Cornwall, England
The story of the doomed love of Tristan and Iseult is one of the
most famous and much loved subjects of the medieval romancers who
created the vast epics of Arthurian literature. Tristan was King Mark's
nephew who, having been sent to fetch his uncle's bride-to-be from
Ireland,
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| A dangerous winding
way over broken rocks leads up to the remains of the tiny chapel. |
accidentally shared a love potion with her so
that the two fell hopelessly in love. Thereafter, their lives were
lived in a series of furtive trysts, while they both sought to escape
the traps laid for them by the suspicious Mark. In the end, Tristan
met his death and Iseult, unable to live without him, followed soon
after.
A number of sites in and around Cornwall and the far north commemorate
this tragic tale. One of the most spectacular is Roche Rock, a massive
outcrop of granite, rising from a landscape ruined by clay mining,
on which is perched the remains of a fifteenth-century chapel. A contemporary
theory, first advanced by E. M. R. Ditmas in her study of the topography
of the Tristan legend, suggests that this may have been the site of
the hermit Ogrin's chapel, where the lovers, having escaped from King
Mark, found temporary refuge. The medieval poet Beroul, who wrote
one of the earliest versions of the story, appears to display an intimate
knowledge of the Cornish landscape, and his description of Ogrin's
chapel certainly bears a more than passing resemblance to Roche Rock.
A later version of the story speaks of Tristan's escape from Mark's
soldiers - who had locked him in a cell within another chapel - by
jumping from the window down on to some perilous rocks. Such a feat
would not be beyond an athletic man, though the result might well
be fatal. Near by, at Chapel Point, overlooking the sea near Mevagissey,
is the supposed site of 'Tristan's Leap', but a far more likely site
would seem to be Roche Rock, where such a dramatic escape would have
stayed in the minds of local story-tellers and might well have become
known to one of the authors of the early Tristan story. |
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