Title: Legend Land, Vol. 3: Being a further collection of some of the Old Tales told in those Western Parts of Britain served by the Great Western Railway, now retold by Lyonesse
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Legend Land, Vol. 3: Being a further collection of some of the Old Tales told in those Western Parts of Britain served by the Great Western Railway, now retold by Lyonesse" ***


LEGEND LAND

[Illustration: (cover art: fairies tending a garden)]

 Being a further collection of some of the Old Tales told in those
 Western Parts of Britain served by the Great Western Railway

Volume Three      Price Sixpence

[Illustration: Map of central England and Wales, the area covered by
the Great Western Railway. Title reads: G. W. R. The line to legend
land. Various places mentioned in the book are identified: Glasfryn
Lake (page 20), Craig-Y ddinas (page 12), Narberth Castle (page 4),
Melangell (page 8), Harlech Castle (page 16), St. Govan's Chapel (page
24).]



LEGEND LAND

 Being a further collection of some of the _OLD TALES_ told in those
 Western Parts of Britain served by the _GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY_, now
 retold by _LYONESSE_

[Illustration: The shield of the Great Western Railway.]

VOLUME THREE

_Published in 1923 by_

THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY
[FELIX J. C. POLE, GENERAL MANAGER]
PADDINGTON STATION, LONDON



CONTENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS


          Contents and Illustrations                _Page_  2
          Foreword                                          3
          A Prince who would hang a Mouse                   4
          St. Melangell and Her “Lambs”                     8
          Where King Arthur Sleeps                         12
          Bronwen and the Starling                         16
          The Swan of Glasfryn                             20
          The Wonders of St. Govan’s Chapel                24
          The Fairy Gardens of Treen                       28
          How the Dodman was Named                         32
          The Charmer of Pengersick                        36
          How St. German left Cornwall                     40
          The Spectre of Rosewarne                         44
          The Legend of the Four Halls                     48
          “John Dory,” a “Three Man’s” Song (_Supplement_) 52

[Illustration: **** Decorative divider ****]

This is a reprint in book form of the third series of _The Line to
Legend Land_ leaflets, together with a Supplement, “John Dory,” an old
Cornish “Three Man’s” Song.

The Map at the beginning provides a guide to the localities of the six
Welsh legends, that at the back to those of Cornwall and “John Dory.”

[Illustration: **** Decorative divider ****]

                    _Printed by_ KELLY & KELLY,
                    _Moor Lane, London, E.C.2._



FOREWORD


This third volume of Legend Land tells some more of the old stories
of those peoples, kindred in origin, the Welsh and the Cornish. They
are mostly the old tales that have survived--who shall say how many
generations?

If you look into them, with the eyes of imagination, you will see
behind them the simplest romances of a very simple people; a people
that explained some uncomprehended thing with some comprehensible
story, or who would invest the memories of their great men and women
with records of wonderful achievement often formerly attributed to some
yet earlier hero.

But that is a student’s occupation. Many weighty tomes have been
written upon the origins of folk-lore.

For us it is sufficient to be glad that the old legends have survived.
Let us enjoy them without speculation as to their beginnings,
remembering only that they had a beginning, most of them in an age so
long ago that history cannot place it.

These romances are perhaps the most “genuine antiques” that our country
can offer, and they come from the corners of our land where romance
still lingers and where, to the country folk, rocks and lakes, streams
and great hills, are matters of history--not geology.

And we, who travel to these distant parts of Britain, can better enjoy
their charms if we go there knowing something of the stories that have
clung about them for many centuries, and if we leave our critical
business method of mind behind us locked in our office desks.

That is why these old tales are again retold by

                                                              LYONESSE.



[Illustration: A Prince with gallows for a mouse being addressed by a
bishop.]

A PRINCE WHO WOULD HANG A MOUSE


On the very border line of “The Little England Beyond Wales,” as South
Pembrokeshire is known, a land of many splendid old castles into which
the sea bites deep at Milford Haven, stands Narberth Castle, famous for
many things, among them that its owner once tried to hang a mouse.

It is a queer old story of magic and sorcery, and as the tale goes,
far, far back in history, Prince Manawyddan lived at Narberth Castle
with his stepson Pryderi and Cigfa his wife. One day a great darkness
fell upon the land, and when it had passed Pryderi and all the
retainers had vanished. Narberth was left unpeopled save for the Prince
and Cigfa.

So these two fell to work to cultivate the land themselves. They worked
hard and when harvest time came they were rewarded by the sight of many
fields of waving corn. But, when they began to reap, Manawyddan and
his daughter-in-law found to their consternation that the grain had
been eaten from every ear of corn and that all they reaped was straw.
The Prince suspected sorcery, and resolved to watch that night in an
adjoining field which had not yet been robbed.

Towards midnight he heard a weird rustling sound, and, gazing from his
place of concealment, he saw a horde of field mice roaming over his
crops, nibbling away at the ears of wheat. Manawyddan sprang forward
and captured one of the marauders, and the others scampered away.

For safety he placed the captured mouse in a glove and then returned
to Narberth Castle determined to hang the thief. He erected a little
gallows, and was fashioning a noose of string in order to carry out the
execution on the castle slopes, when there came along a scholar who
enquired what the Prince was doing.

Manawyddan told him, and the scholar protested, saying that it was
unseemly for a prince to act a hangman’s part. “Come, I will give you
a pound to ransom the thief,” he added, but Manawyddan refused. So the
scholar passed on and presently a priest approached. He too enquired as
to the Prince’s task and also tried to dissuade him from it, offering
five pounds as a ransom. But the Prince was adamant.

Then as he was about to release the mouse from his glove and string it
up, a bishop came by. Like the other two strangers he began to argue
with Manawyddan and offered ten, then twenty pounds to have the mouse
set free. But the Prince’s suspicions were now aroused. “No,” said
he, “the thief shall hang.” Then the bishop fell into a great rage
and stamped his foot in anger, and as he did so his mitre fell off
disclosing the fact that he was no bishop but a noted sorcerer of the
neighbourhood.

“Name your price,” he said at last, “the mouse shall not hang, for she
is my wife.”

So Manawyddan drove a bargain. He demanded the return of his stepson;
that all spells should be removed from his land and never replaced; and
that no vengeance should be wreaked upon him. To this the enchanter
agreed, and the Prince untied his glove and out ran, not a mouse but a
beautiful lady who went away with her rescuer.

That night the stepson and all the retainers returned, the cornfields
grew rich and ripe, and ever since Narberth and the lands round about
have been amazingly fertile.

You may prove the truth of this latter to-day if you visit this
pleasant and prosperous land, with its mild climate and abundant
crops. There is a station at Narberth, but Tenby, that picturesque and
attractive little town on the coast of Carmarthen Bay, is perhaps your
best centre for the district. The coast to the westward is wild and
rocky, while inland is a glorious country, scattered more thickly than
any part of our islands with the remains of noble medieval castles.

