KING ARTHURS

The story of King Arthur has roots on both sides of the English Channel, where parts of Cornwall and Brittany blur the lines of myth and history as you walk among legends

- Andrew Eames

On a cliff overlooking a surging sea in North Cornwall, the figure of a 2.4m-high metal knight in ephemeral robes stands resting his hands on his sword and gazing southwards. He may have seen something that we mere mortals cannot, because if you were to follow his eyes some 300km as the crow flies, you'd spot a trio of similarly huge metal men in a wooded glade in the village of Néant-sur-Yvel in Brittany, France, each seated at a circular table that looks achingly familiar. It's a scene that has been torn from legends and stories told time and again.

These figures may be in different countries, but all four are part of the same mythology: the tale of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. While there's no mistaking the seated trio of Arthur, Kay and Gawain in France, the Cornish statue is harder to place, and has been nominally titled Gallos (Cornish for 'power'). But given that it stands on Tintagel Island (aka Camelot), a site up to its gauntlets in Arthurian legend, the majority of people who stand before it all come to the same conclusion as to its identity.

In the UK, we tend to think of King Arthur as ours. Yet the French have a similar idea, even going so far as to include Arthurian texts on their school curriculum. The reason is that the legend's sources are in both English and French, and the two countries have their own charismatic Arthurian locations. Add to this the idea that Arthur may well never have existed, and it made me all the more curious to explore the two halves of a story told on both sides of the Channel.