M. A. Courtney

“ The blue scabious in Cornwall is never plucked. It is called the devil’s bit, and the superstition is handed down from one generation of children to another that, should they transgress and do so, the devil will appear to them in their dreams at night. But anyone who wishes to dream of the devil should pin four ivy-leaves to the corners of his pillow. Flowers plucked from churchyards bring ill-luck, and even visitations from spirits on the plucker. Wrens and robins are sacred in the eyes of Cornish boys, for
“Hurt a robin or a wran,
Never prosper, boy nor man.” ”

“ Three hundred fathoms below the ground at Cook’s Kitchen mine, near Camborne, swarms of flies may be heard buzzing, called by the men, for some unknown reason, “Mother Margarets.” From being bred in the dark, they have a great dislike to light.
Swallows in olden times were thought to spend the winter in deep, old disused Cornish tin-works; also in the sheltered nooks of its cliffs and cairns. It is the custom here to jump on seeing the first in spring. [132]
A water-wagtail, in Cornwall a “tinner,” perching on a window-sill, is the sign of a visit from a stranger. ”

“ When mischievously inclined pisky often leads benighted people a sad dance; like Will of the Wisp, he takes them over hedges and ditches, and sometimes round and round the same field, from which they in vain try to find their way home (although they can always see the path close at hand) , until they sit down and turn their stockings the wrong side out, as an old lady, born in the last century, whom I well knew, once told me she had done. To turn a pocket inside out has the same effect. But to quote the words of a late witty Cornish doctor, “Pisky led is often whiskey led.” ”

“ In the afternoon of Midsummer-eve little girls may be still occasionally met in the streets of Penzance with garlands of flowers on their heads, or wreaths over one shoulder.
This custom was, within the last fifty years, generally observed in West Cornwall. And in all the streets of our towns and villages groups of graceful girls, rich as well as poor, all dressed in white, their frocks decorated with rows of laurel-leaves (“often spangled with gold-leaf”—Bottrell) , might in the afternoon have been seen standing at the doors, or in the evening dancing along with their brothers or lovers. ”

“ Bottrell speaks of a farmer’s wife who was warned of her son’s death by the milk in the pans ranged round her dairy being agitated like the sea waves in a storm. There is a legend common to many districts of a wrecker who rushed into the sea and perished, after a voice had been heard to call thrice, “The hour is come, but not the man.” He was carried off by the devil in a phantom ship seen in the offing. But ships haunted with seamen’s ghosts are rarely lost, as the spirits give the sailors warning of storms and other dangers. ”

“ Cornwall has always been a county largely given to hospitality, and, as “all Cornish gentlemen are cousins,” they have from time immemorial made it a practice to meet at each other’s houses to celebrate their feasts and saints’ days.
Since “there are more saints in Cornwall than there are in heaven,” these friendly gatherings must necessarily be very numerous. Each parish has its own particular saint to which its church is dedicated. ”

“ Unless some earthquake splits it further the world will last thousands of years longer.
On an almost inaccessible granite peak seaward of the pile of rocks known as Castle Treryn (pronounced Treen) , once the haunt and meeting-place of witches, on the summit of which is perched the far-famed Cornish logan-rock, is a sharp peak with a hole in it, large enough to insert a hand. At the bottom lay an egg-shaped stone, traditionally called the key of the castle, which, although easily shifted, had for ages defied all attempts at removal. ”

“ I was once where a little child lay dying, a small brown bird sang on the window-sill, the nurse told me that it was waiting to carry away the child’s soul. “But when a flea bites a sick person he is sure not to be dangerously ill, as it is well known that they never bite those who have had their death-stroke.” The superstitions that you cannot die easily on pillows stuffed with wild birds’ feathers, and that life goes out with the tide, are as current here as in other places. Death in Cornwall is often spoken of as “going round land,” and “gone dead” is a common idiom. ”

“ Regularly at dusk the mayor of Penzance sent the town-crier through the streets to give notice that no fireworks were allowed to be let off in the town; but this was done simply that he should not be held responsible if any accident happened, for he and all in Penzance knew quite well that the law would be set at defiance. Large numbers of men, women, and boys came up soon after from the quay and lower parts of the town swinging immense torches around their heads ”

