THE SCILLY ISLES
_Armorel of Lyoness_--A refuge for the Celtic saints--
Lighthouses--The name of Scilly--Olaf Trygvason at Scilly--
Mr. Augustus Smith--The flower trade--Flowers not allowed
to blossom in the fields--Traces of tin-streaming--Contrast
between the east coast and the west of England--Variety in
Scilly--Sir Cloudesley Shovel.
For a guide to what is to be seen in this cluster there is no better
book than Sir W. Besant’s _Armorel of Lyoness_, to my mind one of
the most delightful works of fiction I have ever read; I refer, of
course, to the first part, that concerns Scilly. Let a visitor take
that book, and go over the ground and be happy. Nothing can be added,
but one word in caution. The whole is a _little_ over-coloured. Scilly
presents scenes of great interest, but the cliffs are by no means so
fine as those of Land’s End, and far inferior to those of the Lizard.
Nevertheless, island clusters have a charm of their own distinct from
the scenery of the fringe of the mainland, and a cluster Scilly is,
intricate, and presenting great variety. There are one hundred and
forty-five islets, large and small, forty miles due west from Lizard
Point, and twenty-eight west-by-south from Land’s End.
The views of the islands change remarkably, according to the state of
the tide. At high-water the islands are separated by wide stretches of
sea, while at the ebb extensive flats are uncovered, and some of the
islands are apparently joined. The Crow Channel between S. Mary’s and
S. Martin’s Isles has been forded on horseback, and a man is reported
to have ridden from S. Mary’s to Tresco, fording the arms of the sea at
low spring-tide.
S. Martin’s Island is difficult of approach at low tide from S. Mary’s
by boat on account of the distance to which the sands run out.
Such an archipelago was exactly suited to the requirements of the
Celtic saints, who, if they spent most of their time in superintendence
of their monasteries, retired for Lent to solitary places, and as they
grew old resigned their pastoral staves to their coarbs (successors),
and retreated to islets, there to prepare for the great change. The
west coast of Ireland is studded with islets that still retain the
cells of these solitaries. Wales had its Bardsey and Anglesea, and
Caldey and Ramsey. And what these were to Irish and Welsh the Scilly
group was to the saints of Cornwall. Thus we find there S. Elid, the
Welsh S. Illog, S. Teon, who is the Euny of Lelant, S. Samson, and S.
Warna.
I do not know that any of the remains of their venerable oratories have
been found, but then they have not been looked for.
There are now churches on four of the isles.
There are three lighthouses--that of S. Agnes, a revolving light; that
on an outlying rock, the Bishop, fixed; and that on Round Island, with
a red light.
The heights in Scilly are not great; the highest point attained is one
hundred and twenty-eight feet. There are some small fresh-water tarns.
The islands take their name from the old Silurian inhabitants, to
whom they served as a last refuge where they could maintain their
independence, just as the Arran Isles answered the same purpose to
their kindred, the Firbolgs, in Ireland. But the general notion is
that they take their designation from the conger eels, locally called
_selli_. It is remarkable that they must at one time have contained a
much larger population than at present, as the remains of hedges and
houses in ruins indicate.
In 993 Olaf Trygvason, of Norway, with Sweyn Forkbeard, of Denmark,
together with a fleet of ninety-three ships, came a-harrying the
coasts of England. They sailed up the Thames and attacked London, but
the citizens behaved with great valour, and beat them off. Then they
ravaged the east coast of England, took and burnt Sandwich and Ipswich;
next they entered the Blackwater and attacked Maldon. There a great
fight ensued. The Saxons were under the command of the eorlderman
Britnoth. The Norsemen gained the day, and Britnoth was slain. It is
with this battle that one of the earliest remains of Anglo-Saxon poetry
deals. It is, unhappily, but a fragment. After recording the fall of
the eorlderman, the poet concludes:--
“I am old of age, hence will I not stir;
I will sit by the side of my dead master;
I think to lay me down and die by him I loved.”
On the doors of some of the churches in the East of England were
formerly “Danes’ skins,” and the remains of these still exist. When the
Anglo-Saxons did succeed in killing a Norseman they flayed him, and
nailed his tanned skin against the church door.
