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

Two small snatches of lore from Yarde and Williton, Somerset

The Grave-free church at Williton - by Rob Farrow [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

[Only a short post this week because I have been away in an electric-free holiday in wildest Wales. On the way back we stayed with relatives who have just moved into Yarde, in Somerset, between the Quantocks and Exmoor.  They told me two little bits of folklorish information they had picked up. 

The first was about their home hamlet of Yarde, which they where told had been moved wholesale to its present position because a certain local lady of the manor had not liked the peasants spoiling her view. The Archaeologist in me thinks this is unlikely as the buildings are all of different ages, from the 16th to 19th century, and also because they are quite big and well to do houses. However it could relate to some houses in peticular - my relatives house used to be home to a collection of different industries, each with their own room. Perhaps some peasants where moved to the already existing hamlet from elsewhere.  Either way the moving of people from their ancestral lands on the whims of an aristocrat is a far from unique story (e.g. at Okehampton Castle.)

The second bit of folklore related to Williton, and a church there. Someone connected to the church was implicated in the murder of Thomas a' Beckett, and as a punishment for this connection the church was not permitted to hold burials. Although all other services continued burial happened in the next church. This is why to this day the church does not have a single gravestone by it...]

Map - Okehampton
Map - Williton
Map - Yarde

Chagford tune - All The Trees They Are So High

Me learning the fiddle...  If you want to use my photos please attribute this blog.

[This tune (a version of a well known folk tune) I encountered in a brilliant database of manuscripts held by the English Folk Dance and Song Society website , digitized by the Devon Traditions Project. Put Chagford in the EFDSS search bar to get the original of this tune.  I was researching for a forthcoming book on Chagford Folklore (more on that later in the year!).

It was collected in 1890 by Sabine Baring-Gould from William Aggett in Chagford. William was described thus by Sabine - 

“…William Aggett, aged 70, crippled and infirm, Chagford.  Certainly illiterate, an old broken down laborer…”   

The words of this song (just one of around 30 he collected from Chagford) are as follows - 

As I looked over my father’s castle wall

I saw four and twenty boys playing at the ball

But my pretty lad he did exceed them all

And my pretty lad is young and he is growing

O father, father dear, if that you think it fit

We’ll send him to the collage for a year yet

And spinning I at home will sit-sit-sit.

Whilst my pretty lad is young and is growing

I’ll buy my love five shirts of the Holland so fine

And all the time I’m sowing, the tears run down the twine

And I will sit and sing of that sweet love of mine,

Whilest my pretty lad is young and is growing

I’ll cast my yellow train away by the root

And I will clothe myself all in a boys suit

And to the collage ?wish?, I will go a foot

When my pretty lad so young still is growing

At the age of fourteen he was a married man

At the age of fifteen he had a little son

At the age of sixteen his thread of life was done

So my pretty lad so young had ceased growing

This actually did make me shed a tear when I read it to my wife. It was the amazing line "And all the time I'm sowing, the tears run down the twine" that did it! Folk music is amazing for getting to the core in just a few simple strides. The last verse didn't help...

And for those with a musical ear who might want to sing it, here is my faltering attempt at one of two complimentary tunes given by William Aggett. This is the tune noted as being sung to the words above. I have done a slight alteration to it by repeating the third bit to make it fit the 4 part structure of the song -

 

 Map - Chagford

p.s. Thanks to my neighbor Terri Windling for an excellent mini review on her blog. Cheers!]

The Black Dog of Roborough - part 2

Black Dog (called Beau!), New Jersey - Some rights reserved by nosha

"...They soon reached a crossway, not far from the fortifications. When, suddenly the man was startled by a loud report, followed by a blinding flash, as of lightning, which struck him senseless to the ground. At daybreak, he was found by the driver of the mail-cart, lying in the ditch at the roadside in an unconscious state. Tradition says, that a foul murder was many years ago committed at this spot, and the victim's dog is doomed to traverse this road and kill every man he encounters, until the perpetrator of the deed has perished by his instrumentality.

There are similar legends of the doings of the Black Dog throughout the county, and many wayside public houses have " The Black Dog" for a sign."

