p>Notes and Queries, Number 45, September 7, 1850
NOTES
FOLK LORE
The First Mole in Cornwall; a Morality from the Stowe of Morwenna, in the Rocky Land.—A lonely life for the dark and silent mole! She glides along her narrow vaults, unconscious of the glad and glorious scenes of earth, and air, and sea! She was born, as it were, in a grave, and in one long living sepulchre she dwells and dies! Is not existence to her a kind of doom? Wherefore is she thus a dark, sad exile from the blessed light of day? Hearken! Here, in our own dear Cornwall, the first mole was a lady of the land! Her abode was in the far west, among the hills of Morwenna, beside the Severn sea. She was the daughter of a lordly race, the only child of her mother, and the father of the house was dead. Her name was Alice of the Lea. Fair was she and comely, tender and tall; and she stood upon the threshold of her youth. But most of all did men wonder at the glory of her large blue eyes. They were, to look upon, like the summer waters, when the sea is soft with light! They were to her mother a joy, and to the maiden herself—ah! benedicite—a pride. She trusted in the loveliness of those eyes, and in her face, and features, and form: and so it was that the damsel was wont to pass the summer's day, in the choice of rich apparel, and precious stones, and gold. Howbeit this was one of the ancient and common customs of those old departed days. Now, in the fashion of her stateliness, and in the hue and texture of her garments, there was none among the maidens of old Cornwall like Alice of the Lea. Men sought her far and nigh, but she was to them all, like a form of graven stone, careless and cold. Her soul was set upon a Granville's love, fair Sir Bevil of Stowe, the flower of the Cornish chivalry—that noble gentleman! that valorous knight! He was her star. And well might she wait upon his eyes; for he was the garland of the west—the loyal soldier of a sainted king. He was that stately Granville who lived a hero-life, and died a warrior's death!
Now there was signal made of banquet in the halls of Stowe, of wassail, and the dance. The messengers had sped, and Alice of the Lea would be there. Robes, precious and many, were unfolded from their rest, and the casket poured forth jewel and gem, that the maiden might stand before the knight victorious! It was the day—the hour—the time. Her mother sate by her wheel at the hearth. The page waited in the hall. She came down in her loveliness into the old oak room, and stood before the mirrored glass. Her robe was of woven velvet, rich, and glossy, and soft; jewels shone like stars in the midnight of her raven hair, and on her hand there gleamed, afar off, a bright and glorious ring! She stood—she gazed upon her own countenance and form, and worshipped! "Now all good angels succour thee, dear Alice, and bend Sir Bevil's soul! Fain am I to see thee a wedded wife, before I die! I yearn to hold thy children on my knee! Often shall I pray to-night that the Granville heart may yield! Thy victory shall be my prayer!"
"Prayer!" was the haughty answer; "with the eyes that I see in that glass, and this vesture meet for a queen, I lack no doubting prayer!"
Saint Mary shield us! Ah words of evil soul! There was a shriek—a sob—a cry: and where was Alice of the Lea? Vanished—gone. They had heard wild tones of sudden music in the air. There was a rush—a beam of light—and she was gone, and that for ever! East sought they her, and west, in northern paths and south; but she was never more seen in the lands. Her mother wept till she had not a tear left; none sought to comfort her, for it was vain. Moons waxed and waned, and the crones by the cottage-hearth had whiled away many a shadowy night with tales of Alice of the Lea.
But, at the last, as the gardener in the Pleasance leaned one day on his spade, he saw among the roses a small round hillock of earth, such as he had never seen before, and upon it something which shone. It was her ring! It was the very jewel she had worn the day she vanished out of sight! They looked earnestly upon it, and they saw within the border (for it was wide) the tracery of certain small fine letters in the ancient Cornish tongue, which said,—
"Beryan Erde,
Oyn und Perde!"
Then came the priest of the Place of Morwenna, a gray and silent man! He had served long years at a lonely altar, a bent and solitary form. But he had been wise in the language of his youth, and he read the legend thus—
"The earth must hide
Both eyes and pride!"
Now, as he uttered these words, they stood in the Pleasance by the mound; and on a sudden there was a low faint cry! They beheld, and O wondrous and strange! there was a small dark creature, clothed in a soft velvet skin, in texture and in hue like the Lady Alice her robe; and they saw, as it went into the earth, that it moved along without eyes, in everlasting night. Then the ancient priest wept, for he called to mind all these things, and saw what they meant; and he showed them how this was the maiden, who had been visited with doom for her pride. Therefore her rich array had been changed into the skin of a creeping thing and her large proud eyes were sealed up; and she herself had become
The first mole!
Of the hillocks of Cornwall!
Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day! that damsel so stately and fair, sweet Lady Alice of the Lea, should be made for a judgement—the dark mother of the moles!
Now take ye good heed, Cornish maidens, how ye put on vain apparel, to win love. And cast down your eyes, all ye damsels of the west, and look ye meekly on the ground! Be ye good and gentle, tender and true; and when ye see your image in the glass, and begin to be lifted up with the beauty of that shadowy thing, call to mind the maiden of Morwenna, her noble eyes and comely countenance, the vesture of price and the glittering ring. Sit ye by the wheel, as of old they sate and as ye draw the lengthening wool, sing ye ever-more and say,
"Beryan Erde,
Oyn and Perde!"
"A whistling Wife" &c.—I can supply another version of the couplet quoted in "Folk Lore" (Vol. ii., p. 164.), which has the merit of being more rhymical and mysterious. In what district it was current I know not.
"A whistling wife and a crowing hen
Will call the old gentleman out of his den."
A Charm for Warts.—In some parts of Ireland, especially towards the south, they place great faith in the following charm:—When a funeral is passing by, they rub the warts and say three times, "May these warts and this corpse pass away and never more return;" sometimes adding, "in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."
"Hanging out the Broom".—Besides the instance given by Mr. R.F. Johnson (Vol. i., p. 384.), perhaps some of your readers can inform me of the origin of a somewhat similar custom, applicable to all ships and vessels for sale or hire, by the broom (all old one being generally used) being attached to the mast-head: if of two masts, to the foretop-mast head.
LORD PLUNKET AND SAINT AGOBARD
Some of your readers may remember a speech in parliament by, as I think, Lord Plunket, in which his lordship argued with great eloquence in behalf of the Bill for the Emancipation of the Roman Catholics. Among many passages therein of equal truth and rhetorical power, there was one long afterwards much quoted, paraphrased, and praised. It was that in which he reminded the House, that those for whom he pleaded were fellow-subjects of the same race, offspring of the same Creator, alike believers in the One true God, the equal recipients of His mercies, appealing for His blessings though the medium of the same faith, and looking forward for salvation to the One Intercessor, Mediator, and Sacrifice for all,—men, who, as they did, addressed the Eternal in the form of that "Universal prayer"—Our Father—the authority and the privilege of one common parentage, offered by the all in the union of the same spirit, in the conviction of the same wants, in the aspiration of the same hope. I say, I think Lord Plunket so spoke, for I write from memory dating from the period when George the Third was king. Now be this so: according to the dogmas of some critics, Lord Plunket may be convicted of an eloquent plagiary. Read the following extract from a missive by S. Agobard, to be found in the Bibl. Vet. Patrum, tome xiii, page 429., by Galland, addressed "Ad præfatum Imperatorem, adversus legem Gundobadi et impia certamina quæ per eam geruntur,"