Tintagel Castle (or, King Arthur's castle) – a mere ruin of rocks on the cliffs. Beneath it, by the sea and reachable by crossing the beach, is Merlin's cave, a hole in the rock that spans the peninsular island. You can walk into the giant cave from one side and cross out to the other, stepping from stone to stone, avoiding tiny pools of water and emerging on the other side in the fresh sea air and blinding sunlight to see a new landscape of jagged black crags that emerge from the ocean waves like teeth from some great monster foaming at the mouth.
The land here is so beautiful and grey. It is somber and melancholy and mystical— I can perfectly see why the natives of this place believe that it may have been home to the mysterious King Arthur and his wizard, Merlin. As we climbed from the beach and Merlin's cave, up the cliff-side to the top of the peninsula where the castle ruins were, my professor, John, standing high up on the steps, pointed down towards the bay and the warm grey water. There was a seal playing in the waves.
Well, after returning to Tintagel, we crowded back into the coach and drove down into Penzance, stopping briefly at two neolithic standing stone structures on the outskirts of the city. The first one was basically Aslan's stone table— in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if really was :D
And the second (called a men-an-tol) was a circular rock with a hole in it. I really liked that one. There was a story that went along with it saying that back in the day people would crawl through the hole nine times and it would heal them of their back problems. Yeah, nine times crawling on the ground thru a tiny hole would do that I suppose. :D
After stopping at the two sites we took a two mile hike across the beach and up a hillside to Land's End, the Southernmost point in England.
By the end of all this, though, everyone was tuckered out. I believe we all had windburn and or sunburn because we'd been outside practically all day with the wind blowing in our faces. At our youth hostel we got a surprise free dinner— I was so happy. We were going to have to go into town to get food— a 15 min walk in the dark at 6:45pm after a long day to get (probably) expensive food, but instead we were able to sit and relax and just hang out at the hostel the rest of the night after a good hot dinner. That was a happy occurrence.
After exploring the top of the peninsula for about an hour, stopping to write in our journals for about half an hour, we headed back to Tintagel. The wind was strong up on the top of the cliffs and many of the girls were getting cold. It was so beautiful. I cannot capture the beauty of God's creations either in written word or in drawings or in paint or sculpture. I am nothing compared to Him and to the immensity of his power. I even try to mimic and fall vastly short of even coming close to the majesty He creates in even the tiniest flower bud or smallest drop of water. So, why do I try? Why do we even try, us makers? For that I am— I am a maker of things. I create. Just like a dog barks or a drinking fountain spews water, I am made to make things. So, I guess it's simply in my nature. I cannot help it— or if I can, I don not wish to help it. I merely can express it.
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