Chapter X: Part 10

As this matter is really serious, we have drawn up a short list of acts of Vandalism committed in Cornwall within the memory of living man. That list could easily be increased, but even as it is, we hope it may rouse the attention of the public:—

Between St. Ives and Zennor, on the lower road over Tregarthen Downs, stood a Logan rock. An old man, perhaps ninety years of age, told Mr. Hunt, who mentions this and other cases in the preface to his charming collection of Cornish tales and legends, that he had often logged it, and that it would make a noise which could _be heard for miles_.

At Balnoon, between Nancledrea and Knill’s Steeple, some miners came upon “two slabs of granite cemented together,” which covered a walled grave three feet square, an ancient kist-vaen. In it they found an earthenware vessel, containing some black earth and a leaden spoon. The spoon was given to Mr. Praed, of Trevethow; the kist-vaen was utterly destroyed.

In Bosprennis Cross there was a very large coit or cromlech. It is said to have been fifteen feet square, and not more than one foot thick in any part. This was broken in two parts some years since, and taken to Penzance to form the beds of two ovens.

The curious caves and passages at Chysauster have been destroyed for building purposes within living memory.

Another Cornishman, Mr. Bellows, reports as follows:—

“In a field between the recently discovered Beehive hut and the
Boscawen-ûn circle, out of the public road, we discovered part of
a ‘Nine Maidens,’ perhaps the third of the circle, the rest of the
stones being dragged out and placed against the hedge, to make
room for the plough.”

The same intelligent antiquarian remarks:—

“The Boscawen-ûn circle seems to have consisted originally of
twenty stones. Seventeen of them are upright, two are down, and a
gap exists of exactly the double space for the twentieth. We found
the missing stone not twenty yards off. A farmer had removed it,
and made it into a gate-post. He had cut a road through the
circle, and in such a manner that he was obliged to remove the
offending stone to keep it straight. Fortunately the present
proprietress is a lady of taste, and has surrounded the circle
with a good hedge to prevent further Vandalism.”

Of the Mên-an-tol, at Boleit, we have received the following description from Mr. Botterell, who supplied Mr. Hunt with so many of his Cornish tales:—

“These stones are from twenty to twenty-five feet above the
surface, and we were told by some folks of Boleit that more than
ten feet had been sunk near, without finding the base. The
Mên-an-tol have both been displaced, and removed a considerable
distance from their original site. They are now placed in a hedge,
to form the side of a gateway. The upper portion of one is so much
broken that one cannot determine the angle, yet that it worked to
an angle is quite apparent. The other is turned downward, and
serves as the hanging-post of a gate. From the head being buried
so deep in the ground, only part of the hole (which is in both
stones about six inches diameter) could be seen; though the hole
is too small to pop the smallest, or all but the smallest, baby
through, the people call them _crick-stones_, and maintain they
were so called before they were born. Crick-stones were used for
dragging people through, to cure them of various diseases.”

The same gentleman, writing to one of the Cornish papers, informs the public that a few years ago a rock known by the name of Garrack-zans might be seen in the town-place of Sawah, in the parish of St. Levan; another in Roskestal, in the same parish. One is also said to have been removed from near the centre of Trereen, by the family of Jans, to make a grander approach to their mansion. The ruins, which still remain, are known by the name of the Jans House, although the family became extinct soon after perpetrating what was regarded by the old inhabitants as a sacrilegious act. The Garrack-zans may still be remaining in Roskestal and Sawah, but, as much alteration has recently taken place in these villages, in consequence of building new farm-houses, making new roads, etc., it is a great chance if they have not been either removed or destroyed.

Mr. J. T. Blight, the author of one of the most useful little guide-books of Cornwall, “A Week at the Land’s End,” states that some eight or ten years ago the ruins of the ancient Chapel of St. Eloy, in St. Burian, were thrown over the cliff by the tenant of the estate, without the knowledge or permission of the owner of the property. Chûn Castle, he says, one of the finest examples of early military architecture in this kingdom, has for many years been resorted to as a sort of quarry. The same applies to Castle-an-Dinas.

From an interesting paper on Castallack Round by the same antiquarian, we quote the following passages, showing the constant mischief that is going on, whether due to downright Vandalism or to ignorance and indifference:—

“From a description of Castallack Round, in the parish of St.
Paul, written by Mr. Crozier, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years
ago, it appears that there was a massive outer wall, with an
entrance on the south; from which a colonnade of stones led to an
inner inclosure, also formed with stones, and nine feet in
diameter. Mr. Haliwell, so recently as 1861, refers to the avenue
of upright stones leading from the outer to the inner inclosure.

“On visiting the spot a few days ago (in 1865), I was surprised to
find that not only were there no remains of an avenue of stones,
but that the existence of an inner inclosure could scarcely be
traced. It was, in fact, evident that some modern Vandal had here
been at work. A laborer, employed in the field close by, with a
complaisant smile, informed me that the old Round had been dug
into last year, for the sake of the stones. I found, however,
enough of the work left to be worthy of a few notes, sufficient to
show that it was a kindred structure to that at Kerris, known as
the Roundago, and described and figured in Borlase’s ‘Antiquities
of Cornwall.’ ... Mr. Crozier also refers to a stone, five feet
high, which stood within a hundred yards of the Castallack Round,
and from which the Pipers at Boleit could be seen.