Tenby itself is one of the most delightful seaside towns in the
country. It has extensive sands between its rocks and the sea’s edge.
The place has ample accommodation for visitors of all kinds, and the
praises of Tenby’s reputation for sunshine at all seasons of the year
have been sung by writers for many years past.

[Illustration: _Narberth Castle._]



[Illustration: St. Melangell greeting a few men.]

ST. MELANGELL AND HER “LAMBS.”


Up in the Montgomeryshire mountains, three or four miles from the
shores of Lake Vyrnwy, is the little village of Melangell, named after
a saint who for fifteen years, so the story goes, lived a lonely life
in the midst of the wild hills, sleeping on the bare rock, rather than
marry the man her father had designed for her.

St. Melangell was the daughter of a Welsh chieftain, and when she
ran away, to avoid the undesirable bridegroom, she hid herself in a
remote but lonely spot at the head of the Tanant. Every effort to make
her return to her father’s home failed and she continued to live her
secluded life, choosing the birds and the animals for friends.

After some fifteen years of this solitary existence, they say,
Brochwel, Prince of Powis, was hare hunting up in the hills and ran
his quarry into a dense thicket. He entered in pursuit and soon found
himself face to face with a woman of marvellous beauty beneath whose
robes the frightened hare had taken refuge.

This strange woman raised her hands in supplication, and begged the
Prince and his party to depart and spare the life of the animal that
had come to her for succour. It was one of her friends, she said. The
Prince, much impressed by this incident, halted, unable at first to
understand what was happening, but his attendant huntsman, ignoring the
gentle plea and anxious only to be on with the chase, raised his horn
to his lips to rally the hounds.

Then a strange thing happened. No sound issued from the horn, nor could
he remove it from his mouth to which it remained stuck fast.

In terror, the man fell upon his knees, and tried to beg forgiveness,
but he could not articulate. Then Prince Brochwel, realizing at once
that he was in the presence of a very holy woman, stepped forward and
asked her pardon, promising that the hare should receive no hurt from
him. The holy woman smiled and the huntsman regained his speech, his
horn dropping to the ground.

The Prince then asked Melangell what he could do to serve her.
Melangell asked for a grant of a small piece of land to serve as a
sanctuary. The Prince immediately gave her far more than she asked and
besought her to found upon it a convent.

So the good woman proceeded to carry out his wishes and lived the rest
of her holy life in a cell, which you may see to-day at the east end of
Melangell Church. And upon the cornice of the oak screen of the church
you will find carved many scenes from her life story.

St. Melangell ever retained her love for wild animals and is considered
to have taken hares, which she called her “lambs,” under her particular
protection. They say that even now, if you call upon St. Melangell to
aid a hare pursued by hounds, the animal will escape; consequently, the
holy woman is not greatly beloved of huntsmen.

Her lonely hill-side bed, upon which she slept for fifteen years,
still survives near the church. It is a recess in the rock now
overgrown with bushes, but is there for all the world to see, to prove
conclusively--if you require proof--the truth of this charming legend
of the solitary lady of the hills.

Melangell and the lovely country of hill and stream, and glittering
waterfalls, thickly wooded little valleys, and bare upstanding
mountains, that stretches all about it, is best reached from Llandrillo
Station on the picturesque line that runs from Corwen to Bala by
the valley of the Dee. This is a fine sporting country, where the
red grouse flourishes and where the streams and lakes hold trout in
abundance. “The Welsh Highlands” it is aptly called.

The Berwyn Mountains, that here divide Merioneth and Montgomeryshire,
rise to over 2,000 feet in Moel Ferna near Corwen, from which
station there is a motor car service in summer to Bettws-y-Coed, a
place, perhaps, more famed than any in Wales for the beauty of its
surroundings.

[Illustration: _Lake Vyrnwy._]



[Illustration: an old man pointing out a pile of gold to a younger man,
while others sleep on the floor.]

WHERE KING ARTHUR SLEEPS.


The old stories tell that King Arthur and his gallant knights are not
dead; they are only sleeping and will awake with renewed vigour, should
ever they be needed to fight the enemies of their beloved land. And
their resting place is within the great upstanding limestone rock of
Craig-y-Ddinas in South Wales.

There is a tale told of a Welshman from Llantrisant who was accosted
on London Bridge, of all places, by a strange little man with a grey
beard, who asked where he had cut the hazel staff he carried. The
Welshman replied: “In my own country not far from my home.”

“Where that staff was cut,” the grey beard said, “is gold beyond
counting and I can show you how to get it.” So the Welshman invited his
queer acquaintance to accompany him to his home, and shortly afterwards
the two set out for Craig-y-Ddinas, which is a few miles away in the
Vale of Neath.

They came to an entrance of a cave close by where the hazel staff had
been cut, and the stranger bade the Welshman enter. Within the entrance
was a silver bell hanging from the roof, beyond which a passage led to
a great cavernous hall where, around a massive oak table, were a number
of warriors, fast asleep, but still clad in their armour and with
their weapons by their sides. One of these ancient warriors, with a
long silver beard, wore a crown upon his head. This was the great King
Arthur himself, the stranger said.

But what most attracted the eye of the Welshman was a mighty stack
of gold piled high in the centre of the table, upon which the light
from the flickering flames of a fire in one corner of the underground
chamber glinted pleasantly.

“Now help yourself,” said the stranger, “but in carrying out your gold,
do not ring the bell or you will awaken the knights. If you should
chance to ring it be ready to answer immediately for they will ask: ‘Is
it day?’ and you must reply: ‘Sleep on, it is still night.’ Then all
may be well.” With this the mysterious stranger disappeared.

The Welshman did as he had been instructed, although in his hurry to
escape with the treasure he did cause the bell to chime. But his answer
satisfied the awakened warriors who instantly returned to their age-old
slumbers.

For many years this Welshman lived in luxury and ease upon his stolen
treasure, but at last it was exhausted, and he determined to go back
again to the cave and seek some more. This time his greed tempted him
to carry away more gold than he could easily lift. He staggered panting
with his heavy burden to the entrance, and then again he blundered
against the silver bell which gave out its warning notes.

The ancient warriors awakened. “Is it day?” they cried, but the
Welshman was so breathless with his exertion that he could not reply.
Then the knights rose from their chairs and fell upon him, beating him
cruelly before they ejected him roughly from their cavern, and closed
and locked the door behind him.

The greedy fellow lived for many years after this adventure but he
never recovered from his trouncing and he died a cripple and a pauper
in the town where he had lived in such opulence, and although he tried
many times to find the treasure chamber again he could never do so. And
so it is supposed that King Arthur and his knights still sleep on in
Craig-y-Ddinas, awaiting the call to further action which may some day
come.

