‘Ile be the bane of Cornwall Kinge’: The ballad of King Arthur and King Cornwall and the relentless pursuit of vengeance in the pre-modern Arthurian tradition

Abstract

Abstract This paper concerns the narrative logic behind the disregard for the life of King Arthur’s opponent in the seventeenth-century ballad of King Arthur and King Cornwall. It approaches its subject through comparisons with the last book of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, Le pèlerinage de Charlemagne, Le petit Poucet, Jack and the Beanstalk and the History of Mother Twaddle, and the Marvellous Atchievements [sic] of her Son Jack. It argues that by associating Arthur’s rival, King Cornwall, with magic objects and a fire-breathing creature called Burlow Beanie, as well as placing Cornwall’s domain away from Arthur’s, the ballad marks Cornwall as ‘other’ and, in so doing, implies that ordinary moral considerations do not apply when it comes to actions such as the killing of Cornwall. The article additionally argues that a major difference between the ballad and the last book of Le Morte Darthur, where much of the action is driven by factors that also feature prominently in King Arthur and King Cornwall, lies in the fact that in Le Morte Darthur none of the major actors are marked as ‘other’ – highlighting the nature of the tragedy that unfolds as one of destructive internal conflict.