70 Legends of Parishes, etc. tricts that no one can bear witness to a misdemeanour, seen through glass. I will describe another rough ordeal before I go on to the legends of the Land's End district. It is called "Riding the hatch," or "heps" (a half-door often seen at small country shops). Any man formerly accused of immorality was brought before a- select number of his fellow parishioners, and by them put to sit astride the " heps," which was shaken violently backwards and forwards : if he fell into the house he was judged innocent ; but out on the road, guilty. When any one has been brought before his superiors and remanded he is still figuratively said " to have been made to ride the ' heps.' " Hands are washed, as by Pontius Pilate, to clear a person from crime, and to call any one " dirty-fingered " is to brand him as a thief. On a bench-end in Zennor church there is a very singular carving of a mermaid.. To account for it Zennor folks say that hundreds of years ago a beautifully-attired lady, who came and went mysteriously, used occasionally to attend their church and sing so divinely that she enchanted all who heard her. She came year after year, but never aged nor lost her good looks. At last one Sunday, by her charms, she enticed a young man, the best singer in the parish, to follow her : he never returned, and was heard of no more. A long time after, a vessel lying in Pendower cove, into which she sailed one Sunday, cast her anchor, and in some way barred the access to a mermaid's dwelling. She rose up from the sea, and politely asked the captain to remove it. He landed at Zennor, and related his ad- venture, and those who heard it agreed that this must have been the lady who decoyed away the poor young man. Not far from St. Just is the solitary, dreary cairn, known as Cairn Kenidzhek (pronounced Kenidjack), which means the "hooting cairn," so called from the unearthly noises which proceed from it on dark nights. It enjoys a bad reputation as the haunt of witches. Close under it lies a barren stretch of moorland, the " Gump," over it the devil hunts at night poor lost souls ; he rides on the half- starved horses turned out here to graze, and is sure to overtake them at'a particular stile. It is often the scene of demon fights, when one holds the lanthorn to give the others light, and is also a great resort
