The Four Parish Stone and the Saxons

Watch Croft - a hill near the four parish stone - image by Iain Macaulay [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

"At a point where the four parishes of Zennor. Morvah, Gulval, and Mathon meet, is a flat stone with a cross cut on it. The Saxon kings are also said to have dined on this."

Hunt 1903



Map - The Four Parish Stone

[According to the OS map it looks like there are now only three parishes meeting here - Gulval and Mathon having become Madron County Parish.  

Again this is currently an unfashionable legend, so I could not find a copyright free image of the exact stone. It is tempting to think that the legend itself is not of local origin - why celebrate an invading armies victory, especially when they did not become the local areas dominant culture - but for a non-local legend it seems strange to use an otherwise unknown stone.  To me the Victorians as a whole seem far to enamored with the Celtic - or Keltic - origin of Cornwall to make this up, though they did take ancient historians - including Saxon propagandist Bede - at their word. Perhaps at an earlier date it became temporarily fashionable in Cornwall to look the Saxon influenced east, an then the legend grew and stuck..? Perhaps in the early days of the 'new world' and an expanding empire led from London?  Who knows!]

The Table Men and the Saxons in Kernow

Saint Sennen Church - image by Andrewrabbott (talk).Andrewrabbott at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

"AT a short distance from Sennen church, and near the end of a cottage, is a block of granite, nearly eight feet long, and about three feet high. This rock is known as the Table-men, or Table-main, which appears to signify the stone-table. At Bosavern, in St Just, is a somewhat similar fiat stone; and the same story attaches to each. --

It is to the effect that some Saxon kings used the stone as a dining-table. The number has been variously stated; some traditions fixing on three kings, others on seven. Hals is far more explicit; for, as he says, on the authority of the chronicle of Samuel Daniell, they were -- 

Ethelbert, 5th king of Kent;
Cissa, 2d king of the South Saxons;
Kingills, 6th king of the West Saxons;
Sebert, 3d king of the East Saxons;
Ethelfred, 7th king of the Northumbers;
Penda, 5th king of the Mercians;
Sigebert, 5th king of the East Angles,--who all flourished about the year 600...

...The only tradition which is known amongst the peasantry of Sennen is, that Prince Arthur and the kings who aided him against the Danes, in the great battle fought near Vellan-Drucher, dined on the Table-men, after which they defeated the Danes."

Hunt 1903

 

Map - Sennen Church
Map - Bosavern

[I cannot find the location of the battle of Vallan-Drucher - Though it is described in The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887 as being near Vallan Dreath, which is very close to Sennen Cove.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the Table-Men / Saxon bit of the folklore is currently very unfashionable on the internet, and, I suspect, in Kernow / Cornwall. The only modern mentions I have found to it is to King Arthur's battle with the Danes (being more acceptably 'British' and 'Celtic')]

The Men-Scryfa and Castle Lesgudzhek

Men Scryfa - image by Jim Champion [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

"AT the entrance to Penzance rises, rather abruptly, a hill, crowned with a very remarkable earthwork. It is known as Castle Lesgudzhek, or, the " Castle of the Bloody Field," to this day.

Tradition, our only guide, tells us that this castle was one of the strong places of a British king, in the third or fourth century; that a rival chieftain, from the eastern part of Danmonium, besieged him. The defence was long and desperate. The besiegers, wearying of the unsuccessful toil, retired at length to the plains of Gulval; and that the besieged left his castle, and gave his enemies battle on the plain which extends from Penzance to Marazion. The "bloody field" remained in possession of the chieftain of Lesgudzhek, and the leader of the eastern men was killed near where he was buried. The Men-Scryfa, or inscribed stone, was raised over his grave,--its height, nine feet, being the exact height of the defeated warrior ?

RIALOBRAN CUNOVAL FIL

is engraven on the block; thus handing to us the name of the unfortunate warrior, who was probably the son of the hero from whom Gulval draws its name; and if so, may we not suppose that he was but endeavouring to recover the possessions which once belonged to his parent."

Hunt 1903

Map - Castle Lacudjack Hill

Map - Men-Scryfa

Map - The Battle Plain

Barnstaple Fair - a song - (part 4)

Fairground ride - By Iantresman (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

[cont...] "...King George the Third rode out to Staines the hounds to lay the stag on,
But that was.no great things of sport, for mighty kings to brag on,
The French, alas ! go a la chasse in von po shay and pair,
But what's all that to Button Hill ? To Barnstaple Fair?

