SUPERSTITIONS:

SUPERSTITIONS:SUPERSTITIONS:Miners’, Sailors’,Farmers’.Although Cornish miners, or “tinners” as they are generally called, are a very intelligent, and since the days of Wesley a religious body of men, many of their old-world beliefs still linger. To this day it is considered unlucky to make the form of a cross on the sides of a mine, and when underground you may on no account whistle for fear of vexing the knockers and bringing ill-luck, but you may sing or even swear1without producing any bad effect. Down one mine-shaft a black goat is often seen to descend, but is never met below; in another mine a white rabbit forebodes an accident.“The occurrence of a black cat in the lowest depths of a mine will warn the older miners off that level until the cat is exterminated.”—Thomas Cornish,Western Antiquary, October, 1887.A hand clasping the ladder and coming down with, or after a miner, foretells misfortune or death. This superstition prevails, also, in the slate quarries of the eastern part of the county.The miners in the slate quarries of Delabole have a tradition that the right hand of a miner, who committed suicide, is sometimes seen following them down the ladders, grasping the rings as they let them go, holding a miner’s light between the thumb and finger. It forebodes ill to the seer.—Esmè Stuart. See “Tamsin’s Choice,”Longman, June, 1883.Miners, too, had some superstition in regard to snails, known in Cornwall as “bullhorns;” for if they met one on their way to work they always dropped a bit of their dinner or some grease from their lanthorn before him for good-luck.Miraculous dreams are related; warnings to some miners, which have prevented on particular days their going down below with their comrades, when serious accidents have happened and several have lost their lives. Rich lodes, too, have been discovered through the dreams of fortunate women, who have been shown in them where their male relatives should dig for the hidden treasure.“ ‘Dowsing’ (divining with the rod) is of course believed in here as elsewhere, and some men are known as noted ‘dowsers.’ A forked twig of hazel (also called a ‘dowser’) is used by our Cornish miners to discover a vein of ore; it is held loosely in the hand, the point towards the ‘dowser’s’ breast, and it is said to turn round when the holder is standing over metal.”Miners still observe some quaint old customs; a horse-shoe is sometimes placed on a convenient part of the machinery, which each, as he goes down to his day’s work, touches four times to ensure good-luck. These must be “Tributers” (pronounced trib-ut-ers), who work on “trib-ut,” when a percentage is paid on ores raised; in contradistinction to “Tut-workers,” who are paid by the job.A miner, going underground with shoes on, will drive all the mineral out of the mine.—Cornubiana,Rev.S. Rundle.In 1886, atSt.Just in Penwith two men of Wheal Drea had their hats burnt one Monday morning, after the birth of their first children.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.A water-wagtail, in Cornwall a “tinner,” perching on a window-sill, is the sign of a visit from a stranger.Carew says—“The Cornish tynners hold a strong imagination, that in the withdrawing of Noah’s floud to the sea the same took his course from east to west, violently breaking vp, and forcibly carrying with it the earth, trees, and rocks, which lay anything loosely neere the vpper face of the ground. To confirme the likelihood of which supposed truth, they doe many times digge vp whole and huge timber-trees, which they conceiue at that deluge to haue been ouerturned and whelmed.”Miners frequently in conversation make use of technical proverbs, such as “Capel rides a good horse.” Capel is schorl, and indicates the presence of tin. “It’s a wise man that knows tin” alludes to the various forms it takes. To an old tune they sing the words—“Here’s to the devil, with his wooden spade and shovel,Digging tin by the bushel, with his tail cocked up.”And on the signboard of a public-house in West Cornwall a few years ago (and probably still) might be read—“Come all good Cornish boys2walk in,Here’s brandy, rum, and shrub, and gin;You can’t do less than drink successTo copper, fish, and tin.”Miners believe that mundic (iron pyrites) being applied to a wound immediately cures it; of which they are so sure that they use no other remedy than washing it in the water that runs through the mundic ore.—A Complete History of Cornwall, 1730.It is an easy transition from mines to fish, the next staple industry of Cornwall, and to the superstitions of its fishermen and sailors. Fish is a word in West Cornwall applied more particularly to pilchards (pelchurs). They frequent our coasts in autumn.“When the corn is in the shock,Then the fish are on the rock.”And if on a close foggy day in that season you ask the question,—“Do you think it will rain?” the answer often is—“No! it isonly het (heat) and pelchurs,” that sort of weather being favourable for catching them.“A good year for fleas is a good year for fish,” the proverb says; and when eating a pilchard the flesh must be always taken off the bone from the tail to the head. To eat them from head to tail is unlucky, and would soon drive the fish from the shore. There are many other wise sayings about pilchards; but I will only give one more couplet, which declares that—“They are food, money, and light,All in one night.”3Should pilchards when in bulk4make a squeaking noise, they are crying for more, and another shoal will quickly be in the bay.Fishermen dread going near the spot where vessels have been wrecked, as the voices of the drowned often call to them there, especially before a storm. Sometimes their dead comrades call them by their names, and then they know for certain that they will soon die; and often when drowning the ghosts of their friends appear to them. They are seen by them sometimes taking the form of animals.Mr. 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.In a churchyard near the Land’s End is the grave of a drowned captain, covered by a flat tombstone; proceeding from it formerly the sound of a ghostly bell was often heard to strike four and eight bells. The tale goes that when his vessel struck on some rocks close to the shore, the captain saw all his men safely offin their boat, but refused himself to leave the ship, and went down in her exactly at midnight, as he was striking the time. His body was recovered, and given decent burial, but his poor soul had no rest. An unbelieving sailor once went out of curiosity to try if he could hear this bell; he did, and soon after sailed on a voyage from which he never returned.Spectre ships are seen before wrecks; they are generally shrouded in mist; but the crew of one was said to consist of two men, a woman, and a dog. These ships vanish at some well-known point. Jack Harry’s lights, too, herald a storm; they are so called from the man who first saw them. These appear on a phantom vessel resembling the one that will be lost.On boarding a derelict, should a live cat or other animal be found, it is thrown into the sea and drowned, under the idea that if any living thing is in her, the finders can claim nothing from the owners. In fact she is not a derelict.The apparition of a lady carrying a lanthorn always on one part of the Cornish coast5foretells a storm and shipwrecks. She is supposed to be searching for her child who was drowned, whilst she was saved, because she was afraid to trust it out of her arms. For the legends of “The Lady of the Vow” and “The Hooper or Hooter of Sennen Cove,” seeante, p. 71.6Mermaids are still believed in, and it is very bad to offend them, for by their spite harbours have been filled up with sand. They, however, kindly take idiot children under their