St. Levan people are said to have acquired their remarkable name of St.
Levan Witches from the belief—once general—that the inhabitants of that
remote parish were, in days of yore, much addicted to the practice of
necromancy, particularly witchcraft. Old folks held that all the West
Country witches used to meet and hold their revels in Castle Trereen;
until they mounted to the Castle Peak, and, bestriding their brooms or
ragwort stalk, thence took their departure for Wales, Brittany, and
even to Spain. Most nights, however, they merely went over and got a
good “blow out” (feast) on the milk of Taffy’s cows. At times, too,
Tol-pedn-penwith was their place of assembly, whence they started to
wreck ships and perform other deviltry.
If old traditions may be relied on, the unseemly nickname of Sennen ——
originated in a somewhat remarkable way. They say that it was given
long ago, owing to the Danish blood inherited by a few families who
lived on the shore of Whitsand Bay.
Many Land’s End folks have still a strong antipathy to what they regard
as marks of descent from northern pirates, who ravaged the West more
than a thousand years ago.
Here, in old times, Scandinavians generally seem to have been called
Danes; and from the prevalence, in some families of this parish, of the
fiery-hued hair ascribed to those northern marauders, the inference is
obvious, and the vulgar nickname accounted for which was given in ages
past, and “originated with kind and discriminating neighbours.”
No doubt the neighbouring witches, just mentioned, kindly performed
their share of the nicknaming.
The stories referring to the “red-haired Danes’” incursions seem to be
handed down from a time more remote than that of King Olof’s conversion
at the Scilly Islands, and much of what they say is confirmed by Snorri
Sturluson in his Heimskringla.