The Lost Land of Lyinesse, or Lethowsow - Part 6

  The Scillonian ferry regularly crosses the waters above the legendary Lyonesse.  If you wish to use my photo please attribute this blog!

[cont.] "..."That Cornwall once extended further west may be inferred from hence, that about midway between the Land's End and Scilly are rocks called in Cornish Lethowsow; by the English, Seven-stones.

"The Cornish call the places within the stones Tregva, -- i.e., a dwelling;--and it has been reported that windows and other stuff have been fished up, and that fishermen still see tops of houses under water. From the Land's End to Scilly, a tract of thirty miles, is an equal depth of water, and the bottom of the sea a plain, level surface. St Michael's Mount is called in Cornish, Careg cowse in clowse--i.e., the hoary rock in the wood. Large trees with roots and bodies have been driven in by the sea of late years between St Michael's Mount and Penzance; and tradition says that at the time of the inundation which made the separation, one Trevelyan swam from thence on horseback; and in memory thereof the family, now in Somersetshire, bears gules a horse argent, from a less wavy argent, and azure, issuing out of a sea proper,"--Gough's Camden, vol. 1. p. 15...... [cont.]"

Hunt 1903

Map - Land's End

Map - Isles of Scilly

Map - Saint Michael's Mount 

Map - The Seven Stones  

The Lost Land of Lyinesse, or Lethowsow - Part 5

  The Scillonian ferry regularly crosses the waters above the legendary Lyonesse.  If you wish to use my photo please attribute this blog!

[cont.] "..."Strabo expressly tells us that the Cassiterides (so called from the Greek name of tin, there produced) were in his time only ten in number; whereas they are now divided into a hundred and forty rocky islets. Solinus also makes mention of a large and respectable island, called Silura, evidently the Scilly of present times, lying on Damnonian or Cornish coast, and separated from the mainland by a strait turbulent and dangerous--a character which sufficiently marks the compression of its waters. And William of Worcester, an author of our own country, thirteen centuries after Solinus, states, with a degree of positive exactness, stamping authenticity upon its recital, that between Mount's Bay and the Scilly Islands there had been woods, and meadows, and arable lands, and a hundred and forty parish churches, which before his time were submerged by the ocean. Uninterrupted tradition since this period, which subsists to the present day vigorous and particular, authenticates his account, and leaves no doubt upon the wind that a vast track of land, which stretched anciently from the eastern shore of Mount's Bay to the north-western rock of Scilly (with the exception of the narrow strait flowing between the Long-ships and Land's End), has, since the age of Strabo and Solinus, and previous to that of William of Worcester, been overwhelmed and usurped by the waves of the sea. . . . The depth of the water at the Land's End is about eleven fathoms; at the Long-ships, eight; to the north of them, twenty; to the south, thirty; and twenty-five, twenty, and fifteen fathoms between them and the north-west of Scilly. The shallowest water occurs in the mid-space between Cornwall and the Isles. "--A Tour through Cornwall in the Autumn of 1808, by the Rev. Richard Warner.

"Yet the cause of that inundation, which destroyed much of these Islands (the Scilly Islands), might reach also to the Cornish shores, is extremely probable, there being several evidences of a like subsidence of the land in the Mount's Bay. The principal anchoring-place, called a lake, is now a haven, or open harbour. The Mount, from its Cornish name, we must conclude to have stood formerly in a wood, but now, at full tide, is half a mile from the sea, and not a tree near it; and in the sandy beach betwixt the Mount and Penzance, where the sands have been dispersed by violent high tides, I have seen the trunks of several large trees in their natural position."-- Borlase, Phil. Trans., vol. xlviii. part I..... [cont.]"

Hunt 1903

Map - Longships

Map - Land's End

Map - Isles of Scilly

Map - Saint Michael's Mount 

The Lost Land of Lyinesse, or Lethowsow - Part 1

The Scillonian ferry regularly crosses the waters above the legendary Lyonesse.  If you wish to use my photo please attribute this blog!

"THOSE who may stand on the extreme point of the Land's End, and, looking over that space where the waters of the Atlantic mix with those of the British Channel, see in the far distance the Scilly Islands, will have to call upon their imagination to conceive that these broad waters roll over a country which has existed within historic time.

A region of extreme fertility, we are told, once united the Scilly Islands with Western Cornwall. A people, known as the Silures, inhabited this tract,--which has been called the Lyonesse, or sometimes Lethowsow,--who were remarkable for their industry and their piety. No less than 140 churches stood over that region, which is now a waste of waters; and the rocks called the Seven Stones are said to mark the place of a large city. Even tradition is silent on the character of this great cataclysm. We have only one hint--and we know not its value--which appears to show that the deluge was comparatively gradual. One of the ancestors of the Trevilians is said to have had time to remove his family and his cattle; but at last he had to fly himself with all the speed which a fleet horse could give him. From this it might appear that, though gradual at first, the waters, having broken down the barriers, burst over the whole at last with uncontrolled fury. ... [cont.]"

