ahead by dint of mechanical power and skill. All the men had thrown off
their jackets to row with more freedom. At length the helmsman cried out,
“Stand ready to board her.” The sailor rowing the bow oar slipped it out
of the row-lock, and stood on the forethought, taking his jacket on his
arm, ready to spring aboard.
The vessel came so close to the boat that they could see the men, and
the bow-oar man made a grasp at her bulwarks. His hand found nothing
solid, and he fell, being caught by one of his mates, back into the boat,
instead of into the water. Then ship and lights disappeared. The next
morning the _Neptune_ of London, Captain Richard Grant, was wrecked at
Gwithian, and all perished. The captain’s body was picked up after a
few days, and that of his son also. They were both buried in Gwithian
churchyard.
JACK HARRY’S LIGHTS.
The phantom lights are called, they tell me, “Jack Harry’s lights,”
because he was the first man who was fooled by them. They are generally
observed before a gale, and the ship seen is like the ship which is sure
to be wrecked. The man who communicated this to me said, “What or how it
is we can’t tell, but the fact of its being seen is too plain.”
The following is another version, which I received from an old pilot:—
“Some five years ago, on a Sunday night, the wind being strong, our crew
heard of a large vessel in the offing, after we came out of chapel. We
manned our big boat, the _Ark_,—she was nearly new then,—and away we
went, under close-reefed foresail and little mizen, the sea going over
us at a sweet rate. The vessel stood just off the head, the wind blowing
W.N.W. We had gone off four or five miles, and we thought we were up
alongside, when, lo! she slipped to windward a league or more. Well, off
we went after her, and a good beating match we had, too; but the _Ark_
was a safe craft, and we neared and neared till, as we thought, we got up
close. Away she whizzed in a minute, in along to Godrevy, just over the
course we sailed; so we gave it up for “Jack Harry’s light,” and, with
wet jackets and disappointed hopes, we bore up for the harbour, prepared
to hear of squalls, which came heavier than ever next day.
“Scores of pilots have seen and been led a nice chase after them. They
are just the same as the _Flying Dutchman_, seen off the Cape of Good
Hope.”
Another man informed me that, once coming down channel, they had a
phantom ship alongside of them for miles: it was a moonlight night, with
a thin rain and mist. They could see several men aboard moving about.
They hailed her several times, but could not get an answer, “and we
didn’t know what to think of her, when all at once she vanished.”
THE PIRATE-WRECKER AND THE DEATH SHIP.
One lovely evening in the autumn, a strange ship was seen at a short
distance from Cape Cornwall. The little wind there was blew from the
land, but she did not avail herself of it. She was evidently permitted to
drift with the tide, which was flowing southward, and curving in round
Whitesand Bay towards the Land’s-End. The vessel, from her peculiar rig,
created no small amount of alarm amongst the fishermen, since it told
them that she was manned by pirates; and a large body of men and women
watched her movements from behind the rocks at Caraglose. At length,
when within a couple of pistol-shots off the shore, a boat was lowered
and manned. Then a man, whose limited movements shew him to be heavily
ironed, was brought to the side of the ship and evidently forced,—for
several pistols were held at his head,—into the boat, which then rowed
rapidly to the shore in Priest’s Cove. The waves of the Atlantic Ocean
fell so gently on the strand, that there was no difficulty in beaching
the boat. The prisoner was made to stand up, and his ponderous chains
were removed from his arms and ankles. In a frenzy of passion he attacked
the sailors, but they were too many and too strong for him, and the fight
terminated by his being thrown into the water, and left to scramble up on
the dry sands. They pushed the boat off with a wild shout, and this man
stood uttering fearful imprecations on his former comrades.
It subsequently became known that this man was so monstrously wicked that
even the pirates would no longer endure him, and hence they had recourse
to this means of ridding themselves of him.
