M. A. Courtney

Cornish people possess in a marked degree all the characteristics of the Celts. They are imaginative, good speakers and story-tellers, describing persons and things in a style racy and idiomatical, often with appropriate gestures. Their proverbs are quaint and forcible, they are never at a lack for an excuse, and are withal very superstitious. Well-educated people are still to be met with in Cornwall who are firm believers in apparitions, pixies (fairies, called by the peasantry pisgies), omens, and other supernatural agencies. Almost every parish has a legend in connection with its patron saint, and haunted houses abound; but of the ghosts who inhabit them, unless they differ from those seen elsewhere, I shall say but little.

This county was once the fabled home of a race of giants, who in their playful or angry moments were wont to hurl immense rocks at each other, which are shown by the guides at this day as proofs of their great strength. To illustrate how in the course of time truth and fiction get strangely mingled, I will mention the fact that old John of Gaunt is said to have been the last of these giants, and to have lived in a castle on the top of Carn Brea (a high hill near Redruth). He could stride from thence to another neighbouring town, a distance of four miles. I do not know if he is supposed to be the one that lies buried under this mighty carn, and whose large protruding hand and bony fingers time has turned to stone. Here, too, in the dark ages, a terrific combat took place between Lucifer and a heavenly host, which ended in the former’s overthrow. A small monument has been erected on Carn Brea, to the memory of Lord de Dunstanville; and I once heard an old woman, after cleaning a room, say, “It was fine enough for Lord de Dunstanville.” Every child has heard of Jack the Giant Killer, who, amongst his other exploits, killed by stratagem the one who dwelt at St. Michael’s Mount:

“I am the valiant Cornishman

Who slew the giant Cormoran.”

He did not however confine himself to this neighbourhood, for of an ancient earth-work near Looe, known as the “Giant’s Hedge,” it is said:—

“Jack the giant had nothing to do,

So he made a hedge from Lerrin to Looe.”

But the sayings and doings of these mighty men have been told far better than I could tell them in Mr. Halliwell Phillipps’ book, Rambles in West Cornwall by the Footsteps of the Giants; Mr. Robert Hunt’s Drolls, Traditions, and Superstitions of West Cornwall; Mr. Bottrell’s Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall; and by many other writers.

Tourists visit West Cornwall to see the Land’s End and its fine coast scenery, and express themselves disappointed that none of the country people in that district know anything of King Arthur. They forget that Uther’s1 heir was washed up to Merlin’s feet by a wave at the base of “Tintagel Castle by the Cornish sea,” which is in the eastern part of the county. This castle was built on one of the grandest headlands in Cornwall (slate formation).

The ruins of King Arthur’s Castle are most striking. They are situated partly on the mainland and partly on a peninsula, separated by a ravine, once said to have been spanned by a drawbridge connecting the two.

The ascent of this promontory, owing to the slippery nature of the path cut in the friable slate, is far from pleasant; and, as there was a stiff breeze blowing when I mounted it, I thought old Norden was right when he said: “Those should have eyes who would scale Tintagel.” You are, however, amply repaid for your trouble when you get to the top.

In addition to telling you of the grandeur of the castle in good King Arthur’s days, the guides show you some rock basins to which they have given the absurd names of “King Arthur’s cups and saucers.”

Tradition assigns to this king another Cornish castle as a hunting-seat, viz.—the old earth-round of Castle-an-dinas, near St. Columb, from whence it is said he chased the wild deer on Tregoss Downs.

A dreary drive through slate-quarries takes you from Tintagel to Camelford. Near that town is Slaughter Bridge, the scene of a great battle between King Arthur and his nephew Modred, whom by some writers he is said to have killed on the spot; others have it that Arthur died here of a wound from a poisoned arrow shot by Modred, and that, after receiving his death wound at Camelford, he was conveyed to Tintagel Castle, where, surrounded by his knights, he died. All the time he lay a-dying supernatural noises were heard in the castle, the sea and winds moaned, and their lamentations never ceased until our hero was buried at Glastonbury. Then, in the pauses of the solemn tolling of the funeral bells, sweet voices came from fairy-land welcoming him there, from whence one day he will return and again be king of Cornwall. No luck follows a man who kills a Cornish chough (a red legged crow), as, after his death, King Arthur was changed into one.

“In the parish of St. Mabyn, in East Cornwall, and on the high road from Bodmin to Camelford, is a group of houses (one of them yet a smith’s shop), known by the name of Longstone. The legend which follows gives the reason of the name:

“In lack of records I may say: ‘In the days of King Arthur there lived in Cornwall a smith. This smith was a keen fellow, who made and mended the ploughs and harrows, shod the horses of his neighbours, and was generally serviceable. He had great skill in farriery, and in the general management of sick cattle. He could also extract the stubbornest tooth, even if the jaw resisted, and some gyrations around the anvil were required.

“ ‘There seems ever to have been ill blood between devil and smith, and so it was between the fiend and the smith-farrier-dentist of St. Mabyn. At night there were many and fierce disputes between them in the smithy. The smith, as the rustics tell, always got the advantage of his adversary, and gave him better than he brought. This success, however, only fretted Old Nick, and spurred him on to further encounters. What the exact matter of controversy on this particular occasion was is not remembered, but it was agreed to settle it by some wager, some trial of strength and skill. A two-acred field was near; and the smith challenged the devil to the reaping of each his acre in the shortest time. The match came off, and the devil was beaten, for the smith had beforehand stealthily stuck here and there over his opponent’s acre some harrow-tines or teeth.

“ ‘The two started well, but soon the strong swing of the fiend’s scythe was brought up frequently by some obstruction, and as frequently he required the whetstone. The dexterous and agile smith went on smoothly with his acre, and was soon unmistakeably gaining. The devil, enraged at his certain discomfiture, hurled his whetstone at his rival, and flew off. The whetstone, thrown with great violence, after sundry whirls in the air, fell upright into the soil at a great depth, and there remained a witness against the Evil One for ages. The devil avoided the neighbourhood whilst it stood, but in an evil hour the farmer at Treblethick, near, threw it down. That night the enemy returned, and has haunted the neighbourhood ever since.

“ ‘This monolith was of granite, and consequently brought hither from a distance, for the local stone is a friable slate. It yielded four large gate-posts, gave spans to a small bridge, and left much granite remaining.’ ”—T. Q. Couch, Notes and Queries, April, 1883.

Upon St. Austell Down is an upright block of granite, called “the giant’s staff, or longstone,” to which this legend is attached:—“A giant, travelling one night over these hills, was overtaken by a storm, which blew off his hat. He immediately pursued it; but, being impeded by a staff which he carried in his hand, he thrust this into the ground until his hat could be secured. After wandering, however, for some time in the dark, without being able to find his hat, he gave over the pursuit and returned for the staff; but this also he was unable to discover, and both were irrevocably lost. In the morning, when the giant was gone, his hat and staff were both found by the country people about a mile asunder. The hat was found on White-horse Down, and bore some resemblance to a mill-stone, and continued in its place until 1798, when, some soldiers having encamped around it, they fancied, it is said, as it was a wet season, this giant’s hat was the cause of the rain, and therefore rolled it over the cliff. The staff, or longstone, was discovered in the position in which it remains; it is about twelve feet high, and tapering toward the top, and is said to have been so fashioned by the giant that he might grasp it with ease.”—Murray’s Guide.

There is another longstone in the parish of St. Cleer,2 about two miles north of Liskeard, which bears an inscription to Doniert (Dungerth), a traditional king of Cornwall, who was drowned in 872. In fact, these “menhirs,” supposed to be sepulchral monuments, are to be found scattered all over the county.

The following curious bit of folk-lore appeared in the Daily News of March 8th, 1883, communicated by the Rev. J. Hoskyns Abrahall, Coombe Vicarage, near Woodstock:—“A friend of mine, who is vicar of St. Cleer, in East Cornwall, has told me that at least one housemaid of his—I think his servants in general—very anxiously avoided killing a spider, because Parson Jupp, my friend’s predecessor (whom he succeeded in 1844), was, it was believed, somewhere in the vicarage in some spider—no one knew in which of the vicarage spiders.” Spiders are often not destroyed because of the tradition that one spun a web over Christ in the manger, and hid him from Herod.

There are other superstitions current in Cornwall somewhat similar to the above. Maidens who die of broken hearts, after they have been deceived by unfaithful lovers, are said to haunt their betrayers as white hares. The souls of old sea-captains never sleep; they are turned into gulls and albatrosses. The knockers (a tribe of little people), who live underground in the tin-mines, are the spirits of the Jews who crucified our Saviour, and are for that sin compelled on Christmas morning to sing carols in his honour. “Jew” is a name also given to a black field-beetle (why, I know not). It exudes a reddish froth: country children hold it on their hands and say, “Jew! Jew! spit blood!” “A ghost at Pengelly, in the parish of Wendron, was compelled by a parson of that village after various changes of form to seek refuge in a pigeonhole, where it is confined to this day.”—Through Rev. S. Rundle.

After this digression I will return to St. Cleer, and, beginning with its holy well, briefly notice a few others. It is situated not far from the church, and was once celebrated as a “boussening,” or ducking-well for the cure of mad people. Considerable remains of the baptistery, which formerly enclosed it, are still standing, and outside, close by, is an old stone cross. Carew says,—“There were many bowssening places in Cornwall for curing mad people, and amongst the rest one at Alter Nunne, in the hundred of Trigges, called S. Nunne’s well, and because the manner of this bowssening is not so vnpleasing to heare as it was vneasie to feele, I wil (if you please) deliuer you the practise, as I receyued it from the beholders. The water running from S. Nunne’s well fell into a square and close-walled plot, which might be filled at what depth they listed. Vpon this wall was the franticke person set to stand, his backe toward the poole, and from thence with a sudden blow in the brest, tumbled headlong into the pond, where a strong fellowe, provided for the nonce, tooke him and tossed him vp and downe, alongst and athwart the water, vntill the patient by foregoing his strength had somewhat forgot his fury. Then was hee conueyed to the church and certain Masses sung ouer him; vpon which handling if his wits returned S. Nunne had the thanks: but if there appeared small amendment, he was bowssened againe and againe, while there remayned in him any hope of life for recouery.” The same writer says of Scarlet’s “well neare vnto Bodmin, howbeit the water should seem to be healthfull, if not helpfull: for it retaineth this extraordinary quality, that the same is waightier than the ordinary of his kind, and will continue the best part of a yeere without alteration or sent or taste, only you shall see it represent many colours, like the Rain-bowe which (in my conceite) argueth a running throu some minerall veine and therewithall a possessing of some vertue.” I must give one more quotation from Carew before I finish with him, about a well at Saltash:—“I had almost forgotten to tell you that there is a well in this towne whose water will not boyle peason to a seasonable softnes.”

The holy wells in Cornwall are very numerous; the greater part were in olden times enclosed in small baptisteries. Luckily the poor people believe that to remove any of the stones of the ruins of these chapels would be fatal to them and to their children, and for that reason a great number yet remain. It is considered unlucky, too, to cart away any of the druidical monuments (“pieces of ancientcy”), and many are the stories told of the great misfortunes that have fallen on men who have so done. The innocent oxen or horses who drag them away are always sure to die, and their master never prosper. Persistent ill-luck also follows any one defiling these wells; and a tradition is current in one of the “West Country” parishes, of a gentleman, who, after he had washed his dogs, afflicted with the mange, in its holy well, fell into such poverty that his sons were obliged to work as day labourers. Mr. T. Q. Couch, in Notes and Queries, vol. x., gives this legend in connection with St. Nunn’s well in Pelynt:—“An old farmer once set his eyes upon the granite basin and coveted it; for it was not wrong in his eyes to convert the holy font to the base uses of the pig’s stye; and accordingly he drove his oxen and wain to the gateway above for the purpose of removing it. Taking his beasts to the entrance of the well, he essayed to drag the trough from its ancient bed. For a long time it resisted the efforts of the oxen, but at length they succeeded in starting it, and dragged it slowly up the hill-side to where the wain was standing. Here, however, it burst away from the chains which held it, and, rolling back again to the well, made a sharp turn and regained its old position, where it has remained ever since. Nor will any one again attempt its removal, seeing that the farmer, who was previously well-to-do in the world, never prospered from that day forward. Some people say, indeed, that retribution overtook him on the spot, the oxen falling dead, and the owner being struck lame and speechless.”

This St. Nunn’s well is not the “boussening” well formerly mentioned, but another dedicated to the same saint, and is resorted to as a divining and wishing well; it is commonly called by the people of that district the “Piskies’ well.” Pins are thrown into it, not only to see by the bubbles which rise on the water whether the wisher will get what he desires, but also to propitiate the piskies and to bring the thrower good luck. This county has many other divining wells which were visited at certain seasons of the year by those anxious to know what the future would bring them. Amongst them the Lady of Nant’s well, in the parish of Colan, was formerly much frequented on Palm Sunday, when those who wished to foretell their fate threw into the water crosses made of palms. There was once in Gulval parish, near Penzance, a well which was reported to have had great repute as a divining well. People repaired to it to ask if their friends at a distance were well or ill, living or dead. They looked into the water and repeated the words:

“Water, water, tell me truly,

Is the man that I love duly

On the earth, or under the sod,

Sick or well? in the name of God.”

Should the water bubble up quite clear, the one asked for was in good health; if it became puddled, ill; and should it remain still, dead. Of the wells of St. Roche, St. Maddern (now Madron), and St. Uny, I have spoken in the first part of this work.

The waters from several wells are used for baptismal rites (one near Laneast is called the “Jordan”), and the children baptized with water from the wells of St. Euny (at the foot of Carn Brea, Redruth) and of Ludgvan (Penzance), &c., it was asserted could never be hanged with a hempen rope; but this prophecy has unfortunately been proved to be false. The water from the latter was famed too as an eye-wash, until an evil spirit, banished for his misdeeds by St. Ludgvan, to the Red Sea, spat into it from malice as he passed. The Red Sea is the favourite traditional spot here for the banishment of wicked spirits, and I have been told stories of wicked men whose souls, immediately after their death, were carried off to well-known volcanoes.

