button to main menu  Gents Mag 1791 p.1080

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Gentleman's Magazine 1791 p.1080
(p.991) about King Arthur and his round table, I shall beg leave to add, that the seat of this fabulous monarch was at Carlisle, and that Tarn Wadling, a spacious lake near Armanthwaite, is frequently mentioned in our old poetical romances concerning him. It is said, I think, that there is a city at the bottom of it. The origin of these local traditions is to be attributed to the Cambrian Britons, who kept possession of this part of the country long after the Saxons, and even Normans, were in possession of the rest. One seldom hears of King Arthur but in or near Wales, Cornwall, or Cumberland. The ballad, which I suspect your correspondent had not direct from Percy's Reliques, is incorrectly printed; but it is neither very antient nor very rare. He has taken it, I am persuaded, from Clarke's Survey of the Lakes. It is always candid, however, to cite the true authority, though it may not happen to be the most respectable.
Eamont (or Eimot) is a slight corruption of the Saxon Ea-muth, i.e. the water's mouth, meaning Ulleswater, whence this river flows. A Saxon name for a river is so uncommon a circumstance, that I should be glad to know whether its irruption might not have taken place subsequently to the settlement of that people.
... ...
Yours, &c.
DEIRENSIS.
gazetteer links
button -- Eamont, River
button -- Tarn Wadling

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