It is not necessary to tell how this wretch settled himself at Tregaseal,
and lived by a system of wrecking, pursued with unheard-of cruelties and
cunning. “It’s too frightful to tell,” says my correspondent, “what was
said about his doings. We scarcely believed half of the vile things we
heard, till we saw what took place at his death. But one can’t say he
died, because he was taken off bodily. We shall never know the scores,
perhaps hundreds, of ships that old sinner has brought on the cliffs,
by fastening his lantern to the neck of his horse, with its head tied
close to the forefoot. The horse, when driven along the cliff, would, by
its motion, cause the lantern to be taken for the stern-light of a ship;
then the vessel would come right in on the rocks, since those on board
would expect to find plenty of sea-room; and, if any of the poor sailors
escaped a watery grave, the old wretch would give them a worse death, by
knocking them on the head with his hatchet, or cutting off their hands as
they tried to grasp the ledges of the rocks.”
A life of extreme wickedness was at length closed with circumstances
of unusual terror—so terrible, that the story is told with feelings of
awe even at the present day. The old wretch fought lustily with death,
but at length the time of his departure came. It was in the time of the
barley-harvest. Two men were in a field on the cliff, a little below
the house, mowing. A universal calm prevailed, and there was not a
breath of wind to stir the corn. Suddenly a breeze passed by them, and
they heard the words, “The time is come, but the man isn’t come.” These
words appeared to float in the breeze from the sea, and consequently it
attracted their attention. Looking out to sea, they saw a black, heavy,
square-rigged ship, with all her sails set, coming in against wind
and tide, and not a hand to be seen on board. The sky became black as
night around the ship, and as she came under the cliff—and she came so
close that the top of the masts could scarcely be perceived—the darkness
resolved itself into a lurid storm-cloud, which extended high into the
air. The sun shone brilliantly over the country, except on the house of
the pirate at Tregaseal—that was wrapt in the deep shadow of the cloud.
The men, in terror, left their work; they found all the neighbours
gathered around the door of the pirate’s cottage, none of them daring to
enter it. Parson —— had been sent for by the terrified peasants, this
divine being celebrated for his power of driving away evil spirits.
The dying wrecker was in a state of agony, crying out, in tones of the
most intense terror, “The devil is tearing at me with nails like the
claws of a hawk! Put out the sailors with their bloody hands!” and using,
in the paroxysms of pain, the most profane imprecations. The parson, the
doctor, and two of the bravest of the fishermen, were the only persons
in the room. They related that at one moment the room was as dark as
the grave, and that at the next it was so light that every hair on the
old man’s head could be seen standing on end. The parson used all his
influence to dispel the evil spirit. His powers were so potent that he
reduced the devil to the size of a fly, but he could not put him out of
the room. All this time the room appeared as if filled with the sea,
with the waves surging violently to and fro, and one could hear the
breakers roaring, as if standing on the edge of the cliff in a storm. At
last there was a fearful crash of thunder, and a blaze of the intensest
lightning. The house appeared on fire, and the ground shook, as if with
an earthquake. All rushed in terror from the house, leaving the dying man
to his fate.
The storm raged with fearful violence, but appeared to contract its
dimensions. The black cloud, which was first seen to come in with
the black ship, was moving, with a violent internal motion, over the
wrecker’s house. The cloud rolled together, smaller and smaller, and
suddenly, with the blast of a whirlwind, it passed from Tregaseal to the
ship, and she was impelled, amidst the flashes of lightning and roarings
of thunder, away over the sea.
The dead body of the pirate-wrecker lay a ghastly spectacle, with eyes
expanded and the mouth partly open, still retaining the aspect of his
last mortal terror. As every one hated him, they all desired to remove
his corpse as rapidly as possible from the sight of man. A rude coffin
was rapidly prepared, and the body was carefully cased in its boards.
They tell me the coffin was carried to the churchyard, but that it was
too light to have contained the body, and that it was followed by a black
pig, which joined the company forming the procession, nobody knew where,
and disappeared nobody knew when. When they reached the church stile,
a storm, similar in its character to that which heralded the wrecker’s
death, came on. The bearers of the coffin were obliged to leave it
without the churchyard stile and rush into the church for safety. The
storm lasted long and raged with violence, and all was as dark as night.
A sudden blaze of light, more vivid than before, was seen, and those who
had the hardihood to look out saw that the lightning had set fire to the
coffin, and it was being borne away through the air, blazing and whirling
wildly in the grasp of such a whirlwind as no man ever witnessed before
or since.
