thousand hogsheads at a time, in an enclosing net called a “seine,” are
taken out of it—the larger net—in a smaller net, called the “tuck net,”
and from it loaded into boats and taken to the shore. They are quickly
transferred to the fish-sellers, and “put in bulk”—that is, they are well
rubbed with salt, and carefully packed up—all interstitial spaces being
filled with salt—in a pile several feet in height and depth. They remain
in this condition for about six weeks, when they are removed from “the
bulk,” washed, and put into barrels in very regular order. The barrels
being filled with pilchards, pressing-stones,—round masses of granite,
weighing about a hundredweight,—with an iron hook fixed into them for
the convenience of moving, are placed on the fish. By this they are much
compressed, and a considerable quantity of oil is squeezed out of them.
This process being completed, the cask is “headed,” marked, and is ready
for exportation.
Jem Tregose and his old woman, with two sons and a daughter, lived over
one of the fish-cellars in St Ives. For many years there had been a great
scarcity of fish;[52] their cellar had been empty; Jem and his boys were
fishermen, and it had long been hard times with them. It is true they
went out “hook-and-line” fishing now and then, and got a little money.
They had gone over to Ireland on the herring-fishing, but very little
luck attended them.
Summer had passed away, and the early autumn was upon them. The
seine-boats were out day after day, but no “signs of fish.” One evening,
when the boys came home, Ann Jenny Tregose had an unusual smile upon
her face, and her daughter Janniper, who had long suffered from the
“megrims,” was in capital spirits.
“Well, mother,” says one of the sons, “and what ails thee a’?”
“The press-stones a bin rolling.”
“Haas they, sure enuff,” says the old man.
“Ees! ees!” exclaims Janniper; “they has been making a skimmage!”
“Hark ye,” cries the old woman, “there they go again.”
And sure enough there was a heavy rolling of the stones in the cellar
below them. It did not require much imagination to image these round
granite pebbles sliding themselves down on the “couse,” or stone
flooring, and dividing themselves up into sets, as if for a dance,—a
regular “cows’ courant,” or game of romps.
“Fish to-morrow!” exclaimed the old woman. The ejaculations of each one
of the party shewed their perfect faith in the belief, that the stones
rolling down from the heap, in which they had been useless for some time,
was a certain indication that pilchards were approaching the coast.
Early on the morrow the old man and his sons were on their “stem;” and
shortly after daylight the cry of “Heva! heva!”[53] was heard from the
hills; the seine was shot, and ere night a large quantity of fish might
be seen in the cellar, and every one joyous.
WHIPPING THE HAKE.
It is not improbable that the saying applied to the people of one of the
Cornish fishing-towns, of “Who whipped the hake?” may be explained by the
following:—
“Lastly, they are persecuted by the hakes, who (not long sithence)
haunted the coast in great abundance; but now being deprived of their
wonted bait, are much diminished, verifying the proverb, ‘_What we lose
in hake we shall have in herring_.’”—_Carew, Survey_, p. 34.
Annoyed with the hakes, the seiners may, in their ignorance, have
actually served one of those fish as indicated.
DEATH SUPERSTITIONS.
“Continually at my bed’s head
A hearse doth hang, which doth me tell
That I ere morning may be dead,
Though now I feel myself full well.”
ROBERT SOUTHWELL.
DEATH TOKENS AND SUPERSTITIONS.
THE DEATH-TOKEN OF THE VINGOES.
“The messenger of God
With golden trumpe I see,
With many other angels more,
Which sound and call for me.
Instead of musicke sweet,
Go toll my passing bell.”
_The Bride’s Burial._
When you cross the brook which divides St Leven from Sennen, you are on
the estate of Treville.
Tradition tells us that this estate was given to an old family who came
with the Conqueror to this country. This ancestor is said to have been
the Duke of Normandy’s wine-taster, and that he belonged to the ancient
counts of Treville, hence the name of the estate. Certain it is the
property has ever been held without poll deeds. For many generations the
family has been declining, and the race is now nearly, if not quite,
extinct.
Through all time a peculiar token has marked the coming death of a
Vingoe. Above the deep caverns in the Treville cliff rises a carn. On
this, chains of fire were seen ascending and descending, and often
accompanied by loud and frightful noises.