protection. The lucky finder of one of their combs or glasses has the power (as long as it remains in his possession) of charming away diseases.Boats are said to come to a sudden standstill when over the spot where lies the body of a drowned man, for whom search is being made. The body is supposed to rise when drowned, on the seventh, eighth, or ninth day. Sailors regard many things as bad omens, such “as a loaf of bread turned upside-down on a table.” (This will bring some ship to distress.) They will not begin a voyageon Childermas-day, nor allow a piece of spar-stone (quartz) to be carried on board a vessel: that would ensure her striking on a rock. Of course, they neither whistle when there, nor speak of hares, two most unlucky things; and should they meet one of these animals on their way to the place of embarkation they think it far wiser to turn back home, and put off sailing for a tide. Hares (as already noticed) play a great part in Cornish folk-lore. The following amusing story I had from a friend:—“Jimmy Treglown, a noted poacher living in a village of West Cornwall, became converted at a revival meeting; he was tempted on his way to class-meeting one Sunday morning soon after by the devil in the form of a beautiful hare. Jimmy said, ‘There thee art, my dear; but I waan’t tooch thee on a Sunday—nor yet on a weeky day, for that matter.’ He went briskly on his way for a few paces, and then, like Lot’s wife, he was tempted to look behind him. Alas! in Jimmy’s own words, ‘There she was in her seat, looking lovely. I tooked up a stone, and dabbed at her. Away she runned, and fare-ee well, religion. Mine runned away with her. I went home, and never went to class no more.7You see it was the devil, and ‘simmen to me’ (seeming) I heard ’un laugh and say, ‘Ah! ah! Jimmy, boy, I had thee on the hip then. Thee must confess thee’st had a fair fall.’ So I gave in, and never went nigh the ‘people’ (Wesleyans) no more. Nobody should fire at hares of this sort, except with a silver bullet; they often appear as white, but the devil knowed I couldn’t be fooled with a white ’un.’ ” Nothing is too ridiculous to be told of hares. Another old man fromSt.Just (still living) once recited this anecdote in our kitchen, and from his grave manner evidently expected it to be believed:—“I was out walking (he said) one Sunday morning, when I saw a hare in a field which I longed to have; so I shied a bit of ‘codgy wax’ (cobbler’s wax), the only thing I had in my pocket, at ’un, when he ran away. What was my surprise on getting over a stile to see two hares in the next field face to face, the ‘codgy wax’ had stuck to the nose of the first, and he in his fright had runnedagainst the other, and was holden ’un fast, too. So I quietly broke the necks of both, and carried em home.”“The grapes are sour” is in Cornwall often changed to “Lev-un go! he’s dry eaten after all,” as the old man said when he couldn’t catch the hare.Sailors and fishermen have naturally many weather proverbs, of which I will give a few:—“A north wind is a broom for the Channel.”“A Saturday’s moon is a sailor’s curse.”“A Saturday’s and Sunday’s moonComes once in seven years too soon.”“Between twelve and two you’ll see what the day will do.”“A southerly wind with a fog bring an easterly wind in ‘snog’ (with certainty).”“Friday’s noon is Sunday’s doom.”“Friday and the week are never alike.”“There’s never a Saturday in the yearBut what the sun it doth appear,” etc.“Weather dogs” are pillars of light coloured like the rainbow, which appear on the horizon generally over the sea in unsettled weather, and always foretell storms. The inland dwellers of Cornwall have also their wise sayings on this subject. Rooks darting around a rookery, sparrows twittering, donkeys braying, are signs of rain. Cats running wildly about a house are said to bring storms on their tails. Some of their omens are simply ludicrous, such as “We may look for wet when a cat, in washing its face, puts its paw over its ear,” or when “hurlers” (small sparks) play about the bars of a grate. A cock crowing on a stone is a sign of fine weather; on the doorstep, of a stranger. But here it is well known “That fools are weather-wise,” and “That those that are weather-wise are rarely otherwise.”In West Cornwall, not very long ago farmers, before they began to break up a grass field or plough for sowing, always turned the faces of the cattle attached to the plough towards the west and solemnly said, “In the name of God let us begin,” and then with the sun’s course proceeded on their work. Everything in thiscounty, even down to such a small thing as taking the cream off the milk-pans set round the dairy, must for luck be done from left to right. Invalids, on going out for the first time after an illness, must walk with, not against, the sun, for fear of a relapse.Farmers here are taught that if they wish to thrive they must “rise with the craw (crow), go to bed with the yow (ewe),” not be “like Solomon the wise, who was loth to go to bed and loth to rise,” for does not “the master’s eye make the mare fat?” “A February spring,” according to one proverb, “is not worth a pin,” and another says “a dry east wind raises the spring.” Sayings current in other counties, such as “a peck of March dust is worth a king’s ransom,” are also quoted, but those I shall not give. There should be as many frosty mornings in May as in March, for “a hot May makes a fat church-hay.” A wet June makes a dry September. “Cornwall will stand a shower every day, and two for Sundays.” 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.“Countrymen in Cornwall, if the breeze fail whilst they are winnowing, whistle to the spriggan, or air spirit, to bring it back.”—Comparative Folk-lore, Cornhill, 1876.A swarm of bees in May is worth a “yow” (ewe) and lamb same day. It is considered lucky in these parts for a stray swarm to settle near your house; and if you throw a handkerchief over it you may claim it as your own. To sell them is unlucky; but you may have an understanding with a purchaser that he will give youan equivalent for your bees. The inside of hives should be rubbed with “scawnsy buds” (elderflowers) to prevent a new swarm from leaving them. Honey should be always taken from the hive onSt.Bartholomew’s Day, he being the patron saint of bees. Of course all the principal events happening in the families to whom they belonged, in this as in other counties, were formerly whispered to them, that the bees might not think themselves neglected, and leave the place in anger. At a recent meeting of the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society a gentleman mentioned that when a boy he had seen thirty hives belonging to Mr. Joshua Fox, of Tregedna, tied up in crape (an universal practice) because of a death in the Fox family. Another at the same time said that when, some years since, the landlady of the “First and Last” Inn, at the Land’s End, died, the bird-cages and flower-pots were also tied with crape, to prevent the birds and plants from dying. When withering, because this has not been done, if the plants be remembered in time and crape put on the pots, they may revive. Enquiring a short time ago what had become of a fine maiden-hair fern that we had had for years, I was told “that we had neglected to put it into mourning when a near relative of our’s had died, or to tell it of his death; and therefore it had gradually pined away.” After a death, pictures, but especially portraits of the deceased, are also supposed to fade. Snails as well as bees are thought here to bring luck, for “the house is blest where snails do rest.” Children on meeting them in their path, for some reason stamp their feet and say,“Snail! snail! come out of your hole,Or I will beat you black as a coal.”Another Cornish farmers’ superstition is that “ducks won’t lay until they have drunk ‘Lide’ (March) water;” and the wife of one in 1880 declared “that if a goose saw a Lent lily (daffodil) before hatching its goslings it would, when they came forth, destroy them.” Some witty thieves, many years ago, having stolen twelve geese from a clergyman in the eastern part of thecounty, tied twelve pennies and this doggerel around the gander’s neck—“Parson Peard, be not afeard,Nor take it much in anger,We’ve bought your geese at a penny a-piece,And left the money with the gander.”Hens must never be put to sit on an even number of eggs, eleven or thirteen are lucky numbers; Basilisks are hatched from cock’s eggs.When cocks crow children are told that they say,“Cock-a-doodle-doo!Grammer’s lost her shoe,Down by the barley moo (mow),And what will grammer do,Cock-a-doodle-doo.”Moles in this county are known as “wants,” and once in the Land’s End district I overtook an old man and asked him what had made so many hillocks in a field through which we were passing. His answer was, “What you rich people never have in your houses, ‘wants.’ ”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. Soon after, from some reason, two or three of his cows died; he was quite sure, he told me, that she had “overlooked” and “ill-wished” him. To ease his mind he had consulted a “pellar” about the matter, who had described her accurately to him, and, for payment, removed the “spell” (I do not know what rites were used), telling him to look at his watch and note the hour, as he would find, when he returned home, that a cow he had left sick would have begun at that moment to recover (which he says it did).The “pellar” also added, “The woman who has ‘ill-wished’ you will be swaddled in fire and lapped in water;” and by a strange coincidence she emigrated soon after, and was lost in the ill-fatedCospatrick, that was burnt at sea.Water from a font is often stolen to sprinkle “ill-wished” persons or things.The two next examples were communicated to me by a friend: “Some twenty-six years ago a farmer in a neighbouring village (West Cornwall) sustained during one season continual losses from his cows dying of indigestion, known as ‘loss of cud,’ ‘hoven-blown,’ etc. After consulting an old farrier called Armstrong he was induced to go to a ‘pellar’ in Exeter. His orders were to go home, and, on nearing his farm, he would see an old woman in a field hoeing turnips, and that she was the party who had cast the ‘evil eye’ on him. When he saw her he was to lay hold of her and accuse her of the crime, then tear off some of her dress, take it to his farm, and burn it with some of the hair from the tails of his surviving stock. These directions were fully carried out, and his bad health (caused by worry) improved, and he lost no more cows. A spotted clover that grew luxuriantly that summer was no doubt the cause of the swelling.” “Another farmer in the same village eighteen years since lost all his feeding cattle from pleuro-pneumonia; believing them to be ‘ill-wished’ by a woman, he also consulted the Exeter ‘pellar.’ He brought home some bottles of elixir, potent against magic, and made an image of dough, pierced it from the nape of the neck downward, in the line of the spine, with a very large blanket-pin. In order to make the agonies of the woman with the ‘evil eye’ excruciating in the last degree, dough and pin were then burnt in a fire of hazel and ash. The cure failed, as anyone acquainted with the disease might have forecast.”Besides those remedies already mentioned for curing cattle, you may employ these:—“Take some blood from the sick animal by wounding him; let the blood fall on some straw carefully held to the place—not a drop must be lost; burn the straw; when the ill-wisher will be irresistibly drawn to the spot; then by violence youcan compel him to take off the spell.” Or, “Bleed one animal to death to save the whole herd.”A local newspaper, in 1883 (Cornishman), gives the following:—“Superstitions die hard.—A horse died the other day on a farm in the neighbourhood ofSt.Ives. Its carcase was dragged on a Sunday away up to the granite rock basins and weather-worn bosses of Trecoben hill, and there burnt, in order to drive away the evil spell, or ill-wishing, which afflicted the farm where the animal belonged.” I, a few years since, saw a dying cat taken out of a house on a mat, by two servants, that it might not die inside and bring ill-luck. “In 1865 a farmer in Portreath sacrificed a calf, by burning, for the purpose of removing a disease which had long followed his horses and cows.” And in another case a farmer burnt a living lamb, to save, as he said, “his flock from spells which had been cast on them.”—Robert Hunt.TheCornishman, in another paragraph, says:—“Our Summercourt (East Cornwall) correspondent witnessed an amusing affair on Thursday morning (April, 1883). Seeing a crowd in the street, he asked the reason, and found that a young lady was about to perform the feat ofthrowing a pig’s nose over a house for good luck! This is how it was done. The lady took the nose of a pig, that was killed the day before, in her right hand, stood with her back to the house, and threw the nose over her head, and over the house, into the back garden. Had she failed in the attempt her luck was supposed to be bad.” “Whet your knife on Sunday, you’ll skin on Monday,” is a very old Perranuthnoe andSt.Hilary (West Cornwall) superstition, so that, however blunt your knife may be, you must use it as it is, lest by sharpening it you bring ill-luck on the farmer, and he lose a sheep or bullock.Mr. T. Q. Couch,W. Antiquary, 1883, says of one, “He is an old-fashioned man, and, amongst his other ‘whiddles’ (whims), keeps a goat amongst his cattle for the sake of keeping his cows from slipping their calves.” Branches of care (mountain ash) were, in the east of the county, hung over the cattle in their stalls to prevent their being “ill-wished,” also carried in the pocket as a cure and prevention of rheumatism.“Rheumatism will attack the man who carries a walking stick made of holly.”—Cornubiana,Rev.S. Rundle.The belief in witchcraft in West Cornwall is much more general than most people imagine. Several cases have lately come under my own notice; one, that of a man-servant in our employ who broke a blood-vessel, and for a long time was so ill that his life was despaired of. He was most carefully attended by a Penzance physician, who came to see him three times a day. But directly that his strength began to return he asked permission to go to Redruth to consult a “pellar,” as he was quite sure that he had been “overlooked” and “ill-wished.” An old Penzance man, afflicted with rheumatism, who gained his living by selling fruit in the streets, fancied himself ill-wished. He went to Helston to see a “wiseman” residing there, to whom he paid seven-and-sixpence, with a further promise of five pounds on the removal of the “spell.” As he was too poor to pay this himself a brother agreed to do it for him, but somehow failed to perform his contract. Now the poor old man thinks that the pellar’s ill-wishes are added to his former pains.The “pellars” wore formerly magical rings, with a blue stone in them, said to have been formed by snakes breathing on hazel-twigs. Our country-people often searched for these stones.1Some say you must neither whistle nor swear, but you may sing and laugh.↑2All men are boys in Cornwall.↑3Train-oil is expressed from them.↑4To “bulk” pilchards is to place them, after they have been rubbed with salt, in large regular heaps, alternately heads and tails.↑5St.Ives.↑6And “Cornish Feasts and Customs.”↑7The illiterate Cornish often double their negatives: “I don’t know, not I;” “I’ll never do it, no, never no more.”↑

