Popular Romances of the West of England: Annotated

POPULAR ROMANCES OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND

Robert Hunt

THE DROLLS, TRADITIONS,

AND SUPERSTITIONS OF OLD CORNWALL

Preface

DURING the last few years a new interest has been awakened, and the West of England has attracted the attention of many, who had previously neglected the scenes of interest, and the spots of beauty, which are to be found in our own island.

The rugged granite range of Dartmoor, rich with the golden furze; the moorlands of Cornwall, with their mighty Tors and giant boulders fringed with ferns and framed in masses of purple heath; the stern coasts, washed by an emerald sea, quaint with rocks carved into grotesque forms by the beating of waves and winds, spread with the green samphire and coated with yellow lichens; are now found to have a peculiar-- though a wild--often a savage--beauty. The wood-clad valleys, ringing with the rush of rivers, and the sheltered plains, rich with an almost tropical vegetation, present new features of interest to the stranger's eyes, in the varied characters of the organisation native to that south-western clime.

The railways give great facilities for visiting those scenes, of which the public eagerly avail themselves. But they have robbed the West of England of half its interest, by dispelling the spectres of romance which were, in hoar antiquity, the ruling spirits of the place.

The Romances of the West of England -- collected into a volume which has served its purpose well--gives the tourist the means of restoring the giants and the fairies to their native haunts.

The growing inquiries of those who are desirous of knowing something of the ancient Cornish miners,--of the old peasantry of this peninsula, and of the aged fishermen who almost lived upon the Atlantic waters,--have convinced me that a third edition of this volume of folk-lore has become a necessity.

While correcting the pages for a new edition, a scientific friend, who was deep in the cold thrall of positivism, called upon me. ''He noticed the work upon which I was engaged, and remarked, I suppose you invented most of these stories.

In these days, when our most sacred things are being sneered at, and the poetry of life is being repressed by the prose of a cold infidelity, this remark appears to render it a humiliating necessity, to assure my reader that none of the legends in this volume have been invented. They were all of them gathered in their native homes, more than half a century since, as stated fully in the Introduction to the volume.

For this edition some necessary corrections have been made; and additions will be found in the Appendix, which it is thought will increase the interest of the volume.

ROBERT HUNT

March 1881.

Introduction

THE beginning of this collection of Popular Romances may I be truly said to date from my early childhood. I remember with what anticipations of pleasure, sixty-eight years since, I stitched together a few sheets of paper, and carefully pasted them into the back of an old book. This was preparatory to a visit I was about to make with my mother to Bodmin, about which town many strange stories were told, and my purpose was to record them. My memory retains dim shadows of a wild tale of Hender the Huntsman of Lanhydrock; of a narrative of streams having been poisoned by the monks; and of a legend of a devil who. played many strange pranks with the tower which stands on a neighbouring hill. I have, within the last year? endeavoured to recover those stories, but in vain. The living people appear to have forgotten them; my juvenile note-book has long been lost those traditions are, it is to be feared, gone forever.

Fifteen years passed away--about six of them at school in Cornwall, and nine of them in close labour in London,--when failing health compelled my return to the West of England. Having spent about a month on the borders of Dartmoor, and wandered over that wild region of Granite Tors, gathering up its traditions,--ere yet Mrs Bray ¹ had thought of doing so, -- I resolved on walking through Cornwall. Thirty-five years since, on a beautiful spring morning, I landed at Saltash, from the very ancient passage-boat which in those days conveyed men and women, carts-and cattle, across the river Tamar, where now that triumph of engineering, the Albert Bridge, gracefully spans its waters. Sending my box forward to Liskeard by a van, my wanderings commenced; my purpose being to visit each relic of Old Cornwall, and to gather up every existing tale of its ancient people. Ten months were delightfully spent in this way; and in that period a large number of the romances and superstitions which are published in these volumes were collected, with many more, which have been weeded out of the collection as worthless.

During the few weeks which were spent on the borders of Dart-moor, accidental circumstances placed me in the very centre of a circle who believed there were giants on the earth in those days to which the old people belonged, and who were convinced that to turn a coat-sleeve or a stocking prevented the piskies from misleading man or woman. I drank deeply from the stream of legendary lore which was at that time flowing, as from a well of living waters, over Devonia's dreary Alps; ² and longed to renew my acquaintance with the wild tales of Cornwall, which had either terrified or amused me when a child.

My acquaintance with the fairies commenced at an early date. When a very boy, I have often been taken by a romantic young lady, who lives in my memory--

So bright, so fair, so wild, ³

to seek for the fairies on Lelant Towans. The maiden and the boy frequently sat for hours, entranced by the stories of an old woman, who lived in a cottage on the edge of the blown sandhills of that region. Thus were received my earliest lessons in fairy mythology.