Almost all these holy wells were once noted for the curing of diseases, but the water from St. Jesus’ well, in Miniver, was especially famed for curing whooping-cough. St. Martin’s well, in the centre of Liskeard at the back of the market, known as “Pipe Well,” from the four iron pipes through which four springs run into it, was formerly not only visited for the healing qualities of its chief spring, but for a lucky stone that stood in it. By standing on this stone and drinking of the well’s water, engaged couples would be happy and successful in their married life. It also conferred magical powers on any person who touched it. The stone is still there, but has now been covered over and has lost its virtue.

The saints sometimes lived by the side of the holy wells named after them, notably St. Agnes (pronounced St. Ann), who dyed the pavement of her chapel with her own blood. St. Neot in whose pool were always three fish on which he fed, and whose numbers never grew less.3 St. Piran, the titular saint of tin-miners, who lived 200 years and then died in perfect health. Of these three saints many miraculous deeds are related; but they would be out of place in this work, and I will end my account of the wells by a description of St. Keyne’s, more widely known outside Cornwall through Southey’s ballad than any of the others. It is situated in a small valley in the parish of St. Neot, and was in the days of Carew and Norden arched over by four trees, which grew so closely together that they seemed but one trunk. Both writers say the trees were withy, oak, elm, and ash (by withy I suppose willow was meant). They were all blown down by a storm, and about 150 years ago, Mr. Rashleigh, of Menabilly, replaced them with two oaks, two elms, and one ash. I do not know if they are living, but Mr. J. T. Blight in 1858, in his book on Cornish Crosses, speaks of one of the oaks being at that time so decayed that it had to be propped. The reputed virtue of the water of St. Keyne’s well is, (as almost all know), that after marriage “whether husband or wife come first to drink thereof they get the mastery thereby.”—Fuller.

“In name, in shape, in quality,

This well is very quaint;

The name, to lot of ‘Kayne’ befell,

No ouer—holy saint.

“The shape, four trees of diuers kinde,

Withy, oke, elme, and ash,

Make with their roots an arched roofe,

Whose floore this spring doth wash.

“The quality, that man or wife,

Whose chance or choice attaines,

First of this sacred streame to drinke,

Thereby the mastry gaines.”—Carew.

Southey makes a discomfited husband tell the story, who ends thus:

“I hasten’d as soon as the wedding was done,

And left my wife in the porch;

But i’faith she had been wiser than me,

For she took a bottle to church.”

St. Keyne not only thus endowed her well, but during her stay at St. Michael’s Mount she gave the same virtue to St. Michael’s chair. This chair is the remains of an old lantern on the south-west angle of the tower, at a height of upwards of 250 feet from low water. It is fabled to have been a favourite seat of St. Michael’s. Whittaker, in his supplement to Polwhele’s History of Cornwall, says, “It was for such pilgrims as had stronger heads and bolder spirits to complete their devotions at the Mount by sitting in this St. Michael’s chair and showing themselves as pilgrims to the country round;” but it most probably served as a beacon for ships at sea. To get into it you must climb on to the parapet, and you sit with your feet dangling over a sheer descent of at least seventy feet; but to get out of it is much more difficult, as the sitter is obliged to turn round in the seat. Notwithstanding this, and the danger of a fall through giddiness, which, of course, would be certain death, for there is not the slightest protection, I have seen ladies perform the feat. Curiously enough Southey has also written a ballad on St. Michael’s chair, but it is not as popular as the one before quoted; it is about “Richard Penlake and Rebecca his wife,” “a terrible shrew was she.” In pursuance of a vow made when Richard “fell sick,” they went on a pilgrimage to the Mount, and whilst he was in the chapel,

“She left him to pray, and stole away

To sit in St. Michael’s chair.

“Up the tower Rebecca ran,

Round and round and round;

’Twas a giddy sight to stand atop

And look upon the ground.

“ ‘A curse on the ringers for rocking

The tower!’ Rebecca cried,

As over the church battlements

She strode with a long stride.

“ ‘A blessing on St. Michael’s chair!’

She said as she sat down:

Merrily, merrily rung the bells,

And out Rebecca was thrown.

“Tidings to Richard Penlake were brought

That his good wife was dead;

‘Now shall we toll for her poor soul

The great church bell?’ they said.

“ ‘Toll at her burying,’ quoth Richard Penlake,

‘Toll at her burying,’ quoth he;

‘But don’t disturb the ringers now

In compliment to me.’ ”

Old writers give the name of “Caraclowse in clowse” to St. Michael’s Mount, which means the Hoar Rock in the Wood; and that it was at one time surrounded by trees is almost certain, as at very low tides in Mount’s Bay a “submarine forest,” with roots of large trees, may still be clearly seen. At these seasons branches of trees, with leaves, nuts, and beetles, have been picked up.

Old folks often compared an old-fashioned child to St. Michael’s Mount, and quaintly said, “she’s a regular little Mount, St. Michael’s Mount will never be washed away while she’s alive.”

Folk-lore speaks of a time when Scilly was joined to the mainland, which does not seem very improbable when we remember that within the last twenty-five years a high road and a field have been washed away by the sea between Newlyn and Penzance. An old lady, whose memory went back to the beginning of the present century, told me that she had often seen boys playing at cricket in some fields seaward of Newlyn, of which no vestige in my time remained.

But the Lyonnesse, as this tract of land (containing 140 parish churches) between the Land’s End and Scilly was called, and where, according to the Poet Laureate, King Arthur met his death-wound,

“So all day long the noise of battle roll’d

Among the mountains by the winter sea,

Until King Arthur’s Table, man by man,

Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their lord,

King Arthur ….”

is reputed to have been suddenly overwhelmed by a great flood. Only one man of all the dwellers on it is said to have escaped death, an ancestor of the Trevilians (now Trevelyan). He was carried on shore by his horse into a cove at Perran. Alarmed by the daily inroad of the sea, he had previously removed his wife and family. Old fishermen of a past generation used to declare that on clear days and moonlight nights they had often seen under the water the roofs of churches, houses, &c., of this submerged district.

Whether the memory of this flood is perpetuated by the old proverb, “As ancient as the floods of Dava,” once commonly current in West Cornwall, but which I have not heard for years, I know not, as I have never met with any one who could tell me to what floods it referred.

Tradition also speaks of a wealthy city in the north of Cornwall, called Langarrow, which for its wickedness was buried in sand, driven in by a mighty storm. All that coast as far west as St. Ives is sand, known as “Towans,” and the sand is always encroaching.

There is a little church now near Padstow, dedicated to St. Enodock, which is often almost covered by the shifting drifts. It is in a solitary situation, and service is only held there once a year, when a path to it has to be cut through the sand. It is said that the clergyman, in order to keep his emoluments and fees, has been sometimes obliged to get into it through a window or hole in the roof.

About eight miles from Truro is the lost church of Perranzabuloe, which for centuries was supposed to have been a myth, but the shifting of the sand disclosed it in 1835.

In Hayle Towans is buried the castle of Tendar, the Pagan chief who persecuted the Christians, and in the neighbouring parish of Lelant that of King Theodrick, who, after beheading, in Ireland, many saints, crossed over to Cornwall on a millstone.

Many of the Cornish saints are reputed to have come into Cornwall in the same way as this king; but St. Ia, the patron saint of St. Ives, chose a frailer vessel. She crossed from Ireland on a leaf.

The afore-mentioned lost city was most likely a very small place, as I asked an old woman three or four years ago, who lived not far from the little village of Gwithian, where I could get something I wanted, and she told me, “In the city.”

The bay between this place and St. Ives (St. Ives Bay) has the reputation of being haunted at stormy times before a shipwreck by a lady in white, who carries a lantern.

At Nancledra, a village near St. Ives, was formerly a logan rock, which could only be moved at midnight; and children were cured of rickets by being placed on it at that hour. It refused to rock for those who were illegitimate.

Not far from here is Towednack, and there is a legend to the effect that the devil would never allow the tower of its church to be completed, pulling down at night what had been built up in the day. When a person makes an incredible statement he is in West Cornwall told “To go to Towednack quay-head where they christen calves.” (No part of this parish touches the sea.)

Mr. Robert Hunt records a curious test of innocency which, not long since, was practised in this parish. “A farmer in Towednack having been robbed of some property of no great value was resolved, nevertheless, to employ a test which he had heard the ‘old people’ resorted to for the purpose of catching the thief. He invited all his neighbours into his cottage, and, when they were assembled, he placed a cock under the ‘brandice’ (an iron vessel, formerly much employed by the peasantry in baking when this process was carried out on the hearth, the fuel being furze and ferns). Every one was directed to touch the brandice with his, or her, third finger, and say: ‘In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, speak.’ Every one did as they were directed, and no sound came from beneath the brandice. The last person was a woman, who occasionally laboured for the farmer in his fields. She hung back, hoping to pass unobserved amongst the crowd. But her very anxiety made her a suspected person. She was forced forward, and most unwillingly she touched the brandice, when, before she could utter the words prescribed, the cock crew. The woman fell faint on the floor, and when she recovered, she confessed herself to be the thief, restored the stolen property, and became, it is said, ‘a changed character from that day.’ ”

The following was told me by a friend. It took place in a school of one of our western parishes about sixty years ago:—“It was in the days of quill pens, and the master had lost his penknife. Every boy pleaded not guilty. At twelve the master said no boy should leave the school for half-an-hour, when he would return and see if they had found his knife. The door was locked, and at the appointed time he came back with a small, round table, on which he had inverted a ‘half-strike’ (4 gallons) measure. The table was placed in the middle of the gangway; the master stood by the side of it, and asked if they had found his knife. All said ‘No!’ ‘Well then,’ answered he, ‘come out slowly one at a time and let each touch this measure with the right forefinger, and the bantam-cock under it will crow at the thief.’ The boys went out boldly, as they passed touching the tub, but the master missed one whom from the first he had suspected. He again locked the door, searched the rooms, and there, under a desk, not in his own place, he found the boy hiding. He began to cry, confessed the theft, and gave up the knife.”

Another test of innocency, practised in bygone days, was to kindle a fire on one of the table-mÊn (large flat stones), so common in villages in West Cornwall. A stick lit at this was handed to the accused, who had to put out the fire by spitting on it. It is well-known that fear dries up saliva. It is still supposed in remote districts that no one can bear witness to a misdemeanour, seen through glass.

I will describe another rough ordeal before I go on to the legends of the Land’s End district. It is called “Riding the hatch,” or “heps” (a half-door often seen at small country shops). Any man formerly accused of immorality was brought before a select number of his fellow parishioners, and by them put to sit astride the “heps,” which was shaken violently backwards and forwards: if he fell into the house he was judged innocent; but out on the road, guilty. When any one has been brought before his superiors and remanded he is still figuratively said “to have been made to ride the ‘heps.’ ” Hands are washed, as by Pontius Pilate, to clear a person from crime, and to call any one “dirty-fingered” is to brand him as a thief.

On a bench-end in Zennor church there is a very singular carving of a mermaid. To account for it Zennor folks say that hundreds of years ago a beautifully-attired lady, who came and went mysteriously, used occasionally to attend their church and sing so divinely that she enchanted all who heard her. She came year after year, but never aged nor lost her good looks. At last one Sunday, by her charms, she enticed a young man, the best singer in the parish, to follow her: he never returned, and was heard of no more. A long time after, a vessel lying in Pendower cove, into which she sailed one Sunday, cast her anchor, and in some way barred the access to a mermaid’s dwelling. She rose up from the sea, and politely asked the captain to remove it. He landed at Zennor, and related his adventure, and those who heard it agreed that this must have been the lady who decoyed away the poor young man.

Not far from St. Just is the solitary, dreary cairn, known as Cairn Kenidzhek (pronounced Kenidjack), which means the “hooting cairn,” so called from the unearthly noises which proceed from it on dark nights. It enjoys a bad reputation as the haunt of witches. Close under it lies a barren stretch of moorland, the “Gump,” over it the devil hunts at night poor lost souls; he rides on the half-starved horses turned out here to graze, and is sure to overtake them at a particular stile. It is often the scene of demon fights, when one holds the lanthorn to give the others light, and is also a great resort of the pixies. Woe to the unhappy person who may be there after night-fall: they will lead him round and round, and he may be hours before he manages to get out of the place away from his tormentors. Here more than once fortunate persons have seen “the small people” too, at their revels, and their eyes have been dazzled by the sight of their wonderful jewels; but if they have ever managed to secrete a few, behold next morning they were nothing but withered leaves, or perhaps snail-shells.

“Sennen Cove was much frequented by mermaids. This place was also resorted to by a remarkable spirit called the Hooper—from the hooping, or hooting sounds it was accustomed to make. In old times, according to tradition, a compact cloud of mist often came in from over the sea, when the weather was by no means foggy, and rested on the rocks called Cowloc, thence it spread itself like a curtain of cloud quite across Sennen Cove. By night a dull light was mostly seen amidst the vapour, with sparks ascending as if a fire burned within it: at the same time hooping sounds were heard proceeding therefrom. People believed the misty cloud shrouded a spirit, which came to forewarn them of approaching storms, and that those who attempted to put to sea found an invisible force—seemingly in the mist—to resist them. A reckless fisherman and his son, however, disregarding the token, launched their boat and beat through the fog with a “threshal” (flail); they passed the cloud of mist which followed them, and neither the men nor the hooper were ever more seen in Sennen Cove. This is the only place in the county where any tradition of such a guardian spirit is preserved.”—Bottrell.

The same author tells a story of a reputed astrologer called Dionysius Williams, who lived in Mayon, in Sennen, a century ago. He found his furze-rick was diminishing faster than it ought, and discovered by his art that some women in Sennen Cove were in the habit of taking it away at night. The very next night, when all honest folks should be in bed, an old woman from the Cove came as was her wont to his rick for a “burn”4 of furze. She made one of no more than the usual size but could not lift it, neither could she after she had lightened her “burn” by half. Frightened, she tried to take out the rope and run away, but she could neither draw it out nor move herself. Of course Mr. Williams had put a spell upon her, and there she had to remain in the cold all night. He came out in the morning and released her, giving her, as she was poor, the furze. Neither she nor the other women ever troubled him again.