Llantrisant, where the hero--or should it not be villain?--of this
strange old story lived, is a charming little town straggling up the
steep slopes of a wooded hill with--in this part of the world--the
inevitable ruined castle close at hand. It is a forgotten little place
in the midst of varied country with fine views from the top of the
hill, over a moorland district towards the mountains of Brecknock.

Craig-y-Ddinas you will find in the beautiful Vale of Neath a little
further west. It rises precipitously from the edge of the little river
Mellte, and from its top, where the fairies dance of nights, you get a
superb view of the lovely valley. Here you are in some of the grandest
scenery in Wales, a country particularly rich in waterfalls and rushing
brooks.

It is a lovely land skirted on the south by the Great Western Line,
that runs from Neath to Aberdare. Neath, on the main line, is a good
centre from which to start to explore this beautiful valley.

And when you tire of the mountains, you can turn southwards and see
that stretch of little known coast, with its bold headlands and
spring-turfed cliffs that runs from Briton Ferry as far as busy Barry
Docks. Strangers do not often come here, yet in all our land it would
be hard to find a more attractive district, made yet more pleasing by
the absence of _other_ holiday makers.

[Illustration: _The Vale of Neath._]



[Illustration: a woman sitting by window holding a bird and looking
over her shoulder out the window.]

BRONWEN AND THE STARLING.


This is the story of the sad fate that befell a sister of a British
King who lived at Twr Bronwen, which stood where Harlech Castle now
stands, and who married Matholwch, an Irish King, and sailed with him
across the seas. Bronwen was her name, and they say that she was the
most beautiful woman in all the land.

When Matholwch came across to Harlech to court her, he and Bronwen’s
step-brother Evnyssien had a fierce quarrel, and so deeply insulted was
the Irishman that the match was nearly broken off. However, Bronwen’s
brother Bran, the King, managed to placate the angry suitor by giving
him a staff of silver as tall as himself and a plate of purest gold
as wide as his face, and presently the marriage was celebrated with
greatest festivity, and the happy pair sailed away for Erin.

But though their King might forget this quarrel, wild subjects would
not. They nursed a grievance against their new queen and stirred up so
much trouble that at last Matholwch himself turned against his bride,
putting slight after slight upon her, until in the end he degraded the
beautiful princess to be cook in the palace where once she had reigned.

Bronwen tried to send word of her sad plight to her brother at Harlech,
just across the Irish Sea, but the vengeful Irish circumvented all her
efforts, destroyed her letters and killed her messengers.

At last, in despair, poor Bronwen hit upon a plan. A Welsh starling,
blown across the sea by an easterly gale, fluttered into her kitchen
one day, and the Princess fed it and tended it, hiding it in the great
kneading trough where she was forced to make bread for the whole
household. When the bird recovered she wrote a letter to Bran, tied it
to the starling’s leg, and released it.

The bird flew straight back to Harlech, but finding that King Bran was
away at Carnarvon, followed him there, and perched upon his shoulder
as he sat at dinner, ruffling its feathers and whistling loudly. Bran
put up his hand to seize the bird to discover the cause of its amazing
behaviour, and so found Bronwen’s letter.

The King fell into a mighty rage and ordered out his fleet, then sailed
across to Ireland to rescue his sister and wreak vengeance upon her
cruel husband. A great battle took place and Bran and his forces were
eventually driven back, although they managed to rescue Bronwen. But
King Bran was fatally wounded by a poisoned dart and died soon after he
reached his Welsh home. Before he died, he commanded that his dead body
should be taken to London and buried on the White Mount--upon which
later the Tower of London was erected. Poor Bronwen, broken-hearted,
survived her brother but a short time. She was buried at Ynys Bronwen
in Anglesea, where, only a few hundred years ago when the mound tomb
was opened, an urn was found containing the ashes of the unhappy
princess.

This is a sad little story to centre around so charming a place
as Harlech, now dedicated, it seems, only to the happy laughter
of contented holiday makers. Harlech stands upon the side of a
castle-crowned hill, separated from the sea by those magnificent golf
links famous throughout the world.

It is an ideal holiday resort in the midst of a district teeming with
objects of natural beauty and antiquarian interest. From it, the
railway line, which follows the greater part of the Cardigan Bay coast,
gives easy access to such places as Barmouth, Aberystwyth, or northward
to Criccieth and Pwllheli, while inland is a district of little
lake-studded mountains and moorland, offering endless attractions to
the walker, the artist, or the fisherman.

[Illustration: _Harlech Castle._]



[Illustration: a swan near the edge of a pond, with the head of a
woman. The head is staring down into the water, perhaps mournfully.]

THE SWAN OF GLASFRYN.


That part of Carnarvonshire in North Wales that stretches out into the
sea to Braich-y-Pwll, and forms the northern boundary of beautiful
Cardigan Bay, is known as Lleyn. Lleyn is a peninsula of splendid
scenery, both round the coast and inland by its mountains and moorland
lakes; and almost every square mile of the place has its legend, or
brave tale of historic times to tell.

Midway between its two coasts is the lonely little tarn of Glasfryn,
about which a story is told reminiscent of that connected with Bala
Lake which has been recorded in a previous story of Legend Land.
Llyn Glasfryn, as the modern maps call it, was once Ffynnon Grassi,
or Grace’s Well, which supplied water to those who lived by, and
cultivated, the fertile fields now engulfed by the waters of the lake.
Grace was a village girl whose task it was to tend this well, and one
of her duties was to see that the cover which enclosed it was always
kept closed when the well was not in use.

One day, so many years ago that nobody can rightly tell how long since
it was, Grace neglected her duty. Some say that it was because of a
mysterious and strikingly handsome youth who came down from Yr Eifl,
the splendid mountain that rises nearly 2,000 feet into the sky, a
couple of miles away. Others, that she was the victim of sorceries of
a beautiful but evil enchantress from Anglesea. But anyhow the cover
of the well was left open one night, and, as happened at Bala, soon
after the weary country folk had retired to rest, they were aroused,
in alarm, by a great flood which came from Ffynnon Grassi, which was
pouring out a stream of water, that nobody could check.

Soon the prosperous farms and fertile lands round about were submerged
beneath the waters, and Llyn Glasfryn was formed. But the careless
Grace to whose negligence the great misfortune was due did not escape
unpunished. She was turned into a swan, and her fate was that,
until the Day of Judgment, she must swim about the lake which her
forgetfulness had caused to be created.

Some say that after many years she was forgiven, and died; but others
hold that even to this day you may hear poor Grace’s piteous cries at
the dark of night, as she swims her never ending course up and down the
surface of Llyn Glasfryn. And if you chance to see this mournful bird
you will find that its head is that of a beautiful maiden.

They also tell that beneath the surface of the lake lives a mysterious
monster called “Old Morgan,” who, perhaps, is he who in those far
away days beguiled Grace to forget her duty at the well. “Morgan” is
a terrible person, with whom the country children round about are
threatened when they misbehave.