From earthly youth accidental circumstances have led to my acquiring a taste for collecting the waifs floating upon the sea of time, which tell us something of those ancient peoples who have not a written history. The rude traditions of a race who appear to have possessed much native intelligence, minds wildly poetical, and great fertility of imagination, united with a deep feeling for the mysteries by which life is girdled, especially interested me. By the operation of causes beyond my control, I was removed from the groove of ordinary trade and placed in a position of considerable responsibility, in connection with one of the most useful institutions of Cornwall. ⁴ To nurse the germs of genius to maturity -- to seek those gems of purest ray serene, which the dark, though not unfathomed caves of the Cornish mines might produce--and to reward every effort of human industry, was the purpose of this institution. As its secretary, my duties, as well as my inclination, took me often into the mining and agricultural districts, and brought me into intimate relation with the miners and the peasantry. The bold shores of St Just--the dark and rock-clad hills of Morva, Zennor, and St Ives--the barren regions of St Agnes--the sandy undulations of Perranzabuloe--the sterile tracts of Gwennap--the howling moorlands of St Austell and Bodmin--and, indeed, every district in which there was a mine, became familiar ground. Away from the towns, at a period when the means of communication were few, and those few tedious, primitive manners still lingered. Education was not then, as now, the fashion. Church-schools were few and far between; and Wesleyan Methodism--although it was infusing truth and goodness amongst the people -- had not yet become conscious of the importance of properly educating the young. Always delighting in popular tales, no opportunity of hearing them was ever lost. Seated on a three-legged stool, or in a timberen settle, near the blazing heath-fire on the hearth, have I elicited the old stories of which the people were beginning to be ashamed. Resting in a level, after the toil of climbing from the depths of a mine, in close companionship with the homely miner, his superstitions, and the tales which he had heard from his grandfather, have been confided to me.

To the present hour my duties take me constantly into the most remote districts of Cornwall and Devon, so that, as boy and as man, I have possessed the best possible opportunities for gathering up the folk-lore of a people, who, but a few generations since, had a language peculiarly their own, ⁵ a people, who, like all the Celts, cling with sincere affection to the memories of the past, and who even now regard with jealousy the introduction of any novelty, and accept improvements slowly.

The store of old-world stories which had been collected under the circumstances described would, perhaps, never have taken their present form, if Mr Thomas Wright had not shown the value of studying the Cyclopean Walls of the promontory beyond Penzance, popularly called The Giant's Hedges,--and if Mr J. O. Halliwell had not told us that his Rambles in Western Cornwall, by the Footsteps of the Giants, had led him to attempt to remove part of a veil beyond which lies hid a curious episode in the history of an ancient people.

In writing of the Giants, the fairies, and the spectral bands, I have often asked myself, How is it possible to account for the enduring life of those romantic tales, under the constantly-repressing influences of Christian teaching, and of the advances of civilisation? I have, to some extent, satisfied myself by such a reply as the following:--

Those things which make a strong impression on the mind of the child are rarely obliterated by the education through which he advances to maturity, and they exert their influences upon the man in advanced age. A tale of terror, related by an ignorant nurse, rivets the attention of an infant mind, and its details are engraven on the memory. The bogle, or bogie, with which the child is terrified into quiet by some thoughtless servant, remains a dim and unpleasant reality to shake the nerves of the philosopher. Things like these--seeing that existence is surrounded by clouds of mystery--become a Power which will, ever and anon through life, exert considerable control over our actions. As it is with the individual, so is it with the race to which that individual belongs. When our Celtic ancestors--in the very darkness of their ignorance--were taught, through their fears, a Pantheistic religion, and saw a god in every grand phenomenon:-- when not merely the atmospheric changes--the aspects of the starry sky--and the peculiarities apparent in the sun and moon, were watched with fearful anxiety; but when the trembling of a rock--the bubbling of a spring--the agitation of the forest leaves--and the flight of a bird, were charged with sentences of life and death;--then was moulded the Celtic mind, and the early impressions have never been entirely obliterated. There were maddening orgies amongst the sacred rites of the Britons; orgies that, whilst they reminded one writer of the Bacchic dances, reminded another of the worship of Demeter. ⁶

The Romans came and possessed the land. Even to the most westerly promontory, we have evidences of their rule, and indications of their superiority. The Saxons overcame the Damnoni--Athelstane drove the Cornish beyond the Tamar, and planted his banner over the Scilly Islands;--and this Teutonic people diffused their religion and their customs over the West. ⁷ The Dane followed upon the Saxon, and he has left his earthworks, in evidence of his possession, upon the Cornish hills. ⁸ The Norman conquerors eventually took possession of our island, and several of the existing families of Cornwall can speak of ancestors, who won their lands by favour of William, the Duke of Normandy.

Notwithstanding the influences which can be--not very obscurely--traced of Roman and Saxon, Danish and Norman civilisations, the Celtic superstitions lingered on:-- varied perhaps in their clothing, but in all essentials the same. Those wild dreams which swayed with irresistible force the skin-clad Briton of the Cornish hills, have not yet entirely lost their power where even the National and the British Schools are busy with the people, and Mechanics' Institutions are diffusing the truths of science. In the infancy of the race, terror was the moving power: in the maturity of the people, the dark shadow still sometimes rises, like a spectre, partially eclipsing the mild radiance of that Christian truth which shines upon the land.

It must not be forgotten that Cornwall has, until a recent period, maintained a somewhat singular isolation. England, with many persons, appeared to terminate on the shores of the river Tamar; and the wreckers of the coasts, and the miners of the hills, were equally regarded as indicating the semi-civilisation of this county. The difficulties of travelling in Cornwall were great. A clergyman writing in I788, says, Our object was now to obtain a passage to Loo, without losing sight of the noble sea. Saddle-horses would render the difficulty of this route a pleasure, but with my carriage it is deemed impracticable. ⁹ Again, he tells us he was with his guide five 'hours coming the eleven miles from Loo to Lostwithiel. Within my own memory, the ordinary means of travelling from Penzance to Plymouth was by a van called a kitterine, and three days were 'occupied in the journey. There was in latter years, a mail coach, but the luxury of this conveyance was, even then, reserved for the wealthier classes. This difficulty of transit in a great measure explains the seclusion of the people up to a comparatively recent period; and to it we certainly owe the preservation of their primitive character, and most of the material to be found in these volumes. At one period indeed--but still earlier than the days of kitterines--we find the Cornish people, as a body, curiously, but completely, cut off by the river Tamar, from their countrymen. They were then informed of the active life of the world beyond them by the travelling historian only, who, as he also sought amuse the people, was called the droll-teller.