For we will all a-hunting go, on horse, or mule, or mare, Sir !
For everything is in the field to Barnstaple Fair, Sir!
To Button Hill, whose name to all the sporting world sure known is,
Go bits of blood, and hunters, hacks, and little Exmoor ponies ;

When lords and ladies, doctors, passons, farmers, squires prepare,
To hunt the stag with hound and horn to Barnstaple Fair,
Then up and ride for Chillam Bridge, or on to Bratton town, Sir,

To view the rouse, or watch the Yeo, to see the stag come down, Sir !
 

There's nothing else in jollity and hospitable fare, Sir!
That ever can with Barnstaple in fair time compare, Sir!
And guests are very welcome hospitality to share, Sir!
For beer is brew'd, and beef is bought to Barnstaple Fair, Sir !..." [cont....]
 

 

Hewett 19000

 

The West Country Man - a slightly anti-monarchy folksong reffrencing Barnstaple Fair

Ash tree leaves - By Pearson Scott Foresman [Public domain],

'There was an old man in the West Country ;
A blatch in his lease the attorney found,
Twas all for the felling of five ashen trees,
And building a house upon his own ground.

The old man, he would to London go,

To shew the King great part of his woe,
To shew the King great part of his grief,
And likewise to ax'n for some relief.

Now when the old man to London came,

The King he was to Windsor gone,
" Why if he had known that I was acoming,
He widden have gone so far from home."

When the old man unto Windsor came,

The gates were locked, and all secure,
" Why let's knock away with my oaken club,
There's room for me to get vore, to be sure."

"Yer sarvint, Maister Nobles!" shew me the king,
"Whot's this the King you sheweth to me ?
I zeed a chap to Barnstaple fair
Looked more like a king than thicky chap there."

"Yer sarvint, Mr. King !" the old man said,

"A blatch in my lease the 'torney' hath found,
And it's all for felling of five ashen trees,
And building a 'ouze pin tap his own ground."

The King he took the lease all up,

And signed it with his hand so free.
" Why, if us ciide a-had it a-diied at home,
Us needn't a-comed to thee."

The old man took the lease all up,

And for to go home was also willing,
But to make the King some sort of amends,
He took out his purse and gave him a shilling,

The King he thanked the noble soul,

And paid him down ten pounds in gold,
And every year for the sake of the sport,
Ten pounds were paid from Windsor Court.

The old man took the lease all up,

And for to go home he now was quite willing,
" But if I'd a-knowed thee'd agot so much money,
The devil-a-bit wid I a-gied thee a shilling."'

For this and the following song I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. W. H. Whiteaway, of Sunnyside, Exmouth, who is good enough to allow me to insert them here. He says, " these songs I give to you, from memory, as I can remember hearing them sung over sixty years ago."

Hewett 1900

Map - Barnstaple Fair

Map - Exmouth

[A tune exists here, Roud No. 18844 and 18877, in Sabine Baring-Gould's manuscripts, that looks like it might fit.]

King Simon of Simonsbath

The River Barle at Simonsbath - by Richard Mascall [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

"In the centre of the extensive forest of Exmoor, lies the picturesque little village of Simonsbath, which is reputed to be ten miles from everywhere. Here in ancient times the limpid Barle, as now, flowed lazily in summer towards its sister stream the Exe, which it joins in the vicinity of Dulverton. Slowly wending its way through the country of the Red Deer, it forms many a deep pool, sheltered by clumps of alder, while its banks are rich in king fern and bracken. Simon, the king of the western country, often came to disport himself, with his followers, in the refreshing waters. One day, the sovereign ventured too far from his attendants and being seized with cramp sank, and was drowned before assistance arrived. Hence the name of the hamlet Simonsbath."

Hewett 1900

Map - Simonsbath

[This is a little different from Valentines version of the story, where Simon is an Outlaw. Perhaps he was confused by the stories of the Doone outlaws of the area.]

Aethelstan battles the Britons.

Athelstan, c.895-939. Detail of stained glass window, All Souls College Chapel, Oxford.

"Climbing the ascent [from Lamorna Cove] Bolleit is reached, a battle plain on which Athelstane defeated the Britons in a last desperate struggle for their freedom. On the right of this road are some of the stones we have already described. Athelstane, after he had subjugated Cornwall (even to the Scilly Islands), founded a college for Augustine canons at Buryan."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Lamorna Cove
Map - Buryan

The King of Prussia and the "Fairy"

Betsy's Cove in the Prussia Cove area - © Copyright Mari Buckley and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

"Of these smuggers there was, during the close of the last century, a native of Breage named Carter, who was called the King of Prussia from some fancied resemblance to the Great Frederick, whose name at one time was a household word in England. This man became the leader of the Cornish smugglers. He chose for his home and his smuggler's hold a rocky cove about two miles east of Marazion, which still bears the name of Prussia Cove, where his gang cut deep channels in the hard rock, which are still visible, to allow of the near approach of their boats.

