long claimed the honour but that has for some time been discredited by
those who have gone into the evidence. The romantic account of his
"passing," as given by Malory and Tennyson is very fine. It tells how
Arthur, wounded to death, is carried down to the waterside and gives
his sword, Excalibur, to Sir Bedivere to throw into the water, and how
the knight, after some hesitation, does as he wishes, when a hand and
arm arise out of the surface of the lake, brandish the sword three times
and disappear. Then a little barge appears and carries the dying King
off to the Vale of Avallon from whence he will one day return. The grand
myth about Excalibur is generally said locally to have taken place at a
dreary little pool known as Dozmare, a lonely tarn, flat and bleak,
fringed by reeds, on a tableland several hundred feet above the sea near
Brown Willy, and on this assumption many a persevering tourist has paid
it a visit. But Tennyson in describing the scene took a much more
beautiful place as his model, for he describes Looe Pool which could by
no possibility be associated with the tragedy. This is close to Helston
at the entrance to the Lizard Peninsula. It is two or three miles long,
and formed by the widening out of the little river Cober. The water
formerly escaped into the sea but gradually a bar was built up, and
there was an old custom by which the Corporation of Helston had to
present the lord of the manor with two leather purses, each containing
three halfpence, in consideration of which they were then allowed to
cut through the bar, but that has long been discontinued. The bar is now
a mighty thing where great stones are hurled by powerful waves and even
on a calm day the thunder of the surf breaking on it is heard for miles.
The water of the lake is otherwise drained. Its banks are well wooded.
In Tennyson's _Mort d'Arthur_ when Sir Bedivere, last survivor of the
Knights of the Round Table, carried his mortally wounded ruler from the
stricken field--
"On one side lay the ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full."
And when Sir Bedivere, charged with the mission of throwing the magic
sword Excalibur into the water, left the dying King:--
"From the ruin'd shrine he stept
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs,
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,
Old Knights, and over them the sea-wind sang
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He stepping down
By zigzag paths and juts of pointed rock,
Came on the shining levels of the lake."
Thence twice he returned faithless, his mission unperformed, to
report:--
"I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,
And the wild water lapping on the crag."
All around Tintagel there are innumerable references to King Arthur. In
fact it might be said that only the devil is more popular in this
respect than Arthur, for his name occurs perhaps a little more
frequently. Mr. Dickinson says: "We have King Arthur's Hall, Hunting
Seat, Bed, Quoit, Cups and Saucers, Tomb and Grave." The cups and
saucers are the round holes weathered in the stones on the summit of
Tintagel island. The grave is a sepulchral mound lying within Warbstowe
Bury, one of the largest British camps in Cornwall. This is not very far
north of Boscastle. It is a vast circular mound with a sort of crater on
the top, and in the middle of this is another mound, which has been
called a Viking's grave and the Giant's grave as well as King Arthur's.
Another place much associated with King Arthur, which cannot be passed
over, is the earthwork known as Cardinham Castle about four miles east
of Bodmin. This has been identified by good authorities with Caradigan
where Arthur held his court, to which there are many references in
Arthurian legends.
On the other side of Tintagel, on the road between Camelford and
Wadebridge, and not four miles from the latter place, is Killibury
Castle identified with Kelliwic. Arthur was "lord of Kelliwic," and
these associations all taken together carry a fair amount of evidence as
to the presence of the chivalrous ruler in this district.
Whatever else is doubtful we cannot but be sure that Arthur's existence
and reputation contributed in no small degree to the preservation of the
men of the British race in this corner of the island when they were in
danger of being pushed back into the sea by the oncoming Saxons, and it
is to this that Cornwall owes in some ways its distinctive character,
preserving racial features that are found nowhere else. The men of
Ireland and of Wales are related certainly to the original Cornish but
there is a distinct cleavage. Arthur may have made his fame known right
across England, his victories may have carried him to the capital,
Winchester, and beyond, but it is certain that his name will ever be
associated most strongly with this far corner of the country where he
was born and where he had his homeland associations. And these
associations, being the very earliest of the British race surviving,
serve to attract from far our Colonial brothers and our American
cousins; Tintagel will never lack visitors.
But with the castle we have not exhausted by any means all that is worth
seeing here.
Leaving the castle on the mainland we come very quickly to the "little
grey church on the windy hill" with its graveyard wall almost swallowed
up in rising grass and turf, and some of the tombstones heavily
buttressed against the prevailing winds. The church tower must have
formed a mark for generations to men of the sea. It stands up straight
and bleak with never a tree to hide it. The entrances to the graveyard
are over a pavement of round stone bars placed a few inches apart so
that the cattle dare not cross them for fear of slipping in between with
their narrow hoofs. There are many marks of great age inside the
building and the grey stone walls, that have been many times restored,
have heard the strong west winds whistling round them from the sea and
moaning the tale of the wrecks on the coast for many generations.
All along this coast are steep descents and strange rock freaks. To the
north, across the gully leading down to Tintagel Castle, there is a
mighty fracture which has split asunder a huge angle of rock, that looks
as if it only needed a giant push to thrust it back into the fracture,
closely fitting. Yet the chasm below is so sheer and stern that no one
can climb up the sides. The sea-birds know it. It was a happy chance for
them that made this citadel free from the sullying steps of man, and the
steep slopes of brilliant green amid the bare rock surfaces are peppered
all over with them as if with a handful of comfits.
The wild music of a host of gulls is the bagpipes of the coast, and
arouses the same feelings in the breast of the sea-lover as the pipes do
in that of a Scotsman. It is associated with the sound of the surge and
the deadly thrust and heavy swell at the foot of the tough cliff. These
things tug at the heart of a sea-lover. Lying amid the prickly furze,
sheltered for a moment from the deadly wind-whistle, and gazing across
that unscalable chasm, we have before us that gull-fortress exactly as
it and its kind have been reproduced on the canvas of a well-known
painter many many times. What business has he to do the thing so well
that we are familiarized with the stern beauty of the haunts of the
freest of birds, and feel when we see them in Nature that half the charm
has been forestalled by the blunting of our sensibility?
It is no easy task to scramble along these rough cliff edges, and one
not to be undertaken by cripples or invalids.
Not very far is one of the valleys so attractive to the Cornish folk,
who find in them the growth and snugness that contrast so impressively
with their bleak uplands.
Down the Rocky Valley a stream gushes merrily, tumbling in miniature
waterfalls every few yards, and meeting at last the oncoming wave with a
shock as the sweet water mingles with salt. Everything grows amazingly,
and the huge rectangular rocks high overhead on each side of the gully,
are mostly draped in masses of ivy. They resemble ruins, as Cornish
rocks often do, so that it is frequently most difficult to distinguish
the natural from the artificial. Most people's idea of ivy is neat flat
clinging stuff but here it grows in lumps, yards in thickness, and
decorated with brilliant bunches of black berries in the season when
there is little else to compete with it. In the valley which leads from
the nearest station, Camelford, to Tintagel just such masses may be
seen. The road runs downhill for about four miles, leading mysteriously
into what seems the mouth of a quarry. The sides are covered with
untidy, loose clumps of furze, with mighty stones, and ever and always,
in all corners, moss so rich that it might almost be mistaken for a bed
of miniature ferns. Climb up on one side and you get a glimpse into a
pool, with sides sheer like a hewn cistern, and something so weird and
awful in its onyx depths that it suggests robbery with violence,
suicides, hangings, and anything else gruesome, while the water drips
perpetually from the green lines of slime on its sharp walls. Further on
are the glistening piles of slate from a disused quarry. The real quarry
of Delabole, famous far and wide, is behind, beside the railway, from
which one may look right down into it. The road to Tintagel opens out at
last and then, if we are lucky enough to be going westward at sunset, we
may see suddenly a hazy glow as of a forest fire over all the wide
expanse of sea and sky, and outlined against it the great black lumps of
rock off Trebarwith Strand.
With Tintagel must be associated Boscastle but a few miles along the
coast to the north, for hardly anyone who visits the one place will fail
to see the other, yet the two are singularly different. Boscastle lies
all down the sides of one of those curious clefts, which would be called
chines or denes elsewhere, and in this instance the drop is
extraordinarily steep. To go sheer down is a feat most people will find
difficult, even on foot, and the new road has been designed to help.
