Traditions And Hearthside Stories Of West Cornwall Part 38

King Olaf's priest, taken from Scilly, is one of the most remarkable characters of the wonderful book.

ST. LEVAN'S PATH. Page 146.

"Aux lieux ou la charrette et le saint ont pa.s.ses, Le froment pousse encor plus vert et plus presse."

BRIZEUX.

We find a similar belief to that connected with the path St. Levan trod, in the Breton legend of St. Cornely, from which the above lines are quoted. "La Charrette" was the cart--drawn by oxen--in which the saint rode when he and his people were pursued by an invading host of pagans.

St. Cornely, being hard pressed, to prevent the Bretons being driven into the sea, turned about, cursed the pursuers, and changed them all--in rank and file as they stood--into the Menheers of Carnac.

The remarkable correspondence of beliefs, customs, names of places, &c., in the Armorican Cornouaile, with those of West Cornwall, would seem to show that the former was either colonised from hence or that many found an asylum there in some invasion of this district.

The story of Tom of Chyannor is well known there; a translation of the Armorican version was given in one of the early numbers of _Chambers's Journal_ as a Breton legend.

A GHOSTLY s.h.i.+P'S-BELL.

In the southern side of St. Levan Churchyard there is a low altar-tomb on the grave of Captain Wetherel, whose s.h.i.+p sprung a-leak and sunk, and who was drowned near the Rundle Stone many years ago. This grave is regarded with fear and wonder by many persons of that neighbourhood; for ever since the Captain was laid there, it has been believed that a ghostly bell strikes the hours, and half-hours, in his grave, the same as on board s.h.i.+p.

'Tis said this sound beneath the sod may be heard the clearest by persons pa.s.sing the Churchyard at midnight. It was a few minutes before that hour, when the Captain, finding his vessel sinking, made his crew take to the boat; but he himself refused to quit his s.h.i.+p; and, as she went down, they heard him give eight loud and distinct strokes on the bell.

Many years since several young people were a.s.sembled in the Churchyard one Sunday forenoon, after service had commenced and the elders had gone into Church; time pa.s.sed pleasantly with the young folks in chatting about such occurrences of the St. Levan world as interested them. In rambling among the graves, to look at the many garden flowers that bloomed on them, they approached Captain Wetherel's tomb, and a girl who stood by it reading the inscription, started back on hearing a hollow sound beneath her feet; she, and others near her, who saw her emotion, listened, and lo! a ringing came up as of a bell at sea; all rushed into Church in great fright. There was much talk of the strange occurrence for a few weeks, and less loitering of the youngsters to gossip in the Churchyard during service.

Shortly after a young sailor, belonging to St. Levan, who had been absent many years, came home for a few weeks; being in the "Elder Tree"

public-house, one forenoon, with some of his former companions, their discourse led to the mention of the s.h.i.+p's-bell sounding in Captain Wetherel's grave. The young seaman said he believed the story was all nonsense, though as strange or stranger things sometimes happened in old vessels; but, as it was then near upon twelve o'clock, for curiosity sake, he went out and stood near the Captain's tomb; whilst his comrades remained by the Church porch, for a few minutes, watching the sun-dial.

As it marked noon the sailor rushed back to his companions, and, looking as pale as a corpse, said, with bated breath, "True as I'm alive, I heard 'eight bells' struck in the grave, and wouldn't go near the spot again for the world."

The young seaman, on his next voyage, found his grave in the deep.

I never heard of any other person who went purposely to hear the Captain's bell, for it is a general belief here that bad luck is sure to overtake those who endeavour to pry into ghostly doings that don't concern them. Although the belief still holds, yet most West Country folks are become shy of mentioning Captain Wetherel's bell, or of talking on kindred subjects, except amongst ourselves, from the ridicule with which it is now fas.h.i.+onable to treat such matters, even in St.

Levan.

BREA AND PENDEEN, IN ST. JUST. Pages 42, 166, and 200.

"Brea, at present, retains no traces of its former consequence, which may be a.s.sumed from its chapel, noticed in a former page.

