A Book of the West/Volume 2/20

by Sabine Baring-Gould

THE PULPIT ROCK, SCILLY

CHAPTER XX.

THE SCILLY ISLES

Armorel of Lyoness—A refuge for the Celtic saints—Lighthouses—The name of Scilly—Olaf Trygvason at Scilly—Mr. Augustus Smith—The flower trade—Flowers not allowed to blossom in the fields—Traces of tin-streaming—Contrast between the east coast and the west of England—Variety in Scilly—Sir Cloudesley Shovel.

FOR a guide to what is to be seen in this cluster there is no better book than Sir W. Besant's Armorel of Lyoness, to my mind one of the most delightful works of fiction I have ever read; I refer, of course, to the first part, that concerns Scilly. Let a visitor take that book, and go over the ground and be happy. Nothing can be added, but one word in caution. The whole is a little over-coloured. Scilly presents scenes of great interest, but the cliffs are by no means so fine as those of Land's End, and far inferior to those of the Lizard. Nevertheless, island clusters have a charm of their own distinct from the scenery of the fringe of the mainland, and a cluster Scilly is, intricate, and presenting great variety. There are one hundred and forty-five islets, large and small, forty miles due west from Lizard Point, and twenty-eight west-by-south from Land's End.

The views of the islands change remarkably, according to the state of the tide. At high-water the islands are separated by wide stretches of sea, while at the ebb extensive flats are uncovered, and some of the islands are apparently joined. The Crow Channel between S. Mary's and S. Martin's Isles has been forded on horseback, and a man is reported to have ridden from S. Mary's to Tresco, fording the arms of the sea at low spring-tide.

S. Martin's Island is difficult of approach at low tide from S. Mary's by boat on account of the distance to which the sands run out.

Such an archipelago was exactly suited to the requirements of the Celtic saints, who, if they spent most of their time in superintendence of their monasteries, retired for Lent to solitary places, and as they grew old resigned their pastoral staves to their coarbs (successors), and retreated to islets, there to prepare for the great change. The west coast of Ireland is studded with islets that still retain the cells of these solitaries. Wales had its Bardsey and Anglesea, and Caldey and Ramsey. And what these were to Irish and Welsh the Scilly group was to the saints of Cornwall. Thus we find there S. Elid, the Welsh S. Illog, S. Teon, who is the Euny of Lelant, S. Samson, and S. Warna.

I do not know that any of the remains of their venerable oratories have been found, but then they have not been looked for.

There are now churches on four of the isles.

There are three lighthouses—that of S. Agnes, a revolving light; that on an outlying rock, the Bishop, fixed; and that on Round Island, with a red light.

The heights in Scilly are not great; the highest point attained is one hundred and twenty-eight feet. There are some small fresh-water tarns.

The islands take their name from the old Silurian inhabitants, to whom they served as a last refuge where they could maintain their independence, just as the Arran Isles answered the same purpose to their kindred, the Firbolgs, in Ireland. But the general notion is that they take their designation from the conger eels, locally called selli. It is remarkable that they must at one time have contained a much larger population than at present, as the remains of hedges and houses in ruins indicate.

In 993 Olaf Trygvason, of Norway, with Sweyn Forkbeard, of Denmark, together with a fleet of ninety-three ships, came a-harrying the coasts of England. They sailed up the Thames and attacked London, but the citizens behaved with great valour, and beat them off. Then they ravaged the east coast of England, took and burnt Sandwich and Ipswich ; next they entered the Blackwater and attacked Maldon. There a great fight ensued. The Saxons were under the command of the eorlderman Britnoth. The Norsemen gained the day, and Britnoth was slain. It is with this battle that one of the earliest remains of Anglo-Saxon poetry deals. It is, unhappily, but a fragment. After recording the fall of the eorlderman, the poet concludes:—

"I am old of age, hence will I not stir;
I will sit by the side of my dead master;
I think to lay me down and die by him I loved."

On the doors of some of the churches in the East of England were formerly "Danes' skins," and the remains of these still exist. When the Anglo-Saxons did succeed in killing a Norseman they flayed him, and nailed his tanned skin against the church door.