SUPERSTITIONS:SUPERSTITIONS:Miners’, Sailors’,Farmers’.

SUPERSTITIONS:

Although Cornish miners, or “tinners” as they are generally called, are a very intelligent, and since the days of Wesley a religious body of men, many of their old-world beliefs still linger. To this day it is considered unlucky to make the form of a cross on the sides of a mine, and when underground you may on no account whistle for fear of vexing the knockers and bringing ill-luck, but you may sing or even swear1without producing any bad effect. Down one mine-shaft a black goat is often seen to descend, but is never met below; in another mine a white rabbit forebodes an accident.“The occurrence of a black cat in the lowest depths of a mine will warn the older miners off that level until the cat is exterminated.”—Thomas Cornish,Western Antiquary, October, 1887.A hand clasping the ladder and coming down with, or after a miner, foretells misfortune or death. This superstition prevails, also, in the slate quarries of the eastern part of the county.The miners in the slate quarries of Delabole have a tradition that the right hand of a miner, who committed suicide, is sometimes seen following them down the ladders, grasping the rings as they let them go, holding a miner’s light between the thumb and finger. It forebodes ill to the seer.—Esmè Stuart. See “Tamsin’s Choice,”Longman, June, 1883.Miners, too, had some superstition in regard to snails, known in Cornwall as “bullhorns;” for if they met one on their way to work they always dropped a bit of their dinner or some grease from their lanthorn before him for good-luck.Miraculous dreams are related; warnings to some miners, which have prevented on particular days their going down below with their comrades, when serious accidents have happened and several have lost their lives. Rich lodes, too, have been discovered through the dreams of fortunate women, who have been shown in them where their male relatives should dig for the hidden treasure.“ ‘Dowsing’ (divining with the rod) is of course believed in here as elsewhere, and some men are known as noted ‘dowsers.’ A forked twig of hazel (also called a ‘dowser’) is used by our Cornish miners to discover a vein of ore; it is held loosely in the hand, the point towards the ‘dowser’s’ breast, and it is said to turn round when the holder is standing over metal.”Miners still observe some quaint old customs; a horse-shoe is sometimes placed on a convenient part of the machinery, which each, as he goes down to his day’s work, touches four times to ensure good-luck. These must be “Tributers” (pronounced trib-ut-ers), who work on “trib-ut,” when a percentage is paid on ores raised; in contradistinction to “Tut-workers,” who are paid by the job.A miner, going underground with shoes on, will drive all the mineral out of the mine.—Cornubiana,Rev.S. Rundle.In 1886, atSt.Just in Penwith two men of Wheal Drea had their hats burnt one Monday morning, after the birth of their first children.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.A water-wagtail, in Cornwall a “tinner,” perching on a window-sill, is the sign of a visit from a stranger.Carew says—“The Cornish tynners hold a strong imagination, that in the withdrawing of Noah’s floud to the sea the same took his course from east to west, violently breaking vp, and forcibly carrying with it the earth, trees, and rocks, which lay anything loosely neere the vpper face of the ground. To confirme the likelihood of which supposed truth, they doe many times digge vp whole and huge timber-trees, which they conceiue at that deluge to haue been ouerturned and whelmed.”Miners frequently in conversation make use of technical proverbs, such as “Capel rides a good horse.” Capel is schorl, and indicates the presence of tin. “It’s a wise man that knows tin” alludes to the various forms it takes. To an old tune they sing the words—“Here’s to the devil, with his wooden spade and shovel,Digging tin by the bushel, with his tail cocked up.”And on the signboard of a public-house in West Cornwall a few years ago (and probably still) might be read—“Come all good Cornish boys2walk in,Here’s brandy, rum, and shrub, and gin;You can’t do less than drink successTo copper, fish, and tin.”Miners believe that mundic (iron pyrites) being applied to a wound immediately cures it; of which they are so sure that they use no other remedy than washing it in the water that runs through the mundic ore.—A Complete History of Cornwall, 1730.It is an easy transition from mines to fish, the next staple industry of Cornwall, and to the superstitions of its fishermen and sailors. Fish is a word in West Cornwall applied more particularly to pilchards (pelchurs). They frequent our coasts in autumn.“When the corn is in the shock,Then the fish are on the rock.”And if on a close foggy day in that season you ask the question,—“Do you think it will rain?” the answer often is—“No! it isonly het (heat) and pelchurs,” that sort of weather being favourable for catching them.“A good year for fleas is a good year for fish,” the proverb says; and when eating a pilchard the flesh must be always taken off the bone from the tail to the head. To eat them from head to tail is unlucky, and would soon drive the fish from the shore. There are many other wise sayings about pilchards; but I will only give one more couplet, which declares that—“They are food, money, and light,All in one night.”3Should pilchards when in bulk4make a squeaking noise, they are crying for more, and another shoal will quickly be in the bay.Fishermen dread going near the spot where vessels have been wrecked, as the voices of the drowned often call to them there, especially before a storm. Sometimes their dead comrades call them by their names, and then they know for certain that they will soon die; and often when drowning the ghosts of their friends appear to them. They are seen by them sometimes taking the form of animals.Mr. 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.In a churchyard near the Land’s End is the grave of a drowned captain, covered by a flat tombstone; proceeding from it formerly the sound of a ghostly bell was often heard to strike four and eight bells. The tale goes that when his vessel struck on some rocks close to the shore, the captain saw all his men safely offin their boat, but refused himself to leave the ship, and went down in her exactly at midnight, as he was striking the time. His body was recovered, and given decent burial, but his poor soul had no rest. An unbelieving sailor once went out of curiosity to try if he could hear this bell; he did, and soon after sailed on a voyage from which he never returned.Spectre ships are seen before wrecks; they are generally shrouded in mist; but the crew of one was said to consist of two men, a woman, and a dog. These ships vanish at some well-known point. Jack Harry’s lights, too, herald a storm; they are so called from the man who first saw them. These appear on a phantom vessel resembling the one that will be lost.On boarding a derelict, should a live cat or other animal be found, it is thrown into the sea and drowned, under the idea that if any living thing is in her, the finders can claim nothing from the owners. In fact she is not a derelict.The apparition of a lady carrying a lanthorn always on one part of the Cornish coast5foretells a storm and shipwrecks. She is supposed to be searching for her child who was drowned, whilst she was saved, because she was afraid to trust it out of her arms. For the legends of “The Lady of the Vow” and “The Hooper or Hooter of Sennen Cove,” seeante, p. 71.6Mermaids are still believed in, and it is very bad to offend them, for by their spite harbours have been filled up with sand. They, however, kindly take idiot children under their protection. The lucky finder of one of their combs or glasses has the power (as long as it remains in his possession) of charming away diseases.Boats are said to come to a sudden standstill when over the spot where lies the body of a drowned man, for whom search is being made. The body is supposed to rise when drowned, on the seventh, eighth, or ninth day. Sailors regard many things as bad omens, such “as a loaf of bread turned upside-down on a table.” (This will bring some ship to distress.) They will not begin a voyageon Childermas-day, nor allow a piece of spar-stone (quartz) to be carried on board a vessel: that would ensure her striking on a rock. Of course, they neither whistle when there, nor speak of hares, two most unlucky things; and should they meet one of these animals on their way to the place of embarkation they think it far wiser to turn back home, and put off sailing for a tide. Hares (as already noticed) play a great part in Cornish folk-lore. The following amusing story I had from a friend:—“Jimmy Treglown, a noted poacher living in a village of West Cornwall, became converted at a revival meeting; he was tempted on his way to class-meeting one Sunday morning soon after by the devil in the form of a beautiful hare. Jimmy said, ‘There thee art, my dear; but I waan’t tooch thee on a Sunday—nor yet on a weeky day, for that matter.’ He went briskly on his way for a few paces, and then, like Lot’s wife, he was tempted to look behind him. Alas! in Jimmy’s own words, ‘There she was in her seat, looking lovely. I tooked up a stone, and dabbed at her. Away she runned, and fare-ee well, religion. Mine runned away with her. I went home, and never went to class no more.7You see it was the devil, and ‘simmen to me’ (seeming) I heard ’un laugh and say, ‘Ah! ah! Jimmy, boy, I had thee on the hip then. Thee must confess thee’st had a fair fall.’ So I gave in, and never went nigh the ‘people’ (Wesleyans) no more. Nobody should fire at hares of this sort, except with a silver bullet; they often appear as white, but the devil knowed I couldn’t be fooled with a white ’un.’ ” Nothing is too ridiculous to be told of hares. Another old man fromSt.Just (still living) once recited this anecdote in our kitchen, and from his grave manner evidently expected it to be believed:—“I was out walking (he said) one Sunday morning, when I saw a hare in a field which I longed to have; so I shied a bit of ‘codgy wax’ (cobbler’s wax), the only thing I had in my pocket, at ’un, when he ran away. What was my surprise on getting over a stile to see two hares in the next field face to face, the ‘codgy wax’ had stuck to the nose of the first, and he in his fright had runnedagainst the other, and was holden ’un fast, too. So I quietly broke the necks of both, and carried em home.”“The grapes are sour” is in Cornwall often changed to “Lev-un go! he’s dry eaten after all,” as the old man said when he couldn’t catch the hare.Sailors and fishermen have naturally many weather proverbs, of which I will give a few:—“A north wind is a broom for the Channel.”“A Saturday’s moon is a sailor’s curse.”“A Saturday’s and Sunday’s moonComes once in seven years too soon.”“Between twelve and two you’ll see what the day will do.”“A southerly wind with a fog bring an easterly wind in ‘snog’ (with certainty).”“Friday’s noon is Sunday’s doom.”“Friday and the week are never alike.”“There’s never a Saturday in the yearBut what the sun it doth appear,” etc.