A Book of Cornwall

by S. Baring-Gould

Let us take them in order from Newquay.

First we have Carantock, the fellow-worker with S. Patrick, who assisted him on the commission to draw up the laws of Ireland. Then we have Perranzabuloe, the settlement of Kieran of Saighir. Across the ridge, four miles off, is Ladock, where he planted his nurse as head of a community of women. Some of Kieran's young pupils found it not too far to trip across and flirt with the girls at Ladock, and there was a pretty to-do when this was discovered. He was wont, when he had ploughed his own lands, to send over his oxen to plough the fields of his nurse. At Redruth was S. Euny, whom the Irish called Eoghain, and who later was Bishop of Ardstraw. He was brother of S. Erc of Erth, as it was said in later times, but earlier writers frankly call Erc his father.

Illogan was son of Cormac, King of Leinster. Piety ran in the family. Cormac abdicated and assumed the monk's cowl in 535. The sisters of Illogan were Derwe and Ethnea, who accompanied him to Cornwall, and are numbered with its saints. He was father of S. Credan of Sancreed. Phillack is S. Piala, the sister of Gwynear (Fingar). S. Elwyn is but another form of the name Illogan. Erth, as already said, was father of S. Euny; he was a disciple of S. Brendan, the voyager, and was nursed by S. Itha, who was a woman almost as famous in Ireland as S. Bridget, and who has churches in Cornwall and Devon. S. Ives is really S. Hia, an Irishwoman. Zennor is, perhaps, dedicated to a disciple of S. Sennen of Land's End, the very woman about whom Tom Moore wrote his song of "The Saint and the Lady." S. Just was the deacon of S. Patrick, and he was S. Kieran's tutor. Sennen is Senan of Inscathy, in the Shannon. S. Levan was metal-worker for S. Patrick, but in holy orders also. S. Burian was the female disciple of S. Kieran. Germoe was a bard, and an intimate friend of Kieran, and so we see him planted near his friend, who was at Perran-uthnoe. Breage was a disciple of S. Bridget and a friend of S. Kieran. Crewenna was another Irishwoman. Sithney is Setna, a disciple of S. Senan. S. Ruan, in the Lizard district, and S. Kea, on the Fal--Irishmen as well--I have spoken of them elsewhere.

But along the south coast are some settlements of a different kind. Paul is Paul of Leon, a Briton, who came there to visit his sister, Wulvella, at Gulval before he crossed into Brittany; and Towednack is not an Irish foundation.

Senan and Kieran, or Piran, were such allies that the former was wont to call the latter "his inseparable friend and comrade." It is therefore no wonder that we find settlements of the two in West Cornwall together.

Senan and Kieran probably came to Cornwall some years later than Hia and Breaca, Fingar and Piala. Senan was very much attached to S. David, and both are said to have died on the same day in the same year.

As Sithney's mother was a sister of Non, the mother of S. David, it is possible that David may have induced his cousin to study with his friend Senan, and that when Senan came to Cornwall he hoped that Sithney would be able to smooth his way, as an aunt of his was queen there. This I have already pointed out.

It is noteworthy that Sithney parish is close to that of his first cousin Constantine.

The key to the Land's End district is Penzance. This is a comparatively modern town, and it was but a village in the parish of S. Madron, with a little chapel of S. Anthony on a spit of land running into the bay, till incorporated by James I.

That bay is singularly fine, and, facing the south, the climate is warm. Out of it stands up S. Michael's Mount crowned with a castle, formerly a monastery, now the residence of Lord S. Levan, and connected by a causeway with Marazion, or Market Jew. The name has nothing to do with "Bitter Waters of Zion," or with Israelites. Marazion is the Cornish for Thursday Market, and Market Jew is a corruption for Jeudi (Thursday) Market.