THE LAND'S END
The Irish settlers in Penwith--Difference between Irish and
Cornish languages--The Irish saints of Penwith--Other
saints--Penzance--S. Ives--Restored brass--Wreck of Algerine
pirates in 1760--Description of Penwith--The pilchard
fishery--Song--Churches of the Land's End--S. Burian--S. Paul's
and Dolly Pentreath--The Cornish language--Cornish dialect--Old
churches and chapels--Madron--Prehistoric antiquities.
The Land's End is properly Penwith, either Pen-gwaed, the Bloody
Headland, or Pen-gwaedd, the Headland of Shouting. Probably it is the
former, for it was the last place of refuge of the Ibernian population,
and in the first years of the sixth century, even perhaps earlier, it
was occupied by Irish settlers, and that there was fighting is clearly
shown us in the legend of SS. Fingar and Piala. It must have been to
the original people of the peninsula what Mona was to the Welsh.
[Illustration: LAND'S END]
All we _know_ about this invasion is what is told us in the legend just
mentioned, and that states that Fingar, son of an Irish king, came to
Hayle, landed there with his party, and was fallen upon by Tewdrig, the
Cornish duke or king, who massacred some of the party. But the names of
the parishes tell us more than that. They show us that the Irish were
not defeated, that they made good their landing, and that they spread
and occupied the whole of Penwith and Carnmarth, that is to say, the
entire district of West Cornwall up to Camborne and the Lizard district.
The colonists cannot have been few, and they must have purposed
settling, for they brought women along with them; and that they were
successful is assured by the fact that those killed by Tewdrig are
recognised as martyrs. Had the Irish been driven away they would have
been regarded as pirates who had met their deserts.
Now this inroad of saints was but one out of a succession of
incursions, and the resistance of Tewdrig marks the revolt against
Irish domination which took place after the death of Dathi in 428, the
last Irish monarch who was able to exact tribute from Britain; though
Oiliol Molt may have attempted it, he was too much hampered by internal
wars to make Irish authority felt in Britain. Oiliol fell in 483.
The Irish saints came across in detachments. Senan, Erc (Erth), Setna
(Sithney), Brig (Breage), Just were some of the earliest. There was
trouble when Brig arrived, and she and her party fled from Tewdrig and
fortified themselves on Tregonning Hill, where their camp still
remains. But Kieran and his pupils, Medran (Madron) and Bruinech
(Buriena), were unmolested; so also was S. Ruan.
One thing they could not do, and that was impress on the people the
Scottish or Irish pronunciation. They were few among many, and they not
only could not make the natives pronounce a hard _c_, but they were
themselves obliged to suffer their own names to be softened, and the
_c_ in them to be turned into _p_, and the _f_ into _gw_. Thus Kieran
became Piran, and Fingar became Gwinear. The Irish _c_ is always
sounded like _k_, and the Cornish disliked this sound. When S. Kiera
settled in Cornwall she had to accustom herself to be called Piala; and
Eoghain was melted down into Euny, and Erc softened into Erth.
Just one advantage to Cornwall did this invasion afford; by it we know
the histories of the founders of churches in West Cornwall; because the
Irish had the wit to preserve their records and biographies, whereas of
the home-grown saints, princes of blood royal, the Cornish have not
kept a single history. Consequently, if we desire to know about the
early kings and saints of the peninsula, we have to ask the Irish, the
Welsh, and even go hat in hand to the Bretons. It is a sorry truth, but
truth it is.
How thoroughly occupied by the Irish this district was may be judged
when we come to look at who the saints were.
Let us take them in order from Newquay.
