_ 43 Ibid_.
44 Her age was certainly mythical, and her case forms a strong
confirmation of the late Sir G. C. Lewis’s skepticism on that point.
Dolly Pentreath is generally believed to have died at the age of one
hundred and two. Dr. Borlase, who knew her, and has left a good
description of her, stated that, about 1774, she was in her
eighty-seventh year. This, if she died in 1778, would only bring her
age to ninety-one. But Mr. Haliwell, who examined the register at
Paul, found that Dolly Pentreath was baptized in 1714; so that,
unless she was baptized late in life, this supposed centenarian had
only reached her sixty-fourth year at the time of her death, and was
no more than sixty when Dr. Borlase supposed her to be eighty-seven.
Another instance of extraordinary old age is mentioned by Mr. Scawen
(p. 25), about a hundred years earlier. “Let not the old woman be
forgotten,” he says, “who died about two years since, who was one
hundred and sixty-four years old, of good memory, and healthful at
that age, living in the parish of Guithian, by the charity mostly of
such as came purposely to see her, speaking to them (in default of
English) by an interpreter, yet partly understanding it. She married
a second husband after she was eighty, and buried him after he was
eighty years of age.”
_ 45 Specimens of Cornish Provincial Dialects_, by Uncle Jan Treenoodle.
London, 1846: p. 82.
_ 46 Greece, Ancient and Modern_, by C. C. Felton. Boston, 1867, vol.
ii. p. 314.
_ 47 The Races of the Old World: A manual of Ethnology._ By Charles L.
Brace. London, 1863, p. 362 _seq._
48 Cornish proverbs have lived on after the extinction of Cornish, and
even as translated into English they naturally continue to exercise
their own peculiar spell on the minds of men and children. Such
proverbs are:—
“It is better to keep than to beg.”
“Do good; for thyself thou dost it.”
“Speak little, speak well, and well will be spoken again.”
“There is no down without eye, no hedge without ears.”
49 A critical edition, with some excellent notes, was published by Mr.
Whitley Stokes under the title of _The Passion_. MSS. of it exist at
the British Museum and at the Bodleian. One of the Bodleian MSS.
(Gough, Cornwall, 3) contains an English translation by Keigwyn,
made in 1682.
50 In the MS. in the British Museum, the translation is said by Mr.
Norris to be dated 1693 (vol. ii. p. 440). It was published in 1827
by Davies Gilbert; and a critical edition was prepared by Mr.
Whitley Stokes, and published with an English translation in 1862.
Mr. Stokes leaves it doubtful whether William Jordan was the author,
or merely the copyist, and thinks the text may belong to an earlier
date, though it is decidedly more modern than the other specimens of
Cornish which we possess in the dramas, and in the poem of _The
Passion_.
_ 51 Guare_, in Cornish, means a play, a game; the Welsh _gware._
52 According to Lhuyd, _guirimir_ would be a corruption of
_guarimirkle_, _i.e._ a miracle-play. Norris, vol ii. p. 455.
53 In some lines written in 1693, on the origin of the Oxford _Terræ
filius_, we read:—
“These undergraduates’ oracles
Deduced from Cornwall’s _guary_ miracles,—
From immemorial custom there
They raise a turfy theatre!
When from a passage underground,
By frequent crowds encompassed round,
Out leaps some little Mephistopheles,
Who e’en of all the mob the offal is,” etc.
54 The following extract from a Cornish paper gives some curious words
still current among the people:—
“A few weeks since a correspondent in the _Cornish Telegraph_
remarked a few familiar expressions which we West country folks are
accustomed to use in so vague a sense that strangers are often
rather puzzled to know precisely what we mean. He might also have
added to the list many old Cornish words, still in common use, as
_skaw_ for the elder-tree; _skaw-dower_, water-elder; _skaw-coo_,
nightshade; _bannel_, broom; _skedgewith_, privet; _griglans_,
heath; _padzypaw_ (from _padzar_, four?), the small gray lizard;
_muryan_, the ant; _quilkan_, the frog (which retains its English
name when in the water); _pul-cronach_ (literally pool-toad) is the
name given to a small fish with a head much like that of a toad,
which is often found in the pools (_pulans_) left by the receding
tide among the rocks along shore; _visnan_, the sand-lance;
_bul-horn_, the shell-snail; _dumble-dory_, the black-beetle (but
this may be a corruption of the dor-beetle). A small, solid wheel
has still the old name of _drucshar_. Finely pulverized soil is
called _grute_. The roots and other light matter harrowed up on the
surface of the ground for burning we call _tabs_. The harvest-home
and harvest-feast, _guildize_. _Plum_ means soft; _quail_, withered;
_crum_, crooked; _bruyans_, crumbs; with a few other terms more
rarely used.
“Many of our ordinary expressions (often mistaken for vulgar
provincialisms) are French words slightly modified, which were
probably introduced into the West by the old Norman families who
long resided there. For instance: a large apron to come quite round,
worn for the sake of keeping the under-clothing clean, is called a
_touser_ (_tout-serre_); a game of running romps, is a _courant_
(from _courir_). Very rough play is a regular _cow’s courant_. Going
into a neighbor’s for a spell of friendly chat is going _to cursey_
(_causer_) a bit. The loins are called the _cheens_ (old French,
_echine_). The plant sweet-leaf, a kind of St. John’s wort, here
called _tutsen_, is the French _tout-saine_ (heal all). There are
some others which, however, are not peculiar to the West; as
_kickshaws_ (_quelque chose_), etc. We have also many inverted
words, as _swap_ for wasp, _cruds_ for curds, etc. Then again we
call a fly a _flea_; and a flea a _flay_; and the smallest stream of
water a river.”—W. B.