Cornwall: Miscellaneous stories

Hunt just gives up and pours it all into a miscellaneous chapter here at the end.  Let’s fossick for plot hooks:

The Bells of Forraburry Church

There are no bells at Forrburry Church. They were made to rival the local church at Tintagel, and had a speedy voyage to Cornwall. The pilot gave thanks to God, but the wicked captain said the rapid passage was due to his skill. God smited the boat with a great wave, and the bells chimed as it sank. Now, theb ells are heard , from the depth, before storms.

Hooks

• Can you recover the bells for the church? As they are blessed, it’s difficult to touch them directly with magic.

Bocastle: the tower is missing from the Minster Church

A quote from Hunt: “The tower of the church of the ancient abbey was seen through
the gorge which now forms the harbour of Boscastle, far out at sea. The monks were in the habit of placing a light in one of the windows of the tower to guide the worshippers at night to the minster. Frequently sailors mistook this, by day for some land-mark,
and at night for a beacon, and were thus led into a trap from which they could not easily extricate themselves, and within which they often perished.

This accident occurred so frequently that the sailors began at last to declare their belief that the monks pur posely beguiled them to their fate, hinting, indeed, that plunder was their object. Eventually, a band of daring men, who had been thus lured into Boscastle, went to the abbey, and, in spite of the exertions nrade by the monks, they pulled down the tower, since which time it has never been rebuilt.”

Hooks

• Did your grogs do this? How do you spread the story about the sailors?
• Is the charge that the monks are wreckers true?

Temple Moors

There’s a place the Knights Templar have on the moors, and women who are shunned from society are welcome there. What happens to these women is not clear. Good and evil rumours haunt the place.

Hooks

• It might be a relocation scheme, much like the ladies mentioned in the Grogs chapter on ex-prostitutes.
• They might instead be sacrifices.

The Legend of Tamara

The nymph Tamara was born in a cave, the daughter of two potent earth spirits.  She loved the sunlight, so she could not stay hidden, and was beautiful, so she attracted suitors.

Two sons of Dartmoor giants, named Tavy and Tewrage, both desired Tamara, and she led both on. Eventually they tried to force her to choose between them. Tamara’s father, who hated giants, demanded she return home. When she refused, he turned her into the river Tamar.

The two giants awoke, and each was broken-hearted. Tavy’s father knew magic, and turned him into a river that eventually mingles wit the Tamara, called the Tay. Tewrage found an enchanter who made him into a river, but he mistook the path the Tamar takes, and so, to his sorrow, he pours away from her forever, as the Taw.

Hooks

• In the final work, I’ll need to stat these characters.  What happens if some fool turns them back into human form?

The Church and the Barn

The Daunays were a family beset with pride. The priests of St Germans convinced the lord to build a church on his lands in Sheviock. After he agreed, he decided to spend less on the church than he had originally agreed.

His wife was enraged by this, and so she decided to build a barn finer than his church. Wit the visible aid of the devil, her barn, which is attached to the church, was finished first. A careful weighing of accounts indicates that the barn cost one and a half pence more than the church.

Hooks

• Is this an Infernally-tainted church, or a standard church with an infernal site glued to the side? Are there Bonisagus magi wanting to check how all this works? How can you ensure they have access to the site without hindering worship, since that might weaken the Dominion?

The Glove and the Fair

“On the 5th of August, St James’s day (old style), a fair is held here, which was originally held in the Church- town of Sithney near Helston. In olden time, the good St Perran the Little gave to the wrestlers in his parish a glove as the prize, and the winner of the glove was permitted to collect the market toll on the day of the feast, and to appropriate the money to his own use. The winner of the glove lived in the Church-town of Sithney, and
for long long years the right of holding the fair remained undisputed. 

At length the miners of Goldsithney resolved to contest the prize, and they won it, since which time the fair has been held in that village, they paying to the poor of the parish of Sithney one shilling as compensation. 

Gilbert remarks ” The displaying of a glove at fairs is an ancient and widely-extended custom. Mr Lysons says it is continued at Chester. The editor has seen a large ornamented glove over the guildhall at Exeter during the fairs.”‘

Hooks

• If this is stolen, can the magi help find it? As a relic, it’s hard to target with magic.
• Posession of the glove, legitimately, is lucrative for a covenant. How can you prepare a team to take the glove, again, without active magic?

