North Cornwall Fairies and LegendsTregarthen, Enys
Science
North Cornwall Fairies and Legends
Tregarthen, Enys
Folklore -- England -- Cornwall (County); Legends -- England -- Cornwall (County)
He did not have to wait long, and so fast did they come you would have
thought they were galloping for a wager. They seemed to be enjoying
their gallop through the streets of the sleeping old town amazingly;
and Robin, as he fixed his bright young eyes upon them, saw, or thought
he saw, a broad grin on their queer little faces as they galloped by.
The barefooted little lad, in his little night-garment, ran beside
the quaint little horses and the little horsemen for a short distance,
but they galloped much faster than he could run, and soon outdistanced
him; and, run as hard as ever he could, he could not overtake them,
but he heard the ringing of the tiny horses' hoofs on the hard road
as they went galloping down through the town.
When he reached the bottom of the town and the house where the little
men and their horses usually stood, he glanced up, and to his surprise
saw them standing on the tile-ridge, looking as if they had never
left it.
Robin gazed at them till he began to feel cold, and then he went
back across the market to his own house; and half an hour later,
when his father and mother came home from the party, they found him
fast asleep on one of the steps with his toes tucked up under him.
'The funny little horses and little horsemen did hear the clock strike
twelve, and galloped round the market and through the town same as
you told me,' said Robin in a sleepy voice, when his father picked
him up and carried him into the house. 'I saw them with my own eyes,
and I ran after them up as far as Church Street. They galloped so
funnily and so fast; I am glad I saw them.'
'So am I,' said his father, laughing, thinking his small son had
dreamt it as he lay asleep on the step. 'You are the first little
chap who ever saw them come down from the roof and gallop, and I
fancy you will be the last.'
Little Robin Curgenven may have been the first to see them gallop as
his father said, but he may not be the last, for the quaint little
horses and horsemen are still on the roof of the house, and it is
told that they still gallop through Padstow streets, and round what
once was the market, when they hear the church clock strike twelve!
HOW JAN BREWER WAS PISKEY-LADEN
The moon was near her setting as a tall, broad-shouldered man called
Jan Brewer was walking home to Constantine Bay to his cottage on the
edge of a cliff.
He was singing an old song to himself as he went along, and he sang
till he drew near the ruins of Constantine Church, standing on a
sandy common near the bay. As he grew near the remains of this ancient
church, which were clearly seen in the moonshine, he thought he heard
someone laughing, but he was not quite sure, for the sea was roaring
on the beach below the common, and the waves were making a loud noise
as they dashed up the great headland of Trevose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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