“Weather dogs” are pillars of light coloured like the rainbow, which appear on the horizon generally over the sea in unsettled weather, and always foretell storms. The inland dwellers of Cornwall have also their wise sayings on this subject. Rooks darting around a rookery, sparrows twittering, donkeys braying, are signs of rain. Cats running wildly about a house are said to bring storms on their tails. Some of their omens are simply ludicrous, such as “We may look for wet when a cat, in washing its face, puts its paw over its ear,” or when “hurlers” (small sparks) play about the bars of a grate. A cock crowing on a stone is a sign of fine weather; on the doorstep, of a stranger. But here it is well known “That fools are weather-wise,” and “That those that are weather-wise are rarely otherwise.”In West Cornwall, not very long ago farmers, before they began to break up a grass field or plough for sowing, always turned the faces of the cattle attached to the plough towards the west and solemnly said, “In the name of God let us begin,” and then with the sun’s course proceeded on their work. Everything in thiscounty, even down to such a small thing as taking the cream off the milk-pans set round the dairy, must for luck be done from left to right. Invalids, on going out for the first time after an illness, must walk with, not against, the sun, for fear of a relapse.Farmers here are taught that if they wish to thrive they must “rise with the craw (crow), go to bed with the yow (ewe),” not be “like Solomon the wise, who was loth to go to bed and loth to rise,” for does not “the master’s eye make the mare fat?” “A February spring,” according to one proverb, “is not worth a pin,” and another says “a dry east wind raises the spring.” Sayings current in other counties, such as “a peck of March dust is worth a king’s ransom,” are also quoted, but those I shall not give. There should be as many frosty mornings in May as in March, for “a hot May makes a fat church-hay.” A wet June makes a dry September. “Cornwall will stand a shower every day, and two for Sundays.” 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.“Countrymen in Cornwall, if the breeze fail whilst they are winnowing, whistle to the spriggan, or air spirit, to bring it back.”—Comparative Folk-lore, Cornhill, 1876.A swarm of bees in May is worth a “yow” (ewe) and lamb same day. It is considered lucky in these parts for a stray swarm to settle near your house; and if you throw a handkerchief over it you may claim it as your own. To sell them is unlucky; but you may have an understanding with a purchaser that he will give youan equivalent for your bees. The inside of hives should be rubbed with “scawnsy buds” (elderflowers) to prevent a new swarm from leaving them. Honey should be always taken from the hive onSt.Bartholomew’s Day, he being the patron saint of bees. Of course all the principal events happening in the families to whom they belonged, in this as in other counties, were formerly whispered to them, that the bees might not think themselves neglected, and leave the place in anger. At a recent meeting of the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society a gentleman mentioned that when a boy he had seen thirty hives belonging to Mr. Joshua Fox, of Tregedna, tied up in crape (an universal practice) because of a death in the Fox family. Another at the same time said that when, some years since, the landlady of the “First and Last” Inn, at the Land’s End, died, the bird-cages and flower-pots were also tied with crape, to prevent the birds and plants from dying. When withering, because this has not been done, if the plants be remembered in time and crape put on the pots, they may revive. Enquiring a short time ago what had become of a fine maiden-hair fern that we had had for years, I was told “that we had neglected to put it into mourning when a near relative of our’s had died, or to tell it of his death; and therefore it had gradually pined away.” After a death, pictures, but especially portraits of the deceased, are also supposed to fade. Snails as well as bees are thought here to bring luck, for “the house is blest where snails do rest.” Children on meeting them in their path, for some reason stamp their feet and say,“Snail! snail! come out of your hole,Or I will beat you black as a coal.”Another Cornish farmers’ superstition is that “ducks won’t lay until they have drunk ‘Lide’ (March) water;” and the wife of one in 1880 declared “that if a goose saw a Lent lily (daffodil) before hatching its goslings it would, when they came forth, destroy them.” Some witty thieves, many years ago, having stolen twelve geese from a clergyman in the eastern part of thecounty, tied twelve pennies and this doggerel around the gander’s neck—“Parson Peard, be not afeard,Nor take it much in anger,We’ve bought your geese at a penny a-piece,And left the money with the gander.”Hens must never be put to sit on an even number of eggs, eleven or thirteen are lucky numbers; Basilisks are hatched from cock’s eggs.When cocks crow children are told that they say,“Cock-a-doodle-doo!Grammer’s lost her shoe,Down by the barley moo (mow),And what will grammer do,Cock-a-doodle-doo.”Moles in this county are known as “wants,” and once in the Land’s End district I overtook an old man and asked him what had made so many hillocks in a field through which we were passing. His answer was, “What you rich people never have in your houses, ‘wants.’ ”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. Soon after, from some reason, two or three of his cows died; he was quite sure, he told me, that she had “overlooked” and “ill-wished” him. To ease his mind he had consulted a “pellar” about the matter, who had described her accurately to him, and, for payment, removed the “spell” (I do not know what rites were used), telling him to look at his watch and note the hour, as he would find, when he returned home, that a cow he had left sick would have begun at that moment to recover (which he says it did).The “pellar” also added, “The woman who has ‘ill-wished’ you will be swaddled in fire and lapped in water;” and by a strange coincidence she emigrated soon after, and was lost in the ill-fatedCospatrick, that was burnt at sea.Water from a font is often stolen to sprinkle “ill-wished” persons or things.The two next examples were communicated to me by a friend: “Some twenty-six years ago a farmer in a neighbouring village (West Cornwall) sustained during one season continual losses from his cows dying of indigestion, known as ‘loss of cud,’ ‘hoven-blown,’ etc. After consulting an old farrier called Armstrong he was induced to go to a ‘pellar’ in Exeter. His orders were to go home, and, on nearing his farm, he would see an old woman in a field hoeing turnips, and that she was the party who had cast the ‘evil eye’ on him. When he saw her he was to lay hold of her and accuse her of the crime, then tear off some of her dress, take it to his farm, and burn it with some of the hair from the tails of his surviving stock. These directions were fully carried out, and his bad health (caused by worry) improved, and he lost no more cows. A spotted clover that grew luxuriantly that summer was no doubt the cause of the swelling.” “Another farmer in the same village eighteen years since lost all his feeding cattle from pleuro-pneumonia; believing them to be ‘ill-wished’ by a woman, he also consulted the Exeter ‘pellar.’ He brought home some bottles of elixir, potent against magic, and made an image of dough, pierced it from the nape of the neck downward, in the line of the spine, with a very large blanket-pin. In order to make the agonies of the woman with the ‘evil eye’ excruciating in the last degree, dough and pin were then burnt in a fire of hazel and ash. The cure failed, as anyone acquainted with the disease might have forecast.”Besides those remedies already mentioned for curing cattle, you may employ these:—“Take some blood from the sick animal by wounding him; let the blood fall on some straw carefully held to the place—not a drop must be lost; burn the straw; when the ill-wisher will be irresistibly drawn to the spot; then by violence youcan compel him to take off the spell.” Or, “Bleed one animal to death to save the whole herd.”A local newspaper, in 1883 (Cornishman), gives the following:—“Superstitions die hard.—A horse died the other day on a farm in the neighbourhood ofSt.Ives. Its carcase was dragged on a Sunday away up to the granite rock basins and weather-worn bosses of Trecoben hill, and there burnt, in order to drive away the evil spell, or ill-wishing, which afflicted the farm where the animal belonged.” I, a few years since, saw a dying cat taken out of a house on a mat, by two servants, that it might not die inside and bring ill-luck. “In 1865 a farmer in Portreath sacrificed a calf, by burning, for the purpose of removing a disease which had long followed his horses and cows.” And in another case a farmer burnt a living lamb, to save, as he said, “his flock from spells which had been cast on them.”—Robert Hunt.TheCornishman, in another paragraph, says:—“Our Summercourt (East Cornwall) correspondent witnessed an amusing affair on Thursday morning (April, 1883). Seeing a crowd in the street, he asked the reason, and found that a young lady was about to perform the feat ofthrowing a pig’s nose over a house for good luck! This is how it was done. The lady took the nose of a pig, that was killed the day before, in her right hand, stood with her back to the house, and threw the nose over her head, and over the house, into the back garden. Had she failed in the attempt her luck was supposed to be bad.” “Whet your knife on Sunday, you’ll skin on Monday,” is a very old Perranuthnoe andSt.Hilary (West Cornwall) superstition, so that, however blunt your knife may be, you must use it as it is, lest by sharpening it you bring ill-luck on the farmer, and he lose a sheep or bullock.Mr. T. Q. Couch,W. Antiquary, 1883, says of one, “He is an old-fashioned man, and, amongst his other ‘whiddles’ (whims), keeps a goat amongst his cattle for the sake of keeping his cows from slipping their calves.” Branches of care (mountain ash) were, in the east of the county, hung over the cattle in their stalls to prevent their being “ill-wished,” also carried in the pocket as a cure and prevention of rheumatism.“Rheumatism will attack the man who carries a walking stick made of holly.”—Cornubiana,Rev.S. Rundle.The belief in witchcraft in West Cornwall is much more general than most people imagine. Several cases have lately come under my own notice; one, that of a man-servant in our employ who broke a blood-vessel, and for a long time was so ill that his life was despaired of. He was most carefully attended by a Penzance physician, who came to see him three times a day. But directly that his strength began to return he asked permission to go to Redruth to consult a “pellar,” as he was quite sure that he had been “overlooked” and “ill-wished.” An old Penzance man, afflicted with rheumatism, who gained his living by selling fruit in the streets, fancied himself ill-wished. He went to Helston to see a “wiseman” residing there, to whom he paid seven-and-sixpence, with a further promise of five pounds on the removal of the “spell.” As he was too poor to pay this himself a brother agreed to do it for him, but somehow failed to perform his contract. Now the poor old man thinks that the pellar’s ill-wishes are added to his former pains.The “pellars” wore formerly magical rings, with a blue stone in them, said to have been formed by snakes breathing on hazel-twigs. Our country-people often searched for these stones.