It is said that these tokens have not been seen since the last male of
the family came to a violent end.
THE DEATH FETCH OF WILLIAM RUFUS.
Robert, Earl of Moreton, in Normandy,—who always carried the standard of
St Michael before him in battle,—was made Earl of Cornwall by William the
Conqueror. He was remarkable for his valour and for his virtue, for the
exercise of his power, and his benevolence to the priests. This was the
Earl of Cornwall who gave the Mount in Cornwall to the monks of Mont St
Michel in Normandy. He seized upon the priory of St Petroc at Bodmin, and
converted all the lands to his own use.
This Earl of Cornwall was an especial friend of William Rufus. It
happened that Robert, the earl, was hunting in the extensive woods around
Bodmin—of which some remains are still to be found in the Glyn Valley.
The chase had been a severe one; a fine old red deer had baffled the
huntsmen, and they were dispersed through the intricacies of the forest,
the Earl of Cornwall being left alone. He advanced beyond the shades of
the woods on to the moors above them, and he was surprised to see a very
large black goat advancing over the plain. As it approached him, which
it did rapidly, he saw that it bore on its back “King Rufus,” all black
and naked, and wounded through in the midst of his breast. Robert adjured
the goat, in the name of the Holy Trinity, to tell what it was he carried
so strangely. He answered, “I am carrying your king to judgment; yea,
that tyrant William Rufus, for I am an evil spirit, and the revenger of
his malice which he bore to the Church of God. It was I that did cause
this slaughter; the protomartyr of England, St Albyn, commanding me so to
do, who complained to God of him, for his grievous oppression in this
Isle of Britain, which he first hallowed.” Having so spoken, the spectre
vanished. Robert, the earl, related the circumstance to his followers,
and they shortly after learned that at that very hour William Rufus had
been slain in the New Forest by the arrow of Walter Tirell.
SIR JOHN ARUNDELL.
In the first year of the reign of Edward IV., the brave Sir John Arundell
dwelt on the north coast of Cornwall, at a place called Efford, on the
coast near Stratton. He was a magistrate, and greatly esteemed amongst
men for his honourable conduct. He had, however, in his official
capacity, given offence to a wild shepherd, who had by some means
acquired considerable influence over the minds of the people, under the
impression of his possessing some supernatural powers. This man had been
imprisoned by Arundell, and on his return home he constantly waylaid the
knight, and, always looking threateningly at him, slowly muttered,—
“When upon the yellow sand,
Thou shalt die by human hand.”
Notwithstanding the bravery of Sir John Arundell, he was not free from
the superstitions of the period. He might, indeed, have been impressed
with the idea that this man intended to murder him. It is, however,
certain that he removed from Efford on the sands, to the wood-clad hills
of Trerice, and here he lived for some years without the annoyance of
meeting his old enemy. In the tenth year of Edward IV., Richard de Vere,
earl of Oxford, seized St Michael’s Mount. Sir John Arundell, then
sheriff of Cornwall, gathered together his own retainers and a large host
of volunteers, and led them to the attack on St Michael’s Mount. The
retainers of the Earl of Oxford, on one occasion, left the castle, and
made a sudden rush upon Arundell’s followers, who were encamped on the
sands near Marazion. Arundell then received his death-wound. Although he
left Efford “to counteract the will of fate,” the prophecy was fulfilled;
and in his dying moments, it is said his old enemy appeared, singing
joyously,—
“When upon the yellow sand,
Thou shalt die by human hand.”
PHANTOMS OF THE DYING.
A gay party were assembled one afternoon, in the latter days of January,
in the best parlour of a farmhouse near the Land’s-End. The inhabitants
of this district were, in many respects, peculiar. Nearly all the land
was divided up between, comparatively, a few owners, and every owner
lived on and farmed his own land.
This circumstance, amongst others, led to a certain amount of style in
many of the old farmhouses of the Land’s-End district; and even now,
in some of them, from which, alas! the glory has departed, may be seen
the evidences of taste beyond that which might have been expected in so
remote a district.
The “best parlour” was frequently panelled with carved oak, and the
ceiling, often highly, though it must be admitted, heavily decorated. In
such a room, in the declining light of a January afternoon, were some ten
or a dozen farmers’ daughters, all of them unmarried, and many of them
having an eye on the farmer’s eldest son, a fine young man about twenty
years of age, called Joseph.
