I dreamed that my friend's daughter had asked for a hedgehog for Christmas. I went to visit them after the holidays, and they had an aquarium all set up, since baby hedgehogs were like tadpoles, and lived in the water until they had grown.
The aquarium had shimmering blue gravel at the bottom, and lovely little water plants, and some bright fuchsia shrimp to keep it clean of algae. And there, flooping around happily, was the tiny pink hedgelet, with its pale, pliable spines and just a hint of calico fur starting to show vividly across its back. I kept trying to learn its name, but instead its proud new mama told me lots of facts I didn't know about hedgehogs, though she was uncertain, and I was able to assure her, that they were, in fact, mammals and not amphibians.
I left hedgehog aquarium central to travel to Cornwall. I had a ticket to visit Tintagel while a film crew was shooting a new Arthurian film on site, and I'd get to watch some takes with the lead actors.
I had been to Tintagel before, with my university marching band. The MOB had played a pep concert there about five years before, but I was looking forward to being there on my own with time to explore. The main tourist site was on an island near the south east shore of a broad lake. It wasn't the true early Middle Ages site, but a "replica" built in the 19th century during a neogothic revival. The site billed itself as Brittan in a nutshell, saying the narrow channel between the island and the lake shore was like the English Channel.
I arrived mid-morning on an overcast day. The lake gleamed like pewter in the fitful, pale light, and mist drifted from its surface. Everything was shades of gray, from the dim sky to the mirror-like waters to the fog-bound crags along the lake shore. I crossed over the bridge to the island, and the great hall of the neogothic castle loomed ahead, jutting like the prow of a ship out onto a promontory overhanging the lake on the west side of the island.
I went into the keep, and a polished gray marble floor stretched out before me to the towering glass windows to the west, like the nave of a cathedral, only featuring a view of the lake rather than an altar and tabernacle for the host. There was a stone table, though, where the altar would be, with the sword Excalibur carved into it. All along the sides of the hall were windowed niches like cathedral side chapels, holding pale gray statues of knights and ladies and dragons. The walls were buttressed with rosy pink granite, lending the only color to a scene that was otherwise in hues of silver and shadow.
There was a high balcony on one of the western columns framing the huge windows at the hall's end. I was led up to it, to look down into a yard beneath the hall windows on the little triangle of land that lay between the hall and the tip of the prow-like promontory. When I had visited before, it had been walled, but the walls had been removed so that filming there could capture the panorama of the lake and hills beyond. There "King Arthur" was declaiming a stirring speech that was at the climax of the film. Chris Hemsworth was playing the king, with grizzled beard and long blond hair. I couldn't really hear what he was saying, but his voice rang and echoed in the rafters of the hall.
After they had finished their morning takes, my guide led me to other parts of the site, including a museum and teashop. He was an older gentleman with strawberry blond hair going mostly gray, a strong, square jaw, tanned, weathered skin, and bright blue eyes. He looked familiar, and I asked him if he'd been there before when my band had played. He laughed and said yes, he remembered that, and it had been so much fun.
He sat me at a table that was patterned with teacups and bags of flour and food tins, and asked me to puzzle out what that theme was doing there as a decoration while he went and got me some tea. Of course, it was King Arthur Flour in the bags, and I guessed the other goods were branded King Arthur as well. We talked some more over tea about the lore of the site, the building of the anachronistic castle, why the film crew insisted on using it, ahistorical as it was, my previous visit, and what I would find in the museum, which I hadn't had a chance to visit before. Then he left me to wander on my own.
The teashop and museum were a huge contrast to the stark rose and gray of the hall. The walls were a warm cream color, the floors a golden amber wood, and everything was warm and cozy. One passage in the museum led me to a little turret stair of golden sandstone, and I followed it down to a postern door that opened onto the lake shore. I was walking along the water's edge, over deep, blue-black, wave-smoothed stones, looking out as the sky cleared a bit and the lowering sun flamed the edges of the mist and clouds to fire and gold. And then I woke up.