Hunt 1903

Map - Land's End

Map - Isles of Scilly
Map - The Seven Stones

Sunken Lands off Land's End

The Scillonian - a boat that often crosses this stretch of water - © Copyright Chris Walpole and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

 

"Between Land's End and Scilly rocks
Sunk lies a town that ocean mocks.
Where breathes the man that would not weep 

O'er such fine climes beneath the deep?"

Historical Records of Ancient Cornwall
--THOMAS HOGG." 

in Hunt 1903

The Pipers Holes

Piper's Hole on Tresco, Isles of Scilly. Image © Copyright Richard Croft and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

"On the banks of Peninnis, in St Mary's, is Piper's Hole, which communicates, as tradition saith, with the island of Tresco, where another orifice known by the same name is seen. Going in at the orifice at Peninnis Banks in St Mary's, it is above man's height, and of as much space in its breadth, but grows lower and narrower farther in a little beyond which entrance appear rocky basins, or reservoirs, continually running over with fresh water, descending as it distils from the sides of the rocky passage. By the fall of water heard further in, it is probable there may be rocky descents in the passage. The drippings from the sides have worn the passage, as far as it can be seen, into very various angular surfaces. Strange stories are related of this passage, of men going so far in that they never returned; of dogs going quite through, and coming out at Tresco, with most of their hair off; and such like incredibles. But its retired situation, where lovers retreat to indulge their mutual passion-, has made it almost as famous as the cave wherein Dido and Aeneas met of old. Its water is exceeding good.

[from] Heath's "Scilly Isles."  

These stories of Piper's Hole are still told, and many of the ignorant inhabitants regard it with superstitious dread. The Fugoe Hole, at the Land's End, has yet to be spoken of in the Witch stories. Several who have attempted to penetrate this hole have escaped only by great luck --" by the skin of their teeth," as the saying is."

Hunt 1903

 

 

Map - Pipers Hole on St Marys

Map - Pipers Hole on Tresco

[I cannot locate the Fugoe Hole]

The Armed Knight

The Armed Knight, or An Marogeth Arvowed. Image  © Copyright Tony Atkin and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

"AT low water there is to be seen, off the Land's End, towards the Scilly Island (probably so called from the abundance of eel or conger fishes caught there, which are called sillys, or lillis), for a mile or more, a dangerous strag of ragged rocks, amongst which the Atlantic Sea and the waves of St George's and the British Channel meeting, make a dreadful bellowing and rumbling noise at half-ebb and half-flood, which let seamen take notice of to avoid them.

"Of old, there was one of those rocks more notable than the rest, which tradition saith was ninety feet above the flux and reflux of the sea, with an iron spire at the top thereof, which was overturned or thrown down in a violent storm, 1647, and the rock was broken in three pieces. This iron spire, as the additions to Camden's "Britannia" inform us, was thought to have been erected by the Romans, or set up as a trophy there by King Athelstan, when he first conquered the Scilly Islands (which was in those parts); but it is not very probable such a piece of iron, in this salt sea and air, without being consumed by rust, could endure so long a time. However, it is or was, certain I am it commonly was called in Cornish, An Marogeth Arvowed, i.e., the Armed Knight; for what reason I know not, except erected by or in memory of some armed knight; as also Carne-an-peul, i.e., the spile, spire, or javelin rock. Again, remember silly lilly, is in Cornish and Armoric language a conger fish or fishes, from whence Scilly Islands is probably denominated, as elsewhere noted." (Hal; in Gilbert's History of Cornwall," vol iii. p. 43). Mr Blight says this rock is also called Guela, or Guelaz,--the "rock easily seen."

Hunt 1903

Map - Rocks off Lands End

Map - Isles of Scilly

The Romances of Lyoness

The Parting of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, by Julia Margaret Cameron.jpg The Parting of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere 1874 (Illustration to Tennyson's Idylls of the King and Other Poems). Sitters are Andrew Hichens and May Prinsep.

he Land's End is romantic and beautiful in the extreme, and the prospect from it is one of indescribable magnificence. Tradition says that it formerly was connected by land with the Scilly Islands. The sea has carried away the ridge of rocks and point of land which is said to have been the fabled Lyoness that now lies beneath the waves. All Cornwall is full of King Arthur, who was born on and lies buried in its soil; and as we gaze along the reef of rock that projects beyond the vast irregular bluffs, we think of Tristram and Lancelot, of Galahad and Percival, and of their great leader. What a charm hangs about the Arthurian romances! We are glad that they have been the subject of a great poet's genius, for the stories are full of great deeds, of noble ideas, of chivalrous feeling; a grand foundation for the character of a nation."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Lands End

Aethelstan battles the Britons.