“The occurrence of a black cat in the lowest depths of a mine will warn the older miners off that level until the cat is exterminated.”—Thomas Cornish,Western Antiquary, October, 1887.

A hand clasping the ladder and coming down with, or after a miner, foretells misfortune or death. This superstition prevails, also, in the slate quarries of the eastern part of the county.

The miners in the slate quarries of Delabole have a tradition that the right hand of a miner, who committed suicide, is sometimes seen following them down the ladders, grasping the rings as they let them go, holding a miner’s light between the thumb and finger. It forebodes ill to the seer.—Esmè Stuart. See “Tamsin’s Choice,”Longman, June, 1883.

Miners, too, had some superstition in regard to snails, known in Cornwall as “bullhorns;” for if they met one on their way to work they always dropped a bit of their dinner or some grease from their lanthorn before him for good-luck.

Miraculous dreams are related; warnings to some miners, which have prevented on particular days their going down below with their comrades, when serious accidents have happened and several have lost their lives. Rich lodes, too, have been discovered through the dreams of fortunate women, who have been shown in them where their male relatives should dig for the hidden treasure.

“ ‘Dowsing’ (divining with the rod) is of course believed in here as elsewhere, and some men are known as noted ‘dowsers.’ A forked twig of hazel (also called a ‘dowser’) is used by our Cornish miners to discover a vein of ore; it is held loosely in the hand, the point towards the ‘dowser’s’ breast, and it is said to turn round when the holder is standing over metal.”

Miners still observe some quaint old customs; a horse-shoe is sometimes placed on a convenient part of the machinery, which each, as he goes down to his day’s work, touches four times to ensure good-luck. These must be “Tributers” (pronounced trib-ut-ers), who work on “trib-ut,” when a percentage is paid on ores raised; in contradistinction to “Tut-workers,” who are paid by the job.

A miner, going underground with shoes on, will drive all the mineral out of the mine.—Cornubiana,Rev.S. Rundle.

In 1886, atSt.Just in Penwith two men of Wheal Drea had their hats burnt one Monday morning, after the birth of their first children.

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.

A water-wagtail, in Cornwall a “tinner,” perching on a window-sill, is the sign of a visit from a stranger.

Carew says—“The Cornish tynners hold a strong imagination, that in the withdrawing of Noah’s floud to the sea the same took his course from east to west, violently breaking vp, and forcibly carrying with it the earth, trees, and rocks, which lay anything loosely neere the vpper face of the ground. To confirme the likelihood of which supposed truth, they doe many times digge vp whole and huge timber-trees, which they conceiue at that deluge to haue been ouerturned and whelmed.”

Miners frequently in conversation make use of technical proverbs, such as “Capel rides a good horse.” Capel is schorl, and indicates the presence of tin. “It’s a wise man that knows tin” alludes to the various forms it takes. To an old tune they sing the words—

“Here’s to the devil, with his wooden spade and shovel,Digging tin by the bushel, with his tail cocked up.”

“Here’s to the devil, with his wooden spade and shovel,

Digging tin by the bushel, with his tail cocked up.”

And on the signboard of a public-house in West Cornwall a few years ago (and probably still) might be read—

“Come all good Cornish boys2walk in,Here’s brandy, rum, and shrub, and gin;You can’t do less than drink successTo copper, fish, and tin.”

“Come all good Cornish boys2walk in,

Here’s brandy, rum, and shrub, and gin;

You can’t do less than drink success

To copper, fish, and tin.”

Miners believe that mundic (iron pyrites) being applied to a wound immediately cures it; of which they are so sure that they use no other remedy than washing it in the water that runs through the mundic ore.—A Complete History of Cornwall, 1730.

It is an easy transition from mines to fish, the next staple industry of Cornwall, and to the superstitions of its fishermen and sailors. Fish is a word in West Cornwall applied more particularly to pilchards (pelchurs). They frequent our coasts in autumn.

“When the corn is in the shock,Then the fish are on the rock.”

“When the corn is in the shock,

Then the fish are on the rock.”

And if on a close foggy day in that season you ask the question,—“Do you think it will rain?” the answer often is—“No! it isonly het (heat) and pelchurs,” that sort of weather being favourable for catching them.

“A good year for fleas is a good year for fish,” the proverb says; and when eating a pilchard the flesh must be always taken off the bone from the tail to the head. To eat them from head to tail is unlucky, and would soon drive the fish from the shore. There are many other wise sayings about pilchards; but I will only give one more couplet, which declares that—

“They are food, money, and light,All in one night.”3

“They are food, money, and light,

All in one night.”3

Should pilchards when in bulk4make a squeaking noise, they are crying for more, and another shoal will quickly be in the bay.

Fishermen dread going near the spot where vessels have been wrecked, as the voices of the drowned often call to them there, especially before a storm. Sometimes their dead comrades call them by their names, and then they know for certain that they will soon die; and often when drowning the ghosts of their friends appear to them. They are seen by them sometimes taking the form of animals.

Mr. 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.

In a churchyard near the Land’s End is the grave of a drowned captain, covered by a flat tombstone; proceeding from it formerly the sound of a ghostly bell was often heard to strike four and eight bells. The tale goes that when his vessel struck on some rocks close to the shore, the captain saw all his men safely offin their boat, but refused himself to leave the ship, and went down in her exactly at midnight, as he was striking the time. His body was recovered, and given decent burial, but his poor soul had no rest. An unbelieving sailor once went out of curiosity to try if he could hear this bell; he did, and soon after sailed on a voyage from which he never returned.

Spectre ships are seen before wrecks; they are generally shrouded in mist; but the crew of one was said to consist of two men, a woman, and a dog. These ships vanish at some well-known point. Jack Harry’s lights, too, herald a storm; they are so called from the man who first saw them. These appear on a phantom vessel resembling the one that will be lost.