Even that would be accounted steep in any ordinary place. Down, down it
goes into the neck of the funnel, and looks for all the world as if it
were leading to a slate quarry, and then suddenly there opens out one of
the grandest harbours on the coast, with huge sloping cliffs running
alongside and curving round, making the entrance both difficult and
dangerous. With their lovely curves and angles they add greatly to the
vision. From the heights of these cliffs Lundy Island can be seen when
the air is clear. There is an old saw:--
"When Lundy is high it will be dry
When Lundy is plain it will be rain
When Lundy is low it will be snow!"
If the word of the inhabitants is to be trusted the last contingency
must come seldom indeed!
The name Boscastle comes from Bottreux or Botreaux-castle, spoken
quickly and run together. The site of the castle, which had ceased to
exist by Queen Elizabeth's reign, is still pointed out. The town lies in
two parishes and the church of Forraburry, belonging to the one, stands
well up on the western cliff.
Care must be taken in climbing about the shore for the cliffs are very
steep. Just to the north or east is Pentargon Bay, cutting deeply into
the land, and near it the Seal Caves though seals seldom come there now.
The waves dash in with tremendous force, especially with a westerly
wind, which is common, when some grand sights may be seen. The black
walls of the slate rock and the white spray of the shattered waves and
the strange blue tint of the sea compose some pictures finer than any
that have yet found their way on to a painter's canvas.
VI
THE SANDY BEACHES OF THE NORTHERN COAST
What a splendid series of resorts lie along the northern coast of
Cornwall! Take them in order as they come. St. Ives, Newquay, Padstow,
and Bude, leaving aside for the moment the smaller ones, or those like
Boscastle and Tintagel, which stand in a class by themselves and have
been already referred to. All these four have certain characteristics in
common but each has a distinct individuality. That is one of the charms
of Cornwall, nothing is cut to a pattern. By far the best-known is of
course the first mentioned, St. Ives, with its splendid bays or
"porths," with acres of firm sand, and its unrivalled golf-links at
Lelant. It seems odd that a place should be able to face due east in
Cornwall, yet somehow part of St. Ives manages to do it, that part of it
which is on Porthminster Bay and is most favoured by visitors. The town
is curiously placed, for the older part lies on a neck or isthmus
protruding northward between two magnificent bays, and it is the curve
on each side of the neck that makes the east and west side face
respectively Porthminster or Porthmeor. From the east you look straight
across to Godrevy Point and lighthouse.
[Illustration: ST. IVES]
St. Ives could never pall because it is not all to be seen or understood
at a glance, and those who stay there longest admit they know it least.
Seen from almost any point there is a view which demands attention,
whether it be the green ruggedness of the island--only technically an
island--against the soft blue of the sea, with the terraced lines of
drab houses rising in tiers in front of it, or the harbour with its
boats and screaming gulls and the old weather-worn church abutting on
it. The prevailing tones of all the buildings are drab and grey; drab
stone, drab stucco, drab paint with pale slate-grey roofs; a little red
brick or tile would be an improvement from an artistic point of view.
It is an odd feature of Cornwall that however bare and treeless some
parts are, and they could hardly be barer in the Hebrides, yet the towns
are generally warmly encompassed by trees. It is so at Penzance and it
is so here. Woods rise behind the houses, and the richness of the
evergreens makes a shelter even in winter, while the ferns are
inexhaustible in number and of great variety. The season is only for two
months of the year, August and September, during which months the place
is packed and the numerous inhabitants who live upon the yearly godsend
of the "foreigners'" money, are hard put to it to supply accommodation;
but all the year round there is a certain number of visitors who find in
the clean fresh air, the glorious golf-links, second to none, and the
wide views, just what they need. It is true that tiresome change at St.
Erth junction has to be faced before reaching the town, but this is
nothing compared with the days when the junction was the very nearest
point of rail, and the rest of the journey had to be completed by road.
This was altered in 1877 and the innovation was a great factor in the
growth of the town. The road approach from this direction is well graded
and has a good surface, but from the Zennor side so much cannot be said.
A new road is being cut through and the approach improved, but even when
it is completed, there must still be the long and precarious descent
through a squalid part of the town to face.
[Illustration: A STREET IN ST. IVES]
The region of the visitors is mainly above the station, facing
Porthminster Bay, where terraces of houses exist for the sole purpose of
providing accommodation, but there is a secondary part above Porthmeor
Bay where rows of neat little houses claim their share. Down on the
harbour front and curving round behind it is the old town with its
indescribable jumble of what can scarcely be called architecture; where
outside staircases, and overhanging first-floor rooms with no visible
means of support, twisted archways and narrow passages are inextricably
mingled. The names of some of these places are quite delightful,
Puddingbag Lane, Chy-an-Chy, Street-an-Garrow, Bunkers' Hill, and the
Digey, while away westward is Clodgy Point. The old inhabitants must
have had a genius for nomenclature.
St. Ives is the haunt of a colony of artists who rival those at Newlyn,
and what with artists, fishing and visitors, the rest of the inhabitants
manage somehow to live. But the fishing is not what it was; gone are the
golden days when the shoals of pilchards announced by the "huers" from
the Malakoff bastion were sufficient to provide a good livelihood for
the whole town:
"The pilchards are expected on the coast in October, when their
appearance gives rise to general excitement at a place like St. Ives.
Often have been described the patient watching of the _huers_ on the
cliffs, who with a huge trumpet at length announce their joyful
discovery, and by the waving of bushes telegraph the movements of the
shoal marked by the colour of the sea and its hovering escort of gulls;
the rush of men, women, and children to the shore with shouts of _heva!
heva!_ which is Cornish for the classic _Eureka_; the marshalling of the
seine boats; the shooting of the huge nets; the enclosure of the
luckless victims by myriads; then the hurried orgy of capturing,
pickling, and storing, stimulated by its promise of prosperity to the
whole place."
Alas! they come but scantily now and there is not much of any sort of
fishing to be had. Though just enough to account for the brown-sailed
boats lying in the harbour and the blue-jerseyed men belonging to them
without which, it may be presumed, the artists would find some paucity
of material and perhaps disappear also.
St. Ives would not be a Cornish town if it lacked hills and there are
plenty to give exercise to leg muscles; but yet there are some places
almost flat, and one has only to descend to the sands to secure a
perfectly horizontal walk!
This is not a guide book and there is no need to go into detail about
the ancient church in the very midst of the workers, or the restored
tiny chapel out on the "island" that really once was an island, which
overlooks as in blessing the drying nets that blacken the green of the
grass on the slopes below. The chunk or bite out of this island on the
east is Porthgwidden Cove, and the Foresand runs from here to Penolva
Point whence begin Porthminster Sands. On the hill behind the town rises
the hideous Knill monument where the little girls dance around on July
25 every fifth year, in memory of the conventional alderman who left
such directions in his will, and yet after all is not buried here.
The impression carried away from St. Ives is of light and freshness and
space, and of width of sand that would attract attention anywhere, but
which here in Cornwall is phenomenal; and of enough modern comfort and
cleanliness to make things very pleasant though within reach lies the
old kernel of the town in piquant contrast.
The name Porthminster means "church of the sands" and it is curious that
the church should thus be referred to in one of the principal
place-names when the St. Ives' people had originally to go to Lelant
for their services, marryings and buryings. Finding this state of things
intolerable they petitioned for a church of their own and completed it
in 1426. It was built close to the shore for the obvious reason that the
stone of which there was abundance in the neighbourhood, could be more
easily brought by water than overland, but it was not so near the sea as
now, for in the seventeenth century "there was a field between the
churchyard wall and Porth Cocking Rock, and sheep grazed on it."
The church of Lelant was rapidly being overpowered by the sand which has
swallowed up many ancient oratories or "cells" built low down on the
shore, and it was only saved by the planting and rapid spreading of the
coarse rush grass which binds the surface of the towans together in a
kind of mat and prevents the sand from drifting.
St. Ives with its eastern aspect is fresh even in the summer, and yet
strange to say not very cold in winter, as the flowering shrubs which
grow so well testify.
