The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 3 (of 4)
History
The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 3 (of 4)
Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Geology -- England -- Cornwall (County)
There are several good farm houses in the parish, formerly the
residences of gentlemen; but, excepting the church town, only one
place deserving the name of a village, which is Goldsithney, commonly
pronounced Gulzinney, lying on the road from Redruth to Marazion. In
this village was formerly a chapel dedicated to St. James, as Doctor
Borlase has ascertained from documents in the cathedral at Exeter. No
memory remains of this chapel having ever been used for divine
service; but within the editor’s recollection a small image might be
seen over the door, said by the inhabitants to be St. Perran; but if
the records consulted by Doctor Borlase are correct, more probably of
St. James.
Mr. Lysons mentions the fair which is annually holden here on the
fifth of August, St. James’s day, by the old style; and he also takes
notice of a tale, which the editor has heard a thousand times, of the
fair having been originally kept in the church town of Sithney, near
Helston, by virtue of a glove, which was annually displayed there,
till the men of Perran, by force or cunning, or by proposing to
exchange new gloves for old ones, bore off the talisman, and have by
its authority held the fair at Goldsithney ever since, paying one
shilling every year as a poor compensation to the party bereaved.
It is needless to add that this tale, as it is related, cannot be
true; but the names Sithney and Goldsithney, with the payment to the
churchwardens of the parish, seem to indicate some relation between
the parish and this village. The displaying of a glove at fairs is an
ancient and widely extended custom. Mr. Lysons says it is continued at
Chester. The editor has seen a large ornamented glove displayed on a
lofty pole over the Guild Hall at Exeter, during the fairs. Was the
glove used to receive the tolls, as shillings are still collected in
some courts of justice; or had it any reference to hand payments on
delivery, as is usual in fairs; or has it a more noble origin in
chivalry?
A cove is pointed out in Perran, where the ancestor of the Trevelyans
is said to have been borne on shore by the strength of his horse, from
the destruction of the Lionesse country, west of the Land’s End. The
Trevelyan family are too old, too honourable, and now too much
distinguished by science, for them to covet any addition of honour
through the medium of fabulous history.
It is recorded in the Saxon Chronicle, that in the year 1099, on St.
Martin’s day, there was so very high a tide, and the damage so great
in consequence, that men remembered not the like to have ever happened
before, and the same day was the first of the new moon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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