Before proceeding any further, to make an allusion in the next legend intelligible, I must say something about Tregeagle (pronounced Tregaygle), the Cornish Bluebeard, who was popularly supposed to have sold his soul to the devil, that his wishes might be granted for a certain number of years; and who, in addition to several other crimes, is accused of marrying and murdering many rich heiresses to obtain their money. One day, just before his death, he was present when one man lent a large sum to another without receiving receipt or security for it (the money was borrowed for Tregeagle). Soon after Tregeagle’s death the borrower denied that he had ever had it, and the case was brought into Bodmin Court to be tried, when the defendant said, “If Tregeagle ever saw it I wish to God that Tregeagle may come into court and declare it.” No sooner were the words spoken than Tregeagle appeared, and gave his witness in favour of the plaintiff, declaring “that he could not speak falsely; but he who had found it so easy to raise him would find it difficult to lay him.” The money was paid, but the wretched man was followed night and day by the spirit, and great labour had the parsons and wise men before they could finally rid him of his tormentor. There are many versions of this transaction. Tregeagle himself is said in another to have received the money for an estate of which he was steward, and not to have entered it in his books. His ghost was doomed to do many impossible things, such as to empty Dosmery pool, near Bodmin Moor, with a limpet shell that had a hole in the bottom. This pool had the reputation, too, of being bottomless; but it has lately been cut into and drained by the workers of the granite quarries. Strange tales are told in that neighbourhood of his appearing to people, and of his dismal howls at not being able to fulfil his tasks. Mothers all over Cornwall when their children are loudly crying may be often heard to declare “that they are roaring worse than Tregeagle.” “A tradition of the neighbourhood says that on the shores of this lonely mere (Dosmery pool) the ghosts of bad men are ever employed in binding the sand in bundles with ‘beams’ (bands) of the same. These ghosts, or some of them, were driven out (they say horsewhipped out) by the parson from Launceston.”—H. G. T. Notes and Queries, December, 1850.

Tregeagle had also to remove the sand from one cove to another, where the sea always returned it. It was on one of these expeditions that either by accident or design he dropped a sackful at the mouth of Loe-pool, near Helston. (When in wet seasons the waters of this pool rise to such a height as to obstruct the working of the mills on its banks, and heavy seas have silted up the sand at its mouth, the Mayor of Helston presents by ancient custom two leather purses containing three halfpence each as his dues to the lord of Penrose who owns Loe-pool, and asks for permission to cut a passage through the bar to the sea). Another of Tregeagle’s tasks is to make and carry away a truss of sand bound with a rope of sand from Gwenvor (the cove at Whitsand Bay) near the Land’s End. But his unquiet spirit finds no rest, for whilst he is trying to do his never-ending work the devil hunts him from place to place, until he hides for refuge in a hermit’s ruined chapel on St. Roche’s rocks (East Cornwall).

When the sea roars before a storm, people in the Land’s End district say “Tregeagle is calling,” and often, too, his voice may be heard lamenting around Loe-pool.5

The substance of the following I had from a Penzance man (H. R. C.), to whom I must own I am indebted for much information about Cornish folk-lore. All his life he has in his business mingled with the peasantry of West Cornwall, and, unlike myself, he comes from a long line of Cornishmen.

“You know Gwenvor Sands, in Whitsand Bay, at the Land’s End, and have heard of the unresting spirit of Tregeagle, by whom that spot is haunted. He foretells storms, and calls before the wind reaches home. I have often heard him howling before a westerly hurricane in the still of midnight at my house in Penzance, a distance of ten miles.”

Tradition tells that on these sands, many centuries ago, some foreigners landed, and fought a great battle with the inhabitants, under King Arthur, on Vellan-drucher Moor. “Where Madron, Gulval, and Zennor meet, there is a flat stone where Prince Arthur and four British kings dined, and the four kings collected the native Cornish who fought under them at the battle of Vellan-drucher.”—(Bottrell.) This was long before the Spaniards (pronounced Spanyers) in 1595 came ashore at the same place from a galley “high by day” (in broad daylight), and burnt Vellan-dreath, a mill close by.

These foreigners are popularly supposed to be red-haired Danes, and they stayed so long “that the birds built in the rigging of their ships.” In all the western parishes of Cornwall there has existed time out of mind a great antipathy to certain red-haired families, who are said to be their descendants, and, much to their disgust, they are often hailed as Danes (pronounced Deanes). Indeed this dislike was carried so far that few would allow any members of their families to intermarry with them. In addition to the usual country gossip in the beginning of this century amongst the women of this district whilst knitting at their doors (for the Cornish are famous “knitsters”), or sitting round “breeding” (netting) fishing-nets, they had one never-failing topic of conversation in their fears that the foreigners would land once more on Gwenvor Sands, or at Priest’s Cove,6 in Pendeen, near St. Just. Who these strangers were to be they were not at all sure, but they knew that the red-haired Danes were to come again, when Vellan-drucher (a water mill-wheel) would once more be worked with blood, and the kings for the last time would dine around the Garrick Zans (Table MÊn); and the end of the world would come soon after: for had not Merlin so prophesied more than a thousand years ago? Garrick Zans is the old name for a large flat stone, the Table MÊn (pronounced Mayon), at Sennen, near the Land’s End, and seven mythical Saxon kings are said to have dined at it when on a visit to Cornwall, A.D. 600. “Around it old folk went nine times daily, from some notion that is was lucky and good against witchcraft.”—(Bottrell.)

Off the Land’s End is a very striking rock rising out of the sea. It is known as the Irish Lady, from the fact that an Irish vessel was once wrecked on it, and out of all on board one poor lady alone managed to scramble up to the top; but no boat could get to her, and, exhausted by fatigue, she fell into the water, and was drowned. Her spirit still haunts the spot. This is most probably a fanciful tale, as the rock bears some resemblance to a human figure.

“During a dreadful thunderstorm and hurricane on the 30th January, 1648, the day on which King Charles was beheaded, a large stone figure of a man, called the ‘Armed Knight,’ which stood in an upright position at the extremity of the Land’s End, forty fathoms above the level of the sea, was thrown down. On the same day a ship riding in St. Ives Bay, having on board the king’s wardrobe and other furniture belonging to the royal family, bound for France, broke from her moorings, and ran ashore on the rocks of Godrevy Island, where all on board, about sixty persons, were drowned, except one man and a boy.”—G. S. Gilbert’s Cornwall.

The name of Armed Knight has been transferred to another pile of rocks off the Land’s End. The “stone figure” thrown down was most probably a natural formation, as one of the rocks there now bears the fanciful name of Dr. Johnson’s Head, from a supposed likeness. Other versions of this legend say “that the Armed Knight was only ninety feet high, with an iron spire on its top.”

Porthgwarra in olden times was known as Sweethearts’ Cove from the following circumstance: The daughter of a well-to-do farmer loved a sailor, who was once one of her father’s serving-men. Her parents, especially her mother, disapproved of the match; and when the young man returned from sea and came to see his sweetheart, he was forbidden the house. The lovers however met, and vowed to be true to each other, Nancy saying, “That she would never marry any other man,” and William, “That, dead or alive, he would one day claim her as his bride.” He again went to sea, and for a long time no tidings came, neither from nor of him. Poor Nancy grew melancholy, and spent all her days, and sometimes nights, looking out seaward from a spot on the cliff, called then Nancy’s Garden, now Hella Point. She gradually became quite mad; and one night fancied she heard her lover tapping at her bed-room window, and calling her to come out to him, saying: “Sleepest thou, sweetheart? Awaken, and come hither, love. My boat awaits us at the cove. Thou must come this night, or never be my bride.” She dressed, went to the cove, and was never seen again. Tradition says that the same night William appeared to his father, told him that he had come for his bride, and bade him farewell; and that next day the news arrived of his having been drowned at sea. Bottrell gives this legend under the title of “The Tragedy of Sweet William and Fair Nancy.”

Not far from the parish of St. Levan is a small piece of ground—“Johanna’s Garden,” which is fuller of weeds than of flowers. The owner of it was one Sunday morning in her garden gathering greens for her dinner, when she saw St. Levan going by to catch some fish for his. He stopped and greeted her, upon which she reproved him for fishing on a Sunday, and asked him what he thought would be his end if he did so. He tried to convince her that it was not worse than picking greens, but she would not listen to reason. At last St. Levan lost patience, and said, “From this time for ever thou shalt be known, if known at all, as the Foolish Johanna, and thy garden shall ever continue to bear, as now, more hemlocks and nettles than leeks and lentils. Mark this! to make thy remembrance the more accursed for all time to come, if any child of thy name be baptised in the waters of Parchapel-well (close at hand) it shall become a fool, like thyself, and bad luck follow it.”—Bottrell.

There is a cleft-stone in St. Levan churchyard called St. Levan’s stone; but it is said to have been venerated in the days of King Arthur; and Merlin, who once visited these parts with him, uttered this prophecy concerning it:—

“When, with panniers astride,

A pack-horse can ride

Through St. Levan’s stone,

The world will be done.”

Unless some earthquake splits it further the world will last thousands of years longer.

On an almost inaccessible granite peak seaward of the pile of rocks known as Castle Treryn (pronounced Treen), once the haunt and meeting-place of witches, on the summit of which is perched the far-famed Cornish logan-rock, is a sharp peak with a hole in it, large enough to insert a hand. At the bottom lay an egg-shaped stone, traditionally called the key of the castle, which, although easily shifted, had for ages defied all attempts at removal. It was said that should any one ever succeed in getting it out, Castle Treryn—in fact the whole cairn—would immediately disappear. It was unfortunately knocked out by the men who replaced the logan-rock, thrown down by Lieutenant Goldsmith. Its position was often altered by heavy seas, and from it the old folk formerly foretold the weather.

In Buryan parish, named after an Irish saint, a king’s daughter, who came into Cornwall with some of her companions in the fifth century, is the famous circle of Dawns Myin, or the Merry Maidens, originally consisting of nineteen upright stones. They are nineteen maidens, who for their sin of dancing on a Sunday were all turned into stone. Two mÊnhirs in a neighbouring field are the pipers, who at the same time suffered the same fate. Of these and other stone circles an old writer says, “No man when counting them can bring the stones twice the same number.”

Not far from Buryan, between Sennen and Penzance, is a very solitary weird spot—a disused Quakers’ burial-ground. In its lonely neighbourhood is sometimes seen by a privileged few, “high by day,” the spirit of a huntsman, followed by his dogs. He is dressed in the hunting costume of bygone ages; he suddenly appears (for neither his horse’s hoofs nor his dogs’ feet make any sound), jumps over an adjacent hedge, and is as suddenly lost to view. I do not know if tradition has ever connected this huntsman with Wild Harris of Kenegie,7 who was killed when hunting by a fall from his horse—it was frightened by a white hare, the spirit of a deserted maiden, which crossed its path. His ghost, in his hunting-dress, appeared standing at the door of his house the night he was buried—the funeral, according to an old custom, had taken place at midnight. For years after he might be met in the vicinity of his home, and he and his boon companions were often heard carousing at nights in a summer-house on the bowling-green. Few then cared to pass Kenegie after dark, for his was said not to be the only spirit that haunted the place. Wild Harris’s ghost was finally laid to rest by a famous ghost-laying parson, and put as a task to count the blades of grass nine times in an enclosure on the top of Castle-an-Dinas, an old earth fortification near where he is said to have met his death.8 Ghosts only “walk” (appear) in the parish where their bodies were buried.

On the opposite side of Buryan to the Quakers’ burial-ground is the parish of Paul (St. Pol-de-Leon). Its church was burnt by the Spaniards in 1595. They landed on a rock, said to have been named after Merlin—Merlin’s car, and marched from Paul to Penzance, which they also fired in several places. I am afraid the inhabitants did not make a very bold stand against them; for Merlin had prophesied centuries before—

And this caused them to lose courage, and falsify the old proverb:

Close by the highway, where the Buryan road joins the high-road from Paul to Penzance, is a smoothly-cut, conical granite stone, popularly supposed to have been placed there in memory of some woman who was found murdered at that spot, with nothing on to identify her, and with only a thimble and ring in her pocket. It really marks the place where an ancient gold ring, three inches and a half in diameter, bearing the motto, “In hac spe vivo,” was discovered in 1781. In the same parish, a short walk from this place, are some Druidical remains, which have the curious name of “Kerris roundago.” Some stones taken from it to repair Penzance pier were fatal to the horses who drew them, although they were young and healthy.

In the adjacent parish of Newlyn, a fishing village, the favourite resort of artists, a great deal of gossiping on summer evenings goes on around the small wells (here called peeths), whilst the women wait patiently for each in turn to fill her earthen pitchers; some of the most industrious bring their knitting in their pockets with them. Opposite one of these wells, towering over St. Peter’s church, is a striking pile of rocks, “Tolcarn.” On the summit are some curious markings in the stones, which, when a child, I was told were the devil’s footprints; but the following legend, which I give on the authority of the Rev. W. S. Lach-Szyrma, Vicar of St. Peter’s, is quite new to me:—

“The summit of the rock is reticulated with curious veins of elvan, about which a quaint Cornish legend relates that the Bucca-boo, or storm-god of the old Cornish, once stole the fishermen’s net. Being pursued by Paul choir, who sang the Creed, he flew to the top of Paul hill and thence over the Coombe to Tolcarn, where he turned the nets into stone.”