“The attention of the Royal Institution of Cornwall has been
repeatedly called to the destruction of Cornish antiquities, and
the interference of landed proprietors has been frequently invoked
in aid of their preservation; but it unfortunately happens, in
most cases, that important remains are demolished by the tenants
without the knowledge or consent of the landlords. On comparing
the present condition of the Castallack Round with a description
of its appearance so recently as in 1861, I find that the greater
and more interesting part has been barbarously and irreparably
destroyed; and I regret to say, I could draw up a long list of
ancient remains in Cornwall, partially or totally demolished
within the last few years.”

We can hardly hope that the wholesome superstition which prevented people in former days from desecrating their ancient monuments will be any protection to them much longer, though the following story shows that some grains of the old leaven are still left in the Cornish mind. Near Carleen, in Breage, an old cross has been removed from its place, and now does duty as a gate-post. The farmer occupying the farm where the cross stood, set his laborer to sink a pit in the required spot for the gate-post, but when it was intimated that the cross standing at a little distance off was to be erected therein, the man absolutely refused to have any hand in the matter, not on account of the beautiful or the antique, but for fear of the old people. Another farmer related that he had a neighbor who “haeled down a lot of stoans called the Roundago, and sold ’em for building the docks at Penzance. But not a penny of the money he got for ’em ever prospered, and there wasn’t wan of the hosses that haeld ’em that lived out the twelvemonth; and they do say that some of the stoans do weep blood, but I don’t believe that.”

There are many antiquarians who affect to despise the rude architecture of the Celts, nay, who would think the name of architecture disgraced if applied to cromlechs and bee-hive huts. But even these will perhaps be more willing to lend a helping hand in protecting the antiquities of Cornwall when they hear that even ancient Norman masonry is no longer safe in that country. An antiquarian writes to us from Cornwall: “I heard of some farmers in Meneage (the Lizard district) who dragged down an ancient well and rebuilt it. When called to task for it, they said, ‘The ould thing was so shaky that a wasn’t fit to be seen, so we thought we’d putten to rights and build’un up _fitty_.’ ”

Such things, we feel sure, should not be, and would not be, allowed any longer, if public opinion, or the public conscience, was once roused. Let people laugh at Celtic monuments as much as they like, if they will only help to preserve their laughing-stocks from destruction. Let antiquarians be as skeptical as they like, if they will only prevent the dishonest withdrawal of the evidence against which their skepticism is directed. Are lake-dwellings in Switzerland, are flint-deposits in France, is kitchen-rubbish in Denmark, so very precious, and are the magnificent cromlechs, the curious holed stones, and even the rock-basins of Cornwall, so contemptible? There is a fashion even in scientific tastes. For thirty years M. Boucher de Perthes could hardly get a hearing for his flint-heads, and now he has become the centre of interest for geologists, anthropologists, and physiologists. There is every reason to expect that the interest, once awakened in the early history of our own race, will go on increasing; and two hundred years hence the antiquarians and anthropologists of the future will call us hard names if they find out how we allowed these relics of the earliest civilization of England to be destroyed. It is easy to say, What is there in a holed stone? It is a stone with a hole in it, and that is all. We do not wish to propound new theories; but in order to show how full of interest even a stone with a hole in it may become, we will just mention that the _Mên-an-tol_, or the holed stone which stands in one of the fields near Lanyon, is flanked by two other stones standing erect on each side. Let any one go there to watch a sunset about the time of the autumnal equinox, and he will see that the shadow thrown by the erect stone would fall straight through the hole of the _Mên-an-tol_. We know that the great festivals of the ancient world were regulated by the sun, and that some of these festive seasons—the winter solstice about Yule-tide or Christmas, the vernal equinox about Easter, the summer solstice on Midsummer-eve, about St. John Baptist’s day, and the autumnal equinox about Michaelmas—are still kept, under changed names and with new objects, in our own time. This _Mên-an-tol_ may be an old dial erected originally to fix the proper time for the celebration of the autumnal equinox; and though it may have been applied to other purposes likewise, such as the curing of children by dragging them several times through the hole, still its original intention may have been astronomical. It is easy to test this observation, and to find out whether the same remark does not hold good of other stones in Cornwall, as, for instance, the Two Pipers. We do not wish to attribute to this guess as to the original intention of the _Mên-an-tol_ more importance than it deserves, nor would we in any way countenance the opinion of those who, beginning with Cæsar, ascribe to the Celts and their Druids every kind of mysterious wisdom. A mere shepherd, though he had never heard the name of the equinox, might have erected such a stone for his own convenience, in order to know the time when he might safely bring his flocks out, or take them back to their safer stables. But this would in no way diminish the interest of the _Mên-an-tol_. It would still remain one of the few relics of the childhood of our race; one of the witnesses of the earliest workings of the human mind in its struggle against, and in its alliance with, the powers of nature; one of the vestiges of the first civilization of the British Isles. Even the Romans, who carried their Roman roads in a straight line through the countries they had conquered, undeterred by any obstacles, unawed by any sanctuaries, respected, as can hardly be doubted, Silbury Hill, and made the road from Bath to London diverge from the usual straight line, instead of cutting through that time-honored mound. Would the engineers of our railways show a similar regard for any national monument, whether Celtic, Roman, or Saxon? When Charles II., in 1663, went to see the Celtic remains of Abury, sixty-three stones were still standing within the intrenched inclosure. Not quite a hundred years later they had dwindled down to forty-four, the rest having been used for building purposes. Dr. Stukeley, who published a description of Abury in 1743, tells us that he himself saw the upper stone of the great cromlech there broken and carried away, the fragments of it making no less than twenty cart-loads. After another century had passed, seventeen stones only remained within the great inclosure, and these, too, are being gradually broken up and carted away. Surely such things ought not to be. Let those whom it concerns look to it before it is too late. These Celtic monuments are public property as much as London Stone, Coronation Stone, or Westminster Abbey, and posterity will hold the present generation responsible for the safe keeping of the national heirlooms of England.(59)

