The Pengersick Castle that you find to-day, built by the coast between
Parran Uthnoe and Porthleven near Helston, is a mere upstart building,
little, if any of it, more than four centuries old. This story is about
the older castle built on the same site nobody knows how long ago.
It was a grim fortress inhabited by grim and eerie folk, about whom
many wild and creepy tales are told. The old Pengersicks were a strange
family who trafficked with the powers of evil. One went to far eastern
climes and learned the black arts of sorcery, and brought back with him
as his bride an “outlandish Saracen” woman of surprising beauty.
Nobody knew actually where she came from, but she arrived unexpectedly
at the castle, one winter day, with her Lord and two eastern
attendants, all mounted on priceless Arab horses. They spoke in an
unknown tongue and disappeared behind the frowning gates, seldom to be
seen abroad again.
Some say that this strange party arrived before the castle was built,
and that it was this saturnine Lord of Pengersick who, by supernatural
aid, erected the first grim fortress; but all agree that the beautiful
Eastern lady possessed the most wonderful voice that had ever been
heard.
No living creature could resist its appeal. Men and women, birds,
animals, even fishes, stopped spellbound to listen when she sang. And
she and she only could control her evil husband.
When engaged in his blackest sorceries, brewing strange potions that
sent their exotic aromas throughout the country for miles around, or
when, in the middle of a storm, he sat upon the battlements of his
castle conjuring the Prince of Darkness, the Lord of Pengersick could
always be quieted by the sound of his Lady’s voice singing her strange
Eastern songs to the strain of her harp.
She seemed a sad, beautiful Lady, this Saracen woman. Sometimes at
night, or at summer dawn, she sat by her lattice window overlooking the
sea, and played and sang to herself the plaintive melodies of her own
land. Then, as the fisherfolk would aver, they sat motionless at the
sound of her sweet voice. Even the fishes would come to the surface to
listen; birds hovered over the castle, and mermaids from the Lizard
caverns would float across the bay, enchanted by the appealing tones.
For many years these strange happenings went on at Pengersick castle;
the fair lady’s harp sent its sweet music through the air, the
forbidding Lord continued his incantations, until one wild and stormy
night--the darkest ever known in those parts--the countryside was
startled by an eerie gleam in the sky. Presently angry flames burst
forth, and the frightened people, hurrying from all sides to discover
what this huge conflagration might be, found that Pengersick Castle was
ablaze.
Nothing they could do would still the flames, the massive pile burnt
itself out, and the next morning only the fire-scarred walls remained.
The whole of the inside--furniture, books, pictures--everything was
destroyed; and what was more curious, from that day onward neither the
Lord of Pengersick nor his Lady was ever seen again. They had vanished
just as mysteriously as they had arrived.
Years later a rich merchant--some said he had been a pirate--built upon
the site of the ruins a new castle. That is the one you see to-day, a
mellow old building looking peacefully out to sea. You may visit it
either from Helston or Penzance, it lies about midway between the two.
Near at hand is famous Prussia Cove where, in the 18th century, a
smuggler armed his house and opened fire upon the Revenue men with
small cannon. To the west is Mounts Bay with the more famous St.
Michael’s Mount, and to the east low undulating cliffs stretch in a
graceful curve, until they rise to the rugged headlands dividing the
sheltered coves of the Lizard Peninsula.
This coast is the very end of England, enjoying a climate mild even
in the depth of winter. Spring comes here fully six weeks before it
reaches London, the Midlands and the North; summer lingers almost until
Christmas time, and, like the Strange Lady of Pengersick, the sea and
the hills of this part of the Duchy exercise a charm that none can
resist.
[Illustration: _Pengersick Castle._]
[Illustration: A man with halo flying away with two angels on a chariot
drawn by two spirit horses (with wings).]