On boarding a derelict, should a live cat or other animal be found, it is thrown into the sea and drowned, under the idea that if any living thing is in her, the finders can claim nothing from the owners. In fact she is not a derelict.

The apparition of a lady carrying a lanthorn always on one part of the Cornish coast5foretells a storm and shipwrecks. She is supposed to be searching for her child who was drowned, whilst she was saved, because she was afraid to trust it out of her arms. For the legends of “The Lady of the Vow” and “The Hooper or Hooter of Sennen Cove,” seeante, p. 71.6Mermaids are still believed in, and it is very bad to offend them, for by their spite harbours have been filled up with sand. They, however, kindly take idiot children under their protection. The lucky finder of one of their combs or glasses has the power (as long as it remains in his possession) of charming away diseases.

Boats are said to come to a sudden standstill when over the spot where lies the body of a drowned man, for whom search is being made. The body is supposed to rise when drowned, on the seventh, eighth, or ninth day. Sailors regard many things as bad omens, such “as a loaf of bread turned upside-down on a table.” (This will bring some ship to distress.) They will not begin a voyageon Childermas-day, nor allow a piece of spar-stone (quartz) to be carried on board a vessel: that would ensure her striking on a rock. Of course, they neither whistle when there, nor speak of hares, two most unlucky things; and should they meet one of these animals on their way to the place of embarkation they think it far wiser to turn back home, and put off sailing for a tide. Hares (as already noticed) play a great part in Cornish folk-lore. The following amusing story I had from a friend:—“Jimmy Treglown, a noted poacher living in a village of West Cornwall, became converted at a revival meeting; he was tempted on his way to class-meeting one Sunday morning soon after by the devil in the form of a beautiful hare. Jimmy said, ‘There thee art, my dear; but I waan’t tooch thee on a Sunday—nor yet on a weeky day, for that matter.’ He went briskly on his way for a few paces, and then, like Lot’s wife, he was tempted to look behind him. Alas! in Jimmy’s own words, ‘There she was in her seat, looking lovely. I tooked up a stone, and dabbed at her. Away she runned, and fare-ee well, religion. Mine runned away with her. I went home, and never went to class no more.7You see it was the devil, and ‘simmen to me’ (seeming) I heard ’un laugh and say, ‘Ah! ah! Jimmy, boy, I had thee on the hip then. Thee must confess thee’st had a fair fall.’ So I gave in, and never went nigh the ‘people’ (Wesleyans) no more. Nobody should fire at hares of this sort, except with a silver bullet; they often appear as white, but the devil knowed I couldn’t be fooled with a white ’un.’ ” Nothing is too ridiculous to be told of hares. Another old man fromSt.Just (still living) once recited this anecdote in our kitchen, and from his grave manner evidently expected it to be believed:—“I was out walking (he said) one Sunday morning, when I saw a hare in a field which I longed to have; so I shied a bit of ‘codgy wax’ (cobbler’s wax), the only thing I had in my pocket, at ’un, when he ran away. What was my surprise on getting over a stile to see two hares in the next field face to face, the ‘codgy wax’ had stuck to the nose of the first, and he in his fright had runnedagainst the other, and was holden ’un fast, too. So I quietly broke the necks of both, and carried em home.”

“The grapes are sour” is in Cornwall often changed to “Lev-un go! he’s dry eaten after all,” as the old man said when he couldn’t catch the hare.

Sailors and fishermen have naturally many weather proverbs, of which I will give a few:—

“A north wind is a broom for the Channel.”

“A Saturday’s moon is a sailor’s curse.”

“A Saturday’s and Sunday’s moonComes once in seven years too soon.”

“Between twelve and two you’ll see what the day will do.”

“A southerly wind with a fog bring an easterly wind in ‘snog’ (with certainty).”

“Friday’s noon is Sunday’s doom.”

“Friday and the week are never alike.”

“There’s never a Saturday in the yearBut what the sun it doth appear,” etc.

“Weather dogs” are pillars of light coloured like the rainbow, which appear on the horizon generally over the sea in unsettled weather, and always foretell storms. The inland dwellers of Cornwall have also their wise sayings on this subject. Rooks darting around a rookery, sparrows twittering, donkeys braying, are signs of rain. Cats running wildly about a house are said to bring storms on their tails. Some of their omens are simply ludicrous, such as “We may look for wet when a cat, in washing its face, puts its paw over its ear,” or when “hurlers” (small sparks) play about the bars of a grate. A cock crowing on a stone is a sign of fine weather; on the doorstep, of a stranger. But here it is well known “That fools are weather-wise,” and “That those that are weather-wise are rarely otherwise.”

In West Cornwall, not very long ago farmers, before they began to break up a grass field or plough for sowing, always turned the faces of the cattle attached to the plough towards the west and solemnly said, “In the name of God let us begin,” and then with the sun’s course proceeded on their work. Everything in thiscounty, even down to such a small thing as taking the cream off the milk-pans set round the dairy, must for luck be done from left to right. Invalids, on going out for the first time after an illness, must walk with, not against, the sun, for fear of a relapse.

Farmers here are taught that if they wish to thrive they must “rise with the craw (crow), go to bed with the yow (ewe),” not be “like Solomon the wise, who was loth to go to bed and loth to rise,” for does not “the master’s eye make the mare fat?” “A February spring,” according to one proverb, “is not worth a pin,” and another says “a dry east wind raises the spring.” Sayings current in other counties, such as “a peck of March dust is worth a king’s ransom,” are also quoted, but those I shall not give. There should be as many frosty mornings in May as in March, for “a hot May makes a fat church-hay.” A wet June makes a dry September. “Cornwall will stand a shower every day, and two for Sundays.” 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.”

“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.

“Countrymen in Cornwall, if the breeze fail whilst they are winnowing, whistle to the spriggan, or air spirit, to bring it back.”—Comparative Folk-lore, Cornhill, 1876.

A swarm of bees in May is worth a “yow” (ewe) and lamb same day. It is considered lucky in these parts for a stray swarm to settle near your house; and if you throw a handkerchief over it you may claim it as your own. To sell them is unlucky; but you may have an understanding with a purchaser that he will give youan equivalent for your bees. The inside of hives should be rubbed with “scawnsy buds” (elderflowers) to prevent a new swarm from leaving them. Honey should be always taken from the hive onSt.Bartholomew’s Day, he being the patron saint of bees. Of course all the principal events happening in the families to whom they belonged, in this as in other counties, were formerly whispered to them, that the bees might not think themselves neglected, and leave the place in anger. At a recent meeting of the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society a gentleman mentioned that when a boy he had seen thirty hives belonging to Mr. Joshua Fox, of Tregedna, tied up in crape (an universal practice) because of a death in the Fox family. Another at the same time said that when, some years since, the landlady of the “First and Last” Inn, at the Land’s End, died, the bird-cages and flower-pots were also tied with crape, to prevent the birds and plants from dying. When withering, because this has not been done, if the plants be remembered in time and crape put on the pots, they may revive. Enquiring a short time ago what had become of a fine maiden-hair fern that we had had for years, I was told “that we had neglected to put it into mourning when a near relative of our’s had died, or to tell it of his death; and therefore it had gradually pined away.” After a death, pictures, but especially portraits of the deceased, are also supposed to fade. Snails as well as bees are thought here to bring luck, for “the house is blest where snails do rest.” Children on meeting them in their path, for some reason stamp their feet and say,

“Snail! snail! come out of your hole,Or I will beat you black as a coal.”

“Snail! snail! come out of your hole,

Or I will beat you black as a coal.”