XIV. ARE THERE JEWS IN CORNWALL?

There is hardly a book on Cornish history or antiquities in which we are not seriously informed that at some time or other the Jews migrated to Cornwall, or worked as slaves in Cornish mines. Some writers state this simply as a fact requiring no further confirmation; others support it by that kind of evidence which Herodotus, no doubt, would have considered sufficient for establishing the former presence of Pelasgians in different parts of Greece, but which would hardly have satisfied Niebuhr, still less Sir G. C. Lewis. Old smelting-houses, they tell us, are still called _Jews’ houses_ in Cornwall; and if, even after that, anybody could be so skeptical as to doubt that the Jews, after the destruction of Jerusalem, were sent in large numbers to work as slaves in the Cornish mines, he is silenced at once by an appeal to the name of _Marazion_, the well-known town opposite St. Michael’s Mount, which means the “bitterness of Zion,” and is also called _Market Jew_. Many a traveller has no doubt shaken his unbelieving head, and asked himself how it is that no real historian should ever have mentioned the migration of the Jews to the Far West, whether it took place under Nero or under one of the later Flavian Emperors. Yet all the Cornish guides are positive on the subject, and the _primâ facie_ evidence is certainly so startling that we can hardly wonder if certain anthropologists discovered even the sharply marked features of the Jewish race among the sturdy fishermen of Mount’s Bay.

Before we examine the facts on which this Jewish theory is founded,—facts, as will be seen, chiefly derived from names of places, and other relics of language,—it will be well to inquire a little into the character of the Cornish language, so that we may know what kind of evidence we have any right to expect from such a witness.

The ancient language of Cornwall, as is well known, was a Celtic dialect, closely allied to the languages of Brittany and Wales, and less nearly, though by no means distantly, related to the languages of Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. Cornish began to die out in Cornwall about the time of the Reformation, being slowly but surely supplanted by English, till it was buried with Dolly Pentreath and similar worthies about the end of the last century.(60) Now there is in most languages, but more particularly in those which are losing their consciousness or their vitality, what, by a name borrowed from geology, may be called a _metamorphic process_. It consists chiefly in this, that words, as they cease to be properly understood, are slightly changed, generally with the object of imparting to them once more an intelligible meaning. This new meaning is mostly a mistaken one, yet it is not only readily accepted, but the word in its new dress and with its new character is frequently made to support facts or fictions which could be supported by no other evidence. Who does not believe that sweetheart has something to do with _heart_? Yet it was originally formed like _drunk-ard_, _dull-ard_, and _nigg-ard_; and poets, not grammarians, are responsible for the mischief it may have done under its plausible disguise. By the same process, _shamefast_, formed like _steadfast_ and still properly spelt by Chaucer and in the early editions of the Authorized Version of the Bible, has long become _shamefaced_, bringing before us the blushing roses of a lovely face. The _Vikings_, mere pirates from the _viks_ or creeks of Scandinavia, have, by the same process, been raised to the dignity of kings; just as _coat cards_—the king, and queen, and knave in their gorgeous gowns—were exalted into _court cards_.

Although this kind of metamorphosis takes place in every language, yet it is most frequent in countries where two languages come in contact with each other, and where, in the end, one is superseded by the other. _Robertus Curtus_, the eldest son of the Conqueror, was by the Saxons called _Curt-hose_. The name of _Oxford_ contains in its first syllable an old Celtic word, the well-known term for water or river, which occurs as _ux_ in _Uxbridge_, as _ex_ in _Exmouth_, as _ax_ in _Axmouth_, and in many more disguises down to the _whisk_ of _whiskey_, the Scotch _Usquebaugh_.(61) In the name of the _Isis_, and of the suburb of _Osney_, the same Celtic word has been preserved. The Saxons kept the Celtic name of the river, and they called the place where one of the Roman roads crossed the river Ox, _Oxford_. The name, however, was soon mistaken, and interpreted as purely Saxon; and if any one should doubt that Oxford was a kind of _Bosphorus_, and meant a ford for oxen, the ancient arms of the city were readily appealed to in order to cut short all doubts on the subject. The Welsh name _Ryt-yhcen_ for Oxford was a retranslation into Welsh of an original Celtic name, to which a new form and a new meaning had been given by the Saxon conquerors.

