Page:Cornish feasts and folk-lore.djvu/112

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loo Legends of Parishes, etc. her ear. Once before the Board of Guardians she talked sensibly for some time, then suddenly stopped and exclaimed, shaking her head : "Be quiet, you brute ! don't you see I am talking to the gentlemen ? " We must now, after this long digression, return to Mullion. Between it and the Lizard is a fine headland, the Rill, and on its summit are a number of loose, rough stones, known as the Apron String, which the country people say were brought here by an evil spirit, who intended to build with them a bridge across to France for the convenience of smugglers. He was hastening along with his load, which he carried in his apron, when one of its strings broke, and in despair he gave up the idea. On the opposite side of the Lizard, at the mouth of Helford river, stands the church of St. Anthony in Meneage ; like that of Gunwalloe it is little above the level of the sea, and is, also according to tradition, a votive offering. Some people of high rank, crossing over from Normandy to England, were caught in a storm, and in their peril vowed to St. Anthony that they would build a church in his honour if he would bring them safe into harbour. The saint heard their prayers, and the church was erected on the spot where they landed. Helford river, in CareVs days, was the haunt of pirates, and of it he says: "Falmouth's ower neere neighbour- hood lesseneth his vse and darkeneth his reputation, as quitting it onely to the worst sort of Seafarers, I mean Pirats, whose guilty breasts with an eye in their backs, looke warily how they may goe out, ere they will aduenture to enter, and this at un- fortified Hailford cannot be controlled, in which regard it not vnproperly brooketh his common term of Helford and the nickname of Stealford." On the subject of pirates a friend writes : — " The popular play of ' The Pirates of Penzance ' had not its origin in that town, but in the little fishing village of Penberth, near the Land's End ; but that, alas ! is in its ' custom port.' The captain of the pirate vessel, and all his ship's crew, were wrestlers. They would go out to the small Spanish, Dutch, and other merchant ships, and would ask for provisions, or tender assistance, and on making sure that