Hewett 1900

Map - Princetown
Map - Plymouth
Map - Roborough Down

Weymouth Some rights reserved by P - A - S

The Giant of Carnbrea Castle

Carn Brea Castle - By en:User:Ash (Original photo scan by Ash) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or CC-BY-2.5 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], from Wikimedia Commons

"Near the Land's End is Carnbrea Castle. It is very small, scarcely sixty feet long by ten wide, and is built on a ledge of rock; in some parts it is three storeys high, in others only one. Part of this castle is very ancient, and of rude architecture. Strange stories are told by the country people of Carnbrea. They say that a mighty giant - Cornwall abounded in giants - lies buried beneath it, and that a block of granite indented into five nearly equal parts is his hand, which, protruding through the surface, became fossilized."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Carnbrea Castle

[Its really not very near Land's End!]

The death of Hugh de Pomeroy

Berry Pomeroy Castle- from Lysons Vol. 6 (Devonshire) published 1822

"While Richard Coeur de Lion was in captivity in Austria, Hugh de la Pomeroy, an adherent of John's, seized the Mount, expelled the monks, and fortified the place for that rebellious prince. On the return of Richard, however, Pomeroy, dreading his vengeance, fled to his castle of Berry Pomeroy, and some say had himself bled to death, others, that mounting his favourite charger, he leapt from the edge of the rocks at Berry Pomeroy, and was thus killed."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Saint Michael's Mount
Map - Berry Pomeroy

Castle Rock and the Black Monk - part 1

Black Monk and Lady - Mumford, Ethel Watts, Herford, Oliver and Mizner, Addison: “The Cynic’s Calendar” (1905)

"That a castle ever existed here is not credible; but tradition has declared that there was one, and that it was lost by the sins of a family, though no vestige of it nor any written account of it exists.

The tradition is, that one dismal winter evening, a monk, tall, dark, in a black robe and cowl, called at the castle and asked for food and shelter for the night, in the Virgin's name. The lady, who chanced to be in the hall, and who disliked his countenance, refused him the solicited hospitality, and the angry pilgrim cursed her. It is probable that there was in the lady some lack of hospitality, that she was mean; and uncharitable, so that evil was allowed to assail her; or it might have been that she detected the true nature of the monk, and therefore refused to help him. The curse was a peculiar one. "All thine shall be mine," said the pilgrim, "till in the porch of Holy Church a lady and a child shall stand and beckon."

Years rolled on, and the next baron of the castle was of so greedy a nature, that he pulled down the Church of St. John, which then rose in the valley, for its materials, and took the holy vessels of the altar for his own use. One night, as he was feasting alone, and sacrilegiously drinking from the sacred chalice, the black monk appeared, told him his time of account was come, and that he must go with him..." [cont.]

Valentine (undated)

Dunster Hobby Horse

"The hobby-horse is not yet actually gone by; it exists still here. On the first of May, "hobby horsing" prevails here, or at least did some few years ago. A number of persons, carrying grotesque figures of men and horses, of a sufficient size to cover them, walk about the town, and then go to Dunster Castle, where they are entertained, and receive a gift of money."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Dunster

[This appears to be a description of the Hobby Horses from Minehead, which still visits Dunster on May the 1st.]

Evil King John at Corfe Castle

Corfe Castle - Some rights reserved by treehouse1977

"King John made the crime-stained castle his residence, and deposited his regalia in it. He also converted it into a State prison, and starved to death in it, in 1202, twenty-two French prisoners, the very flower of the Poitevin chivalry. Not many years afterwards he brutally tortured here Peter of Pomfret, the poor hermit who had prophesied that John should lose his crown in 1213. The king actually did resign it that year to the Papal Legate, and the truth of the hermit's prediction so infuriated the royal monster that he caused Peter to be dragged to and fro through the town of Wareham at the tail of horses, and afterwards he had the poor mutilated man and his son hanged in sight of the walls."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Corfe Castle
Map - Wareham

Corfe Castle - part 1

orfe Castle has an unenviable notoriety as the scene of one of the most shocking crimes that stain our annals. Elfrida, the wife of Ethelbald, Alderman of the East Angles, betrayed her unhappy husband, and wedded King Edgar after his murder. 

She was Edgar's second wife. His first, Elfleda the Fair, left a little son, to whom Elfrida became step-mother. She also had a son, and the young princes, Edward and Ethelred, were extremely attached to each other, though Edward was seven or eight years older than Elfrida's child. After the death of Edgar, she made a party to get the crown for her boy; but the famous Dunstan was on the side of the rightful heir, and succeeded in placing young Edward on the throne. But Elfrida, who hated her stepson, determined to destroy him, and thus make way for her own son to the throne. She watched for her opportunity, and it came in about two years' time.... [cont...]