The wandering minstrel, story-teller, and newsmonger appears to have been an old institution amongst the Cornish. Indeed Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, tells us that the last of the Wideslades, whose estates were forfeited in the Rebellion, was called Sir Tristram. He led a walking life with his harp to gentlemen's houses. As the newspaper gradually found its way into this western county (the first one circulated in Cornwall being the Sherbourne Mercury), the occupation of this representative of the bards was taken away; but he has only become extinct within the last twenty years. These old men wandered constantly from house to house, finding a hearty welcome at all. Board and bed were readily found them, their only payment being a song or a droll (story). A gentleman to whom I am under many obligations writes:-- "The only wandering droll-teller whom I well remember was an old blind man, from the parish of Cury,--I think, as he used to tell many stories about the clever doings of the conjurer Luty of that place, and by that means procure the conjurer much practice from the people of the west. The old man had been a soldier in his youth, and had a small pension at the time he went over the country, accompanied by a boy and dog. He neither begged nor offered anything for sale, but was sure of a welcome to bed and board in every house he called at. He would seldom stop in the same house more than one night, not because he had exhausted his stories, or 'eaten his welcome,' but because it required all his time to visit his acquaintances once in the year. The old man was called Uncle Anthony James. (Uncle is a term of respect, which was very commonly applied to aged men by their juniors in Cornwall. Aunt (A'nt or Ann), as A'nt Sally or Ann' Jenney, was used in the same manner when addressing aged women.

"Uncle Anthony James used to arrive every year in St Leven parish about the end of August. Soon after he reached my father's house, he would stretch himself on the 'chimney-stool,' and sleep until supper-time. When the old man had finished his frugal meal of bread and milk, he would tune his fiddle and ask il 'missus' would like to hear him sing her favourite ballad. As soon as my dear mother told him how pleased she would be, Uncle Anthony would go through the 'woeful hunting'; (' Chevy Chase '), from beginning to end, accompanied by the boy and the fiddle. I expect the air was his own composition, as every verse was a different tune. The young were then gratified by hearing the 'streams' (strains) of 'Lovely Nancy,' divided in three parts. ¹⁰ I never saw this ballad published, yet it is a very romantic old thing, almost as long as 'Chevy Chase.' Another favourite was --

'Cold blows the wind to-day, sweetheart;

Cold are the drops of rain;

The first truelove that ever I had

In the green wood he was slain.

"Twas down in the garden-green, sweetheart,

Where you and I did walk;

The fairest flower that in the garden grew

Is withered to a stalk.

'The stalk will bear no leaves, sweetheart;

The flowers will ne'er return;

And since my truelove is dead and gone,

What can I do but mourn?

'A twelvemonth and a day being gone,

The spirit rose and spoke--

"My body is clay cold, sweetheart;

My breath smells heavy arid strong;

And if you kiss my lily-white lips,

Your time will not be long."

"Then follows a stormy kind of duet between the maiden and her lover's ghost, who tries to persuade the maid to accompany him to the world of shadows. Uncle Anthony had also a knack of turning Scotch and Irish songs into Cornish ditties. 'Barbara Allan' he managed in the following way, and few knew but that he had composed the song:--

'In Cornwall I was born and bred,

In Cornwall was my dwelling;

And there I courted a pretty maid,

Her name was Ann Tremellan.

The old man had the 'Babes in the Wood' for religious folks; but he avoided the ' Conorums,' as he called the Methodists. Yet the grand resource was the stories in which the supernatural bore great part. The story I told you about the ancestors of the conjurer Luty finding the mermaid, who gave them the power to break the spell of witchcraft, was one of this old man's tales, which he seemed to believe; and he regarded the conjurer with as much respect as the bard might the priest in olden time. I have a dim recollection of another old droll-teller, called Billy Frost, in St Just, who used to go round to the feasts in the neighbouring parishes, and be well entertained at the public-houses for the sake of his drolls.

In 1829 there still existed two of those droll-tellers, and from them were obtained a few of the stories here preserved.

These wanderers perpetuated the traditions of the old inhabitants; but they modified the stories, according to the activity of their fancy, to please their auditors. Not merely this: they without doubt introduced the names of people remembered by the villagers; and when they knew that a man had incurred the hatred of his neighbours, they made him do duty as a demon, or placed him in no very enviable relation with the devil. The legends of Tregeagle are illustrations of this. The man who has gained the notoriety of being attached to a tale as old as that of Orestes,--was a magistrate in Cornwall two hundred years since. The story of the murderess of Ludgvan and her lover is another, and a very modern, example of the process by which recent events are interwoven with very ancient superstitions. ¹¹

When the task of arranging my romances was commenced, I found that the traditions of Devonshire, as far east as Exeter--the tract of country which was known as Danmonium, or even more recently as Old Cornwall -- had a striking family resemblance. My collection then received the name it bears, as embracing the district ordinarily known as the West of England. Although I have avoided repeating any of the traditions which are to be found in Mrs Bray's books; I have not altered my title; for the examples of folk-lore given in these volumes belong strictly to Old Cornwall

There are some points of peculiar interest connected with the Dartmoor traditions, indicating, as I conceive, a purely Saxon origin, deserving an attention which they have not yet received.