First we have Carantock, the fellow-worker with S. Patrick, who
assisted him on the commission to draw up the laws of Ireland. Then we
have Perranzabuloe, the settlement of Kieran of Saighir. Across the
ridge, four miles off, is Ladock, where he planted his nurse as head of
a community of women. Some of Kieran's young pupils found it not too
far to trip across and flirt with the girls at Ladock, and there was a
pretty to-do when this was discovered. He was wont, when he had
ploughed his own lands, to send over his oxen to plough the fields of
his nurse. At Redruth was S. Euny, whom the Irish called Eoghain, and
who later was Bishop of Ardstraw. He was brother of S. Erc of Erth, as
it was said in later times, but earlier writers frankly call Erc his
father.
Illogan was son of Cormac, King of Leinster. Piety ran in the family.
Cormac abdicated and assumed the monk's cowl in 535. The sisters of
Illogan were Derwe and Ethnea, who accompanied him to Cornwall, and are
numbered with its saints. He was father of S. Credan of Sancreed.
Phillack is S. Piala, the sister of Gwynear (Fingar). S. Elwyn is but
another form of the name Illogan. Erth, as already said, was father of
S. Euny; he was a disciple of S. Brendan, the voyager, and was nursed
by S. Itha, who was a woman almost as famous in Ireland as S. Bridget,
and who has churches in Cornwall and Devon. S. Ives is really S. Hia,
an Irishwoman. Zennor is, perhaps, dedicated to a disciple of S. Sennen
of Land's End, the very woman about whom Tom Moore wrote his song of
"The Saint and the Lady." S. Just was the deacon of S. Patrick, and he
was S. Kieran's tutor. Sennen is Senan of Inscathy, in the Shannon. S.
Levan was metal-worker for S. Patrick, but in holy orders also. S.
Burian was the female disciple of S. Kieran. Germoe was a bard, and an
intimate friend of Kieran, and so we see him planted near his friend,
who was at Perran-uthnoe. Breage was a disciple of S. Bridget and a
friend of S. Kieran. Crewenna was another Irishwoman. Sithney is Setna,
a disciple of S. Senan. S. Ruan, in the Lizard district, and S. Kea, on
the Fal--Irishmen as well--I have spoken of them elsewhere.
But along the south coast are some settlements of a different kind.
Paul is Paul of Leon, a Briton, who came there to visit his sister,
Wulvella, at Gulval before he crossed into Brittany; and Towednack is
not an Irish foundation.
Senan and Kieran, or Piran, were such allies that the former was wont
to call the latter "his inseparable friend and comrade." It is
therefore no wonder that we find settlements of the two in West
Cornwall together.
Senan and Kieran probably came to Cornwall some years later than Hia
and Breaca, Fingar and Piala. Senan was very much attached to S. David,
and both are said to have died on the same day in the same year.
As Sithney's mother was a sister of Non, the mother of S. David, it is
possible that David may have induced his cousin to study with his
friend Senan, and that when Senan came to Cornwall he hoped that
Sithney would be able to smooth his way, as an aunt of his was queen
there. This I have already pointed out.
It is noteworthy that Sithney parish is close to that of his first
cousin Constantine.
The key to the Land's End district is Penzance. This is a comparatively
modern town, and it was but a village in the parish of S. Madron, with
a little chapel of S. Anthony on a spit of land running into the bay,
till incorporated by James I.
That bay is singularly fine, and, facing the south, the climate is
warm. Out of it stands up S. Michael's Mount crowned with a castle,
formerly a monastery, now the residence of Lord S. Levan, and connected
by a causeway with Marazion, or Market Jew. The name has nothing to do
with "Bitter Waters of Zion," or with Israelites. Marazion is the
Cornish for Thursday Market, and Market Jew is a corruption for _Jeudi_
(Thursday) Market.
From Penzance a visit should be paid to S. Ives and to Hayle. The Hayle
river flows in a natural furrow from near Germoe, and the whole of the
district west is, as it were, cut off from the rest of the peninsula.
It needed to have been but a little more depressed, and it would have
been converted almost into an island, linked to the mainland only by
the ridge between S. Hilary and Godolphin.
The great S. Ives Bay is conspicuous through its white hills of blown
sand that form what are locally called Towans.
