Traditions And Hearthside Stories Of West Cornwall Part 33

G.o.d bless the flesh and preserve the bone, Perish thou tetter and be thou gone, In the name, &c."

The charm is thus continued until it comes to the last, which is:--

"Tetter, tetter, thou hast no sister, G.o.d bless the flesh and preserve the bone, Perish thou tetter and be thou gone.

In the name, &c."

_Charm for toothache._

"Christ pa.s.s'd by his brother's door, Saw his brother lying on the floor.

'What aileth thee, brother?

Pain in thy teeth?

Thy teeth shall pain thee no more.'

In the name, &c."

The charmer places his or her thumb on the diseased part in all but the first charm.

Divination with a Bible and key; seeking a response to doubts from the first words the eye may glance on in letting a Bible fall open; and various other superst.i.tious practices, common to all England, are well known here and need not be described.

THE FAIRY TRIBES.

Belief in fairies is far from being extinct in Cornwall, though our country folks never call them by that name.

A few days since, a woman of Mousehal told me that not long ago troops of small people, no more than a foot and a half high, used--on moonlight nights--to come out of a hole in the cliff, opening onto the beach, Newlyn side of the village, and but a short distance from it. The little people were always dressed very smart; and if anyone came near them they would scamper away into the hole. Mothers often told their children that if they went under cliff by night the small people would carry them away into "d.i.c.ky Danjy's holt."

Another kind called spriggans, which simply means sprites, are believed to guard treasures buried in cliff and hill castles.

Not long since a tinner of Lelant dreamt, three nights following, that a crock of gold was buried in a particular spot, between large rocks within the castle, on Trecroben hill. The next clear moonlight night he dug up the ground of which he had dreamt. After working two or three hours he came to a flat stone which sounded hollow; whilst digging round its edges, the weather became suddenly dark, the wind roared around the carns, and looking up, when he had made a place for his hands to lift it, he saw hundreds of ugly spriggans coming out from amidst the rocks gathering around and approaching him. The man dropped his pick, ran down the hill and home as fast as he could lay foot to ground; he took to his bed and was unable to leave it for weeks.

When he next visited the castle he found the pit all filled in, with the turf replaced; and he nevermore dug for the treasure.

Piskey still leads benighted people astray; this sprite wanders alone and is always spoken of in the singular. It is somewhat remarkable that a green bug, frequently found on bramble bushes in autumn, is called by this name. After Michaelmas, it is said, that blackberries are unwholesome because Piskey spoils them then.

Places frequented by goats are believed to be the favourite haunts of fairies.

It is uncertain whether Bucka can be regarded as one of the fairy tribe; old people, within my remembrance, spoke of a Bucka Gwidden and a Bucka Dhu--by the former they meant a good spirit, and by the latter an evil one, now known as Bucka boo. I have been told, by persons of credit, that within the last forty years it was a usual practice with Newlyn and Mousehal fishermen to leave on the sand at night a portion of their catch for Bucka. Probably from this observance the common nickname of Newlyn Buckas was derived. An old rhyme says:--

"Penzance boys up in a tree, Looking as wisht as wisht can be; Newlyn buckas as strong as oak, Knocking them down at every poke."

From this it appears that Newlyn boys once considered it a matter of pride to be called by the name of their ancient divinity.

The knockers of the mines--that some cla.s.s among fairy tribes--are simply believed, by our tinners, to be the spirits of those who worked the 'old bals' in ancient times.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

MERMAIDS AND THE HOOPER.

Within easy memory many parts of the western coast were said to be frequented by mermaids, particularly Sennen Cove. This place was also resorted to by a remarkable spirit called the Hooper--from the hooting or hooping sounds which it was accustomed to make.

In old time, according to tradition, a compact cloud of mist often came in from over sea--when the weather was by no means foggy--and rested on the rocks called Cowloe, thence it spread itself, like a curtain of cloud, quite across Sennen Cove. By night a dull light was mostly seen amidst the vapour, with sparks ascending as if a fire burned within it; at the same time hooping sounds were heard proceeding therefrom. People believed the misty cloud shrouded a spirit, which came to forewarn them of approaching storms, and that those who attempted to put to sea found an invisible force--seemingly in the mist--to resist them.