We have now reached the town of Penzance, and through its streets folks of the last generation often heard rumbling at midnight an old-fashioned coach drawn by headless horses; or saw a procession of coffins slowly wending its way to the churchyard. It was unlucky to meet this, as death was sure soon to follow, and tradition speaks of a woman who accidentally struck against one and died in the same night. A coach with headless horses and coachman, also just before Christmas, went through the streets of Penryn; this coachman had the power of spiriting away people who met and stared at him, unless they turned their heads and averted the evil by some mystical signs. In Penzance town were many haunted houses, but space will only allow of my noticing a few. One in Chapel Street (formerly Our Lady’s Street) was tenanted by the spirit of Mrs. Baines, an eccentric old lady. At the back of her house was a very fine orchard well stocked with fruit-trees, which the boys were too fond of visiting. She determined at last that her gardener should watch for them, armed with an old blunderbuss, charged with peas and small shot. She gave him strict orders should he see any one, to say one, two, three, and then fire. He watched two nights, but the boys were too cunning for him, and still the fruit went. On the third, Mrs. Baines, thinking to catch him napping, went herself into the garden and began to shake the apples down from one of the trees. Some say that the man recognised his mistress, and, vexed at her suspecting him, said one, two, three, as quickly as he could utter the words, and fired; others, that he was sleeping, and awakened by the noise she made, shot her by mistake, exclaiming, “I know-ee, you thief, I do; now I’ll sarve-ee out, I will.” Terrified after he had done the deed, he ran off into the country and there hid himself for some days. The poor old lady was more frightened than hurt, and all the shot were successfully extracted by her doctor; but very soon after this adventure she died. From this time her house and grounds began to have an evil reputation; Mrs. Baines’s ghost, dressed in antiquated garb, a quaint lace cap on her powdered hair, lace ruffles hanging from her sleeves, and a short mode mantle over her shoulders, was often seen walking in the gardens or standing under an apple-tree, leaning on the gold-headed cane she always carried. Indoors, too, her high-heeled shoes were plainly heard night after night tapping on the floors as she paced up and down the rooms, which noise was often varied by the whirring of her spinning-wheel. For some time the house was unoccupied, now it is divided into two, and the ghost has been laid to rest. But long after Mrs. Baines ceased to appear her wheel was heard. At last it was discovered that some leather, which had been nailed around a door to keep out draughts, was loose in places, and that the whistling of the wind through this made the peculiar sound. Mr. Bottrell says “that her spirit was laid by a parson, whose name he thinks was Singleton, and he succeeded in getting her away to the Western Green (west of Penzance), which was then spread over many acres of land, where the waves now roll.9 Here this powerful parson single-handed bound her to spin from the banks, ropes of sand for the term of a thousand years, unless she, before that time, spun a sufficiently long and strong one to reach from St. Michael’s Mount to St. Clement’s Isle (across the bay).” About a stone’s throw from Mrs. Baines’s house, on an eminence above Quay street, stood in her days Penzance Chapel of Ease (for Penzance was then in Madron parish), called our Lady’s or St. Mary’s Chapel. On the same site was built, in 1835, the present parish church of St. Mary’s. Here, in the memory of a few who still survive, a gentleman in the early part of this century did penance, and afterwards walked from thence through the streets to his house, wrapped in a sheet, with a lighted taper in his hand. It was usual then, as now, for the Mayor and Corporation of Penzance, with the mace-bearers and constables, to go once a month in state to church. Before the reading of the first lesson the mace-bearers left, and visited the public-houses, in order to see that they were shut during service time. When the sermon began they came back and returned to their seats in order to be in readiness to escort the Mayor home. Quay street was once the most fashionable part of Penzance, but the large houses are now divided into smaller tenements; in some of them bits of finely-moulded ceilings, &c., still exist. One of the houses reputed to have been haunted was torn down in 1813, when the skeleton of a man was found built into a wall. It was, of course, put down to be the sailor’s whose spirit was so often seen there, and who (tradition said) had been murdered in that house for the sake of his money. It was well known that he had brought back great riches from foreign parts. There is a myth that Sir Walter Raleigh landed at Penzance Quay when he returned from Virginia, and on it smoked the first tobacco ever seen in England, but for this statement I believe there is not the slightest foundation. Several western ports, both in Devon and Cornwall, make the same boast.

It is a fact, however, that the news of Nelson’s death was first heard here. It was brought into the port by two fishermen, who had it from the crew of a passing vessel. A small company of strolling actors were playing that night at the little theatre then standing over some stables in Chapel street, and the play was stopped for a few moments whilst one of the actors told the audience.

Another haunted house, at the opposite side of Penzance, is celebrated in a poem called “The Petition of an Old Uninhabited House,” written and published in 1811, by the Rev. C. V. Le Grice, who was then Vicar of Madron. He was a friend of Charles Lamb, who mentions him in his “Essay on Christ’s Hospital.” About this house a lady once told me a strange story, that I will relate. Forty years ago, she, a perfect stranger to the place, never having been in Penzance before, came to it with her husband and her first child, for she was then a young wife. As they meant to settle in the town, they went to this hotel, where they intended staying until they could get a suitable house. On the evening of their arrival, her husband having gone out, she sat alone before the fire nursing her child, when she suddenly saw a little old man, in a very old-fashioned dress, come into the room. He sat down in a chair near her, looked steadfastly into the fire, and, after some time, without saying a word, he rose and left. On her husband’s return, she told him of her queer visitor. The next morning they made enquiries about him, and found that the hotel had been built on the site of the old uninhabited house; that nearly the whole of it had been destroyed, but a few of the best rooms remained; and that they were in a haunted chamber. She declared that she could never sleep there another night, and, temporarily, they engaged some furnished lodgings. These old rooms are now pulled down and billiard and other rooms cover the place where they stood.

Outside the boundary-stone, west of Penzance, stands, in its own grounds, a house to which additions have been made by many succeeding generations. Tradition, of course, gave it a ghost. With the other members of my family I lived there for several years, but none of us ever saw it. I am bound, however, to state that we never slept in the haunted chamber. For a short period it was occupied by a groom, who one morning came to me with a very long face, and said he dared not sleep there any more, for some mysterious being came night after night, and pulled all the bed-clothes off him; rather than do so, he would sleep in the harness-room.

Still further west of Penzance is a much larger house, to which, like the former, many additions have been made. And up its avenue, after dark, a carriage may be often heard slowly making its way until it reaches the hall-door, where it stops. In this house, about sixty years ago, lived, in very great style, a gentleman, who was a regular autocrat, and of him one of his old servants related to me this anecdote, which is curious as an illustration of the manners of those times. When in his employ, he gave an answer to some question, which afterwards his master discovered to be an untruth. The next Sunday he made him, as the congregation came out, stand at Madron church door, by a tombstone covered with loaves of bread. Of these, he had to give one to each poor person that passed, and say, in an audible tone, “I, William ——, last week told my master a lie.”

Mr. G. B. Millett, in his Penzance Past and Present, gives a tale well known in this district, about the drinking habits of our ancestors, which, as I am now on the subject of manners, I will quote.

“A particular gentleman, not far from Penzance, loved good liquor, and one evening had gathered some of his jovial companions together, determined to make a night of it. His wife, having had some experience of such gatherings before, with wise precaution, saw as much wine taken out of the cellar as she thought would be good for her husband and his friends. Then, safely locking the strong oak door, she put the key in her pocket, and announced her intention of spending the evening with some lady friends. The hours were passing pleasantly away, and, with a smile of inward satisfaction, she was congratulating herself upon the success of her forethought, when a heavy stumbling noise was heard upon the stairs, and shortly afterwards two burly footmen staggered into the room, groaning under the weight of a ponderous cellar door, with its posts and lintel, which had been sent by their master for the mistress to unlock.”

The manor of Conerton, which at one time nearly included the whole of West Penwith, had many privileges in Penzance. Before the days of county courts the lord held a monthly court here for the trial of small cases not criminal. Its prison, a wretched place (visited by Howard), no longer exists, but people were confined there early in this century—sometimes for long periods. I was once shown a beautiful patchwork quilt made by a poor woman, who had been imprisoned for debt.

Until within the last fifty years every butcher in Penzance market had to pay to the bailiff of this manor at Christmas a marrow-bone or a shilling. The first butcher who refused to pay it also defied one of the bye-laws of the market that compelled them to wear white sleeves over their blue blouses. He was brought before the magistrates, and declared “that he would be incarcerated before he would do it.” The following is a favourite story handed down amongst the butchers from father to son. A solicitor in Penzance had a very large dog that was in the habit of coming into their market and stealing joints of meat from the stalls. One day one of them went to the lawyer, and said,—“Please sir, could I sue the owner of a dog for a leg of mutton stolen from my stall?” “Certainly, my good man.” “Then, please sir, the dog is yours, and the price of the mutton is 4s. 6d.” The money was paid, and the man was going away in triumph, when he was called back by these words: “Stay a moment, my good man, a lawyer’s consultation is 6s. 8d., you owe me the difference:” which sum the discomfited butcher had to pay.

Every stream in Cornwall however small is called a river (pronounced revvur). One flows into the sea west of Penzance, between it and Newlyn, known as Laregan, and another at the east in Gulval parish, as Ponsandane river. There is an old rhyme about them that runs thus:

Years ago there was a marsh between Penzance and Newlyn, now covered by the sea, known to the old people as the “Clodgy;” when the sea moaned there they said, “Clodgy is calling for rain.” Sometimes at the present day it is “Bucca” is calling, Bucca being the nickname in Penzance for the inhabitants of Newlyn.

The weather at Mount’s Bay is also foretold by the look of the Lizard land, which lies south:

The marsh on Marazion Green still exists, and not many years ago no one cared to cross it after nightfall, especially on horseback, for at a certain spot close by the marsh a white lady was sure to arise from the ground, jump on the rider’s saddle, and, like the “White Lady of Avenel,” ride with him pillion-fashion as far as the Red river10 that runs into the sea just below the smelting-works at Chyandour, a suburb of Penzance. The last person who saw her was a tailor of this town, who died in 1840. He was commonly called “Buck Billy,” from his wearing till the day of his death a pigtail, a buff waistcoat, and a blue coat with yellow buttons.

Marazion, or Market-jew, which latter is a corruption of its old Cornish name, Marghaisewe, meaning a Thursday’s market, is a small town exactly opposite St. Michael’s Mount. Until its present church was built its mayor sat in a very high seat with his back against a window. This is the origin of the Cornish proverb: “In your own light, like the mayor of Market-jew.” This mayor is jokingly said to have three privileges. The first is, “That he may sit in his own light;” the second, “Next to the parson;” and the third, “If he see a pig in a gutter he may turn it out and take its place.”11

In the churchyard of the neighbouring parish of St. Hilary is a monument to the Rev. John Penneck, M.A., who, in the early part of the last century, was Chancellor of Exeter Cathedral. His ghost is very eccentric, sometimes getting into a passion, and on these occasions raising a great storm of wind.

In the parish of Breage, near the sea, about four miles from Marazion, are the ruins of Pengersick Castle, of which only some fragments of walls and a square tower now stand. Some of the upper rooms in the latter have fallen in, and they are all in a state of decay. The lower have oak-panels curiously carved and painted, but time has almost effaced the designs. The most perfect is one representing “Perseverance,” under which are the following lines:

So many are the legends told of the former inhabitants of Pengersick, that it would be almost impossible at this date to decide which is the original. These ruins stand on the site of a much older castle, and in it dwelt, far back in the dark ages, a very wicked man, who, when he was fighting in foreign parts, forgetting his wife at home, courted a king’s daughter, who gave him a magic sword, which ensured in every battle the victory to its owner. He deceived and left her; but she, with her son in her arms, followed him to his home by the Mount. There she met him, and upbraided him with his cruelty, and in a fit of passion he threw them both into the sea. The lady was drowned, and after her death she was changed into a white hare, which continually haunted the old lord; but her boy was picked up alive by a passing ship. The lord’s wife afterwards died, and he married again a woman as bad as himself, reputed to be a witch, who was very cruel to her step-son, who lived with his father at the castle. One night there was a great storm in Mount’s Bay, and the young man went down to the shore to see if there were any vessels in distress, and spied on the beach an almost exhausted sailor, who had been washed in by the waves, and whom he bade his servants carry to his home, and put into his own bed. When he revived, all were struck by the marvellous resemblance to the young heir; and they conceived a great affection for each other. Together they went to Marazion to see if they could find the vessel from whose deck the stranger had fallen into the sea. It was safe in harbour, and the captain, whom the sailor had always thought to be his father, told him then for the first time, “How, when he was an infant, he had rescued him from drowning where last night he had nearly lost his life.” Thus they were discovered to be brothers, and a day or two after, when out hunting, guided by the white hare, they accidentally came upon the miraculous sword that had disappeared when his mother was drowned. Then these two brothers sailed away from Cornwall, and dwelt in peace in the land of a strange princess; where the Cornishman studied, under a celebrated master, astrology and all other occult sciences. After some time the old lord of Pengersick met his death in this wise: As he was riding out one fine morning, the white hare suddenly sprang up in front of his horse and startled it, so that it ran madly with its rider into the sea, where both were swallowed up. When this news was brought to him, the Cornishman bade his brother an affectionate farewell, and, with his wife, a learned princess, went back to Pengersick, where they lived happily for several generations, for amongst many other wonderful things, the young lord had discovered an elixir of life which, had they so wished, would have kept them alive to the present day. (See Bottrell.)

In addition to being well versed in occult lore, Pengersick’s wife was a fine musician; she could with her harp charm and subdue evil spirits, and compel the fish in Mount’s Bay, also the mermaids who then dwelt there, to come out of the sea.

Another account of the old lord’s death says that he and a party of his friends were dining in his yacht around a silver table when she went down, and all on board perished. This happened off Cudden Point, which juts into the sea just opposite Pengersick. Children living there formerly used to go down to the beach at low water to try and find this silver table. (A ship laden with bullion is reported to have been lost here in the time of Queen Elizabeth.) “The present castle,” one tradition says, “was built in the reign of Henry VIII. by a merchant who had acquired immense wealth beyond the seas, and who loaded an ass with gold, and broke its back. He sold the castle to a Mr. Milliton, who, having slain a man, shut himself up in it to escape punishment.”