THE SPECTRE SHIP OF PORTHCURNO.
Porthcurno Cove is situated a little to the west of the Logan Stone.
There, as in nearly all the coves around the coast, once existed a
small chapel[51] or oratory, which appears to have been dedicated to St
Leven. There exists now a little square enclosure about the size of a
(_bougie_) sheep’s house, which is all that remains of this little holy
place. Looking up the valley, (Bottom,) you may see a few trees, with the
chimney-tops and part of the roof of an old-fashioned house. That place
is Raftra, where they say St Leven Church was to have been built; but as
fast as the stones were taken there by day, they were removed by night
to the place of the present church. (These performances are usually the
act of the devil, but I have no information as to the saint or sinner
who did this work.) Raftra House, at the time it was built, was the
largest mansion west of Penzance. It is said to have been erected by the
Tresillians, and, ere it was finished, they appear to have been obliged
to sell house and lands for less than it had cost them to build the house.
This valley is in every respect a melancholy spot, and during a period of
storms, or at night, it is exactly the place which might well be haunted
by demon revellers. In the days of the saint from whom the parish has its
name—St Leven—he lived a long way up from the cove, at a place called
Bodelan, and his influence made that, which is now so dreary, a garden.
By his pure holiness he made the wilderness a garden of flowers, and
spread gladness where now is desolation.
Few persons cared to cross that valley after nightfall; and it is not
more than thirty years since that I had a narrative from an inhabitant of
Penberth, that he himself had seen the spectre ship sailing over the land.
This strange apparition is said to have been observed frequently, coming
in from sea about nightfall, when the mists were rising from the marshy
ground in the Bottoms.
Onward came the ill-omened craft. It passed steadily through the breakers
on the shore, glided up over the sands, and steadily pursued its course
over the dry land, as if it had been water. She is described to have
been a black, square-rigged, single-masted affair, usually, but not
always, followed by a boat. No crew was ever seen. It is supposed they
were below, and that the hatches were battened down. On it went to
Bodelan, where St Leven formerly dwelt. It would then steer its course to
Chygwiden, and there vanish like smoke.
Many of the old people have seen this ship, and no one ever saw it, upon
whom some bad luck was not sure to fall.
This ship is somehow connected with a strange man who returned from sea,
and went to live at Chygwiden. It may be five hundred years since—it may
be but fifty.
He was accompanied by a servant of foreign and forbidding aspect, who
continued to be his only attendant; and this servant was never known to
speak to any one save his master. It is said by some they were pirates;
others make them more familiar, by calling them privateers; while some
insist upon it they were American bucaneers. Whatever they may have been,
there was but little seen of them by any of their neighbours. They kept
a boat at Porthcurno Cove, and at daylight they would start for sea,
never returning until night, and not unfrequently remaining out the whole
of the night, especially if the weather was tempestuous. This kind of
sea-life was varied by hunting. It mattered not to them whether it was
day or night; when the storm was loudest, there was this strange man,
accompanied either by his servant or by the devil, and the midnight cry
of his dogs would disturb the country.
This mysterious being died, and then the servant sought the aid of a
few of the peasantry to bear his coffin to the churchyard. The corpse
was laid in the grave, around which the dogs were gathered, with the
foreigner in their midst. As soon as the earth was thrown on the coffin,
man and dogs disappeared, and, strange to say, the boat disappeared at
the same moment from the cove. It has never since been seen; and from
that day to this no one has been able to keep a boat in Porthcurno Cove.
THE LADY WITH THE LANTERN.
The night was dark and the wind high. The heavy waves rolled round the
point of “the Island” into St Ives Bay, as Atlantic waves only can roll.
Everything bespoke a storm of no ordinary character. There were no ships
in the bay—not a fishing-boat was afloat. The few small trading vessels
had run into Hayle for shelter, or had nestled themselves within that
very unquiet resting-place, St Ives pier. The fishing-boats were all high
and dry on the sands.