Olaf stormed the Castle of Bamborough, then harried the Scottish coast, the Western Isles and the Isle of Man, then Ireland, where "he burned far and wide, wherever inhabited."

Not yet content with blood and flame, he crossed to Wales and ravaged there, then sailed to France to do there what mischief he could. After a while he turned back, and sighted the Scilly Isles, and then ran his fleet into the harbour of S. Mary's, the largest of the isles. Here Olaf heard tell of a hermit who lived in a cell among the granite crags, and who was believed to have the gift of prophecy.

"I will test his powers," said Olaf

Then he dressed up one of his men in his armour, gave him his spear and red-cross shield, and sent him to consult the old man.

But no sooner did the hermit see the fellow than he said, "Thou art not King Olaf, thou art a servant. Beware that thou be not false to him, that is my rede to thee." No more would he say.

Then the party returned to the ship and told Olaf. He was highly pleased, and went ashore in a boat with a small following, that he might consult the

anchorite as to the prospect of his being able to recover the kingdom of his ancestors.

The hermit was undoubtedly a Cornish Briton, and Olaf was obliged to hold communication with him through an interpreter from Ireland or Wales.

The old man said to him, "There is a great future in store for thee, Olaf. Thou wilt have to pass through much conflict, but in the end wilt reign in thine own land; and when that comes to pass remember to advance the faith, and to use every opportunity to turn men from their idols."

Now the interpreter knew that there was discontent simmering among the followers of the prince. They wanted to return to their homes with the plunder they had acquired, but Olaf set his face against this.

The interpreter, knowing that the men were mutinous, said a few words in Welsh or Irish to the hermit. He was afraid of himself giving warning to Olaf, lest the mutineers should wreak their resentment on him. So the anchorite told the king that there were those amongst his followers who plotted, and purposed seizing the opportunity of his being on land to execute their design of revolt.

Olaf precipitately returned to his ships, and found that the mutineers were making off with some of the ships. He hurried on board, gave chase, and a fight ensued. Finally the mutiny was quelled, but not without Olaf being wounded. His vessel then put into Tresco harbour, where were monks to whom Athelstan had granted land in 936. He was carried into the monastery, carefully tended, and was induced to receive baptism. Hitherto, though convinced that Christianity was the true religion, Olaf had never formally been enrolled in the Church. Unhappily, Olaf could not speak Cornish, and the abbot was ignorant of the Norse tongue, so that all communication had to go on through the interpreter, and Olaf did not receive much religious instruction. Nevertheless, as far as his lights went, he was sincere.

Then he returned to Norway to proclaim his right to the throne.

"To avenge his fathers slain,
And reconquer realm and reign,
Came the youthful Olaf home,
Through the midnight sailing, sailing,
Listening to the wild wind's wailing.
And the dashing of the foam.

"To his thoughts the sacred name
Of his mother, Astrid, came ;
And the tale she oft had told
Of her flight by secret passes.
Through the mountains and morasses,
To the home of Hakon old.

"Then his cruisings o'er the seas.
Westward to the Hebrides,
And to Scilly's rocky shore,
And the hermit's cavern dismal,
Christ's great name and rites baptismal.
In the ocean's rush and roar."

S. Mary's is the largest of the islands, and it has a population of over 1600 people; Tresco is the second; then S. Agnes, pronounced S. Anne's; then S. Martin's; next Bryher; after this comes S. Sampson, no longer inhabited; and the remainder are very small. The original population was doubt less Silurian or Ivernian; the traces, however, of this early race are few. The population now is less pure than on the mainland. Not only were there Irish colonists, but it is said that in the Civil Wars a Bedfordshire regiment was sent there—and forgotten; so the soldiers looked about for comely Scilly maids, married, and were content to be no more remembered in the adjacent island of Great Britain. In 1649 Sir John Grenville employed Scilly as a great nursery for privateers, and so swept the seas that the Channel trade was seriously injured. Parliament at length fitted out and despatched an expedition under Blake, and in June, 1651, compelled Sir John Grenville to surrender.

