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==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.{{citation needed|date=October 2025}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Marsden |first=Philip |title=Rising Ground: A Search for the Spirit of Place |date=2016 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2016 |pages=281-286 |chapter=Lethowsow}}</ref>

[[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>