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 urns, or crocks of ashes and charred bones, have frequently
been found near these, and other mystic stones, which were
generally regarded as Celtic relics, it has been conjectured that
long stones, holed-stones, and quoits (cromlechs) were all raised
to mark the last resting-places of some noted personages. Is it
not as probable that they were erected for the use of the living,
and, by being associated with the religious observances of the
time and people, came to be regarded as garrac-zans or holy
stones; and that the priest, or chief, would desire to be buried
near them, prompted by a feeling identical with that of the
present time and common to all ages, which makes many desire that
their poor dust and ashes may rest near the shrine at which they
worshipped, within the bounds of what they regard as holy
ground? Sacerdotal communities have always been ready to grant
this distinction to the rich, and encouraged this enshrining of
the relics of mortality, because the presence of the King of
Terrors in the temple augments that mysterious awe with which
all ancient theocratical hierarches endeavoured to invest themselves,
and all their ghostly appurtenances; as by this means
they acquire more power over those who live in dread of the
spirit world, easily conjured up by morbid fancies, when surrounded
by whatever engenders melancholy.
Besides the tolmen noticed above there are several others in
the western part of Cornwall. Some thirty years ago, two holed
stones, about the size of those at Boleigh, might be seen in Treen
Cliff, at no great distance from the end of Pedny vounder lane,
on the sea side of the wheel-road to Castle Treen and the Logan
Rock. These stones were amidst other rocks. One was standing
upright and the other lying flat on the ground a few feet from it.
The old people of Treen did not know what these stones were
placed there for.
[33]
In a field on the southern side of the lane is the circle of
upright stones called by the people of Buryan, Daunce-Mayn.
The name is most probably a corruption of Zans Mëyn (sacred
stones,) and has nothing whatever to do with dancing maids. The
legend that the (originally) nineteen posts were damsels, thus fixed
for dancing on Sunday, was evidently suggested by the name to
some manufacturer of such wares, who as readily converted the
two long stones, in the field across the road, which we have
already noticed, into the Pipers, who took to their heels and left
the damsels to their fate as soon as their metamorphosis began;
but their ungallant action did not avail, as the petrifying power
of the cursing saint, who stopped their sweet pipings, overtook
them when they ran thus far, and laid them up in stone as we
now see them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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