The family of Bray, or Brea, came with the Conqueror. In the 3rd Henry IV., A.D. 1402, Michael de Bray held two parts of one Knight's fee, in Bray, in Penwith, and in the 12th Edw. I., Brea, or Bray, is charged by the Justices' Itinerant for eight acres. Edward Bray was summoned to Parliament, 3rd November, 1529, by the style and t.i.tle of Baron Bray, which honour expired on the death of John, the second Lord, 18th November, 1557. This property now belongs to the Ellis family. It appears from an inscribed stone, over one of the chimneys, that the present house was built by Charles Ellis, 1634. A former member of that family, who lived there, was a Quaker, and is said to have been an eccentric character. He enclosed a burying ground not far from his house, and was there interred, and has a granite tomb erected over his remains.

Pendeen is the house of most importance in this parish, it has long been the property, and sometimes the residence, of different branches of the old and highly respectable family of Borlase. The Rev. Dr. William Borlase, the celebrated antiquary and historian of his own county, who, by his elaborate work, has raised to his own memory an enduring monument, was born here.

The mansion itself, though now only used as a farm house, and occupied by labourers, retains much of its ancient respectability of appearance.

The masonry is of good wrought granite, and the chimneys are tastefully built; it bears the date of 1670, and is a structure superior to the other houses of the same age in the neighbourhood."

REV. JOHN BULLER, L.L.B.

The learned antiquary, who was born and who resided at Pendeen for a considerable time, is well represented by William Copeland Borlase, Esq., the author of "Naenia Cornubiae," recently published.

THE BURNING OF VELLAN-DREATH. Page 215.

It is said that in Queen Elizabeth's reign the Spaniards did much mischief by pillaging defenceless places on the western sh.o.r.es. About the time they burnt Moushal, an old miller and his son, a stout man, were the only dwellers in Vellan-Dreath. Early one morning, the miller, on returning from the mill-pool, which was far up on the hill, whither he had been to lift the flushet, noticed a boat with several men put off from a s.h.i.+p, and he watched them till they landed just beneath his mill.

Suspecting they were bent on mischief he went in and barricaded his door; unfortunately the miller had no lead, but he put the muzzle of his musket through the latch-hole, which was probably larger than required to admit a finger to lift the latch. Meanwhile his son watched the invaders approach from a gable-end loop-hole which served as a window to the mill-bed.

The water had not yet been turned on to the wheel; some of the "Spaniars," on coming round near the door, seeing the miller's gun pointed at them as they came within range, turned, tried to climb the mill-wheel and effect an entrance through the low thatched roof. The old miller, who spied them through crevices between the board of his door, guessing their intentions, called to his son to turn the water on; the launder flushet was raised in an instant, and the wheel revolved; one Spaniard was drowned in the pul-rose (wheel-pit) and another killed in the opening where the axle-tree worked.

The millers, seeing more invaders coming up the cliff, set fire to a furse-rick near their door, and, each one taking on his back a sack of flour, made good their retreat through the smoke, without being perceived by the Spaniards till they were far up the hill. The sacks of flour protected them pretty well from stray shots, but the old miller, being hit in his knee with a bullet had to drop his sack. They reached Escolls, however, without farther harm, and the young man, on throwing down his sack of flour, declared that it was pounds heavier, from the lead lodged in it, than when he took it up. The Spaniards found little in the mill of any value to them; but they set fire to it, and it was never rebuilt.

The site of Vellan-Dreath can scarcely be traced on account of the blown sand having covered it over, and filled in the hollow in the cliff where it stood. Many years ago one of the mill-stones was found and taken to a smith's shop, in Mayon, or Treeve, where it served to bind cart wheels on; it remained near the smithy door but a few years since, and it may be there still, or not far from the spot. It is worth preserving, many would come from far to see a mill-stone of Queen Elizabeth's time.

THE MEN-AN-TOL, CONSTANTINE TOLMEN, &c. Page 242.

"D'un pa.s.se sans memoire incertaines reliques, Mysteres d'un vieux monde en mysteres ecrits."

LAMARTINE.

Mr. J. T. Blight, F.S.A., gives the following graphic description of various perforated stones in Cornwall, and elsewhere.

"In the western part of Cornwall there are several ancient monuments known by the name of 'Holed Stones.' They consist of thin slabs of Granite, each being pierced by a round hole, generally near its centre.

They vary in size and in form. That near the Men-Scryfa in Madron, better known than others, is placed between, or rather arranged triangularly with, two other upright stones. Other holed stones which have hitherto been noticed are not so accompanied. The late Mr. Buller, in his 'Account of the Parish of St. Just,' describes some such stones which he found near Carn Kenidjac. One may still be seen in the Vicarage grounds of St. Just; and two others near Bolleit, in St. Buryan.

