Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall, Second Series

"An' Pee said that she couldn't name the colours of the little ladies' dresses, which were of all the hues of summer's blossoms. The vain little things, to make themselves look the taller, had their powdered hair turned up on pads and dressed with flowers, lace, and ribbons to an extraordinary height for such dolls of things. Their gay gowns were very long-waisted, and their skirts so distended by hoops that they looked just as broad as they were long. Their shoes of velvet or satin, were high-heeled and pointed at the toes. The men were much darker complexioned than the women, yet they were all very good looking, with sparkling dark eyes, well-shaped noses, sweet little mouths, and dimpled cheeks and chins. Not one among them, that she saw, had a spotty face or purple-top nose, because they drink nothing stronger than honey-dew. Some, to be sure, appeared to be rather aged, yet, all were sprightly, merry, and gay.

"In the dancers' ring stood a May-pole about three yards high, all wreathed with flowers. Where they got them, that time of the year, to make their garlands, was a wonder. The pipers, standing in their midst, played lively old dance tunes that are now but seldom heard, and An' Pee never felt more inclined for a dance in her life than when she heard their cheery music; but how could she reel round among such little beings and have a jig without kicking them down?

"'The women,' she always said, 'were the sauciest little creatures that one ever seed; she was most ashamed to look at them – tossing up their heels, forwards and backwards, higher than their heads, and kicking off the men's hats, as they capered round and round.' Every now and then, one would unlock her hands and, breaking out of the ring, take a leap right over the men's heads, perch on the May-pole, and there spin round, on her toe, like a whirligig.

"There were lights about in all directions – lanthorns no bigger than gun-pop (fox-glove) flowers, hanging in rows along the standings, and rushlights, in paper cups like tulips, shone among the gingerbread-nuts, comfits, candied angelica, peppermint-drops, and more enticing things that are seen in any other fair. She thought, too, that all the glow-worms in creation had gathered together near the fair-ground, to help to light it up. Yet, with all these lights, there was such a shimmer over everything that the old dame got bewildered at times and could never see anything so plainly as she wished.

"At no great distance from the dancers there was a wrestling ring, where many little ladies were looking on, betting on their favourites and helping them with their good wishes and applause. Farther on, some were shooting with bows and arrows at a target. Others were playing at keals (bowls). Every here and there the lilly-bangers (raffle-keepers) with their tables and dice kept a great noise calling out, 'Come hither, sweet ladies and gentlemen, and try your luck! One in, two in, three in; who will make four in for this nice cake?' Farther off, nearly out of sight, a great number were 'hurling to the gold' (goal). She knew what was going on from hearing the old cry of 'Well done, Santusters, one and all, comrades; fair play is good play' and, every now and then she saw the little hurling-ball, as it was cast from side to side, shine like a shooting star. By that means they contrived to hurl by night.

"All games, which used to be played at fairs and merry-makings, were there carried on. Still, great part of the small folks diverted themselves in parading up and down, on the green, between the standings and dancing-ground, examining the pretty things displayed. They didn't seem to have any money amongst them to buy anything, yet they often bartered their trinkets and changed them from stall to stall.

"The old woman determined to have some of the pretty things glistening before her, but, among so much that was beautiful, she couldn't make up her mind what to take. Whilst An' Pee was considering, she saw approach the standing a little lady, tired with dancing, leaning her head on her partner, who with his arm round her waist supported her steps. The gentleman taking from the hands of a little dame who kept the stall a golden goblet of the size and shape of a poppy head (capsule) held it to the faint lady's lips. Sipping the contents she recovered in an instant, and, choosing a fan, made of a few goldfinch feathers stuck into a pearl handle, her partner took a pair of diamond buckles from his knees and placed them on the standing by way of pledge. The little couple having tripped off again to the dance, An' Pee thought how well the bright little buckles would look, fixed as brooches, on her Sunday's cap-ribbon or in her neckatee, and determined to secure them at once, fearing they might be gone with the next small body that saw them.