This farmer and his wife, at the time of which we speak, had three
sons and two daughters. The eldest son was an excellent and amiable
young man, possessed of many personal attractions, and especially fond
of the society of his sisters and their friends. The next son was of
a very different stamp, and was more frequently found in the inn at
Church-town than in his father’s house; the younger son was an apprentice
at Penzance. The two daughters, Mary and Honour, had coaxed their mother
into “a tea and heavy cake” party, and Joseph was especially retained, to
be, as every one said he was, “the life of the company.”
In those days, when, especially in those parts, every one took dinner at
noon, and tea not much after four o’clock, the party had assembled early.
There had been the usual preliminary gossip amongst the young people,
when they began to talk about the wreck of a fruit-ship which had
occurred but a few days before, off the Land’s-End, and it was said that
considerable quantities of oranges were washing into Nangissell Cove.
Upon this, Joseph said he would take one of the men from the farm, and
go down to the cove—which was not far off—and see if they could not find
some oranges for the ladies.
The day had faded into twilight, the western sky was still bright
with the light of the setting sun, and the illuminated clouds shed a
certain portion of their splendour into the room in which the party were
assembled. The girls were divided up into groups, having their own pretty
little bits of gossip, often truly delightful from its entire freedom and
its innocence; and the mother of Joseph was seated near the fireplace,
looking with some anxiety through the windows, from which you commanded a
view of the Atlantic Ocean. The old lady was restless; sometimes she had
to whisper something to Mary, and then some other thing to Honour. Her
anxiety, at length, was expressed in her wondering where Joseph could be
tarrying so long. All the young ladies sought to ease her mind by saying
that there were no doubt so many orange-gatherers in the Cove, that
Joseph and the man could not get so much fruit as he desired.
Joseph was the favourite son of his mother, and her anxiety evidently
increased. Eventually, starting from her chair, the old lady exclaimed,
“Oh, here he is; now I’ll see about the tea.”
With a pleased smile on her face, she left the room, to return, however,
to it in deeper sorrow.
The mother expected to meet her son at the door—he came not. Thinking
that he might possibly have been wetted by the sea, and that he had gone
round the house to another door leading directly into the kitchen, for
the purpose of drying himself, or of changing his boots, she went into
the dairy to fetch the basin of clotted cream,—which had been “taken up”
with unusual care,—to see if the junket was properly set, and to spread
the flaky cream thickly upon its surface.
Strange,—as the old lady subsequently related,—all the pans of milk were
agitated—“the milk rising up and down like the waves of the sea.”
The anxious mother returned to the parlour with her basin of cream,
but with an indescribable feeling of an unknown terror. She commanded
herself, and, in her usual quiet way, asked if Joseph had been in. When
they answered her “No,” she sighed heavily, and sank senseless into a
chair.
Neither Joseph nor the servant ever returned alive. They were seen
standing together upon a rock, stooping to gather oranges as they came
with each wave up to their feet, when one of the heavy swells—the
lingering undulations of a tempest, so well known on this coast—came
sweeping onward, and carried them both away in its cave of waters, as the
wave curved to ingulf them.
The undertow of the tidal current was so strong that, though powerful men
and good swimmers, they were carried at once beyond all human aid, and
speedily perished.
The house of joy became a house of mourning, and sadness rested on it for
years. Day after day passed by, and, although a constant watch was kept
along the coast, it was not until the fated ninth day that the bodies
were discovered, and they were then found in a sadly mutilated state.
Often after long years, and when the consolations derivable from pure
religious feeling had brought that tranquillity upon the mind of this
loving mother,—which so much resembles the poetical repose of an autumnal
evening,—has she repeated to me the sad tale.
Again and again have I heard her declare that she saw Joseph, her son, as
distinctly as ever she saw him in her life, and that, as he passed the
parlour windows, he looked in upon her and smiled.
This is not given as a superstition belonging in any peculiar way to
Cornwall. In every part of the British Isles it exists; but I have never
met with any people who so firmly believed in the appearance of the
phantoms of the dying to those upon whom the last thoughts are centred,
as the Cornish did.
Another case is within my knowledge.
