of evil spirits, and that the old woman’s skrieks were awful to hear.
Howbeit, peace in the shape of pale-faced death came to her at last, and
then a black cloud rested over the house when all the heavens were clear
and blue.
She was borne to the grave by six aged men, carried, as is the custom,
under hand. When they were about half way between the house and the
church, a hare started from the roadside and leaped over the coffin.
The terrified bearers let the corpse fall to the ground, and ran away.
Another lot of men took up the coffin and proceeded. They had not gone
far when puss was suddenly seen seated on the coffin, and again the
coffin was abandoned. After long consultation, and being persuaded by
the parson to carry the old woman very quickly into the churchyard,
while he walked before, six others made the attempt, and as the parson
never ceased to repeat the Lord’s Prayer, all went on quietly. Arrived at
the church stile, they rested the corpse, the parson paused to commence
the ordinary burial service, and there stood the hare, which, as soon
as the clergyman began “I am the resurrection and the life,” uttered a
diabolical howl, changed into a black, unshapen creature, and disappeared.
HOW MR LENINE GAVE UP COURTING.
Mr Lenine had been, as was his wont, spending his evening hours with the
lady of his love. He was a timid man, and always returned to Tregenebris
early. Beyond this, as the lady was alone, she deemed it prudent to let
the world know that Mr Lenine left her by daylight.
One evening, it was scarcely yet dark, and our lover was returning home
through Leah Lanes. His horse started at an old woman, who had crept
under the hedge for shelter from a passing shower. As Mr Lenine saw a
figure moving in the shade he was terrified.
“Tu-whit, tu-whoo, ho,” sang an owl.
“It’s only me—Mr Lenine of Tregenebris,” said he, putting the spurs to
his horse.
Something followed him, fast as he might go, and he forced his horse up
the hill by Leah vean.
“Tu-whit, tu-whoo, ho,” sang the owl.
“It’s only me—Aunt Betty Foss,” screamed the old woman.
“Tu-whit, tu-whoo, ho, ho,” sang the owl again.
“Don’t ye be afeard, Mr Lenine,” shrieked Aunt Betty, almost out of
breath.
“Tu-whit, tu-whoo, ho, ho, ho,” also shrieked the owl.
“Oh, it’s only John Lenine of Tregenebris,” stammered the frightened
lover, who had, however, reached home.
He went no more a-courting. He was fully persuaded that either a
highwayman and his crew, or the devil and his imps, were upon him. He
died a bachelor, and the charming lady became a peevish old maid, and
died in solitude; all owing to the hooting owl.
Some do say Betty Foss was a witch, and the owl her familiar.
THE WITCH AND THE TOAD.
An old woman called Alsey—usually Aunt Alsey—occupied a small cottage in
Anthony, one of a row which belonged to a tradesman living in Dock—as
Devonport was then designated, to distinguish it from Plymouth. The old
woman possessed a very violent temper, and this, more than anything
else, fixed upon her the character of being a witch. Her landlord had
frequently sought his rent, and as frequently he received nothing but
abuse. He had, on the special occasion to which our narrative refers,
crossed the Tamar and walked to Anthony, with the firm resolve of
securing his rent, now long in arrear, and of turning the old termagant
out of the cottage. A violent scene ensued, and the vicious old woman,
more than a match for a really kind-hearted and quiet man, remained the
mistress of the situation. She seated herself in the door of her cottage
and cursed her landlord’s wife, “the child she was carrying,” and all
belonging to him, with so devilish a spite that Mr —— owned he was fairly
driven away in terror.
On returning home, he, of course, told his wife all the circumstances;
and while they were discoursing on the subject,—the whole story being
attentively listened to by their daughter, then a young girl, who is my
informant,—a woman came into the shop requiring some articles which they
sold.
“Sit still, father,” said Mrs —— to her husband; “you must be tired. I
will see to the shop.”
So she went from the parlour into the shop, and, hearing the wants of her
customer, proceeded to supply them; gossiping gaily, as was her wont, to
interest the buyer.
Mrs —— was weighing one of the articles required, when something falling
heavily from the ceiling of the shop, struck the beam out of her hand,
and both—the falling body and the scales—came together with much noise on
to the counter. At the same instant both women screamed;—the shopkeeper
calling also “Father! father!”—meaning her husband thereby—with great
energy.