The church of S. Ives is interesting, and is, like most others in
Cornwall, Perpendicular. It is of granite, and contains some fine oak
carving in bench-ends and waggon-roof, and a portion of the screen
presented, it is supposed, by Ralph Clies, a master smith; also a brass
to Otho Trenwith and his wife. The latter is represented kneeling to
and invoking the archangel Michael. The head of S. Michael has a
comical effect. "Some perplexity may be felt at the appearance of Saint
Michael's head, which looks like nothing so much as a Dutch cheese. The
fact is, that when this brass lay on the floor, the feet of passers-by
had gradually erased the features of the archangel, leaving only the
circular nimbus or glory round his head. Some well-meaning but
misguided restorer of later days has evidently taken the nimbus to be
the outline of the head, and has roughly filled in eyes, nose, and
mouth to correspond."[27]
An event occurred at Penzance in 1760 that was curious.
A large vessel was driven ashore on the beach. Numbers of persons
crowded to the wreck to get from it what they could, when they were
startled to see it manned by swarthy mariners with scimitars and
turbans. At once a panic seized on those who had come out of interested
motives to the wreck, and they scuttled off as hard as their legs would
take them. Presently a company of volunteers was called out to roll of
drum, and marched down to surround the 172 men who had disembarked from
the wreck. These were gallantly captured and driven like sheep into a
spacious barn, and left there under guard through the night.
Next morning it was ascertained from the men who had come ashore (some
of whom could speak broken French), by means of some English officers
who could understand a little French, especially when broken, that the
vessel was an Algerine corsair, carrying twenty-four guns, and that the
captain, finding his ship making water rapidly, had run her ashore in
Mount's Bay, fully believing he was about the latitude of Cadiz. The
instant it was known that the sailors were Algerines, a deadly panic
fell on the neighbourhood, for now the plague was feared. The
volunteers could hardly be kept at their posts, where they quaked, and
felt internal qualms. Intelligence was conveyed to the Government, and
orders were issued for troops to march from Plymouth. Happily, however,
the panic rapidly abated; the local authorities convinced themselves
that there was no plague among the strangers, and, slowly and
cautiously, people approached to look and gape at the dark-moustached
and bearded men with dusky skin, bare legs, and turbans. The pirates
were on the whole kindly treated, and after some delay were sent back
to Algiers.
The whole country is wind-blown, and everything looks small: the trees
are stunted; the hills rise to no great heights, the very highest point
reached is 827 feet; and Tregonning, which does not mount above 600
feet, assumes the airs of a mountain. The coast is fine, but by no
means as fine as that of the Lizard. The rocks are of granite, and not
of serpentine. But, on the other hand, the surface is less level than
that of Meneage. It is crowded with prehistoric antiquities, cromlechs,
camps, and stone circles. And the Land's End district has this great
advantage, that if you are overdone with the soft and relaxing air on
the south coast, you have but to ascend a hill and inhale the
invigorating breath that comes from the Atlantic on the north.
Newlyn and Hayle are great fishing stations, and in the Land's End
district as in the Lizard chances arise for watching the pilchard
fishery.
So many seans, or nets, about 220 fathoms long and about 15 fathoms
deep, belong to each fishing station, and three boats go to each sean.
The first boat, which is also the largest, is called the sean-boat, as
it carries the net and seven men; the next is termed the vollier,
probably a corruption for "follower," and carries another sean, called
the tuck-sean, which is about 100 fathoms long and 18 deep, this boat
also carries seven men; the third boat is called the lurker, and
contains but three or four men, and in this boat is the master, or
commander.
Pilchards are migratory and gregarious fish, rather smaller than
herrings, which they much resemble, but are cased in larger scales.
They begin to appear at the end of June, but they are then at a great
distance from the coast, and the boats have to go out far to sea before
they encounter the shoals. It is a pretty sight to see a flight of
fishing-smacks, with their white wings spread, issuing from one of the
harbours, and all making for the spot where the fish are ascertained or
supposed to be.
