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The Knights Templar  Sometime between 1110 and 1120, in the aftermath of the First Crusade, a small group of knights  vowed to devote their lives to the protection of pilgrims in the Holy Land. They were called the 'Order of the Poor Knights of Christ.' The King of Jerusalem, Baldwin II, granted them the use of a captured mosque built on Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the site of the ancient Temple of Solomon. From this they became known as the Knights Templar. Under the patronage of St. Bernard of Clairvaux the Order received papal sanction and legitimacy. The Knights Templar were granted permission by the pope to wear a distinctive white robe with a red cross. ... read more

Knight Templar Rock  Knight Templar Rock is almost midway up the eastern side of Lundy, facing the rising Sun....read more

Lundy Island and the Knights Templar   Lundy Island has two indisputable links to the Knights Templar. One past, one present. Firstly, the Templars owned Lundy in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and, secondly, on the eastern side of Lundy Island, where it faces the rising sun, there is a rock formation in the shape of a head, known as Knight Templar Rock. ...read more

Temples of Apollo  The author of the journal of Pytheas' travels (Diodoros Siculus, Bibliotheca quoting Hecateus of Abdera as one of the writer's authorities). wrote that there were two temples to the god Apollo on the British Isles. There was ‘both a magnificent sacred precinct of Apollo and a notable temple which is adorned with many votive offerings and is spherical in shape’ ..... read more

Alfred, Lord Tennyson - The Idylls of the King  The Victorian poet, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, based his twelve poem 'Idylls of the King' (1859-85) on the Morte D'Arthur ....read the full text here .....download in pdf eBook format

But Lancelot mused a little space; He said, 'She has a lovely face;

God in his mercy lend her grace,

The Lady of Shalott.'

......read the full poem here

Arthurian Texts   A selection of Arthurian Texts including Alfred, Lord Tennyson - The Idylls of the King, Le Morte D'Arthur - Thomas Malory, Sir Gawain and the Green knight - Jesse Weston, The Mabinogion, Perlesvaus or The High History of the Holy Grail, Gildas De Excidio Britonum ........read more

Theoderic   In the late 5th century the Visigoth kingdom in what is now western France, had deployed a substantial fleet in the Bay of Biscay. When the kingdom was conquered by Clovis the Frank ( Claudas in Malory) in 507 AD the survivors were pushed into Mediterranean Spain. The fleet lost its Atlantic harbours.....read more

Le Morte D'Arthur - Thomas Malory    Edited and first published by William Caxton in 1485, Sir Thomas Malory's unique and splendid version of the Arthurian legend tells an immortal story of love, adventure, chivalry, treachery, and death......read the full text here .....download in pdf eBook format

Tintagel - The site of Arthur's conception and birth. So many pieces of sixth c. Mediterranean pottery have been found at Tintagel that they are termed 'Tintagel Ware.'  "no doubt that Tintagel was indeed central to the economic activity of western Britain." .....read more

Towers on Lundy   Irish and Welsh legends contain numerous instances of  towers on  islands, the 'Tower of Bre?', the tower of Arianrhod, the tower under which the head of Bran is buried. Is there any evidence on Lundy for the existence of such a tower on Lundy? ....read more

Alfred, Lord Tennyson - The Idylls of the King  The Victorian poet, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, based his twelve poem 'Idylls of the King' (1859-85) on the Morte D'Arthur ....read the full text here .....download in pdf eBook format

Trade Routes  In ancient, and not so ancient, times the mines of south-western Britain were the source of the world's supply of tin and the coming of the Phoenicians to Cornwall to trade for tin is well attested to.  Most historians, Sir John Evans and Lord Avebury among them, believe that the trade existed as early as 1500 BC.  With trade also go ideas, colonists, travellers, refugees....... read more

Welsh Triads   'The Triads are a peculiar species of poetical composition, of which the Welsh bards have left numerous examples. They are enumerations of a triad of persons, or events, or observations, strung together in one short sentence. This form of composition, originally invented, in all likelihood, to assist the memory, has been raised by the Welsh to a degree of elegance of which it hardly at first sight appears susceptible..... read more

Tristram King Mark of Cornwall sends his nephew Tristram to Ireland to escort his (Mark's) intended bride Issolde to Cornwall. On the ship back the Tristram and Issolde fall in love under the influence of a potion prepared by Issolde's mother for her wedding night. King Mark and Issolde are married as planned but the passion of Tristram and Issolde for each other cannot be long concealed.....read more

Chretien de Troyes   Chrétien de Troyes wrote five Arthurian romances in the last part of the twelfth century;- ‘Erec et Enide’, ‘CligÚs’, ‘Le Chevalier de la Charrette’ (Lancelot), ‘Le Chevalier au Lion’ (Yvain – Owain) and ‘Le Conte du Graal’ (Perceval);the last was left unfinished on his death in, apparently, 1191.........read more

T.S.Eliot - The Wasteland   APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

...read the full poem here

The Twelve Labours of Hercules    Hercules was the son of Zeus, but he was born into the family of a mortal king. When he was still a youth, being over-whelmed by a madness sent upon him by one of the goddesses, he slew the children of his brother Iphicles. Then, coming to know what he had done, sleep and rest went from him: he went to Delphi, to the shrine of Apollo, to be purified of his crime. At Delphi, at the shrine of Apollo, the priestess purified him, and when she had purified him she uttered this prophecy: "From this day forth thy name shall be, not Alcides, but Hercules. Thou shalt go to Eurystheus, thy cousin, in Mycenæ, and serve him in all things. When the labors he shall lay upon thee are accomplished, and when the rest of thy life is lived out, thou shalt become one of the immortals." ....read the full text here