View source for Lyonesse

{{Short description|Mythical sunken land, part of England}}
{{distinguish|Lyonnaise (disambiguation){{!}}Lyonnaise}}
{{other uses}}
{{More citations needed|date=June 2022}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox fictional location
| name       = Lyonesse
| image      = 
| imagesize  = 250px
| caption    = 
| source     = [[Tristan and Iseult]]
| creator    = 
| genre      = [[Arthurian legend]]
| type       = Fictional country
| locations  = 
| people     = [[Tristan]]
}}
'''Lyonesse''' ([[International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects|/liːɒˈnɛs/]] ''lee-uh-NESS'') is a kingdom which, according to legend, consisted of a long strand of land stretching from [[Land's End]] at the southwestern tip of [[Cornwall]], England, to what is now the [[Isles of Scilly]] in the [[Celtic Sea]] portion of the [[Atlantic Ocean]]. It was considered lost after being swallowed by the ocean in a single night. The people of Lyonesse were said to live in fair towns, with over 140 churches, and work in fertile, low-lying plains. Lyonesse's most significant attraction was a castle-like cathedral that was presumably{{By whom?|date=October 2025}} built on top of what is now the [[Seven Stones Reef]] between Land's End and the Isles of Scilly, some {{convert|18|mi}} west of Land's End and {{convert|8|mi}} north-east of the Isles of Scilly. It is sometimes spelled ''Lionesse''.<ref name="Whitfield"></ref>

Lyonesse is mentioned in [[Arthurian legend]], specifically in the tragic love-and-loss story of [[Tristan and Iseult]]. It was the home of the hero [[Tristan]] (one of the [[Knights of the Round Table]]), whose father [[Meliodas]] was king of Lyonesse. After the death of Meliodas, Tristan became the heir of Lyonesse, but he was never to take up his inheritance because the land sank beneath the sea while he was away at his uncle [[Mark of Cornwall|King Mark's]] court in Cornwall. In later traditions, Lyonesse is said to have sunk beneath the waves in a single night, but stories differ as to whether this catastrophic event occurred on 11 November 1099, or 10 years earlier. According to one legend, the people of Lyonesse had committed a crime so terrible that God took his revenge against them and their kingdom. The exact nature of the crime is never specified, but the legend tells of a horrific storm that occurred over the course of a single night, resulting in an enormous wave that swallowed the kingdom.

==The sole survivor==
[[File:Coat of Arms of Humphrey Trevelyan, Baron Trevelyan, KG, GCMG, CIE, OBE.png|thumb|Trevelyan arms depicting the white horse]]
Local Cornwall village tourism guides offer stories of a man who escaped the storm and a subsequent wave while riding a white horse.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hutchins |first1=Fortescue |title=The History of Cornwall, from the Earliest Records and Traditions to the Present Time |date=1824 |publisher=William Penaluna |location=London }}</ref> Apparently, the horse lost one of its shoes during the escape. The rider's name is thought to be [[Trevelyan (disambiguation)|Trevelyan]] (or Trevilian). The rider had been out hunting during the day and had fallen asleep under a tree. Trevelyan was awoken by a horrible noise and raced across the land to higher ground.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Weatherhill |first1=Craig |title=The Children of Epona: Horses in Cornish Legend by Craig Weatherhill |url=https://cornwallyesteryear.com/the-children-of-epona-horses-in-cornish-legend-by-craig-weatherhill/ |website=Cornwall Yesteryear |access-date=1 June 2024}}</ref> This story is linked to local Cornish families who have used the image of three horseshoes as part of their [[armorial bearings]] for generations. One family in particular goes by the name [[Vyvyan family|Vyvyan]], and is one of Cornwall's oldest families; they also have a crest of a white horse and claim to be descendants of the sole survivor, Trevelyan. The Vyvyan family claims that Trevelyan was the last governor of the lost kingdom before Lyonesse was swallowed by the ocean.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Chorlton |first1=Anna |title=Last man out of Lyonesse |url=https://www.mazedtales.org/content/stories/last-man-out-lyonesse |access-date=1 June 2024}}</ref>

Today, many myths and legends continue to arise about Lyonesse without physical evidence. Included among these legends are tales of local fishermen who claim that on calm days, one can still hear the bells of the many churches softly ringing in the seas off the west Cornish coast. Local fishermen also claim that they have caught glass, forks, and wood in their fishing nets.

