Wrecks: Germoe and Breage
Before the lighthouse on the Wolf Rock was built (1871) this rocky coast was the scene of many a wreck. In 1873 the Vicar of Mullion wrote: "In six years and a quarter there have been nine wrecks, with a loss of sixty-nine lives, under Mullion Cliffs, on a bit of coast line not more than a mile and a half in length." It must be confessed that the inhabitants of Germoe and Breage had an unenviable reputation as wreckers:
"God keep us from rocks and shelving sands
And save us from Breage and Germoe men's hands."
But those days have passed away, though Germoe still has a reputation of a kind. It is said that once the men had good singing voices, but were so proud of them that the voices failed; while another distich shows the estimation in which they held themselves:
"Camborne men are bulldogs,
Breage men are brags,
Three or four Germoe men
'Ull scat'um all to rags."
Local jealousies between neighbouring towns are by no means rare in Cornwall. For instance, there is the old enmity between Zennor and St. Ives. It is said that the fishermen belonging to the latter were greatly annoyed one season by the ravages of the hake among the mackerel. They therefore caught the largest they could, whipped him soundly, and restored him to the water—pour encourager les autres.
When a Zennor man wishes to be disagreeable to a native of St. Ives, therefore, he says: "Who whipped the hake?"
But Zennor, one might think, would have hesitated to throw stones, for it is locally known as the place where the cow ate the bellrope, the neighbourhood being so barren and rocky that the straw bellrope was the only provender the poor animal could find—which is suggestive of the Cornish vet. who sent in his bill "to curing your old cow till she died."
Pengersick
One more local story before we go on to Helston, and that because the retort is so neat and the lady, as usual, had the last word. Pengersick Castle is a ruin which, when habitable, was occupied by a man and his wife whose early regard had changed to hatred. Their children were grown up and married, and they had nothing to do but brood upon their mutual dislike, until one day it occurred to both that the world would be a brighter and better place if the other were out of it. No sooner said than done. That day at dinner the good man poured his wife a glass of a rare vintage, and after she had drunken told her with satisfaction that he would now see the last of her—as the wine had been poisoned.