Olaf stormed the Castle of Bamborough, then harried the Scottish coast,
the Western Isles and the Isle of Man, then Ireland, where “he burned
far and wide, wherever inhabited.”
Not yet content with blood and flame, he crossed to Wales and ravaged
there, then sailed to France to do there what mischief he could. After
a while he turned back, and sighted the Scilly Isles, and then ran
his fleet into the harbour of S. Mary’s, the largest of the isles.
Here Olaf heard tell of a hermit who lived in a cell among the granite
crags, and who was believed to have the gift of prophecy.
“I will test his powers,” said Olaf.
Then he dressed up one of his men in his armour, gave him his spear and
red-cross shield, and sent him to consult the old man.
But no sooner did the hermit see the fellow than he said, “Thou art not
King Olaf, thou art a servant. Beware that thou be not false to him,
that is my rede to thee.” No more would he say.
Then the party returned to the ship and told Olaf. He was highly
pleased, and went ashore in a boat with a small following, that he
might consult the anchorite as to the prospect of his being able to
recover the kingdom of his ancestors.
The hermit was undoubtedly a Cornish Briton, and Olaf was obliged to
hold communication with him through an interpreter from Ireland or
Wales.
The old man said to him, “There is a great future in store for thee,
Olaf. Thou wilt have to pass through much conflict, but in the end
wilt reign in thine own land; and when that comes to pass remember to
advance the faith, and to use every opportunity to turn men from their
idols.”
Now the interpreter knew that there was discontent simmering among the
followers of the prince. They wanted to return to their homes with the
plunder they had acquired, but Olaf set his face against this.
The interpreter, knowing that the men were mutinous, said a few words
in Welsh or Irish to the hermit. He was afraid of himself giving
warning to Olaf, lest the mutineers should wreak their resentment on
him. So the anchorite told the king that there were those amongst his
followers who plotted, and purposed seizing the opportunity of his
being on land to execute their design of revolt.
Olaf precipitately returned to his ships, and found that the mutineers
were making off with some of the ships. He hurried on board, gave
chase, and a fight ensued. Finally the mutiny was quelled, but not
without Olaf being wounded. His vessel then put into Tresco harbour,
where were monks to whom Athelstan had granted land in 936. He was
carried into the monastery, carefully tended, and was induced to
receive baptism. Hitherto, though convinced that Christianity was the
true religion, Olaf had never formally been enrolled in the Church.
Unhappily, Olaf could not speak Cornish, and the abbot was ignorant
of the Norse tongue, so that all communication had to go on through
the interpreter, and Olaf did not receive much religious instruction.
Nevertheless, as far as his lights went, he was sincere.
Then he returned to Norway to proclaim his right to the throne.
“To avenge his fathers slain,
And reconquer realm and reign,
Came the youthful Olaf home,
Through the midnight sailing, sailing,
Listening to the wild wind’s wailing,
And the dashing of the foam.
“To his thoughts the sacred name
Of his mother, Astrid, came;
And the tale she oft had told
Of her flight by secret passes,
Through the mountains and morasses,
To the home of Hakon old.
“Then his cruisings o’er the seas,
Westward to the Hebrides,
And to Scilly’s rocky shore,
And the hermit’s cavern dismal,
Christ’s great name and rites baptismal,
In the ocean’s rush and roar.”
S. Marys is the largest of the islands, and it has a population of over
1600 people; Tresco is the second; then S. Agnes, pronounced S. Anne’s;
then S. Martin’s; next Bryher; after this comes S. Sampson, no longer
inhabited; and the remainder are very small. The original population
was doubtless Silurian or Ivernian; the traces, however, of this early
race are few. The population now is less pure than on the mainland. Not
only were there Irish colonists, but it is said that in the Civil Wars
a Bedfordshire regiment was sent there--and forgotten; so the soldiers
looked about for comely Scilly maids, married, and were content to be
no more remembered in the adjacent island of Great Britain. In 1649
Sir John Grenville employed Scilly as a great nursery for privateers,
and so swept the seas that the Channel trade was seriously injured.
Parliament at length fitted out and despatched an expedition under
Blake, and in June, 1651, compelled Sir John Grenville to surrender.
