Tintagel Christmas 2002

Tintagel Christmas 2002

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The Magic Begins...

The time: Early in the morning, before sunrise few years back, just before Christmas. The setting: I'm sitting with noted Arthurian author, Paul Broadhurst, high up on the rocky side of Roughtor. This is a great crag of granite stone that sticks up out of a barren landscape of wilderness, in the centre of Bodmin Moor, and miles from civilisation. As we sit in near darkness, the grass glistens with white frost, dark shapes loom out of the landscape, and then the sky starts to change colour with streaks of pale blue and gold. The sun is rising slowly behind us, and the moorland at our feet is still black. Then, suddenly, the shadow retreats rapidly towards us, as the rising sun climbs above the peak of rock, an amazing landscape filled with rough circles of stone (each about 6 metres across) is revealed. These are stone hut circles, evidence that thousands of years ago, this wild landscape was densely populated, with people who had settled here, built thatched stone houses, worshipped here. Ahead of us, and stretching away to the horizon, is a long straight lane, the rays of the sun cutting a golden swathe through the rocky landscape, away towards the sea. The sun is cutting a direct line to the very gates of Tintagel, because this is the Winter Solstice, and we are witnessing the very start of the festival which we now know as Christmas! What a place for a virtual party!

See you there! Warmest Christmas Wishes,

John Coles,

in a land more ancient than King Arthur.