Newquay is not at all like St. Ives; it has no quaint muddled fishing
town behind the "visitors' front," and it lies all along the top of high
cliffs so that its main street is almost level, or at any rate,
level for Cornwall. At one end is Towan Head not unlike St. Ives'
Island, and from thence the bay runs in great scoops or curves cut off
from each other except at low tide. These sandy bays, surrounded by high
cliffs, resemble to some extent those at Broadstairs, and the aspect of
Newquay is the same as that at Broadstairs for it faces mainly north. It
is airy and spacious and light, and its signmark of originality lies not
in its front so much as in its back, the long estuary of the Gannel
River which forms a kind of back-door entrance. But villas and
boarding-houses are rapidly springing up along the Gannel estuary,
facing south, with their backs to Newquay proper, and thereby a bit of
very fine wild land is being spoilt. There are excellent golf-links
along Fistral Bay and huge hotels have sprung up to reap what harvest of
visitors there may be, indeed it is a stock joke to say of Newquay, as
may be said with much truth about Oban, "every second house is an
hotel."
[Illustration: FROM LELANT TO GODREVY]
No one who looks at the map even cursorily can fail to note the
extraordinary number of places in Cornwall beginning with the prefix St.
This would be natural in Roman Catholic Ireland but it is whimsical in
Methodistical Cornwall. It is, however, but one of the many signs of the
very ancient history of the place which gives it so much charm. These
reminders keep cropping out constantly among the modern surroundings, as
the granite outcrops on the Bodmin moors and again at Land's End and the
far-lying Scilly Isles, which are too but granite peaks.
Newquay for all its newness lies in a district of ancient memories. Only
a mile or two away eastward are St. Columb Minor and Major, in fact
Newquay itself is really in the parish of St. Columb Minor. Not far from
St. Columb Major there is one of the most perfect remains of an ancient
castle of the earthwork kind. It is called Castle-an-Dinas, or, locally,
King Arthur's Castle. It is enclosed by three rings of earth and stone,
of which one was probably strengthened by a moat, and the inmost part
covers an acre and a half. But a little way from St. Columb Major on the
other side is St. Mawgan at the end of the Vale of Lanherne, one of the
well-wooded rich Cornish valleys which are so much admired by the
inhabitants. Cornish people go for their picnic-parties and pleasure
days to a valley as most people would to the seaside.
Newquay Bay is really one crescent or horn of a much larger bay
extending right up to Trevose Headland, and within this sweep lies
Watergate Bay and Bedruthan Steps with its detached rocks and fine
natural scenery. Dividing Watergate and Newquay Bays is Trevalgue Head,
an island connected with the mainland by a footbridge. Here the
sea-pinks flourish abundantly covering all the ground with their frilled
blossoms when in flower. They do well almost anywhere in Cornwall, but
exceptionally well here, and the sheet of pink-tinged ground, caught as
a foreground to a vivid summer sea, is a sight not to be forgotten. The
only thing that spoils the fine cliff effects is that the whole coast
here and northwards is composed of slate--a substance which does not
lend itself to beauty of line or colouring.
But by far the most "saintly" associations of Newquay are on the other
side. Across the Gannel is Crantock called after St. Crantock, St.
Patrick's great friend, one of the three bishops chosen to revise the
laws of Ireland after the country was converted to Christianity.
Crantock landed here and built his church. A mile or two away on the
shore is the Holy Well, still visited by curious men and maidens, and
within the memory of those living held to have a miraculous power of
making rheumatic men sound again. Holy wells in Cornwall are almost as
plentiful as saints, possibly the one is always associated with the
other as the outward sign of wonder-working power.
The extraordinary stretch of sand called Perran Beach would be
remarkable anywhere, but it is more remarkable still on the rock-bound
coast of Cornwall. Norden, with unconscious Irishism, describes Perran
as being "almost drowned with the sea sande." The whole region for three
miles in length and as much in breadth is sand alone. Inland a few
plantations of pines struggle to survive just beyond its zone, and the
little slate-roofed houses have a strangely glaring unfinished look; the
hedges which divide up the land show here and there straggly scrubby
bushes all bent violently eastward by the prevailing winds, and in the
dreary corner of sandhills between them and the sea is somewhere to be
found the tiny chapel of St. Piran, which is very interesting because it
is the very earliest ecclesiastical building to be found in the land. It
dates from the eighth or ninth century and is only twenty-five feet
long. It was covered with sand as if buried in a snow drift and for
seven centuries was completely lost. It is probably to this it owes its
preservation. Sir A. Quiller-Couch's irreverent but amusing story
concerning it in his _Delectable Duchy_ is known to most people. St.
Piran, or Kieran as he is called in Irish, came over from Ireland in the
sixth century and settled down here, where many wonders grew up about
his name and his fame spread far and wide. Hundreds of people who never
enter a modern church find themselves strangely impressed by this little
ruined church buried amid the sand dunes with its record of between
thirteen and fourteen hundred years of sanctity behind it. The very name
Perranporth and its neighbour Perranzabuloe are so peculiarly and
distinctly Cornish that they draw the inquisitive to them. The latter
means Perran in the Sand. There is some very curious rock-scenery near
Perranporth, where all the fantastic freaks of caves and natural arches,
so common in Cornwall, can be seen at their best.
Far deeper than the inlet of the Gannel at Newquay is that of the River
Camel, near the mouth of which Padstow stands. This is an estuary filled
with water at high tide and lying in long melancholy reaches of sand at
low tide. Padstow clusters round a very old-fashioned little port, where
seafaring men congregate and discuss the weather and prices. There is
not a great deal of fishing and only a little general trade, as the
mouth of the river requires ticklish navigation. There is an enormous
hotel standing on a height, and a very attractive church with an old
Elizabethan mansion of the Prideaux-Brune family behind it. But all the
sands are on the other side of the estuary, at Rock, whence the
ferry-boat paddles to and fro about every hour. The rolling dunes have
been utilized for fine golf-links and the all-encroaching sand has done
its best to swallow up the little chapel of St. Enodoc, as it once
succeeded in doing with St. Piran's; so far it has been kept at bay, but
it still drifts in whenever it gets the chance. The links run out in the
direction of Pentire Point, one of the fine coast headlands. It is very
remarkable in Cornwall how constantly names are duplicated, one might
imagine it would give rise to difficulties to find a Pentire Point here,
and an East and West Pentire Point at the mouth of the Gannel near
Newquay, many miles south, and just below this Pentire Point is Hayle
Bay, and opposite Lelant near St. Ives we have again Hayle at the mouth
of the river. Newlyn by Penzance is well known, and Newlyn East south of
Newquay not so well. We have St. Just in Penwith and St. Just in
Roseland. There are doubtless many other instances.
Of all the four seaside places discussed in this chapter Bude has
perhaps most strongly its own character. Whoever heard of a seaside
place with a sweet-water canal running down the beach? Canals are not
usually associated with beauty and the very word canal is enough to
frighten off many people. But the canal at Bude is quite peculiar. It
only serves the purpose of a harbour for the ketches or fishing-boats
apparently, and a very awkward harbour it makes too when a distracted
ketch harassed by the strong flowing tide and baffled by a teasing wind,
noses this way and that and fails to hit the narrow entrance. Then, a
thing of beauty and distress, she heels over on the beach as the tide
runs out, and the natives gather round to speculate whether she will
"break her back" or not.
Bude possesses a breakwater too, but the oddest breakwater! For, instead
of curving round like most normal ones, it sticks out straight into the
sea and forms a favourite public promenade, with the added excitement
that in rough weather you may very easily be swept off the hog's back of
rounded stones and dashed to pieces against the rocky masses on either
side.
Owing to the fact that Bude Bay is on a coast facing sheer west, the
quarter of the wildest winds, the waves drive in with great force
sometimes. The thunder of the surf on the shore may be heard like the
deep pedals of an organ and all the air is hazed by the flying scud. To
see the sun drop like glowing copper straight into the sea, behind ridge
upon ridge of the "wild white horses" is most impressive. The strata of
the rocks on the shore are most weirdly bent and contorted. It is
difficult to conceive the state of convulsion which twisted them into
the shape of innumerable up-ended triangles, one within the other,
fitting like puzzle-boxes, or bent them right back like gigantic hooks.
There is one great layer of rock which looks like the back of a whale,
half a-wash, with all the ribs showing.
Bude is peculiar in the fact that it has all sorts of scenery combined
in one place. The high downs covered with short grass lie north and
south, and between them is the bay covered at high tide but showing a
fine stretch of easily accessible hard sand at low water; while, as may
be gathered, the rock scenery is well worth seeing. Here, as at so many
places along this coast there are excellent golf-links, in this case in
the very centre of the straggling town on the "Summerleaze." There is a
second golf-links on the heights above Wrangle Point, belonging to the
old Falcon Hotel by the bridge.
