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

Devon Charm to regain money

Coins from:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonanamary/328238859/sizes/l/ Some rights reserved by jonanamary

"A white witch professed to be able to restore a lost sum of money by the following incantation.

Flibberty, gibberty, flasky flum,
Calafac, tarada, lara, wagra wum.
Hooky, maroosky, whatever's the sum,
Heigho ! Presto ! Money corne !
In the name of the Father, the Holy Ghost, and Son. Amen ! Amen !"

Hewett 1900

Devon charm to cure a thorn in the flesh

Cima da Conegliano, Christ Crowned with Thorns, 15th - 16th century

"Our dear Lord Jesus Christ was pricked with thorns. His blood went back to Heaven again, His flesh neither cankered, rankled, nor festered, neither shall thine, M. or N. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen, Amen, Amen."

Hewett 1900

[Not sure what "M. or N." meens...]

Devon charm to staunch blood

Blood cells.

"As Christ was born in Bethlehem and baptized in the river Jordan, He said to the water, "Be still.'' So shall thy blood cease to flow. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen."

Hewett 1900

Devon charm for curing a bruise.

Bruise - By Bejinhan (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

"Holy chicha ! Holy chicha !
This bruise will get well by-and-bye.
Up sun high ! Down moon low !
This bruise will be quite well very soon !
In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen."

Hewett 1900

Devon Charm to heal burns

The eastern fire of the rising sun on the frosty ground near Chagford. If you want to use my images please attribute this blog.

"THE witch repeats the following prayer while passing her hand three times over the burn :
 

Three wise men came from the east,
One brought fire, two carried frost.
Out fire ! In frost !
In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."

Hewett 1900

Lucky in Devon - 26

King's Evil, or Scrofula, or lymphadenitis of the cervical lymph nodes associated with tuberculosis. By Dr.J.S.Bhandari, India (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

It is lucky -

"To be the seventh son of a seventh son, for he can, by passing his hand over the glands of the neck of a person suffering from King's Evil, cure the disease."

Hewett 1900

Castle Rock and the Black Monk - Part 2

Castle Rock - © Copyright Paul Jennings and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

"...The baron's cries summoned the affrighted servants, but when they reached his room they found their lord lying on the floor a blackened corpse. His only son, solemnly impressed by his father's fate, went on the Crusades and did many acts of valour against the infidels. But even to the Holy Land the black monk followed him, and never left him day or night. The unhappy man, driven nearly mad, sought to bury his trouble in drink. He grew a wild, dissolute gallant, and the mother and sister that he had left in the castle on the rock wept bitter tears over his fall, and were glad when death summoned them to the land where "the wicked cease from troubling."

Years afterwards the knight returned to his Devonshire home, and one Sunday morning, as he rode through the valley, he heard the church bells calling men to prayer. They reminded him of the days of his innocent childhood; of his mother's teachings, and lured him towards the house of prayer. The black monk sought to draw him back, with the whisper of false pleasures awaiting him; but as the sinner hesitated, scarcely able to wrest himself away from his evil associate, he saw in the church porch the forms of his mother and sister, clad in garments of light, and beckoning to him with their spirit hands. He tore himself from the grasp of the monk, rushed to the porch, and darting into the church, threw himself before the altar.

The black monk developed into a fiend, and stamping his foot there was an earthquake; the castle on the rock shook to its foundations and fell crashing into the valley; the rocks rolled over, the Ring was formed, and where a smiling vale had been there remained the Valley of Rocks. Was this an allegory? Did the black monk personify an evil habit, so difficult to break?"

Valentine (undated)

Map - Castle Rock

Bath and Bladud

 

"Bath is situated in an amphitheatre of hills, and takes its name from the hot medicinal springs to which tradition says it owes its foundation. The tale of the discovery of the curative power of the waters is probably well known. Bladud, the son of the ancient British king Lud Hudibras, became a leper. The awful disease of course unfitted him in the eyes of his family and people from inheriting the throne; he was banished from the palace, and had to seek a home and food to live. His dress, which was royal, he offered to a swineherd, with the little money he possessed, in exchange for his peasant's garb, and induced the boy's master to let him herd his pigs, that fed in the great forest which covered the Somersetshire hills at that period. As a natural consequence he infected the pigs with his disease; and became very miserable at the thought that when the owner of the swine came to inspect them he would be at once discharged. He was walking behind the herd of swine in sad thought one day, when they all ran down the hill and plunged into a sheet of water in a hollow of the woods. He noticed that they constantly repeated these baths, and that in a few weeks the leprosy had left them. Taking example by their instinct he plunged himself into the water, which was quite hot, and in a very short time was healed of his leprosy.