“ Few people in old days were buried on the north side of a church. Flowers and shrubs planted in Cornish churchyards are never plucked, from the fear that the spirits of the departed will at night visit the desecrator. Should an urn found in a “barrow” be taken into a house, the person whose ashes it contained will haunt it; it must be broken up and the pieces hidden. Cross-roads, the former burying-place of suicides, are after nightfall avoided, such spots being haunted; but if you have courage to go there at midnight and wish, you will get your wish. ”

“ A corpse should never be carried to church by a new road, and should a hearse stop on its way to the churchyard there will soon be another death in the house. Singing funerals, or as they are called in Cornwall buryings (pronounced “berrins”) , were once almost universal (and one may still occasionally be met) . The mourners and friends following the coffin sang as they walked through the streets or lanes their favourite hymns, often to most elaborate tunes. ”

“ The one at Madron is sometimes called the Crick Stone. It gets this name because in days not very long ago people afflicted with rheumatism, sciatica, &c., in May, and at certain other seasons of the year, crawled on all fours nine times around these Mên-an-tol from east to west, and, if thin enough, squeezed themselves through the aperture. This was then thought such a sovereign remedy for these diseases that parents brought their weak-backed children and carried them around. To work the charm properly there must always be two people, one of each sex, who stand one on each side of the stone. ”

“ Three or four houses clustered together, and even sometimes a single house, is called in Cornwall “a town,” a farmyard is “a town place,” and London is often spoken of as “Lunnon church town.”
The first of the West Penwith feasts is that of Paul, a parish close to Penzance, which has not the Apostle Paul but St. Pol-de-Lion for its patron saint. It falls on the nearest Sunday to 10th of October. An old proverb says, “Rain for Paul, rain for all,” therefore, should the day be wet, it is of course looked upon by the young people as a bad sign for their future merry-makings. ”

“ Like those who have stolen and applied the green ointment, she [125] loses the sight of it by a blow from an angry pisky’s fist. She meets and recognizes the father at a fair where, as usual, he is pilfering, and foolishly asks after the welfare of mother and child. But all these stories in West Cornwall would be told of the “small people,” as well as the well-known “Colman Grey” (of course the name varies) , which relates how a farmer one day found a poor, half-starved looking bantling, sitting alone in the middle of a field, whom he took home and fed until he grew quite strong and lively. ”

“ When a little older there are many ways in which our maidens “try for their sweethearts.” A few of the rules prescribed for these rites, which have been handed down from generation to generation, may be worth transcribing. “Draw a bracken fern, cut it at the bottom of the stalk; there you will find your lover’s initials.” Take an apple-pip between the forefinger and the thumb, flip it into the air, saying, “North, south, east, west, tell me where my love doth rest,” and watch the direction in which it falls. Go into the fields at the time of the new moon and pluck a piece of herb yarrow ”

“ Small round stones, known as “Pisky Grinding Stones,” are occasionally found in Cornwall; they are most probably parts of old spindles.
If piskies are kind and helpful little beings, spriggans or sprites are spiteful creatures, never doing a good turn for anyone. It is they who carry off poor babies from their mothers, when they have been obliged to leave them for a few hours alone, putting their own ugly, peevish brats in their cradles, who never thrive under the foster-mother’s care, in spite of all the trouble they may bestow upon them. ”

“ To account for it Zennor folks say that hundreds of years ago a beautifully-attired lady, who came and went mysteriously, used occasionally to attend their church and sing so divinely that she enchanted all who heard her. She came year after year, but never aged nor lost her good looks. At last one Sunday, by her charms, she enticed a young man, the best singer in the parish, to follow her: he never returned, and was heard of no more. A long time after, a vessel lying in Pendower cove, into which she sailed one Sunday, cast her anchor, and in some way barred the access to a mermaid’s dwelling. ”

