When the Phœnicians traded here for tin, Old Artful set up a smelting-house, and taught the tinners some tricks, which they afterwards improved on.
That St. Michael drove him away, and, out of pure spite, he cursed the blackberry, which is not now eaten after St. Michael's Day.
"One day the devil, having nothing to do,
Built a great hedge from Lerrin to Looe."
That when visiting "Cheese-wring" he saw an old woman making a conger pie, and inquired what she put inside, and the old woman, smelling brimstone, said, "If you don't take yourself off pretty quick, I'll clap you inside, and then we shall have a devilled pie," which threat so alarmed him that he gave a hop, skip, and jump, and landed at Devil's Point in the sister county.
That Old Artful had a turn for housekeeping, and was pretty much at home at the Lizard, and left behind as memorials his "frying-pan" at Cadgwith and his "bellows" at Kynance. Then he had a post-office, the earliest on record, and no end of "devil's footsteps," "ovens," and "caves" are to be found in the peninsula.
That Old Artful, finding himself lonely and amongst the out-of-works, built a stone fence about seven miles in length, hence the couplet—
"One day the devil, having nothing to do,
Built a great hedge from Lerrin to Looe."
And very good workmanship it was, for it is still there. In this way the problem of employing the unemployed was solved.