Cornish Feasts and Folk-lore

by M. A. Courtney

Not far from Boscastle is the beautiful waterfall of St. Nighton’s Kieve, and close by are the ruins of a cottage, once the habitation of two ladies, who took possession of it at night. They evidently had seen better days, but their names and from whence they came remain a mystery, as from the date of their arrival they held no communication with the outer world. They kept no servant, and from the villagers bought for themselves the necessaries of life, asking but few questions, and not answering any. At first they took long solitary walks in the most secluded spots of the district; when met they were rarely conversing, and never spoke to a stranger. These walks were gradually discontinued, and one day a rumour spread through the village that one of the poor ladies was dead. Tradition says that the neighbours found the other weeping silent tears by the side of the corpse. After the funeral the survivor daily grew more infirm and but rarely left the house, and one morning soon after, no smoke issuing from the chimneys of the cottage, the villagers peeped in through the uncurtained windows and saw her sitting dead in her chair. The friends were buried in one grave, and their secret died with them.

In Wellcombe church, near Morwenstow, against the font in the north wall is a door called the “devil’s door,” opened at baptisms at the Renunciation, that the devil, which is then supposed to come out of the child, may be able to get away.

Trecarrel, in East Cornwall, formerly belonged to the Trecarrels, the last of whom built Launceston church. A singular story has been handed down from the sixth century of the birth and death of his only son. His father is described as having been very learned in philosophy, astrology, astronomy, and other sciences; and it is said that, having surveyed the planetary orbs just as his child was about to be brought into the world, he perceived that the time was unfavourable to its birth, and foreboded a speedy and accidental death to the child. Overcome with these gloomy ideas he hastened to the house, and requested the midwife to delay the birth (if it were possible) for one hour; but nature, conspiring with fate on the downfall of his house, turned a deaf ear to his entreaties, and a son was born, to the great joy of all present except to him who was the most interested in the event. The child, however, grew up in a very promising way, until a servant-maid, having placed him to stand near a bowl of water in order to wash him, chanced to have forgotten the towel, and having stepped into another room to procure one, on her return found the boy dead, having fallen into the water with his head foremost: and in consequence of this unfortunate event the father spent a large part of his large property in charitable purposes, and in building and repairing churches in the county of Cornwall.—J. C. Gilbert.

A story of a similar nature is related of one of the Arundells, of whom it had been foretold “that he should die in the sands.” To prevent this he left his house of Efford, near Stratton, and took up his abode at Trerice, another of his estates, about three-and-a-half miles from Newquay. But the Earl of Oxford, having surprised and taken St. Michael’s Mount, Sir John Arundell, who was then sheriff of Cornwall, marched there to besiege and retake it for the king, Edward IV. Here his fate overtook him, for in a skirmish on Marazion sands he lost his life, and was buried in the chapel at the Mount. A funeral procession goes through Stratton before the death of the Bathes of Kilkhampton.

Between Stratton and the village of Marham, about half-a-mile from the former town, in the orchard of Binamy farm-house, is an old quadrangular moat, all that remains to show where stood the castle of the Blanchminsters, an old family now, I believe, extinct in this neighbourhood. Of one of them, who lived in the reign of Edward I. and went with him on a crusade, folk-lore still tells some strange but—through the lapse of time—vague tales. His name was Ranulph de Blanchminster, corrupted by the country people into old Blowmanger, and it is said that after he had been absent for two or three years in the Holy Land, his wife, I suppose thinking that he was dead, married another baron. On his return he shut himself up alone in his castle, with the drawbridge generally raised to keep off intruders. No one was with him when he died; but after his death a will was found leaving the greater part of his property for the benefit of the poor of the parish of Stratton. His effigy may be seen in the church, in the habit of a Crusader, grasping a sword, with his feet resting on the back of a lion. Through his interest Stratton had the charter of its market. His spirit haunts Binamy grounds (avoided after dark by the superstitious) in the form of a hare, which always starts out of the moat and manages to elude the dogs.

Of the doings of the famous Grenvilles of Stow,—Sir Beville, the brave Royalist leader, who lost his life at the battle of Lansdowne in 1643,—Admiral Sir Richard, immortalized by Tennyson in his ballad “The Revenge,”—and of his son, Sir John, who served under Sir Walter Raleigh and died at sea,—I shall say nothing, these noted men belonging more to history than folk-lore.

Under the same head, too, may be classed the Cornish female Whittington, Thomasine Bonaventure, of St. Mary Wike (now Week St. Mary), who lived in the fourteenth century; the daughter of a labourer, she herself was a shepherdess. A London merchant, when travelling in Cornwall, lost himself on our moors, and accidentally met her with her sheep. He asked of her the way, and was so much struck by her good looks and intelligence that he begged her from her parents and took her back with him to be a servant to his wife. In her new situation she conducted herself with so much propriety that on his wife’s death he courted and married her. Soon after he himself died, and left her a wealthy widow. Her next marriage was to a much richer man, named Henry Gall. Widowed a second time, and again inheriting her husband’s money, she took for her third and last husband Sir John Percival, Lord Mayor of London. Him, too, she outlived, and after his death returned to her native village, where she employed her great riches in works of charity. Amongst her other good deeds she founded and endowed a chantry there, together with a free school, and lodgings for masters, scholars, and officers.

The Rev. R. S. Hawker, in his book before-quoted, has a legend which he calls “The first Cornish Mole. A Morality.” I, however, suspect it to be a pure invention of this author; but as it is very pretty, I will give the substance of it. Alice of the Coombe was a very beautiful, but proud and vain, damsel; the only child of her widowed mother, with whom she dwelt at Morwenstow. It chanced one day that they, with all the neighbouring gentry, had been bidden to a grand banquet at Stow; and, as she had set her love on the great and noble Sir Beville Grenville, its owner, Alice, to win his affections, dressed herself in her richest robe—“a woven velvet, glossy and soft”—and put on her fairest jewellery. Her mother, when she saw her thus attired, struck by her exceeding grace and beauty, said, “Often shall I pray to-night that the Grenville heart may yield. Aye, thy victory shall be my prayer.” The haughty maiden replied, “With the eyes I now see in that glass, and with this vesture, meet for a queen, I lack no trusting prayer.” At this a sudden cry was heard, and the damsel disappeared from their sight for ever. Shortly after, the Coombe gardener discovered in the garden a small, unknown hillock, and on top of it shone a ring, which was recognized as the one the lady wore on the day she vanished. A close examination showed that an old Cornish couplet was now traced on it, which the parish priest interpreted to mean—

“The earth must hide

Both eyes with pride.”