From Gretna Green to Land's End: A Literary Journey in England.Bates, Katharine Lee
General
From Gretna Green to Land's End: A Literary Journey in England.
Bates, Katharine Lee
England -- Description and travel
Spectral hounds bay across
the moors, and a phantom coach is sometimes heard rolling with a
hollow rumble along the deep-hedged roads. Ghost ships with all sail
set drive by the shores on gusty nights, and the Death Ship, tall,
dark, square-rigged, with black sails and a demon crew, has been
known to come, in crashes of thunder and flare of lightning, for the
soul of a notorious wrecker. Drowned sailors call from under the tide
or speed along the strand with dripping clothes and hair. Witches,
sorcerers, fortune-tellers, charmers and "cunning men" are among the
historic characters of Cornwall. In fact, the Witch of Freddam still
rides the seas in her coffin, stirring up storms with her ladle and
broom. The luckless sailor who has set eyes on her will not see his
home again. Miners, too, have their special dangers. The goblins that
they sometimes chance on underground, hunched up into uncouth shapes
or tumbling heels over head, are not ill-met, as their presence
indicates rich lodes, but it would never do to mark a cross on the
wall of a mine gallery, or to pass a snail on your way to the shaft
without dropping for it a morsel of tallow from your candle. The newly
dead notify their friends of the event in many a curious fashion, even
by shaking the milk in the pans and spoiling the clotted cream. A
woman shamed to suicide haunts her betrayer in the form of a white
hare. Cornishmen cannot die easy on a feather-bed, nor in a house
where any key is turned or bolt is shot, nor would they be carried to
the grave by a new road, nor buried on the north side of the church.
If rain fall--as in Cornwall it often does--on a bier, it is a sign
that the soul has "arrived safe."
Amid all these supernatural influences, it is reassuring to know that
the Devil never enters this county, having a wholesome fear of being
made into a pie. His cloven hoofs once ventured across the Tamar, but
he was dismayed to find that the Cornish women put everything, fish,
flesh, fowl, vegetables, whatnot, into pie. By the time poor Beelzebub
had partaken of fishy pie, stargazy pie--made of pilchards,--conger
pie--made of eels,--lamy pie--made of kid,--herby pie, parsley pie,
and piggy pie, his nerves gave way, and he bolted out of the shire so
precipitately that he strewed the hills and the coast with his
travelling equipment of Devil's Bellows, Devil's Ovens, and Devil's
Frying-pans.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account