churches have often fulfilled this double purpose, a lighthouse for both worlds; and the lantern is now known as St. Michael's Chair, with a tradition that whichever of man and wife sits there first will thereafter rule supreme in all domestic matters; but the true Chair, as Carew described it, was "a little without the castle," a craggy seat on the western side of the Mount, where there was once an oratory. There was good reason why pilgrims should resort hither in the past: "Know all men that the most Holy Father Gregory, in the year from the incarnation of our Lord 1070, bearing an affection of extraordinary devoutness to the Church of St. Michael's Mount, has piously granted to all the faithful who shall reach or visit it, with their oblations, a remission of a third part of their penances." The human aspect peeps out in the mention of alms and oblations; centres of pilgrimage have always had a rich pecuniary value. Southey deals with St. Michael's Chair in one of his ballads, which reminds us that St. Keyne, whom he also treated poetically, is supposed to have visited the Mount when she came to Cornwall—to which we must add a surmise that this saint may not have been a woman at all, but was really St. Kenwyn. The Mount is only insular during high tide, yet at such times, exposed to the full force of the sea, the passage sometimes becomes impracticable; and there are many low tides when it is not safe or even possible to cross the causeway. Perhaps at any time those who see the rock from a distance can best appreciate its charm. From Marazion to Penzance there are three miles of flat, uninteresting road — perhaps the dullest bit of coast-road in all Cornwall, were it not for the beauty of the Bay.
