The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-02-01
LANDING PLACE OF KING UTHER.
fAe Remains Of The Twin Castles, Tiltagle
and TeTTabil-RObil Hood as a LGVeler
Of Rank and ClaSS-He Rescued MdidGlS
In Distress and Men in DuTGSS Buried
IN The Grounds Of KiTklGSS Hall.

aSs1 !s8ss Dun -Hngus. on the re-
LHzzSSA.1A--zszzzEz hottest precpice of Aran-
more, on the most desola.e of all Ireland's
Islands. The great arel@oloGist Dr. Petrie.
termed it tho most magnificent barbaric
monument in Europe" The legend is that
Dun Hngus and the five other great forts, or
duns, Of the Aran Islands were built from
1000 to 1900 years before the Christian era,
by the flying and fated FirbOlgs. No matter
about the legend There they stand to-day,
more weird, suggestive and awe-inspiring
IN their dread secrets of the people that were
than ever could lie in the silence Of the
Lybian Sphinx. And then, away il the
north, over beyond old Derry, what thrill
flashes through one when standing alone
upon the walls of the mighty Grianan of
Aileach. whose existence can be definitely
traced to the period 1858 before Christi
Grianan, the mighty Dun, of which we read
in the DinusenchaS:
Aileaeh Firm, plat of the king-rath royal of the
world;
Dun, to which led hOrse-roads. through the five
mighty ramparts.
So they did. You can trace them to this
DAY as clearly as the paths in your own
mountains burned the Signatures in the dim
lays, tiara of flame to wake the helOtS
and their herds. Ihther to the Grianan
they streamed, those skin-clad hordes.
Within those very ramparts huddled the af-
irighted women and the flocks Within
those very walls kings watched over battles.
There were the feasts of victory; the wall
tngs and lamentations; the weird, wild rites
all thousand years before barbarous man
looked beyond the god of day to the one in
Unite God. But you did not sense this until
your own feet had pressed the same earth
theirs had tTod. and your eyes had looked
upon lone Errigal. like a cone of steel in
the West, and, through the grim, dark
passes. to the purple mists above Armagh
and Tyrone.
In all that can be read OF the Land o.
Cakes" how the true feeling is lacking, I'M
I'll one wedS presence and actually with the
tonelesS tales of words. To know the weird
<lraths and glens of the north, to breathe
their air, drink in their wild and gorgeous
colorings, TO listen to the roar of their glorI-
Gus waterfalls, to sail over their silent lochS
o trembe in their mighty storms, is to come
very close IN thought and sympathy 60 that
grand and noble race which all the Roman
egions could not conquer It's desperate,
tateiul loyalty 10 the House of Stuart can
never be fully understood until you have
tramped from the Western Ocean to the
German and wandered on Culloden Moor.
Macbeth King Duncan and Malcolm Cam
noTe are mere creatures of Shakespeare's
fancy, until you find in the mustv records
OF old Inverness that they once walked its
streets with all of your own passion, hope,
ambition and until you have stood on Tom
never really known Hugh Miller, stone
mason, great-heart and sage Despite DIR.
Johnsun's matchless apostrophe to Iona,
the story Of ColOmb's sanity isle, of the
Christian enlightenment emanatiug from it
TO the " hole British Isles and
THE GREATER PART OF EUROPE,
When nearly all the scenes lighted by the
FIRST fires of apostolic sacrifice had partially
relapSed into SuperstitOus barbariSm, is as
fIeamful as the legends of the Holy Grail.
1tf
Of IA and wandered along its "Straid-
na-Marbh." where lie countless Chiefs
friarS, ahbots and kings. After you have
passed an hour in the ancient churchyard of
Greyiriars, in Edinburgh, you will begin to
realize who were the Coyenanter5 of Scot
land. and what they endured for their con-
sciences sake. When you have come to the
ruins Of Lochmaben, Robert the Bruce. pat
OF king and warrior, first leaves the mists of
legend and tradition, and welcomes you as a
man of flesh and blood to his old home by
;he sedgy lake. Melrose, Dryburgh and all
he grand mOnastic structure of The sunny,
murmurous Tweed are poets phantaSms
until you wander among their ruined
e'oiSterS and touch with your own hands
the brave old stones of their majestic arches.