Childe's Tomb, in one of the dreariest portions of the moor, is a large cross of granite. This Childe, lord of the manor of Plymstock, was benighted on the moor in a snowstorm; he killed his horse, and got within its body for warmth, having first written in blood on a granite slab, near which he was found dead,--

"The first that finds and brings me to my grave,

The lands of Plymstock he shall have.'

The Benedictine monks of Tavistock are said to have found the body, and thus secured their right to the lands. This is without doubt an old Saxon legend, modified, as it has been handed down from age to age. Wistman's Wood, with its hundred oaks one hundred yards high,--a remnant of the old Dartmoor Forest,--is the very home of the Wish hounds, which hunt so fiercely over the Moor; and this Wistman appears to have been some demon creature, whose name alone remains. Mr Kemble gives Wusc, or Wisc, as one of the 'names of Odin. Here we have a similar name given to a strange wood in Devonshire, associated with wild superstitions; and whish, or whisht, is a common term for that weird sorrow which is associated with mysterious causes.

The stone circles, the stone avenues, and the rock tribunals,--of which Crockern Tor furnishes us with a fine example,--have yet tales to tell, which would well repay any labour that might be bestowed upon them. Ancient British rule gave way to Saxon power, and probably there was no tract in England less known to the Romans than Dartmoor. Thus we may expect to find the paganism of the Briton and the rude Christianity of the Saxon, shadowed out in the remaining legends of Dartmoor.

"Crocker, Conwys, and Coplestone,

When the Conqueror came, were found at home,"

is an old Devonshire rhyme. Those names are associated with many a moorland tradition, and indicate their Saxon origin.

It may appear strange to many, that having dealt with the superstitions of the Cornish people, no mention has been made of the Divining Rod (the " Dowzing Rod, as it is called), and its use in the discovery of mineral lodes. This has been avoided, in the first place, because any mention of the practice of dowzing" would lead to a discussion, for which this work is not intended; and, in the second place, because the use of the hazel-twig is not Cornish. The divining or dowzing rod is certainly not older than the German miners, who were brought over by Queen Elizabeth to teach the Cornish to work their mines, one of whom, called Schutz, was some time Warden of the Stannaries. 'Indeed, there is good reason for believing that the use of this wand is of more recent date, and, consequently, removed from the periods which are sought to be illustrated by this collection. The Divining Rod belongs no more to them than do the modern mysteries of twirling hats, of teaching tables to turn, and,--in their wooden way,--to talk.

The giant stories, prefaced with the often-told tale of Gogmagog, are of a character peculiarly their own. They do not appear to resemble the giants described in Mr Campbell's Popular Tales of the West Highlands; but it must be admitted that there are some indications of a common origin between those of Cromarty and of Cornwall, In Mr Dasent 's translation of Asbjornsen, and Moe's collection of Norse Tales, the giant is not like our native friends. May we venture to believe that the Cornish giant is a true Celt, or may he not belong to an earlier race? He was fond of home, and we have no record of his ever having passed beyond the wilds of Dartmoor. The giants of Lancashire, of Cheshire, and Shropshire have a family likeness, and are, no doubt, closely related; but if they are cousins to the Cornish giants, they are cousins far removed. Dr Latham, in his Ethnology of the British Islands, says Tradition, too, indicates the existence of an old march or debatable land; for south of Rugby begins the scene of the deeds of Guy, Earl of Warwick, the slayer of the dun cow. The large bone which is shown in Redcliff Church, Bristol, is the last indication of the dun cow in the south. As this marvellous cow moved within prescribed limits, so was it with the giants of old Cornwall.

The fairies of Cornwall do not exhibit the same marked individuality. Allowing for the influences of physical conditions, they are clearly seen to be an offshoot from the common stock. Yet they have several local peculiarities, and possess names which are especially their own.

A few of the more popular legends of the Cornish saints are preserved, for the purpose of showing how enduringly the first impressions of power, as exhibited by the earliest missionaries, have remained fixed amongst the people; this being due mainly to the mental operation of associating mental power and physical strength with external things in the relations of cause and effect.

I cannot but consider myself fortunate in having collected these traditions thirty-five years ago. They could not be collected now. Mr J. O. Halliwell speaks of the difficulties he experienced in his endeavours to obtain a story. The common people think they will be laughed at if they tell their ould drolls to a stranger. Beyond this, many of the stories have died out with those who told them. In the autumn of 1862, being very desirous of getting every example of folk-lore which existed in the remote parishes of Zennor and Morva, I employed the late C. Taylor Stephens, sometime rural postman from St Ives to Zennor, and the author of The Chief of Barat-Anac, to hunt over the district. This he did with especial care, and the results of his labours are included in those pages. The postman and poet, although he spent many days and nights amidst the peasantry, failed to procure stories which had been told me, without hesitation, thirty years before.

When it was known that I was engaged in preparing for publication a work on the Traditions and Superstitions of Cornwall, numerous contributions, from much-valued friends, and from strangers interested in the preservation of these characteristics of the West of England, were sent to me. From these some stories have been selected, but by far the larger number were modifications of stories already told. My obligations and thanks are, nevertheless, due to all; but there are two gentlemen to whom acknowledgments beyond this are necessary. These are Mr T. Q. Couch, who had already published examples of the folk-lore of Polperro and the neighbourhood, who has communicated several original stories, and Mr W. Botterell of Caerwyn, a native of St Leven, who possesses a greater knowledge of the household stories of the Land's-End district than any man living. Mr Botterell has, with much labour, supplied me with gleanings from his store, and his stories have been incorporated, in most cases, as he told them, Beyond this, it was satisfactory to have the correctness of many in my own collection confirmed by so reliable an authority. Without the assistance which this gentle-man has given, the West Cornwall stories would not have possessed the interest which will be found to belong to them.