"As there was nothing that she could so readily turn inside-out, and drop on them, as one of her gloves, which reached to her elbows, she drew off one, inside-out, and dropped it, as it seemed to her, right on the buckles. Her hand nearly touched them; but, in trying to grasp them under her glove, a palm of pins or needles, so small that she didn't notice them, stuck into her fingers, and she cried out, 'Oh! Cuss 'e! You little buccas.' That instant all the lights went out, and all the fair, and most of the small people, vanished like shadows among the rocks or sunk into the earth, like muryans (ants) into their holes.

"Yet many of the frolicsome sprights were still about her, as she soon found to her cost.

"Whilst she was still stooping, and groping for her glove and the buckles, she felt a great number of the small tribe – a score or more – leap on her back, neck, and head. At the same time others, tripping up her heels, laid her flat on the ground and rolled her over and over. More than once, when her face was uppermost, she caught a glimpse of Piskey, all in rags as usual, mounted on a year-old colt, his toes stuck in the mane, holding a rush in his hand to guide it. There he sat, putting on the smaller sprights to torment her, making a tee-hee-hee and haw-haw-haw, with his mouth open from ear to ear.

"When she spread out her arms and squeezed herself down, that they shouldn't turn her over, they would squeak and grunt in trying to lift her; but all her endeavours to hinder their game were of no use. Somehow or other over she went, and every time they turned her face downwards some of the small fry would jump on her back and there jig away with 'heel-and-toe' from her head to her feet. In the pitch and pass of their three-handed reels, it was who and who should get on her stays; the steel and whalebone in that, she supposed, served them as a springing-board. In the finishing off of their double shuffles they would leap more than three times their height, turn a summersault over each others' heads, and so make the pass. An' Pee twisted her head on one side, saw what they were at, and tried to beat them off with her stick, but they got it from her hand, laid it across her waist, and mounting on it astride, as many as could, bobbed up and down, singing,

'See-saw-see,Lie still, old Peepan Pee.See-saw-see,Upon old Peepan Pee,Who should better ride than we?See-saw-see.'

"The old woman, not to be beaten with such imps, tossed back her feet to kick them off; then they held her legs doubled back and pulled off her shoes; some jumped up and balanced themselves on her upturned toes, whilst others pricked at, and tickled, the soles of her feet till she fell into fits of crying and laughing by turns.

"Pee was almost mad with their torment, when, by good luck, she remembered to have heard that the adder-charm was powerful to drive away all mischievous sprights. She had no sooner pronounced the words than they all fled screeching down the hill, Piskey galloping after; they left her lying on a bed of furze, near a large rock.

"She got on her feet, and, looking round, saw, by the starlight of a clear frosty morning, that the place to which she had been piskey-led was near the bottom of the Gump; that the level spot of green on which the small people held their fair, and carried on their games, was almost surrounded by high rocks, and was no larger over than the Green-court or walled garden in front of Pendeen house; yet, when the fair was on it, through the sprights' illusions, this green spot seemed like a three-acre field.

"An' Pee only found her stick. The basket, tied to her arm, was empty and broken to pieces. She paced the ground over and round, in hope of finding her hat and shoes, and above all her glove, and the precious buckles under it. Giving over at length her fruitless search, with the help of her stick she hobbled, barefooted and bare-headed, down the hill and reached Pendeen gate.

"'Now thank the powers,' said she, as she passed through it and slammed it behind her, 'I shall be a-bed and sleepan in a few minutes.'

"Though An' Pee knew that Piskey had played her many tricks that night, and she thought he might be still dogging her footsteps, yet she was so bewildered that, until too late, it never came into her head to turn some of her clothing inside out, and now, so near home, she defied him to lead her astray.

"Inside Pendeen gate there is one road leading to the mansion and another which goes down to the mill. Between them there were two or three acres of ground, which had probably never been cleared or cultivated, as there were several large rocks remaining on it and brakes of furze, seldom cut, because the old Squire, or his family, had stocked this piece of rough ground with fancy breeds of tame rabbits, and the wild ones which came among them from not being chased or shot at, became so tame that they continued their frisky gambols, without showing any signs of fear when persons passed near them; and, for the pleasure of seeing the bunnies sport, furze was allowed to grow here and there over great part of this ground.

