A Book of the West/Volume 2/11
PADSTOW HARBOUR
CHAPTER XI.
BODMIN
A TOWN that has grown up about a monastery. The name is a contraction of Bod-minachau, "the habitation of monks"; and it owes its origin to S. Petrock. Petrock is Peter or Pedr, with the diminutive oc added to the name. He was a son of Glwys, king of Gwent or Monmouthshire, according to one account, but according to another his father's name was Clement. Anyhow, he formed one of the great migration from Gwent to North-east Cornwall. He found a hermit occupying a cell at Bodmin whose name was Guron, and this man surrendered to him his humble habitation. S. Guron's Well is in the churchyard near the west end of the church.
For his education he went to Ireland, where for twenty years he studied profane and sacred literature. He was probably a disciple of S. Eugenius, for Kevin, when aged seven, was entrusted to him by his parents to be reared for the monastic life, and Kevin, we know, learned his psalms from Eugenius.
So soon as Petrock considered that he knew as much as could be taught him by his master, he resolved on returning to Cornwall, and embarked on the same boat which had borne him to Ireland twenty years before—a great vessel of wicker-work, covered with three coatings of hide, and with a leathern sail.
Petrock and his companions came ashore in the Hayle, or saltflats, by Padstow. He was ill received on his arrival by a party of harvesters, who refused him water. In fact, the north of Cornwall had suffered so severely from the Irish, that the natives looked with suspicion on anyone coming from the Green Isle.
Petrock landed, and inquired whether any religious man lived in the neighbourhood, and was told that Samson was there. This was Samson who afterwards became Bishop of Dol. His chapel was demolished when Place House, above Padstow, was built. At Padstow, Petrock remained for thirty years with his disciples, one of whom was Dagan, who disputed with Laurence, Archbishop of Canterbury (597-604) and other Roman missionaries. He refused not only to eat with them, Bede tells us, but even to be under the same roof with them. The story of Petrock's pilgrimage to the East" is full of myth, but the account of the reason why he undertook it is probably true.
There had been a rainy season. One day Petrock assured his disciples that next day the rain would cease, and it would be fine. But on the morrow the rain came down in streams. Petrock was so disgusted at his prophecy having failed, that he left the place, and resolved on visiting the East.
The rest is mere romance. He went to India. There he saw a silver bowl floating on the sea. He stepped into it, whereupon the silver bowl carried him far away to a certain island in which he spent seven years, living on a single fish that he caught daily, and which, however often eaten, always returned sound to be eaten again next day.
At the end of the seven years the shining bowl reappeared. He stepped into it again, and was conveyed back to the coast whence he had started. There he found a wolf that had kept guard over his sheepskin and staff which he had left on the shore seven years before.
Clearly we have here ingrafted into the history a Cornish myth relative to the man in the moon; for the silver bowl cannot be mistaken—it is the latter—and for the dog of the modern version, we here have a wolf.
Through the rest of his journeyings the wolf attended Petrock. On his return to Cornwall he had some unpleasantness with Tewdrig, the king, who had opposed the landing of the Irish at St. Ives, and had killed some of them. He remonstrated with him for some of his barbarities, and Tewdrig had sufficient grace to make him grants of land.
Petrock now moved to Bodmin, and thence he made many excursions through Devon, founding churches and monasteries. The date of his death was about A.D. 575.
A curious circumstance occurred relative to his relics. In 1177 a canon of Bodmin, named Martin, made a clean bolt with the shrine of the saint, an ivory box that contained his bones, and carried them to S. Maen, in Brittany. There were "ructions." The Prior of Bodmin appealed to Henry II., who sent orders to the Justiciary of Brittany to insist on their surrender. Accordingly the prior and this officer went to S. Maen, but when required to give up the holy bones the abbot demurred. However, the justiciary would stand no nonsense, and threatened to use such severe measures that the abbot was forced to give way, and Prior Roger, of Bodmin, marched away with the recovered ivory box and its contents.
Curiously enough this identical box, quaintly ornamented with paintings, still exists, and belongs to the municipality: the contents have, of course, disappeared.
In the market-house is a very interesting granite corn measure.