This pathetic story of Grace and her sad fate is but one of the many
that cling about Lleyn. March, the husband of the fair Iseult, had a
castle here, and from that grim fortress, Iseult eloped with Tristan.

Near Yr Eifl, Vortigern fell a victim to the charms of the beautiful
Rowenna, daughter of Hengest, and to win her favour agreed to assign
Kent to her Anglo-Saxon father. Cromlechs and other remains of early
man are to be found on nearly every hill side.

But you must visit this fascinating corner of Wales fully to appreciate
its charm and romance. Criccieth or Pwllheli is a good centre. Each is
an attractive little town by the sea facing due south and sheltered by
mountains from the north or east winds.

Noble Snowdon, its summit over 3,500 above sea level, is not far away,
and an excursion to the far end of Lleyn, where Bardsey Sound divides
remote Bardsey Island from the mainland, takes the visitor through one
of the most beautiful--and least known--districts in the whole of our
country.

For the sportsman there is trout fishing in abundance here, and in
season wild fowl shooting of a kind seldom known in more popular parts
of the kingdom. For the artist there is the endless variety of rocky
coast and mountain scenery, and for the average holiday-maker an
unspoilt land swept by mild health-giving air, where he may idle away
the days in perfect quietude and restfulness.

[Illustration: _Yr Eifl._]



[Illustration: A man with halo seeking refuge behind a large rock
outcropping.]

THE WONDERS OF ST. GOVAN’S CHAPEL.


In a ravine that cuts into the rugged cliffs by St. Govan’s Head on the
south coast of Pembrokeshire, is a little chapel, once the hermitage of
the saint whose name the headland bears. St. Govan was a disciple of
St. David, and he had an adventurous life in this lonely part of Wales
many hundreds of years ago.

The district was harried by pirates from the sea, and savage pagan
tribesmen from the interior, and the very rocks and stones of his
sea-girt dwelling place had often to come to the rescue of the holy
man. But though he has been dead these fifteen hundred years the rocks,
they say, still work wonders for the visitor who goes to the little
chapel with a believing mind.

It is a tiny little place, twenty feet by twelve, with a stone tower
up which runs a staircase of over fifty steps. Exactly how many there
are you must try to count for yourself, for it is said that they vary,
and never number the same going up as they do coming down. Once fierce
pirates landed here and stole a silver bell that hung in the chapel.

Poor St. Govan was forced to hide from these wretches on many
occasions. A friendly rock would then come to his aid--you may see it
to-day to the left of the altar in the chapel. This rock would open,
when the saint was pursued and disclose a hollow within just big enough
to enclose his form. Then it would shut and hold the holy man in
security until the danger was passed.

After St. Govan died, the rock remained part open as it is now, and
they say that it will adapt itself to the size of anybody, who really
believes in its powers, who wishes to enter it. And if, when you are in
St. Govan’s hiding place, you make a wish, and do not change your mind
before you have turned round to come out again, you will surely obtain
your desires.

For many years, so the story goes, there was close by the chapel a rock
that gave out a beautifully clear and musical note when struck. This
rock, they said, contained the silver bell that the pirates stole, for
these wicked men were not allowed to escape with their booty, for their
ship was caught in a tremendous hurricane and swept on to the rocky
shore, and all the miscreants were drowned.

But the stolen bell was saved by some miraculous power and carried to
the rock, which became known as the “Bell-stone,” where it remained in
security.

St. Govan’s holy well is situated a little below the chapel, and here
cripples from all over Wales would travel to bathe in the healing
waters which gave relief to their sufferings. There is another healing
property in the cliffs near at hand, in the form of a deposit of red
clay, which for centuries has had the reputation of curing sore eyes.
But whether or not the earth and the waters around St. Govan’s Chapel
will work their magic for you now, the winds that blow straight in from
the Atlantic to this rockbound Pembroke coast will cure most ailments,
and bring back health and renewed vigour to the most weary.

Pembroke is a good centre for this hilly land of castles. From here you
may make excursions to some of the finest coast scenery in Wales, or
crossing Milford Haven adventure into that beautiful and little known
country that fringes the shore of St. Bride’s Bay.

Haverfordwest, a fascinating sleepy old town with three ancient
churches, is a few miles on the other side of Milford Haven, which you
cross in a steam ferry; and from there a motor omnibus service will
take you to far away little St. Davids, the “Cathedral Village,” with
its wonderful Norman Cathedral Church. It is a magnificent journey
that, from Haverfordwest to St. Davids, across a wild and windswept
country with seventeen steep hills to negotiate in sixteen miles, and
a magnificent view from the top of each one of them. And at the end of
the road one of the choicest churches in the whole country, nestling in
a sheltered valley, awaits you, and that sense of complete peace and
quiet that can only be found in a place utterly remote from crowds, and
the hustle and worry of modern life.

[Illustration: _St. Govan’s Chapel._]



[Illustration: Fairies tending a garden.]

THE FAIRY GARDENS OF TREEN.


The Small Folk, or Fairies, as strangers call them, are very fond of
flowers. They have their own particular gardens in many places around
the rough Cornish coast, but mostly they are to be found near the base
of jagged cliffs in little green tracts, inaccessible either from the
sea or from the summit of the cliff above. There are several of these
near the foot of the cliffs round Trereen or Treen Castle, that rugged
headland near the Lands End, upon which stands the famous Logan Rock,
or rocking stone.

You can generally tell a Small Folks’ garden by the many sea pinks
that bloom there in season, and the peculiar brightness of the green
of the ferns that nestle in the moist shade of the rocks. There is
nothing much else to distinguish them by day, but of a summer night it
is very different. Then if you chance upon one of them--which is very
rarely--you will find the soft green of the cliff turf spangled with
wee flowers of all colours, rare and beautiful, such as mere mortals
never know.

And you may see the Little People dancing happily in rings around some
sea pink which towers above their heads, or busying about with tiny
water-pot or spade tending their beloved blooms.

The fishermen sometimes see them when, on a still summer night, their
boats drift silently close in by the cliffs. They hear the strains of
sweet soft music coming from close down by the water and see a constant
moving of hundreds of tiny bright lights flickering in and out among
the fairy flowers; and sometimes, on calm warm nights, the delicious
scents of the flowers drifts far out to sea, a scent that is ten
thousand times sweeter than any that came from a mortal garden.

Those who have been lucky enough to witness this wonderful scene say
that you must be perfectly silent and hardly move, or you will frighten
the Small Folk. They are very beautiful little creatures, seeking to
harm nobody. They hold periodical feasts or “Fairs,” as they are
called, sometimes upon some lonely hill top, or in a glade in the depth
of a thick wood. Then, when thousands of them are assembled together,
their lights may often be seen for miles.

