The views of the islands change remarkably, according to the state of the tide. At high-water the islands are separated by wide stretches of sea, while at the ebb extensive flats are uncovered, and some of the islands are apparently joined. The Crow Channel between S. Mary’s and S. Martin’s Isles has been forded on horseback, and a man is reported to have ridden from S. Mary’s to Tresco, fording the arms of the sea at low spring-tide.
S. Martin’s Island is difficult of approach at low tide from S. Mary’s by boat on account of the distance to which the sands run out.
Such an archipelago was exactly suited to the requirements of the Celtic saints, who, if they spent most of their time in superintendence of their monasteries, retired for Lent to solitary places, and as they grew old resigned their pastoral staves to their coarbs (successors), and retreated to islets, there to prepare for the great change. The west coast of Ireland is studded with islets that still retain the cells of these solitaries. Wales had its Bardsey and Anglesea, and Caldey and Ramsey. And what these were to Irish and Welsh the Scilly group was to the saints of Cornwall. Thus we find there S. Elid, the Welsh S. Illog, S. Teon, who is the Euny of Lelant, S. Samson, and S. Warna.
I do not know that any of the remains of their venerable oratories have been found, but then they have not been looked for.
There are now churches on four of the isles.
There are three lighthouses—that of S. Agnes, a revolving light; that on an outlying rock, the Bishop, fixed; and that on Round Island, with a red light.
The heights in Scilly are not great; the highest point attained is one hundred and twenty-eight feet. There are some small fresh-water tarns.
The islands take their name from the old Silurian inhabitants, to whom they served as a last refuge where they could maintain their independence, just as the Arran Isles answered the same purpose to their kindred, the Firbolgs, in Ireland. But the general notion is that they take their designation from the conger eels, locally called selli. It is remarkable that they must at one time have contained a much larger population than at present, as the remains of hedges and houses in ruins indicate.
In 993 Olaf Trygvason, of Norway, with Sweyn Forkbeard, of Denmark, together with a fleet of ninety-three ships, came a-harrying the coasts of England. They sailed up the Thames and attacked London, but the citizens behaved with great valour, and beat them off. Then they ravaged the east coast of England, took and burnt Sandwich and Ipswich; next they entered the Blackwater and attacked Maldon. There a great fight ensued. The Saxons were under the command of the eorlderman Britnoth. The Norsemen gained the day, and Britnoth was slain. It is with this battle that one of the earliest remains of Anglo-Saxon poetry deals. It is, unhappily, but a fragment. After recording the fall of the eorlderman, the poet concludes:—
“I am old of age, hence will I not stir;