The two mysterious ladies of Saint Nectan's Keeve

Saint Nectan's Keeve - Copyright Roddy Smith and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

 "At Longbridge a stream is crossed, which about a mile inland falls over a steep rock, forty feet high, into St. Nectan's Keeve. A keeve is a basin; the bowl used by a miner in washing his tin-nuggets is called a keeve.

"There is another leap of about ten feet," says Mr. White, "and you may descend to it by returning to the outside of the rocks, scrambling down to their base, and along the narrow, slippery path leading into the chasm. Here you see an arch below the edge of the keeve, in which a flat slab having lodged, the water, broken as it shoots through, falls a thin, flickering curtain into the pool beneath. The best view is from the farther margin of the stream, and to cross on the gravelly shallow below the pool will scarcely wet more than your shoesoles. The effect is singularly pleasing. You are at the very bottom of the dell, in complete seclusion, with trees above on each side forming a screen that admits but a dim light; a glimpse of the upper fall through the arch, and the pretty noise of the falling water-no other sound audible save the occasional twittering of a bird. Retracing your steps, you see where the stream flows past the massive slab of slate rock lying in its bed, and disappears in the brake. Then up the damp, weedy path to the top of the bank, where stand the walls of a cottage, once the habitation of two recluse ladies who lived in it some years - a mystery to the neighbourhood - and died without revealing their secret.""

Valentine (undated)

Map - Saint Nectan's Keeve

Dozmare Pool - part 1

Dozmare Pool

  © Copyright nick macneill and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

"(Pronounced Dosmery)--i.e., Dos, a drop; Mor and Mari, the sea, from the old tradition that it was tidal--890 feet above the sea, a melancholy sheet of water, about one mile in circumference, and from 4 to 5 feet in depth. The lofty hill called Brown Willy, is the mark by which the traveller can direct his course. On the north side of the hill are the remains of an ancient village, probably of tinners or streamers, as they are locally called. Below this the pool is situated, on a tableland which borders the deep vale of the Fowey. The pool is the theme of many a marvellous tale, in which the peasants most implicitly believe. It is said to be unfathomable, and the resort of evil spirits. Begirt by dreary hills, it presents an aspect of utter gloom and desolation, and is said to have supplied some features for the "middle meer" in the Laureate's "Morte d'Arthur," into which Sir Bedivere at last flung Excalibur, having twice before concealed the "great brand"

"There in the many-knotted waterflags

That whistled stiff and dry about the marge."

The country people represent the pool as haunted by an unearthly visitant, a grim giant of the name of Tregeagle, who, it is said, may be heard howling here when wintry storms sweep the moors. He is condemned to the melancholy task of emptying the pool with a limpet-shell, and is continually howling in despair at the hope-lessness of his labour..."  [cont.]

Hope 1893

Lydford Prison, Sir Richard Granville, Judge Jeffreys and the Black Pig

"It is far preferable to be hanged than imprisoned in Lydford Castle, for the Black Hole of Calcutta was not a worse than the dungeon of the Stannary prison, where were incarcerated the luckless tinners who infringed the laws governing them. Sir John Granville was, perhaps, the worst governor; but Judge Jeffreys bears most of the odium of the place, which he is said to haunt in the form of a black pig."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Lydford Castle

Ghosts at the Three Crowns, Chagford

[The Three Crowns at Chagford is reputedly haunted.  During the English Civil War a young royalist poet, name Sydney Godolphin from Cornwall was shot (in the bum!) in the porch. The town was royalist, due to the preferential treatment of Tinners (Chagford being a stannery town). Their economic rivals, in the wool traid, Moretonhampstead, where roundheads, and I have often heard resents referred to as "roundheads" to this day, as well as quips being made as to the danger of going into Moreton amongst them.It was said to be a patroul of Moretonhampstead roundheads who engaged the royalist when Godolphin was shot. They where later chased and all shot (including the young powder boy), possibly in a field a bit further down the Teign - this according to a mettle detector I talked to once.  Though no one I know has seen the ghost of Sydny Godolphin, or felt anything uncanny about the porch, three separate women have told me how they feel like they are being watched, and hated with the uppermost venom, if they use the Ladies there.  The toilet, they claim, is malicious! My wife refuses to go there, and said once she felt easier crossing the night-time graveyard opposite in the dark than using the loo at the Three Crowns. The ghost of Mary Whiddon is also said to reside here.]

The Piskies in the Cellar - Part 1

'THE following story, for which I am indebted to Mr T. Q. Couch, will remind the reader of "The Cluricaun" and "The Haunted Cellar," in "Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland." By T. Crofton Croker, Esq.

On the Thursday immediately preceding Christmas-tide (year not recorded), were assembled at "The Rising Sun" the captain and men of a stream work [A "stream work" is a place where tin is obtained from the drift deposits. Streamers are the sinners who wash not the tin.] in the Couse below. This Couse was a flat, alluvial moor, broken by gigantic mole-hills, the work of many a generation of tinners. One was half inclined, on looking at the turmoiled ground, to believe with them that the tin grew in successive crops, for, after years of turning and searching, there was still enough left to give the landlord his dole, and to furnish wages to some dozen streamers. This night was a festival observed in honour of one .Picrous, [Picrous day is still kept up in Luxulyan]and intended to celebrate the discovery of tin on this day by a man of that name. The feast is still kept, though the observance has dwindled to a supper and its attendant merrymaking...' [cont.]

Hunt 1903

The Knockers, or Buccas

'The Buccas or Knockers.--These are the sprites of the mines, and correspond to the Kobals of the German mines, the Duergars, and the Trolls. They are said to be the souls of the Jews who formerly worked the tin-mines of Cornwall. They are not allowed to rest because of their wicked practices as tinners, and they share in, the general curse which ignorant people believe still hangs on this race.'

Hunt 1903