The islands belong to the Duchy of Cornwall, and thereby leased to
the late Mr. Augustus Smith, who, firmly imbued with the notion that
men must be manufactured by education rather than allowed to bring
themselves up in independence, transported the population from the
smaller islands and planted them about the schools. No doubt that the
native originality, freshness, and force will be drilled out of the new
generation, and they will all spell and think, and write and act alike.
It is, however, sad to notice on islands now deserted the ruins of
ancient farms.
The Scilly Isles are a great seat of the flower trade; previously early
potatoes were grown there, but now these are imported.
Of flowers, narcissi and anemones are chiefly grown, and in the open,
though large numbers of flowers are now under glass. As soon as the
blooms show colour they are picked, and placed in water under cover.
One may see in the interior of a cottage all the furniture stacked in
a corner of the room, and the entire floor covered with pots and jars
of water full of flower buds. If the blossoms need forcing to make them
expand, they are put in warm water.
It is rare to see a field of flowers in full bloom. The damage caused
by rain and wind is so great, that rather than run the risk they are
picked when in bud.
One feature of the flower fields is that they are hedged about with
escalonia, with its pretty shining leaves and pink flower. This shrub
delights in wind, and it also serves to shelter the crop from the
gales, as it stands clipping and grows vigorously.
Fishing is not much carried on, but anyone with a steam launch will be
able to find good shelter in case of rough weather, and he can manage
to catch as many fish as he desires. One prolific ground is round the
Seven Stones Lightship, north-east of the isles.
It is a curious fact that little flotsam and jetsam comes up on the
isles. The Atlantic tides divide and run up on each side of the tides
that course along the shores of the islands.
Formerly Scilly was a favourite breeding-place for birds, but now they
no longer employ it for this purpose, or do so to a very minor degree.
There are traces of streaming for tin in some of the isles, but no
mineral veins are now known to run through the Scilly granite. Ferns
abound, but the islands are a little disappointing to the botanist,
though to a florist they are a paradise.
To give a true idea of Scilly I must quote from _Armorel_, for such as
have not the book:--
“The visitor who comes by one boat and goes away by the
next thinks he has seen this archipelago. As well stand
inside a cathedral for half an hour and then go away
thinking you have seen all. It takes many days to see these
fragments of Lyonesse and to get a true sense of the place.”
By the way, the idea that Scilly represents the peaks of a submerged
realm of Lyonesse is altogether baseless. Lyonesse is the realm of Leon
in Brittany, so-called because founded by colonists from Caerleon, who
fled from the swords of the Saxons. It remained a little independent
principality till at the close of the sixth century it became
incorporated with the principality of Domnonia, in Brittany.
“Everywhere in Scilly there are the same features: here a
hill strewn with boulders; there a little down with fern
and gorse and heath; here a bay in which the water, on such
days as it can be approached, peacefully laps a smooth
white beach; here dark caves and holes in which the water
always, even in the calmest days of summer, grumbles and
groans, and, when the least sea rises, begins to roar and
bellow--in time of storm it shrieks and howls.... All round
the rocks at low tide hangs the long seaweed, undisturbed
since the days when they manufactured kelp, like the rank
growth of a tropical creeper: at high tide it stands up
erect, rocking to and fro in the wash and sway of the water
like the tree-tops of the forest in the breeze. Everywhere,
except in the rare places where men come and go, the
wild sea-birds make their nests; the shags stand on the
ledges of the highest rocks in silent rows gazing upon the
water below; the sea-gulls fly, shrieking in sea-gullic
rapture--there is surely no life quite so joyous as the
sea-gull’s; the curlews call; the herons sail across the
sky; and in spring millions of puffins swim and dive and
fly about the rocks and lay their eggs in the hollow places
of these wild and lonely islands.”
Is not that beautiful writing? But it is not fanciful; it is beautiful
because true, absolutely true. Go and see if it be not so.
Have you ever made acquaintance with the horrors of Lowestoft, a
flat insipid shore, where the sea is always charged with mud and no
breakers thunder, where the land scene is as dull and insipid as is the
sea-scape? I was there last summer. It was a dismal place, made the
more dismal by being invaded and pervaded, spread out, exposed, devoted
to the “tripper.” And I fled to the west coast to see the Atlantic,
with the water crystal clear, through which you look down into
infinity, and to the glorious cliffs about which that transparent water
tosses, shakes its silver mane, curls its waves blue and iridescent as
a peacock’s neck, and I wondered that any should ever visit the east
coast of England.