At nightfall the nets are set either across or parallel to the drift of
the tide, and are suffered to be carried along by the current. About
midnight the nets are hauled, and the fish having become entangled by
their gills, are taken into the boats, and the nets are again set. It
is only by night that fish can be caught in this way, as they are
keen-sighted. This is drift-net fishing.
In the morning the boats return with the spoil, and the port, or
harbour, is alive with women and children; these latter on such
occasions can by no persuasion be induced to attend school. A string of
carts is drawn up on the beach, each containing several "maunds," or
panniers, to receive the silver load.
As the season advances the shool, or shoal, comes nearer the shore.
A saying is that
"When the corn is in the shock,
Then the fish are at the rock."
And now the time for drift-net fishing is over, and that of sean, or
seine, fishing begins.
Pilchards swim in dense hosts, so that the sea seems to be in a state
of effervescence.
On the cliffs men and boys are to be seen all day long lying about
smoking, apparently doing nothing. But their keen eyes are on the sea.
They are watching for the coming of the pilchards. It is not possible
to see from the boat so as to surround a shoal; that is why a watch is
maintained from the cliffs by "huers" (French _huer_, to shout). The
moment their experienced eyes see by a change in the colour of the
water that the shoal is approaching, by preconcerted signals the crew
are informed as to the place where it is, and the direction it is
taking.
The fish playing on the surface are called skimmers. The colour of the
water, as seen from above where the fish are dense, is almost red; it
is always darker than the water around.
Another token of the presence of a shoal is the sea birds hovering
about, expecting their prey.
The boats are all in readiness.
The shoal is also known by the _stoiting_, or jumping, of the fish.
When fish are observed stoiting a signal is given, whereupon the
sean-boat and vollier get on the spot, and the crew of the foremost
boat pass a warp, that is, throw a rope, which is fixed to the end of
the sean on board the vollier, and then shoot the net overboard, which,
having leaden weights at bottom, sinks, and the top is buoyed up with
corks. The sean-boat is rowed in a circular course round where the fish
are stoiting, and when they have reached the vollier the fish are
enclosed. They then hem the two ends of the sean together with a cord
to prevent the fish from breaking out, and whilst this is being done a
man is engaged in frightening the fish away from the still open end by
means of a stone fastened to a rope. This is termed throwing the
minnies (_maen_ stone, pl. _meini_). When the two ends of the net are
laced together, grapes, _i.e._ grapnels, are let down to keep the net
expanded and steady till the fish have been taken up. This latter
process is called tucking the sean. The boat with the tuck-sean on
board passes the warp of that sean to one of the other boats and then
shoots this tuck-sean within the stop-sean, and next draws up the same
to the edge of the water, when it is seen to be one quivering mass of
silver. The fish are now taken or dipped out with baskets into the
boats. When the boats are filled, if more fish remain in the large
sean, it is left in the water, till by successive tuckings all the fish
have been removed.
The fish that have been caught and brought on shore are taken to the
cellars. Fish cellars are usually dug out of the rock, and in them the
pilchards are deposited in heaps, to be cured by the women, who work at
this night and day. The cellar floor is covered with a layer of salt
for the distance of five or six feet from the walls, and on this is
laid a row of fish with their tails touching the wall; then next to
these is laid another row, and so on in concentric rings, till a
sufficient space is paved with fish. On this foundation is laid more
salt, and then more fish, and this process is continued till the pile
is complete and the cellar is stacked with fish. They are now said to
be "in bulk," and so are suffered to remain for some weeks, during
which time boards are placed on them with stones, so as to squeeze out
of them all superfluous water and oil. The process of salting
completed, the fish are packed in barrels, and are sent away to market.
After July or August the pilchards leave the coast, and do not reappear
until the end of October or the beginning of November. They now appear
in the Bristol Channel, and come down towards Land's End, which they
turn and follow the south coast of Cornwall, and then disappear.