A reckless fisherman and his son, however,--disregarding the token--launched their boat and beat through the fog with a threshal (flail); they pa.s.sed the cloud of mist which followed them, and neither the men, nor the Hooper, were evermore seen in Sennen Cove.

This is the only place in the west where any tradition of such a guardian spirit is preserved.

THE WRECKER AND THE DEATH s.h.i.+P.

Full well 'tis known adown the dale; Tho' pa.s.sing strange indeed the tale, And doubtful may appear.

SHENSTONE.

Persons of a notoriously wicked character were said to have been frequently taken off bodily by Old Nick when they died. The following is one of many stories to that effect.

More than a hundred years ago a dark strange man appeared in St. Just; no one knew whence he came, but it was supposed, however, that he was put ash.o.r.e from a pirate s.h.i.+p, by way of marooning him; as the crews of such are wont to do by any wretch that is too bad even to consort with high sea robbers.

He didn't appear to want for money as he soon rented a small, lone, tenement, near the sh.o.r.e, and married a widow of the neighbourhood.

People wondered, for a long while, how so many vessels got wrecked under the cliff that bordered the stranger's farm.

At length it was discovered that on dark winter nights--when honest folks were a-bed--he made it his practice to fasten a lantern to the neck of a horse, which he had hobbled, by tying down its head to a fore-leg; then he drove the horse along near the cliff, and the lantern, from its motion, would be taken for a vessel's stern-light.

Consequently those on board s.h.i.+ps sailing by, expecting to find plenty of sea room, would come right in and be wrecked on the rocks. Any of their crews that escaped a watery grave the wretch would knock on the head with his axe, or cut off their hand when they tried to grasp the rocks.

He lived long and became rich by his sin. At length, however, the time came for the fiend to claim his own. When he was dying his awful shrieks were heard far away, as he cried, "Do save me from the devil, and the sailors, there, looking to tear me to pieces." Several parsons and other pious folks were sent for,--all those of the neighbourhood readily came, for the dying sinner was rich.

Though it was in harvest time and high day, the old wrecker's chamber became, at times, as dark as night. The parsons saw the devil in the room, when others could not; by their reading they drove him to take many shapes, but for all that he would not be put out; at last, when he took the form of a fly, and buzzed about the dying wretch, they saw it was in vain for them to try any longer.

During the time the exorcists were engaged, the chamber seemed--by the sound--to be filled with the sea splas.h.i.+ng around the bed; waves were heard as if surging and breaking against the house, though it was a good bit inland.

Whilst this was taking place at the dying wrecker's bedside, two men, who were about harvest work in one of his fields near the cliff, heard a hollow voice, as if coming from the sea, which said, "The hour is come but the man is not come."

Looking in the direction whence the words came, they saw no person; but far out to sea, they beheld a black, heavy, square-rigged s.h.i.+p, with all sail set, coming fast in, against wind and tide, and not a hand to be seen aboard her.

She came so close under cliff that only her topmast could be seen; when black clouds--that seemed to rise out of the deep--gathered around her and extended thence straight to the dying man's dwelling.

The harvest-men, terrified at the sight of this s.h.i.+p-of-doom so near them, ran up to the town-place, just as the old sinner died, when his dwelling shook as if about to fall. Everybody, in great fright, rushed out and saw the black clouds roll off towards the death-s.h.i.+p, which, at once, sailed away--amidst a blaze of lightning--far over sea, and disappeared.

The weather immediately cleared, and nothing unusual occurred until a few men a.s.sembled to put the wrecker's ghastly remains quickly off the face of the earth; then, as the coffin was borne towards the churchyard, a large black pig came--no one knew from whence--and followed the bearers, who all declared the coffin was too light to contain any body.

The sky, too, became suddenly overcast, and a tempest raged to that degree, they could scarcely keep on their legs to reach the churchyard stile, where such sheets of blinding lightning flashed around them, that they dropped the coffin and rushed into the church.

The storm having abated, they ventured out, and found nothing of the coffin but its handles and a few nails, for it had been set on fire, and all else consumed, by the lightning.