[1] Another tradition affirms that one of the sons of Cyrus lies buried beneath the Longstone.
[2] See 1st Series, p. 198.
[3] St Breock or Briock, a bishop of a diocese in Armorica, is said to have been the patron saint of St Breage. But there is a Cornish distich, “Germow Mathern, Breaga Lavethas.” Germoe was a king, Breaga a midwife, which rather favours the statement that St Breage was a sister of St Leven. Breage and Germoe are adjoining parishes, having the shores of the Mount’s Bay for their southern boundaries. When the uncultivated inhabitants of this remote region regarded a wreck as a “God-send,” and plundered without hesitation every body, living or dead, thrown upon the shore, these parishes acquired a melancholy notoriety. The sailors’ popular prayer being,
“God keep us from rocks and shelving sands,
And save us from Breage and Germoe men’s lands.”
Happily those days are almost forgotten. The ameliorating influences of the Christian faith, which was let in upon a most benighted people by John Wesley, like a sunbeam, dispelled those evil principles, and gave birth to pure and simple virtues.
[4] Leland, cited by William of Worcester from the Cornish Calendar at St Michael’s Mount. Michell’s “Parochial History of Saint Neot’s.”
[5] Carew’s Survey, Lord Dedunstanville’s edition, p. 305. See “The Well of St Keyne,” by Robert Southey, in his “Ballads and Metrical Tales,” vol. i.; or of Southey’s collected works, vol. vi.
St Keyne, or St Kenna, is said to have visited St Michael’s Mount, and imparted this peculiar virtue to a stone chair on the tower.
[6] See Gilbert, vol. iii. p. 329. See Appendix A. The name of this saint is written Piran, Peran, and Perran.