The "King of Prussia" was exceedingly clever at avoiding the excise officers, always removing his stores in time. Amongst them were some old cannon, the possession of which probably induced Carter to run the risk that might have brought him to destruction. From the cliffs one moonlight night he watched his boats approaching the landing-place laden with a rich booty of smuggled goods, but at the same moment appeared the revenue cutter Fairy under all sail in swift pursuit, for her crew had also distinguished them. The king's vessel gained rapidly on the boats. The old smuggler stood gazing anxiously at the chase. Then with sudden determination he bade the men with him "fire the guns." They had been placed at the edge of the cliff, loaded, and were discharged at the cutter, which could not elevate her guns high enough to reply, and was obliged to sheer of; the boats meanwhile landing. Of course early dawn saw the white sails of the cutter again off the cliffs, and the captain and his crew landed, and mounted the hill. There was no sign of cannon there now! The officer went to Carter's house for an explanation, and was met by the smuggler, who at once attacked him about "practising the cutter's guns at midnight, and disturbing the neighbourhood," utterly denying all knowledge of the firing himself. No evidence of who had fired the cannon on the cliff could be obtained, though the smuggler was well known, and the matter was let drop.

Carter, however, did not prosper to the end of his career, and was at last detected and punished. He died at a great old age, a very poor man."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Prussia Cove

King Arthur at Tintagel

King Arthur being taken by Merlin - The Boy's King Arthur: Sir Thomas Malory's History of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, Edited for Boys by Sidney Lanier (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922). Scanned by Dave Pape.

"Arthur was born in Tintagel, and kept his court in manhood here, at times, surrounded by his famous knights. Fuller gives us this quaint account of the King of British chivalry.

"King Arthur," he says, "son of Uther Pendragon, was born in Tintagel Castle, and proved afterwards monarch of Great Britain. He may fitly be termed the British Hercules in three respects : (1) for his doubtful birth; (2) painful life - one famous for his twelve labours, the other for his twelve victories against the Saxons, and both of them had been greater had they been made less, and the reports of them reduced within the compass of credibility. (3) Violent and woeful death: our Arthur's being as lamentable and more honourable, - not caused by feminine jealousy, but masculine treachery - being inurdured by Mordred near the place where he was born,-

'As if no other place on Britain's spacious earth
Were worthy of his end, but where he had his birth.'"

Valentine (Undated)

Map - Tintagel 

Wimbourne Nunnery

Wimbourne Minster - Steinsky at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-1.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

"The nunnery from which he [Ethelwald the Atheling] had won his wife was one of the first built in England. It was founded by Cuthberga, daughter of Kenred, king of the West Saxons, and sister of his successor, Ina.

Cuthberga had in 705 been betrothed to Egfrid, king of Northumberland, but having previously vowed herself to a religious life, she took refuge, before the wedding day, in the nunnery of Parking, in Essex. Returning to her native place eight years afterwards, she founded the nunnery of Wimborne in 713, and completed it in ten years' time; here she passed the remainder of her life, and was buried, 727, in the church, where her festival during those ages was celebrated on the last day of August. The nunnery was destroyed by the Danes."

Valentine (Undated)

Map - Winbourne

Other Graves at Glastonbury Abbey

Joseph of Aramathea - west front of Glastonbury parish church

 "Here also are buried Coel, king of Britain,; father of the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, Edmund the Elder, King Edgar, Edmund Ironside, St. Joseph of Arimathea (it is said), St. Patrick, St. Dunstan, and Gildas, one of our earliest historians."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Glastonbury Abbey

Edmund Ironside

The Fire in the Abbey

The main structure of Glastonbury Abbey, 1900 - By Photoglob AG, Zürich, Switzerland or Detroit Publishing Company, Detroit, Michigan [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

"The kitchen of the abbey, some fragments of the church, and the chapel of St. Joseph alone remain now; and of the origin of the kitchen the following anecdote is told. The abbot had offended Henry VIII., and the king sharply reproved him for his sensual indulgences in food and wine, which he asserted disgraced the abbey, and added that he would burn the monk's kitchen. The abbot replied haughtily that he would build such a kitchen that all the wood in the king's forests would not suffice to burn it; and he forthwith built the one whose ruin we see. Thus runs the story, but the architecture of the kitchen is of an earlier date, and the speech would scarcely have been made to the despotic Tudor."