Moving over the rocks which run out into the sea from the eastern side of
“the Island,” was seen a light. It passed over the most rugged ridges,
formed by the intrusive Greenstone masses, and over the sharp edges of
the upturned slate-rocks, with apparent ease. Forth and back—to and
from—wandered the light.
“Ha!” said an old sailor with a sigh, as he looked out over the sea; “a
sad night! a sad night! The Lady and the Lantern is out.”
“The Lady and the Lantern,” repeated I; “what do you mean?”
“The light out yonder”——
“Is from the lantern of some fisherman looking for something he has
lost,” interrupted I.
“Never a fisherman nor a ‘salt’ either would venture there to-night,”
said the sailor.
“What is it, then?” I curiously inquired.
“Ha’ast never heard of the Lady and the Lantern?” asked a woman who was
standing by.
“Never.”
Without any preface, she began at once to enlighten me. I am compelled,
however, to reduce her rambling story to something like order, and to
make her long-drawn tale as concise as possible.
In the year —— there were many wrecks around the coast. It was a
melancholy time. For more than a month there had been a succession of
storms, each one more severe than the preceding one. At length, one
evening, just about dusk, a large ship came suddenly out of the mist. Her
position, it was at once discovered, equally by those on board and by the
people on the shore, was perilous beyond hope. The sailors, as soon as
they saw how near they were to the shore, made every effort to save the
ship, and then to prepare for saving themselves. The tempest raged with
such fury from the west, that the ship parted her anchors at the moment
her strain came upon them, and she swang round,—her only sail flying into
ribbons in the gale—rushing, as it were, eagerly upon her fate. Presently
she struck violently upon a sunken rock, and her masts went by the board,
the waves sweeping over her, and clearing her decks. Many perished at
once, and, as each successive wave urged her onward, others of the hardy
and daring seamen were swept into the angry sea.
Notwithstanding the severity of the storm, a boat was manned by the
St Ives fishermen, and launched from within the pier. Their perfect
knowledge of their work enabled them, by the efforts of willing hearts,
anxiously desiring to succour the distressed, to round the pier-head, and
to row towards the ship.
These fishermen brought their boat near to the ship. It was impossible to
get close to her, and they called to the sailors on board to throw them
ropes. This they were enabled to do, and some two or three of the sailors
lowered themselves by their aid, and were hauled into the boat.
Then a group appeared on the deck, surrounding and supporting a lady, who
held a child in her arms. They were imploring her to give her charge into
the strong arms of a man ere they endeavoured to pass her from the ship
to the boat.
The lady could not be prevailed on to part with the infant. The ship
was fast breaking up, not a moment could be lost. So the lady, holding
her child, was lowered into the sea, and eagerly the fishermen drew her
through the waves towards the boat.
In her passage the lady had fainted, and she was taken into the boat
without the infant. The child had fallen from her arms, and was lost in
the boiling waters.
Many of the crew were saved by these adventurous men, and taken safely
into St Ives. Before morning the shore was strewed with fragments of
wreck, and the mighty ship had disappeared.
Life returned to the lady; but, finding that her child was gone, it
returned without hope, and she speedily closed her eyes in death. In
the churchyard they buried her; but, shortly after her burial, a lady
was seen to pass over the wall of the churchyard, on to the beach, and
walk towards the Island. There she spent hours amidst the rocks, looking
for her child, and not finding it, she would sigh deeply and return to
her grave. When the nights were tempestuous or very dark, she carried a
lantern; but on fine nights she made her search without a light. The Lady
and the Lantern have ever been regarded as predictors of disaster on this
shore.
May not the Lady Sibella, or Sibbets, mentioned by Mr Blight as passing
from the shore to a rock off Morva, be but another version of this story?
THE DROWNED “HAILING THEIR NAMES.”
The fishermen dread to walk at night near those parts of the shore where
there may have been wrecks. The souls of the drowned sailors appear to
haunt those spots, and the “calling of the dead” has frequently been
heard. I have been told that, under certain circumstances, especially
before the coming of storms, or at certain seasons, but always at night,
these callings are common. Many a fisherman has declared he has heard the
voices of dead sailors “hailing their own names.”
THE VOICE FROM THE SEA.
