Some Folklore from Tintagel
Alex Langstone
The folklore of Tintagel is dominated by King Arthur,
and Geoffrey of Monmouth was the first to document the Arthurian connection
with Tintagel in his History of the Kings
of Britain (Historia Regum Britnniae) which was written in the 1130s. The
Castle, built by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, in the 1230s is also connected,
within the tangled web of folklore, to the legendary tales of Tristan and
Isolde, as the castle at Tintagel was also the seat of King Mark. My favourite
piece of ‘Arthuriana’ in Tintagel is the indentation in the clifftop known as
King Arthur’s footprint, where the Victorians claimed that Arthur, as a giant,
could stand one foot on the ‘footprint’ and another in the churchyard of St
Materiana on the opposite cliff. However, there is much more to the folklore of
Tintagel than King Arthur.
Tintagel
has its very own sea serpent. In September 1907 the Aberdeen Journal reported a
sighting of a sea serpent by the Rev. T. C. Davies of Sheffield and Mr E
Dodgson, Chaplain at Jesus College Oxford. They first sighted the creature
about 11.45.am on September 12th. The report came in a letter to the Western
Morning News. They were seated on the edge of the cliff at Gullastem when their
attention was drawn to a black object moving very quickly along the surface
about 200 yards away towards Tintagel Head. In view for about a minute, the
serpent was at least twenty-foot-long, and was holding its head above the water
which appeared to have a large mane upon it. The two witnesses rued that they
had neither a telescope or a "Kodak
to take its likeness”.
The
tales of some of the charmers and conjurors of Tintagel and district are of great
interest and one such charmer was called ‘Old Martin’, who was practising his
craft in the village in the early part of the twentieth century. He would cure
warts using an absent treatment charm, where all he would ask for was the name
of the affected person. The warts were invariably gone within a week. He would
never accept payment for his services and he continued the old tradition of
never being thanked for his treatments as this was widely believed to render
the charm useless. He had an interesting charm for curing sprains. He would
take hold of the injured limb and say -
“As
Our Saviour went over God’s bridge; he caught his toe in a stone and got a
sprain. Then comes Peter who stretched it out, bone to bone, sinew to sinew,
skin to skin. I hope every drop of the blood in thy body will run, in the name
of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost”
‘Old Martin’ also had a charm to cure boils. The spell
was recited over the patient, using his or her name
“(Patient’s
name), three angels came from the west. One had fire; the others had water and
frost. Out Fire! In Water and Frost! In the name of the Father, the Son and the
Holy Ghost.”
Another charm, this time from 1930s Tintagel, gives
instructions on how to cure ringworm in humans. Take half a crown and encircle
the ringworm three times opposite the sun. The ringworm will dry and eventually
all infected skin will fall away leaving clear new skin.
Fenterleigh Cross, Bossiney
There
is an interesting account which reveals that several witch bottles were
discovered underneath an old wayside cross at Bossiney in the 1880s. The
antiquarian writer, H. Michell Whitley wrote about this discovery in Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries Vol 2,
1921 –
When
on a walking tour through North Cornwall about forty years ago I stopped to
sketch a wayside cross near Tintagel; and was told by the farmer of the
adjacent land that it was overthrown some time ago, and on setting it up again,
he found several bottles full of water, and with many pins in them, buried
around its foot. On inquiring the reason of these bottles being buried, I was
told at Boscastle that "If you are ill-wished you must take a bottle, fill
it with water, and put some pins in it, cork it tight, and then bury it. at the
foot of a holy cross; and the ill-wish will fall on the person who ill-wished
you.
First published in Meyn Mamvro No. 92 Winter/Spring 2017. Text taken from my recent book From Granite to Sea: The Folklore of Bodmin Moor and East Cornwall.