Formerly pilchards were smoked, and went by the name of _fumadoes_. The
name clung to them after the smoking was abandoned, and _fumadoes_ is
now corrupted into "fair maids."
There is a song of the pilchard fishery which is sung by the boatmen. I
know of it but three verses, and I doubt if there be more.
"The cry is, 'All up! Let us all haste away!
And like hearty good fellows we'll row through the bay.
Haul away, my young men!
Pull away, my old blades!
For the county gives bounty
For the pilchard trades.'
"'Tis the silver 'fair maids' that cause such a strife
'Twixt the master-seiner and his drunken wife.
Haul away, etc.
"She throwed away her fiddles (?) and burnt all her thread,
And she turn'd him out o' doors for the good of the trade.
Haul away," etc.
The churches of the Land's End district are not remarkably fine. They
are not, however, without interest.
The finest is that of S. Burian, about whom first of all a word or two.
Buriena was an Irish damsel, noted for being both slender and
beautiful. In fact, her willowy form obtained for her the nickname of
Caol, or "the Slim." She was a daughter of one Crimthan, "the Fox," a
Munster chieftain, a granddaughter of Aengus, King of Munster, who was
baptised by S. Patrick, on which occasion the apostle ran the spike at
the end of the pastoral staff into the foot of the king. Afterwards,
when S. Patrick saw the wound and the blood, he was shocked, and said,
"Why the dickens did you not tell me of it?" "I thought it was part of
the ceremony," replied Aengus.
However, to return to Buriena, his granddaughter. She was so pretty and
so graceful, that although she was at school with Liadhain, the mother
of S. Piran, as her spiritual child, a chieftain named Dimma carried
her off to his own castle. Liadhain came in a fume to S. Piran and told
him of the outrage. At once the old man seized his staff and went after
Dimma, who was head of the clan Hy Fiachta. It was midwinter, and the
snow was on the ground. When Piran arrived at the gates of the cashel
he was refused admittance. He would not return, but maintained his
place, and next morning there he was still. He had stood there all
night in the snow, waiting to insist on the restoration of the girl.
Dimma now was alarmed. He saw that the saint was determined to "fast
against him," a legal process, as has been described already, and he
returned the damsel.
However, some days afterwards, feeling his passion still strong, he
went at the head of a body of men to reclaim her. Buriena fainted when
she saw his approach; but Piran had time to call out all his
ecclesiastical tribe, and they surrounded the place where Liadhain and
Buriena were, and he had sent a detachment to make a circuit and set
fire to Dimma's cashel, so that the chief was compelled to beat a
precipitate retreat. It was probably in consequence of this that Piran
left Ireland and came to Cornwall.
S. Burian Church does not stand on the site of the old settlement of
Buriena; that is about a mile south-east, at Bosliven, where the
"sanctuary" remains about some mounds and ruins. It was destroyed by
Shrubsall, one of Cromwell's miserable instruments of sacrilege. When
Athelstan traversed Cornwall from east to west he made a vow that if he
reached the Scilly Isles and returned in safety he would endow a
collegiate church where was the oratory in which he made the vow. This
he did, and the date of the foundation is supposed to have been 936.
The church had a superb screen, probably the finest in Cornwall, but it
was taken down and destroyed in 1814. Some fragments have been
preserved sufficient to admit of its complete reconstruction at some
future day. Many of the bench-ends remain, and are fine. The church has
been illtreated in that fashion which is in bitter mockery called
"restoration." The new woodwork is a fair example of what woodwork
never should be. It is treated like cheese.
S. Levan has fine old bench-ends and exquisitely bad modern woodwork,
and in the neighbourhood is the Logan Rock and some of the finest coast
scenery of the Land's End. S. Levan was priest and metal-worker in S.
Patrick's company, and some of his bells and book-covers remained long
preserved as treasures in Ireland.
S. Senan has been gutted by the restorer, and has in it no longer
anything of interest except a mutilated statue of the Virgin and Child.