Mr —— and his daughter were in the shop instantly, and there, on the
counter, they saw an enormous and most ugly toad sprawling amidst the
chains of the scales. The first action of the man was to run back to the
parlour, seize the tongs, and return to the shop. He grasped the swollen
toad with the tongs, the vicious creature spitting all the time, and,
without a word, he went back and flung it behind the block of wood which
was burning in the grate. The object of terror being removed, the wife,
who was shortly to become the mother of another child, though usually a
woman who had great command over her feelings, fainted.
This circumstance demanding all their attention, the toad was forgotten.
The shock was a severe one; and although Mrs —— was restored in a
little time to her senses, she again and again became faint. Those fits
continuing, her medical attendant, Dr ——, was sent for, and on his
arrival he ordered that his patient should be immediately placed in bed,
and the husband was informed that he must be prepared for a premature
birth.
The anxiety occasioned by these circumstances, and the desire to afford
every relief to his wife, so fully occupied Mr ——, that for an hour
or two he entirely forgot the cause of all this mischief; or, perhaps
satisfying himself that the toad was burnt to ashes, he had no curiosity
to look after it. He was, however, suddenly summoned from the bedroom, in
which he was with his wife, by his daughter calling to him, in a voice of
terror,—
“O father, the toad, the toad!”
Mr —— rushed down-stairs, and he then discovered that the toad, though
severely burnt, had escaped destruction. It must have crawled up over the
log of wood, and from it have fallen down amongst the ashes. There it was
now making useless struggles to escape, by climbing over the fender.
The tongs were again put in requisition, with the intention this time of
carrying the reptile out of the house. Before, however, he had time to do
so, a man from Anthony came hastily into the shop with the information
that Aunt Alsey had fallen into the fire, as the people supposed, in
a fit, and that she was nearly burnt to death. This man had been sent
off with two commissions—one to fetch the doctor, and the other to
bring Mr —— with him, as much of the cottage had been injured by fire,
communicated to it by the old woman’s dress.
In as short a time as possible the parish surgeon and Mr —— were at
Anthony, and too truly they found the old woman most severely burnt—so
seriously, indeed, there was no chance that one so aged could rally from
the shock which her system must have received. However, a litter was
carefully prepared, the old woman was placed in it, and carried to the
workhouse. Every attention was given to her situation, but she never
recovered perfect consciousness, and during the night she died.
The toad, which we left inside the fender in front of a blazing fire,
was removed from a position so trying to any cold-blooded animal, by
the servant, and thrown, with a “hugh” and a shudder, upon one of the
flower-beds in the small garden behind the house.
There it lay the next morning dead, and when examined by Mr ——, it was
found that all the injuries sustained by the toad corresponded with those
received by the poor old wretch, who had no doubt fallen a victim to
passion.
As we have only to deal with the mysterious relation which existed
between the witch and the toad, it is not necessary that we should attend
further to the innocent victim of an old woman’s vengeance, than to say
that eventually a babe was born—that that babe grew to be a handsome
man, was an officer in the navy, and having married, went to sea, and
perished, leaving a widow with an unborn child to lament his loss.
Whether this was a result of the witch’s curse, those who are more deeply
skilled in witchcraft than I am may perhaps tell.
THE SAILOR WIZARD.
This appears to have been, and it may still be, a very common
superstition. I have lately received from Mr T. Q. Couch of Bodmin the
story of some sailors, who had reason to suspect that one of their body
was a wizard. This was eventually proved to have been the case, by
circumstances in every way resembling those of our old witch. There had
been a quarrel, and revenge had been talked of. The sailors were all
grouped together in the forepart of the ship, except the suspected one,
and a toad fell sprawling amongst them. One of the men flung the creature
into the fire in the caboose. It struggled for a moment in the fire, and
then by a convulsive effort flung itself out. Immediately the toad was
caught up by one of the men, and flung into the sea.
In the course of some little time the absent sailor made his appearance
dripping wet. In a drunken frolic he had first fallen into the fire at
a low beer shop or “Kiddle-e-Wink,” and subsequently he fell out of the
boat into the sea.
THE MINERS.
“To us our Queen, who in the central earth,
Midst fiery lavas or basaltine seas,
Deep-throned the illimitable waste enjoys,
Enormous solitude, has given these
Her subterraneous realms; bids us dwell here,
In the abyss of darkness, and exert
Immortal alchymy.