One word on the subject of arrangement. In the First Series are arranged all such stories as appear to belong to the most ancient inhabitants of these islands. It is true that many of them, as they are now told, assume a medieval, or even a modern character. This is the natural result of the passage of a tradition or myth from one generation to another. The customs of the age in which the story is told are interpolated for the purpose of rendering them intelligible to the listeners, and thus they are constantly changing their exterior form. I am, however, disposed to believe that the spirit of all the romances included in this series shows them to have originated before the Christian era. The romances of the Second Series belong certainly to the historic period, though the dates of many of them are exceedingly problematical.

All the stories given in these volumes are the genuine household tales of the people. The only liberties which have been taken with them has been to alter them from the vernacular--in which they were for the most part related--into modern language. This applies to every romance but one. The Mermaid's Vengeance is a combination of three stories, having no doubt a common origin, but varying considerably in their details. They were too much alike to bear repeating; consequently it was thought best to throw them into one tale, which should preserve the peculiarities of all. This has been done with much care; and even the songs given preserve lines which are said by the fisherman--from whom the stories were obtained--to have been sung by the mermaids.

The traditions which are told, the superstitions which are spoken of, and the customs which are described in these volumes, may be regarded as true types of the ancient Cornish mythology, and genuine examples of the manners and customs of a people who will not readily deviate from the rules, taught them by their fathers.

Romances such as these have floated down to us as wreck upon the ocean. We gather a fragment here and a fragment there, And at length, it may be, we learn something of the name and character of the vessel when it was freighted with life, and obtain a shadowy image of the people who have perished.

Hoping to have been successful in saving a few interesting fragments of the unwritten records of a peculiar race, my labours are submitted to the world. The pleasure of recalling the past has fully repaid me for the labour of arranging the Traditions of Old Cornwall.

ROBERT HUNT.

The Giants

The Age Of The Giants

"Eald ents geweorc

Idiu stodon."-- The Wanderer. Exeter Book.

"The old works of giants

Stood desolate."--THOMAS WRIGHT.

IN wandering over some of the uncultivated tracts which still maintain their wildness, austerely and sullenly, against the march of cultivation, we are certain of finding rude masses of rock which have some relation to the giants. The giant's hand, or the giant's chair, or, it may be, the giant's punch-bowl, excites your curiosity. What were the mental peculiarities of the people who fixed so permanently those names on fantastic rock-masses? What are the conditions--mental or otherwise--necessary for the preservation of these ideas? are questions which I have often asked myself when wandering amidst the Tors of Dartmoor, and when seated upon the granite masses which spread themselves so strangely, yet so picturesquely, over Cam Brea and other rocky hills' in Cornwall. When questions of this kind are continually recurring, the mind naturally works out some reply, which satisfies at least itself; and it consequently not unfrequently reposes contentedly on a fallacy as baseless as the giant-spectre of the mountain mists. This may possibly be the condition at which I have arrived, and many of my readers may smile at my dreams. It is not in my nature to work without some hypothesis; but I endeavour to hold it as loosely as possible, that it may be yielded up readily the moment a more promising theory is born, whoever may be its parent--wherever its birthplace.

Giants, and every form of giant-idea, belong to the wilds of nature. I have never discovered the slightest indication of the existence of a tradition of giants, of the true legendary type, in a fertile valley or in a well-cultivated plain. Wherever there yet linger the faint shadows of the legendary giant, there the country still retains much of its native wildness, and the inhabitants have, to a great extent, preserved their primitive character In other words, they have nurtured a gloomy imagination, and permitted ignorance to continue its melancholy delusions. The untaught mind, in every age, looks upon the grander phenomena of nature with feelings of terror, and endeavours to explain them by the aid of those errors which have been perpetuated from father to son since the days when the priests of superstition sought to rule the minds of men by exciting their fears.

I shall have to tell, by and by, the story of a so-called giant, who could bestride the lovely river which flows through the luxuriant valley of Tavistock, where, also, the inquiring traveller is shown his grave. The giant's grave in Penrith churchyard is familiar to me; and in or near many a picturesque village, shadowed by noble trees, and surrounded by richly-clothed fields, I can point to mounds, and to stones, which are said to be the resting-places of giants. These, however, will invariably be found to be rude monuments to ordinary men, who were possessed of more wealth, intelligence, courage, or strength than their fellows: men who have been the objects of hero-worship, but whose names have perished amidst the wrecks of time. It may be argued that these village giants are creations of the same character as those of the true legendary type, and that both result from analogous operations in the human mind. It may be so; but how vastly different must have been the constitution of those minds to which we owe the creations of the Titans of our mountains and the large men of our lowlands. Had I the learning necessary for the task of showing that our legendary giant is of Oriental origin, I have not the required leisure to pursue that inquiry to its end; and I leave it to abler men, contenting myself, and, let me hope, satisfying my readers, by studying the subject in its more simple aspects.