Similar accidents happened to Greek words after they were adopted by the people of Italy, particularly by the Romans. The Latin _orichalcum_, for instance, is simply the Greek word ὀρείχαλκος, from ὄρος, mountain, and χαλκός, copper. Why it was called mountain-copper, no one seems to know. It was originally a kind of fabulous metal, brought to light from the brains of the poet rather than from the bowels of the earth. Though the poets, and even Plato, speak of it as, after gold, the most precious of metals, Aristotle sternly denies that there ever was any real metal corresponding to the extravagant descriptions of the ὀρείχαλκος. Afterwards the same word was used in a more sober and technical sense, though it is not always easy to say when it means copper, or bronze (_i.e._ copper and tin), or brass (_i.e._ copper and zinc). The Latin poets not only adopted the Greek word in the fabulous sense in which they found it used in Homer, but forgetting that the first portion of the name was derived from the Greek ὄρος, hill, they pronounced and even spelt it as if derived from the Latin _aurum_, gold, and thus found a new confirmation of its equality with gold, which would have greatly surprised the original framers of that curious compound.(62)

In a county like Cornwall, where the ancient Celtic dialect continued to be spoken, though disturbed and overlaid from time to time by Latin, Saxon, and Norman, where Celts had to adopt certain Saxon and Norman, and Saxons and Normans certain Celtic words, we have a right to expect an ample field for observing this metamorphic process, and for tracing its influence in the transformation of names, and in the formation of legends, traditions, nay even, as we shall see, in the production of generally accepted historical facts. To call this process _metamorphic_, using that name in the sense given to it by geologists, may at first sight seem pedantic and far-fetched. But if we see how a new language forms what may be called a new stratum covering the old language; how the life or heat of the old language, though apparently extinct, breaks forth again through the superincumbent crust, destroys its regular features and assimilates its stratified layers with its own igneous or volcanic nature, our comparison, though somewhat elaborate, will be justified to a great extent, and we shall only have to ask our geological readers to make allowance for this, that, in languages, the foreign element has always to be considered as the superincumbent stratum, Cornish forming the crust to English or English to Cornish, according as the speaker uses the one or the other as his native or as his acquired speech.

Our first witness in support of this metamorphic process is Mr. Scawen, who lived about two hundred years ago, a true Cornishman, though he wrote in English, or in what he is pleased so to call. In blaming the Cornish gentry and nobility for having attempted to give to their ancient and honorable names a kind of Norman varnish, and for having adopted new-fangled coats of arms, Mr. Scawen remarks on the several mistakes, intentional or unintentional, that occurred in this foolish process. “The grounds of two several mistakes,” he writes, “are very obvious: 1st, upon the _Tre_ or _Ter_; 2d, upon the _Ross_ or _Rose_. _Tre_ or _Ter_ in Cornish commonly signifies a town, or rather place, and it has always an adjunct with it. _Tri_ is the number 3. Those men willingly mistake one for another. And so, in French heraldry terms, they used to fancy and contrive those with any such three things as may be like, or cohere with, or may be adapted to anything or things in their surnames, whether very handsome or not is not much stood upon. Another usual mistake is upon _Ross_, which, as they seem to fancy, should be a Rose, but _Ross_ in Cornish is a vale or valley. Now for this their French-Latin tutors, when they go into the field of Mars, put them in their coat armor prettily to smell out a Rose or flower (a fading honor instead of a durable one); so any three such things, agreeable perhaps a little to their names, are taken up and retained from abroad, when their own at home have a much better scent and more lasting.”

Some amusing instances of what may be called Saxon puns on Cornish words have been communicated to me by a Cornish friend of mine, Mr. Bellows. “The old Cornish name for Falmouth,” he writes, “was _Penny come quick_,(63) and they tell a most improbable story to account for it. I believe the whole compound is the Cornish _Pen y cwm gwic_, ‘Head of the creek valley.’ In like manner they have turned _Bryn uhella_ (highest hill) into _Brown Willy_, and _Cwm ty goed_ (woodhouse valley) into _Come to good_.” To this might be added the common etymologies of _Helstone_ and _Camelford_. The former name has nothing to do with the Saxon _helstone_, a covering stone, or with the infernal regions, but meant “place on the river;” the latter, in spite of the camel in the arms of the town, meant the ford of the river Camel. A frequent mistake arises from the misapprehension of the Celtic _dun_, hill, which enters in the composition of many local names, and was changed by the Saxons into _town_ or _tun_. Thus _Meli-dunum_ is now _Moulton_, _Seccan-dun_ is _Seckington_, and _Beamdun_ is _Bampton_.(64)

This transformation of Celtic into Saxon or Norman terms is not confined, however, to the names of families, towns, and villages; and we shall see how the fables to which it has given rise have not only disfigured the records of some of the most ancient families in Cornwall, but have thrown a haze over the annals of the whole county.

Returning to the Jews in their Cornish exile, we find, no doubt, as mentioned before, that even in the Ordnance maps the little town opposite St. Michael’s Mount is called _Marazion_ and _Market Jew_. _Marazion_ sounds decidedly like Hebrew, and might signify _Mârâh_, “bitterness, grief,” _Zion_, “of Zion.” M. Esquiros, a believer in Cornish Jews, thinks that _Mara_ might be a corruption of the Latin _Amara_, bitter; but he forgets that this etymology would really defeat its very object, and destroy the Hebrew origin of the name. The next question therefore is, What is the real origin of the name _Marazion_, and of its _alias_, _Market Jew_? It cannot be too often repeated that inquiries into the origin of local names are, in the first place, historical, and only in the second place, philological. To attempt an explanation of any name, without having first traced it back to the earliest form in which we can find it, is to set at defiance the plainest rules of the science of language as well as of the science of history. Even if the interpretation of a local name should be right, it would be of no scientific value without the preliminary inquiry into its history, which frequently consists in a succession of the most startling changes and corruptions. Those who are at all familiar with the history of Cornish names of places will not be surprised to find the same name written in four or five, nay, in ten different ways. The fact is that those who pronounced the names were frequently ignorant of their real import, and those who had to write them down could hardly catch their correct pronunciation. Thus we find that Camden calls Marazion _Merkiu_; Carew, _Marcaiew_. Leland in his “Itinerary” (about 1538) uses the names _Markesin_, _Markine_ (vol. iii. fol. 4); and in another place (vol. vii. fol. 119) he applies, it would seem, to the same town the name of _Marasdeythyon_. William of Worcester (about 1478) writes promiscuously _Markysyoo_ (p. 103), _Marchew_ and _Margew_ (p. 133), _Marchasyowe_ and _Markysyow_ (p. 98). In a charter of Queen Elizabeth, dated 1595, the name is written _Marghasiewe_; in another of the year 1313, _Markesion_; in another of 1309, _Markasyon_; in another of Richard, Earl of Cornwall (_Rex Romanorum_, 1257), _Marchadyon_, which seems the oldest, and at the same time the most primitive form.(65) Besides these, Dr. Oliver has found in different title-deeds the following varieties of the same name:—_Marghasion_, _Markesiow_, _Marghasiew_, _Maryazion_, and _Marazion_. The only explanation of the name which we meet with in early writers, such as Leland, Camden, and Carew, is that it meant “Thursday Market.” Leland explains _Marasdeythyon_ by _forum Jovis_. Camden explains _Merkiu_ in the same manner, and Carew takes _Marcaiew_ as originally _Marhas diew_, _i.e._ “Thursdaies market, for then it useth this traffike.”