About two miles inland is Stratton, the scene of the victory of Sir
Bevil Grenville over the Roundheads, a victory which was within an ace
of being a defeat. The Earl of Stamford had marched into Cornwall, with
forces of about seven thousand men, and camped at Stratton, where he was
attacked by Sir Bevil with half the number and defeated. Grenville came
of a famous Cornish family which numbered among its members Sir Richard,
who with his little ship the _Revenge_, tackled the great Spanish
galleons and managed to damage many of them before he fell mortally
wounded as is recorded in Tennyson's much-quoted poem!
Further north still, the very last place of note on the Cornish coast,
is Morwenstow, visited by hundreds of people because of its association
with its one-time vicar, the Rev. Robert Stephen Hawker, a muscular
Christian of a peculiarly pungent personality. His generosity and
kindliness toward his fellow-men was unstinting, but he was withal full
to the brim of eccentricity. He married while still a youth of twenty at
the University, his godmother, who was twenty-one years his senior, and
they lived happily together until her death in extreme old age. Hawker
believed in ghosts and was exceedingly superstitious; there are many
curious stories still current as to his doings, and the life of him by
the notable novelist Baring-Gould is well worth reading.
VII
THE INLETS OF THE SOUTH COAST
Fowey is perhaps the best known by name of all the Cornish towns. This
is due in some measure to its being the home of Sir A. Quiller-Couch,
who has made it familiar to thousands in his stories of _Troy Town_ and
_The Delectable Duchy_. But people who go to Fowey should be prepared to
find it unlike anything anywhere else. Fowey Harbour is a long narrow
slit penetrating into the land and closed in on each side by very steep
hills which drop down sharply to the water. On the west lies Fowey town
close to the mouth of the harbour, built on the hillside. It consists of
one long narrow street, so constricted that only here and there, where
the houses fall back a little, has it been found possible to drop in a
few feet of pavement, otherwise foot-passengers take their chance with
the traffic. There are houses on each side. Those on the seaward side
are built right on to the water so that many of them have ladders
hanging from their backyards by which the men can climb down into their
boats. Passing casually along the main street and glancing into an open
doorway one sometimes sees the passage falling downwards like an open
shaft, the lower end a rectangle of blue dancing water!
On the other side the levels, if they can be called levels--for there is
hardly a foot of level land anywhere--rise high overhead. In following
any of the quaint crooked streets it is possible at one moment to look
up at school children playing in a courtyard high overhead and five
minutes later to survey the same children shortened in perspective by
being seen from above!
In the very midst of the town is the splendid old church, and near it,
but so tucked away it is not easily discovered, is Place House, the seat
of the Treffrys, an old Cornish family. The oldest parts of this have
stood since 1457 and it is said that here once was a palace of the old
Earls of Cornwall, which is quite probable, as they could hardly have
chosen a better spot.
[Illustration: FOWEY]
If we pass on by the long narrow main street we come out eventually on
heights terminating in Gribbin Head. But Fowey is not recommended for
people with weak hearts unless they intend to sit upon the charming
verandah of the hotel as suggested in the first chapter. Wherever one
turns there are steep hills to negotiate, and the magnificent views
gained across the deep inlet must be bought by hard labour. Yet having
said that it is but fair to add that nowhere in Britain are there sights
to beat these. The harbour lies like a Norwegian fiord between its
hills, and the water ranges in all imaginable blues and greens as the
light wanes and changes, while there are ever coming and going craft of
many kinds. Fowey is not a fishing village; anyone who said it was would
have to reckon with Sir A. Quiller-Couch! The harbour is visited by
ships in search of cargo such as the china-clay which forms so large a
proportion of the export, and the graceful vessels, often sailing-ships,
which come to fetch it, are towed in and out by the little tugs which
work unceasingly about the narrow straits. And the inlet is one of the
most popular for yachts all along the coast. There is here reproduced a
most interesting chart of Fowey Harbour, drawn in Henry VIII.'s time,
and now in the British Museum. This reproduction is taken from Lysons'
_Magna Britannica_. As will be seen, it shows Lostwithiel, Liskeard, and
even Bodmin, with a pictorial representation of the stags grazing in
Restormel Park. Even at that date the twin forts guarding the narrow
entrance to the harbour were "decayed."
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
In Henry III.'s reign Fowey men rescued some of the ships of the men of
Rye, and Fowey was therefore honoured by the Cinque Ports "with armes
and privileges." In the time of Edward III. Fowey supplied more ships to
the King's Navy than any other port in England, which is an amazing
fact. At the Siege of Calais there were forty-seven ships from this
little place! The men of Fowey were always known as bold sailors, having
been brought up upon the water it seemed their natural element. So stung
were the French by the wasps issuing from this nest that they made a
descent on Fowey in 1457 when Lady Treffry, whose husband was not at
home, led the defence and helped to beat back the attackers to their
ships.
In later times Fowey earned a base reputation for being the harbour of
pirates and eventually was punished by being obliged to transfer its
ships to Dartmouth.
Those who like boating and sea-fishing will find plentiful opportunity
here to indulge in both.
[Illustration: BODINNICK FERRY, FOWEY]
Just opposite Fowey town a deep bite into the land cuts off a
projecting tongue, reached from the west by ferry, and the piled houses
upon it, falling down their mountain-side, lack something of the beauty
they might easily have had in such a situation. But further down, where
at Bodinnick ferry passengers are carried to and fro there is much to
admire. Bodinnick is an inland village which has fallen by accident upon
a seashore, at least that is the impression it gives. The walls are
lined with bladder seaweed, the seaweed that goes "pop" to the delight
of children. This hangs in black masses above the incoming water, but
over it rise woods and trees, and ivy and ferns, and all the
paraphernalia of a country lane. The ivy in fact tumbles riotously down
on the top of the seaweed! The cottages, maintaining their balance with
difficulty on the perilous slope rising from the ferry, are covered with
rose bushes. Candytuft and violets come out in their season to creep
over the rough stone walls; white pigeons flutter overhead and glimpses
of large-leaved plants of a kind more often associated with a tropical
climate, peep at one from backyards. There is nothing conventional or
suburban about Bodinnick! It takes no trouble to clear away the bits of
broken crockery or rusty tins; perhaps it likes the feeling of
homeliness they give, and the sleepy cats appear to like it too.
From Fowey there is one road and only one, which leads across the
headland westward to Par sands, but there is a choice of two routes by
railway, one running along beside the inlet, which is of course the
mouth of the River Fowey, and giving lovely views of the wooded reaches
about the mouth of its tributary the Lerryn, which, following the custom
of rivers in this district, has a considerable inlet to itself. While
Penpoll Creek, nearer the sea, affords a comfortable harbourage even in
a very high wind. But the one road and the two railways do not sum up
all the ways of getting out of Fowey, for you may persuade the burly
round-eyed old salt who has spent his life in crossing and recrossing
hundreds of times, to put you over at Bodinnick, and then you can wander
at your own sweet will by any of the innumerable tracks over the great
rectangle bounded on the west and north by Fowey River (which turns at a
right angle about Bodmin Road), and on the east by Looe River. This lump
of land is cut up and seamed by valleys and broken by hills. On the
sea-line, about halfway across, is the tiny fishing village--really a
fishing village this time--of Polperro, than which no quainter thing
exists in Britain. You drop down, down, down, to Polperro until you can
look up and see the cows grazing high overhead as you might in an Alpine
valley, and then you plunge into the miniature confused streets of the
town, and following them at random may or may not come out at the little
port, and walking along the rude jetty see the outer harbour and the
small beach. The smell of fish is strong in the air; the fishing-boats
lie in neat rows, supported by legs to prevent their heeling over when
the tide runs out. The houses cluster on the steep hillside in terraces,
and below them a collection of blue-guernseyed stout-booted men, with
wholesome sea-tanned faces, lounge about as if they were the idlest set
in Christendom, though their work demands the hardest toil and greatest
endurance of any calling man can follow.
Polperro is strangely like a little town in Brittany and has something
about it also which recalls the inland villages tucked away in the spurs
of the Alps or Apennines above the Riviera. It is easy to imagine that
anyone having visited it and trying to recall where he had looked upon
such a scene, would search his memory for tours abroad and never think
of England.