I find, over a tract of country extending, from the eastern edge of Dartmoor to the Land's End--and even beyond it, to the Scilly Islands -- curious relics of the giants. This district is in many respects a peculiar one. The physical features of the country are broadly marked; and, even after the civilising influences of centuries, wild nature contests with man, and often maintains her supremacy. On one hand we see industry taking possession of the hills, and holding them firm in its ameliorating grasp; on the other, we find the sterile moor and the rock-spread region still resisting successfully the influences of man and his appliances. When I travel into other parts of the British Isles, and reach a district having the same general features, I usually discover some outstanding memory of the giants, often, it must be admitted, faint and ill-defined. The giant Tarquin, almost forgotten amidst the whir of spindles, who had his dwelling in a well-fortified castle near Manchester, on the site of what is yet known by the name of Castlefield, and Carados--

"A mighty giant, just pull'd down,

Who lived near Shrewsbury's fair town"--

may be quoted as examples of the fading myths. ¹²

I therefore draw the conclusion that those large masses of humanity--of whom Saturn devouring his own children would seem to be the parental type--can exist only in the memories of those races who are born and live amidst the sublime phenomena of nature.

On the rugged mountain, overspread with rocks which appear themselves to be the ruins of some Cyclopean hail, amidst which the tempests play, still harmless in their fury;--here, where the breezes of spring and summer whistle as with some new delight--where the autumnal winds murmur the wildest music, or make the saddest wail; and the winter storms, as if joyous in their strength, shout in voices of thunder from cairn to cairn;--here does the giant dwell! On the beetling cliff, where coming tern-pests delight to send those predicating moanings, which tell of the coming war of winds and waves;--on rocks which have frowned for ages on the angry sea, and in caverns which mock, by repeating, the sounds of air and water--be they joyous as the voice of birds, or wild and solemn as the howl of savages above the dead; -- here does the giant dwell!

In the valley, too, has he sometimes fixed his home; but the giant has usually retired from business when he leaves the hills. Even here we miss not the old associations. Huge boulders are spread on every side; rock-masses are overgrown with furze, ferns, mosses, and heaths; and torrents rush from the hills, bringing, as it were, their native music with them. Wherever, indeed, the giants have made a home, we find a place remarkable for the grand scale on which the works of nature are displayed.

The giants of Danmonium--as that region was once named to which I have confined my inquiries--will be found to be a marked race. They appear to bear about them the characteristics of the giants of the East. They have the peculiarities which may be studied in those true Oriental Titans, Gog and Magog, who still preside so grimly and giantly at our City feasts. They have none of that stony, cold-hearted character which marks the giants of Scandinavia; and although Mr Keightley ¹³ would connect the mighty Thor with the no less mighty giants of the Arabian stories, I think, it can be shown that all those of the West of England resemble their Northern brethren only in the manner in which the sensual monsters succumb to the slightest exercise of thought.

Mr J. O. HaIliwell appears to have been a little surprised at discovering, during a very short residence in the West of Cornwall, that the Land's End district was anciently the chosen land of the giants; that it was beyond all other the favourite abode and the land of the English giants. Peculiarly fitted for the inquiry as Mr Halliwell is, by his life-long studies, it is to be regretted that he spent so brief a period amidst what still remains of these memorials of a Titan race. ¹⁴

Who were the giants? Whence came they? ¹⁵ I asked myself these questions when, seated in the Giant's Chair, I have looked down upon a wide expanse of furzy downs, over which were scattered in picturesque confusion vast masses of granite rocks, every one of them standing in monumental grandeur, inscribed by the finger of tradition with memorials of this mighty race. Did Cormelian and Cormoran really build St Michael's Mount? Did Thunderbore walk the land, inspiring terror by his extreme ugliness? Did Bolster persecute the blessed St Agnes, until she was compelled by stratagem to destroy him? Did, indeed, our British Titans play at quoits and marbles with huge rocks? Is it a fact that all the giants died of grief after Corineus overthrew Gog Magog on Plymouth Hoe? Let us, if only for amusement -- and to give to a light work some appearance of Research--examine a few antiquated authorities, who may be said--n their own way.--indirectly to answer those questions.

M. Pezron, D.D., and abbot of La Chamoye wrote a strange book, The Antiquities of Nations, which in 1706 was Englished by Mr Jones. ¹⁶

In his Epistle Dedicatory to Charles Lord Halifax, speaking of the Famous Pezron, Mr Jones asks, Was there ever any before him that attempted to Trace the Origin of the Celtae, who with Great Probability of Truth, were the same People, and spoke the same Language, as our Ancient Britain's did, and their Descendants continue to do to this Day, so high as Gomer and the Gomarians?

This authority, with a great display of learning, proves that Gomer, the eldest son of Japhet, was the chief of the Gomarians, and that these Gomarians afterwards were called Galatians, or Gauls. We further learn from him that a section of the Gomarians were called Sacae, and that the Sacae went into Phrygia, and afterwards assumed the name of TITANS. This race, "and especially the Princes that commanded them, exceeded all others in Bulk and Strength of Body; and hence it is that they have been looked upon to be terrible people, and, as it were, Giants. The Scripture itself, the Rule of Truth, even gives such an Idea as this, of those famous and potent men, who, according to it, ruled over all the Earth. Judith, speaking of them in her fine Song, called them Giants the sons of the Titans. ¹⁷ And the Prophet Isaiah informs us, also, that these Giants were anciently Masters of the World."