It will not be out of place to notice here the "lord's measures" found in great numbers about Cornwall. They are small basins cut in granite or in some volcanic free stone, usually with lobes or ears outside. At S. Enodoc, near the "Rock Inn" on the Padstow estuary, a quantity of them have been collected, and are ranged beside the churchyard path. There is another large collection in the parsonage garden at Veryan.
They were probably standard measures for grain, and were preserved in the churches.
In Bodmin Church, which is fine, is the rich monument of Prior Vivian, 1533.
The bench-ends were carved by one Matthew More in 1491. Castle Canyck is a fine circular camp, probably Celtic, and west of the town is a quadrangular entrenchment where Roman remains have been found. The Allan and the Camallan, or Crooked Allan, unite to form the Hayle or Saltings. Allan is the name of the river at S. David's, Pembrokeshire. The name is found also in Scotland, as the Hen in Ireland, and as the Aulne in Finistere. The derivation is doubtful.
On the right hand are the woods of Pencarrow (Pencaerau), the headland of camps, with, in fact, remains of two ; one must have been important. Here, perhaps, dwelt a chieftain Conan.
S. Breock was on his way from Cardigan to Brittany when his hide-covered boat was nearly upset by a whale, and so great was the alarm of those sailing with him that the vessel put into Hayle estuary and ran up to the head.
Breock was now an old man, and could not walk, so his companions made for him a sort of cart in which he could sit, and in which they drew him about. One day they left him to sing psalms in his cart whilst they were engaged at a distance over some pressing business. When they returned they found a pack of wolves round the old man, but whether his sanctity, or toughness, kept them from eating him is left undecided. They drove the wolves off, and were careful in future not to leave him unattended. Conan, the chief, who lived at Pencarrow, came to know him, and, if we may believe the Life, was baptised by him, and made him a grant of land; this is S. Breock on the opposite side of the river to Pencarrow, where there is an interesting church in a lovely situation. It is only a coincidence that at the foot of Pencarrow is a chapel bearing his name. It is dedicated to a tenth-century bishop.
From Cornwall Breock departed for Brittany, about the year 500, and died there at an advanced age—over ninety—about 510.
Padstow should be visited on May Day. It is one of the few places where the hobby-horse still prances; but the glory of the old May Feast is much curtailed.
During the days that precede the festival no garden is safe. Walls, railings, even barbed wire, are surmounted by boys and men in quest of flowers. Conservatories have to be fast locked, or they will be invaded. The house that has a show of flowers in the windows is besieged by pretty children with roguish eyes begging for blossoms which they cannot steal.
During the evening before May Day in years gone by, before shipbuilding had ceased to be an industry of Padstow, when the shipwrights left work they brought with them from the yard two poles, and carried them up the street, fastened one above the other, decorated at the top with branches of willow, furze, sycamore, and all kinds of spring flowers made into garlands, and from it were suspended strings of gulls' eggs. There hung from it also long streamers of coloured ribbon.
A pit was dug, and the Maypole secured by ropes fastened to stakes. In the pavement was a cross laid in with paving stones differently coloured from the rest in the street; these were taken up every time the Maypole was planted, to be again relaid when the merry-making was over. But a doctor who lived in the house facing the pole objected, and so opposed the planting of the Maypole and the dancing before his door, that the merry-makers moved to an open space somewhat higher up the street, which was much less convenient. Opposition followed them even there, and a few years ago the Maypole was finally abandoned.
The "Hobby-horse Pairs," as it was called, i.e. a party of eight men, then repaired to the "Golden Lion," at that time the first inn in Padstow, and sat down to a hearty supper off leg of mutton and plum- pudding, given them by the landlord. After supper a great many young men joined the "Pairs," i.e. the peers, the lords of the merriment, and all started for the country, and went round from one farmhouse to another, singing at the doors of each, and soliciting contributions to the festivities of the morrow.
