beasts passed through the town when they were
being carved, and the workmen reproduced on them
the strange beasts they saw.
There is an interesting and picturesque old slated house at the entrance to the churchyard.
The old custom of hurling is still observed at S. Columb on the feast, which is in November, and the silver ball is thrown in the market-place.
S. Columb Minor bench-ends, according to Hals, were of black oak, and bore the date 1525, and it had a fine rood-screen with loft, "a most curious and costly piece of workmanship, carved, and painted with gold, silver, vermillion, and bice, and is the masterpiece of art in those parts of that kind." This has all disappeared now.
S. Agnes' Head, pronounced S. Anne's, presumedly takes its name from Ann, the mother of the gods among the Irish Celts, and probably also among the Cymri. She gives her name to the Two Paps of Ana, in the county of Kerry. The parish was constituted late. There was no such parish at the time of the Conquest, and the present church was built and consecrated in 1484.
A story is told of a house in S. Agnes, When Wesley visited this part of Cornwall preaching, he was refused shelter elsewhere than in an ancient mansion that was unoccupied because haunted by ghosts.
Wesley went to the house, and sat up reading by candlelight. At midnight he heard a noise in the hall, and on issuing from his room saw that a banquet was spread, and that richly-apparelled ladies and gentlemen were about the board.