The islands belong to the Duchy of Cornwall, and thereby leased to the late Mr. Augustus Smith, who, firmly imbued with the notion that men must be manufactured by education rather than allowed to bring themselves up in independence, transported the population from the smaller islands and planted them about the schools. No doubt that the native originality, freshness, and force will be drilled out of the new generation, and they will all spell and think, and write and act alike. It is, however, sad to notice on islands now deserted the ruins of ancient farms.

The Scilly Isles are a great seat of the flower trade; previously early potatoes were grown there, but now these are imported.

Of flowers, narcissi and anemones are chiefly grown, and in the open, though large numbers of flowers are now under glass. As soon as the blooms show colour they are picked, and placed in water under cover. One may see in the interior of a cottage all the furniture stacked in a corner of the room, and the entire floor covered with pots and jars of water full of flower buds. If the blossoms need forcing to make them expand, they are put in warm water.

It is rare to see a field of flowers in full bloom. The damage caused by rain and wind is so great, that rather than run the risk they are picked when in bud.

One feature of the flower fields is that they are hedged about with escalonia, with its pretty shining leaves and pink flower. This shrub delights in wind, and it also serves to shelter the crop from the gales, as it stands clipping and grows vigorously.

Fishing is not much carried on, but anyone with a steam launch will be able to find good shelter in case of rough weather, and he can manage to catch as many fish as he desires. One prolific ground is round the Seven Stones Lightship, north-east of the isles.

It is a curious fact that little flotsam and jetsam comes up on the isles. The Atlantic tides divide and run up on each side of the tides that course along the shores of the islands.

Formerly Scilly was a favourite breeding-place for birds, but now they no longer employ it for this purpose, or do so to a very minor degree.

There are traces of streaming for tin in some of the isles, but no mineral veins are now known to run through the Scilly granite. Ferns abound, but the islands are a little disappointing to the botanist, though to a florist they are a paradise.

To give a true idea of Scilly I must quote from Armorel, for such as have not the book:—

"The visitor who comes by one boat and goes away by the next thinks he has seen this archipelago. As well stand inside a cathedral for half an hour and then go away thinking you have seen all. It takes many days to see these fragments of Lyonesse and to get a true sense of the place."

By the way, the idea that Scilly represents the peaks of a submerged realm of Lyonesse is altogether baseless. Lyonesse is the realm of Leon in Brittany, so-called because founded by colonists from Caerleon, who fled from the swords of the Saxons. It remained a little independent principality till at the close of the sixth century it became incorporated with the principality of Domnonia, in Brittany.

"Everywhere in Scilly there are the same features: here a hill strewn with boulders; there a little down with fern and gorse and heath; here a bay in which the water, on such days as it can be approached, peacefully laps a smooth white beach; here dark caves and holes in which the water always, even in the calmest days of summer, grumbles and groans, and, when the least sea rises, begins to roar and bellow—in time of storm it shrieks and howls. . . . All round the rocks at low tide hangs the long seaweed, undisturbed since the days when they manufactured kelp, like the rank growth of a tropical creeper: at high tide it stands up erect, rocking to and fro in the wash and sway of the water like the tree-tops of the forest in the breeze. Everywhere, except in the rare places where men come and go, the wild sea-birds make their nests; the shags stand on the ledges of the highest rocks in silent rows gazing upon the water below; the sea-gulls fly, shrieking in sea-gullic rapture—there is surely no life quite so joyous as the sea-gull's; the curlews call; the herons sail across the sky; and in spring millions of puffins swim and dive and fly about the rocks and lay their eggs in the hollow places of these wild and lonely islands."

Is not that beautiful writing? But it is not fanciful; it is beautiful because true, absolutely true. Go and see if it be not so.