"In passing to the house An' Pee avoided the stony road and walked on the green, because her poor bare feet were cut and sore.

"Now hundreds of times – drunk and sober – on the darkest nights she had gone along the grass beside the bridle-paths, without once missing her way to the Green-court gate. Yet, that Hallan Eve she, somehow, went too far from the road, got in on the grassy patches between the furze, and, before she knew that she had missed her way, found herself down by the mill-road. She followed up that track, and in making a new attempt to reach the house, she again got among the furze and wandered about on the patches of green between them for hours without coming to either road. Yet, as usual, with piskey-led persons the path appeared either before or close beside her, until, tired out, she lay down to wait for day and fell asleep.

"The Squire and all his household were very much concerned because of the old woman's absence, well knowing that no ordinary matter would keep her from home on the feasten tide. During the night the servants had been sent to the villages round, to inquire if anyone had seen her in Penzance or on the road, but no tidings were obtained of her. The Squire rose by break of day and called up his servants to hunt for her. In passing along the road towards the gate, only a few yards from the house, he heard somebody snoring in a brake of furze bordering on the path, and there he found his housekeeper very ragged and torn. Some say he discovered her by finding on the road her knitting-work, with the yarn hanging to it, and, by taking up the yarn, he went by it till he found the dame with some of the ball in her pocket. However that may be, he roused her with great difficulty, and, without opening her eyes, she said,

"'I wan't turn out to please anybody till I've had my morning nap; so go away, go, and shut my chamber door!'

"At length her master, having brought her to her senses, helped her up and asked what made her take up her lodgings on the cold ground?

"In passing slowly along, and stopping awhile at the Green-court gate, she told him of her mishaps.

"The Squire didn't think one half of what she said could be true; indeed he questioned whether she had been to Penzance at all, and thought it quite as likely that she had stayed tippling at the cove till near dark, starting for town, had missed her way, and, wandering over the Gump, had there, or where he found her, fallen asleep and dreamt great part of what she told him.

"'Belike Pee,' said the Squire, as she was about to go down the Green-court steps, 'what you took at the cove had something to do with rising the spirits you saw.'

"'Oh! you misbelieving man,' cried she, turning round, and holding towards him her uplifted hands, 'if I like a drop of good liquor to cheer my heart, now and then, I never took so much as to do me harm in all my born days; and, leave me tell 'e, that with all your learning, and doubting, you know but little about the 'small people.' There es more taking place in the region of spirits, as I've heard the parson say, than you can learn from your books, and for want of faith, I fear me you will never be enlightened. Yet as sure as my name is Penelope Tregeer, I seed, heard, and what is more I felt, all that I now tell 'e.'

"'Go in and sleep the spirits out of thy noddle, that thou mayest be in time to see about the feasten dinner,' said the Squire, as he turned away, and took his favourite morning's walk to the cove.

"When he came in, after a turn round the cliff and up by the mill, he found the old woman, never the worse for her journey, busy preparing the feasten fare, and the ladies and gentlemen of his family, and numerous visitors, at an early breakfast that they might have time to proceed to church in grand state on the feasten day."

Pendeen of Old

Capt. Peter, having taken a pull from the pewter pot, continued with – "Believe me, comrades, Pendeen didn't then look wisht at feasten tides nor at any other time, when one saw, (and smelt, too), the sweet scent of turf-smoke that curled up from chimney stacks, which now look down sorrowfully on cold hearths; and one saw fair faces peering through the casements, numbers of ladies and gentlemen walking about the garden alleys and courts of the old mansion, or when the cry of hounds and the winding of the horn echoeing through the house, called one and all to the hunt at early morn. And, I can but think," he continued, "how strangers visiting Pendeen for the first time, after riding over miles of open downs with scarce a dwelling in sight, must have been surprised when they caught the first glimpse of the noble old seat, which is only seen when close at hand, and the track of rich cultivated land between it and the sea; it must have appeared to them like a place raised by enchantment, as we hear of in old stories. And the old masons, who took pride in their art and did their work truly, were right to bestow such labour on the beautiful chimney stacks of the old mansion, because they are there first seen, and from parts where little else of the house is visible; and the first sight, like first love, is never forgotten, mates."