The monument to which I would now more particularly call attention is at Tolven Cross (Tolven is Cornish for Holed Stone), in the parish of St.

Constantine, a few yards west of the road from Gweek to the Helston and Falmouth turnpike. Dr. Borlase refers to a holed stone about a mile west of St. Constantine Church. The subject of the present notice is twice that distance from the Church; it is therefore uncertain whether or not the Doctor alludes to the same monument. It is the largest 'holed stone'

in Cornwall, being 8 feet 6 inches high by 8 feet 11 inches wide at the base, diminis.h.i.+ng to a point at the summit; thus it is of a triangular form. Its average thickness is about one foot; but it is a little thicker at the bottom than at the top. The hole, almost perfectly circular, is 17 inches in diameter. Though within the slate district, the stone is of granite.

Formerly it was a conspicuous object by the way-side; but within the last 12 or 14 years a house has been built betwixt it and the road. It now forms part of a garden hedge.

In a field adjoining the opposite side of the road, perhaps 18 yards from the stone, is a low irregular barrow, about 20 yards in diameter, and studded with small mounds.

Dr. Borlase has alluded to the superst.i.tious practice of drawing children through the Holed Stone at Madron, to cure them of weakness or pains in the back--a practice still observed at the Holed Stone at St.

Constantine. I was told that some remarkable cures had been effected there only a few weeks since. The ceremony consists of pa.s.sing the child nine times through the hole, alternately from one side to the other; and it is essential to success that the operation should finish on that side where there is a little gra.s.sy mound, recently made, on which the patient must sleep, with a six-pence under his head. A trough-like stone, called the 'cradle,' on the eastern side of the barrow, was formerly used for this purpose. This stone, unfortunately, has long been destroyed. That holed stones were not originally constructed for the observance of this peculiar custom is evident, for in some instances the holes are not more than five or six inches in diameter.

A few years ago, a person digging close to the Tolven, discovered a pit in which were fragments of pottery, arranged in circular order, the whole being covered by a flat slab of stone. Imagining that he had disturbed some mysterious place, with commendable reverence he immediately filled up the pit again. Taking the proximity of the barrow in connection with the pit, it seems most probable that the Tolven is a sepulchral monument, stones of this kind being erected perhaps to a peculiar cla.s.s of personages.

It is well known that the Circle is an ancient symbol of eternity, and it was sometimes adopted as typical of Deity itself. The triangular form of the stone may not be accidental. The holed stones at Madron also form part of a triangular arrangement. Whether a significant connection was intended in this union of the circle and the triangle is perhaps worthy of consideration. Though holed stones are sometimes found near what are termed Druidic Circles, I perceive no traces of monuments of that description near the Tolven. The holed stones at Kenidjac, St. Just, are near ancient circles; and the two holed stones at Bolleit are not more than 100 yards from the well-known stone circle, called 'Dawns Myin.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE GARRACK ZANS (HOLY ROCK.)

Within the memory of many persons now living, there was to be seen, in the town-places of many western villages, an unhewn table-like stone called the Garrack Zans. This stone was the usual meeting place of the villagers, and regarded by them as public property. Old residents in Escols have often told me of one which stood near the middle of that hamlet on an open s.p.a.ce where a maypole was also erected. This Garrack Zans they described as nearly round, about three feet high, and nine in diameter, with a level top. A bonfire was made on it and danced around at Midsummer. When petty offences were committed by unknown persons, those who wished to prove their innocence, and to discover the guilty, were accustomed to light a furse-fire on the Garrack Zans; each person who a.s.sisted took a stick of fire from the pile, and those who could extinguish the fire in their sticks, by spitting on them, were deemed innocent; if the injured handed a fire-stick to any persons, who failed to do so, they were declared guilty.

Most evenings young persons, linked hand in hand, danced around the Garrack Zans, and many old folks pa.s.sed round it nine times daily from some notion that it was lucky and good against witchcraft.

The stone now known as Table-men was called the Garrack Zans by old people of Sennen.

If our traditions may be relied on, there was also in Treen a large one, around which a market was held in days of yore, as mentioned at page 77.