Valentine (undated)

Myths and Legends Podcast

Myths and Legends Podcast  - South West
From enjoyEngland.com

Contains - 

1. Beast of Bodmin
- Big Cats
2. Glastonbury Tor
- Joseph of Arimathea
3. Tintagel
- Birth of King Arthur
4. Lyonesse
- Tryston and Isolda
- Arthur and Mordred
5. Bisley
- Queen Elizabeth (The Bisley Boy)
5. Wyncham
- St Kenelm's Shrine

Map - Bodmin Moor
Map - Glastonbury Tor
Map - Tintagel Castle
Map - Lyonesse
Map - Bisley
Map - Wyncham

Lydford Law

"It [Lydford] is certain that it was formerly a place of importance; had its own mint, and in its castle were confined those who offended against the forest and stannary law - that oft-quoted and most unpleasant Lydford Law, "Hang to-day; try to-morrow."

In the morn they hang and draw,

And sit in judgment after.

"Is this the place?" you will cry shortly after turning down by the Dartmoor Inn, and Lydford comes at once in sight.

The castle keep, a grey ruin, stands on a mound near the church; a few houses cluster round it; the street is empty

For of its great name, I wis,

It only now the shadow is.

So wrote Risdon two centuries ago."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Lydford Castle

Lady Howard - Okehampton Castle

"While the antiquary studies the shattered walls [of Okehampton Castle], the folk-lorist will be rejoicing in the legend of Lady Howard of notorious memory.  She was the daughter of Sir John Fitz, of Fitzford, Tavistock (not the Elizabethan astrologer, whose name we shall presently see, but a later knight of the same name), and has a reputation of having been very wicked, but if we read her history we shall perhaps feel she was more sinned against than sinning. Four husbands had she (but was twice a widow before she was sixteen!).  She always chose to be called by the title of her third husband, Sir Charles Howard, son of the Duke of Suffolk; her fourth was Sir Richard Granville, the most detestable of all the governors of Lydford Castle.

In the Civil War Lady Howard chose to espouse the Parliamentary cause, which doubtless aggravated her crimes in the opinion of loyal west-countrymen. Mrs Bray says that she had heard a vague tradition that Lady Howard died in a state of mental misery and agony in a house near Okehampton, and to this day expiates her wickedness by running nightly to Fitzford, Tavistock, to Okehampton Park, in the form of a black dog, to bring away a blade of grass. When all the grass is plucked the day of judgment will come, and her penance will be ended. Sometimes the dog is described as accompanying the coach of bones, in which tradition says she used to drive towards the moor. Mr. Baring Gould preserves the story among Songs of the West in a ballad, gruesome both in words and tune :-

My Ladye hath a sable coach,

With horses two and four;

My Ladye hath a gaunt bloodhound,

That goeth before:

My Ladye's coach hath nodding plumes,

The driver hath no head,

My Ladye is an ashen white,

As one that long is dead.

It is needless to add that misfortune is sure to follow the luckless individual who meets "My Ladye" in her weird journey across the moor."

Cresswel 1921

Map - Okehampton
Map - Lydford Castle
Map - Fitzeford House Gatehouse, Tavistock

Gidleigh Castle Rose Rent

"Near the church is Gidleigh Castle House, with the ruins of the old castle in the garden. A ivy-mantled ruin is all that remains of the stronghold of Prouze and of Gidley; (for which they are said to have paid the rent of "one red rose at Midsummer" - what a delightfully cheap rent!) - a fourteenth century tower, a vaulted chamber, a crumbling stairway and a chamber above, where ash-trees grow out of the wall.  The last Gidley who resided at Gidleigh died in 1776, and is buried in the church."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Gidleigh Castle 

Lustleigh Nutcrackers

"Nothing can spoil the Cleave, were the granite, piled up like giant's castles, crowns the gorge, and is spread all the way to the stream bellow. On the east side is the Nutcracker Rock, a logan, whose name tells its popular use, and scattered nutshells show the place, though, owing to the growth of the bracken, it has somewhat lost its powers."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Lustleigh Cleave

Barnstaple Castle

'The castle is said to have been first built by Athelstan, then rebuilt by a norman baron, who also founded a priory decicated to St. Mary Magdaline.'

Hope Moncrieff

Dosemary Pool - part 4

'...This is a delusion caused by enchantment; Goonhylda still lives. Tregeagle offers himself to Goonhylda, who rejects his suit with scorn, and desires to leave the castle. Tregeagle coolly informs her that she cannot quit the place; Goonhylda threatens him with her father's vengeance. She is a prisoner, but her page contrives to make his escape, and in the evening arrives at Launceston Castle gate. The Earl of Cornwall, hearing from the page that his daughter lives and is a prisoner, arms himself and all his retainers --

"And em the greye morne peep'd. the eastern hills o'er,
At Tregeagle's gate sounded hys home."