But you must not interfere with the Small Folk or they will punish you.
They have their own ways of doing this. They will lead you astray for
hours, or make you drop stitches at your knitting, or make you lose
your path on a dark winter’s night. But to those who wish them well
they will never do real harm and they seem often to be sorry for the
mischief they have caused, and will reward their victims with some
piece of good luck soon afterwards.

At least this is what the old people who have known the Little People
will tell you, but they will not talk much about them nowadays for fear
of not being believed.

Still you may see the Fairy Gardens for yourself by Trereen Castle if
you will, and see all around some of the finest coast scenery in all
Cornwall.

The Logan Rock itself is one of the sights of the country. It is a huge
boulder of granite said to weigh 65 tons, so poised that without great
effort it can be rocked to and fro. Once it was easier to move, but a
mischievous naval officer pulled it from its base about 100 years ago.
He was made by the Admiralty to replace it, but it has never rocked so
freely again.

This is the westernmost corner of England, and a succession of
magnificent headlands thrust themselves into the sea between Trereen
and the Lands End. A few miles inland is Sennen, the “last” parish in
the country.

Penzance is the best centre for visiting this remote district. A
regular service of motor buses runs from that place to the Lands End,
carrying the visitor within an easy walk of Treen Castle and its Fairy
Gardens, and traversing on the way a wild windswept, almost treeless
country, abounding in relics of our earliest ancestors--strange stone
circles and British villages. The moorland hills here rise to 800 feet
in height, and from them extensive views are to be had comprising,
on ordinarily clear days, the far isles of Scilly, lying out in the
Atlantic, thirty-five miles away.

This is a land of health and rest where Small Folks’ gardens seem far
easier to understand than in the grime and turmoil of a great city.

[Illustration: _The Logan Rock._]



[Illustration: One man has just pushed another man off the cliff.]

HOW THE DODMAN WAS NAMED.


Somewhere about the middle of the south coast of Cornwall, a noble
headland, the Dodman Point, stretches abruptly into the Channel,
towering, at its summit, 370 odd feet above the waves. It is one of the
landmarks of the south coast well known to every sailorman.

Unimaginative people, like antiquaries and professors, will tell you
that Dodman only means “Stone Point,” and is merely a corruption of the
old Cornish “Duadh Maen”; but the country folk take no heed of that;
they know the old story handed down from long dead ages. They know that
Dodman means “Deadman,” and this is why.

Ever so long ago there lived a giant in his castle on Dodman Point. The
rugged earthworks, remains of the castle, are there to-day for you to
see if you doubt it. This giant was the terror of the neighbourhood. He
fed upon the best of the cattle and sheep, and very often children were
missing, for the giant liked variety in his food.

The country people were powerless against this ogre whose size and
strength were stupendous. To keep off intruders he dug, in one night,
the great ditch--which is still there--that runs from sea to sea across
the Point. But one stormy night he fell sick, and his howls of agony
were heard for miles around, terrifying the simple peasant folk with
their blood-curdling tones.

At last, towards midnight, there arrived at the village of St. Goran, a
mile and a half inland, a messenger from the giant demanding the local
doctor instantly, and threatening horrible revenge were he to delay.
Now the local doctor was a very brave man, also he had suffered a good
deal from the depredations of the evil giant, so he obeyed the summons
and went back with the messenger, his neighbours never thinking to see
him again.

Arrived at the castle, he found the giant rolling in agony on the
ground, and he swiftly devised a plan for ridding Cornwall--and the
world--of this horrible ogre.

“You must be bled,” he said, following the general medical treatment of
the day.

The giant roared out that he would do anything to be rid of his pain.
His voice was so loud, they say, that he could be heard distinctly at
Mevagissey. So the doctor got to work and the treatment gave relief.

To complete a perfect cure, the doctor explained, the giant must sit
on the edge of the cliff at the point of the headland, and the giant
obeyed the instruction. And then the doctor, standing by and looking
very wise and serious, allowed the monster’s blood to flow away until
with weakness he became unconscious. The huge and hideous head sank
lower and lower, the great powerful body crumpled, until at last the
doctor, with a mighty effort, rolled his evil patient to the cliff’s
edge--and kicked him off on to the rocks beneath.

Then he returned to tell the glad news to St. Goran, where, to
celebrate it, they held a feast lasting five days. And ever after that
the Giant’s promontory was known as the “Deadman,” or as we have come
to call it, the “Dodman.”

There it is to-day as wild and beautiful a headland as any in Cornwall.
In the giant’s mighty bulwark known locally as the “Hack and Cast,”
wild flowers bloom. From the summit a wonderful view, from the Lizard
to the west to the Devon coast eastward, extends.

Mevagissey, one of the most characteristic of Cornish fishing ports, is
less than four miles away, and all about is a fascinating little known
country of deep fertile little valleys and seldom-visited villages,
while the coast scenery of Mevagissey and Veryan Bays, which the Dodman
practically divides, is rugged and charming.

Here you get the full freshness of the Atlantic breezes, fierce enough
at times, but more often soft and soothing.

St. Austell is your nearest railway station, an interesting old town,
the centre of Cornwall’s china clay industry. It is on the main line
and may be reached easily from any part of south or west Cornwall, and
from there country omnibuses will take you within a few miles of the
remote Dodman, the scene of that village doctor’s wonderful “cure,” so
many centuries ago.

[Illustration: _Mevagissey._]



[Illustration: Two mermaids, various fish and sea birds staring at a
castle near the seaside with a flock of birds near it.]

THE CHARMER OF PENGERSICK.


The Pengersick Castle that you find to-day, built by the coast between
Parran Uthnoe and Porthleven near Helston, is a mere upstart building,
little, if any of it, more than four centuries old. This story is about
the older castle built on the same site nobody knows how long ago.

It was a grim fortress inhabited by grim and eerie folk, about whom
many wild and creepy tales are told. The old Pengersicks were a strange
family who trafficked with the powers of evil. One went to far eastern
climes and learned the black arts of sorcery, and brought back with him
as his bride an “outlandish Saracen” woman of surprising beauty.

Nobody knew actually where she came from, but she arrived unexpectedly
at the castle, one winter day, with her Lord and two eastern
attendants, all mounted on priceless Arab horses. They spoke in an
unknown tongue and disappeared behind the frowning gates, seldom to be
seen abroad again.

Some say that this strange party arrived before the castle was built,
and that it was this saturnine Lord of Pengersick who, by supernatural
aid, erected the first grim fortress; but all agree that the beautiful
Eastern lady possessed the most wonderful voice that had ever been
heard.

No living creature could resist its appeal. Men and women, birds,
animals, even fishes, stopped spellbound to listen when she sang. And
she and she only could control her evil husband.

When engaged in his blackest sorceries, brewing strange potions that
sent their exotic aromas throughout the country for miles around, or
when, in the middle of a storm, he sat upon the battlements of his
castle conjuring the Prince of Darkness, the Lord of Pengersick could
always be quieted by the sound of his Lady’s voice singing her strange
Eastern songs to the strain of her harp.

