystery. The engraved letters belong to an era posterior to Arthur, and there are, as a fact, relics indubitably of an earlier date in the locality.