==The Lyonesse Project==
[[File:Bronze Age Scilly Coastline in 3,000 BC.png|thumb|[[Isles of Scilly]] in {{nobr|3&thinsp;000 {{sc|BCE}}:}} The lower sea level meant that the archipelago formed one large island with a central plain.]]
A 2009–2013 joint study titled ''The Lyonesse Project: A Study of the Coastal and Marine Environment of the Isles of Scilly'' was commissioned by [[English Heritage]] and carried out by the Historic Environment Projects, [[Cornwall Council]], with a team of academics, local experts, and enthusiasts "to reconstruct the evolution of the physical environment of the [[Isles of Scilly]] during the [[Holocene]], the progressive occupation of this changing coastal landscape by early peoples, and their response to marine inundation and changing marine resource availability."

The project found that much of the story of Lyonesse can be "dismissed as fantasy"; legends and memories of submergences are common throughout coastal northwestern Europe. However, the study did conclude that the Isles of Scilly were once a single large island, separated into smaller islands by the rapid rise of the sea. Stone walls have been found under the water in the vicinity of the Isles of Scilly, which support the findings that sea level rises affected the towns of the area, although whether they are evidence of buildings or the remains of medieval fish traps remains unclear.<ref>{{cite web |first1=Dan |last1=Charman |first2=Charlie |last2=Johns |first3=Kevin |last3=Camidge |first4=Peter |last4=Marshall |first5=Steve F. |last5=Mills |first6=Jacqui |last6=Mulville |first7=Helen M. |last7=Roberts |year=2014 |title=The Lyonesse Project: a study of the coastal and marine environment of the Isles of Scilly |website=Archeological Data Service (archaeologydataservice.ac.uk) |url=https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/lyonesse_eh_2014/overview.cfm |access-date=13 May 2021 }}</ref>

==Lyonesse in Arthurian legend==
In medieval Arthurian legend, no references are made to the sinking of Lyonesse, because the name originally referred to a still-existing place. Lyonesse is an English alteration of French '''Léoneis''' or '''Léonois''' (earlier '''Loönois'''), a development of ''Lodonesia'', the Latin name for [[Lothian]] in Scotland. Continental writers of Arthurian romances were often puzzled by the internal geography of Great Britain;{{Dubious|date=September 2019}} thus it is that the author of the French [[Prose Tristan|Prose ''Tristan'']] appears to place Léonois beside Cornwall.

In English adaptations of the French tales, Léonois, now "Lyonesse", becomes a kingdom wholly distinct from Lothian, and closely associated with the Cornish region, though its exact geographical location remained unspecified. The name was not attached to Cornish legends of lost coastal lands until the reign of [[Elizabeth I of England]].<ref name="Bivar">{{cite journal |last=Bivar |first=A. D. H. |date=February 1953 |title=Lyonnesse: The Evolution of a Fable |journal=Modern Philology |volume=50 |issue=3 |pages=162–170 |doi=10.1086/388954|s2cid=162310176 }}</ref> However, the legendary lost land between Land's End and Scilly has a distinct Cornish name: ''Lethowsow''. This derives from the Cornish name for the [[Seven Stones Reef]], on the reputed site of the lost land's capital and the site of the notorious wreck of the {{SS|Torrey Canyon||2}}. The name means 'the milky ones', from the constant white water surrounding the reef.{{fact|date=October 2025}}

[[Alfred, Lord Tennyson]]'s Arthurian epic ''[[Idylls of the King]]'' describes Lyonesse as the site of the final battle between King Arthur and [[Mordred]] (King Arthur's nephew and illegitimate son).<ref name="Whitfield">{{cite book |last1=Whitfield |first1=Henry |title=Scilly and its Legends |date=1852 |publisher=Kessinger Legacy Reprints |pages=12–24 }}</ref> One passage in particular references legends of Lyonesse and its rise from (and subsequent return to) the ocean:

<blockquote><poem>Then rose the King and moved his host by night
And ever pushed Sir Mordred, league by league,
Back to the sunset bound of Lyonesse—
A land of old upheaven from the abyss
By fire, to sink into the abyss again;
Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt,
And the long mountains ended in a coast
Of ever-shifting sand, and far away
The phantom circle of a moaning sea.</poem></blockquote>