Another legend says that Sir William Milliton built it, and, soon after its completion, married a very rich but extremely ugly and shrewish woman, of whom he tried by various ways to rid himself but in vain. One day, after a desperate quarrel, he begged her forgiveness, and asked her, in proof of having pardoned him, to sup with him that evening in a room overlooking the sea. She agreed; and at the conclusion of the feast they pledged each other in goblets of rich wine. Then Sir William’s looks altered, and, in a fierce voice, he said, “Woman, now prepare for death! You have but a short time to live, as the wine that you have just drunk was poisoned.” “Then we die together,” she answered, “for I had my suspicions, and mixed the contents of the goblets.” Up to this time the moon, which was at its full, had been shining brightly through the open windows, for it was a warm summer night, when suddenly a frightful storm of thunder and lightning arose, the winds lashed the waves to fury, and the moon was darkened. The servants, alarmed by this, and the unearthly fiendish yells that came from the banqueting hall, rushed upstairs, and there found the bodies of their master and mistress dead on the floor; and through the open window they saw, by the light of the moon which for a moment shone through a rift in the clouds, their souls borne away on the wings of a demon in the shape of a bird.

The original name of Breage parish was Pembro; but St. Breaca, hearing that the inhabitants were at a loss to raise the money for a peal of bells, offered to extricate them from their difficulty on condition that they should call the parish after her. The condition was accepted, the bells were hung, and the parish henceforth was known as that of St. Breage.—Through Rev. S. Rundle.

St. Germoe (Geronicus) an Irish king, who was converted to Christianity in the fifth century, is said to have been the foster-son of Breaca (or Breage), with whom he crossed over into Cornwall where they settled. Two churches in adjoining parishes are dedicated to them; St. Germoe is reputed to have been the founder of his, and there is a curious structure at the north-east of the churchyard, known as St. Germoe’s chair or King Germoe’s throne.

“There is more than one story attached to this chair. One is to the effect that the saint sat in the central chair with two assessors, one on either side of him; another legend is that the priests rested in the chair; whilst a third is that pilgrims to the tomb of the saint also rested therein. Be that as it may, however, it is possible that this is a shrine, and that the body of St. Germoe rests underneath it.”—Rev. W. A. Osborne, Transactions Penzance Natural History Society, 1886, 1887.

At Great Work Mine (Huel Vor) near by, a narrow level (not far down) is still thought to have been made by Christian slaves, when the first church at Germoe was built.

Through Rev. S. Rundle.

All Cornishmen at one time were supposed to be “wreckers,” and from the peninsular-shape of their county came the proverb, “’Tis a bad wind that blows no good to Cornwall.” But the dwellers in Breage and Germoe must in olden times, from the following distich, have been held in worse repute than their neighbours:

The most noted and daring Cornish smuggler of the last century, Coppinger, a Dane, lived on the north coast, and of him a legendary catalogue of dreadful tales is told, all to be found in the Rev. R. S. Hawker’s book, the Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall. He lays the scene of his exploits in the neighbourhood of Hartland Bay, my informant near Newquay. He swam ashore here in the prime of life, in the middle of a frightful storm, from a foreign-rigged vessel that was seen in the offing, and of which nothing more was ever heard or known. Wrapped in a cloak, that tradition says he tore from off the shoulders of an old woman who was on the beach, he jumped up behind a farmer’s daughter, who had ridden down to see the wreck, and was by her taken to her father’s house, where he was fed, clothed, and most hospitably received. He was a fine, handsome, well-built man, and gave himself out to be most highly connected in his own country. He soon won the young woman’s affections, and at her father’s death, which took place not long after, he easily induced her to marry him; but it was far from a happy union. Luckily they had but one child—a deaf and dumb idiot, who had inherited his father’s cruel disposition, and delighted in torturing all living things. It is even said that he cunningly killed one of his young playmates. Coppinger, after his marriage, organized a band of smugglers, and made himself their captain; and quickly through his misdeeds earned the title of cruel Coppinger. One legend relates that he once led a Revenue cutter into a dangerous cove, of which he alone knew the soundings, and that he and his crew came out of it in safety, but the other vessel with all on board perished. Mr. Hawker calls Coppinger’s ship the “Black Prince,” and says he had it built for himself in Denmark, and that men who had made themselves in any way obnoxious to him on land were carried on board her, and compelled by fearful oaths to enrol themselves in her crew.

In 1835 an old man of the age of ninety-seven related to this writer that when a youth he had been so abducted, and after two years’ service he had been ransomed by his friends with a large sum. “And all,” said the old man, very simply, “because I happened to see one man kill another, and they thought I should mention it.” The same author gives him a wonderfully fleet horse, which no one but Coppinger could master, and says that on its back he made more than one hairbreadth escape. He has also a marvellous account of his end, in which he disappears as he came, in a vessel which he boarded in a storm of thunder, lightning, and hail. As soon as he was in her, “she was out of sight in a moment, like a spectre or a ghost.” For this he quotes the following verse:—

The one thing certain about him is, that at one time he amassed money enough by smuggling to buy a small freehold estate near the sea, the title-deeds of which, signed with his name, still exist. But in his old age, I have been told, he was reduced to poverty, and subsisted on charity.

That in those bygone days smuggling was thought no sin every one knows. And who has not heard the oft-quoted apocryphal anecdote of the Cornish clergyman, who—when he was in the middle of his sermon and some one opened the church door and shouted in, “A wreck! a wreck!”—begged his parishioners to wait whilst he took off his gown that they might all start fair.

The following is, however, a genuine letter of the last century from a vicar in the eastern part of the county to a noted smuggler of that district:—

To the same jovial vicar is credited this grace, given to his hostess’ horror at her table after he had dined out several days in succession, and had rabbits offered him, a dish he detested:—

Inland from Breage is the small hamlet of Leed’s-town (called after the Duke of Leeds, who has property in Cornwall). It is the seat of the following short story:—“The Leed’s-town ghost runs up and down stairs in a house during the night, and then sits in a corner of the room weeping and sleeking her hair. It is the ghost of a young woman who was engaged to be married to a man who refused to become her husband until she gave him certain deeds kept in a box in the above room. As soon as the deeds were in his possession, he realised the property and escaped to America, leaving the luckless girl to bemoan her loss. She went mad: night and day she was searching for her deeds; sometimes she would sit and wail in the spot where the box had been. At length she died: her spirit, however, had no rest, and still constantly returns to keep alive the memory of man’s perfidy.”—Through Rev. S. Rundle.

Close to Leed’s-town, at the foot of Godolphin-hill, is the old house, or hall, of Godolphin. The basement-floor of the original house alone remains: it consists of a long faÇade supported by pillars of white granite, the interior containing many objects of interest well worth a visit. Opposite the inhabited part of the house is the King’s room, opening on the King’s garden. (The title of King’s room was given to it from the legend that Charles II. once slept there.) You could leave it by five ways; as there were three doors, one exit through the floor, and another through the roof. Godolphin is held by a very curious tenure, said to have originated in a bet between the representatives of the Godolphin and St. Aubyn families on a snail race. As the Godolphin snail was being beaten, its owner pricked it with a pin to make it go faster, but it drew in its horns and refused to move, consequently the other won. The following is the ceremony which takes place every Candlemas. Before sunrise a person, appointed as reeve by the Rev. St. Aubyn Molesworth St. Aubyn, the lord of the manor of Lamburn, in the parish of Perranzabuloe (near Truro), knocks at the ancient outer door of the quadrangle, and repeats this demand thrice:—“Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Here come I the reeve of the manor of Lamburn, to demand my lord’s dues, eight groats and a penny in money, a loaf, a cheese, a collar of brawn, and a jack of the best ale in the house. God save the Queen and the lord of the manor.” It is said at the outer door of the quadrangle, at the inner door, and for the third and last time at the table in the kitchen (which is one of the oldest and not the least interesting rooms). The above high lordship is paid by the Duke of Leeds to the St. Aubyn family, to whom should they fail an heir the estate reverts. There is another curious tenure in this part of Cornwall, which as I am on the subject I will, before proceeding further, quote. “The parsonage of St. Grade, with a small portion of land, including an orchard, is held of the manor of Erisey by the following tenure, viz., that on Easter-day, yearly, the parson provide a dinner for the master and mistress of Erisey house, and their man and maid, with a pan of milk for a greyhound bitch.”—Lake, Helston and Lizard.

The old manor-house of Erisey is in Ruan Major (near the Lizard), and of one of the family the following story is told:—“He was dancing with other ladies and gentlemen at Whitehall before James I., and, through the violent motion and action of his body in the middle of the dance, had his cap slip from his head and fall to the ground; but he instantly with his foot tossed it on his head again, and proceeded without let or hindrance with his part in that dance, to the admiration of all who saw it, which gave occasion to King James to enquire who that active gentleman was, and being told that his name was Erisey, he forthwith replied, ‘I like the gentleman very well, but not his name of Heresey!’ ” The rector of Ruan Minor by ancient usage and prescription (which is always admitted) claims a right of sending a horse into a certain field in the parish of Landewednack, whenever it is cropped with corn, and taking away as many sheaves as the horse can carry away on its back.

“At Jew’s Lane Hill, near Godolphin, a Jew is said to have hung himself on a tree still pointed out, and was buried beneath the road. His ghost appears in the shape of a bull and a fiery chariot. This superstition has been known for generations.”—M. H., through Rev. S. Rundle.

“I remember this stone a rough cube about three feet in height; it stood by the wayside forty or fifty years ago about a quarter of a mile from the old Godolphin mansion near the coast, where the nobility and gentry of the county were wont periodically to assemble to hear the news from Court. The servants who waited on their masters at the banquet diligently listened to the conversation, and afterwards spread the information thus collected among the crowd assembled for the purpose around Cornwall stone.”—G. F. W., Western Antiquary, 1881.

An old writer on the Scilly Isles mentions a rock on Bryher, one of the smallest of the islands, where the neighbours were wont to collect to hear and repeat the news. He calls it the News Rock.

Between Helston and the Lizard lies the parish of St. Keverne; unlike the other parishes of Cornwall it contains no mines. To account for this it is said that St. Keverne cursed it when he lived there, for the want of respect shown him by its inhabitants. Hence the proverb “No metal will run within the sound of St. Keverne’s bells.”

St. Just, from the Land’s End district, once paid a visit to St. Keverne, who entertained him for several days to the best of his power. After his departure his host missed some valuable relics, and determined to go in pursuit of his late guest, and try, if possible, to get them from him. As he was passing over Crousadown, about two miles from St. Keverne church, he pocketed three large stones, each weighing about a quarter of a ton, to use if St. Just should offer any resistance. He overtook him at a short distance from Breage and taxed him with the theft, which was indignantly denied. From words the saints came to blows, and St. Keverne flung his stones with such effect that St. Just ran off, throwing down the relics as he ran. These stones lay for centuries where they fell, about four hundred yards from Pengersick Lane, as when taken away by day, they were in bygone times always brought back at night.

Going along the coast from Breage to the Lizard the solitary church of Gunwalloe is passed, built so close to the sea that the waves wash its graveyard walls. It is said to have been erected as a thank-offering by some man who escaped drowning when shipwrecked. “In the sandbanks near it (or, as others say, at Kennack cove), the notorious buccaneer Avery is reported to have buried several chests of treasure previously to his leaving England on the voyage from which he never returned. So strongly did this opinion prevail that Mr. John Knill, collector of the Customs at St. Ives, procured about the year 1770 a grant of treasure trove, and expended some money in a fruitless search.”—Rev. C. A. Johns, Week at the Lizard.

Near by is Mullion parish, of which the celebrated ghost-layer, the Rev. Thomas Flavel, who died in 1682, was the vicar, and the following quaint lines to his memory may still be read in the chancel of his church:—

Of him the Rev. C. A. Johns writes:—“This Thomas Flavel, during his life, attained great celebrity for his skill in the questionable art of laying ghosts. His fame still lingers in the memories of the more superstitious of the inhabitants through the following ridiculous stories. On one occasion when he had gone to church his servant-girl opened a book in his study, whereupon a host of spirits sprang up all round her. Her master observed this, though then occupied at church, closed his book, and dismissed the congregation. On his return home he took up the book with which his servant had been meddling, and read backwards the passage which she had been reading, at the same time laying about him lustily with his walking-cane, whereupon all the spirits took their departure, but not before they had pinched the servant-girl black and blue. His celebrity, it seems, was not confined to his own parish, for he was once called on to lay a very troublesome ghost in an adjoining parish. As he demanded the large fee of five guineas for his services, two of the persons interested resolved to assure themselves, by the evidence of their own eyes, that the ceremony was duly performed. They accordingly, without apprising one another of their intention, secreted themselves behind two graves in the churchyard a short time before the hour named for the absurd rites. In due time the ghost-layer entered it with a book in one hand and a horsewhip in the other. On the first smack of the whip the watchers raised their heads simultaneously, caught a glimpse of each other, and were both so terrified that they scampered off in opposite directions, leaving the operator to finish his business as he might. So popular are superstitions of this kind, and so long do they linger, that to the present day a spot is pointed out on the downs, named ‘Hervan Gutter,’ where Thomas Flavel’s own ghost was laid by a clergyman, of whom he said before his death, ‘When he comes I must go.’ In olden days there were several of these ghost-laying clergymen in Cornwall, of whom, before going on with the legends of the parishes, I will mention three known in folk-lore. In the parish of Ladock, on the east side of Truro, dwelt rather more than a century ago the famed ghost-layer, the Rev. Mr. Woods, who, when walking, usually carried an ebony stick with a silver head, on which was engraved a pentacle, and on a broad silver ring below planetary signs and mystical figures. Of him Mr. Bottrell tells many thrilling tales; I will only give the substance of one. Mr. Woods was usually a match for most demons, whom he would change into animals and thrash with his whip; but one more cunning than the rest defied him, by taking the shape of an unknown coal-black bird, and perching on the church tower, from whence during divine service he made all sorts of queer noises, disturbing the congregation, and inciting the irreverent to laughter. He was too high up to be exorcised or reached with the whip. At last the clergyman, at his wit’s end, remembered that the Evil One could not endure the sight of innocent children, and he sent his clerk round to all the mothers of his parish who had unchristened children, asking them to bring them to church on the next Sunday to have the rite performed. As he was a great favourite with his people all the mothers, and they were eight, readily agreed to come. But as twelve is the mystical number he invited four other mothers whose children had recently been baptised, to come as well, and bring their children and sponsors with them. The eight children were christened, and the parson walked out of church followed by the twelve mothers with their infants in their arms. The clerk arranged them in lines five deep, the mothers in front, opposite the belfry door. Mr. Woods directed each to pass her child from one to the other of its sponsors, and then hand it to him that he might hold it up for the demon to see; but for some time the cunning bird hid himself behind a pinnacle, and nothing would induce him to look, until one of the children, growing tired, began to cry, and all the others chimed in, screaming in chorus at the top of their voices. Then the demon hopped down from his perch and peered over the parapet to try and find out what could be the matter. The sight of the twelve children had such an effect upon him that he too gave an unearthly yell and flew away never to re-appear. The church bells were soon after put in order, and it is well known that no evil spirit ever ventures within sound of their ringing.”

