The fortress consists of at least two concentric rings of stone and earth. The interior has been disturbed by miners searching for tin, and the wall has also been ruined by them, but especially by roadmakers, who have quite recently destroyed nearly all one side.
Here the Irish remained till they were able to move further. S. Breaca went on to Talmeneth (the end of the mountain), where she established herself and erected a chapel.
Another of her chapels was further down the hill at Chynoweth, and a tradition of its existence remains there. Finally she went to Penbro. The church was, however, at a later period moved from that place to where it now stands. The local legend is that she saw the good people building this church, and she promised to throw all her bracelets and rings into the bell-metal if they would call it after her name.
She was a favourite disciple of S. Bridget, and this latter saint commissioned her to visit the great institution of the White House, near S. David's Head in Wales--to obtain thence rules by which her community might be directed. She was, it appears, the sister of S. Brendan the navigator, and it was in his sister's arms that the saint died. Brendan was a disciple of S. Erc, or Erth, on the Hayle river, and as Erc was one of the party, it is probable that Brendan made one as well.
Erc had been much trusted by S. Patrick, who appointed him as judge in all cases brought to him for decision, regarding him as a man of inviolable integrity and great calmness of judgment.
The church of Breage is large and fine. In the churchyard is an early cross of reddish conglomerate. The local story goes that there was a great fight, between Godolphin Hill and Tregonning Hill, fought by the natives with the Danes, and so much blood was shed that it compacted the granitic sand there into hard rock, and out of this rock Breaca's cross was cut. The fight was, of course, not with Danes, but was between the Cornish and the Irish. The cross is rude, with the Celtic interlaced work on it. The pedestal was also thus ornamented, but this is so worn that it can only be distinguished in certain lights.
In the church have been discovered several frescoes--S. Christopher, gigantic, of course; an equally gigantic figure of Christ covered with bleeding wounds; full-length representations of SS. Samson, Germoe, Giles, Corentine, etc. The church has been much decorated rather than restored. The modern woodwork screen and bench-ends are indifferent in design and mechanical in execution. Some Belgian carved work of the Adoration of the Magi blocks the east window, which was filled with peculiarly vulgar glass, and this is a possible excuse for completely obscuring it.
The sacred tribe under S. Breaca must have occupied a very extensive tract, for four parish churches are affiliated to it--S. Germoe, Godolphin, Cury, and Gunwalloe. This leads one to suspect that her territory stretched originally along the coast a good way past Loe Pool. She had as neighbours S. Crewena, another Irishwoman, and Sithney, or Setna, a disciple and companion of S. Senan, of Land's End. His mother was an aunt of S. David.
Sithney was asked:--
"Tell me, O Setna,