Valentine  (undated)

Map - Glastonbury Abbey

The Kitchen of the Abbey - By NotFromUtrecht (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

The Olive, The Crown, The King and The Church - part 1

"Bath Cathedral was founded by Bishop Oliver King in the reign of Henry VII. 

"Lying at Bath," we are told, "and musing, or meditating one night late, after his devotions and prayers for the prosperity of Henry VII. and his children (who were all in most part living), to which king he was principal secretary, and by him preferred to his bishopric, he saw (or believed he saw) a vision of the Holy Trinity, with angels ascending and descending by a ladder, near to the foot of which there was a fair olive tree supporting a crown, and a voice that said, 'Let an Olive establish the Crown, and let a King restore the Church.'..." [cont.]

Valentine (undated)

Prince Henry and the death of King Rufus in the New Forest

"Prince Henry shared in the family love of sport, but had often been so poor as not to have even a horse to chase the deer, and used to follow it on foot. But now he was friends with Rufus, and had the silver his father had left him, consequently he was able to hunt with the king on that memorable and of August. But being separated from the royal hunt while pursuing his game in a glen of the forest, he, by accident, broke the string of his cross-bow, and seeing a forester's hut near, he went to it to see if he could get it replaced. As he entered an old woman advanced to meet him, and addressed to him in Norman French these lines:-

"Hasty news to thee I bring,
Henry, thou art now a king;
Mark the words and heed them well,
Which to thee in truth I tell,
And recall them in the hour
Of thy state and kingly power."

She then passed swiftly from the hut, and at the same moment Henry heard the cries of those who had found Rufus's body: "The king is killed - the king is dead," and at once springing to his horse rode full speed off to Winchester to seize the royal treasure and obtain the crown. Butewit, the royal treasurer, strove to get there before him and save the treasure for Robert; but Henry won the day, and being chosen king by the Commons, was (on the third day after Rufus's death) crowned King of England.

The old sibyl had doubtless seen the king dead previously. We do not hear if Henry ever saw her again."

Valentine (undated)

Map - New Forest
Map - Winchester

Bath and King Bladud

Wild Boar - from Wikipedia under Creative Commons licence (unfortunately the link broke soon after finding it - I will try to find the credit later when the computer is better!)

"The city of Bath has a curious and somewhat comic tradition (which is noticed in its local guide-books), that the old British King Bladud, d. 844 b.c. (father of King Lear or Leal, d. 799 b.c), being reduced by leprosy to the condition of a swine-herd, discovered the medicinal virtues of the hot springs of Bath, while noticing that his pigs which bathed therein were cured of sundry diseases prevailing among them. Warner, one chief writer on the history of Bath, quotes this tradition at large from Wood, a local topographer of the preceding century, who gives it without authority. Warner states that, although the legend may appear absurd, it is noticed and credited by most British antiquaries of antiquity. — N. and Q., 2 S., ix. 45.

The following epigram on the " Bristol Hogs " is by a clergyman of the name of Groves, of Claverton:

When Bladud once espied some Hogs
Lie wallowing in the steaming bogs,
Where issue forth those sulphurous springs,
Since honor'd by more potent Kings,
Vex'd at the brutes alone possessing
What ought t' have been a common blessing,
He drove them thence in mighty wrath,
And built the mighty Town of Bath.
The hogs thus banished by their Prince,
Have liv'd in Bristol ever since."

Hope 1893

Map - Bath

Map - Bristol

The Traceys and Thomas a Becket

"Bovey Tracey was, says Risdon, the "ancient inheritance of the Traceys, Barons of Barnstaple". They have also historical notoriety for the murder of St. Thomas a Becket ; And the ill-luck of the family has ever since been proverbial :-

All the Traceys

Have the wind in their faces.

The fine old church which stands at the top of the town is dedicated to the saint, and is said to have been founded by William de Tracey in expiation of the murder.

Like most Devon churches the present building belongs to the fifteenth century.  The richly carved and painted screen should be noticed, Devonshire churches being as famous for their screens, as those of Somerset are for towers. The figures on the panels are probably intended to represent, alternatively, and apostle and a prophet, as are those on the neighboring parish of Chudliegh ; but they appear unfinished.

However, Bovey folk will tell you that they represent St. Thomas and his murderers! as the panels have upon them a bishop, a king, and two other people, whom we may suppose are William de Tracey and Reginald Fitzurse."