This interpretation of _Marhasdiew_ as Thursday Market, appears at first very plausible, and it has at all events far better claims on our acceptance than the modern Hebrew etymology of “Bitterness of Zion.” But, strange to say, although from a charter of Robert, Earl of Cornwall, it appears that the monks of the Mount had the privilege of holding a market on Thursday (_die quintæ feriæ_), there is no evidence, and no probability, that a town so close to the Mount as Marazion ever held a market on the same day.(66) Thursday in Cornish was called _deyow_, not _diew_. The only additional evidence we get is this, that in the taxation of Bishop Walter Bronescombe, made August 12, 1261, and quoted in Bishop Stapledon’s register of 1313, the place is called _Markesion de parvo mercato_,(67) and that in a charter of Richard, King of the Romans and Earl of Cornwall, permission was granted to the prior of St. Michael’s Mount that three markets, which formerly had been held in _Marghasbigan_, on ground not belonging to him, should in future be held on his own ground in _Marchadyon_. _Parvus mercatus_ is evidently the same place as _Marghasbigan_, for _Marghas-bigan_ means in Cornish the same as _Mercatus parvus_, namely, “Little Market.” The charter of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, is more perplexing, and it would seem to yield no sense, unless we again take _Marchadyon_ as a mere variety of _Marghasbigan_, and suppose that the privilege granted to the prior of St. Michael’s Mount consisted really in transferring the fair from land in Marazion not belonging to him, to land in Marazion belonging to him. Anyhow, it is clear that in _Marazion_ we have some kind of name for market.

The old Cornish word for market is _marchas_, a corruption of the Latin _mercatus_. Originally the Cornish word must have been _marchad_, and this form is preserved in Armorican, while in Cornish the _ch_ gradually sunk to _h_, and the final _d_ to _s_. This change of _d_ into _s_ is of frequent occurrence in modern as compared with ancient Cornish, and the history of our word will enable us, to a certain extent, to fix the time when that change took place. In the charter of Richard, Earl of Cornwall (about 1257), we find _Marchadyon_; in a charter of 1309, _Markasyon_. The change of _d_ into _s_ had taken place during these fifty years.(68) But what is the termination _yon?_ Considering that Marazion is called the Little Market, I should like to see in _yon_ the diminutive Cornish suffix, corresponding to the Welsh _yn_. But if this should be objected to, on the ground that no such diminutives occur in the literary monuments of the Cornish language, another explanation is open, which was first suggested to me by Mr. Bellows: _Marchadion_ may be taken as a perfectly regular plural in Cornish, and we should then have to suppose that, instead of being called the Market or the Little Market, the place was called, from its three statute markets, “The Markets.” And this would help us to explain, not only the gradual growth of the name Marazion, but likewise, I think, the gradual formation of “Market Jew;” for another termination of the plural in Cornish is _ieu_, which, added to _Marchad_, would give us _Marchadieu_.(69)

Now it is perfectly true that no real Cornishman, I mean no man who spoke Cornish, would ever have taken _Marchadiew_ for Market Jew, or Jews’ Market. The name for Jew in Cornish is quite different. It is _Edhow_, _Yedhow_, _Yudhow_, corrupted likewise into _Ezow_; plural, _Yedhewon_, etc. But to a Saxon ear the Cornish name _Marchadiew_ might well convey the idea of _Market Jew_, and thus, by a metamorphic process, a name meaning in Cornish the Markets would give rise in a perfectly natural manner, not only to the two names, Marazion and Market Jew, but likewise to the historical legends of Jews settled in the county of Cornwall.(70)

But there still remain the _Jews’ houses_, the name given, it is said, to the old, deserted smelting-houses in Cornwall, and in Cornwall only. Though, in the absence of any historical evidence as to the employment of this term _Jew’s house_ in former ages, it will be more difficult to arrive at its original form and meaning, yet an explanation offers itself which, by a procedure very similar to that which was applied to _Marazion_ and _Market Jew_, may account for the origin of this name likewise.

The Cornish name for house was originally _ty_. In modern Cornish, however, to quote from Lhuyd’s Grammar, _t_ has been changed to _tsh_, as _ti_, thou, _tshei_; _ty_, a house, _tshey_; which _tsh_ is also sometimes changed to _dzh_, as _ol mein y dzkyi_, “all in the house.” Out of this _dzhyi_ we may easily understand how a Saxon mouth and a Saxon ear might have elicited a sound somewhat like the English _Jew_.