==Analogues in Celtic mythology==
The legend of a sunken kingdom appears in [[Cornish mythology|Cornish]], [[Breton mythology|Breton]] and [[Welsh mythology|Welsh]] mythologies. In Christian times, it came to be viewed as a sort of Cornish [[Sodom and Gomorrah]], an example of divine wrath provoked by unvirtuous living. A Breton parallel is found in the tale of the Cité d'[[Ys]] or Ker Ys, similarly drowned as a result of its debauchery, with a single virtuous survivor, King [[Gradlon]], escaping on a horse. According to Welsh legend, the kingdom of [[Cantre'r Gwaelod]] in [[Cardigan Bay]] was drowned due to the drunkard negligence of its prince, [[Seithenyn]], who allowed the sea to sweep through the floodgates.

The tale of Lyonesse is sometimes suggested to represent an extraordinary survival of folk memory of the flooding of the Isles of Scilly and [[Mount's Bay]] near Penzance<ref name=Hind>{{Cite book |last=Hind |first=C. Lewis |year=1907 |title=Days in Cornwall |url=https://archive.org/details/daysincornwall00hindgoog |location=London |publisher=Methuen and Co. |page=[https://archive.org/details/daysincornwall00hindgoog/page/n206/mode/2up 163] |lccn=08005817 |oclc=1048468902}}</ref> when the sea levels rose during the Bronze Age. For example, the [[Cornish language|Cornish]] name of [[St Michael's Mount]] is ''Karrek Loos y'n Koos'' – literally "the grey rock in the wood", suggesting that the bay was once a forest. According to local tourism guides in the region, Lyonesse was once connected to the west of Cornwall and is firmly rooted in Cornwall's traditions and mythology. [[Cornish people]] around Penzance still get occasional glimpses at extreme low water of a sunken forest in Mount's Bay, where petrified tree stumps become visible adjacent to the Celtic Sea. [[John of Worcester]], a famous English monk and chronicler, wrote in 1099 that [[St Michael's Mount]] (now an island in Mount's Bay) was five or six miles from the sea, enclosed in a thick wood. The importance of the maintenance of this memory can be seen in that it came to be associated with the legendary [[Brython]] hero Arthur, although the date of its inundation is actually c. 2500 BC.

==Cultural references==

=== In poetry ===
*''[[Tristram of Lyonesse]]'' (1882) is an epic poem by [[Algernon Charles Swinburne]].
* ''When I Set out for Lyonnesse'' (1914) is by [[Thomas Hardy]].  An edition published in 1932 adds the year 1870 to the title,<ref>
Collected Poems of Thomas Hardy (London: Macmillan and Co., 1932): 293-94</ref> a reference to Hardy's trip to [[St Juliot]], where he met his first wife [[Emma Gifford]]. The poem said Lyonnesse is "a hundred miles away"; the straight-line distance from St Juliot to [[Dorchester, Dorset|Dorchester]] is 97 miles.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.distance.to/Dorchester,Dorset,England,GBR/St-Juliot,Cornwall,England,GBR|title = Distance Dorchester, Dorset, England, GBR > St-Juliot, Cornwall, England, GBR - Air line, driving route, midpoint}}</ref>
* ''Sunk Lyonesse'' (1922), by [[Walter de la Mare]]
* ''Lyonnesse'' (1962), by [[Sylvia Plath]]
* ''Lyonnesse'' (2021), by [[Penelope Shuttle]]

=== In literature ===
* ''[[Dawn in Lyonesse]]'' is a 1938 short novel by [[Mary Ellen Chase]].
* Edith Oliver writes about [[Edith Olivier|a vision of Lyonesse]] in her 1938 autobiography, ''Without Knowing Mr Walkley.''
*  The ''[[Lyonesse Trilogy]]'' is a group of three novels by [[Jack Vance]].
* ''Lyonesse: The Well Between the Worlds'' (2009) and ''Lyonesse: Dark Solstice'' (2010) are two children's books by [[Sam Llewellyn]].
* The 2012 manga series ''[[The Seven Deadly Sins (manga)|The Seven Deadly Sins]]'' is set in the kingdom of Liones, which is placed in the north of Britannia.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Silverman|first=Rebecca|url=https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2016-01-01/king-arthur-and-the-seven-deadly-sins/.96980|title=King Arthur and the Seven Deadly Sins|work=[[Anime News Network]]|date=1 January 2016|access-date=1 June 2025}}</ref>