She seemed a sad, beautiful Lady, this Saracen woman. Sometimes at
night, or at summer dawn, she sat by her lattice window overlooking the
sea, and played and sang to herself the plaintive melodies of her own
land. Then, as the fisherfolk would aver, they sat motionless at the
sound of her sweet voice. Even the fishes would come to the surface to
listen; birds hovered over the castle, and mermaids from the Lizard
caverns would float across the bay, enchanted by the appealing tones.

For many years these strange happenings went on at Pengersick castle;
the fair lady’s harp sent its sweet music through the air, the
forbidding Lord continued his incantations, until one wild and stormy
night--the darkest ever known in those parts--the countryside was
startled by an eerie gleam in the sky. Presently angry flames burst
forth, and the frightened people, hurrying from all sides to discover
what this huge conflagration might be, found that Pengersick Castle was
ablaze.

Nothing they could do would still the flames, the massive pile burnt
itself out, and the next morning only the fire-scarred walls remained.
The whole of the inside--furniture, books, pictures--everything was
destroyed; and what was more curious, from that day onward neither the
Lord of Pengersick nor his Lady was ever seen again. They had vanished
just as mysteriously as they had arrived.

Years later a rich merchant--some said he had been a pirate--built upon
the site of the ruins a new castle. That is the one you see to-day, a
mellow old building looking peacefully out to sea. You may visit it
either from Helston or Penzance, it lies about midway between the two.

Near at hand is famous Prussia Cove where, in the 18th century, a
smuggler armed his house and opened fire upon the Revenue men with
small cannon. To the west is Mounts Bay with the more famous St.
Michael’s Mount, and to the east low undulating cliffs stretch in a
graceful curve, until they rise to the rugged headlands dividing the
sheltered coves of the Lizard Peninsula.

This coast is the very end of England, enjoying a climate mild even
in the depth of winter. Spring comes here fully six weeks before it
reaches London, the Midlands and the North; summer lingers almost until
Christmas time, and, like the Strange Lady of Pengersick, the sea and
the hills of this part of the Duchy exercise a charm that none can
resist.

[Illustration: _Pengersick Castle._]



[Illustration: A man with halo flying away with two angels on a chariot
drawn by two spirit horses (with wings).]

HOW ST. GERMAN LEFT CORNWALL.


Some fifteen hundred years ago the Church in Cornwall had fallen into
grievous heresies, and the Roman Emperor Valentinian decided that a
stern, strong man was needed to pull these erring people back into the
right way. So he instructed St. Germanus of Auxere to go to barbarous
Britain and tell the Cornish all about it. And accordingly St.
Germanus, or St. German, as we call him, came.

But the erring people were not at all pleased with their visitor.
They preferred their own priests and their old teachings, and good St.
German had a very hard time of it. But he stuck to his task, preached
the true faith, performed remarkable miracles and erected a beautiful
church. Yet the stubborn Cornish would not make friends with him. On
the contrary they persecuted him in many ways, doing their utmost
to drive him away, so that they might be left in peace with their
old-fashioned doctrines, which they much preferred to the right and
proper teachings of this foreigner.

And at last the patience of the saint gave out. The unruly people
started a brawl in church during a Sunday morning service. St. German
tried to reason with them, but they would not hear him. He prayed for
them but they jeered at him, and their conduct became so threatening
that the good saint’s companions, fearing for his life, persuaded him
to escape from the church.

Poor St. German was heartbroken. He felt that his mission had failed
utterly. And in the depths of despair he wandered away out to lonely
Rame Head, where he sat by the cliffs’ edge and lamented his lack of
success. Here he was compelled to hide from his persecutors for some
days, and they say that the very rocks wept with him in his grief, and
still weep at St. German’s well.

But at last the furious mob discovered the saint’s hiding place, and a
vast crowd, led by the local priests, came swarming up the hill side of
Rame determined to destroy the holy man.

St. German faced the maddened rabble fearlessly, praying only for
deliverance from their anger. Then, as the first stone was thrown,
there came a crash of thunder, and in a blaze of light a fiery chariot
was seen descending the hill.

The mob started back in terror, but the chariot rolled on to where the
saint stood. Two glittering angels were in the chariot. They tenderly
lifted St. German from the ground and placed him between them. There
followed a great rushing wind, and the amazed and terrified crowd
looked upward to see the fiery chariot ascending into the heavens.
Then, in mighty dread at the result of their wickedness, the people
scattered and fled.

St. German was carried safely overseas, where he lived for many years
to continue his pious works. It is even said that after a time he
returned to Cornwall again and completed his appointed task. At any
rate St. German’s Well still flows, and for many centuries--perhaps if
you looked hard you could find them still--the marks of the chariot
wheels were to be seen burnt into the rock of Rame Head.

Rame is a magnificent headland, the easternmost of Cornwall, surmounted
by an ancient ruined chapel dedicated to St. Michael. It is the nearest
point of land to the Eddystone, and from it on a clear day you can see
to the Lizard--the whole length of the county.

St. Germans, a quiet little place named after the saint, was the seat
of an early bishopric, the splendid old Norman church marking the site
of the ancient cathedral. Both St. Germans and Rame Head are easily
reached from Plymouth, St. Germans being under ten miles by rail from
that place, and in summer boat excursions may be made to Cawsand, a
little over a mile from Rame Head, and up the beautiful Lynher River to
St. Germans.

This part of East Cornwall has a distinctive charm of its own. The
Tamar, which forms the county boundary, is most attractive to explore.
There are many early churches and castles round about, and the variety
of river and sea scenery offered here is obtainable nowhere else in the
Duchy. That great arm of the sea, that runs up from Plymouth Sound and
comprises the Lynher, the Tamar, and the Tavy estuaries, will in itself
provide interest for many excursions, while the barren heights of both
the Bodmin Moors and Dartmoor are more easily accessible from Plymouth
than from any other centre.

[Illustration: _Rame Head._]



[Illustration: A man in dark cloak traveling at night, accosted by a
specter of an old man.]

THE SPECTRE OF ROSEWARNE.


Near Camborne, in the mining district of South Cornwall, is Rosewarne,
where was once one of the great houses of the county. Two hundred
years or so ago an avaricious attorney named Ezekiel Grosse obtained
possession of the place by shady means, and this is the fate that
befell him.

One night, after he had taken possession of the place, Ezekiel, engaged
in studying some deeds, looked up to find standing before him a queer
wizened little man of ghostly appearance, motioning him to follow. The
crafty lawyer, afraid only of losing money, told the apparition to go
away. But the little man remained, still making his strange signs.

At length Ezekiel asked what he wanted, and the ghost replied: “To show
thee where much gold lies buried.”