“Each devious cleft, each secret cell explore,
And from its fissures draw the ductile ore.”
_The Mine: a Dramatic Poem_—JOHN SARGENT.
ROMANCES OF THE MINERS.
TRADITIONS OF TINNERS.
“An ancient story I’ll tell you anon,
Which is older by far than the days of King John;
But this you should know, that that red-robed sinner
Robbed the Jew of the gold he had made as a tinner.”
_Old Cornish Song._
There is scarcely a spot in Cornwall where tin is at present found, that
has not been worked over by the “old men,” as the ancient miners are
always called.
Every valley has been “streamed”—that is, the deposits have been washed
for tin; over every hill where now a tin mine appears, there are
evidences, many of them most extensive, of actual mining operations
having been carried on to as great a depth as was possible in the days
when the appliances of science were unknown.
Wherever the “streamer” has been, upon whatever spot the old miner has
worked, there we are told the “Finician” (_Phœnician_) has been, or the
Jew has mined.[45]
There is much confusion in these traditions. The Jew, and the Saracen,
and the Phœnician are regarded as terms applied to the same people.
Whereas the Phœnicians, who are recorded to have traded with the Cornish
Britons for tin, and the Jews, who were the great tin miners and
merchants in the days of King John, are separated by wide periods of
time; and the “Saracens,” who some suppose to have been miners who came
from Spain when that country was under the dominion of the Moors, occupy
a very undefined position. Tradition, however, tells us that the old
Cornish miners shipped their tin at several remarkable islands round the
coast. St Michael’s Mount has been especially noticed, but this arises
from the circumstance that it still retains the peculiar character which
it appears to have possessed when Diodorus wrote. But Looe Island, St
Nicholas’s Island in Plymouth Sound, the island at St Ives, the Chapel
Rock at Perran, and many other insular masses of rock, which are at but a
short distance from the coast, are said to have been shipping-places.
Tradition informs us that the Christian churches upon Dartmoor, which
are said to have been built about the reign of John, were reared by the
Jews. Once, and once only, I heard the story told in more detail. They,
the Jews, did not actually work in the tin streams and mines of the Moor,
but they employed tinners, who were Christians; and the king imposed on
the Jew merchants the condition that they should build churches for their
miners.
That the Phœnicians came to Cornwall to buy tin has been so often told,
that there is little to be added to the story. It was certainly new,
however, to be informed by the miners in Gwennap—that there could be no
shade of doubt but that St Paul himself came to Cornwall to buy tin, and
that Creegbraws—a mine still in existence—supplied the saint largely
with that valuable mineral. Gwennap is regarded by Gwennap men as the
centre of Christianity. This feeling has been kept alive by the annual
meeting of the Wesleyan body in Gwennap Pit—an old mine-working—on
Whit-monday. This high estate and privilege is due, says tradition, to
the fact that St Paul himself preached in the parish.[46]
I have also been told that St Paul preached to the tinners on Dartmoor,
and a certain cross on the road from Plympton to Princes-Town has been
indicated as the spot upon which the saint stood to enlighten the
benighted miners of this wild region. Of St Piran or Perran we have
already spoken as the patron saint of the tinners, and of the discovery
of tin a story has been told, (p. 21;) and we have already intimated
that another saint, whose name alone is preserved, St Picrous, has his
feast-day amongst the tinners of eastern Cornwall, on the second Thursday
before Christmas.
Amidst the giant stories we have the very remarkable Jack the Tinker,
who is clearly indicated as introducing the knowledge of tin, or of the
dressing of tin, to the Cornish. This is another version of Wayland
Smith, the blacksmith of Berkshire. The blacksmith of the Berkshire
legend reappears in a slightly altered character in Jack the Tinker. In
Camden’s “Britannia” we read, relative to Ashdown, in Berkshire:—
“The burial-place of Baereg, the Danish chief, who was slain
in this fight, (the fight between Alfred and the Danes,) is
distinguished by a parcel of stones, less than a mile from
the hill, set on edge, enclosing a piece of ground somewhat
raised. On the east side of the southern extremity stand
three squarish flat stones, of about four or five feet over
either way, supporting a fourth, and now called by the vulgar,
Wayland Smith, from an idle tradition about an invisible smith
replacing lost horseshoes there.”—_Gough’s Camden_.
See “Kenilworth,” by Sir Walter Scott, who has appropriated
Wayland Smith with excellent effect.