This mighty race dwelt in mountains, woods, and rough and inaccessible places, and they lay in the Hollows of Valleys, and the like Places of Shelter and retirement, because they had no Houses in those Times. The learned abbot proceeds, exerting all his powers to prove that the Titans were the true Celtae--that a people of Greece were the descendants of the Titans--that Gomer was the true stock of the Gauls --and that Magog, his brother, is also looked upon to be the Origin of the Scythians, or People of Great Tartary. ¹⁸

To seize on another authority, who appears to connect the Oriental with the British cromlech, and through those the people whose remains they cover, we will quote Dr E. D. Clarke, who describes ¹⁹ a Cyclopean structure visited by him near Kiel, consisting of three upright stones, supporting horizontally an enormous slab of granite. After mentioning several cromlechs of a similar character, and other stupendous vestiges of Cyclopean architecture, he says-- There is nothing Gothic about them--nothing denoting the Cimbri or the Franks, or the old Saxons -- but rather the ancient Gaulish, the ancient British, and the ancient Irish; and if this be admitted, they were Titan-Celts: the GIANTS of the sacred, and the CYCLOPS of the heathen historians. I am informed that Mr Christy has lately examined several cromlechs in Algeria; beneath each he found a human skeleton.

Such may be presumed to be the sources from which sprang the giants of Cornwall, whose Iabours--of which relics still remain--prove them to have been a race by the side of whom

"In stature the tall Amazon

Had stood a pigmy's height."

Everything they have left us informs us that they were men who

"Would have ta'en

Achilles by the hair, and bent his neck,

Or with a finger stay'd Ixion's wheel." ²⁰

With these evidences, who then dares say that the Samotheans, who, under the reign of Bardus, people this island, were not subdued by Albion, a giant son of Neptune, who called the land after his own name, and reigned forty-four years. ²¹ Let us not forget the evidence also given by Milton in his Lycidas, when he asks, in his poetic sorrow, if his friend

"Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,

Where the great Vision of the guarded Mount

Looks towards Namancos and Bayona's hold."

Bellerian was the name formerly given to the promontory of the Land's End. It was the home of a mighty giant, after whom, in all probability, the headland was called. ²²

Tradition throws a faint light back into those remote ages, and informs us that Cyclopean walls, vast earthworks, and strangely-piled masses of rock, which still remain, imperishable monuments of animal power, in various parts of the ancient Danmonium, were the works of the giants. With the true history of Jack the Giant-Killer--of him of the Bean-Stalk--and some others, we are all acquainted. We listened to those histories ere yet the dark seed of that troublesome weed--doubt--had germinated. They were poured forth from loving lips into believing ears; and often in the sleep of innocency have we buried our heads in the maternal bosom to hide the horrid visage of some Cormoran Blunderbore, or Thunderbore, and escape the giant's toils. By this process the stories were imprinted on memory's tablets with an indelible ink, and for long years, the spunge and water--which is employed by the pioneers in the great March of Intellect--has been used almost in vain. Notwithstanding the influences which have been brought to bear, with no kindly spirit, upon the old-world tales, we have still lingering, though in ruins, the evidences by which they were supported. Mr Thomas Wright, in his Memoir on the Local Legends of Shropshire, quotes from (and translates his quotation) an Anglo-Saxon poem, which bears the title of The Ruin, in the "Exeter Book .

"Wondrous is this waIlstone,

The fates have broken it,

Have burst the burghplace;

The work of giants is perishing."

From the Land's End ²³ to the eastern edge of Dartmoor, the perishing works of the giants--wondrous wall-stones--are yet to be found. In many instances the only records by which we can mark the homes of the giants are the names which yet cling to the rocks on the hills where they dwelt. The Giant's Cradle, on Trecrobben Hill, reminds us of the great man's infancy, as does also the Giant's Spoon, which is near it. The giant of Trecrobben was, beyond question, a temperate one, as the Giant's Well, without the walls of his castle, incontestibly proves. But what shall we say of his neighbour, who dwelt at Beersheba, where the Giant's Bowl is still suggestive of imbibitions deep. The monumental mass of granite on Dartmoor, known as Bowerman's Nose, may. hand down to us the resting-place and name of a giant whose nose was the index of his vice; though Carrington, in his poem. of Dartmoor, supposes these rocks to be

"A granite god,--

To whom, in days long flown, the suppliant knee

In trembling homage bow'd."

Let those, however, who are curious in this problem visit the granite idol; when, ' as Carrington assures us, he will find that. the inhabitants of

"The hamlets near

Have legends rude connected with the spot

(Wild swept by every wind), on which he. stands,

The Giant of the Moor."

Of the last resting-places of the giants there are many. Mardon; on Dartmoor, has a Giant's Grave, ²⁴ and from that rude region, travelling westward, we find these graves--proving the mortality of even this Titan race--rising on many a moor and mountain, until, crossing the sea, we see numerous giants' graves in the Scilly Islands; as though they had been the favourite resting-places of the descendants of those who dreamed of yet more western lands, beneath the setting sun, which were, even to them, the Islands of the Blest. ²⁵

There is scarcely a pile of rocks around our western shore upon which the giants have not left their impress. At Tol-Pedden-Penwith we have the Giant's Chair; at Cam Boscawen we see the Giant's Pulpit. If we advance nearer to the towns, even the small mass of rocks behind Street-an-Noan, near Penzance, called Tolcarne, has the mark of the Giant's Foot. The priests, however, in the season of their rule, strove to obliterate the memories of those great pagans. They converted the footprint at Tolcarne -- and similar indentations elsewhere--into the mark of the devil's hoof, when he stamped in rage at the escape of a sinner, who threw himself from the rock, strong in faith, into the arms of the Church. In more recent times, this footmark has been attributed to the devil jumping with joy, as he flew off, from this spot, with some unfortunate miller, who had lost his soul by mixing china clay with his flour. The metamorphosis of ancient giants into modern devils is a curious feature in our inquiry. At Lemorna we have the Giant's Cave. On Gulval Cairn we find also the giant's mark, which the magic of Sir H. Davy's science could not dispel. ²⁶ On Carn Brea are no end of evidences of these Titans--the Giant's Hand rivalling in size any of the monstrous monuments of the Egyptian gods. Thus, in nearly every part of the country where granite rocks prevail, the monuments of the giants may be found~ Why do the giants show such a preference for granite? At Looe, indeed, the Giant's Hedge is a vast earthwork; but this is an exception, ²⁷ unless the Bolster in St Agnes is a giant's work. In pursuing the dim lights which yet remain to guide us to the history of the giants, we must not forget the record of the Fatal Wrestling on Plymouth Hoe.