The lad then resolved to return to his family. He found a great feast going on at the palace - every one was gay and happy - all had forgotten their young prince's fate, except one; his mother sat with a sad, faraway expression in her eyes beside the king. Bladud had drawn the hood of his cloak over his face, so as to conceal it. He had kept a ring the queen had given him: he now stole forward and, unperceived, dropped it into the goblet from which she drank. The next time she raised the cup to her lips the ring fell against them. She took it out, looked at it, and exclaimed, "Our son is here." Bladud then came forward, was recognised; was found quite free from leprosy; and in time succeeded his father on the throne. The legend adds, that he built a town round the healing waters that had saved him from a cruel death, in commemoration of what they had done for him, and also for the benefit of his people. But in spite of this tradition it is believed that Bath was a Roman city, though probably the Britons may have had a settlement there, and knew the value of the waters."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Bath

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)

The Death of King Rufus - part 1

"It was said of William the Norman that he loved wild beasts "as if he were their father," and it seems a true judgment tested by his cruel laws. The slaying of a man might be atoned for by a price; hut he who killed a stag, boar, or even hare, was punished with total blindness. Even his Norman nobles might keep no sporting dogs on their estates unless the fore-paws of the poor animals were mutilated. This law was an exceedingly cruel one at a time when men depended on the chase for much of their subsistence.

But William seems to have brought a curse on himself and his progeny by this act of ruthless selfishness. His second son, Richard, was gored to death by a stag, as he was hunting here; his wife and favourite daughter died soon after, and he met his own death as the consequence of his cruelty to the city of Mantes.

His second son, Rufus, succeeded him, and kept his court at Malwood Keep in 1100, close to the forest in which he intended that same Lammas-tide to hold a chase. Prince Henry, his younger brother, was with him..."  [cont.]

Valentine (undated)

The giant of Morvah, part 2

[cont.] '...A Morva farmer writes:-- "A quarter of an acre would not hold the horses ridden to the fair,--the hedges being covered by the visitors, who drink and carouse as in former times. Morva Fair is, however, dying out."

The parish-clerk informed me that the giant had twenty sons; that he was the first settler in these parts; and that he planted his children all round the coast. It was his custom to bring all his family together on the 1st of August, and hence the origin of the fair. Whichever may be the true account of the cause which established the fair and the feast, these romances clearly establish the fact that the giants were at the bottom of it.

[a] The above notices were collected for me in Morva by the late C. Taylor Stephens, author of "The Chief of Barat-Anac," and "some time rural postman front St Ives to Zennor." Their connection with the traditions of Jack and Tom will be evident to every reader.'

Hunt 1903

Tom, Jane and Jack the Tinker, Part 9

[part 9] '...Much more of this character is related by the "drolls;" but with the exception of constant alterations of feasting and fighting, there is little of novelty in the story, until at last a grand storm arises between Tom and his wife, who is believed by the husband to be on too intimate terms with Jack the Tinkeard. The result of this is, that Jane goes home to Crowlas, fights with her mother, old Jenny, because old Jenny abuses Tom, which Jane will not allow in her presence While yet at Crowlas another boy is born, called Honey, and, as the cow was not at hand as when she was in the castle, he was nursed by a goat, and it is said a class of his descendants are yet known as the Zennor goats.'



Hunt 1903

Tom, Jane and Jack the Tinker, part 2

[part 2] '...
"Holla where are you bound for?" says Tom.

"Bound to see if the giant, whom they say lives up here, wouldn't let a body pass through where the road ought to be," says the tinkeard.

"Oh, ay! are you?" says Tom.

"He must be a better man than I am who stops me," says the tinkeard. "As you are a fine stout chap, I expect you are the giant's eldest son. I see you are hedging. That 's what all the people complain of. You are hedging in all the country."

"Well," says Tom, "if I am his son, I can take my dad's part any way; and we 'll have fair play too. I don't desire better fun than to try my strength with somebody that is a man. Come on. Any way you like--naked fists, single-stick, wrestling, bowling, slinging, or throwing the quoits."

"Very well," says the tinkeard, " I 'll match my blackthorn stick against anything in the way of timber that you can raise on this place."

Tom took the bar which the tinker had broken from the gate, and said, "I'll try this piece of elm if you don't think it too heavy."

"Don't care if it 's heavier. Come on!"...'[cont...]