Lyonesse Revisited

About this poem

Lyonesse, or Lethowstow as Local Cornish would say, is the area of land that finally collapsed between the Cornish Coast and the Isles of Scilly. It is also the area of land that was intensely mined for tin for centuries and centuries. It was probably the level of mass undermining of the land whilst extracting tin that led to the eventual collapse of the whole area which fell under the waves.Some have suggested that the final battle between Arthur and Mordred may have been on this now vanished area of land. The area of land that disappeared would have been 30 miles in length and covered the majority of what would have been arthurian lands. Alfred Lord Tennyson poem / Lyonesse - :Idylls of the King- Then rose the King and moved his host by night And ever pushed Sir Mordred, league by league, Back to the sunset bound of Lyonesse— A land of old upheaven from the abyss By fire, to sink into the abyss again; Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt, And the long mountains ended in a coast Of ever-shifting sand, and far away The phantom circle of a moaning sea. more »