“One of the three Jagos, who were Vicars of Wendron, was much renowned for his powers of necromancy. He was in the habit of taking people to St. Wendron Cross, where a man called Tucker was buried, and asking them whether they had a mind to see Tucker man; he would make him rise from the dead as a mark of delicate attention to them.”—Cornubiana, Rev. S. Rundle, Penzance Natural History Society, 1885–1886.

I will close this list of worthies by a short notice of Parson Dodge, a vicar of Talland, a village on the south coast of Cornwall, and then give an encounter of the famous Nonconformist divine, John Wesley, with some spirits whom he vanquished at St. Agnes on the north. The church of Talland is not in the centre of the parish, but near the sea; a legend accounts for its position thus: It was begun at a spot called Pulpit, but each night a voice was heard saying:

and the stones put up by day were removed. (Tales similar to this are told of many Cornish churches. The work of removal is sometimes carried on by the devil; at Altarnon he was accompanied by a hare and a deer.) Of this church, about a hundred and fifty years ago, the Rev. Richard Dodge was vicar. He had such command over the spirit-world that he could raise and lay ghosts at his will, and by a nod of his head banish them to the Red Sea. His parishioners looked up to him with great awe, and were afraid of meeting him at midnight, as he was sure then, whip in hand, to be pursuing and driving away the demons, that in all kinds of shapes were to be seen hovering around him. Amongst his other eccentricities he was fond of frequenting his churchyard at the dead of night. Parson Dodge’s fame was not confined to his own immediate district, and one day he received a letter from a fellow-clergyman, the Rev. Grylls, rector of Lanreath, asking his assistance in exorcising a man habited in black, who drove a sable coach, drawn by headless horses, across Black-a-down (a neighbouring moor), as this apparition, when they happened to meet it, frightened his people almost out of their wits. He acceded to this request, and late at night the two clergymen rode to the spot, where they waited for some time, but seeing nothing decided to separate and return to their respective homes. Mr. Dodge, however, had not gone very far when his horse obstinately refused to proceed a step further in a homeward direction: this he interpreted to be a sign from heaven which he must obey, and giving it the rein he allowed it to go as it willed. It wheeled round and went back at a great pace to the moor. Here through the gloom he saw standing the black coach with the headless horses: its driver had dismounted, and the Rev. Grylls lay in a swoon at his feet. Mr. Dodge was terribly alarmed, but managed to keep his presence of mind, and began to recite a prayer: before he could finish it the driver said—“Dodge is come! I must be gone!” jumped on to his seat and disappeared for ever. Mr. Grylls’ parishioners now arrived in search of their rector; they knew there must be something amiss, for his horse, startled by the horrible spectres, had thrown its rider and galloped off, never stopping until it reached its stable (his friend’s, through fright, had also been, until the apparition vanished, almost unmanageable). They found him senseless, supported in Mr. Dodge’s arms; but he soon revived, and they took him home, although it was some days before his reason recovered from the shock. A much fuller account of this may be found in the History of Polperro, by Mr. T. Q. Couch. It has also been published by Mr. Robert Hunt in his Popular Romances of the West of England. The Rev. R. S. Hawker, in his Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall, gives some very interesting extracts from the “Diurnal” of one Parson Rudall, of Launceston, who in 1665, with the sanction of his Bishop, laid the Botathen ghost—the spirit of a young woman by name Dorothy Dinglet, who could not rest in her grave—“Unquiet because of a certain sin.” It is a very well-known fact that the Rev. John Wesley was a firm believer in supernatural agencies; he compiled a book of ghost-stories, that was lent to me when I was about ten years old by a kind but ignorant woman, the reading of which caused me many sleepless nights. “On one occasion Wesley could, when at St. Agnes, find no place to pass the night save a house which had the reputation of being haunted. However, he was not deterred; he entered and went to bed. But he could not rest, for there was a terrible tumult below; the sound of carriages was heard, the noise of feet, and fearful oaths. At length he could bear it no longer; he descended, and then found the large hall filled with guests. They greeted him with loud welcome, and begged him to be seated. He consented, saying, however, that he must say grace first. This remark was hailed with roars of laughter. Nothing daunted he began—“Jesus, the Name high over all.” He did not finish; in a moment the lights were extinguished, he was alone, and from that time the house was no more haunted.—Through Rev. S. Rundle.

Clergymen in Cornwall are still supposed to be able to drive out evil spirits. A poor, half-crazed woman, yet living in Madron parish, near Penzance, went about ten years since to the house of a clergyman then residing there, and asked him to walk around her, reading some passages from the Bible, to exorcise the ghost of her dead sister, who had entered into her, she said, and tormented her in the shape of a small fly, which continually buzzed in her ear. Once before the Board of Guardians she talked sensibly for some time, then suddenly stopped and exclaimed, shaking her head: “Be quiet, you brute! don’t you see I am talking to the gentlemen?”

We must now, after this long digression, return to Mullion. Between it and the Lizard is a fine headland, the Rill, and on its summit are a number of loose, rough stones, known as the Apron String, which the country people say were brought here by an evil spirit, who intended to build with them a bridge across to France for the convenience of smugglers. He was hastening along with his load, which he carried in his apron, when one of its strings broke, and in despair he gave up the idea. On the opposite side of the Lizard, at the mouth of Helford river, stands the church of St. Anthony in Meneage; like that of Gunwalloe it is little above the level of the sea, and is, also according to tradition, a votive offering. Some people of high rank, crossing over from Normandy to England, were caught in a storm, and in their peril vowed to St. Anthony that they would build a church in his honour if he would bring them safe into harbour. The saint heard their prayers, and the church was erected on the spot where they landed. Helford river, in Carew’s days, was the haunt of pirates, and of it he says: “Falmouth’s ower neere neighbourhood lesseneth his vse and darkeneth his reputation, as quitting it onely to the worst sort of Seafarers, I mean Pirats, whose guilty breasts with an eye in their backs, looke warily how they may goe out, ere they will aduenture to enter, and this at unfortified Hailford cannot be controlled, in which regard it not vnproperly brooketh his common term of Helford and the nickname of Stealford.”

On the subject of pirates a friend writes:—“The popular play of ‘The Pirates of Penzance’ had not its origin in that town, but in the little fishing village of Penberth, near the Land’s End; but that, alas! is in its ‘custom port.’ The captain of the pirate vessel, and all his ship’s crew, were wrestlers. They would go out to the small Spanish, Dutch, and other merchant ships, and would ask for provisions, or tender assistance, and on making sure that the ship was unarmed they would overpower the sailors and plunder it. This was before the time when the Trinity Corporation had begun its work on our Cornish coast.

From Helford we will proceed to Penryn—the scene of Lillo’s play, “Fatal Curiosity.” The legend on which it is founded is as follows: A gentleman who had rashly squandered his own and his wife’s fortune, sent their only son early into the world to seek his. During his absence his parents were reduced to penury; but he prospered, returned home, and sought them out. He did not at first disclose to them who he was, intending to do so later on, but begged to be allowed to rest in their house, and whilst he was sleeping asked his mother to take charge of a casket for him. Her curiosity impelled her to open it, and her avarice was so inflamed at the sight of the rich jewels it contained that she incited her husband by prayers and reproaches to murder the poor young man. After the fatal deed was done, the unhappy pair discovered him to be their son.

It has been said that a party of Spaniards landed at Penryn in 1565, intending to plunder the town, but were alarmed by the sound of a drum beaten by some strolling players, and made a hasty retreat.

Before the year 1600 there were only a few houses where Falmouth now stands, called Pennycomequick, which name tradition declares was given it from the following: A woman, who had been a servant to a Mr. Pendarves, left his employ, and went there to reside, where, I suppose, she kept an ale-house, as the story says that he ordered her to brew a cask of ale, and on a certain day he and some friends would come and drink it. The ale was brewed; but in the meantime a Dutch vessel put into the creek, and she sold it all to the sailors. When her former master and his friends arrived at the appointed time, he was of course very angry. Her excuse was that the “penny comed so quick” that she could not refuse it. The name really means the head of the valley of the creek.

There is a pyramidal monument at the south end of Falmouth erected by one of the Killigrews to the memory of Sir Walter Raleigh, who had been entertained by an ancestor at their family-seat of Arwenack, when there was only one other house in the place. There is a red stain on it, “A blood-mark,” the old people said, “that would not wash out, splashed there from the body of a man employed in making it, who fell from its top and was killed.”

On the coast just outside the town is Gyllanvaes, or William’s Grave, which is pointed out as the place where King Henry I.’s son, who was drowned on his passage from Normandy to England, was buried.

On the opposite side of Falmouth harbour, where St. Anthony’s church now stands, was formerly the priory of St. Mary de Vale, and King Henry VIII. is reported to have landed here in 1537, and told the prior that it would soon be destroyed, and he with all his brethren turned out. It was; but the prior left his curse behind him, and the first holder of the lands lost all his family by untimely deaths, and he himself committed suicide.

Of all the creeks up the Fal from Falmouth to Truro, most marvellous tales of smugglers and their daring deeds are told; and of King Harry’s passage, where a ferry-boat crosses the river, this legend: That it is called after bluff King Hal, who forded it with his queen (sometimes Katherine of Arragon) on his back. To have accomplished this feat he must have been taller than the sons of Anak, for in the middle the water is several fathoms deep.

At the head of one of these creeks is Veryan parish. And there is a tradition that should its church clock strike on the Sunday morning during the singing of the hymn before the sermon, or before the Collect against Perils at Evening Prayer (which does not often happen), there will be a death in the parish before the next Sunday.

On a hill near Veryan is a barrow, in which Gerennius, a mythical king of Cornwall, was said to have been buried many centuries ago, with his crown on his head, lying in his golden boat with silver oars. It was opened in 1855, when nothing but a kistvaen (a rude stone chest) containing his ashes was found. His palace of Dingerein was in the neighbouring village of Gerrans. A subterranean passage, now known as Mermaid’s Hole, one day discovered when ploughing a field, was supposed to have led from it to the sea. Treasures of great value are reputed to be hidden under all the Cornish menhirs and barrows. Carew tells of a gentleman who was persuaded that by digging under a menhir near Fowey he would get great riches. “Wherefore, in a faire moone-shine night, thither with certaine good fellowes hee hyeth to dig it up. A working they fall, their labour shortneth, their hope increaseth, a pot of gold is the least of their expectation. But see the chance. In midst of their toyling the skie gathereth clouds, the moonelight is overcast with darknesse, downe fals a mightie showre, up riseth a blustering tempest, the thunder cracketh, the lightning flasheth. In conclusion, our money-seekers washed instead of loden, or loden with water instead of yellow earth, and more afraid than hurt, are forced to abandon their enterprise and seeke shelter of the next house they could get into.”

Malpas (pronounced Mopus) ferry was, nearly a century ago, kept by a woman called “Jenny Mopus,” who was quite a character. “Wemmin and pigs” she used to declare were the worst things to ferry across.

The water bounds of the borough of Truro are renewed every six years, and the following curious ceremony takes place: On reaching the limits of their jurisdiction, the mayor, town clerk, members of corporation, &c., go on shore, when a writ for the sum of 999l. 19s. 11¾d. is produced against a person present, selected beforehand. He is arrested by the bailiff of the borough, on which two of the party offer themselves as bail, and the prisoner is liberated. Not far from Perranworthal is one of the most celebrated Cornish Tol-mÊn, MÊn-an-tol, or holed stones. This is an immense egg-shaped mass of granite, perched on a dreary hill nearly 700 feet above the sea, and is thought to weigh 750 tons. It is generally known as the Cornish Pebble, and is supported on the points of two other stones leaving a hollow space beneath. In this it differs from other MÊn-an-tol which have the orifice in the centre of the stone (hence their name). There are many in the county. The one at Madron is sometimes called the Crick Stone. It gets this name because in days not very long ago people afflicted with rheumatism, sciatica, &c., in May, and at certain other seasons of the year, crawled on all fours nine times around these MÊn-an-tol from east to west, and, if thin enough, squeezed themselves through the aperture. This was then thought such a sovereign remedy for these diseases that parents brought their weak-backed children and carried them around. To work the charm properly there must always be two people, one of each sex, who stand one on each side of the stone. The child, if a male, must first be passed from the woman to the man; if a girl, from the man to the woman, and always from the left of the one to the right of the other. Some sort of divination, too, was formerly practised on these MÊn-an-tol by pins laid cross-ways on the top.

In the parish of St. Dennis the church is dedicated to that saint. And when St. Dennis had his head cut off at Paris, blood, a legend says, fell on the stones of this churchyard; a similar occurrence often afterwards foretold other calamities.12 The exact centre of the county is reputed to be a hole in a field at Probus, a neighbouring parish.