They returned into Padstow about three o'clock in the morning, and promenaded the streets singing the "Night Song." After that they retired to rest for a few hours. At ten o'clock in the morning the "Pairs" assembled at the "Golden Lion" again, and now was brought forth the hobby-horse. The drum and fife band was marshalled to precede, and then came the young girls of Padstow dressed in white, with garlands of flowers in their hair, and their white gowns pinned up with flowers. The men followed armed with pistols, loaded with a little powder, which they fired into the air or at the spectators. Lastly came the hobby-horse, ambling, curvetting, and snapping its jaws. It may be remarked that the Padstow hobby-horse is wonderfully like the Celtic horse decoration found on old pillars and crosses with interlaced work. The procession went first to Prideaux Place, where the late squire, Mr. Prideaux Brune, always emptied a purse of money into the hands of the "Pairs." Then the procession visited the vicarage, and was welcomed by the parson. After that it went forth from the town to Treator Pool "for the horse to drink."
The Mayers finally arrived at the Maypole, and danced round it singing the "Day Song."
Refrain. "Awake, S. George, our English knight, O!
For summer is a-come, and winter is a-go.
1. "Where is S. George? and where is he, O ?
He's down in his long boat, upon the salt sea, O !
2. "Where are the French dogs that made such a boast, O ?
They shall eat the goose feathers, and we'll eat the roast, O !
3. "Thou might'st ha' shown thy knavish face and tarried at home, O!
But thou shalt be a rascal, and shalt wear the horns, O !
4. "Up flies the kite, down falls the lark, O !
Aunt Ursula Bird wood she had an old ewe.
5. "Aunt Ursula Birdwood she had an old ewe.
And she died in her own park long ago."
It is obvious that the song is very corrupt, but the air to this and to the "Morning Song" are very bold and ancient.[1]
Although the Maypole has been given up, the hobby-horse still prances on May Day.
Padstow Harbour is spoiled by the Doom Bar, a shifting bank of sand at the mouth. But this might be placed under control and rectified by the expenditure of money, and the mouth of the Hayle be made into what is sorely needed, a harbour of refuge on the north coast.
The neighbourhood of Padstow abounds in interest; the cliffs are superb, towering above a sea blue as a peacock's neck, here and there crowned with cliff castles. In the sand-dunes or Towans is the buried church of S. Constantine, a convert of S. Petrock, Duke or King of Cornwall, who was so ballyragged by Gildas. There are old Cornish mansions, such as Treshunger, lying in dips among trees; and churches on wind-blown heights, their towers intended as landmarks.
But this is not a guide-book, and such details must be passed over.
On no account should Pentyre Point be missed. It is a grand and glorious cliff, and a projection called the Rumps is occupied by a well-preserved cliff-castle. Porth Gaverne, Porth Isaac, Porthquin, Polzeath are all delightful little bays. The pilchard cellars cut in the rocks should be noticed. Porth- quin was once a flourishing little place, but in a terrible storm nearly every man connected with the place, being out fishing, was lost, and it has never recovered.
Porth Isaac—let not those amiable faddists who hold that we are Anglo- Israelites fasten on the name—means the Corn Port, Porthquin the White Port, from the spar in the rock, and Porth Gaverne the Goat Port. A curious fact, to be noted, is that there exists an extensive ancient cemetery close to where is now rising a cluster of new houses at Trevose. Bones are continually turned up by the sea as it encroaches, but all record of a church with burial- ground there is lost. There is a ruined chapel of S. Cadoc, but that is half a mile distant. Cadoc was an elder brother or cousin—it is not certain which—of S. Petrock of Padstow. He must have come here to visit his kinsman.
The story goes that he had made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and he brought back with him some of the water of Jordan, and this he poured into a well at this place, which thenceforth possessed marvellous powers. The well is not now easily traced, but bits of carved stone of the chapel lie strewn around. Cadoc was for a while in an island of the lagoon d'Elet, near Belz, in the Morbihan, where he constructed a causeway to the mainland, of which traces remain. He was one of the most restless beings conceivable, and no sooner had he established a monastic centre in one place than he tired of it, and started off to found another somewhere else. He played a scurvy trick once on a South Welsh chief, who with a large party came down on him and imperiously demanded meat and drink. They took all they could get, and got drunk and incapable on the spot. Cado shaved half of their heads and beards as they thus lay, but, worse than this, cut off the lips of their horses. He was a violent-tempered man, of tremendous energy in all he did. According to one account he fell a victim to his rashness or enthusiasm; he tried to carry the Gospel to the Saxons, but was cut down by their axes at the foot of the altar.
- ↑ I have given them in my Garland of Country Song, Methuen, 1895.