“All the islands, except the bare rocks, are covered
with down and moorland, bounded in every direction by
rocky headlands and slopes covered with granite boulders.
And always, day after day, they came continually upon
unexpected places: strange places, beautiful places:
beaches of dazzling white; wildly-heaped earns; here a
cromlech, a logan stone, a barrow; a new view of sea and
sky and white-footed rock. I believe that there does not
live any single man who has actually explored all the
isles of Scilly, stood upon every rock, climbed every
hill, and searched on every island for its treasures of
ancient barrows, plants, birds, cairns, and headlands. Once
there was a worthy person who came here as chaplain to S.
Martin’s. He started with the excellent intention of seeing
everything. Alas! he never saw a single island properly: he
never walked round one exhaustively. He wrote a book about
them, to be sure; but he saw only half.”
There are numerous cairns, barrows, kistvaens, and circles of stones
in the islands, and Giant’s Castle, in S. Mary’s, is a good example of
a cliff-camp of the Irish Firbolg type. A local guide attributes it to
the Danes, but that is nonsense.
In Porth Hellick Bay Sir Cloudesley Shovel was washed ashore and buried.
In 1707 Sir Cloudesley in the _Association_, Captain Hancock in the
_Eagle_, Sir George Byng in the _Royal Anne_, Captain Coney in the
_Romney_, Lord Dudley in the _St. George_, Captain Piercy in the
_Firebrand_, and a captured fireship, the _Phœnix_, were returning
from Toulon after the capture of Gibraltar. On the morning of the 22nd
October, the weather being thick and dirty, they came into soundings of
nineteen fathoms. There is a tradition that a seaman on the admiral’s
ship warned the officer of the watch that unless the ship’s course were
altered they would soon be on the rocks of Scilly. This was reported
to Sir Cloudesley, who was very angry. He had the man brought before
him, and attempted to browbeat him, but the man stuck to his opinion.
The admiral lost his temper, as he considered it a breach of decorum
for a common mariner to dictate the course of the vessel to a superior
officer, and he ordered the man to be hanged at the yard-arm. One
request was granted to the sailor--that he should be allowed to read
aloud a psalm to the assembled crew. This was permitted, and he read
out Psalm cix.:--
“Hold not Thy tongue, O God of my praise: for the mouth of
the ungodly, yea, the mouth of the deceitful, is opened
upon us.”
That night the ship was lost. At six in the evening the admiral, who
had brought the fleet to during the afternoon, made sail again, and
stood away under canvas. Directly after he made signals of distress,
which were returned by several of the fleet. Sir George Byng in the
_Royal Anne_, who was a mile to windward of him, saw the breakers, and
saved his vessel with difficulty.
The _Association_, Sir Cloudesley’s vessel, had struck at eight
o’clock upon the Gilstones, a cluster of rocks of what are called the
Western Isles, and in about two minutes went down with all on board
save one. He clung to a piece of the wreck, and was swept on to the
Hellweathers, where he remained for some time till rescued. The _Eagle_
and the _Romney_ were also lost with all hands. The _Firebrand_ was
lost as well, but the captain and some of the crew were rescued. The
_Phœnix_ ran ashore, but was got off again. The _Royal Anne_ was
saved. So was the _S. George_ by the merest accident. She struck the
same rock as the _Association_ and about the same time, but the wave
which sank the admiral’s ship floated the _S. George_ from the rocks.
The body of Sir Cloudesley Shovel was picked up at Porth Hellick by a
soldier and his wife, who gave it decent burial in the sand. It was
afterwards conveyed at Lady Shovel’s desire to Westminster Abbey and
laid there. She rewarded the soldier with a pension for life, and with
the diamond ring from the finger of her husband.
Finally, with its amount of sunshine, with its equable temperature, and
its air charged with ozone, I believe Scilly will be the sanatorium of
the future.
NOTE.--Book to be consulted:--
TONKIN (J. C. and R. W.), _Guide to the Isles of Scilly_. Penzance,
_n.d._ A capital little book.
PLYMOUTH
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON
PRINTERS
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Irish Nennius_, ed. Todd and Herbert (Dublin, 1848),
p. 237.