“ To this day in Cornwall, when anything unforeseen happens to our small farmers, or they have the misfortune to lose by sickness some of their stock, they still think that they are “ill-wished,” and start off (often on long journeys) to consult a “pellar,” or wise man, sometimes called “a white witch” (which term is here used indiscriminately for persons of both sexes) . The following I had from a dairy-man I know, who about twelve years ago quarrelled with a domestic servant, a woman living in a neighbouring house. ”

“ The mother at this loses patience, and pushes her way in, the witch trying in vain to keep her out. She, with all her children, then chase the witch until they catch her; when they pretend to bind her hand and foot, put her on a pile, and burn her, the children fanning the imaginary flames with their pinafores. ”

“ There is always a black month before Christmas. The farmer too is told—
“A rainbow in the morn, put your hook in the corn;
A rainbow in the eve, put your hook in the sheave.”
In Cornwall, as well as in Devon, there is an old prophecy quoted to the effect, that “in the latter days there will be no difference between summer and winter, save in the length of the days and the greenness of the leaf.” It is erroneously asserted to be in the Bible.—Cornubiana, Rev. S. Rundle, Transactions Penzance Natural History Society, etc., 1885–1886. ”

“ Nunn’s well is not the “boussening” well formerly mentioned, but another dedicated to the same saint, and is resorted to as a divining and wishing well; it is commonly called by the people of that district the “Piskies’ well.” Pins are thrown into it, not only to see by the bubbles which rise on the water whether the wisher will get what he desires, but also to propitiate the piskies and to bring the thrower good luck. This county has many other divining wells which were visited at certain seasons of the year by those anxious to know what the future would bring them. ”

“ A small fair is held in the streets on Monday evening, when the young men are expected to treat their sweethearts liberally, and a great deal of “foolish money” that can be ill afforded is often spent.
In many Cornish parishes the bells are rung on November 4th, “Ringing night.”
The celebration of Gunpowder Plot has quite died out in West Cornwall, but in Launceston, and in other towns in the eastern part of the county, it is still observed. As regularly as the 5th of November comes around, fireworks are let off, and bonfires lit, to lively music played by the local bands. ”

“ When a miner goes into an “old level” and sees a bright light, it is a sure sign that he will find tin there. Knockers like spriggans are very ugly beings, and, if you do not treat them in a friendly spirit, very vindictive. “As stiff as Barker’s knee” is a common saying in Cornwall; he having in some way angered the knockers, either by speaking of them disrespectfully or by not leaving (as was formerly the custom) a bit of his dinner on the ground for them (for good luck) , they [129] in revenge threw all their tools in his lap, which lamed him for the rest of his life. ”

“ Pedna-a-mean is the old Cornish for “heads-and-tails.”— (See Divination at St. Roche and Madron Well.)
All Christmas-cakes must be eaten by the night of Twelfth-tide, as it is unlucky to have any left, and all decorations must be taken down on the next day, because for every forgotten leaf of evergreen a ghost will be seen in the house in the course of the ensuing year. This latter superstition does not prevail, however, in all parts of Cornwall, as in some districts a small branch is kept to scare away evil spirits. ”

“ Amongst them the Lady of Nant’s well, in the parish of Colan, was formerly much frequented on Palm Sunday, when those who wished to foretell their fate threw into the water crosses made of palms. There was once in Gulval parish, near Penzance, a well which was reported to have had great repute as a divining well. People repaired to it to ask if their friends at a distance were well or ill, living or dead. They looked into the water and repeated the words:
“Water, water, tell me truly,
Is the man that I love duly
On the earth, or under the sod,
Sick or well? in the name of God.” ”

“ There is no virtue in the dead hand of a near relation. A curious old troth plight was formerly practised in Cornwall: The couple broke a wedding ring taken from the finger of a corpse, and each kept one half. The editor of a local paper (Cornishman) once obtained a piece of rope, with which a man was hanged, for a poor woman who had walked fourteen miles to Bodmin in the hopes of getting it, that she might effect the cure of her sore eyes. [154]
The Rev. S. Rundle writes that “a Cornish surgeon recommended a charmer as being more efficacious than himself in curing shingles. ”