which means, translated:
There shall land on the stone of Merlyn
Those who shall burn Paul, Penzance, and Newlyn.
THE CAVERN, MOUSEHOLE.
They also burnt Mousehole, with the exception of one public-house, a house still standing, with walls four feet thick, and known as the "Keigwin Arms" of which they killed the landlord, Jenkin Keigwin. There was a rock here known as the "Mermaid," which stood out in the sea, and from which songs by female voices were said to have allured young men to swim to the rock, never to be heard of again.
We next came to the Lamora Cove, where we walked up the charming little valley, at the top of which we reached the plain of Bolleit, where Athelstan defeated the Britons in their last desperate struggle for freedom. The battle lasted from morning until night, when, overpowered by numbers, the Cornish survivors fled to the hills. After this battle in the light of the setting sun, Athelstan is said to have seen the Scilly Islands and decided to try to conquer them, and, if successful, to build a church and dedicate it to St. Buryana. He carried out his vow, and founded and endowed a college for Augustine Canons to have jurisdiction over the parishes of Buryan, Levan, and Sennen, through which we now journeyed; but the Scilly Islands appeared to us to be scarcely worth conquering, as, although they comprised 145 islets, many of them were only small bare rocks, the largest island, St. Mary, being only three miles long by two and a half broad, and the highest point only 204 feet above sea-level; but perhaps the refrangible rays of the setting sun so magnified them that Athelstan believed a considerable conquest was before him.
We next went to see the "Merry Maidens" and the "Pipers." They were only pillars of stone, but our friend assured us they were lively enough once upon a time, and represented seven young but thoughtless ladies who lived in that neighbourhood. They were on their way to Buryan church one Sabbath day when they saw two pipers playing music in a field, who as they went near them began to play dance tunes. The maidens forgot the sacred character of the day, and, yielding to temptation, began to dance. By and by the music became extremely wild and the dancing proportionately furious. The day was beautifully fine and the sun shone through a clear blue sky, but the pipers were two evil spirits, and suddenly a flash of lightning came from the cloudless sky and turned them all, tempters and tempted, into stone, so there they stand, the girls in a circle and the pipers a little distance away, until the Day of Judgment.
By this time we were all getting hungry, as the clear air of Cornwall is conducive to good appetites; but our friend had thoughtfully arranged for this already, and we found when we entered the inn at Buryan that our conveyance had arrived there, and that the driver had already regaled himself, and told the mistress that she might expect three other visitors.
The old church of St. Buryan was said to be named after Buriena, the beautiful daughter of a Munster chieftain, supposed to be the Bruinsech of the Donegal martyrology, who came to Cornwall in the days of St. Piran. There were two ancient crosses at Buryan, one in the village and the other in the churchyard, while in the church was the thirteenth-century, coffin-shaped tomb of "Clarice La Femme Cheffroi De Bolleit," bearing an offer of ten days' pardon to whoever should pray for her soul. But just then we were more interested in worldly matters; and when, after we had refreshed ourselves in a fairly substantial way, our friend told us he would take us to see a "Giant's Castle," we went on our way rejoicing, to regain the sea-coast where the castle was to be seen, but not before the driver had made another frantic effort to induce us to ride in his trap.