[2] Misses Couch were misled when they visited S. Mawes,
and they give a photograph of a well which is _not_
the holy well. The latter is among the houses opposite
the post office, and had an arched entrance, now
walled up.
[3] MATTHEWS, _History of the Parishes of S. Ives, Lelant,
Towednack, and Zennor_ (London, 1892), p. 40.
[4] _Archæologia Cambrensis_, January, 1899. See also
A. J. Langdon, “The Ornament of the Early Crosses
of Cornwall,” _Journal of the Royal Institution of
Cornwall_, vol. x. (1890-1).
[5] Not to be confounded with S. Clether of Clodock, in
Herefordshire, son of Gwynnar, and from whom the poet
Taliesin was descended. The invasion of Carmarthen by
Dyfnwal from the north had much to do with Clether’s
departure.
[6] Tremendous confusion has been made of his life, as he
has been confounded with a S. Paternus, who was Bishop
of Vannes in 462 or 465; and the Cornish Venedotia has
been construed as Venettia, Vannes. Nearly a century
intervened between the two saints.
[7] _The Cornish Magazine_, 1899.
[8] GUEST, _Mabinogion_, p. 227.
[9] _Celtic Scotland._ Edinburgh, 1876-80.
[10] “Cornish Choughs,” in the _Journals of the Roy. Inst.
of Cornwall_, x. (1890-1).
[11] New Edition, 1893, vol. i. p. 136.
[12] “The earthwork, of which a great part is still in
existence, does not command the steep part of the
slope on the other three sides, though the guns would
be available against an enemy after he had once
established himself on the plateau.”
[13] Lord Tenterden in the summing up of Rowe _v._ Brenton,
1830.
[14] After the Armada the Corporation of Saltash raised
the harbour due to seven shillings for a Spanish
ship. This sum is still paid by Trinity House, which,
however, exacts two shillings only from the Spaniards,
the same as from a French or German vessel.
[15] I have given them in my _Garland of Country Song_.
Methuen, 1895.
[16] There are two rivers Lew in West Devon and two in
Wales. There is a Loue that flows into the Vézère.
There is also Loe Pool by Helston; the root enters
into lough or loch.
[17] A new edition was published by Longmans in 1845.
[18] Madoc and Madan are the same name; _oc_ and _an_
are diminutives. The real name was Aed. It became
Mo-aedoc. _Mo_ is a term of endearment--“my”--given to
many Irish and Welsh saints.
[19] I must caution the visitor against the blunders that
crowd the pages of a little local guide to Golant.
Amongst other misstatements is this, that the capitals
are Norman and the arches of Moorish design. The
four-centred arch is quite common in all third-pointed
work.
[20] Reprinted in Preb. HINGESTON-RANDOLPH’S _Registers of
Bishop Grandisson_. Exeter, 1897, p. 608.
[21] The arch over door and window is decisive against
sixth-century work. All the earliest Irish churches
have a stone slab thrown across from the jambs, and no
arch with key.
[22] The church without, as outside of the camp.
[23] Not Witherne in Galway, nor Ty Gwyn âr Daf. See Mrs.
DAWSON’S article in _Archæol. Cambr._, 1898.
[24] SULLIVAN, Introduction to O’Curry’s _Lectures on the
Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish_, 1873, i. p.
cliv.
[25] Quite the best monograph on the colonisation of
Brittany is by DOM PLAINE, _La Colonisation de
l’Armorique par les Bretons insulaires_. Paris:
Picard, 1899. See also LOTH (M. J.), _Emigration
Bretonne en Armorique_. Rennes, 1883.
[26] Figured in WOOD-MARTIN, _The Rude Stone Monuments of
Ireland_, 1888, p. 154.
[27] MATTHEWS, _A History of St. Ives_. London, 1892.
[28] JAGO (Mr.), _Glossary of the Cornish Dialect_. Truro,
1882.
Transcriber’s Note:
Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation
in the text. These were left unchanged. Dialect, jargon, obsolete
and alternative spellings were left unchanged.
Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
this_. The book has both notes and footnotes. The notes were retained
at the end of chapters; footnotes were renumbered sequentially and
moved to the end of the book.
Obvious printing errors, such as backwards or partially printed letters
and punctuation, were corrected. Final stops missing at the end of
sentences and abbreviations were added.