Page:Cornish feasts and folk-lore.djvu/118

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io6 Legends of Parishes, etc. the unwary giants, walking over them as on firm ground, might fall into them and be killed. As this project failed, they were reluctantly compelled to remove the church to its present place, beyond the reach of their troublesome neighbours." — Rev. S. Rundle, Penzance Natural History Society, 1885-1886. The fine old mansion of Cottrell, situated on the River Tamar, was built in the reign of Henry VII. ; it belongs to the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, and is full of quaint treasures, many of the rooms and the furniture they contain dating from the time of Queen Elizabeth. But the only part that concerns us is a little chapel in the woods perched on a rock overhanging the river, of which this legend is told. It was erected by Sir Richard Edgcumbe, who was a partizan to Henry, Duke of Richmond, the rival of Richard III. A party of soldiers were sent to take him prisoner, but he managed to elude them and escaped into the woods, where his pursuers were so close upon his heels that he would certainly have been captured had not his cap, as he was climbing down this rock, fallen off his head and floated on the stream. On seeing it the men, thinking that Sir Richard had in despair drowned himself, gave up the chase. He shortly after crossed over to Brittany, where he stayed until the news came of the defeat and death of the king, when he returned home, and, in gratitude for his miraculous escape, caused this chapel to be built. Dupath Well, not far from Cottrell, was, according to tradition, the scene of a desperate duel between two Saxons, called by one authority Colan and Gotlieb, who were both suitors for the hand of the fair lady Gither ; but the Rev. R. S. Hawker, who has written a ballad on part of the legend, gives the name of Siward to the younger and favoured one who killed his rival, but who himself in the combat received a wound from which he soon after died. The same author has also put into verse the well-known story of Bottreaux bells. Bottreaux is the parish church of Bos- castle, a corruption of Bottreaux castle, and its tower is, and always has been, silent. When it was built the inhabitants, who had long been jealous of the beautiful peal at Tintagel, a neigh-