G. Basil Barham

“ In the deep sheltered valleys of Meneage flowers grow in profusion, while on the bold high moorland of the interior that rare British plant the Cornish heath flourishes in great bush-like clumps.
You reach this wonderful country by the Great Western road-coach service from Helston. Mullion, Kynance, Cadgwith, St. Keverne, all in this district, are places of amazing beauty and charm. There are big modern hotels to be found at Mullion, and there are golf and sea fishing, bathing, and entrancing walks by sea or moor to amuse the visitor in this warm, sea-girt land of heath and flowers. ”

“ It was from Cadbury, when Camelot’s towers crowned the hill, that the knights set out on their quest of the Holy Grail.
You will not find it hard to believe these old legends, if you sit for awhile in the silence and peace of the great earth bulwarks of Cadbury Castle and look out across the pleasing country beneath you. You can almost hear the faint jingle of harness in the air, and the soft whisperings of dead and gone men and women who had looked upon Arthur himself. ”

“ Around the history of the great King has arisen so much controversy that you must read the experts for yourself and make your own choice. And what could provide a more glorious holiday amusement than a quiet journey through this, King Arthur’s own, land on a pilgrimage to the many beautiful places it holds that commemorate in name and tradition the life of the greatest hero of romance in Western literature? ”

“ 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. ”

“ THE TASKS OF TREGEAGLE The name of the demon Tregeagle is a household word in nearly every part of Cornwall. His wild spirit rages of nights along the rocky coasts, across the bleak moors and through the sheltered valleys. For Tregeagle is a Cornish "Wandering Jew"; his spirit can never rest, since in life he was the most evil man the Duchy ever knew. ”

“ And it happened that the good folk of Lanreath, a few miles away, were suffering severely from a wild spirit that frequented the high moor in their parish. The ghost was that, they said, of an avaricious landowner who had wasted his fortune in lawsuits, attempting unjustly to seize from the villagers a wide stretch of common-land. Disappointment had killed him, but in the spirit world he could find no rest, for he used to return of nights to the land he had coveted, and drive wildly about in a black coach drawn by six sable, headless horses, much to the terror of the country folk. ”

“ This is a peaceful English country of hill and vale, fine country estates—Compton Winyates with its matchless Tudor mansion is near at hand—and little churches, rich in architecture, that will repay a visit. Here you are on the outskirts of Shakespeare’s land, real generous England, full of history, that has not changed so very much since the spacious days of Elizabeth—the England that the English tourist all too seldom sees. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As man and millstone reached the sea the storm instantly ceased. The sun shone out, the waves and the wind died down, and, peering over the edge of the cliff, the wondering crowd saw the holy man, seated peacefully upon a floating millstone, drifting slowly away in the direction of the Cornish shore, some hundreds of miles to the south-east. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Or you may go from Frome, that queer busy little town with its narrow medieval streets straggling up and down hill.
All the country round here is full of interest to the lover of nature or antiquity. It is a country of mild airs, where in the sheltered valleys the flowers bloom amazingly early. Yet the average tourist seldom wanders off the beaten track to enjoy this pleasing stretch of rural England. ”

“ THE HOOTING CARN One of the grimmest yet most fascinating tracts of moorland in the West is that wild, boulder-strewn district behind St. Just in Penwith, near the Land's End. Here, amid a scene of savage beauty, wind-swept by the great gales from the Atlantic, is a stretch of treeless moor the richest in all Cornwall in remains of prehistoric man. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They tell—half dazed with fear—as they reach at last some house and welcome human companionship, of the wild baying of the hounds that drifted through the murk night to their ears, or of the sudden vision of the pack passing at whirlwind speed across bog and marsh urged onward by a grim black figure astride a giant dark horse from whose smoking nostrils came flame and fire. ”

“ Apart from its legendary interest, Cadbury Castle is one of the most remarkable places in all Somersetshire. Four high earth walls surround the hill, the innermost faced with stone. Within the lowest rampart you will find King Arthur’s well; on the hill side strange terraces that were once, they will tell you, shady gardens where fair ladies walked in the cool of a summer’s evening. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Llyn Tegid is the old name for Bala Lake; it means the lake of beauty, and Bala well deserves that title. Its shores are verdant and beautifully wooded, commanding in many places magnificent distant views of the mountains which encircle it only a few miles [51] away. Its waters teem with fish; trout up to fourteen pounds and pike twice as big have been caught there—but the flyfisher must not expect always such giants. There is salmon-fishing to be had in the Treweryn river in September.
In the neighbourhood are places of wonderful beauty. ”

“ That particular night the clerk had lost his way, and, long after he and his master should have been in comfortable quarters at Dawlish, they were wandering about on the high rough ground of Haldon, some distance from the village. At last, in anger, the parson turned upon his clerk and rebuked him violently. "You are useless," he said; "I would rather have the devil for a guide than you." The clerk mumbled some excuse, and presently the two came upon a peasant, mounted upon a moor pony, to whom they explained their plight. ”