Be thou thy mother natures worke, Or proof of Giants might: Worthlesse and ragged though thou shew, Yet art thou worth the sight. This hugy rock, one fingers force Apparently will moue; But to remooue it, many strengths Shall all like feeble prooue.” APPENDIX D_a_ (p. 92) DOZMERE POOL The following is extracted from Hunt’s ‘Popular Romances of the West of England.’ “Mr. Bond, in his ‘Topographical and Historical Sketches of the Boroughs of East and West Looe,’ writes-- ‘This pool is distant from Looe about twelve miles off. Mr. Carew says-- Dosmery Pool amid the moores, On top stands of a hill; More than a mile about, no streams It empt, nor any fill. It is a lake of freshwater about a mile in circumference, the only one in Cornwall (unless the Loe Pool near Helston may be deemed such), and probably takes its name from _Dome-Mer_, sweet or fresh water sea. It is about eight or ten feet deep in many parts. The notion entertained by some, of there being a whirlpool in its middle, I can contradict, having, some years ago, passed all over in a boat then kept there.’ Such is Mr. Bond’s evidence; but this is nothing compared with the popular belief, which declares the pool to be bottomless, and beyond this, is it not known to every man of faith that a thorn-bush thrown into Dosmery Pool has sunk in the middle of it, and after some time has come up in Falmouth (? Fowey) Harbour? Notwithstanding that Carew says that ‘no streams it empt, nor any fill,’ James Michell, in his parochial history of St. Neot’s, says: ‘It is situate on a small stream called St. Neot’s River, a branch of the Fowey, which rises in Dosmare Pool.’ There is a ballad, ‘Tregeagle; or Dozmaré Poole: an Anciente Cornish Legende, in two parts,’ by John Penwarne.... Speaking of Dozmaré Pool, Mr. Penwarne says-- ‘There is a popular story attached to this lake, ridiculous enough, as most of those tales are. It is, that a person of the name of Tregeagle, who had been a rich and powerful man, but very wicked, guilty of murder and other heinous crimes, lived near this place; and that, after his death, his spirit haunted the neighbourhood, but was at length exorcised and laid to rest in Dozmaré Pool. But having in his lifetime, in order to enjoy the good things of this world, disposed of his soul and body to the devil, his infernal majesty takes great pleasure in tormenting him, by imposing on him difficult tasks, such as spinning a rope of sand, dipping out the pool with a limpet shell, etc., and at times amuses himself with hunting him over the moors with his hell-hounds, at which time Tregeagle is heard to roar and howl in a most dreadful manner, so that, “roaring or howling like Tregeagle” is a common expression amongst the vulgar in Cornwall.’”