Harlyn Pie

“ADJOINING the Church of Constantine in the parish of ** St Merryn, was a cottage which a family of the name of Edwards held for generations, under the proprietors of Harlyn, by the annual render of a pie, made of limpets, raisins, and various herbs, on the eve of the festival in honour of the saint to whom the church was dedicated.

The pie, as I have heard from my family, and from more ancient members of the family, and from old servants, was excellent.”

Hooks

• It’s pie, guys.  You are lucky it’s not getting its own episode.  Actually…that’s a great idea..

 

Bridge of Wadebridge

Lovebone was the vicar of Wadebridge, and there was a ferry across the river. It was a frequent custom for the farmers to ride their horses and to drive their cattle across when
the tide was low, and frequently men and beasts were lost in the quicksands formed on the rising of the tide. A sad accident of this kind happened, and Lovebone resolved on building a bridge…

Great was the labour, and frequent the disappointment. Pier after pier were built, and then they were lost in the sands. A “fair structure” was visible at night, in the morning there was no trace of the work of the masons. Lovebone almost despaired of success, indeed he was about to abandon the work, when he dreamed that an angel came with a flock of sheep, that he sheared them, let the wool fall into the water, and speedily built the bridge upon the wool.

Lovebone awoke with a new idea. He gathered from the farmers around, all the wool they would give him, he put it loosely into into packs, placed these thickly upon the sand, and built his piers. The work remains to this day in proof of the engineering skill of the suggesting angel.”

Hooks

• There’s a myth that says London Bridge was similarly built on wool sacks.
• In Transforming Mythic Europe I made a deliberate omission, and no-one has picked me up on it, so time to come clean: the great rings which surround the magical islands?  The height measurements assume a subsidence of zero. That never happens, unless you are putting the building onto rock (which is assumed in this case) or, like modern bridge-builders, you drive steel piles into the mud on the bottom of the water you are trying to cross. If wool can replace that, then it fixes the subsidence problem without the assumption of a stone ocean floor.

The Lizard People

“There is a tradition that the Lizard people were formerly a very inferior race. In fact it is said that they went on all fours, till the crew of a foreign vessel, wrecked on the coast, settled among them, and improved the race so much that they became as remarkable for their stature and physical development as they had been before for the reverse. At this time, as a whole, the Lizard folks certainly have among them a very large population of tall people, many of the men and women being over six feet in height.”

Hooks

• Deep Ones, obviously.
• Who interbreeds with them to make the locals tall? s it a covenant’s turb? Covenfolk tend to be well fed and protected from disease spirits by the covenant’;s magical defences.

The Teeth of Teeny-Tiny

“An old lady had been to the church in the sands of Perranzabulce. She found, amidst the numerous remains of mortality, some very good teeth. She pocketed these, and at night placed them on her dressing-table before getting into bed. She slept, but was at length disturbed by some one calling out, ” Give me my teeth give me my teeth.” At first, the lady took no notice of this, but the cry, ” Give me my teeth,” was so constantly repeated, that she, at last, in terror, jumped out of bed, took the teeth from the dressing table,
and, opening the window, flung them out, exclaiming, ” Drat the teeth, take ’em.” They no sooner fell into the darkness on the road than hasty retreating footsteps were heard, and there were no more demands for the teeth.”

• I don’t know what I want to do with this, but I want to keep it. I sense it might be useful.

A Buried Boat of Gold

Hunt apologies that this story arrived too late for him to add to the stories of the saints:

“”A tradition has been preserved in the neighbourhood, that Gerennius, an old Cornish saint and king, whose palace stood on the other side of Gerrans Bay, between Trewithian and the sea, was buried in this mound [at Roseland] many centuries ago, and that a golden boat with silver oars were used in conveying his corpse across the bay, and were interred with him…

‘Probably,’ says Whitaker, in his remarks on this quotation, ‘the royal remains were brought in great pomp by water from Din-Gerein, on the western shore of the port, to Carne, about two miles off on the northern ; the barge with the royal body was plated, perhaps, with gold in places ; perhaps, too, rowed with oars having equally plates of silver upon them ; and the pomp of the procession has mixed confusedly with the interment of the body in the memory of tradition.”

Hooks

• It’s buried treasure, someone is going to dig it up eventually. That leads to an angry saint cursing the countryside, and magi needing to fix things, despite not being able to directly target relics.
• A demon keeps getting people to dig the relics up, because he thinks having saints smite people is tremendously amusing. Can you stop him in a permanent way?

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