Creswell, 1921

 

Map - Bovey Tracey

Wareham - St. Edward's Well

"This well, of miraculous virtue, is said to have sprung up on the spot where St. Edward the Martyr, King of England, died 979."

 Hope 1893

Map - Wareham

Mincamber, Main-Amber or Ambrose's Stone

"A mighty Logan Stone was poised and blessed by Ambrose Merlin, not far from Penzance. "So great," says Drayton, in his "Polyalbion," "that many men's united strength cannot remove it, yet with one finger you may wag it."

Merlin proclaimed that this stone should stand until England had no king; and Scawen tells us--

"Here, too, we may add what wrong another sort of strangers have done to us, especially in the civil wars, and in particular by the destroying of Mincamber, a famous monument, being a rock of infinite weight, which, as a burden, was laid upon other great stones, and yet so equally thereon poised up by nature only, that a little child could instantly move it, but no one man, or many, remove it. This natural monument all travellers that came that way desired to behold; but in the time of Oliver's usurpation, when all monumental things became despicable, one Shrubsall, one of Oliver's heroes, then Governor of Pendennes, by labour and much ado, caused to be undermined and thrown down, to the great grief of the country, but to his own great glory, as he thought; doing it, as he said, with a small cane in his hand. I myself have heard him to boast of this act, being a prisoner under him."  ["Ambers or Main Ambers, which signify anointed or consecrated stones."--C. S Gilbert, Historical Survey. See also Scawen's "Dissertation on the Cornish Langoage," Stukeley's" Stonehenge," and Jabez Allie's "Worcestershire." Appendiz O, Ambrosiae Petrae.]

So was Merlin's prophecy fulfilled."

Hunt 1903

Mab - Penzance (exact location not known)

Cromlechs and Druid's stones - part 2

Dartmoor - through a weathered joint in a Tor - Watern Tor?

"...The result, however, of my own observations, made with much curiosity and considerable care, has been to convince me, that in by far the greatest number of instances the disintegration, though general around the line of a "bed-way" or horizontal joint, has gone on rapidly on the side exposed to the beat of the weather, while the opposite extremity has been but slightly worn; consequently, the stones have a tendency to be depressed on the sheltered side. With a little labour man could correct this natural defect, and with a little skill make a poised stone. We have incontrovertible evidence that certain poised stones have been regarded, through long periods of time, as of a sacred character. Whether these stones were used by the Druids, or merely that the ignorant people supposed them to have some peculiar virtue, I care not. The earliest inhabitants of Cornwall, probably Celts, ["A Celtic race, however, continues to occupy the primeval districts of Cornwall, and preserved, almost to our own day, a distinct dialect of the Celtic tongue."--Prehistoric Annals a Scotland, p. 195 DANIEL WILSON. See Appendix N, 'in, Celts.] were possessed with some idea that these stones were connected with the mysteries of existence; and from father to son, for centuries, notwithstanding the introduction of Christianity, these stones have maintained their sacred character. Therefore, may we not infer that the leaders of the people availed themselves of this feeling; and finding many rocks of a gigantic size, upon which nature had begun the work, they completed them, and used the mighty moving masses to impress with terror--the principle by which they ruled--the untaught, but poetically constituted, minds of the people. Dr Borlase has been laughed at for finding rock-basins, the works of the Druids, in every granitic mass. At the same time, those who laugh have failed to examine those rock-masses with unprejudiced care, and hence they have erred as wildly as did the Cornish antiquary, but in a contrary direction. Hundreds of depressions are being formed by the winds and rains upon the faces of the granite rocks. With these no Druid ever perplexed himself or his people. But there are numerous hollows to be found in large flat rocks which have unmistakably been formed, if not entirely, partly by the hands of man. The Sacrificing Rock, or Cam Brea, is a remarkable example. The larger hollows on the Men-rock, in Constantine, several basins in the Logan Rock group, and at Cam Boscawen, may be referred to as other examples. With these remarks, I proceed to notice a few of the most remarkable rock-masses with which tradition has associated some tale."

Kestor - Dartmoor, associated in the past with the Druids

Hunt 1903

Map - Carn Brea
Map - Constantine
Map - Cam [Carn?] Boscawen 

Bloody Corner and the ruined windmill

'The prominent tower beyond Appledore is not any historical monument, but a "folly". Further back in the country may be seen a more romantic ruin, which is only a dilapidated windmill, left there as a sea-mark, serving also to call attention to Bloody Corner, not far from it, where King Alfred defeated the Danes under Hubba.'

Hope Moncrieff 1895