Athelstan, c.895-939. Detail of stained glass window, All Souls College Chapel, Oxford.

"Climbing the ascent [from Lamorna Cove] Bolleit is reached, a battle plain on which Athelstane defeated the Britons in a last desperate struggle for their freedom. On the right of this road are some of the stones we have already described. Athelstane, after he had subjugated Cornwall (even to the Scilly Islands), founded a college for Augustine canons at Buryan."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Lamorna Cove
Map - Buryan

Gwavas Lake

Chyandour, 2008 -   © Copyright Bob Embleton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

"On the western side of Mount's Bay, between the fishing towns of Newlyn and Mousehole, is the well-known anchoring place known by the above name. It is not a little curious that any part of the ocean should have been called a lake. Tradition, however, helps us to an explanation. Between the land on the western side of the bay and St. Michael's Mount on the eastern side, there at one time extended a forest of beech-trees. Within this forest on the western side was a large lake, and on its banks a hermitage. The saint of the lake was celebrated far and near for his holiness, and his small oratory was constantly resorted to by the diseased in body and the afflicted in mind. None ever came in the true spirit who failed to find relief. The prayers of the saint, and the waters of the lake, removed the pains from the limbs and the deepest sorrows from the mind. The young were strengthened, and the old revived, by their influences. The great flood, how ever, which separated the islands of Scilly from England submerged the forest, and destroyed the land enclosing this lovely and almost holy lake, burying beneath the waters churches and houses, and destroying alike both the people and the priest. Those who survived this sad catastrophe built a church on the hill, and dedicated it to the saint of the lake, or, in Cornish, St. Pol, modernised into St. Paul. In support of this tradition, we may see on a fine summer day, when the tide is low and the waters clear, the remains of a forest, in the line passing from St. Michael's Mount to Gwavas. At neap tides the people have gathered beech-nuts from the sands below Chyandour, and cut the wood from the trees embedded in the sand.--ibid., 218."

Hope 1893

Map - Gwavas Lake

Great Miss Tor and the Devil's Frying Pan

'On the top [of Great Miss Tor] is a natural rock-basin, called Mis Tor Pan, about 10 feet in circumference, which is supposed to be the work of the Druids, to whom anything prehistoric is readily attributed, when we know little about them. From another agent to whom superstitious country folk are apt to credit anything mysterious, it gets the nickname The Devil's Frying Pan; but it is apparently natural.  At the top of Vixen Tor are three similar basins, and they occur frequently on other parts of the moor.

Hope Moncrieff 1895

Vixen Tor - Cresswell 1921

[I know of one on Kes Tor, and the puggie-stone near Chagford may well have one, though I haven't seen it.  In the Isles of Scilly on St Agnes there is the Punch Bowl - also in granite. The picture bellow is of the basin on Kes Tor]

History of the south-west according to Hunt

'The Romans came and possessed the land. Even to the most westerly promontory, we have evidences of their rule, and indications of their superiority. The Saxons overcame the Damnoni--Athelstane drove the Cornish beyond the Tamar, and planted his banner on the Scilly Islands;--and this Teutonic people diffused their religion and their customs over the West. [g] The Dane followed upon the Saxon, and he has left his earthworks, in evidence of his possession, upon the Cornish hills.[h] The Norman conquerors eventually took possession of our island, and several of the existing families of Cornwall can speak of ancestors, who won their lands by favour of William, the Duke of Normandy.

[g] "Athelstane (937) handled them yet more extremely, for he drove them Out of Excester, where, till then, they bore equal sway with the Saxons, and left them only the narrow angle on the west of Tamar river for their inheritance, which bath ever since beene their fatall bound."--Carew, p. 96
[h] "And divers round holds on the tops of hill; some single, some double, and treble trenched, which are termed Castellan, Denis or Danis is, as raysed by the Danes when they were destyned to become our scourge."--Carew, p. 85.'
Hunt 1903

Giant's Graves

'Mardon; on Dartmoor, has a Giant's Grave, [m] and from that rude region, travelling westward, we find these graves--proving the mortality of even this Titan race--rising on many a moor and mountain, until, crossing the sea, we see numerous giants' graves in the Scilly Islands; as though they had been the favourite resting-places of the descendants of those who dreamed of yet more western lands, beneath the setting sun, which were, even to them, "the Islands of the Blest." [n]
[m] See Shorts's Collection, p. 28.
[n] Mr Augustus Smith, in the Reports of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, has described one of the graves opened by him during a visit paid by the Cambrian Archeological Society to the Scilly Isles.'


Hunt 1903