Gold was a bait the lawyer could never resist, but there was something
so grim about the manner of his strange visitor that an unfamiliar
feeling of dread came upon him, and he was unable at first to rise.

“Come,” commanded the ghost. “Gold, Ezekiel, gold.”

Ezekiel at last staggered to his feet, now quaking with fear.

“Follow me,” said the spectre in a hollow voice, and the lawyer, torn
between emotions of fear and greed, obeyed.

The spectre led the shivering lawyer out into the grounds of Rosewarne
and, after a long walk, they arrived at a little dell surrounded by
high banks and trees, in the centre of which was a small carn of
granite boulders. In the darkness Ezekiel noticed that his guide seemed
to emit a weird phosphorescent light, and he was yet more terrified.

Then the spectre turned upon him and said: “Thou longest for gold,
Ezekiel, even as I did. Yet I could never enjoy it; see if thou canst.
Dig there. Beneath those stones is gold aplenty. Win it and enjoy it,
and when thou art happiest I will come to visit thee again.” With this
the strange figure gave a wild mocking laugh and disappeared in a blaze
of white light.

Ezekiel Grosse recovered his nerve and ran back to the house for tools.
All night he dug, and uncovered a huge pot filled with ancient gold
pieces. It took him seven nights to remove them all, and when he had
completed his task he found himself one of the wealthiest men in all
the countryside. His ghostly visitor never returned, and after a few
years Ezekiel almost ceased to remember him.

Time passed by and the world forgot the past reputation of Ezekiel
Grosse. Because of his great wealth, honours and position were showered
upon him. Then came a night when he was entertaining a magnificent
party in his great Hall. Laughter and the sound of music and dancing
made the old rafters ring until, of a sudden, the gaiety ceased as if
by magic. In the midst of the Hall appeared the aged spectre.

Ezekiel did his best to turn the matter into a joke, but his guests
could not be roused from their inexplicable gloomy emotions. One by one
they made excuses and departed and at last the lawyer was left alone
with his ghostly visitor.

From that time onward whenever Ezekiel had a party the wizened figure
of the spectre was present. He would sit without speaking at the
banqueting table or walk slowly among the dancers until at length,
gazing full at the Lord of Rosewarne, he would utter an unearthly laugh
of derision and disappear.

Soon Ezekiel Grosse’s friends all deserted him and he was left an old
and lonely man, whose sole companion was one, John Call, his clerk.

So Grosse sought to bargain with the spectre, and had at last to
consent to give up all his worldly possessions to John Call. When the
deeds were signed the ghost finally disappeared, uttering one last
demoniac peal of laughter as he went.

Old Ezekiel only survived for a few weeks. One morning he was found
dead, and the country folk tell that at his funeral a crowd of grinning
demons appeared, which afterwards flew away over Carn Brea, and that
from its midst came the same horrible laughter that the spectre had
been heard so often to emit.

Rosewarne, the scene of this story, lies in that barren mining
country which every visitor to Cornwall should see. It is intensely
interesting, and permission is not difficult to obtain, to visit some
of the tin mines where an industry, carried on in Cornwall since the
days of the Phoenicians, still survives.

The hills and moorland of this district are scarred with old workings
and abandoned mine buildings. Rugged Carn Brea, crowned by prehistoric
remains and the ruins of an ancient castle, rises 740 feet high, close
by the main line between Redruth and Camborne. Here, they say, was the
chief centre of Druid worship in the west. This district is easy of
access from St. Ives, Penzance, Falmouth or Truro, and a visit to it
will ever be remembered with pleasure, bleak and dreary though the mine
riddled land may seem at first sight.

[Illustration: _Carn Brea._]



[Illustration: A young woman sitting on rocks with and consoling an
elderly person.]

THE LEGEND OF THE FOUR HALLS.


Many an old tale is told of that great waste of sand-hills which
fringes the coast of Perran Bay between Newquay and Perranporth. They
say that there stood the lost city of Langarrow, once a busy town, that
became so wicked that it was swallowed up in a night of fierce storm by
the sands, and no trace of it left to offend the earth.

Right on the very edge of these sands, in the parish of Cubert, is the
hamlet of Ellenglaze. Hellenclose was its old name, and that means the
“Four Halls.” There is a little known story about this place, or rather
about the house that stood there in the very old days, and it explains
why the place was so called.

Hellenclose was once much nearer to the sea, but three times the
relentless sands overwhelmed it, and each time the Lord of Hellenclose
set himself to erect a new dwelling further inland, for they were of a
stubborn race in those days, and would not easily submit even to the
power of the storms and the winds.

It was a young Lord who built the fourth hall, in defiance of all
advice, close by where the present house stands. Wise men warned him
that the same fate would befall that as had overtaken the others, but
he laughed at them, and his house finished, he rode off to fetch his
bride from Meneage by the Lizard.

The night he returned was an ominous one. A great gale was getting up,
and the retainers eyed anxiously the restless sand-hills not so far
away. But the young Lord was happy and careless and bade his people
sleep soundly for no harm would come. But the next morning the invading
sands were seen approaching, and panic fell upon the household, who
cried out that there was a curse upon the land.

Presently they dragged to the anxious Lord and his new-made wife an old
hag whom they had found hiding in a barn. She was a witch they said,
and to her was due all their troubles. By this time the cruel sand was
already sweeping around the walls of the house, and the young Lord in
his trouble gave orders for the hag to be hanged forthwith, saying
that she should not live to cackle over the result of her evil designs.
But his beautiful young bride intervened.

Casting herself weeping at her bridegroom’s feet she begged him to
spare the old woman’s life. “I believe she is no witch, but one in
misfortune as we are,” she cried, and so eloquent were the pleadings of
this beautiful girl that all who heard her were moved to tears--all,
that is, save the old woman who remained dry-eyed throughout the whole
scene. At last the husband relented so far as to promise that the
supposed witch should be spared until nightfall. If by then the house
remained safe the old woman should go free; if not: “By St. Pirran, she
shall hang,” he vowed.

The young bride agreed to this compromise and herself undertook to be
responsible for the old woman’s safe keeping. She led her outside the
hall, where the sand was now driving in low clouds over her lord’s
land, and besought the old dame, if she had any power to do so, to
avert the almost inevitable tragedy.

The hag avowed her innocence. “Then the Saints aid us all,” replied the
girl, and with that she planted a kiss upon the old woman’s shrivelled
cheek.

Now a witch cannot shed tears--that is one of the ways you may always
tell one--but a kiss given freely and with good will, can break the
bonds of magic that bind a witch; and no sooner had the young bride of
Hellenclose kissed the aged woman than tears began to well from her
eyes. These fell to the ground and caused first a tiny trickle then
a regular stream which flowed on through the sand towards the sea at
Holywell Bay.

And as the stream grew in size, so the invasion of the sands ceased for
sand cannot cross running water, and the Fourth Hall was saved.