Another Cornish farmers’ superstition is that “ducks won’t lay until they have drunk ‘Lide’ (March) water;” and the wife of one in 1880 declared “that if a goose saw a Lent lily (daffodil) before hatching its goslings it would, when they came forth, destroy them.” Some witty thieves, many years ago, having stolen twelve geese from a clergyman in the eastern part of thecounty, tied twelve pennies and this doggerel around the gander’s neck—

“Parson Peard, be not afeard,Nor take it much in anger,We’ve bought your geese at a penny a-piece,And left the money with the gander.”

“Parson Peard, be not afeard,

Nor take it much in anger,

We’ve bought your geese at a penny a-piece,

And left the money with the gander.”

Hens must never be put to sit on an even number of eggs, eleven or thirteen are lucky numbers; Basilisks are hatched from cock’s eggs.

When cocks crow children are told that they say,

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!Grammer’s lost her shoe,Down by the barley moo (mow),And what will grammer do,Cock-a-doodle-doo.”

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!

Grammer’s lost her shoe,

Down by the barley moo (mow),

And what will grammer do,

Cock-a-doodle-doo.”

Moles in this county are known as “wants,” and once in the Land’s End district I overtook an old man and asked him what had made so many hillocks in a field through which we were passing. His answer was, “What you rich people never have in your houses, ‘wants.’ ”

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. Soon after, from some reason, two or three of his cows died; he was quite sure, he told me, that she had “overlooked” and “ill-wished” him. To ease his mind he had consulted a “pellar” about the matter, who had described her accurately to him, and, for payment, removed the “spell” (I do not know what rites were used), telling him to look at his watch and note the hour, as he would find, when he returned home, that a cow he had left sick would have begun at that moment to recover (which he says it did).The “pellar” also added, “The woman who has ‘ill-wished’ you will be swaddled in fire and lapped in water;” and by a strange coincidence she emigrated soon after, and was lost in the ill-fatedCospatrick, that was burnt at sea.

Water from a font is often stolen to sprinkle “ill-wished” persons or things.

The two next examples were communicated to me by a friend: “Some twenty-six years ago a farmer in a neighbouring village (West Cornwall) sustained during one season continual losses from his cows dying of indigestion, known as ‘loss of cud,’ ‘hoven-blown,’ etc. After consulting an old farrier called Armstrong he was induced to go to a ‘pellar’ in Exeter. His orders were to go home, and, on nearing his farm, he would see an old woman in a field hoeing turnips, and that she was the party who had cast the ‘evil eye’ on him. When he saw her he was to lay hold of her and accuse her of the crime, then tear off some of her dress, take it to his farm, and burn it with some of the hair from the tails of his surviving stock. These directions were fully carried out, and his bad health (caused by worry) improved, and he lost no more cows. A spotted clover that grew luxuriantly that summer was no doubt the cause of the swelling.” “Another farmer in the same village eighteen years since lost all his feeding cattle from pleuro-pneumonia; believing them to be ‘ill-wished’ by a woman, he also consulted the Exeter ‘pellar.’ He brought home some bottles of elixir, potent against magic, and made an image of dough, pierced it from the nape of the neck downward, in the line of the spine, with a very large blanket-pin. In order to make the agonies of the woman with the ‘evil eye’ excruciating in the last degree, dough and pin were then burnt in a fire of hazel and ash. The cure failed, as anyone acquainted with the disease might have forecast.”

Besides those remedies already mentioned for curing cattle, you may employ these:—“Take some blood from the sick animal by wounding him; let the blood fall on some straw carefully held to the place—not a drop must be lost; burn the straw; when the ill-wisher will be irresistibly drawn to the spot; then by violence youcan compel him to take off the spell.” Or, “Bleed one animal to death to save the whole herd.”

A local newspaper, in 1883 (Cornishman), gives the following:—“Superstitions die hard.—A horse died the other day on a farm in the neighbourhood ofSt.Ives. Its carcase was dragged on a Sunday away up to the granite rock basins and weather-worn bosses of Trecoben hill, and there burnt, in order to drive away the evil spell, or ill-wishing, which afflicted the farm where the animal belonged.” I, a few years since, saw a dying cat taken out of a house on a mat, by two servants, that it might not die inside and bring ill-luck. “In 1865 a farmer in Portreath sacrificed a calf, by burning, for the purpose of removing a disease which had long followed his horses and cows.” And in another case a farmer burnt a living lamb, to save, as he said, “his flock from spells which had been cast on them.”—Robert Hunt.

TheCornishman, in another paragraph, says:—“Our Summercourt (East Cornwall) correspondent witnessed an amusing affair on Thursday morning (April, 1883). Seeing a crowd in the street, he asked the reason, and found that a young lady was about to perform the feat ofthrowing a pig’s nose over a house for good luck! This is how it was done. The lady took the nose of a pig, that was killed the day before, in her right hand, stood with her back to the house, and threw the nose over her head, and over the house, into the back garden. Had she failed in the attempt her luck was supposed to be bad.” “Whet your knife on Sunday, you’ll skin on Monday,” is a very old Perranuthnoe andSt.Hilary (West Cornwall) superstition, so that, however blunt your knife may be, you must use it as it is, lest by sharpening it you bring ill-luck on the farmer, and he lose a sheep or bullock.Mr. T. Q. Couch,W. Antiquary, 1883, says of one, “He is an old-fashioned man, and, amongst his other ‘whiddles’ (whims), keeps a goat amongst his cattle for the sake of keeping his cows from slipping their calves.” Branches of care (mountain ash) were, in the east of the county, hung over the cattle in their stalls to prevent their being “ill-wished,” also carried in the pocket as a cure and prevention of rheumatism.“Rheumatism will attack the man who carries a walking stick made of holly.”—Cornubiana,Rev.S. Rundle.

The belief in witchcraft in West Cornwall is much more general than most people imagine. Several cases have lately come under my own notice; one, that of a man-servant in our employ who broke a blood-vessel, and for a long time was so ill that his life was despaired of. He was most carefully attended by a Penzance physician, who came to see him three times a day. But directly that his strength began to return he asked permission to go to Redruth to consult a “pellar,” as he was quite sure that he had been “overlooked” and “ill-wished.” An old Penzance man, afflicted with rheumatism, who gained his living by selling fruit in the streets, fancied himself ill-wished. He went to Helston to see a “wiseman” residing there, to whom he paid seven-and-sixpence, with a further promise of five pounds on the removal of the “spell.” As he was too poor to pay this himself a brother agreed to do it for him, but somehow failed to perform his contract. Now the poor old man thinks that the pellar’s ill-wishes are added to his former pains.

The “pellars” wore formerly magical rings, with a blue stone in them, said to have been formed by snakes breathing on hazel-twigs. Our country-people often searched for these stones.

1Some say you must neither whistle nor swear, but you may sing and laugh.↑2All men are boys in Cornwall.↑3Train-oil is expressed from them.↑4To “bulk” pilchards is to place them, after they have been rubbed with salt, in large regular heaps, alternately heads and tails.↑5St.Ives.↑6And “Cornish Feasts and Customs.”↑7The illiterate Cornish often double their negatives: “I don’t know, not I;” “I’ll never do it, no, never no more.”↑

1Some say you must neither whistle nor swear, but you may sing and laugh.↑

2All men are boys in Cornwall.↑

3Train-oil is expressed from them.↑

4To “bulk” pilchards is to place them, after they have been rubbed with salt, in large regular heaps, alternately heads and tails.↑

5St.Ives.↑

6And “Cornish Feasts and Customs.”↑

7The illiterate Cornish often double their negatives: “I don’t know, not I;” “I’ll never do it, no, never no more.”↑

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