But we do not get at _Jews’ house_ by so easy a road, if indeed we get at it at all. We are told that a smelting-house was called a White-house, in Cornish _Chiwidden_, _widden_ standing for _gwydn_, which is a corruption of the old Cornish _gwyn_, white. This name of Chiwidden is a famous name in Cornish hagiography. He was the companion of St. Perran, or St. Piran, the most popular saint among the mining population of Cornwall.

Mr. Hunt, who in his interesting work, “The Popular Romances of the West of England,” has assigned a separate chapter to Cornish saints, tells us how St. Piran, while living in Ireland, fed ten Irish kings and their armies, for ten days together, with three cows. Notwithstanding this and other miracles, some of these kings condemned him to be cast off a precipice into the sea, with a millstone round his neck. St. Piran, however, floated on safely to Cornwall, and he landed, on the 5th of March, on the sands which still bear his name, _Perranzabuloe_, or _Perran on the Sands_.

The lives of saints form one of the most curious subjects for the historian, and still more for the student of language; and the day, no doubt, will come when it will be possible to take those wonderful conglomerates of fact and fiction to pieces, and, as in one of those huge masses of graywacke or rubblestone, to assign each grain and fragment to the stratum from which it was taken, before they were all rolled together and cemented by the ebb and flow of popular tradition. With regard to the lives of Irish and Scotch and British saints, it ought to be stated, for the credit of the pious authors of the “Acta Sanctorum,” that even they admit their tertiary origin. “During the twelfth century,” they say, “when many of the ancient monasteries in Ireland were handed over to monks from England, and many new houses were built for them, these monks began to compile the acts of the saints with greater industry than judgment. They collected all they could find among the uncertain traditions of the natives and in obscure Irish writings, following the example of Jocelin, whose work on the acts of St. Patrick had been received everywhere with wonderful applause. But many of them have miserably failed, so that the foolish have laughed at them, and the wise been filled with indignation.” (“Bollandi Acta,” 5th of March, p. 390, B). In the same work (p. 392, A), it is pointed out that the Irish monks, whenever they heard of any saints in other parts of England whose names and lives reminded them of Irish saints, at once concluded that they were of Irish origin; and that the people in some parts of England, as they possessed no written acts of their popular saints, were glad to identify their own with the famous saints of the Irish Church. This has evidently happened in the case of St. Piran. St. Piran, in one of his characters, is certainly a truly Cornish saint; but when the monks in Cornwall heard the wonderful legends of the Irish saint, St. Kiran, they seem to have grafted their own St. Piran on the Irish St. Kiran. The difference in the names must have seemed less to them than to us; for words which in Cornish are pronounced with _p_, are pronounced, as a rule, in Irish with _k_. Thus, head in Cornish is _pen_, in Irish _ceann_, son is _map_, in Irish _mac_. The town built at the eastern extremity of the wall of Severus, was called _Penguaul_, _i.e._ _pen_, caput, _guaul_, walls; the English call it _Penel-tun_, while in Scotch it was pronounced _Cenail_.(71) That St. Kiran had originally nothing to do with St. Piran can still be proved, for the earlier Lives of St. Kiran, though full of fabulous stories, represent him as dying in Ireland. His saint’s day was the 5th of March; that of St. Piran, the 2d of May. The later Lives, however, though they say nothing as yet of the millstone, represent St. Kiran, when a very old man, as suddenly leaving his country in order that he might die in Cornwall. We are told that suddenly, when already near his death, he called together his little flock, and said to them: “My dear brothers and sons, according to a divine disposition I must leave Ireland and go to Cornwall, and wait for the end of my life there. I cannot resist the will of God.” He then sailed to Cornwall, and built himself a house, where he performed many miracles. He was buried in Cornwall on the sandy sea, fifteen miles from Petrokstowe, and twenty-five miles from Mousehole.(72) In this manner the Irish and the Cornish saints, who originally had nothing in common but their names, became amalgamated,(73) and the saint’s day of St. Piran was moved from the 2d of May to the 5th of March. Yet although thus welded into one, nothing could well be imagined more different than the characters of the Irish and of the Cornish saint. The Irish saint lived a truly ascetic life; he preached, wrought miracles, and died. The Cornish saint was a jolly miner, not always very steady on his legs.(74) Let us hear what the Cornish have to tell of him. His name occurs in several names of places, such as Perran Zabuloe, Perran Uthno, in Perran the Little, and in Perran Ar-worthall. His name, pronounced Perran, or Piran, has been further corrupted into Picras, and Picrous, though some authorities suppose that this is again a different saint from St. Piran. Anyhow, both St. Perran and St. Picras live in the memory of the Cornish miner as the discoverers of tin; and the tinners’ great holiday, the Thursday before Christmas, is still called Picrou’s day.(75) The legend relates that St. Piran, when still in Cornwall, employed a heavy black stone as a part of his fire-place. The fire was more intense than usual, and a stream of beautiful white metal flowed out of the fire. Great was the joy of the saint, and he communicated his discovery to St. Chiwidden. They examined the stone together, and Chiwidden, who was learned in the learning of the East, soon devised a process for producing this metal in large quantities. The two saints called the Cornishmen together. They told them of their treasures, and they taught them how to dig the ore from the earth, and how, by the agency of fire, to obtain the metal. Great was the joy in Cornwall, and many days of feasting followed the announcement. Mead and metheglin, with other drinks, flowed in abundance; and vile rumor says the saints and their people were rendered equally unstable thereby. “Drunk as a Perraner” has certainly passed into a proverb from that day.

