Page:Cornwall (Salmon).djvu/225

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MINSTER— MORVAL

whom was once the Duke of Wellington; the borough also returned the Cornish historian, Carew. Its charter was granted in the reign of Edward VI. Some of its members knew so little about it that one, being told he represented St. Michael's in Cornwall, imagined his constituency to be St. Michael's Mount.

Morvah (8 m. W. of St. Ives), sometimes called Morveth in the past, has a reputation for mermaids which would seem to link its name to the Breton name morverch, applied to these ladies of the sea. But Tonkin says, "Morva signifies locus maritimus," and perhaps he is right. The district is wild and barren. In this parish is the famous Chun or Chywoon Castle, the best of its kind in Cornwall. Though much mutilated, the two circular walls can still be traced, with their intermediate ditches, and we may guess that there was a third inner wall. The second wall was 12 ft. in thickness, and of a style of masonry that proves its date to be later than many Cornish hill castles, mere earth-works rather than mason work. We may with tolerable certainty conclude that Chûn was Irish, and perhaps it was built during the invasion of Irish saints and immigrants in the fifth century. Not far off is Chûn cromlech or kistvaen, surrounded by stones that once apparently formed a circle around it. This is certainly far older than the castle, and the work of a different race of men.

Morval (1 m. E. of Sand Place Station) has a temptingly Celtic-looking name, and there

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