The Irish Lady - a ghostly rock - Part 2

The Irish Lady is in the bottom right of the picture, Land's End is top right. Image by © Copyright Graham Horn and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

[cont...] "...Sir Humphrey Davy wrote a poem on this tradition. The following is an extract from it:--

"Where yon dark cliff  o'ershadowa the bltte main,

[ - A rock near the Land's End called the "Irish Lady."]

Theora died amidst the stormy waves,
And on its feet the sea-dews wash'd her corpse
And the wild breath of storms shook her black locks.
Young was Theora; bluer was her eye
Than the bright azure of the moonlight night;
Fair was her cheek, as is the ocean cloud
Red with the morning ray.

" Amidst the groves,
And greens, and nodding rocks that overhang
The gray Killarney pans'd her morning days,
Bright with the beams of joy.

"To solitude,
To nature, and to God, she gave her youth;
Hence were her passions tuned to harmony.
Her azure eye oft glisten'd with the tear
Of sensibility, and her soft cheek
Glow'd with the blush of rapture. Hence she loved
To wander 'midst the green wood silver'd o'er
By the bright moonbeam. Hence she loved the rocks,
Crowu'd with the nodding ivy, and the lake
Fair with the purple morning, and the sea
Expansive, mingling with the arched sky.

"Dark in the midnight cloud,
When the wild blast upon its pinions bore
The dying shrieks of Erin's injured Sons,
She 'scaped the murderer's arm. 

[The Irish lady was shipwrecked at the Land's End about the time of the massacre of the Irish Protestants by the Catholics, in the reign of Charles the First. So says Davy--the tradition is very old.]

"The British bark
Bore her across the ocean. From the west
The whirlwind rose, the fire-fraught clouds of heaven
Were mingled with the wave. The shatter'd bark
Sunk at thy feet, Boleriutn, and the white surge
Closed on green Erin's daughter."

-- PARIS's Life of Sir Humphrey Davy, p. 38

This kind of tradition is not uncommon."

Hunt 1903




Map - The Irish Lady

The Irish Lady - a ghostly rock - Part 1

The Irish Lady is in the bottom right of the picture, Land's End is top right. Image by © Copyright Graham Horn and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

"Near Pedn-men-dw, the "Headland of Black Rock," is a curiously-shaped rock, known as the Irish Lady. In days long ago some adventurous sailors from Ireland were shipwrecked at night on this rock, and every soul perished, save a lady, who was seen in the morning sitting on the top of the rock. The storm was still raging, and it was quite impossible to render this solitary sufferer any assistance. Days and nights passed away the people watched the dying woman from the shore, but they could not reach her. At length they saw that her sufferings were at an end; and at last the dead body was washed into the sea. Often, when the winds and waves are high, the fishermen see a lady tranquilly sitting on this rock, with a rose in her mouth; to show, it may be presumed, her perfect indifference to the ragings of tempests..." [cont...]

Hunt 1903

Crying the Neck in the West Country

Crying the Neck in Cornwall 2008 - By Talskiddy (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

"A VERY old custom, that of crying the neck at the end of corn harvest, still obtains in some parishes in the west of England.

When the last sheaf of wheat is cut at the end of August, the reapers take the very last handful of straw and plait the ends together, tying them with lengths of bright-coloured ribbons ; then, lifting it high above their heads, wave their sickles frantically, and shout :

We-ha-neck ! we-ha-neck !
Well aplowed ! well asowed !
We've areaped ! and we've amowed !
Hurrah ! hurrah ! hurrah !
Well-a-cut well abound !
Well-a-zot upon the ground !
We-ha-neck ! we-ha-neck '
Hurrah ! hurrah ! hurrah !...

[I have put the discussion of Newton Abbot and Paignton ceremonies, discussed here by Hewett, in their own separate posts]

...The word a-neck is said to be derived from the Celtic language, and means " saved." Others claim for it an Irish origin, as the word "anaie" in that country means " save thou me." While another suggestion is that the custom may have been derived from the Jewish ceremonial of the wave offering mentioned in Leviticus xxiii, 10, and following verses, and introduced by the early Hebrew settlers in Britain. A long correspondence was carrried on in August, 1898, in the Western Morning News, on this ceremony, from which I glean that the practice is identical in every part of the county, but there are differences in the mode of its performance."