Madron has not much of interest, except the oft-quoted epitaph on
George Daniel:--
"Belgia me Birth, Britain me Breeding gave,
Cornwall a Wife, ten children and a grave."
Paul's, dedicated to S. Paul of Leon, brother of S. Wulvella of Gulval,
has a good tower, and several points of interest. Here was buried,
1778, Dolly Pentreath, the last person able to converse in the old
Cornish language. Pentreath was her maiden name. She was married to a
man of the name of Jeffery. It is still the custom in the villages of
Mousehole and Newlyn for women to be called by their maiden names after
marriage; indeed, there are some instances in which the husband goes by
the maiden name of his wife, when his individuality disappears under
her more pronounced personality. Such would doubtless be the case in
the following instance I quote from the _Cornish Magazine_:--
_Girl_ (selling papers): "If you please, sir, do you want a _'Ome
Companion?_"
_Householder_ (at door): "No, thank'ee, my dear. I got wan."
_Girl_: "_'Ome Chat_, sir?"
_Householder_: "_'Ome Chat!_" (throws open the door). "Here, just come
fore and listen for yourself. Hark to her a bellerin' in the back
kitchen."
Or in such a case as this.
Pasco Polglaze was henpecked. He opened his heart to Uncle Zackie at
the "Dog and Pheasant."
"Now, look here," said Uncle Zackie, "you be a man and show yourself
maister in your own 'ouse. You go 'ome and snap your vingers in the
missus' vaice, and sit down on the table. I'll come in two minutes
after and see your triumph--you maister and all."
"Right," said Pasco, and went home.
But when he had snapped his fingers under the nose of his wife she took
the poker at him, and he took refuge under the table.
Tap! tap! at the door.
"Come out from under there," said Susan, his wife.
Then Pasco lifted up his voice and sang out as loud as thunder, "No,
Sue! no, I want come out from under the table. I'll stick where I be;
for all you say, I'll show Uncle Zackie as I'll be maister in my own
house."
In 1768 the Hon. Daines Barrington visited Cornwall to ascertain
whether the Cornish language had entirely died out or not, and in a
letter written to John Lloyd a few years after he gives the result of
his journey, and in it refers to Dolly Pentreath:--
"I set out from Penzance with the landlord of the principal inn
for my guide towards Sennen, and when I approached the village
I said there must probably be some remains of the language in
those parts, if anywhere. My guide, however, told me that I
should be disappointed; but that if I would ride about ten
miles about in my return to Penzance, he would conduct me to a
village called Mousehole, where was an old woman who could
speak Cornish fluently. While we were travelling together I
enquired how he knew that this woman spoke Cornish, when he
informed me that he frequently went to Mousehole to buy fish
which were sold by her, and that when he did not offer her a
price that was satisfactory she grumbled to some other old
woman in an unknown tongue, which he concluded to be Cornish.
"When we reached Mousehole I desired to be introduced as a
person who had laid a wager that there was not one who could
converse in Cornish, upon which Dolly Pentreath spoke in an
angry tone for two or three minutes in a language which sounded
very much like Welsh. The hut in which she lived was in a very
narrow lane, opposite to two rather better houses, at the doors
of which two other women stood, who were advanced in years, and
who, I observed, were laughing at what Dolly said to me.
"Upon this I asked them whether she had not been abusing me, to
which they answered, 'Very heartily,' and because I had
supposed she could not speak Cornish.
"I then said that they must be able to talk the language, to
which they answered that they could not speak it readily, but
that they understood it, being only ten or twelve years younger
than Dolly Pentreath.
