Scottish Cameliard: Villemarque's Myrdhinn
In an old post, I discovered that there was an idea being floated around in the commentaries of Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the King, that Cameliard, the home kingdom of Queen Guinevere, was located in Scotland. This identification comes not from Tennyson himself but from critics of Tennyson's work:
Naturally, it got me wondering how on earth did they come to that conclusion. In Medieval Arthurian tradition, Cameliard isn't really identified with any notable location and is only vaguely described geographically (more on that later).
So, I scoured online for possible sources and, so far, I only found one lead; a tiny reference to where this might have come from, in Essays on Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King by Harold Littledale:
It turned out the work being cited here seems to be Myrdhinn ou l'enchanteur Merlin son histoire, ses oeuvres, son influence, by Theodore Hersart de la Villemarque (1815-1895) a Breton Philologist known for his compilations of Breton Folk songs and essays on Arthurian legend.
In particular, this book contains an adaptation of the Vulgate Merlin prepared by Villemarque (apparently based on Manuscripts n.6769 and n.6958, according to the footnote).
Within this rendition, Leodegrance does appear to be referred to as "Roi d'Ecosse" (King of Scotland):
As I'm not a French speaker or an expert around these documents, so I could be mistaken. But it would seem that I found a possible origin where the "Scottish Cameliard" Theory came about to the Victorian readers.
On further reflection, a Northern location for Guinevere's homeland isn't as far-fetched or pure speculation: there is a small but notable detail from the Vulgate Lancelot - the earliest known text to depict 'Cameliard' in Arthurian Literature - regarding the City of Bredigan:
(Source: Vulgate Cycle - Lancelot pt. III)
The highlighted line above implies that Carmelide/Cameliard and Ireland share a border with each other. Obviously, this is nonsense if we were thinking this geologically, as Ireland is a separate Island from Britain.
But perhaps the "Ireland" here isn't referring to the island but to a major Irish settlement on the island of Britain. Of which, there just so happens to be one that would have been present during the reign of King Arthur (circa 500 A.D.): the Dál Riata, which was located on the west coast of the land that would be later be known as Scotland.
So, with that piece of information, I think we can reasonably conclude that the placement of Cameliard north of the Hadrian wall as plausible, at least within the bounds of the French Arthurian canon*.
*(Naturally, Welsh folklore points towards a different placement of Guinevere's birthplace, much closer to the Cambrian territories, ranging from Brycheiniog to Powys)
