The head of the Cheesewring hill has been enclosed in a stone caer. The common opinion is that every stone composing it was brought up from the bed of the Lynher, but this is almost certainly a fiction. The circles of the Hurlers are near, with a couple of outstanding stones. The legend is that some men were hurling the ball on Sunday, whilst a couple of pipers played to them. As a judgment for desecration of the Lord's-day they were all turned into stone. There are three circles, eleven stones in one, of which all but three have fallen; fourteen in the second, of which nine are standing; twelve in the third, but only five have not fallen. A curious instance of the persistency of tradition may be mentioned in connection with the cairn near the Hurlers and the Cheesewring, in which a gold cup was found a few years ago.
The story long told is that a party were hunting the wild boar in Trewartha Marsh. Whenever a hunter came near the Cheesewring a prophet--by whom an Archdruid is meant--who lived there received him, seated in the stone chair, and offered him to drink out of his golden goblet, and if there were as many as fifty hunters approach, each drank, and the goblet was not emptied. Now on this day of the boar hunt one of those hunting vowed that he would drink the cup dry. So he rode up to the rocks, and there saw the grey Druid holding out his cup. The hunter took the goblet and drank till he could drink no more, and he was so incensed at his failure that he dashed what remained of the wine in the Druid's face, and spurred his horse to ride away with the cup. But the steed plunged over the rocks and fell with his rider, who broke his neck, and as he still clutched the cup he was buried with it.
Immediately outside the rampart of the stone fort above the Cheesewring is a large natural block of granite, hollowed out by the weather into a seat called the Druid's Chair.
Just below the Cheesewring is a rude hut cell or cromlech, formed of large slabs of granite, which is called "Daniel Gumb's House." It was inhabited in the last century by an eccentric individual, who lived there, and brought up a family in a state of primæval savagery. On one of the jambs is inscribed, "D. Gumb, 1735," and on the top of the roofing slab is an incised figure of the diagram of Euclid's 47th proposition in the First Book.
At some little distance is the very fine cromlech called the Trethevy Stone. It is well worth a digression to see, as being, if not the finest, at least the most picturesque in Cornwall.
S. Cleer has a holy well in very good condition, carefully restored. Near it is a cross.
In the parish is the inscribed stone of Doniert, the British king, who was drowned in 872.
From Callington, Calstock--the stock or stockade in the Gelli district on the Tamar--may be visited. The river scenery is of the finest description, rolling coppice and jutting crags, the most beautiful portion being at Morwell.
ARSENIC MANUFACTURE