"I had scarcely said or thought anything more about this matter
till last summer (1772), having mentioned it to some Cornish
people, I found that they could not credit that any person had
existed within these few years who could speak their native
language; and therefore, though I imagined there was but a
small chance of Dolly Pentreath continuing to live, yet I wrote
to the President (of the Society of Antiquaries), then in
Devonshire, to desire that he would make some inquiry with
regard to her, and he was so obliging as to procure me
information from a gentleman whose house was within three miles
of Mousehole, a considerable part of whose letter I shall
subjoin:--
"'Dolly Pentreath is short of figure and bends very much with
old age, being in her eighty-seventh year; so lusty, however,
as to walk hither to Castle Horneck, about three miles, in bad
weather in the morning and back again. She is somewhat deaf,
but her intellect seemingly not impaired.... She does indeed
talk Cornish as readily as others do English, being bred up
from a child to know no other language, nor could she talk a
word of English before she was past twenty years of age, as,
her father being a fisherman, she was sent with fish to
Penzance at twelve years old, and sold them in the Cornish
language, which the inhabitants in general, even the gentry,
did then well understand. She is positive, however, that there
is neither in Mousehole, nor in any other part of the county,
any other person who knows anything of it, or at least can
converse in it. She is poor, and maintained partly by the
parish, and partly by fortune-telling and gabbling Cornish.'"
A monument has been erected to her memory by Prince Lucien Bonaparte.
She died on December 26th, 1777, and was buried in January, 1778. The
following epitaph was written for her:--
_Cornish._
"Coth Doll Pentreath caus ha deau;
Marow ha kledyz ed Paul plêa:--
Na ed an egloz, gan pobel brâs,
Bes ed egloz-hay coth Dolly es."
_English._
"Old Doll Pentreath, one hundred aged and two,
Deceased, and buried in Paul parish too:--
Not in the church, with people great and high,
But in the church-yard doth old Dolly lie."
A word may here be added relative to the Cornish tongue. The Celtic
language is divided into two branches, one represented by the Irish and
Gaelic of North Scotland, and this is called the Goidhelic, or Gaelic;
the other by the Welsh, old Cornish, and Breton, and this is called the
Brythonic.
The main distinction between them consists in the Gaelic employing _k_
or the hard _c_ where the Welsh and Cornish would use _p_. Thus _pen_
is used in the latter, and _ken_ in the former. When the Irish adopted
the word _purpur_, purple, they changed it into _corcair_; and when
they took the low Latin _premter_ for presbyter into their language
they twisted it into _crumthir_. The Cornish was identical with old
Welsh, and the Breton was originally identical with the Cornish; but in
course of time some changes grew up differentiating the tongues, and
forming dialects derived from the same mother tongue, that is all.
In or about 1540 Dr. Moreman, vicar of Menheniot, in the east of the
county, was the first to teach the people the Creed, the Lord's Prayer,
and the Commandments in English.
Carew, however, in his _Survey of Cornwall_ in 1602 says, "Most of the
inhabitants can speak no word of Cornish, but few are ignorant of
English, and yet some so affect their own as to a stranger they will
not speak it, for if meeting them by chance you inquire the way, your
answer will be, '_Meeg nauidna cowzasawzneck_'--I can speak no
Saxonage."
Carew's _Survey_ was soon followed by that of Norden, who says that the
tongue was chiefly confined to Penwith and Kirrier, and yet "though the
husband and wife, parents and children, master and servants, do
naturally communicate in their native language, yet there is none of
them in a manner but is able to converse with a stranger in the English
tongue, unless it be some obscure people who seldom confer with the
better sort."
The Cornish was so well spoken in the parish of Feock till about the
year 1640 "that Mr. William Jackman, the then vicar, ... was forced for
divers years to administer the Sacrament to the communicants in the
Cornish tongue, because the aged people did not well understand the
English, as he himself often told me" (Hals).
So late as 1650 the Cornish language was currently spoken in the
parishes of Paul and S. Just; and in 1678 the rector of Landewednack
"preached a sermon to his parishioners in the Cornish language only."
It may seem paradoxical, but I contend that for intellectual culture it
is a great loss to the Cornish to have abandoned their native tongue.
To be bi-lingual is educative to the intellect in a very marked degree.
