ST SENNEN AND ST JUST.
These saints held rule over adjoining parishes; but, like neighbours, not unfrequently, they quarrelled. We know not the cause which made their angry passions rise; but no doubt the saints were occasionally exposed to the influences of the evil principle, which appears to be one of the ruling powers of the world. It is not often that we have instances of excess of passion in man or woman without some evidence of the evil resulting from it. Every tempest in the physical world leaves its mark on the face of the earth. Every tempest in the moral world, in a similar manner, leaves some scar to tell of its ravages on the soul. A most enduring monument in granite tells us of the rage to which those two holy men were the victims. As we have said, there is no record of the origin of the duel which was fought between St Just and St Sennen; but, in the fury of their rage, they tore each a rock from the granite mass, and hurled it onwards to destroy his brother. They were so well aimed that both saints must have perished had the rocks been allowed to travel as intended. A merciful hand guided them, though in opposite directions, in precisely the same path. The huge rocks came together; so severe was the blow of impact that they became one mass, and fell to the ground, to remain a monument of the impotent rage of two giants.
LEGENDS OF ST LEVEN.
I.—THE SAINT AND JOHANA.
The walls of what are supposed to be the hut of St Leven are still to be seen at Bodellen. If you walk from Bodellen to St Leven Church, on passing near the stile in Rospletha you will see a three-cornered garden. This belonged to a woman who is only known to us as Johana. Johana’s Garden is still the name of the place. One Sunday morning St Leven was passing over the stile to go as usual to his fishing-place below the church, to catch his dinner. Johana was in the garden picking pot-herbs at the time, and she lectured the holy man for fishing on a Sunday. They came to high words, and St Leven told Johana that there was no more sin in taking his dinner from the sea than she herself committed in taking hers from the garden. The saint called her foolish Johana, and said if another of her name was christened in his well she should be a bigger fool than Johana herself. From that day to this no child called Johana has been christened in St Leven. All parents who desire to give that name to their daughters, dreading St Leven’s curse, take the children to Sennen.