A good road leads up out of this valley on the Looe side and once the
hill is surmounted it may be remarked with surprise that at the cost of
going a little round it actually tries to keep on the level; that is not
a practice habitual to Cornish roads, which seem to take a pure delight
in a switchback manner of progress. This road was cut in 1849, the means
of arriving at Polperro before that being something like falling down
the face of a cliff. Polperro was the home of Jonathan Couch, the
naturalist, grandfather of the novelist Sir A. Quiller-Couch, who lives
a short way off at Fowey. Mr. Thomas Couch's _History of Polperro_
embodying his father, Jonathan Couch's, notes, and published in 1871,
may still be read with interest. He pictures himself standing on the
height of Brent. "Immediately below are the harbour, valley and town of
Polperro; the Peak with its striking jagged outline and massive black
colouring; the sail-loft resting in a recess on its side; the ledges of
rocks here and there hollowed into caverns, and the quays, between which
are the fishing-boats riding quietly in tiers. Further up among the
hills which shut this scene in you see strange, and apparently confused,
groups of houses, having a general tint of whitewash, and, above
them, on the southern side, the little Chapel of St. John."
[Illustration: LOOE]
Though many new and better-class houses have been built, this
description still holds good. The cliffs all round are very sheer and
steep, dropping straight into the water, which is deep up to the base.
In some of the little old houses there are low, dark rooms smelling
strongly of fish and brine, with the beams showing. Mr. Thomas Couch
says: "In the old home of the Quillers [his mother's family] there was
hanging on a beam a key, which we, as children, regarded with respect
and awe, and never dared to touch, for Richard Quiller, Jane's father,
had put the key of his quadrant on the nail with strong injunctions that
no one should take it off until his return [which never happened]; and
there, I believe, it still hangs." This doubtless gave "Q" his idea for
the key on the beam in that curiously unequal story, _Dead Man's Rock_.
The two Looes, East and West, facing each other across the mouth of the
river,--which here _looks_ like the mouth of a river and not a fiord as
at Fowey--are easily understood. You can see them both from the bridge,
whereas in Fowey on first arrival it is very difficult to know where you
are and I doubt if anyone really knows even after staying there awhile,
for there is no place where you can get a comprehensive view unless it
is from the opposite shore at the expense of much toil and trouble. The
Looes lack the picturesqueness of Fowey but on the other hand you can
get about much more easily and there is bathing on the front. The woods
lying inland have a great and peculiar charm. Not very far above the
bridge the river bifurcates, the two branches being east and west to
match the twin-town. Here in the wide sandy estuary sea-birds
congregate, and the boats are drawn up in rows beneath the overhanging
trees, which come right down to the very lip of the water. It is
difficult to contemplate without amusement the golden era before the
Reform Bill when this little place returned four members to Parliament,
two for the handful of houses each side of the river! It is
difficult--but perhaps not quite so difficult--to realize that Looe sent
twenty ships to help King Edward III. to besiege Calais.
But these inlets we have been sketching are small indeed compared with
the mighty harbours of many ramifications such as those at Devonport and
Falmouth. Devonport has already been touched upon elsewhere, and we can
pass on now to Falmouth with its wide opening in Carrick Roads and the
long thin fingers or tongues of water diving deep into the heart of the
land. One of these goes up to Truro and it is one of the popular
excursions from both towns to sail up and down in the summer steamboats
from one to the other. Falmouth itself lies along both sides of the neck
of land ending in Pendennis Point, and, though on a much larger scale,
is in that respect not unlike St. Ives in situation. The southern side
boasts the beach and what may be called Villadom for its share, and the
northern looks upon the harbour and faces over to the hamlet of Flushing
where the ferry runs continually. There are steep streets in Falmouth as
everywhere else in Cornwall, and even the main street passing all along
beside the water, mounts a tough hill toward Penryn. The glimpses of the
crowded harbour and the variety and picturesqueness of the boats and
ships that find their way in are a never-failing source of interest and
pleasure.
Before the days of steam Falmouth was of more importance than it is now,
and many a sailing ship started from here with a cargo of passengers who
had travelled as far as possible on land before committing themselves to
the uncertain sea. But Falmouth is particularly known for having been
the starting-place of the Royal Mail Packets which went to America, the
Indies and other parts of the globe. The mails were sent down by the
authorities, who chartered armed brigs with a crew of thirty men and
sent them off to run all the risks of the sea and to fight if need be in
defence of their valuable cargo. Many a stubborn fight there was too and
many the weeping widow of Falmouth who mourned her man in vain. It is
supposed that Falmouth first became a station for "packets" in 1688, and
the number sailing from the port was increased from time to time until
in 1763 there were boats going to Lisbon, the West Indies and New York
continually. Therefore for about 150 years, until 1850, Falmouth was the
port for the mail-packets, but when steam power was applied to ships she
lost the mail service which was transferred to Southampton.
There is a school of artists here, an offshoot from the Newlyn school,
which seems to have been the parent swarm of many a cluster.
The castle on the headland, now in the hands of the military, dates from
the time of Henry VIII.
Facing Pendennis Point are the jagged jaws of another peninsula
singularly like a crocodile's head. On the lower jaw is St. Mawes, a
pretty little place with a rising hill behind. This peninsula is
called by the pretty name of Roseland, which has however nothing to
do with flowers, being derived from Rhos, the Celtic word for heath or
gorse.
[Illustration: FLUSHING--FROM FALMOUTH]
About a mile along the southern shore of Falmouth is the Swan Pool, a
sheet of fresh water cut off from the sea by a narrow bar of sand, and
supposed by the Falmouth folk to outrival completely the better-known
Looe Pool near Mullion.
The whole of the Lizard peninsula is nearly shorn through by the Helford
River, which almost reaches across to Looe Pool. If this is the heel of
Cornwall, it, like the heel of Achilles, is vulnerable, and nearly
severed by the slash! There is less to say about the Helford River
estuary than any other. Beyond the fact that it was once a well-known
harbourage for pirates it does not seem to have any striking title to
fame.
It is rather odd that though Cornwall is so liberally endowed with
coast-line, so that at no part of the Duchy is one really far from the
sea, yet she should have in addition these delightful winding waterways
cutting deeply and widely into her south coast and affording excellent
means of transit.
VIII
CORNISH TOWNS
If an enquiry were made among the Cornish towns as to which of them it
were fittest to mention first, it can be easily imagined that one and
all would claim the honour for themselves. And truly each has something
to say for itself. Penzance is the town best known to the majority of
visitors, because the railway ends there, and "London to Penzance" has
become almost as common a phrase as "London to Cornwall." But so far as
we are concerned we need not bother about Penzance as we have already
given it full space. Truro could advance good claims for she is the seat
of the Bishop's See and possesses the modern cathedral, the only one in
the Duchy, and also she is the educational centre with fine county
education offices. Bodmin, however, is really the county town as the
Assizes are still held there, an honour she has disputed with Launceston
for many centuries, the Assize Courts having swayed to and fro
between them. Even now there is talk of removing them from Bodmin
owing to the difficulty of getting there. Bodmin is not on the main
Great Western line but only connected with it from Bodmin Road by a
branch line. Launceston can outshine the others by reason of her fine
ruin of the ancient castle and an historical record second to none, but
at present official recognition she cannot claim.
[Illustration: TRURO]
Beyond these three we need not go. The coast-towns have been already
visited, and as for smaller ones inland, such as Liskeard, Camelford,
Redruth, Cambourne, Callington and Helston, they cannot hope to compete.
Truro is just the picture of what one imagines a market-town to be. On
market-days its open spaces are filled with country carts and the quaint
little covered-in omnibuses, like those used by the peasantry of France
on their immensely long straight roads. There is a buzz and clamour of
talk outside the doors of the old Red Lion Inn, or, as it now seems to
be the fashion to say--hotel. This is the house in which Samuel Foote,
actor and dramatist, was born in 1720; his father was at one time Mayor
of Truro. The house is worth seeing on its own account, for it has a
massive carved oak staircase--alas, thickly overlaid with varnish, and
some moulded ceilings unusual in an inn.
