CORNWALL day of doom, which task, though weary and hopeless, should yet save him from immediate and utter damnation. There are variations of the tale and of the task ; sometimes it is to drain Dozmare Pool with a leaky limpet-shell ; sometimes to carry back the sands that drift around Land's End. It is clear that in this tale a far more ancient folklore has attached to a comparatively modern personage ; which is not surprising when we find folklore myths attaching to Francis Drake, and even to Wesley. Mainly Celtic, but not essentially Cornish, are the legends of saints that we find in the duchy; and from these we judge that the "saint" of the Celtic Church was a less sacro- sanct and more human personage than the Latin Church afterwards chose to make him. Holy wells are common not only to all early Christian tradition, but also to all paganism. The many rocks, scattered boulders, cairns, and monoliths of Cornwall have all their traditions, linking them to the names of giants, saints. Sabbath- breakers, and of King Arthur. There are tales glowing with imagination told of death-ships and pirate-wreckers, smugglers and fishermen ; tales of mermaids, witches, changelings, of the souls of dead sailors haunting wild water creeks, and of the dead answering to their names when called. There are also traditions of submerged or sand-buried towns and churches, in some cases corroborated by fact. Of fblklore in a narrower sense, the belief in omens, charms, white witchcraft, supersti- 44
