Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/203

THE SCILLY ISLANDS 197 Another name was Silura ; Richard of Cirencester wrote of the Sygdilles, " also denominated the CEstromenides and Cassiterides " ; the Danes spoke of the Syllincjar' ; and in French charts the isles are " les Sorlingues." The whole question is very- difficult, and this is hardly the place in which to discuss it. It is almost certain that the isles cannot have been the Cassiterides, or tin-islands ; they present only slight traces of tin-working, and it is far from likely that the tin-workers of Cornwall would have shipped their metal to this isolated spot in order to find a market with foreign traders. It is more probable that the name of Tin Islands was applied by the ancients to the British Isles in general, whose number and extent were little known in those days. Rome seems to have used the isles as a place of banish- ment and penal settlement, and in days of early Christianity two heretical bishops were exiled here. Early in the tenth century Athelstan made a progress through Cornwall, ostensibly to conquer it as a part of Wessex ; and when he reached the high land near the present St. Buryan it is said that he sighted these islands in the dis- tance and was not content till he had visited them. He vowed to build a church on the spot where he then stood if he returned safely from the expedition. The church of St. Buryan stands as a memorial of his fulfilled vow. On the isles themselves he is said to have founded Tresco Abbey, dedicated to St. Nicholas, which became a wealthy religious establishment, though now only a few fragments remain. Later in the same century King Olaf of Norway came hither during one of the marauding cruises that made him a terror of the British shores. It is related that a hermit living at St.