At Boconnoc, near Lostwithiel, not long ago stood the stump of an old oak, in which, in 1644, when Charles I. made this seat his head-quarters, the royal standard was fixed. It bore variegated leaves. According to tradition, they changed colour when an attempt was made to assassinate the king whilst he was receiving the sacrament under its branches. The ball passed through the tree, and a hole in its trunk was formerly pointed out in confirmation of the story.

Heath, in his Description of Cornwall, 1750, speaks of two other trees of the same kind to be seen in this county. “In Lanhadron Park,” he says, “there grows an oak that bears leaves speckled with white, as another, called Painter’s Oak, grows in the hundred of East. Some are of opinion that divers ancient families of England are preadmonished by oaks bearing strange leaves.” A turtle-dove is said to be seen by the Bassetts of Tehidy, in Camborne, before death, and to another Cornish family a white bird appears.

The church of St. Neot, in the parish of St. Neot, is celebrated for its beautifully-painted glass. One of the windows contains many legends of this saint, but they have all been too fully described by other writers to require a lengthy notice from me. St. Neot is the reputed brother of King Alfred, and lived some hundreds of years before the present church dedicated to him was erected. But folk-lore has it that it was built at night entirely by his own hands, and that he drew from a neighbouring quarry, by the help of reindeer, all the stones he used in the building. He is described as a man of short stature, and tradition also says that after the church was finished he found that he was not tall enough to reach the keyhole of the door, and could not therefore unlock it. To remedy this defect he put a stone opposite (still pointed out), from which, when he stood on it, he could throw the key into the lock with unerring precision. About a mile to the west of it, is an elevated spot with a square entrenchment; an ancient granite cross stands at one corner. There is a story attached to it which runs thus:—The crows in this neighbourhood were in his time so numerous that the farmers could not, fearing the mischief they might do in their absence, leave their fields and young crops to attend St. Neot’s discourses. He, on hearing of it, determined to put a stop both to the excuse and the thieving habits of the birds, and one day ordered them all to enter this enclosure, from whence they could not stir until he gave the signal; upon which they all immediately flew away and returned no more.

“The church of St. Mawgan, in Kerrier, was formerly at Carminowe, at the end of the parish. It was removed thence to its present site on account of the ghoulish propensities of the giants, who used to dig up the dead from their graves. The inhabitants tried in vain to destroy them by making deep pits, and covering them over with ‘sprouse’ (light hay or grass) so that the unwary giants, walking over them as on firm ground, might fall into them and be killed. As this project failed, they were reluctantly compelled to remove the church to its present place, beyond the reach of their troublesome neighbours.”—Rev. S. Rundle, Penzance Natural History Society, 1885–1886.

The fine old mansion of Cottrell, situated on the River Tamar, was built in the reign of Henry VII.; it belongs to the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, and is full of quaint treasures, many of the rooms and the furniture they contain dating from the time of Queen Elizabeth. But the only part that concerns us is a little chapel in the woods perched on a rock overhanging the river, of which this legend is told. It was erected by Sir Richard Edgcumbe, who was a partizan to Henry, Duke of Richmond, the rival of Richard III. A party of soldiers were sent to take him prisoner, but he managed to elude them and escaped into the woods, where his pursuers were so close upon his heels that he would certainly have been captured had not his cap, as he was climbing down this rock, fallen off his head and floated on the stream. On seeing it the men, thinking that Sir Richard had in despair drowned himself, gave up the chase. He shortly after crossed over to Brittany, where he stayed until the news came of the defeat and death of the king, when he returned home, and, in gratitude for his miraculous escape, caused this chapel to be built.

Dupath Well, not far from Cottrell, was, according to tradition, the scene of a desperate duel between two Saxons, called by one authority Colan and Gotlieb, who were both suitors for the hand of the fair lady Gither; but the Rev. R. S. Hawker, who has written a ballad on part of the legend, gives the name of Siward to the younger and favoured one who killed his rival, but who himself in the combat received a wound from which he soon after died. The same author has also put into verse the well-known story of Bottreaux bells. Bottreaux is the parish church of Boscastle, a corruption of Bottreaux castle, and its tower is, and always has been, silent. When it was built the inhabitants, who had long been jealous of the beautiful peal at Tintagel, a neighbouring village, aided by the Lord of Bottreaux, raised enough money to buy a set for themselves, cast by a famous London founder. But when the ship that brought them was nearly in port the sound of Tintagel bells was in the calm evening borne across the water. The pilot, a native of that parish, hearing them, piously crossed himself, and thanked God that he should soon be safe on shore. On this the captain grew very wroth, and said, “Thank the ship and the canvas at sea, thank God on shore.” “No!” meekly replied the pilot, “we should thank God at sea as well as on land.” At this the captain grew still more angry, swore and blasphemed, and with an oath exclaimed, “Not so, thank yourself and a fair wind.” Upon which a violent storm suddenly arose, the ship became unmanageable, struck on a rock, and went down. All on board, with the exception of the pilot, were drowned. Above the roar of the winds and waves the eager watchers from the shore, who were waiting for the arrival of the vessel with her precious freight, could hear the solemn tolling of their bells. And still before a gale their warning chimes sound from their ocean bed, but woe to the unhappy ship’s crew that hears them, for wreck, misfortunes, and deaths are sure to follow. The following proverb would seem to infer that Boscastle, as well as no bells, has no market: “All play and no play, like Boscastle Market, which begins at twelve o’clock and ends at noon.” Mevagissey church, on the opposite coast, has neither tower nor bells, and there is a standing joke against its people that they sold their bells to pay the cost of pulling down the tower.

Gorran men, who live in an adjoining parish, seem in former days to have been rivals to the famous “Wise men of Gotham,” from the absurd deeds attributed to them, such as “Trying to throw the moon over the cliffs,” “Building a hedge to keep in the moonlight,” &c. The inhabitants of more than one parish in Cornwall are said “to have built a hedge to keep in the ‘guckaw’ (cuckoo).” In fact, of nearly all the parishes in the county some joke is current in the neighbouring villages.

Not far from Boscastle is the beautiful waterfall of St. Nighton’s Kieve, and close by are the ruins of a cottage, once the habitation of two ladies, who took possession of it at night. They evidently had seen better days, but their names and from whence they came remain a mystery, as from the date of their arrival they held no communication with the outer world. They kept no servant, and from the villagers bought for themselves the necessaries of life, asking but few questions, and not answering any. At first they took long solitary walks in the most secluded spots of the district; when met they were rarely conversing, and never spoke to a stranger. These walks were gradually discontinued, and one day a rumour spread through the village that one of the poor ladies was dead. Tradition says that the neighbours found the other weeping silent tears by the side of the corpse. After the funeral the survivor daily grew more infirm and but rarely left the house, and one morning soon after, no smoke issuing from the chimneys of the cottage, the villagers peeped in through the uncurtained windows and saw her sitting dead in her chair. The friends were buried in one grave, and their secret died with them.

In Wellcombe church, near Morwenstow, against the font in the north wall is a door called the “devil’s door,” opened at baptisms at the Renunciation, that the devil, which is then supposed to come out of the child, may be able to get away.

Trecarrel, in East Cornwall, formerly belonged to the Trecarrels, the last of whom built Launceston church. A singular story has been handed down from the sixth century of the birth and death of his only son. His father is described as having been very learned in philosophy, astrology, astronomy, and other sciences; and it is said that, having surveyed the planetary orbs just as his child was about to be brought into the world, he perceived that the time was unfavourable to its birth, and foreboded a speedy and accidental death to the child. Overcome with these gloomy ideas he hastened to the house, and requested the midwife to delay the birth (if it were possible) for one hour; but nature, conspiring with fate on the downfall of his house, turned a deaf ear to his entreaties, and a son was born, to the great joy of all present except to him who was the most interested in the event. The child, however, grew up in a very promising way, until a servant-maid, having placed him to stand near a bowl of water in order to wash him, chanced to have forgotten the towel, and having stepped into another room to procure one, on her return found the boy dead, having fallen into the water with his head foremost: and in consequence of this unfortunate event the father spent a large part of his large property in charitable purposes, and in building and repairing churches in the county of Cornwall.—J. C. Gilbert.

A story of a similar nature is related of one of the Arundells, of whom it had been foretold “that he should die in the sands.” To prevent this he left his house of Efford, near Stratton, and took up his abode at Trerice, another of his estates, about three-and-a-half miles from Newquay. But the Earl of Oxford, having surprised and taken St. Michael’s Mount, Sir John Arundell, who was then sheriff of Cornwall, marched there to besiege and retake it for the king, Edward IV. Here his fate overtook him, for in a skirmish on Marazion sands he lost his life, and was buried in the chapel at the Mount. A funeral procession goes through Stratton before the death of the Bathes of Kilkhampton.

Between Stratton and the village of Marham, about half-a-mile from the former town, in the orchard of Binamy farm-house, is an old quadrangular moat, all that remains to show where stood the castle of the Blanchminsters, an old family now, I believe, extinct in this neighbourhood. Of one of them, who lived in the reign of Edward I. and went with him on a crusade, folk-lore still tells some strange but—through the lapse of time—vague tales. His name was Ranulph de Blanchminster, corrupted by the country people into old Blowmanger, and it is said that after he had been absent for two or three years in the Holy Land, his wife, I suppose thinking that he was dead, married another baron. On his return he shut himself up alone in his castle, with the drawbridge generally raised to keep off intruders. No one was with him when he died; but after his death a will was found leaving the greater part of his property for the benefit of the poor of the parish of Stratton. His effigy may be seen in the church, in the habit of a Crusader, grasping a sword, with his feet resting on the back of a lion. Through his interest Stratton had the charter of its market. His spirit haunts Binamy grounds (avoided after dark by the superstitious) in the form of a hare, which always starts out of the moat and manages to elude the dogs.

Of the doings of the famous Grenvilles of Stow,—Sir Beville, the brave Royalist leader, who lost his life at the battle of Lansdowne in 1643,—Admiral Sir Richard, immortalized by Tennyson in his ballad “The Revenge,”—and of his son, Sir John, who served under Sir Walter Raleigh and died at sea,—I shall say nothing, these noted men belonging more to history than folk-lore.

Under the same head, too, may be classed the Cornish female Whittington, Thomasine Bonaventure, of St. Mary Wike (now Week St. Mary), who lived in the fourteenth century; the daughter of a labourer, she herself was a shepherdess. A London merchant, when travelling in Cornwall, lost himself on our moors, and accidentally met her with her sheep. He asked of her the way, and was so much struck by her good looks and intelligence that he begged her from her parents and took her back with him to be a servant to his wife. In her new situation she conducted herself with so much propriety that on his wife’s death he courted and married her. Soon after he himself died, and left her a wealthy widow. Her next marriage was to a much richer man, named Henry Gall. Widowed a second time, and again inheriting her husband’s money, she took for her third and last husband Sir John Percival, Lord Mayor of London. Him, too, she outlived, and after his death returned to her native village, where she employed her great riches in works of charity. Amongst her other good deeds she founded and endowed a chantry there, together with a free school, and lodgings for masters, scholars, and officers.

The Rev. R. S. Hawker, in his book before-quoted, has a legend which he calls “The first Cornish Mole. A Morality.” I, however, suspect it to be a pure invention of this author; but as it is very pretty, I will give the substance of it. Alice of the Coombe was a very beautiful, but proud and vain, damsel; the only child of her widowed mother, with whom she dwelt at Morwenstow. It chanced one day that they, with all the neighbouring gentry, had been bidden to a grand banquet at Stow; and, as she had set her love on the great and noble Sir Beville Grenville, its owner, Alice, to win his affections, dressed herself in her richest robe—“a woven velvet, glossy and soft”—and put on her fairest jewellery. Her mother, when she saw her thus attired, struck by her exceeding grace and beauty, said, “Often shall I pray to-night that the Grenville heart may yield. Aye, thy victory shall be my prayer.” The haughty maiden replied, “With the eyes I now see in that glass, and with this vesture, meet for a queen, I lack no trusting prayer.” At this a sudden cry was heard, and the damsel disappeared from their sight for ever. Shortly after, the Coombe gardener discovered in the garden a small, unknown hillock, and on top of it shone a ring, which was recognized as the one the lady wore on the day she vanished. A close examination showed that an old Cornish couplet was now traced on it, which the parish priest interpreted to mean—

As he uttered these words a low cry was heard at his feet, and there “They beheld, O wondrous and strange! a small dark creature, clothed in a soft velvet skin, in texture and in hue like the robe of Lady Alice, and they saw as it groped into the earth that it moved along without eyes in everlasting night.” “She, herself had become

Before finishing this section of my work I must say a few words about the Islands of Scilly and their legends. The Rev. H. J. Whitfield, M.A., in 1852, published a book on this subject, but his legends are for the most part purely fictitious, and its title, Scilly and its Legends, a little misleading.

The Scilly Isles, just off the Land’s End, are very numerous, but only five are inhabited; some are mere rocks in the sea, and, counting those, they are said to be a hundred and fifty. The largest is St. Mary’s, and the dwellers on it are apt to look with contempt on the inhabitants of the other islands (the Off Islands). The word Scilly is sometimes derived from SullÈh, rocks dedicated to the sun, and sometimes from Sillyas, a conger. This fish is very plentiful on these coasts, and a ridiculous rhyme says that Scilly fare consists of—

Occasionally the saying runs: “Oh! the Scillonians live on fish and ’taties every day, and conger-pie for Sundays.”

In the beginning of this century, before steam-boats were invented, when communication between Scilly and Penzance (the mainland) depended upon wind and weather, in winter its people were often reduced to great straits for want of provisions, which gave rise to the proverb, “There is always a feast or a fast in Scilly.” This is, however, now far from being the truth, and it is one of the most prosperous parts of Great Britain; its inhabitants, as a rule, are well educated, they are noted for their courteous manners; and for its beautiful scenery Scilly is well worth a visit. The dialect of its poorer people, as also the tones of their voices (each island has its peculiarity), differ from those of the same class in West Cornwall. Their pronunciation rather resembles the Irish. Thread with them is tread, the th at the beginning of words being rarely sounded, pint is point, and point pint.