It is quite clear from these accounts that the legendary discoverer of tin in Cornwall was originally a totally different character from the Irish saint, St. Kiran. If one might indulge in a conjecture, I should say that there probably was in the Celtic language a root _kar_, which in the Cymbric branch would assume the form _par_. Now _cair_ in Gaelic means to dig, to raise; and from it a substantive might be derived, meaning digger or miner. In Ireland, _Kiran_ seems to have been simply a proper name, like Smith or Baker, for there is nothing in the legends of St. Kiran that points to mining or smelting. In Cornwall, on the contrary, St. Piran, before he was engrafted on St. Kiran, was probably nothing but a personification or apotheosis of the Miner, as much as Dorus was the personification of the Dorians, and Brutus the first King of Britain.

The rule, “noscitur a sociis,” may be applied to St. Piran. His friend and associate, St. Chiwidden, or St. Whitehouse, is a personification of the white-house, _i.e._ the smelting-house, without which St. Piran, the miner, would have been a very useless saint. If Chywidden, _i.e._ the smelting-house, became the St. Chywidden, why should we look in the Cornish St. Piran for anything beyond Piran, _i.e._ the miner?

However, what is of importance to us for our present object is not St. Piran, but St. Chywidden, the white-house or smelting-house. We are looking all this time for the original meaning of the Jews’ houses, and the question is, how can we, starting from Chywidden, arrive at Jews’-house? I am afraid we can not do so without a jump or two; all we can do is to show that they are jumps which language herself is fond of taking, and which therefore we must not shirk, if we wish to ride straight after her.

Well, then, the first jump which language frequently takes is this, that instead of using a noun with a qualifying adjective, such as white-house, the noun by itself is used without any such qualification. This can, of course, be done with very prominent words only, words which are used so often, and which express ideas so constantly present to the mind of the speaker, that no mistake is likely to arise. In English, “the House” is used for the House of Commons; in later Latin “domus” was used for the House of God. Among fisherman in Scotland “fish” means salmon. In Greek λίθος, stone, in the feminine, is used for the magnet, originally Μαγνῆτις λίθος while the masculine λίθος means a stone in general. In Cornwall, _ore_ by itself means copper ore only, while tin ore is called black tin. In times, therefore, when the whole attention of Cornwall was absorbed by mining and smelting, and when smelting-houses were most likely the only large buildings that seemed to deserve the name of houses, there is nothing extraordinary in _tshey_ or _dzhyi_, even without _widden_, white, having become the recognized name for smelting-houses.

But now comes a second jump, and again one that can be proved to have been a very favorite one with many languages. When people speaking different languages live together in the same country, they frequently, in adopting a foreign term, add to it, by way of interpretation, the word that corresponds to it in their own language. Thus _Portsmouth_ is a name half Latin and half English. _Portus_ was the Roman name given to the harbor. This was adopted by the Saxons, but interpreted at the same time by a Saxon word, namely, _mouth_, which really means harbor. This interpretation was hardly intentional, but arose naturally. _Port_ first became a kind of proper name, and then _mouth_ was added, so that “the mouth of Port,” _i.e._ of the place called _Portus_ by the Romans, became at last Portsmouth. But this does not satisfy the early historians, and, as happens so frequently when there is anything corrupt in language, a legend springs up almost spontaneously to remove all doubts and difficulties. Thus we read in the venerable Saxon Chronicle under the year 501, “that Port came to Britain with his two sons, Bieda and Maegla, with two ships, and their place was called Portsmouth; and they slew a British man, a very noble man.”(76) Such is the growth of legends, aye, and in many cases the growth of history.

Formed on the same principle as Portsmouth we find such words as _Hayle-river_, the Cornish _hal_ by itself meaning salt marsh, moor, or estuary; _Treville_ or _Trou-ville_, where the Celtic _tre_, town, is explained by the French _ville_; the _Cotswold_ Hills, where the Celtic word _cot_, wood, is explained by the Saxon _wold_ or _weald_, a wood. In _Dun-bar-ton_, the Celtic word _dun_, hill, is explained by the Saxon _bar_ for _byrig_, burg, _ton_ being added to form the name of the town that rose up under the protection of the hill-castle. In _Penhow_ the same process has been suspected; _how_, the German Höhe,(77) expressing nearly the same idea as _pen_, head. In Constantine, in Cornwall, one of the large stones with rock-basins is called the _Mên-rock_,(78) rock being simply the interpretation of the Cornish _mên_.

If, then, we suppose that in exactly the same manner the people of Cornwall spoke of _Tshey-houses_, or _Dshyi-houses_, is it so very extraordinary that this hybrid word should at last have been interpreted as _Jew-houses_ or _Jews’ houses_? I do not say that the history of the word can be traced through all its phases with the same certainty as that of Marazion; all I maintain is that, in explaining its history, no step has been admitted that cannot be proved by sufficient evidence to be in strict keeping with the well-known movements, or, if it is respectful to say so, the well-known antics of language.