To-day you will find Ellenglaze separated from the barren sands about
a hundred yards away, by a little brook. So long as that flows, the
hamlet is safe, but should it ever dry up, they say there would have to
be a fifth hall, and the waste would sweep on until perhaps it reached
St. Cubert’s Church on the hill inland.

The lonely and fascinating Perran Sands are easily reached from either
Newquay or Perranporth. The coast on the Newquay side is particularly
fine, for a succession of steep rocky headlands here thrust themselves
into the Atlantic rollers, and between them are quiet little
sand-fringed bays where one may idle away a summer afternoon with only
the sea birds for company.

Newquay itself, with its many fine hotels and its bathing beaches, is
one of the most attractive of all the north Cornish coast towns, from
which the most impressive of that coast scenery may easily be visited.

[Illustration: _Ellenglaze._]



[Illustration: Galleys at sea fitted for war with painted sails,
banners flying, archers and spearmen in the crows nest and railings,
and oars plying the sea.]

THE STORY OF “JOHN DORY.”


This very old song commemorates the brave doings of the “Fowey
Gallants,” as the mariners of that wonderful old-world Cornish seaport
were called. They were men, famous throughout the middle ages, as the
boldest and most daring of sea fighters.

It possibly has reference to some heroic action fought in Edward III’s
reign, when Fowey’s contribution to the King’s fleet is said to have
been 47 ships and 770 men.

The song itself was perhaps written a hundred years later than this,
but it is certain that in Tudor times it was one of the most popular
songs in the land, so well known in the West that Richard Carew in his
“Survey of Cornwall,” published in 1602, refers to it in his account of
Fowey, and calls it old then.

He says: “Moreover the prowess of one Nicholas, son of a widow, near
Foy, is descanted upon in an old three man’s song, namely, how he
fought bravely at sea, with John Dory (a Genowey, as I conjecture), set
forth by John the French King, and (after much bloodshed on both sides)
took and slew him, in revenge of the great ravine (_see Transcriber’s
Note_) and cruelty which he had forecommitted upon the Englishmen’s
goods and bodies.”

Carew’s assumption is that John Dory was a Genoese employed by the
French King.

Many writers of the 16th and 17th centuries spoke of the song; Dryden
described it as one of the most popular in his time. But gradually it
came to be forgotten as songs in praise of newer heroes arose.

But at any rate we can take it that “Nicholl’s” feat was no ordinary
one, for he came of a race that loved fighting. The Fowey mariners were
always ready for a sea fight, engaging in a little private piracy when
legitimate warfare was not available. And they took their full share in
the struggles against the Armada, and late against the Dutch admiral De
Ruyter.

Fowey--Q’s “Troy Town”--has seen as stirring a life as any of our
seaport towns. It is still a busy, picturesque little place, straggling
along the edge of its beautiful sheltered harbour, at the mouth of
which remains of its ancient castle-fort still stand.

It is a fascinating place in which to spend a holiday, warm and
sheltered, with excellent opportunities for sailing or sea or river
fishing; and its neighbourhood abounds in pleasant walks and places of
interest.

[Music and score: “JOHN DORY”]

Verse 1.

    1st MAN. As it fell on a ho-ly day, And up-on a ho-ly tide-a,
    John Do-ry bought him an am-bling nag, To Pa-ris for to ride-a,
    To Pa-ris for to ride-a, And up-on a ho-ly tide.----
    As it fell on a ho-ly day, And up-on a ho-ly tide-a,
    John Do-ry bought him an am-bling nag, To Pa-ris for to ride-a.

    2nd MAN. As it fell on a ho-ly day, And up-on a ho-ly tide-a,
    John Do-ry bought him an am-bling nag, To Pa-ris for to ride-a,
    To Pa-ris for to ride-a, And up-on a ho-ly tide.----
    As It fell on a ho-ly day, And up-on a ho-ly tide-a.

    3rd MAN. As it fell on a ho-ly day, And up-on a ho-ly tide-a,
    John Do-ry bought him an am-bling nag, To Pa-ris for to ride-a,
    To Pa-ris for to ride-a, And up-on a ho-ly tide.----

       *       *       *       *       *

    The first man that John Dory did meet; was good King John of France-a
    John Dory could well of his courtesie, but fell down in a trance-a;
      But fell down in a trance-a at good King John of France.

    “A pardon, a pardon, my liege and my King, for my merie men and me-a,
    And all the churles in merie England, I’ll bring them bound to thee-a,
      I’ll bring them bound to thee-a, my merie men and me.”

    And Nicholl was then a Cornish man, a little beside Bohyde-a;
    And he manned forth a good black bark, with fifty good oars on a
          side-a,
      With fifty good oars on a side-a, and he dwelt beside Bohyde.

    The roaring cannons then were plied, and dub-a-dub went the drum-a;
    The braying trumpets loud they cried, to courage both all and some-a,
      To courage both all and some-a, and dub-a-dub went the drum.

    The grappling-hooks were brought at length, the brown bill and the
          sword-a;
    John Dory at length, for all his strength, was clapt fast under
          board-a,
      Was clapt fast under board-a, by the brown bill and the sword.

  NOTE.--The “1st Man” should be he of the loudest voice of the three;
        the others should so restrain themselves that the words of each
        verse may be clearly heard.

HOW TO SING A “THREE MAN’S SONG.”

The “Three Man’s Song” was the precursor of the more familiar “Round.”
It should be sung in this manner: The first man sings, alone, the
opening line of each verse and as he proceeds with the second, the
second man starts to sing the first. In like manner the third man joins
in the harmony with the first line when the first man has reached the
third and the second man the second.

In order that all three singers should complete each verse at the same
time, it is necessary for the first man to repeat the first and the
second lines, and the second man to repeat the first line.

[Illustration: _St. Catherine’s Castle, Fowey._]


[Illustration: Map of central England and Wales, the area covered by
the Great Western Railway. Title reads: G. W. R. The line to legend
land. Various places mentioned in the book are identified: Trereen
Castle (Page 28), Pengersick (Page 36), Rame Head (Page 40), Mevagissey
(Page 32), Camborne (Page 44), Newquay (Page 48), Fowey (Page 52).]


[Illustration: Miniature of the front cover Illustration of Volume
Four: Herne the Hunter]



TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE


Obsolete, archaic and unusual spellings have been maintained as in the
original book. Obvious typos have been fixed silently.

In the story of John Dory, the phrase “in revenge of the great ravine
and cruelty” appears. The word “rapine” comes from French, and a
popular form of this word in old French was “ravine”. Consequently I
believe that a rendering of this phrase in modern English would be “in
revenge of the great rapine and cruelty.”

The cover page was produced at Distributed Proofreaders from material
found in this book. The cover is hereby placed in the public domain.

The author, “Lyonesse” is a pen-name for George Basil Barham.



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