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Corineus And Gogmagog

WHO can dare question such an authority as John Milton? In his History of Britain, that part especially now called England. From the first Traditional beginning continued to the Norman Conquest. Collected out of the ancientist and best authors thereof. he gives us the story of Brutus and of Corineus, who with the battle Ax which he was wont to manage against the Tyrrhen Giants, is said to have done marvells. With the adventures of these heroes in Africa and in Aquitania we have little concern. They suffer severe defeats; and then Brutus, finding now his powers much lessn'd, and this not yet the place foretold him, leaves Aquitain, and with an easy course arriving at Totness in Dev'nshire, quickly perceivs heer to be the promis'd end of his labours. The following matters interest us more closely: ²⁸ --

"The Land, not yet Britain, but Albion, was in a manner desert and inhospitable, kept only by a remnant of Giants, whose excessive Force and Tyrannie had consumed the rest. Them Brutus destroies, and to his people divides the land, which, with some reference to his own name, he thenceforth calls Britain. To Corincus, Cornwall, as now we call it, fell by lot; the rather by him lik't, for that the hugest Giants in Rocks and Caves were said to lurk still there; which kind of Monsters to deal with was his old exercise.

And heer, with leave bespok'n to recite a grand fable, though dignify'd by our best Poets: While Brutus, on a certain Festival day, solemnly kept on that shoar where he first landed (Totness), was with the People in great jollity and mirth, a crew of these savages, breaking in upon them, began on the sudden another sort of Game than at such a meeting was expected. But at length by many hands overcome, Goemagog, the hugest, in hight twelve cubits, is reserved alive; that with him Corineus, who desired nothing more, might try his strength, whom in a Wrestle the Giant catching aloft, with a terrible bugg broke three of his Ribs: Nevertheless Corineus, enraged, heaving him up by main force, and on his shoulders bearing him to the next high rock, threw him hedlong all shatter'd into the sea, and left his name on the cliff, called ever since Langoemagog, which is to say, the Giant's Leap. The same story has been somewhat differently told, although there is but little variation in the main incidents. When Brutus and Corineus, with their Trojan hosts, landed at Plymouth, these chiefs wisely sent parties into the interior to explore the country, and to learn something of the people. At the end of the first day, all the soldiers who had been sent out as exploring parties, returned in great terror, pursued by several terrific giants. Brutus and Corineus were not, however, to be terrified by the immense size of their enemies, nor by the horrid noises which they made, hoping to strike terror into the armed hosts. These chieftains rallied their hosts and marched to meet the giants, hurling their spears and flinging their darts against their huge bodies. The assault was so unexpected that the giants gave way, and eventually fled to the hills of Dartmoor. Gogmagog, the captain of the giants, who was sadly wounded in the leg, and, unable to proceed, hid himself in a bog; but there, by the light of the moon, he was found by the Trojan soldiers, bound with strong cords, and carried back to the Hoe at Plymouth, where the camp was. Gogmagog was treated nobly by his victors, and his wounds were speedily healed. Brutus desired to make terms with the giants; and it was at length proposed by Gogmagog to try a fall with the strongest in the host, and that whoever came off the conqueror should be proclaimed king of Cornwall, and hold possession of all the western land. Corineus at once accepted the challenge of the monster. Notwithstanding, the giant,

"Though bent with woes,

Full eighteen feet in height he rose;

His hair; exposed to sun and wind,

Like wither'd heath, his head entwined,"

and that Corineus was but little above the ordinary size of man, the Trojan chief felt sure of a victory. The day for the wrestling was fixed. The huge Gogmagog was allowed to send for the giants, and they assembled on one side of a cleared space on Plymouth Hoe, while the Trojan soldiers occupied the other. All arms were thrown aside; and fronting each other, naked to the waist, stood the most lordly of the giants, and the most noble of men. The conflict was long, and it appeared for sometime doubtful. Brute strength was exerted on one side, and trained skill on the other. At length Corineus succeeded in seizing Gogmagog by the girdle, and by regularly-repeated impulses he made the monster undulate like a tree shaken by a winter storm, until at length, gathering all his strength into one effort, the giant was forced to his back on the ground, the earth shaking with his weight, and the air echoing with the thunder of his mighty groan, as the breath was forced from his body by the terrible momentum of his fall. There lay the giant, and there were all the other giants, appalled at the power which they could not understand, but which convinced them that there was something superior to mere animal strength. Corineus breathed for a minute, then he rushed upon his prostrate foe, and seizing him by the legs, he dragged him to the edge of the cliff; and precipitated him into the sea. The giant fell on the rocks below, and his body was broken into fragments by the fall; while the

"Fretted flood

Roll'd frothy waves of purple blood."

Gogmagog's Leap has been preserved near the spot which now presents a fortress to the foes of Britain; and there are those who say that, at the last digging on the Haw for the foundation of the citadel of Plymouth, the great jaws and teeth therein found were those of Gogmagog. ²⁹

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The Giants Of The Mount

THE history of the redoubtable Jack proves that St Michael's Mount was the abode of the