Hewett 1900

Introduction to Mayday by Hewett

Lustliegh May Queen Rock -  By Owain.davies (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

"From the time of the Roman evacuation of Britain, A.D. 410, May Day festivals have been observed throughout the country. The Saxons retained the worship of Maia, the mother of Jupiter, on the first of the month, and from this custom the month derived its name.

This popular festival was observed with the joyful ringing of bells, music, dancing, and mummings. Every building was covered with a profusion of floral decorations. Kings and queens did not object to join the members of their Court, civic dignitaries, and the populace, in the enjoyment of May Day gaieties. The makers of the fun adorned themselves with wreaths and festoons of flowers. Girls, wearing a profusion of flowers, danced around the Maypole to the wild strains of fifes and drums. Men visited the beer shops, where they imbibed more than was good for them.

As the custom grew old, abuses crept in, and what was once a picturesque and innocent recreation degenerated into frantic drunken revels, which were a scandal and a nuisance."

Hewett 1900

[At a time when the government are threatening to remove our mayday bank-holiday it is worth remembering that this is among  the oldest holidays in Britain. As the festival was celebrated in Pagan Ireland it is very likely that it pre-dates the Romans and is thus our oldest that is true to its roots as a celebration of the changing year.]

The Irish Lady

The Irish Lady rock - Some rights reserved by polandeze  http://www.flickr.com/photos/polandeze/376377756/sizes/z/in/photostream/

"For the above incidents, and for some other legendary stories, we are indebted to Mr. Hunt, who collected and published them in his " Popular Romances of the West of England." From these and from other sources we have also learned from what the rock called the "the Irish Lady," near Pedn-men-dhu (the headland of Biack Rock), takes its name. It is a pathetic story. In a terrible storm an Irish vessel was one night wrecked on this rock. Only one of her passengers-none of the crew-escaped; and this was a lady, who was seen the next morning sitting on the top of the rock. The fishermen would have been rejoiced to rescue her, had it been possible; but it was not The wind and waves rendered the rock inaccessible while the storm lasted, and it continued for two days and nights. When at last it ceased, the lady had disappeared she had probably fainted from exhaustion, and had been washed away by the waves. What her feelings must have been, sitting there in sight of land, and of human beings powerless to help her, we can only dimly imagine. Long afterwards the fishers of the Land's End used to declare that they saw her seated on the rock, and heard her wailing cry, whenever the storm was at its height.

Sir Humphrey Davy wrote a poem on this tragical occurrence."

Valentine (undated)

Map - The Irish Lady

Saint Ruan's or Saint Rumon's Well, Grade

"The well is about a quarter of a mile from Grade Church, rudely built of granite. Its water is used for all baptisms in the church. St. Rumon is believed to have come as a missionary from Ireland in the ninth or tenth century, and to have dwelt in a wood near Grade Church and the Lizard Point, having a cell and chapel, and regardless of the wild beasts which then roamed there. His name excited such reverence, that his remains were removed to Tavistock Abbey."

Hope 1893

Map -Saint Ruan's Well

Map - Lizard Point

Map - Tavistock Abbey

Tolman Stones

"In various parts of the county [Cornwall] there are, amongst the granitic masses, rocks which have fallen across each other, leaving small openings, or there are holes, low and narrow, extending under a pile of rocks. In nearly every case of this kind, we find it is popularly stated, that any one suffering from rheumatism or lumbago would be cured if he crawled through the openings. In some cases, nine times are insisted on "to make the charm complete."

Mrs Bray, in her "Traditions of Devonshire," gives several examples of the prevalence of this superstition over the granitic district of Dartmoor. [a]

[a] "Creeping under tolmens for the cure of diseases is still practised in Ireland, and also in the East, as is shown by Mrs Colonel Elwood In her Trayels."--Gentlemen's Magazine, July 1831."