“The Berkshire legend of Wayland Smith (‘Wayland Smith,’ by W.
S. Singer) is probably but a prototype of Dædalus, Tubal Cain,
&c.”—_Wilson’s Prehistoric Annals of Scotland._
See also Mr Thomas Wright’s Essay on Wayland Smith.
The existence of the terms “Jews’ houses,” “Jews’ tin,” “Jews’ leavings,”
or “atall,” and “atall Saracen,” prove the connexion of strangers with
the Cornish tin mines. The inquiry is too large to be entered on here. I
reserve it for another and more fitting place. I may, however, remark in
passing, that I have no doubt the Romans were active miners during the
period of their possession; and many relics which have been found and
ascribed to the Britons are undoubtedly Roman. See further remarks on p.
118, “Who are the Knockers?”
Mr Edmonds supposes that he found in a bronze vessel discovered near
Marazion a caldron in which tin was refined. In the first place, a bronze
vessel would never have been used for that purpose—chemical laws are
against it; and in the second place, it is more than doubtful if ever the
“Jews’ tin” was subjected to this process. In all probability, the bronze
vessel discovered was a “Roman camp-kettle.” A very full description of
bronze caldrons of this description will be found in “The Archæology and
Prehistoric Annals of Scotland,” by Daniel Wilson, p. 274.
It may not be out of place to insert here the tradition of a very
important application of this metal.
The use of tin as a mordant, for which very large quantities are now
used, is said to have been thus discovered:—
Mr Crutchy, Bankside, married a Scotchwoman. This lady often told her
husband that his scarlet was not equal to one she could dye. He set
her to work. She dyed a skein of worsted in a saucepan, using the same
material as her husband, but produced a better colour. She did not
know this was owing to the saucepan’s being tinned, but he detected the
fact, and made his fortune as a dyer of scarlet and Turkey-red. The most
important Turkey-red dye-works are even now in the neighbourhood of
Lochlomond; therefore, this Scotchwoman may have been better acquainted
with the process than the story tells.
THE TINNER OF CHYANNOR.
The village of Trereen, near the Logan Stone, was at one time an
important market-town. Here came all the tin-streamers who worked from
Penberth to the hills, and to protect the place and the valuable property
which was accumulated here, Castle Trereen was built. Here came—or rather
into the cove near it came—the Tyrian merchants. They were not allowed
to advance beyond the shores, lest they should discover the country
from which the tin was brought. But it is not of them that we have now
to tell, but of a knot of tinners who came from the low country between
Chyannor and Trengothal. These were assembled round the Garrack Zans,
which then stood in the centre of the market-place of Trereen. Times had
been bad, and they were consulting together what they had better do. The
“streams” had failed them, and they believed all the tin was worked out.
Some of them had heard that there was tin in “the country a long way
off,” some miles beyond Market-Jew; but they had but a very dim idea of
the place or of the people. One of them, who, though an old man, was more
adventurous than any of his comrades, said he would travel there and see
what could be done. It was then determined that Tom Trezidder should try
his fortune, and the others would wait until he came home again, or sent
for them to come to him. This was soon noised about, and all the women,
old and young, came to say “Good-bye” to Tom. His parting with his wife
was brief but bitter. He bore up well, and with a stout heart started on
his adventure. Tom Trezidder arrived at length at a place not far from
Goldsythney, and here he found one of the Jew merchants, who farmed the
tin ground, and sold the tin at St Michael’s Mount; and the Jew was very
anxious to engage so experienced a “streamer” as Tom was. Tom, nothing
loath, took service for a year. He was to have just enough to live on,
and a share of profits at the year’s end. Tom worked diligently, and
plenty of tin was the result of his experienced labour. The year expired,
and Tom looked for his share of the profits. The Jew contrived to put Tom
off, and promised Tom great things if he would stop for another year,
and persuaded him to send for some of his old comrades, clenching every
argument which he employed with a small piece of advice, “Never leave an
old road for a new one.”
The other tinners were shy of venturing so far, so that two or three
only could be persuaded to leave the West Country. With Tom and with his
brethren the year passed by, and at the end he got no money, but only the
same piece of advice, “Never leave an old road for a new one.” This went
on for a third year, when all of them, being naturally tired of this sort
of thing, resolved to go home again.