In their determination not to abandon their tongue, the Welsh show
great prudence. I have no hesitation in saying that a Welsh peasant is
much ahead, intellectually, of the English peasant of the same social
position, and I attribute this mainly to the fact of the greater
agility given to his brain in having to think and speak in two
languages. When he gives up one of these tongues he abandons mental
gymnastics as well as the exercise of the vocal organs in two different
modes of speech.
What we do with infinite labour in the upper and middle classes is to
teach our children to acquire French and German as well as English, and
this is not only because these tongues open to them literary treasures,
but for educative purpose to the mind, teaching to acquire other words,
forms of grammar, and modulation of sounds than those the children have
at home.
By God's mercy the Welsh child is so situated that from infancy it has
to acquire simultaneously two tongues, and that in the lowest class of
life; and this I contend is an advantage of a very high order, which is
not enjoyed by children of even a class above it in England.
The West Cornish dialect is a growth of comparatively recent times. It
is on the outside not more than four hundred years old. Whence was it
derived? That is a problem that has yet to be studied.
Mr. Jago says:--
"We have in the provincial dialect a singular mixture of old
Cornish and old English words, which gives so strong an
individuality to the Cornish speech. As, in speaking English, a
Frenchman or a German uses more or less of the accent peculiar
to each, so it is very probable that the accent with which the
Cornish speak is one transferred from their ancient Cornish
language. The _sing-song_, as strangers call it, in the Cornish
speech is not so evident to Cornishmen when they listen to
their own dialect."[28]
Sancreed screen, which must have been almost as fine as that of Burian,
has disappeared all but a magnificent fragment. The church is dedicated
to S. Credan, disciple of S. Petrock, an Irishman, who returned to the
Emerald Isle. He was the son of S. Illogan, and he had two aunts in
Cornwall--one at Camborne and the other at Stythians.
[Illustration: CHUN QUOIT]
S. Just Church is late; it has rather handsomely carved capitals of the
piers, with angels bearing shields, on which are figured the arms of
the principal families connected with the parish. S. Just, as I have
said, was deacon to S. Patrick, and was the tutor to S. Piran.
In Gwythian parish may be seen the early eighth-century chapel of the
saint, which was for long buried under the sands, but was revealed by a
drift in 1808.
At Porth Curnew, near S. Levan's, are the ruins of another of these
early oratories.
Madron was founded by S. Medran, brother of Odran; they went as boys
under fourteen to S. Piran, to consult him about making a pilgrimage.
But Medran wished to stay with the old abbot, whereas Odran was for
travelling. Odran said to S. Piran, "Do not part my brother from me. We
agreed to stick together." "The Lord judge between you both," said the
abbot. "Let Medran hold this lantern and blow on the smouldering wick.
If it flames, then he stays. If not, he goes." Medran succeeded in
producing a flame, and thenceforth he became an attached follower of S.
Piran. Odran went his way.
It is chiefly for prehistoric antiquities that the Land's End district
is remarkable. It possesses cliff-castles, and also some fine examples
of the stone cashel. Such is Chûn; also beehive huts, as at Bosprennis,
and a curious cluster of habitations at Chysauster already referred to.
There are cromlechs, sacred circles, and menhîrs. These are so numerous
and so interesting, that a visitor should take Mr. Lach-Szyrma's guide
and examine them in detail.
NOTE.--Books to be consulted:--
BLIGHT (J. T.), _A Week at the Land's End_. 1861. _List of
Antiquities in Kirrier and Penwith._ Truro, 1862. _Churches of
West Cornwall._ Oxford: Parker, 1885 (second edition).
LACH-SZYRMA (W. S.), _Two Hundred and Twenty-two Antiquities in
and about Penzance_. Plymouth: Luke. _n.d._
MATTHEWS (J. H.), _A History of the Parishes of St. Ives,
Lelant, etc._ London: Stock, 1892.
----------------------------------------------------------------