368 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
The traditions attaching to the round table in different localities 
were referred to. 
Arthur met with his death on the banks of the river Cambula, or 
Camel, in the "last dim, weird battle of the West," whither he 
had pursued Modred, his traitor nephew. The king fell in mortal 
combat with his foe, who also was wounded to the death. 
Drayton has quaintly pictured the never-ceasing despair of the 
river Camel at the sad scene she had witnessed, so that she is 
regardless of the taunts of her sister Cornish rivers. 
Leland says that on the site of this battle, commonly called the 
battle of Camlam, in the immediate neighbourhood of Camelford, 
fragments of arms and trappings of horses were in his time still 
dug up, and that there was a strong local tradition of a great 
battle. 
The fight is described in John de Waurin's Chronicle ; and as to 
the encounter between the two chieftains, Robert of Gloucester 
says Arthur smote off Mordred's head "as if it were a little 
stubble. This was his last chivalry; for here he received his 
death-wound." 
According to the chroniclers, the wounded Arthur was super- 
naturally carried to the island of Avallon, or Glastonbury, and this 
episode is picturesquely dealt with by the romancers. 
The common tradition was that he suffered only a temporary 
kind of death, and that he would come again to reassume the 
sceptre. 
By Eoger of Wendover's account, " in the year 1191 the bones 
of Arthur, a renowned king of Britain, were found buried at 
Glastonbury, in a very old sarcophagus, near which two pyramids 
stood ; and on these letters had been carved out, but which were 
scarcely legible, on account of their roughness and shapelessness." 
There are also other accounts of this discovery in the Glastonbury 
Chronicles and elsewhere. 
From Dugdale's Monasticon it appears that the relics were re- 
moved into the presbytery of the church and reinterred. 
Finally, the lecturer quoted three authorities with approbation. 
The first was William of Malmesbury, of the twelfth century, an 
excellent scholar, and possessing a more critical spirit than any of 
his predecessors, and considered one of our chief historians. He 
wrote before Geoffrey of Monmouth, and was enabled to consult 
authorities which cannot be traced in any other ancient historian. 