A lady, the wife of an officer in the navy, had been with her husband’s
sister, on a summer evening, to church. The husband was in the
Mediterranean, and there was no reason to expect his return for many
months.
These two ladies returned home, and the wife, ascending the stairs before
her sister-in-law, went into the drawing-room—her intention being to
close the windows, which, as the weather had been warm and fine, had been
thrown open.
She had proceeded about half way across the room, when she shrieked, ran
back, and fell into her sister-in-law’s arms. Upon recovery, she stated
that a figure, like that of her husband, enveloped in a mist, appeared to
her to fill one of the windows.
By her friends, the wife’s fancies were laughed at; and, if not
forgotten, the circumstance was no longer spoken of.
Month after month glided by, without intelligence of the ship to which
that officer belonged. At length the Government became anxious, and
searching inquiries were made. Some time still elapsed, but eventually it
was ascertained that this sloop of war had perished in a white squall, in
which she became involved, near the Island of Mitylene, in the Grecian
Archipelago, on the Sunday evening when the widow fancied she saw her
husband.
THE WHITE HARE.
It is a very popular fancy that when a maiden, who has loved not wisely
but too well, dies forsaken and broken-hearted, that she comes back to
haunt her deceiver in the shape of a white hare.
This phantom follows the false one everywhere, mostly invisible to all
but him. It sometimes saves him from danger, but invariably the white
hare causes the death of the betrayer in the end.
The following story of the white hare is a modification of several tales
of the same kind which have been told me. Many, many years have passed
away, and all who were in any way connected with my story have slept for
generations in the quiet churchyard of ——.
A large landed proprietor engaged a fine, handsome young fellow to manage
his farm, which was a very extensive as well as a high-class one. When
the young farmer was duly settled in his new farmhouse, there came to
live with him, to take the management of the dairy, a peasant’s daughter.
She was very handsome, and of a singularly fine figure, but entirely
without education.
The farmer became desperately in love with this young creature, and
eventually their love passed all the bounds of discretion. It became the
policy of the young farmer’s family to put down this unfortunate passion,
by substituting a more legitimate and endearing object.
After a long trial, they thought they were successful, and the young
farmer was married.
Many months had not passed away when the discharged dairy-maid was
observed to suffer from illness, which, however, she constantly spoke
of as nothing; but knowing dames saw too clearly the truth. One morning
there was found in a field a newly-born babe strangled. The unfortunate
girl was at once suspected as being the parent, and the evidence was soon
sufficient to charge her with the murder. She was tried, and, chiefly
by the evidence of the young farmer and his family, convicted of, and
executed for, the murder.
Everything now went wrong in the farm, and the young man suddenly left it
and went into another part of the country.
Still nothing prospered, and gradually he took to drink to drown some
secret sorrow. He was more frequently on the road by night than by day;
and, go where he would, a white hare was constantly crossing his path.
The white hare was often seen by others, almost always under the feet of
his horse; and the poor terrified animal would go like the wind to avoid
the strange apparition.
One morning the young farmer was found drowned in a forsaken mine; and
the horse, which had evidently suffered extreme terror, was grazing near
the corpse. Beyond all doubt the white hare, which is known to hunt the
perjured and the false-hearted to death, had terrified the horse to such
a degree, that eventually the rider was thrown into the mine-waste in
which the body was found.
THE HAND OF A SUICIDE.
Placing the hand of a man who has died by his own act is a cure for many
diseases.
The following is given me by a thinking man, living in one of the towns
in the west of Cornwall:—
“There is a young man in this town who had been afflicted with running
tumours from his birth. When about seventeen years of age he had the hand
of a man who had hanged himself passed over the wounds on his back, and,
strange to say, he recovered from that time, and is now comparatively
robust and hearty. This incident is true; I was present when the charm
was performed. It should be observed that the notion appears to be that
the ‘touch’ is only effectual on the opposite sex; but in this case they
were both, the suicide and the afflicted one, of the same sex.”
This is only a modified form of the superstition that a wen, or any
strumous swelling, can be cured by touching it with the dead hand of a
man who has just been publicly hanged.
I once saw a young woman led on to the scaffold, in the Old Bailey, for
the purpose of having a wen touched with the hand of a man who had just
been executed.
THE NORTH SIDE OF A CHURCH.