Truro is well watered, as it stands between two small rivers which join
in the creek by which steamboats go down to Falmouth through pretty
wooded scenery. The town itself is quite tolerably flat for a Cornish
town, but long hills run up out of it on all sides. The oldest part of
the cathedral is that which was the parish church, incorporated into the
new building. About the cathedral there have been many opinions, but a
modern cathedral can hardly escape severe criticism considering that it
has to compete with all the dignity and reverence of those which have
stood hundreds of years! The white stone shows up well, and though the
town is more or less in a basin the tall spires are seen from the
surrounding hills to advantage. There are good shops in Truro and much
that is of interest, including the very fine collection in the Museum of
the Royal Institution of Cornwall, now housed in a worthy building. Here
anyone who has wandered in the hills and over the barren moors and seen
the relics of hoary antiquity so freely scattered, can look with seeing
eye on the more valuable specimens which have been found and are now
cared for and preserved where they will not be stolen or lost.
Even in Domesday Book Truro is mentioned, and at that time there were
two towns, Great and Little Truro, standing under the shadow of a
fortress held by the Earls of Cornwall, now vanished, though its site is
known and pointed out near the station. The town's charter was granted
in 1130 and renewed in 1589, so it is not much matter for wonder the
inhabitants look upon it as the first city in Cornwall, and, in olden
times, so bore themselves that they earned for their city the nickname
of "Proud Truro."
The cathedral was in great part due to the energy of Bishop Benson,
afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, who was made first Bishop when the
See was created. Bishop Benson "delighted in the Cornish people and was
never tired of observing and analyzing their character." He did much for
Truro in many ways.
Bodmin stands almost in the middle of the Duchy with two long fingers,
that of the inlet of Fowey on the south and that of the inlet of the
River Camel on the north, pointing directly at it. It is a very quiet
little town but has somehow managed to preserve its charm. The fine old
parish church, almost worthy to take rank as a cathedral, is in the
midst, easily to be seen. The church is the largest in Cornwall and
parts of it date from 1125. It once had a very striking spire, destroyed
by lightning in 1699. Bodmin means the Monks' Town, and even though it
has the enormous barracks built in the usual style, just outside, it
still keeps something of the monkish atmosphere. Bodmin scorns Truro's
claims of long descent, turning to Athelstan as its founder. Athelstan,
who founded here in 926 a Benedictine Priory of which some traces even
now remain. The town is in a beautiful and well-wooded neighbourhood,
and anyone taking the trouble to climb Beacon Hill just outside will be
rewarded. It was at Bodmin in 1498 that Perkin Warbeck, who had
disembarked near Land's End, gathered 3,000 men together and started his
disastrous campaign by launching himself against Exeter. In Bodmin meet,
or rather "meet with a gap between," the two rival railways--the Great
Western and London and South Western; the latter station is a terminus,
and the line running northward connects the town with Wadebridge and
Padstow. The former comes from Bodmin Road where it joins the main
line, and continues also to Wadebridge.
[Illustration: THE BANKS OF THE FAL, FALMOUTH]
Between Bodmin and Launceston stretches the wild tract of country known
as Bodmin Moor. A more desolate region it would be hard to find or one
more covered with relics of primitive man. Norden has said in writing of
Cornwall, "The rockes are high, huge, ragged and craggy not only upon
the sea-coaste ... but also the inland mountayns are so crowned with
mightie rockes as he that passing through the country beholding some of
the rockes afar off may suppose them to be greate cyties planted on the
hills, wherin prima facie ther appeareth the resemblance of towres,
howses, chimnies and such like."
Though he flatters the Cornish highlands in calling them mountains, yet
it is true enough that the tors out-cropping in this region do take on
most curious shapes. The most remarkable of all is the unstable-looking
Cheesewring, southwest of Launceston, and rather difficult of access.
Here stones are piled one on the top of the other, each larger than the
last, till the effect is that of a gigantic and misshapen mushroom. But
it was not built deliberately, it just happened so. How--no one knows,
but the suggestion is that the mass was once banked in by earth, which
was washed away, leaving the bare pinnacle of stone. In the midst of the
moor Brown Willy and Rough Tor rise with considerable picturesqueness,
and their surfaces are strewn with the old beehive huts of a people
whose history is lost.
But those who are not familiar with the country should not wander far
from the road as the bogs and marshes are really dangerous. They find
their culmination in the odd little lake called Dozmare Pool associated
with the story of King Arthur. This has no apparent outlet, and was once
reported to be of fabulous depth.
Launceston stands in a category by itself; though both the preceding
towns are fairly hilly, it outdoes them magnificently in that respect!
The streets up from the station are so steep that only by one of them,
graded for the purpose, can vehicles mount at all. The others are merely
for foot-passengers. Yet if looked at on a map which does not give
contours, it will be seen that Launceston in reality is one very long
straggling street running from end to end with various branches. This
street dips down into the hollow where the railway is and mounts the
other side. Baring-Gould says of Launceston, "Scarcely another English
town has such a picturesque and continental appearance," but that is a
matter of opinion. The name, meaning Church-Castle-Town, is very
explanatory, for the church and castle are the two outstanding objects
of interest. The former is most curious, for every foot of the walls
outside is covered by granite carving, mostly of secular subjects and
hacked out instead of chiselled.
At the east end beneath the east window is a recess with a figure of
Mary Magdalene much worn and tormented, and no wonder, for it is one of
the Launceston superstitions that anyone who can chuck a pebble so as to
lodge on the statue's back--no easy feat as the slope is slippery--will
have a year's good luck, and many there be that try! The church is
dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene and is, as churches go, of no great age.
Curiously enough it was not at first the parish church but merely the
development of a chapel.
The present building dates from 1511 and the tower is older. What is
very singular, and accounts for the choice of subjects on its quaintly
carven walls, is that they were not designed for a sacred building at
all. They were done for Henry Ashe of Trecarell, a wealthy Cornishman
who had a great mansion and was rebuilding it regardless of cost; but in
the midst of the work his only son, a child, was drowned and the mother
died almost immediately from the shock, so the wretched father passed on
the granite carvings, designed for a gateway to his mansion, to the
church, where they now attract many curious visitors and adorn, not only
the walls but the very fine projecting south porch. The rose, the
pomegranate, the Prince of Wales's feathers are frequently repeated with
the arms of Trecarell and Ashe. In order to give it an ecclesiastical
finish certain sentences in Latin such as "Oh how terrible and fearful
is this place. Surely this is none other but the house of God and the
gate of heaven!" are embossed on shields round the base.
A much more ancient church is that of St. Stephen away on the opposite
heights beyond the valley. Some authorities think that the name
Launceston really means Llan Stephan, the church of St. Stephen, and
there is some colour for this, as it is possible the original town was
around the older church and that the other grew up near to the castle.
Baring-Gould boldly claims that the present town has no right to the
name at all, but should be called Dunheved meaning "Swelling Hill." The
castle keep certainly stands on a most appropriate swelling hill, just
the place for such a fortification, with a magnificent view over miles
of country.
The present remains, the great keep with its rings of stone, is of
Norman origin, but there was most certainly a Saxon castle here before
it. It stands in delightful grounds, freely open to all, and a very
sanctuary for birds. A winding stair runs within the wall and even in
the present roofless condition it needs but little imagination to
transport oneself back into feudal times, when the womenfolk cowered
within the small rooms behind the solid masonry, and the warriors
guarded the loopholes, watching, waiting for attack.
Launceston is peculiarly rich in churches; besides the two mentioned
there is St. Thomas, in the valley between, where have been discovered
the ruins of a priory. From this the doorway of the White Hart Hotel in
the market-place came.
Down a side street is one of the old city gates, the only one remaining
to show that Launceston was once walled. The chief point of interest
about this, however, is apparently the very substantial tree, which, in
most mysterious fashion, has found root-hold in the stone crevices and
continues to flourish many feet above the ground.
IX
CORNISH CUSTOMS
Old customs, and festivals carrying in them the germ of a meaning and
significance long forgotten by those who practised them but intelligible
to students of antiquity, continued to be observed in Cornwall when they
had died out in most other places. There is no part of England where so
many curious observances, superstitions and festivals are still observed
as in Cornwall.
Midsummer Day merrymakings were long kept up in many places, especially
in regard to the part played by fire, and Richard Edmonds, secretary for
Cornwall to the Cambrian Archaeological Association, writing in 1862,
says:--"It is the immemorial usage in Penzance, and the neighbouring
towns and villages, to kindle bonfires and torches on Midsummer Eve....
