Stories and folk-lore of West Cornwall. Third Series

The publication of the present work has been attended by circumstances of pathetic interest. It is to be feared that it will be the last literary testament of its author, who, b...

That instant Trevail felt himself seized, all unawares, by his waistband and lifted clear off the ground. It seemed to the man as if the Old One rose with him many yards above t...

“Stop, for goodness sake,” cried the parson, “leave Dosmery and Tregagle to the charge of Old Nick and be—be attentive to what I have farther to say regarding our own devil, and...

He was borne to Gulval Church and laid in the vault at night, as was the fashion then with some of our old families. His burial was attended by many friends; and when some of th...

Having placed the ghost on his right hand side, he passed with him three times around the enclosed hill-top, going from east to west, or with the sun, and keeping close to the w...

The reverend gentleman, on entering the lawyer’s bedroom, drew back the window curtains, and said, whilst shaking hands, “I hope to be excused for calling at this unseasonable h...

When the female guests came down, with their dresses pinned up, that they mightn’t be foust (soiled or rumpled) they found dinner served. Mary took from the dresser pewter flago...

I remember being down in Uncle Oliver Pooley’s Mill, in Nancherrow Bottom, one afternoon about the time Dick Rostram went to St. Just feast. Two women were there awaiting their...

In short, beef and pie were soon served out and devoured. The tinner’s wife had, happily, kept her pudding in the spence out of sight, when she found that her feasters would nei...

“And each, in turn, would some fond theme relate; Not of perplexing plans to mend the State, But seriously renew some oft-told tale, Or ancient legend of some spectre pale, Or w...

With joy they see the mutton store, And “heava” sound from shore to shore: So counting honestly the sheep A God-send from the stormy deep, All hands turned-to, with wonderous pa...

Oh, dear! O, dear! what headstrong crathers the womankind is! The more you want them to do any thing that’s right, the surer they are not to do it, unless the advice is given to...

Well, then, he pulled out a letter from their son; and, between laughing and crying, they read, how at first he wrote after getting into business, and then when the trouble came...

Many fanciful meanings have been given for the name of Lanyon or Lenine; yet there appears to be little doubt that the name is a contraction of Lanython, which is composed of La...

As pretty fair examples of the adaptability of the old English to all the exigencies of modern comfort and refinement, and to prove that one may do whatever one likes with this...

Another day, whilst the parson was reading the burial service over the defunct, his dog Sport behaved himself in a very unseemly manner, for such a solemn occasion, by kicking u...

The lanes, in many places, are more like rocky water-courses than roads, and so narrow that a horse and panniers can scarcely pass between the high furzy hedges, and so uneven t...

St. Levan people are said to have acquired their remarkable name of St. Levan Witches from the belief—once general—that the inhabitants of that remote parish were, in days of yo...

When the feast was over with many, yet others would turn out for slinging matches, on the Wednesday. This sport, if it may be called so (often more like a battle), is as ancient...

Old country folk may still be often heard chanting this ancient effusion, with all its repetitions. It is more frequently, however, recited or taught to children as a kind of pi...

Another belief, which still holds good, is that when a child is born in the interval between an old moon and the first appearance of a new one, it will never live to attain to p...

[1] The once general custom of “touching the cravel” for the purpose of averting evils foreshadowed by ill-omens, &c., seems to have almost died out with the disuse of open fire...