A strong prejudice has long existed against burying on the northern side
of the church. In many churchyards the southern side will be found full
of graves, with scarcely any on the northern side.
I have sought to discover, if possible, the origin of this prejudice,
but I have not been able to trace it to any well-defined feeling. I have
been answered, “Oh, we like to bury a corpse where the sun will shine on
the grave;” and, “The northern graveyard is in the shadow, and cold;” but
beyond this I have not advanced.
We may infer that this desire to place the remains of our friends in
earth on which the sun shines, is born of that love which, forgetting
mortality, lives on the pleasant memories of the past, hoping for that
meeting beyond the grave which shall know no shadow. The act of planting
flowers, of nurturing an evergreen tree, of hanging “eternals” on the
tomb, is only another form of the same sacred feeling.
POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS.
It is, or rather was, believed, in nearly every part of the West of
England, that death is retarded, and the dying kept in a state of
suffering, by having any lock closed, or any bolt shot, in the dwelling
of the dying person.
A man cannot die easy on a bed made of fowls’ feathers, or the feathers
of wild birds.
Never carry a corpse to church by a new road.
Whenever a guttering candle folds over its cooling grease, it is watched
with much anxiety. If it curls upon itself it is said to form the “handle
of a coffin,” and the person towards whom it is directed will be in
danger of death.
Bituminous coal not unfrequently swells into bubbles, these bubbles of
coal containing carburetted hydrogen gas. When the pressure becomes
great they burst, and often throw off the upper section with some
explosive force. According to the shape of the piece thrown off, so is
it named. If it proves round it is a purse of money; if oblong, it is a
coffin, and the group towards which it flew will be in danger.
If a cock crows at midnight, the angel of death is passing over the
house; and if he delays to strike, the delay is only for a short season.
The howling of a dog is a sad sign. If repeated for three nights, the
house against which it howled will soon be in mourning.
A raven croaking over a cottage fills its inmates with gloom.
There are many other superstitions and tokens connected with life and
death, but those given shew the general character of those feelings
which I may, I think, venture to call the “inner life” of the Cornish
people. It will be understood by all who have studied the peculiarities
of any Celtic race, that they have ever been a peculiarly impressible
people. They have ever observed the phenomena of nature; and they
have interpreted them with hopeful feelings, or despondent anxiety,
according as they have been surrounded by cheerful or by sorrow-inducing
circumstances. That melancholy state of mind, which is so well expressed
by the word “whisht,” leads the sufferer to find a “sign” or a “token”
in the trembling of a leaf, or in the lowering of the tempest-clouds. A
collection of the almost infinite variety of these “signs and tokens”
which still exist, would form a curious subject for an essay. Yet this
could only now be done by a person who would skilfully win the confidence
of the miner or the peasant. They feel that they might subject themselves
to ridicule by an indiscreet disclosure of the religion of their souls.
When, if ever, such a collection is made, it will be found that these
superstitions have their origin in the purest feelings of the heart—that
they are the shadowings forth of love, tinctured with the melancholy dyes
of that fear which is born of mystery.
One would desire that even those old superstitions should be preserved.
They illustrate a state of society, in the past, which will never again
return. There are but few reflecting minds which do not occasionally feel
a lingering regret that times should pass away during which life was not
a reflection of cold reason.
But these things must fade as a knowledge of nature’s laws is
disseminated amongst the people. Yet there is—
The lonely mountains o’er,
And the resounding shore,
A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;
From haunted spring and dale,
Edged with poplar pale,
The parting genius is, with sighing sent.
OLD USAGES.
“The king was to his palace, though the service was ydo,
Yled with his meinie, and the queen to her also;
For she held _the old usages_.”
ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER.
CUSTOMS OF ANCIENT DAYS.
SANDING THE STEP ON NEW YEAR’S-DAY.
“They say, miracles are past, and we have our philosophical
persons, to make modern and familiar things supernatural
and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors,
ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge.”—_All’s Well that
Ends Well_—SHAKESPEARE.
In the rural districts of Cornwall, it is thought to be unlucky if a
female is the first to enter the house on new-year’s morning. To insure
the contrary, it was customary to give boys some small reward for placing
sand on the door-steps and in the passage.
In many places, not many years since, droves of boys would march through
the towns and villages, collecting their fees for “sanding your step for
good luck.”