Tom Trezidder was a favourite with his master, and was greatly esteemed
for his honesty and industry by his mistress.
When they left she gave Tom a good currant cake to take home to his old
woman, and told him to remember the advice, “Never leave an old road for
a new one.”
The tinners trudged on together until they were on the western side of
Penzance. They were weary, and they found that since they had left home
a new road had been made over the hills, which saved them a considerable
distance—in fact it was a “short cut.” On they went. “No,” says Tom;
“never leave an old road for a new one.” They all laughed at him, and
trudged on. But Tom kept in the old road along the valley round the hill.
When Tom reached the other end of the “short cut” he thought he would
rest a bit, and he sat down by the roadside and ate his _fuggan_. This
his mistress had given him, that he might not break his cake until he got
home.
He had not sat long when he heard a noise, and, looking up the hill, he
saw his comrades, whom he thought were miles in advance of him, slowly
and sorrowfully descending it. They came at last to where Tom was seated,
and a sad tale had they to tell. They had scarcely got into the new road
when they were set upon by robbers, who took from them “all their little
bit of money,” and then beat them because they had no more.
Tom, you may be sure, thought the piece of advice worth something now, as
it had saved his bacon.
Tom arrived home at last, and glad was the old woman to see her old man
once again; so she made him some “herby tea” at once. He shewed his wife
the cake, and told her that all he had received for his share of profits
was the piece of advice already given.
The ladies who read this story will understand how vexed was Tom’s
wife,—there are but few of them who would not have done as she did, that
was to seize the cake from the table and fling it at her husband’s head,
calling him an old fool. Tom Trezidder stooped to avoid the blow. Slap
against the corner of the dresser went the cake, breaking in pieces with
the blow, and out on the lime-ash floor rolled a lot of gold coins.
This soon changed the aspect of things; the storm rolled back, and
sunshine was once more in the cottage. The coins were all gathered up,
and they found a scrap of paper, on which, when they got the priest to
read it, they discovered was written an exact account of each year’s
profits, and Tom’s share. The three years’ shares had been duly hoarded
for him by his master and mistress; and now this old couple found they
had enough to make them comfortable for the rest of their days. Many were
the prayers said by Tom and his wife for the happiness and health of the
honest Jew tin merchant and his wife.
“WHO ARE THE KNOCKERS?”
Charles Kingsley in his “Yeast: a Problem,” asks this question—Tregarra
answers,—
“They are _the ghosts_, the miners hold, _of the old Jews that crucified
our Lord, and were sent for slaves by the Roman emperors to work the
mines_: and we find their old smelting-houses, which we call _Jews’
houses_, and their blocks at the bottom of the great bogs, which we call
_Jews’ tin_: and then a town among us too, which we call _Market-Jew_,
but the old name was Marazion, that means the bitterness of Zion, they
tell me; and bitter work it was for them, no doubt, poor souls! We used
to break into old shafts and adits which they had made, and find fine
old stag’s-horn pickaxes, that crumbled to pieces when we brought them
to grass. And they say that if a man will listen of a still night about
these shafts, he may hear the ghosts of them at work, knocking and
picking, as clear as if there was a man at work in the next level.”
In _Notes and Queries_ will be found some learned discussions on the
question of the Jews working the Cornish tin mines, as though it were
merely one of tradition. That the Jews farmed the tin mines of Cornwall
and Devonshire is an historical fact, of which we have evidence in
charters granted by several of our kings, especially by King John. Carew
in his “Survey of Cornwall” gives some account of their mode of dealing
with the tinners. Hence the terms “Jews’ houses,” given to old and rude
smelting-works,—many of which I have seen,—and hence the name of “Jews’
tin,” given to the old blocks of tin, specimens of which may be seen
in the _Museum of Practical Geology_, and in the museum of the _Royal
Institution of Cornwall_, at Truro. “_Atall Sarazin_” is another term
applied to some of the old waste-heaps of the ancient tin mines.
“The Jews,” says Whitaker, (“Origin of Arianism,” p. 334,) “denominated
themselves, and were denominated by the Britons of Cornwall, _Saracens_,
as the genuine progeny of Sarah.” Be this as it may, I have often heard
in the mining villages—from twenty to thirty years since—a man coming
from a distant parish, called “_a foreigner_;” a man from a distant
country, termed “_an outlandish man_;” and any one not British born,
designated as “_a Saracen_.”