Capt. Peter paused, drained the pewter pot, which had stood foaming before him, handed it to the cheerful old landlady to be replenished, and took a smoke. A tinner, who sat by the fire knocking the ashes out of his pipe, said, whilst he cut up his roll-tobacco, rubbed it in the palm of his hand, and refilled: —

"I don't understand very well Capen what is meant by enchantment, only that it's something strange and wonderful. Now, to my mind, the greatest wonder about the place is the Vow. One end of it we know is within a few yards of the mansion, but no one knows where the other is to be found. Ef there be any truth in old traditions about that cavern, adit, fougou, or whatever it may be called, it runs for a great distance (some say miles), yet most people believe that the eastern end was once open at the cove. Others will have it that old tinners, who lived before part of the roof had fallen in, travelled in it for ten times the distance from the house to the cove, and burned more than a pound of candles without finding the end. They always returned frightened, and what they saw to scare them they could never be got to tell.

"Perhaps the Spirit of the Vow, that many have seen at the entrance, in the appearance of a tall lady, dressed in white, with a red rose in her mouth, at all seasons of the year, may take a more fearful form within the cavern.

"Who can tell," he continued, "but that money and treasures may have been secreted there in troublesome times of old, and I wonder why the Squire don't have the mystery about the Vow cleared up; there can't be much of the roof fallen in, and, for my part, I'd willingly give all my time, out of core for a month to help clear away the rubbish and take the venture upon shares."

"I am very much of thy mind, my dear," Capt. Peter replied, "Ef the Squire would give us leave we'd pitch cost as soon as the feast is over, and I don't think we should find there many spirits to frighten us away. I believe that many of the fearful stories about the Vow were invented by smugglers. When the fair trade was in its glory the Vow was a convenient place for storage, and I think that the smugglers, who didn't want any faint hearts, with weak heads and long tongues, to come near them, invented many fearful stories to scare such away. One never finds any so fond of prying into other people's business as the foolish ones, or 'Grammer's weak children,' as we say."

How Piskey Left Boslow

Tells how the drudging goblin sweatTo earn his cream bowl duly set,When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn.Milton.

"No doubt," said the tinner after a pause, "Piskey threshed the corn and did other odd jobs for the old man of Boslow, as long as he lived, and they said that after his death he worked some time for the old widow, till he took his departure from the place about three score years ago. Some say" —

"Stop a minute, my son, I can tell 'e a story about that," said Capt. Peter, taking the pipe from his mouth, and holding up his finger: – "One night, when the hills were covered with snow and winter had come severely, the old widow of Boslow left in the barn for Piskey a larger bowl than usual of gerty milk (boiled milk, thickened with pillas, or oatmeal). Being clear moonlight she took a turn round the town-place, stopped at the barn-door, and looked in to see if Piskey were come to eat his supper while it was hot. The moonlight shone through a little window right on the barn-boards, and there, sitting on a sheaf of oats, she saw Piskey eating his gerty milk very hearty. He soon emptied his wooden bowl, and scraped it with the wooden spoon as clean as if it had been washed out. Having placed the 'temberan dish and spoon' in a corner, he stood up and patted and stroked his stomach, and smacked his lips in a way that was as much as to say, 'that's good of 'e old dear; see ef I don't thresh well for 'e to-night.' But when Piskey turned round, the old woman was sorry to see that he had nothing on but rags and a very little of them.

"'How poor Piskey must suffer with the cold,' she thought and said to herself, 'to pass great part of his time out among the rushes in the boggy moors or on the downs with this weather – his legs all naked, and a very holey breeches. I'll pitch about it at once, and make the poor fellow a good warm suit of home-spun. We all know ragged as Piskey es, he's so proud that he won't wear cast-off clothes, or else he should have some of my dear old man's – the Lord rest him.'

"No sooner thought than she begun; and, in a day or two, made a coat and breeches, knitted a pair of long sheep's-black stockings, with garters, and a nightcap, knitted too.

