“A Rubye Bull in Perle Filde; doth shewe by strength & hew A youth full wight yet chast & cleane to wedded feere moste trew. From diamonde Beare in Perle plot aleevinge he achived By stronge and stedfast constancy in chastnes still conciued. To make all vp a mach he made with natiue Millets plaste In natiue seate, so nature hath the former vertues graste His Prince he serud in good regard twyce Shereeve and so iust That iustlye still on Justice seate Three princes him did trust. Suche was his lyfe and suche his death, whos corps full low doth lye. Whilste Soule by Christe to happy state with hym doth rest on hye. Learne by his life suche life to leade, his death let platform bee. In life to shun the caufe of death, that Christe maye leeve in thee.” “John Bevyll lyued yeares threscore three & then did yealde to dye He dyd bequeath his soule to God, his corps herein to lye.” Below are very circumstantial accounts of the marriages and intermarryings of the Bevyll family, and on the old bench ends of the church their arms are displayed with countless quarterings. The growing dimness in the church warned us of departing day, and so we went out into the churchyard, glancing as we passed at the many mournful inscriptions to sailors and fishermen drowned at sea. Among the old stones the following epitaph attracted our attention; it is a gem of grotesqueness. “Lament not for we our Mother So Dear no more in Vain If you have Lost ’tis we have Gain, we are gone to See---- Our Deariest Friends that Dweell Above them will we go an see And all our Friends that Dweell in Christ below Will soon Come after we.” Talland is a wild and lonely spot even in these crowded days: a hundred years ago, it was a place to be shunned by reason of devils, wraiths, and fearful apparitions, that (according to the country folk) haunted the neighbourhood. But these tricksy sprites found their match in the vicar of Talland for the time being, a noted devil-queller, and layer of gnomes, known far and wide as Parson Dodge, a cleric who never failed to exorcise the most malignant of demons; a clergyman before whom Satanus himself, to say nothing of his troops of fearful wild-fowl, was popularly believed to tremble and flee discomfited. Not only did Parson Dodge attend to the evil spirits of his own parish, he was constantly in requisition throughout the county, and, so workmanlike were his methods, I don’t believe there is an active devil of any importance in Cornwall at this day.