Hunt 1903

[The Tolman Stone near Scorhill Circle on the North East edge of the open moor on Dartmoor has, I am told, still got this property.]

Merrymaids and Merrymen part 2

"...The Irish legends make us acquainted with the amours of men with those sea-sirens. We learn that the Merrows, or Moruachs, came occasionally from the sea, and interested themselves in the affairs of man. Amongst the fragments which have been gathered, here a pebble and there a pebble, along the Western coast, will be found similar narratives.

The sirens of the Aegean Sea--probably the parents of the medieval mermaid--possess in a pre-eminent degree the beauty and the falsehood of all the race. Like all other things, even those mythical creations take colour from that they work in, like the dyer's hand. The Italian mermaid is the true creature of the romance of the sunny South; while the lady of our own southern seas, although she possesses much in common with her Mediterranean sister, has less poetry, but more human sympathy. - The following stories, read in connection with those given by Mr Keightley and by Mr Croker, will show this.

(See "The Fairy Family: a Series of Ballads and Metrical Tales Illustrating the Fairy Mythology of Europe," Longman, 1857; "The Fairy Mythology, Illustrative of the Romance and Superstitions of Various Countries," by Thomas Keightley; and "Irish Fairy Legends," by Crofton Croker.)..." [cont.]

Hunt 1903

The Irishman's Wall

[There are two similar legends I know of this wall, differing only in one small detail. One I read of some time ago, and one I heard from a Dartmoor parks guide who grew up in Belston.

The Irishman's Wall, on Belstone parish dates back to the time of the enclosures. At this time a rich newcomer turned up - either that or he had been long away from the parish, perhaps in Ireland, amassing much wealth.  He decided to put his wealth to work, and at that age, as now, money meant a lot to the law of the land, if not its people. Employing incomers to work for him (the wall is not a typical Dartmoor construction) - again, possibly from Ireland - he set to work enclosing a large area of the common of Belstone for his private use. This was a barbaric time, and across the land the poor people suffered greatly, and the wedge of greed  was well and truly driven home between the peasant and the land.  If completed the wall would have deprived many of the villagers of the food in their belly, the peat in their hearths, and even the stone to repair their houses with.

Here the written and the told stories diverge a fraction.  The written version (I cannot recall the book) tells of how while the rich man's lackeys built the wall over the breast of the hill the locals followed just out of site over the brow knocking it down.

The guide told a slightly more cunning story - he said the locals waited till pretty much the day it was finished, when the rich man had sunk all his assets into it. That night they went out on mass and before dawn broke every foot of the wall was torn down and scattered - the common of Belstone could not be enclosed!  When sun rose not a villager was to be seen, but the rich man was ruined, and to this day the land of Belstone parish is unenclosed.]

The Small People

Of the Small People I have heard two accounts. Indeed, it is by no means clear that the tradition of their origin does not apply to the whole five branches of this ancient family. The Small People are believed by some to be the spirits of the people who inhabited Cornwall many thousands of years ago--long, long before the birth of Christ. That they were not good enough to inherit the joys of heaven, but hat they were too good to be condemned to eternal fires. They were said to be "poor innocents" (this phrase is now applied to silly children). When they first came into this land, they were much larger than they are now, but ever since the birth of Christ they have been getting smaller and smaller. Eventually they will turn into muryans (ants), and at last be lost from the face of the earth. These Small People are exceedingly playful amongst themselves, but they are usually demure when they know that any human eye sees them. They commonly aid those people to whom they take a fancy, and, frequently, they have been known to perform the most friendly acts towards men and women. The above notion corresponds with the popular belief in Ireland, which is, "that the fairies are a portion of the fallen angels, who, being less guilty than the rest, were not driven to hell, but were suffered to dwell on earth." [d] In Cornwall, as in Wales, another popular creed is, that the- fairies are Druids becoming--because they will not give up their idolatries--smaller and smaller. These Small People in many things closely resemble the Elves of Scandinavia.'

Hunt 1903