Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall, Second SeriesBottrell, William
General
Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall, Second Series
Bottrell, William
Cornwall (England : County) -- Social life and customs; Legends -- England -- Cornwall (County)
As there were many interesting objects to be seen by the way,
the gentleman decided to walk to St. Levan Church also, and his
conveyance remained in Treen. In passing the fields Uncle George
said, "Old folk, who are dead and gone, always held (and I
believe it for truth) that people seldom lived in Castle Treen, or
in any of our cliff or hill-castles, for more than a few days at a
time; and that was when they had to seek refuge there for their
old people, women, and children, with their flocks and other
property, from the Danes and other northern robbers who used to
land at Parcurno, Penberth, and elsewhere, to ravage the country,
carry off women, and do worse mischief than that, if the hair that
crops up every now and then in some families may be taken as
evidence. But the red-haired pirates were soon put to rout, and
then nobody remained in our stronghold of Treen Dynas except a
man to keep watch from Castle Peak."
He might have remarked, too, that the old proprietors of Treen
held to a tradition that Kaerkeis bowjey and barn were as old as
the Castle, and were built in that out-of-the-way place for the
purpose of storing fodder for cattle near the stronghold against
an invasion. They also believed that valuables were, at such
times, hastily buried in the Castles; those who secreted the
property being slain, nobody knew where to find it. As a proof
of the probability of such a belief, within the old guide's remembrance,
about the quantity of two quarts of ancient Roman and
other coins were found within or near Castle Maen. The
coins were simply placed in a pile, on a flat stone, and enclosed
by three others set on edge and capped. The whole was buried
in a bank of earth and small stones that formed part of an
old hedge or gurgo. Probably some of these coins may still
be found among old folks of Sennen. The writer had many
of them, when too young to know the value of such interesting
objects.
Having passed the fields and ascended the rising ground
beyond, M. Ivan asked where the Castle was—he could behold
nothing like a building between them and the sea, towards[128]
which they had shaped their course.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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