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)
Traditions connected with places in the southern parishes of
West Penwith having brought us within a short distance of the
Land's End, we now return to St. Just and purpose to relate such
as are found in that parish and Sennen.
And singular enough, almost all old stories handed down in
St. Just are fairy-tales.
[154]
An' Pee Tregeer's Trip to Market on Hallan Eve.
Faery elves,
Whose midnight revels by a forest side
Or fountain some belated peasant sees.
Milton.
ONE St. Just Feasten Monday, about thirty years
since, we heard the following story told by the
kitchen fireside in the "North Inn." An aged
mine-captain related the principal part, others of
the company helping him out when his memory
or invention failed.
"I have heard the old folks tell," said Captain Peter, "how
long ago—it may be hundreds of years past, for what we know—the
Squire, who then lived in Pendeen, had for his housekeeper
an elderly dame called Pee Tregeer, who came to a sad
mishap one Hallan Eve. Some spices and other small things
were wanted from Penzance for the Feasten tide, and the careful
old creature wouldn't trust anyone to go for them but herself.
Now, An' Pee dearly loved company on the road, and, not
knowing of anybody more likely to take the jaunt with her than
Jenny Trayer, who lived at Pendeen Cove, she took her basket
and stick and went down to see if Jenny would go.
"This woman was the wife of one Tom Trayer. The hut in
which they lived was the only dwelling then in the cove. The
pair were but little seen out of the place. Tom passed great
part of his time a fishing, when he wasn't smuggling; and his
wife seldom left home except when she took round liquor and
fish together, in her cowal, for sale. Jenny, however, was
frequently visited, for she professed to be, and passed for, a
White Witch, charmer, or wise-woman. On this account many
resorted to her that they might be benefitted by her charms and
spells. Yet, there were others that regarded her as a witch of
deeper dye, and who believed that, by her strange dealings with
the Old One, her husband had always a favourable wind, so as
to make a quicker passage to France and back than anyone else
in "the fair trade." Besides, fish, they said, always came to his
hook and net when other fishermen had none. If anyone
happened to offend either of the pair some strange run of bad
luck was sure to follow; and nothing proved their compact[155]
with Old Nick so much as the rich wrecks which were constantly
floating into Pendeen Cove when the pair lived there. Yet, as
they lived on the Squire's estate, few cared to openly accuse them
of practising the black art; and An' Pee didn't trouble herself
about their sorcery or witchcraft, so that they furnished her with
a good supply of choice liquors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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