As he uttered these words a low cry was heard at his feet, and there “They beheld, O wondrous and strange! a small dark creature, clothed in a soft velvet skin, in texture and in hue like the robe of Lady Alice, and they saw as it groped into the earth that it moved along without eyes in everlasting night.” “She, herself had become
THE FIRST MOLE
OF THE HILLOCKS OF CORNWALL.”
Before finishing this section of my work I must say a few words about the Islands of Scilly and their legends. The Rev. H. J. Whitfield, M.A., in 1852, published a book on this subject, but his legends are for the most part purely fictitious, and its title, Scilly and its Legends, a little misleading.
The Scilly Isles, just off the Land’s End, are very numerous, but only five are inhabited; some are mere rocks in the sea, and, counting those, they are said to be a hundred and fifty. The largest is St. Mary’s, and the dwellers on it are apt to look with contempt on the inhabitants of the other islands (the Off Islands). The word Scilly is sometimes derived from Sullèh, rocks dedicated to the sun, and sometimes from Sillyas, a conger. This fish is very plentiful on these coasts, and a ridiculous rhyme says that Scilly fare consists of—
“Scads and ‘tates, scads and ’tates,
Scads, and ’tates, and conger,
And those who can’t eat scads and ’tates—
Oh, they must die of hunger.”
Occasionally the saying runs: “Oh! the Scillonians live on fish and ’taties every day, and conger-pie for Sundays.”