Page:Cornwall (Salmon).djvu/268

CORNWALL church-town and fishing-cove, the church being about half a mile from the sea. Land's End is in this parish. The dedication is to St. Senan, an Irish saint of the sixth century who visited Cornwall and Brittany. Legends tell some marvellous and foolish things about him ; among which, it is said that when being carried to burial he sat up on his bier and directed that his festival should be celebrated on the 8th of March instead of on the 1st, but he gave no reasons. He refused to help his mother one day, when they were changing houses, upon which she not unnaturally threw cold water over him ; but the domestic arti- cles miraculously moved of themselves. The church has a good tower, built of singularly large blocks of granite ; but restoration by the late St. Aubyn has not increased its interest. There is an inscribed stone, stating that the church was dedicated in the fifteenth century, but the date is efi^aced ; there is also a curious mutilated alabaster figure, probably a Virgin and Child, in the transept, and a distemper painting on the E. wall of the aisle. According to Hals, the mutilated figure was one of several found in the walls, " which also had been painted with gold, vermilion and blue bice, on several parts of their garments ". Near the church is the rock known as Table-Men. The story runs that a body of Norse pirates landed in West Cornwall, proceeding to burn and pillage. Signals were flashed along the hill-tops to Tintagel, and Arthur with nine other kings or 230