Have you ever made acquaintance with the horrors of Lowestoft, a flat insipid shore, where the sea is always charged with mud and no breakers thunder, where the land scene is as dull and insipid as is the sea-scape? I was there last summer. It was a dismal place, made the more dismal by being invaded and pervaded, spread out, exposed, devoted to the " tripper." And I fled to the west coast to see the Atlantic, with the water crystal clear, through which you look down into infinity, and to the glorious cliffs about which that transparent water tosses, shakes its silver mane, curls its waves blue and iridescent as a peacock's neck, and I wondered that any should ever visit the east coast of England.

"All the islands, except the bare rocks, are covered with down and moorland, bounded in every direction by rocky headlands and slopes covered with granite boulders. And always, day after day, they came continually upon unexpected places: strange places, beautiful places: beaches of dazzling white; wildly-heaped earns; here a cromlech, a logan slone, a barrow; a new view of sea and sky and white-footed rock. I believe that there does not hve any single man who has actually explored all the isles of Scilly, stood upon every rock, climbed every hill, and searched on every island for its treasures of ancient barrows, plants, birds, earns, and headlands. Once there was a worthy person who came here as chaplain to S. Martin's. He started with the excellent intention of seeing everything. Alas! he never saw a single island properly: he never walked round one exhaustively. He wrote a book about them, to be sure; but he saw only half."

There are numerous cairns, barrows, kistvaens, and circles of stones in the islands, and Giant's Castle, in S. Mary's, is a good example of a cliff-camp of the Irish Firbolg type. A local guide attributes it to the Danes, but that is nonsense.

In Forth Hellick Bay Sir Cloudesley Shovel was washed ashore and buried.

In 1707 Sir Cloudesley in the Association, Captain Hancock in the Eagle, Sir George Byng in the Royal Anne, Captain Coney in the Romney, Lord Dudley in the St. George, Captain Piercy in the Firebrand, and a captured fireship, the Phœnix, were returning from Toulon after the capture of Gibraltar. On the morning of the 22nd October, the weather being thick and dirty, they came into soundings of nineteen fathoms. There is a tradition that a seaman on the admiral's ship warned the officer of the watch that unless the ship's course were altered they would soon be on the rocks of Scilly. This was reported to Sir Cloudesley, who was very angry. He had the man brought before him, and attempted to browbeat him, but the man stuck to his opinion. The admiral lost his temper, as he considered it a breach of decorum for a common mariner to dictate the course of the vessel to a superior officer, and he ordered the man to be hanged at the yard-arm. One request was granted to the sailor—that he should be allowed to read aloud a psalm to the assembled crew. This was permitted, and he read out Psalm cix.:—

"Hold not Thy tongue, O God of my praise: for the mouth of the ungodly, yea, the mouth of the deceitful, is opened upon us."

That night the ship was lost. At six in the evening the admiral, who had brought the fleet to during the afternoon, made sail again, and stood away under canvas. Directly after he made signals of distress, which were returned by several of the fleet. Sir George Byng in the Royal Anne, who was a mile to windward of him, saw the breakers, and saved his vessel with difficulty.

The Association, Sir Cloudesley's vessel, had struck at eight o'clock upon the Gilstones, a cluster of rocks of what are called the Western Isles, and in about two minutes went down with all on board save one. He clung to a piece of the wreck, and was swept on to the Hellweathers, where he remained for some time till rescued. The Eagle and the Romney were also lost with all hands. The Firebrand was lost as well, but the captain and some of the crew were rescued. The Phœnix ran ashore, but was got off again. The Royal Anne was saved. So was the S. George by the merest accident. She struck the same rock as the Association and about the same time, but the wave which sank the admiral's ship floated the S. George from the rocks.

The body of Sir Cloudesley Shovel was picked up at Forth Hellick by a soldier and his wife, who gave it decent burial in the sand. It was afterwards conveyed at Lady Shovel's desire to Westminster Abbey and laid there. She rewarded the soldier with a pension for life, and with the diamond ring from the finger of her husband.

Finally, with its amount of sunshine, with its equable temperature, and its air charged with ozone, I believe Scilly will be the sanatorium of the future.

Note.—Book to be consulted:—
Tonkin (J. C. and R. W. ), Guide to the Isles of Scilly. Penzance, n.d. A capital little book.