Irreverent people declare that when Ireland was made some little bits of earth fell from the shovel and formed Scilly. Certain it is that when St. Patrick drove out all venomous reptiles from the former place he did the same kind service to the latter. The island of St. Agnes was particularly favoured, for until recently there was not a rat on it, they were introduced from a wrecked vessel.

Small as St. Mary’s is (about three miles long and nine around) it boasts of two capitals; the modern one dates from the time of Queen Elizabeth, and is called Hugh Town; before that Old Town was the principal village. At the east of Old Town Bay is Tolman Point (a corruption, I suppose, of TÔl MÊn, the holed stone). Of it an old legend says when Scilly was under the monks of Tavistock, and Old Town the only port of St. Mary’s, that they drew a chain from “Tollman head” across the entrance, and levied a toll from all who embarked and landed there, not excepting the fishermen. It was abolished by Richard Plantagenet, who, coming disguised to the port, was not recognized by the friar in charge, who demanded from him his dues. Upon which Earl Richard, in a fit of passion, struck him dead at his feet. According to Leland, “Inniscan longid to Tavestock, and there was a poor celle of monkes of Tavestock. Sum caulle this Trescau.”

There was a settlement of Benedictine monks here long before the Norman Conquest; their cell was dedicated to St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas, as well as St. Peter, is the patron saint of fishermen; the former also takes school-boys under his protection. Fragments of Tresco Abbey which was then founded still exist. It was independent until the reign of Edward I., when it was joined to Tavistock. The same monarch, Edward I., made Ranulph de White Monastery (supposed to be Ranulph de Blankminster, or Randolph de Blancheminster), according to an old archive, constable of these islands, with the castle of Ennor, in Old Town, on his “Paying yearly, at the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, 300 birds, called puffins, or 6s. 8d.” Traces of these monastic visitors are to be found in a pile of rocks at St. Mary’s, called Carn Friars (a farm near by bears the same name), and one of the most highly cultivated and sheltered spots, where a few trees grow, is known as Holy Vale. Whitfield places a nunnery there, and says Holy Vale takes its name from a miraculous rosebush that grew in it, and that “One of its flowers was deemed to have the power, if worn, to preserve its bearer from mortal sin,” but no other authority mentions it.

Giants, of course, frequently played a great part in the history of Scilly. Buzza’s Hill, just beyond Hugh Town (St. Mary’s), commemorates a giant of the name of Bosow, who made his home on its summit (now crowned by a Spanish windmill), and from whom the family of Bosow were descended. One of the finest promontories on the same island is Giant’s Castle—Troutbeck says, built by the Danes. Here, too, is Giant’s Chair, where the Arch Druid used in former days to sit and watch the sun rise. Druidical remains are scattered all over the different islands, and the many “barrows” are known as “giants’ graves.” “In the old abbey gardens at Tresco is a curious stone, about four feet long, two feet wide, and six inches in thickness, in an upright position. Near the top are two holes, one above the other (one being somewhat larger than the other), through which a man might pass his hand. It is supposed to be an old Druidical betrothal or wishing-stone, and used before the monks built the abbey at Tresco. Young people, engaged to be married, would pass their hands through the holes, and, joining them together, would so plight their troth. As a wishing-stone, or to break a spell, a ring would be passed through the holes with some incantations.”—J. C. Tonkin’s Guide to the Isles of Scilly.

The finest headland on St. Mary’s is Peninnis, and some of the sheltered nooks under its rocks have rather curious names. One of them is known as Sleep’s Abode (or Parlour), and close by is Pitt’s Parlour, which commands a lovely view; it is so called after a Mr. Pitt, who, when on a visit to Scilly, spent his summer evenings there with a chosen party of friends. An old lady, a native of Scilly, long since dead, told me that tradition said Mr. Pitt came to Scilly in consequence of a bet he made with a gentleman (I believe the then governor of the islands), who, when in London, spoke in the highest terms of the morality of its women, and offered to lay a heavy wager that not a single courtesan could be found there. Mr. Pitt took up the bet, travelled down to Scilly, and for a long time seemed likely to lose it; but at last, by a large bribe, he overcame the virtue of one very poor woman, and, in gratitude, allowed her a small pension until her death.

At the foot of Peninnis is Piper’s Hole (in which there is a pool of fresh water). This is said to be the entrance of a subterranean passage leading to the island of Tresco, where another Piper’s Hole is shown as the exit. Old people told marvellous tales of rash people venturing in so far that they never returned, but died in it overcome by fatigue—the passage being too narrow for them to turn. Also of dogs who disappeared in the hole at St. Mary’s, and after many days crept out from the one in Tresco, very emaciated, and almost hairless. The Rev. J. W. North, in his Week in the Isles of Scilly, has an interesting account of Piper’s Hole at Tresco.

Half-way down Giant’s Castle, the steep carn before mentioned on St. Mary’s, lies a very inaccessible cave known as Tom Butt’s Bed, from the fact that a boy of that name hid himself there in Queen Anne’s time three days and three nights out of sight of the press-gang.

The wreck of Sir Cloudesley Shovel in 1707, upon Gilston Rock, in Porth Hellick Bay, near Old Town, is of course a matter of history. Very many traditions have, however, gathered around this sad event, related by many authors. I must briefly retell them, as no book of this kind would be complete without them.

The admiral, accompanied by the whole of his fleet, was returning home from Toulon, after the capture of Gibraltar, in his ship the Association. When they were off Scilly, on October 22nd, 1707, the weather became thick and dirty, and orders were given “to lie-to.” This was in the afternoon. Later on, about six, Sir Cloudesley again made sail, but two hours after his ship showed signals of distress, which were answered from several of the others. In two minutes she struck on the Gilston Rock, sank immediately, and all on board perished. The Eagle and the Romney with their crews shared the same fate; the Firebrand also was lost, but her captain with most of her men were saved. “The other men-of-war with difficulty escaped by having timely notice.” In this storm between fifteen hundred and two thousand people were drowned in one night.

A day or two before this took place, one man, a native of Scilly, is said to have persistently warned the officer of the watch on board the Association that unless their ship’s course was altered she, with all the fleet, would soon be on the Scilly rocks amongst the breakers. These warnings so exasperated the officer that he repeated them to his admiral, and he, vexed that a common sailor should think that he knew better than his superiors how to navigate a vessel, summarily ordered him to be hanged at the yard-arm for inciting the others to insubordination and mutiny. The man before his execution begged, as a great favour, that the chaplain should be allowed to read him one of the Psalms. His request was granted, and he chose the 109th, repeating after the reader in a loud voice all the curses it contains. And with his last breath he prophesied that the admiral, with those who saw him hanged, would find a watery grave. Up to that time the weather had been fair, but as soon as his body had been committed to the sea it changed, the wind began to blow, and his shipmates were horrified to see the corpse out of its winding-sheet, face up, following in their wake, and even before their vessel struck they gave themselves up for lost men. Some say that Sir Cloudesley’s body came ashore on a hatch, on which he had endeavoured to save himself, with his favourite little dog dead by his side. Others, that after the wreck it was cast naked on Porth Hellick beach, where it was discovered by a soldier, who took off his ring which he still wore, and buried him in the sands.

Another account, on the authority of Robert, second Lord Romney, Sir Cloudesley Shovel’s grandson, runs thus:—“There is one circumstance relating to Sir Cloudesley Shovel’s death that is known to very few persons, namely, he was not drowned, having got to shore, where, by the confession of an ancient woman, he was put to death. This, many years after, when on her death-bed, she revealed to the minister of the parish, declaring she could not die in peace until she had made this confession, as she was led to commit this horrid deed for the sake of plunder. She acknowledged having, among other things, an emerald ring in her possession, which she had been afraid to sell lest it should lead to a discovery. This ring, which she delivered to the minister, was by him given to James, Earl of Berkeley, at his particular request, Sir Cloudesley Shovel and himself having lived on the strictest footing of friendship.”

In the place and manner of his burial all traditions agree. Where he lay is still pointed out—a bare spot surrounded by green grass. And the Scillonians will tell you that, because he so obstinately refused to hear a warning, and wantonly threw away so many lives, God, to keep alive the memory of this great wickedness, permits nothing to grow on his grave.

Another legend has it that the man who gave the warning escaped death, as the storm suddenly arose whilst the Psalm was being read, before the order for his execution could be carried out, and that he was the only person on board the Association who was not drowned.

When Lady Cloudesley Shovel heard of the wreck, she asked that a search might be made for her husband’s body. A soldier showed a ring which he had in his possession, which was immediately recognised as Sir Cloudesley Shovel’s. The body was dug up and identified by the marks of his wounds. The ring was forwarded to his wife, and she, in gratitude for the soldier’s kindness in giving her husband a decent burial, rewarded him with a pension for life. Sir Cloudesley’s body was embalmed, first taken to Plymouth by sea, where for some time it lay in state, and finally to London, where it was interred in Westminster Abbey.

The abbey at Tresco, formerly under the jurisdiction of the monks of St. Nicholas13 at Tavistock, has been already mentioned. The abbey house, built on its site, is the seat of Mr. Dorrien Smith (the Proprietor, as the Scillonians call him). The gardens that surround it are very beautiful, and famed for the tropical plants that here grow out of doors. There is an anecdote related of one of the inhabitants of Tresco, who, when asked what they did for firewood in a spot where no trees grew, answered, “We kindle our fires from the loppings of our geranium hedges.” Tresco, like St. Levan, at the Land’s End, was in bygone days the favourite haunt of witches. A poor man there walking out at nightfall had the misfortune to meet with a party of them taking a moonlight ride on their broomsticks. A relation of his was one of the number, and she warned him, in a stentorian voice, that if he ever mentioned what he had accidentally seen, he should bear the marks of their wrath until his dying day. For a long time the secret weighed heavily upon him, and at last he could not refrain from telling his wife. The witches, in revenge, turned his black hair white in a single night.

The Rev. H. G. Whitfield, in his Legends of Scilly, gives some marvellous tales of the family of “Dick the Wicked.” They were all hardened wreckers, who generations ago lived on this island, and who also had the gift of second sight. Dick himself, according to this writer, when ill and unrepentant, was, by Satanic agency, taken out of his bed and borne, wrapt in a long loose coat, which he was in the habit of wearing, some considerable distance from his house. Here his friends discovered him on the following morning.

On this island stands Cromwell’s castle, built during his Protectorate. Old people thought that he in person visited it. The large china tankard, out of which he was said to have drunk his breakfast-beer, still exists. On a hill above are the ruins of Charles’s castle. Scilly always remained loyal and true to the unfortunate monarch, and this verse of a ballad told me by a Scillonian was not written of one of them:

St. Warna, who presided over wrecks, was the patron saint of St. Agnes, another of the principal islands. She crossed over here from Ireland in a wicker-boat covered with hides, and landed at St. Warna’s bay. Like many other saints she had her holy-well; and often the superstitious inhabitants of St. Agnes (five families in all), who enjoyed the reputation of being the most daring and unscrupulous amongst the Scilly wreckers of those days, threw crooked pins into it, and daily invoked and prayed her to send them “a rich wreck.” There was no church on it then, and its people rarely visited the other islands. But it chanced one fine morning the entire population started in their boats for the church of Ennor, in St. Mary Old Town, as two of them wished to be married. After the ceremony was over the clergyman in the presence of most of his parishioners, who had assembled to witness it (between whom and the men of St. Agnes there was always a bitter feud), rebuked them for their lawless deeds. They, angry at being put to shame before their enemies, answered with many profane and mocking words, and were with difficulty restrained from coming to blows. So incensed were they that they took no notice of the signs which heralded a coming storm, and hastily got on board their boats to return to their own home, which none of them were ever destined to reach, as it broke with great fury when they were about half-way across. When close to land and the rowers were straining every nerve to get there, one wave larger than the rest broke over them, and every soul found a watery grave. This was of course said to be a judgment on them for their wicked ways. (Leland briefly chronicles it.) From that time St. Warna’s well was neglected; there was no one left the day after twelfth-day, as had been the custom, to clean it out and return her thanks for her bounty: it gradually got filled with stones, and at the present day is little more than a hole.

There is a curious labyrinth on this island called “Troy-town,” which it is popularly supposed to represent; but all intricate places in Cornwall are so denominated, and I have even heard nurses say to children when they were surrounded by a litter of toys that they looked as if they were in Troy-town.

A peculiar mode of punishment was formerly practised in Scilly. The offenders were placed in a chair called a “ducking chair,” and publicly at St. Mary’s quay-head “ducked” in the salt water.

1 Uther is still used as a Christian name in Cornwall.?

2 The Cornish manner of pronouncing the name of St. Clare.?

3 Supposed to have been shads, vulgarly here called “Chuck-cheldern,” from the number of bones in them.?

4 Burn, a, load, a burden.?

5 A fuller account of Tregeagle and his wonderful doings may be found in Bottrell’s Traditions, West Cornwall.?

6 A monastery existed there, and in 1883 portions of the building were still standing.?

7 A gentleman’s seat in the parish of Gulval, near Penzance.?

8 There is a small enclosure near the castle, where several members of the family of Hosking were interred, owing to a quarrel that Mr. Hosking had with the vicar of Ludgvan over some tithes. The last funeral took place in 1823. On one of the stones is inscribed, “It is virtue alone that consecrates this ground,” and “Custom is the idol of fools.”?

9 The Penzance Promenade is built on part of it. In my childhood it was said to be one of the resorts of “Spring-heeled Jack,” of whom I then lived in mortal dread.?

10 A small stream coloured by running through tin mining works.?

11 Marazion is no longer a Corporate town.?

12 Dennis is a very common Cornish surname.?

13 “Old Monk” is a term of contempt in Cornwall, applied to old or young men. “I saw the old monk coming down the garden” (a youth of twenty).?