St. Peter's Eve is distinguished by a similar display.... On these eves
a line of tar-barrels, relieved occasionally by large bonfires, is seen
in the centre of each of the principal streets in Penzance. On either
side of this line young men and women pass up and down, swinging round
their heads heavy torches made of large pieces of folded canvas steeped
in tar and nailed to the ends of sticks between three and four feet
long.... On these nights Mounts Bay has a most animating appearance
although not equal to what was annually witnessed at the beginning of
the present century when the whole coast from the Land's End to the
Lizard, wherever a town or a village existed, was lighted up with these
stationary or moving fires.... At the close of fireworks in Penzance, a
great number of persons of both sexes, chiefly from the neighbourhood of
the quay, used always, until within the last few years, to join hand in
hand forming a long string and run through the streets playing 'thread
the needle,' heedless of the fireworks showered upon them, and
oftentimes leaping over the yet glowing embers. I have on these
occasions seen boys following one another jumping through flames higher
than themselves."
This is a significant reminder of the custom of passing children through
the fire referred to in the Bible.
May Day celebrations are still kept up in the little town of Helston,
the key to the Lizard. This saturnalia is held on the eighth of the
month instead of the first, because the eighth is the festival of the
apparition of St. Michael, who is represented in the Town Arms. The
festival is called the "furry dance," a word which some writers have
associated with "forage" or "foray" because the young people make a raid
on all gardens and out into the fields early in the morning to collect
flowers and green boughs. Polwhele connects the word with the old
Cornish "fer," a fair or jubilee. Rather unsuccessful attempts have also
been made to bring in the goddess Flora, and suggest a corruption of
Flora-day to fit the present name.
The day is a general holiday and anyone caught working is subjected to
unpleasant penalties. About midday the most important person present
leads off with his partner down the main street to the tune of a
hornpipe--a local tune--and they are followed by a gay crowd. The throng
threads in and out of the houses, in by the front door and out by the
back if possible, for all doors are left open for them. Woe be to the
churl who kept his shut! At length they arrive at the Assembly Rooms
where a real ball begins.
This curious performance slackened off for some years, but the
Helstonians, finding that their little town owed a good deal of
advertisement to this special festival, have revived it with goodwill,
and now are inundated with visitors at the recurrence of the
anniversary.
Furry Day used to be held at Penryn on May 3 and at the Lizard on May 1
and also in the parish of Sithney, but now it can only be seen at
Helston.
May Day has peculiar significance as being the celebration of the return
of spring, and it is the custom at dawn on that day in some parts to dip
weakly infants in the holy wells, which abound in Cornwall, to ensure
strength. This is still done, though either secretly or in a jesting
spirit, at the holy well of Madron near Penzance of which Madron is the
mother parish.
Many people adorn their houses in Cornwall with boughs and garlands in
honour of the day even at the present time. May Day was the great day
for miracle plays, so beloved by the old Cornishmen before they learned
to consider them sinful under the teaching of Wesley. The best of the
old amphitheatres, at any rate the one most accessible, is the
Plan-an-Guare at St. Just referred to elsewhere.
[Illustration: AT NEWLYN]
At Padstow hobby-horses still prance round the town on May Day.
Edmonds says:--"The hobby horse, or effigy of a horse, is, at this
festival of the moon, dipped in a pool of water, and, for the same
reason perhaps, that a similar figure was, in Ireland, passed through
fire at the festival of the sun; to preserve the cattle from death and
disease." Sun and moon being represented by fire and water.
Mr. Baring-Gould says:--"During the days that precede the festival no
garden is safe. Walls, railings, even barbed wire, are surmounted by
boys and men in quest of flowers. Conservatories have to be fast locked,
or they will be invaded. The house that has a show of flowers in the
windows is besieged by pretty children with roguish eyes begging for
blossoms which they cannot steal. The Hobby-horse Pairs, as they were
called, _i.e._, a party of eight men, then repaired to the 'Golden
Lion,' at that time the first inn in Padstow, and sat down to a hearty
supper of leg of mutton and plum-pudding, given them by the landlord.
After supper a great many young men joined the 'pairs,' _i.e._, the
_peers_, the lords of the merriment, and all started for the country,
and went round from one farmhouse to another, singing at the doors of
each, and soliciting contributions to the festivities of the morrow.
"They returned into Padstow about three o'clock in the morning, and
promenaded the streets singing the 'Night Song.' After that they retired
to rest for a few hours. At ten o'clock in the morning the 'pairs'
assembled at the 'Golden Lion' again, and now was brought forth the
hobby-horse. The drum-and-fife band was marshalled to precede, and then
came the young girls of Padstow dressed in white, with garlands of
flowers in their hair, and their white gowns pinned up with flowers. The
men followed armed with pistols, loaded with a little powder, which they
fired into the air or at the spectators. Lastly came the hobby-horse,
ambling, curvetting, and snapping its jaws. It may be remarked that the
Padstow hobby-horse is wonderfully like the Celtic horse decoration
found on old pillars and crosses with interlaced work. The procession
went first to Prideaux Place, where the late squire, Mr. Prideaux Brune,
always emptied a purse of money into the hands of the 'pairs.' Then the
procession visited the vicarage, and was welcomed by the parson. After
that it went forth from the town to Treator Pool 'for the horse to
drink.'"
In Hitchins' _History of Cornwall_, edited by Samuel Drew, he says of
the hobby-horse of Padstow: "The head, being dipped into the water, is
instantly taken up and the mud and water are sprinkled on the spectators
to the no small diversion of all."
The Maypole festivities have been given up of recent years, but
hobby-horses still prance the streets.
Hitchins gives an account of a few local superstitions, some of which
are not peculiar to Cornwall:--
"The sound of the cuckoo, if first heard on the right ear, denotes good
luck; but to hear the voice first on the left, is an omen of undefinable
disasters. To spit on the first piece of money that is received in the
morning will ensure a successful day in trade; and to hold up a silver
coin against the new moon on its first appearance can hardly fail to
secure lunar virtue for a month. To bite from the ground the first fern
that appears in the spring is an infallible preventive of the toothache
during the year; and the first ripe blackberry that is seen will put
away warts. To pay money on the first day of January is very unlucky as
it ensures a continuance of disbursements during the year; and to remove
bees on any day besides Good Friday will ensure their death; while to
work oxen on that day is an act which few would dare to perform lest
they should suddenly die in the yoke. To whistle underground is an
offence which few miners will suffer to pass over in silence; but to
whistle while the farmer is winnowing his corn will as inevitably bring
the wind as on board of a ship or boat, it is certain to secure a
favourable breeze."
Polwhele says: "The custom of saluting the apple-trees at Christmas with
a view to another year, is still preserved both in Cornwall and
Devonshire. In some places the parishioners walk in procession visiting
the principal orchards in the parish; in each orchard single out the
principal tree, salute it with a certain form of words and sprinkle it
with cyder or dash a bowl of cyder against it. In other places, the
farmer and his workmen only, immerse cakes in cyder and place them on
the branches of an apple-tree in due solemnity; sprinkle the tree, as
they repeat a formal incantation and dance round it."
The harvest custom where the last handful of corn is cut, being called
"a neck," and then dressed with flowers and carried off in triumph has
been often referred to.
The men of Cornwall have long been celebrated for wrestling, they being
no whit behind the men of Devonshire and Somerset in this.
They have other special games of their own too. Of which the chief is
"hurling," though now only kept up in the parishes of St. Columb Major
and Minor, in other words in the neighbourhood of Newquay, though a
collection is made at St. Ives in a silver "hurlers' ball." The game is
that of a ball being flung and thrown from one to the other, with goals
which may be two miles apart. Sometimes one match takes days to decide.
It is an extremely rough-and-tumble sport. In the season a match is
played on the wide flat firm expanse of Newquay sands and hundreds take
part in it, badges being used to discriminate between the players. And
on Shrove Tuesday a game is played in the town of St. Columb the ball
being thrown up in the market-place and all traffic being held up for
the occasion. The goals used to be "either the mansion-house of one of
the leading gentlemen of the party, a parish church, or some other
well-known place." The ball is rather larger than a cricket-ball, but
not so large as a football, and is silvered over. The struggle is
expressively described by Carew:--"The hurlers take their way over
hills, dales, hedges and ditches, through bushes, briers, mires,
plashes, rivers; sometimes twenty or thirty lie tugging together in the
water, scrambling and scratching for the ball."
These customs and sports are only samples, for there are many quaint
ideas still held in certain parishes which would almost provide the
material for a book by themselves, and are far too numerous to collect
together in a sketch like the present. However, enough has perhaps been
said to show how the Cornish spirit still lingers in spite of the influx
of "foreigners" growing ever greater yearly.
