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)
One Sunday morning the holy hermit, going down to cliff to
get a fish for his dinner, in passing by this garden saw a woman
called Johanna gathering pot-herbs. St. Levan rested the end of
his rocking-rod on the ground, stopped, and gave her a kindly
greeting. But she, looking over the hedge, exclaimed, "Oh
sinful man that you are, for going a fishing of a Sunday!
Whatever can 'e think will become of 'e?"
"Self-righteous hypocrite that thou art," answered the saint,
"in looking for other people's faults thou canst not behold[147]
thine own. Think not that thou—with thy fingers spread out
and thy eyes turned up—art better than others, for a more strict
or a more lazy observance of Sunday. And tell me," he continued,
"sharp as thou art to mark others' faults, and blind as thou art
to thine own, wherefore should it be a sin for me to take my
daily fish from the sea any more than for thee to gather herbs
from thy garden?"
St. Levan said much more, but all in vain were his endeavours
to bring the woman to reason, for, in spite of all he could say,
she would still have the last word and contend that there was
more sin in catching fish than in picking greens of a Sunday.
At last the good man being provoked by her obstinacy, pretended
piety, and conceited clack, raised his hand and cursed her,
saying, "From this time, for ever, thou shalt be known, if known
at all, as the Foolish Johanna! And thy garden shall ever
continue, as now, to bear more hemlock and nettles than leeks
and lentils. Moreover," he continued, "mark this—To make
thy remembrance the more accursed for all time to come, if any
child by thy name be baptised in the waters of Parchapel Well it
shall become a fool like thyself and bad luck follow it."
Down to very recent times, so great was the fear of old St.
Levan's curse that anyone in this parish desirous of having a child
named Johanna took it to Sennen to be christened.
It may be remarked that, until the roof fell into St. Levan's
Well, and it became choked up, the sexton always kept it clean and
fetched water thence for the baptismal office.
We don't know what state "Johanna's Garden" is now in,
but some thirty years ago it always bore more weeds than
pot-herbs.
These simple traditions—thus handed down and kept alive by
St. Levan people, who believed them to be literally true—mark
a lingering veneration for the holy fisherman who, in this
secluded place, led his tranquil life.
The St. Levan Stone.
In St. Levan Churchyard is a cloven rock called St. Levan's
stone. For some reason, now unknown, this must have been a
venerated object when the church was built, or it would have
been used in the building. The common notion, however, is that
long before St. Levan's time this rock was regarded as sacred,
because Merlin prophecied—
"When, with panniers astride,
A pack-horse one can ride
Through St. Levan stone,
The world will be done."
[148]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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