"When night came the old woman placed Piskey's new clothes, and a bowl of gerty milk on the barn-boards, where the moonlight would shine on them to show them best. A few minutes after leaving the barn she came back to the door, opened its upper part a little, and, looking in, saw Piskey standing up, eating his milk, and squinting at the clothes at the same time. Laying down his empty bowl he took the new breeches on the tip of his hand-staff, carried it to the window, and seeing what it was, put it on over his rags, dragged on the stockings, and gartered them, donned coat and cap, then jumped over the barn-boards, and capered round the barn, like a fellow light in the head, singing,

"'Piskey fine and Piskey gay,Piskey now will run away.'

"And, sure enow, run away he did; for when he came round to the door opening into the mowhay he bolted out and took himself off without as much as saying, 'I wish 'e well 'till I see again' to the old woman, who stood outside the other door looking at am. Piskey never came back and the old woman of Boslow died that winter."

An Overseer and a Parish Clerk of St. Justabout sixty years ago

"It was no wonder if persons coming from Penzance to Pendeen of a dark night should miss their way and think themselves piskey-led," said the tinner.

"There was neither bridge nor house in the place called New Bridge before wheel carriages were in use, and the only St. Just road from Penzance this side of Cardew Water was a mere bridle-path or rather a great number of horse tracks, often crossing each other and twisting about far and wide round rocks and intervening patches of furze, over miles of open downs and boggy moors, with no hedges near the road to keep it within bounds. When one track was worn too deep it was never repaired, as there was plenty of room to make a new one. Bridges then were few, and for the most part made by placing flat slabs to rest on the stepping-stones in some of the deepest streams, for the convenience of foot passengers. These old foot-bridges were ugly things to cross by night and the stepping-stones were worse."

"We have all heard about the old stepping-stones in Nancherrow Water," said the tinner, who finished the foregoing story, "how, after day-down, no one could pass over them in going to Church-town without some mishap, and no person would venture to return that way until daybreak. Shortly before the first bridge was built there, one of the overseers was a farmer who lived in the North of St. Just. Few persons then could either write or read, except one here and there, who passed for a great scholar if he could sign his name and read a chapter in the Psalter without much spelling. The overseer not knowing how to write or cipher, kept the accounts of his monthly disbursements on the dairy-door, in round o's for shillings and long chalks for pence. The last Saturday of each month he took the dairy-door on his back and carried it to Church-town, that the clerk might enter his accounts in the parish book.

"One Saturday, in the season when days are short and streams high, the overseer couldn't make out his accounts and reach Nancherrow Water before dark; and, in passing, with the door on his back, over the wet and slippery stones, he lost his balance, and fell into the stream. By good luck the door was under, and floated him down to a place where the water spread out shallow and there he landed, but all the accounts were washed out. 'Tis said that the overseer's mishap was the reason why the first bridge was built over Nancherrow Water."

"I can tell 'e another sad case," said the Capt. "We elderly folks have all heard of Uncle Will Ben, who was the parish clerk and the best fiddler in the parish, a little before I was born, and everybody says he was what we call a 'peathy old fellow, with plenty of gumption.'

"One Feasten Monday Uncle Will was rather late in going to Church-town with his fiddle, in a case, under his arm, to play during the night in a public house. Being Feasten Monday, like enough he had stopped to take a drop at neighbours' houses on the road; however, in crossing Nancherrow Water, his foot slipped from the stepping-stones and his fiddle fell from under his arm into the water, floated down the stream and in under a high bank where it was caught in some brambles. A gentleman riding through the water, saw Uncle Will a little below trying to get at something with his stick, and asked what was the matter. Uncle Will told him of his mishap. 'I pity your case,' the horseman replied, and rode on.

"'I don't care a cuss for the case if I'd only got my fiddle,' replied Uncle Will.

"This gave rise to the saying which is still often heard, 'I don't care a cuss for the case, if I'd only got the fiddle,' as Uncle Will Ben said.

"This old jewel of a parish clerk and fiddler said many other things which are still remembered and used as every-day sayings.