Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 11/The legend of the Bleeding Cave at Pendine
THE LEGEND OF THE BLEEDING CAVE AT PENDINE.
In one of the beautiful caverns which perforate the cliffs at Pendine, and form one of the natural defences against the inroads of the blue waters of Carmarthen Bay, the visitor is somewhat startled by finding huge drops of what has all the appearance of clotted blood. Looking upwards he sees the crimson fluid oozing out of the stone roof, sometimes trickling down the side of the cave, sometimes dropping, and bespattering the stones with an ugly stain. Of course there is a legend connected with it, a sad enough one too, and not much to the credit of the inhabitants of the days of old. The story runs thus:—
During the days of the Commonwealth, and just when the Protector had begun to breathe after his fight for the liberty of his country, a strange old man made his appearance in Pendine, and established himself in a vacant cottage upon the side of the hill. This cottage he repaired, and finally furnished on a scale of grandeur utterly unknown to the primative inhabitants. The garden began to bud and blossom in a manner unheard of in these parts, and, by the time autumn came, had become such a marvel of beauty, that the country folks came from far and near, just to get a peep at the blooming mass of flowers. More than a peep they seldom had, as the inner garden was completely hidden by the hedges of creepers; but although curiosity is a strong characteristic in the Welsh character, it is restrained and modified by an innate courtesy and deference; so the gazers were fain to content themselves, and only talked; that, you may be sure they did (as all Welshmen do) with a will, filing the gaps in the story by drawing largely upon their remarkably fertile imaginations.
No one could say any harm of the old man, simply because nobody really knew him; and yet he was not liked. The only servant who was admitted was an old woman, who went to clean, scrub, and cook, and, being deaf and dumb, she could give her neighbours no satisfaction on the score of curiosity.
Nothing could be quieter or more inoffensive than the life led by this mysterious old gentle- man, and he rarely showed himself beyond the wall of his garden, until September came, when he erected a flag-staff upon what was called the “Beacon.” He passed almost every hour of daylight at the place, now hoisting one coloured flag, now another, all the while watching the distant horizon (where lay the Devon coast) with a telescope.
One night a party of fishermen noticed a boat lying off Morvybachen Bay; but, darkness coming on, nothing more was seen of it until next morning it was found lying upon the sands, left, as it was said, by the tide. Where it had come from was a mystery, and served the people to talk of for many a day.
About a month went by, and then, a young and sad-looking woman was seen in the cottage garden. After a time she extended her walks to the beach, and, morning or evening, sometimes even at midnight, she might be seen pacing slowly along, never looking at or speaking to anyone, but keeping her beautiful face, so hopeless in its misery, turned to the sea.
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At first the little children, with that instinct of pity inherent in their innocent hearts, would creep up to her; but, when they heard their mothers talking mysteriously of the “lady,” they began to look at her with shy, wondering eyes, and keep far away; grouping together for protection as she walked by; yet in spite of this, the green hill below the cottage garden was the favourite play-ground, and continued so, until one day they all rushed shrieking down wild and pale with affright, some of the elder ones positively affirming that they had seen and heard the devil himself in the cottage garden, and that he was killing the “lady,” a fact strangely corroborated by the unearthly and terrible cries that were to be heard proceeding from the garden.
It was not difficult in those days to rouse the superstitions of the Welsh, and the country round soon echoed with the children's adventure; the story being proportionately increased, according to the narrator's feelings or passions. So the villagers sent their children to play far away from the cottage, and nothing would have tempted the bravest man among them to approach it after night-fall. At length an old hag fell ill, and, in her delirium, made sundry raving assertions, that she had seen the “lady” dancing with the witches round the flagstaff on the Beacon Hill, and changing into a black cat, scale the steepest cliffs, and moreover that the old man had sold himself to the devil for the love of the “lady.”
The consequences of these wild ravings, working as they did upon minds darkened with superstition and ignorance, were likely to be serious enough; when matters were brought to a crisis: a young, weak-headed girl, frightened by the woman's words, went off in a fit, and therein denounced the stranger, as having bewitched her, for selling him butter with a cross upon it.
This news spread like wildfire, and the credit of every illness, loss, or misfortune that had occurred in the neighbourhood during the year, was laid at the stranger's door; the people gathered in crowds, exciting each other by their mutual superstition. They rushed up the green hill to the cottage, a mad, infuriated mob, thirsting for vengeance, and demanding of the old man to come out and heal those he had stricken.
The door, however, resisted their efforts, and they were surging wildly about seeking another entrance, when the owner himself appeared, and, pointing to the trampled flower beds, asked what they meant by it. The answer was a yell of derision and rage; and some of the maddest seized the old man, swearing they would find out whether the devil was his master or no. Up the cliffs they scrambled, scarcely knowing what the end was to be, or how the test was to be given, but ere they had gone far a very spirit of hell must have broken loose among them; they pressed round upon the old man; one wretch made a blow at him with a stone and knocked him down; then, like wild beasts at the sight of blood, they grew drunk with it, and literally stoned and beat the hapless old man to atoms, bathing and strewing the cliff side with his blood and flesh.
The deed was barely over,—a few were looking pale and shuddering at the red stains upon their guilty hands—when a terrible cry rang up the hill, and immediately after the “lady” was among them. “My father? my father?” she cried. ”What have you done with my poor old father?”
No one answered, but many grew pale, and a shudder ran through the crowd as the girl stooped down, and lifted a mass of grey hair from the blood-stained grass.
“O my God!” she said, in a low, fierce tone, as she turned upon them. “You call yourselves Christians, and this a Christian land.” Then springing upon a projecting rock she went on. “Listen, murderers, and hear what you have done: the blood that is crying out from the earth for vengeance is my father's; he chose his king, rather than one he called a usurper; he lost all save life in the cause, so fled. My husband too was a soldier in the king's army; he was wounded and tried to escape, but they hunted him to worse than death, they drove him mad; and it was to give us a refuge, and to let him die in peace, my father came here. When he was ready for us he signalled across the Channel, and I brought my poor mad husband over the waters in the boat you found upon the beach. The cries your children heard were those of my husband; but they would have troubled you no more, he died to-day, and is now at the footstool of the Great God, and, with the poor old man you have murdered, is crying for God's judgment on you. And now hear my curse. O Almighty God, curse these men: may they ask for rest and find toil and trouble; may they go forth beggars and branded from the land they have disgraced, driven forth by the spirits of their forefathers; dying may they find mercy neither from man nor from Heaven." As the last words were upon her lips, she threw h«self from the rock, down the sheer precipice into the foaming water now raging in a storm, and her last curse actually seemed to rise from the ocean itself.
The crowd shrank away speechless and stricken, not a word was uttered as they crept back to their homes, carrying with them the terrible burthen of the curse.
By next day the ravens and carrion crows had cleared away every trace of the deed of blood from tho cliff above; but the earth which had drunk up the red flood would not hide the witness, and, in the cave beneath, gave and still gives testimony to the murder—the dead man's blood still remaining as a memorial of his fate. I. D. Fenton