Thus vanish the Jews from Cornwall; but there still remain the _Saracens_. One is surprised to meet with Saracens in the West of England; still more, to hear of their having worked in the tin-mines, like the Jews. According to some writers, however, Saracen is only another name for Jews, though no explanation is given why this detested name should have been applied to the Jews in Cornwall, and nowhere else. This view is held, for instance, by Carew, who writes: “The Cornish maintain these works to have been very ancient, and the first wrought by the Jews with pickaxes of holm, box, hartshorn; they prove this by the names of those places yet enduring, to wit, _Attall-Sarazin_ (or, as in some editions, _Sazarin_); in English, the Jews’ Offcast.”

Camden (p. 69) says: “We are taught from Diodorus and Æthicus that the ancient Britons had worked hard at the mines, but the Saxons and Normans seem to have neglected them for a long time, or to have employed the labor of Arabs or Saracens, for the inhabitants call deserted shafts, _Attall-Sarazin_, _i.e._ the leavings of the Saracens.”

Thus, then, we have not only the Saracens in Cornwall admitted as simply a matter of history, but their presence actually used in order to prove that the Saxons and Normans neglected to work the mines in the West of England.

A still more circumstantial account is given by Hals, as quoted by Gilbert in his “Parochial History of Cornwall.” Here we are told that King Henry III., by proclamation, let out all Jews in his dominions at a certain rent to such as would poll and rifle them, and amongst others to his brother Richard, King of the Romans, who, after he had plundered their estates, committed their bodies, as his slaves, to labor in the tin-mines of Cornwall; the memory of whose workings is still preserved in the names of several tin works, called _Towle Sarasin_, and corruptly _Attall Saracen_; _i.e._ the refuse or outcast of Saracens; that is to say, of those Jews descended from Sarah and Abraham. Other works were called _Whele Etherson_ (alias _Ethewon_), the Jews’ Works, or Unbelievers’ Works, in Cornish.

Here we see how history is made; and if our inquiries led to no other result, they would still be useful as a warning against putting implicit faith in the statements of writers who are separated by several centuries from the events they are relating. Here we have men like Carew and Camden, both highly cultivated, learned, and conscientious, and yet neither of them hesitating, in a work of historical character, to assert as a fact, what, after making every allowance, can only be called a very bold guess. Have we any reason to suppose that Herodotus and Thucydides, when speaking of the original abodes of the various races of Greece, of their migrations, their wars and final settlements, had better evidence before them, or were more cautious in using their evidence, than Camden and Carew? And is it likely that modern scholars, however learned and however careful, can ever arrive at really satisfactory results by sifting and arranging and rearranging the ethnological statements of the ancients, as to the original abodes or the later migrations of Pelasgians, Tyrrhenians, Thracians, Macedonians, and Illyrians, or even of Dorians, Æolians, and Ionians? What is Carew’s evidence in support of his statement that the Jews first worked the tin-mines of Cornwall? Simply the sayings of the people in Cornwall, who support their sayings by the name given to deserted mines, _Attall Sarazin_. Now admitting that _Attall Sarazin_ or _Attall Sazarin_, meant the refuse of the Saracens, how is it possible, in cold blood, to identify the Saracens with Jews, and where is there a tittle of evidence to prove that the Jews were the first to work these mines,—mines, be it remembered, which, according to the same Carew, were certainly worked before the beginning of our era?

But leaving the Jews of the time of Nero, let us examine the more definite and more moderate statements of Hals and Gilbert. According to them, the deserted shafts are called by a Cornish name meaning the refuse of the Saracens, because, as late as the thirteenth century, the Jews were sent to work in these mines. It is difficult, no doubt, to prove a negative, and to show that no Jews ever worked in the mines of Cornwall. All that can be done, in a case like this, is to show that no one has produced an atom of evidence in support of Mr. Gilbert’s opinion. The Jews were certainly ill treated, plundered, tortured, and exiled during the reign of the Plantagenet kings; but that they were sent to the Cornish mines, no contemporary writer has ever ventured to assert. The passage in Matthew Paris, to which Mr. Gilbert most likely alludes, says the very contrary of what he draws from it. Matthew Paris says that Henry III. extorted money from the Jews, and that when they petitioned for a safe conduct, in order to leave England altogether, he sold them to his brother Richard, “ut quos Rex excoriaverat, Comes evisceraret.”(79) But this selling of the Jews meant no more than that, in return for money advanced him by his brother, the Earl of Cornwall, the King pawned to him, for a number of years, the taxes, legitimate or illegitimate, which could be extorted from the Jews. That this was the real meaning of the bargain between the King and his brother, the Earl of Cornwall, can be proved by the document printed in Rymer’s “Fœdera,” vol. i. p. 543, “De Judæis Comiti Cornubiæ assignatis, pro solutione pecuniæ sibi a Rege debitæ.”(80) Anyhow, there is not a single word about the Jews having been sent to Cornwall, or having had to work in the mines. On the contrary, Matthew Paris says, “_Comes pepercit iis_,” “the Earl spared them.”

After thus looking in vain for any truly historical evidence in support of Jewish settlements in Cornwall, I suppose they may in future be safely treated as a “verbal myth,” of which there are more indeed in different chapters of history, both ancient and modern, than is commonly supposed. As in Cornwall the name of a market has given rise to the fable of Jewish settlements, the name of another market in Finland led to the belief that there were Turks settled in that northern country. _Abo_, the ancient capital of Finland, was called _Turku_, which is the Swedish word _torg_, market. Adam of Bremen, enumerating the various tribes adjoining the Baltic, mentions _Turci_ among the rest, and these _Turci_ were by others mistaken for Turks.(81)