===In film===
* The 1965 film ''[[City Under the Sea]]'' (also known as ''War-Gods from the Deep'') is set in the remnants of an undersea kingdom off Cornwall, which one character presumes to be Lyonesse.  
* In the 1995 film ''[[First Knight]]'', [[Guinevere]], before her marriage to [[King Arthur]], rules as 'Lady of Lyonesse'.

=== In music ===
* "Lyonesse", a song by Cornish folk composer [[Richard Gendall]], appears as the title track of the 1982 album by [[Brenda Wootton]].
* "When I Set out for Lyonnesse" is a setting of Hardy's poem by English composer [[Gerald Finzi]] in his 1936 song cycle ''[[Earth and Air and Rain]]''
* "Lyonesse", a track on instrumental [[post-rock]] band [[65daysofstatic]]'s third album [[The Destruction of Small Ideas]].
* "The Bells of Lyonesse", a song by German progressive metal band [[Subsignal]], which appears on their 2018 album ''La Muerta''.

=== In transport ===
* ''[[SS Lyonesse (1889)|''SS'' Lyonesse]]'' was a steam ferry of the [[West Cornwall Steam Ship Company]].
* ''Lyonesse'': [[GWR 3300 Class|Great Western Railway ''Bulldog'' class]] steam locomotive no. 3361
* ''Lyonnesse'': [[List of King Arthur Class locomotives|Southern Railway ''King Arthur'' class]] steam locomotive no. 743
* ''Lyonnesse'':  [[BR standard class 5|British Railways standard class 5]] steam locomotive no. 73113.

==See also==
{{Portal|Cornwall}}
* [[Matter of Britain]]
* [[Kitezh]]
* [[Doggerland]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Anonymous (c. 1220). [[Prose Tristan|Prose ''Tristan'']].
* Anonymous (c. 1335). ''La Tavola Ritonda''.
* Anonymous (1555). ''I Due Tristani''.
* Coate, M. (12 February 2009). [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/transactions-of-the-royal-historical-society/article/vyvyan-family-of-trelowarren/E9C2A865420F1C076A36038681EE757C "The Vyvyan Family of Trelowarren"]. ''Transactions of the Royal Historical Society''. Retrieved 25 November 2020. 
* [http://www.cornwalls.co.uk/myths-legends/lyonnesse.htm Lyonesse]. Cornwall Guide (20 July 2018). Retrieved 17 November 2020.
* [https://kingarthursknights.com/lyonesse/ "Lyonesse"]. King Arthur's Knights (15 January 2019). Retrieved 25 November 2020.
* [[Thomas Malory|Malory, Sir Thomas]] (1470). ''[[Le Morte D'Arthur]]''.
* {{Cite journal |last=Mitchell |first=Marea |year=2016 |title=The Lost Lands of Lyonesse: Telling stories of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly |journal=Shima Journal |volume=10 |issue=2 |doi=10.21463/shima.10.2.10 |doi-access=free |issn=1834-6057 |s2cid=164070936}}
* Mrreese (23 December 2014). "The Lost Land of Lyonesse – Legendary City on the Bottom of the Sea" (ancient-origins.net/news-myths-legends-europe/lost-land-lyonesse-legendary-city-bottom-sea-002490).
* [[Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson|Tennyson, Alfred Lord]] (1886). ''[[Idylls of the King]]''.
* Trejo, A. (2020, 24 July). [https://elementsintime.com/myths/lyonesse-kingdom/ Discover The Legends of the Lost Kingdom of Lyonesse]. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
* [[Eilhart von Oberge]] (c. 1180). ''Tristant''.

{{Culture of Cornwall}}
{{Arthurian Legend}}

[[Category:Cornish folklore]]
[[Category:Fictional European countries]]
[[Category:Flood myths]]
[[Category:History of the Isles of Scilly]]
[[Category:Locations associated with Arthurian legend]]
[[Category:Places in Celtic mythology]]
[[Category:Mythological populated places]]