A fisherman or a pilot was walking one night on the sands at Porth-Towan,
when all was still save the monotonous fall of the light waves upon the
sand.
He distinctly heard a voice from the sea exclaiming,—
“The hour is come, but not the man.”
This was repeated three times when a black figure, like that of a man,
appeared on the top of the hill. It paused for a moment, then rushed
impetuously down the steep incline, over the sands, and was lost in the
sea.
In different forms this story is told all around the Cornish coast.
THE SMUGGLER’S TOKEN.
Until about the time of the close of the last French war, a large portion
of the inhabitants of the south-west coast of Cornwall were in some way
or other connected with the practice of smuggling. The traffic with the
opposite coast was carried on principally in boats or undecked vessels.
The risks encountered by their crews produced a race of hardy, fearless
men, a few of whom are still living, and it has been said that the
Government of those days winked at the infraction of the law, from an
unwillingness to destroy so excellent a school for seamen. Recently the
demand for ardent spirits has so fallen off that there is no longer an
inducement to smuggle; still it is sometimes exultingly rumoured that,
the “Coast Guard having been cleverly put off the scent, a cargo has
been successfully run.” The little coves in the Lizard promontory formed
the principal trading places, the goods being taken as soon as landed to
various places of concealment, whence they were withdrawn as required
for disposal. About eighty years since, a boat, laden with “ankers” of
spirits, was about, with its crew, to leave Mullion Cove for Newlyn.
One of the farmers concerned in the venture, members of whose family
are still living, was persuaded to accompany them, and entered the boat
for the purpose, but, recollecting he had business at Helston, got out
again, and the boat left without him. On his return from Helston, late
in the evening, he sat down, exclaiming, “The boat and all on board are
lost! I met the men as I passed the top of Halzaphron, (a very high cliff
on the road,) with their hair and clothes dripping wet!” In spite of the
arguments of his friends, he persisted in his statement. The boat and
crew were never more heard of, and the farmer was so affected by the
circumstance, that he pined and died shortly after.
THE HOOPER, OR THE HOOTER, OF SENNEN COVE.
This was supposed to be a spirit which took the form of a band of misty
vapour, stretching across the bay, so opaque that nothing could be seen
through it. It was regarded as a kindly interposition of some ministering
spirit, to warn the fishermen against venturing to sea. This appearance
was always followed, and often suddenly, by a severe storm. It is seldom
or ever seen now. One profane old fisherman would not be warned by the
bank of fog. The weather was fine on the shore, and the waves fell
tranquilly on the sands; and this aged sinner, declaring he would not be
made a fool of, persuaded some young men to join him. They manned a boat,
and the aged leader, having with him a threshing-flail, blasphemously
declared that he would drive the spirit away; and he vigorously beat the
fog with the “threshel”—so the flail is called.
The boat passed through the fog, and went to sea. A severe storm came on.
No one ever saw the boat or the men again; and since that time the Hooper
has been rarely seen.
HOW TO EAT PILCHARDS.
It is unlucky to commence eating pilchards, or, indeed, any kind of
fish, from the head downwards. I have often heard persons rebuked for
committing such a grievous sin, which is “sure to turn the heads of the
fish away from the coasts.”
The legitimate process—mark this, all fish-eaters—_is to eat the fish
from the tail towards the head_. This brings the fish to our shores, and
secures good luck to the fishermen.
PILCHARDS CRYING FOR MORE.
When there is a large catch of fish, (pilchards,) they are preserved,—put
in bulk, as the phrase is,—by being rubbed with salt, and placed in
regular order, one on the other, head and tails alternately, forming
regular walls of fish.
The fish often, when so placed, make a squeaking noise; this is called
“crying for more,” and is regarded as a most favourable sign. More fish
may soon be expected to be brought to the same cellar.
The noise which is heard is really produced by the bursting of the
air-bladders; and when many break together, which, when hundreds of
thousands are piled in a mass, is not unusual, the sound is a loud one.
THE PRESSING-STONES.
Those who are not familiar with the process of “curing,” (salting)
pilchards for the Italian markets, will require a little explanation to
understand the accompanying story.