SOME BOOKS ON CORNWALL
ANON. Walk Round Mount Edgcumbe. 1821.
BARING-GOULD, S. Book of the East. 1902.
BARING-GOULD, S. Vicar of Morwenstow. 1876.
BLIGHT, J. T. Land's End. 1861.
BORLASE, W. C. Noenia Cornubiae. 1872.
BRAY, ANNA ELIZA. Banks of Tamar. New edition. 1879.
CAMDEN. Britannia. 1594.
CAREW, RICHARD. Survey of Cornwall. 1602.
COLLINS, WILKIE. Rambles Beyond Railways. 1861.
COUCH, JONATHAN. History of Polperro. 1871.
CRAIK, MRS. An Unsentimental Journey in Cornwall. 1884.
DICKINSON, W. H. King Arthur in Cornwall. 1900.
EDMONDS, RICHARD. Land's End District. 1862.
GAY, SUSAN E. Old Falmouth. 1903.
GILBERT, C. S. Historical Survey of Cornwall. Two vols. 1817-20.
GILBERT, DAVIES. Parochial History of Cornwall. Four vols. 1838.
HALLIWELL, J. O. Rambles in Western Cornwall. 1861.
HAMMOND, JOSEPH. St. Austell. 1897.
HARVEY, E. G. Mullion. 1875.
HIND, LEWIS. Days in Cornwall. 1907.
HUDSON, W. H. The Land's End. 1908.
JOHNS, REV. C. A. A Week at the Lizard. 1874.
LACH-SZYRMA, W. S. Short History of Penzance, etc. 1878.
LYSONS. Magna Britannica. 1806-22. Vol. iii.
MACLEAN, SIR J. Trigg Minor. Three vols. 1873-79.
MATTHEWS, J. H. Parishes of St. Ives, Lelant, etc. 1892.
NORTH, I. W. Week in Scilly. 1850.
NORWAY, A. H. Highways and Byways in Devon and Cornwall. 1897.
POLWHELE, REV. RICHARD. History of Cornwall. 1803 and 1806.
ROBBINS, A. F. Launceston, Past and Present. 1888.
SCOTT, C. A. DAWSON-. Nooks and Corners of Cornwall.
STONE, J. HARRIS. England's Riviera. 1912.
TREGARTHEN, J. C. Wild Life at the Land's End. 1904.
VICTORIA COUNTY HISTORY. 1906.
NOVELS.
Most of Q's books.
ELLIS, MRS. HAVELOCK. My Cornish Neighbours.
SIDGWICK, MRS. ALFRED. In Other Days. 1915.
BESANT, SIR WALTER. Armorel of Lyonnesse. 1890.
INDEX
Archaeology, 17
Armed Knight, the, 61
Arthur. _See under_ King
Artists, 15, 39, 41, 95, 122
Athelstan, 22, 43, 59, 128
"Atlantic Drive, The," 47
Bedruthan Steps, 11, 60, 101
Benson, Bishop, 127
Bird-life, 25, 57, 76, 87
Bodinnick Ferry, 115
Bodmin, 124, 127
Bodmin Moor, 129
Bodmin Road, 29
Boscastle, 89
Brisons, the, 60
British villages, 46
Brown Willy, 12
Bude, 105
Callington, 125
Cambourne, 125
Camel River, 103, 127
Camelford, 78, 125
Camulodunum, Battle of, 78
Cape Cornwall, 60
Cardinham Castle, 84
Castle-an-Dinas, 100
Cheesewring, 129
Chun Castle, 47
Cliffs, 61, 65, 87, 106
Climate, mildness of, 7
Cornish cliffs, 11
Cornish people, 4, 17, 18, 85
Couch, Jonathan, 118
Crantock, 101
Cream, 21
Customs, 135
Davy, Sir Humphry, 39
Delabole, 89
Devonport, 120
Dozmare Pool, 130
Dunheved, 133
Earthworks, 47
East Looe, 119
Enys Dodman, 61
Falmouth, 120
Fistral Bay, 99
Flushing, 121
Forraburry, 90
Fougou Hole, 43
Fowey, 8, 14, 30, 109 _et seq._
"Furry dance," 137
Gannel River, 101
Godrevy Point, 93
Golf, 10, 20, 92, 99, 106
Goonhilly Downs, 64
Great Western Railway, 29, 128
Grenville, Sir Bevil, 107
Gribbin Head, 110
Hamoaze, 24
Hawker, Rev. Robert Stephen, 107
"Hedges," 5, 31
Helford River, 123
Helston, 125, 137
Hills, 12, 41, 50, 96, 130
History, 21
Holy wells, 101
Housel Bay Hotel, 64
Hugh Town, 58
Hurling, 143
Killibury Castle, 85
King Arthur, 55, 72 _et seq._
King Stephen, 59
Knill monument, 97
Kynance Cove, 11, 66
Lamorna Cove, 41
Land of Lyonnesse, 37, 55
Landewednack, 32
Land's End, 1, 2, 51, 60
Lanherne, Vale of, 100
Lanyon Quoit, 46
Launceston, 12, 124, 130
Lelant, 92, 98
Lerryn River, 116
Lighthouses, 53, 68
Liskeard, 125
Lizard, the, 63
Lizard-town, 64
Lloyd's Signal Station, 69
Logan Rock, 45, 46
London and South-Western Railway, 128
Longships Light, 53
Looes, East and West, 119
Lundy Island, 90
Luxulyan, 15
Luxulyan Valley, 29
Lynher or St. Germans River, 24
Madron, 46
Marazion, 37
May Day, 136
"Merry Maidens," 44
Midsummer Day, 135
Mining Region, 49
Mordred, 78
Morwenstow, 107
Mount Edgcumbe, 25
Mount's Bay, 35
Mousehole, 40
Mozrang Pool, 61
Mullion, 14
Newlyn, 15, 39
Newquay, 98
Nonconformists, 38
Padstow, 103, 128, 138
Pardenick Point, 61
Pasties, 21
Pedn Men Dhu, 60
Pendennis Point, 121, 122
Penolva Point, 97
Penpoll Creek, 116
Penryn, 121
Pentargon Bay, 91
Pentire Point, 104
Penzance, 34, 38, 93, 124, 136
Perran Beach, 102
Perranporth, 103
Perranzabuloe, 103
Pilchards, 95
"Pipers, The," 43
Pirates, 114, 123
Plan-an-guare, 50
Plant-life, 16
Polperro, 14, 117
Porthgwarra, 63
Porthgwidden Cove, 97
Porthmeor Bay, 95
Porthminster Bay, 92
Quiller-Couch, Sir A., 118
Redruth, 125
Roads, 13, 49
Roche, 30
Rock, 104
Rocky Valley, 88
Roseland, 123
Royal Institution of Cornwall, 126
Royal Mail Packets, 121
St. Blazey, 29
St. Buryan, 22, 44
St. Columb Major, 100, 143
St. Columb Minor, 100, 143
St. Erth, 94
St. Germans or Lynher River, 24
St. Ives, 7, 15, 92 _et seq._
St. Mary's Island, 58
St. Mawes, 122
St. Mawgan, 100
St. Michael's Mount, 35
St. Piran, 102
Saints, 99
Saltash, 24
Scilly Isles, 56
Sennen, 59
Sennen Cove, 59
Serpentine Rock, 66
Seven Stones, 56
Slaughter Bridge, 78
Stamford, Earl of, 107
Stephen, King, 59
Stratton, 107
Swan Pool, 123
Tamar River, 24
Tavy River, 24
Tol Pedn, 61
Treffrys, the, 110
Treryn Dinas, 45, 73
Trevalgue Head, 101
Trevose Headland, 100
Truro, 125
Uther Pendragon, 77
Valleys, 30
Vell-an-Dreath, 59
Wadebridge, 128
Warbeck, Perkin, 59, 128
Watergate Bay, 101
Wesley, 38, 50
West Looe, 119
Whitesand Bay, 58
Wolf Lighthouse, 53
Wrangle Point, 107
Wrestling, 143
Zennor, 48
THE END
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND
[Illustration: SKETCH-MAP OF CORNWALL
(A. & C. BLACK, LTD., LONDON)]
Transcriber's note:
_Underscores_ have been used to indicate _italic_ fonts.
Inconsistent hyphenation left as written.