CHAPTER XI.
BODMIN
Grown up about a monastery--S. Petrock--Theft of his relics--Ivory reliquary--"Lord's measures"--The Allan rivers--Pencarrow--S. Breock--Padstow--The Hobby-horse--The neighbourhood--The Towans--Pentyre--Porth Isaac--A cemetery.
A town that has grown up about a monastery. The name is a contraction of Bod-minachau, "the habitation of monks"; and it owes its origin to S. Petrock. Petrock is Peter or Pedr, with the diminutive oc added to the name. He was a son of Glwys, king of Gwent or Monmouthshire, according to one account, but according to another his father's name was Clement. Anyhow, he formed one of the great migration from Gwent to North-east Cornwall. He found a hermit occupying a cell at Bodmin whose name was Guron, and this man surrendered to him his humble habitation. S. Guron's Well is in the churchyard near the west end of the church.
PADSTOW HARBOUR
For his education he went to Ireland, where for twenty years he studied profane and sacred literature. He was probably a disciple of S. Eugenius, for Kevin, when aged seven, was entrusted to him by his parents to be reared for the monastic life, and Kevin, we know, learned his psalms from Eugenius.
So soon as Petrock considered that he knew as much as could be taught him by his master, he resolved on returning to Cornwall, and embarked on the same boat which had borne him to Ireland twenty years before--a great vessel of wicker-work, covered with three coatings of hide, and with a leathern sail.
Petrock and his companions came ashore in the Hayle, or saltflats, by Padstow. He was ill received on his arrival by a party of harvesters, who refused him water. In fact, the north of Cornwall had suffered so severely from the Irish, that the natives looked with suspicion on anyone coming from the Green Isle.