Tregeagle will not obey the summons, but suddenly "they hearde the Black Hunter's dread voyce in the wynde!"

"They heard hys curate hell-houndes runn,yelping behynde,
And his steede thundered loude on the eare!"

This gentleman in black shakes the castle with his cry, "Come forth, Sir Tregeagle! come forth and submit to thy fate!" Of course he comes forth, and "the rede bolte of vengeaunce shot forth wyth a glare, and strooke him a corpse to the grounde!"

"Then from the black corpse a pale spectre appear'd,
And hyed him away through the night."

Goonhylda is of course found uninjured, and taken home by the earl. The castle disappears and Dozmare Pool re-appears; but --

"Stylle as the traveller pursues hys lone waye,
In horroure at nyghte o'er the waste,
He hears Syr Tregeagle with shrieks rushe away
He hears the Black Hunter pursuing his preye,
And shrynkes at bys bugle's dread blaste."'

Hunt 1903

Dosemary Pool - part 3

'...Surrounded with all that is supposed to minister to the enjoyment of a sensual life, time passes on, and "Tregeagle ne'er notyc'd its flyghte." Yet we are told "he marked each day with some damnable deed." In the midst of his vicious career he is returning home through a violent storm, and he is accosted by a damsel on a white horse and a little page by her side, who craves his protection. Tregeagle takes this beautiful maiden to his castle. The page is made to tell the lady's story; she is called Goonhylda, and is the daughter of "Earl Cornwaill," living in Launceston, or, as it was then called, "Dunevyd Castle." Engaged in the pleasures of the hunt, the lady and her page are lost and overtaken by the storm. Tregeagle, as the storm rages savagely, makes them his "guests for the nyghte," promising to send a "quicke messenger" to inform her father of her whereabouts. At the same time --

"If that the countenance speaketh the mynde,
Dark deeds he revolved in hys breaste."

The earl hears nothing of his daughter; and having passed a miserable night, he sets forth in the morning, "wyth hys knyghtes, and esquyers, and serving-men all," in search of his child; and --

"At length to the plaine he emerged from the woode,
For a father, alas, what a syghte!
There lay her fayre garments all drenched in blood,
Her palfreye all torn in the dark crimson floode,
By the ravenous beasts of the nyghte."...' [cont.]

Hunt 1903

Dosemary Pool - part 3

'...Tregeagle, in the ballad, is a shepherd dwelling "by the poole on the moore." He was ambitious and unscrupulous. "I wish for all that I see !" was his exclamation, when "a figure gigantick" is seen "midst the gloom of the night."

This spirit offers Tregeagle, in exchange for his soul, all that he desires for one hundred years. Tregeagle does not hesitate:--

"'A bargaine! a bargaine!' he said aloude;
'At my lot I will never repine;
I sweare to observe it, I sweare by the roode.
And am readye to scale and to sygne with my bloode,
Both my soul and my body are thine."

Tregeagle is thrown into a trance, from which he awakes to find himself "cloathed in gorgeous attyre," and master of a wide domain of great beauty:

"Where Dozmare lake its darke waters did roil,
A castle now reared its heade,
Wythe manye a turrete soe statelye and talle;
And many a warden dyd walke on its-walle,
All splendidly cloathed in redde."...' [cont.]

Hunt 1903

Judge Jeffries, Lidford Castle and the Black Pig

'As has been already hinted, the village is scattered over some 2 miles about the course of the Lid, having its center a mile or more from the station, on the high road from Brent tor running on to Okehampton, which, at the farther end, joins the other road through St. Mary Tavy. This central point is distinguished by the (castle and the Church. The former, now reduced to a hollow square tower mouldering upon an artificial mound, was founded . soon after the Conquest, and converted by Edward I. into the Stannary Prison of Devonshire. Until the last century it was still made use of for this purpose, though much defaced and shattered in 1650. The edicts of the Stannary Court partook to a considerable extent of the characteristics of Judge Lynch, so that " Lidford Law " became as notorious as " Jedburgh Justice." Judge Jeffreys held here one of his Black Assizes, and the legend runs that the court-room is still haunted by his spirit in the guise of a black pig.'


Hope Moncrieff 1895