This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
154
THE CORNWALL COAST

priests rested in the chair; whilst a third is that pilgrims to the tomb of the saint also rested therein. Be that as it may, however, it is possible that this is a shrine, and that the body of St. Germoe rests underneath it." There is a folk-rhyme attaching to the parish:—

"Germoe, little Germoe, lies under a hill,
When I'm in Germoe I count myself well;
True love's in Germoe, in Breage I've got none;
When I'm in Germoe I count myself at home."

Pengersick in this parish has still some remains of a castle built in the time of Henry VIII. by a man named Milliton, but there was evidently a far older castle here belonging to the Pengersicks, and a cluster of ancient legends gathered around the place. Cornish imagination usually stopped short at folk-lore and gave nothing to literature; in folk-lore it was certainly rich. One of the stories is of a former inhabitant of the castle who had doings with a king's daughter abroad, and when she followed him to his Cornish home, he threw both the lady and her child into the sea. The boy was rescued by a passing vessel (of course to return later); the woman changed into a white hare, who one day ran in front of the man's horse, startling it so that it rushed with its rider into the waves, and both were drowned. White hares play a striking part in Cornish traditions. Another story says that the castle was purchased by one of the Millitons, who, having murdered a man, shut himself up here in terror and remorse. A further legend speaks of another Milliton who lived here with a wife whom he hated, and whom he often tried to get rid of, but her wits proved equal to his.