A book of the west. Volume 2, Cornwall : $b being an introduction to Devon and CornwallBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
A book of the west. Volume 2, Cornwall : $b being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Cornwall (England : County)
Erc had been much trusted by S. Patrick, who appointed him as judge
in all cases brought to him for decision, regarding him as a man of
inviolable integrity and great calmness of judgment.
The church of Breage is large and fine. In the churchyard is an early
cross of reddish conglomerate. The local story goes that there was a
great fight, between Godolphin Hill and Tregonning Hill, fought by the
natives with the Danes, and so much blood was shed that it compacted
the granitic sand there into hard rock, and out of this rock Breaca’s
cross was cut. The fight was, of course, not with Danes, but was
between the Cornish and the Irish. The cross is rude, with the Celtic
interlaced work on it. The pedestal was also thus ornamented, but this
is so worn that it can only be distinguished in certain lights.
In the church have been discovered several frescoes--S. Christopher,
gigantic, of course; an equally gigantic figure of Christ covered with
bleeding wounds; full-length representations of SS. Samson, Germoe,
Giles, Corentine, etc. The church has been much decorated rather than
restored. The modern woodwork screen and bench-ends are indifferent in
design and mechanical in execution. Some Belgian carved work of the
Adoration of the Magi blocks the east window, which was filled with
peculiarly vulgar glass, and this is a possible excuse for completely
obscuring it.
The sacred tribe under S. Breaca must have occupied a very extensive
tract, for four parish churches are affiliated to it--S. Germoe,
Godolphin, Cury, and Gunwalloe. This leads one to suspect that her
territory stretched originally along the coast a good way past Loe
Pool. She had as neighbours S. Crewena, another Irishwoman, and
Sithney, or Setna, a disciple and companion of S. Senan, of Land’s End.
His mother was an aunt of S. David.
Sithney was asked:--
“Tell me, O Setna,
Tidings of the World’s end.
How will the folk fare
That follow not the Truth?”
He answered in a poem that has been preserved. Prophecy is a dangerous
game to play at, even for a saint, and Sithney made a very bad shot.
He foretold that the Saxons would hold dominion in Ireland till 1350,
after which the Irish natives would expel them.
Sithney almost certainly accompanied Kieran or Piran, and he succeeded
him as abbot in his great monastery at Saighir.
The little church of Germoe is curious. It has a very early font, and a
later Norman font lying broken outside the church. There is a curious
structure, called Germoe’s Chair, in the churchyard, that looks much
like a summer-house manufactured out of old pillars turned upside-down.
But it was in existence in the time of Henry VIII., for Leland mentions
it. A new east window, quite out of character with the church, has been
inserted, but the modern glass is good. A bust of S. Germoe is over the
porch. He is represented as crowned, as he is supposed to have been an
Irish king.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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