Scott, the "Ettrick Shepherd" Carlyle, even
Barns himself, are half ideal, until you have
stood by the Ettrick and Yarrow, sadly left
the princely Abb0tsfOrd, shuddered at the
folorous dearth and meanness of Carlyle's
hoyhood home at Ecclefechan, and heard
with your own hearing the melodious songs
OF the NTH and the Doom.
Ii this is true of ireland and Scotland how
lnhhitely more impressive Is this identified
lon t. the average American pilgrim in
England, the mOther-land of our own race
and tongue. A mighty volume, and a sweet
and tender enc withal. could be made. rele-
eating apparent realities to their home in
nyih-land, and beckoning from the realms
of legend and tradition the actual beings
whom imagery first swept from reality, and
whom successive centuries of poetic fancy,
shared alike BY us from childhood TO man.
hood, have placed further and further be-
mind the ever-loved veilings of mystery and
-ong. NO two characters in the semi
mythology of Britain IRE better illustrations
nan those of King Arthur and Robin Hood.
Antitypes as they were and are, the one
he embodiment of the Hottest and noblest
quail ties in ruler and man, the other, jocund
anarchist and Pucksh freebooter and "ley-
eler OF his time, both are objects of equal,
though unlike, devotion not only in the
literature OF centuries, but in the breasts of
millions who speak the English tongue
lie most curious thing about these two
characters Is that the least aids TO Identified
ton are found among the high minded and
learned. Literature universally places
them in shadowland. But go where Won
may among the English lOwly King Arthur
is really there; Robin Hood with his faithful
Little John, Friar Tuck and their hundred
archers bold, are ever goodly company a
helpful unconscious ethical counterpoise it
has sometimes seemed to me-, where burdens
and impositIons of caste and condition are
most grlevous and sore to abide. A few
wears of wandering among the British lowly,
more than all reading and study, have con-
.inced NE that both King Arthur and Robin
Hood once really existed, and lived much
the same manner of lives AS the song and
ballad makers, although responsible for
t t,b legendary character. have shadowed
forth. can take you into thousands of
cabins IN Devonshire, Cornwall and in Brit
tany-for King Arthur is even more a pod
TO the Britons than to the West of England
Armorlcan Celts.
WHERE BOOKS ARE UNKNOWN:
Where no manner of literature ever came.
where history of clan and sept have been
preserved from father to son; where the
ArthGrian legends live more bright and
glowing than in all the printed tales of the
Table Round. These absolutely bookless
FOLK Will take you to the very landing-place
OF King Uther; show you the real remains
OF the twin castles Tintagel and TeTrabil;
relate how Uther Pendragon besieged the
Duke OF Cornwall. slew him, and the same
day wed his widow, Ygrayne, to whom the
child Arthur was born, and reared by the
enchanler, Merlin, under good Sir Ector's
care. who restored TO him the kingdom of
Cornwall on Pendragon's death; how
.he noble King Arthur instituted
Round Table, whose sanity acts in
the service of God and man. until they fell
into sin, were deeds of good and glory: how
Arthur loved only and wed Guineyere. he
tiayfd by Launcelot, and. at last receiving
his death wound in battle with his rebellious
nephew's forces at Camelford (Which the
poets make Camelot, Arthur babe the lovaI
knight, Sir Believer, carry him to Dozmare
Pool, fling his sword Excalibur therein. when
boat, rowed by three queens, appeared.
lnt0'this Arthur was lifted and borne away
into the island vale of Avillion, that his grjey
Gus wound might be healed. These folk
say, and behave, that Arthur is still in fairy
land; that his spirit often returns in tie
guse OF a bird, the enough lowering about
the old scenes with pathetic mGrmurings;
and that he will surely come again."
Wearing the white flower of a blamcIcss llre
To reign as king should and might over his
beloyH England. Literature never provided
q E-ad hoo 81