Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/24

18 THE CORNWALL COAST there was a difference in height great enough to be magnified by fancy and exaggeration into the myth of the giants. He tells how Gogmagog was brought forward as a champion to daunt the Trojan invaders : — "Great Gogmagog, an oak that by the rootes could tear ; So mighty were (that time) the men who liv6d there : But, for the use of arms he did not understand (Except some rock or tree that coming next to hand, He raised out of earth to execute his rage), He challenge makes for strength, and offereth there his If there is any basis to this Brutus legend at all, it may be taken as denoting an invasion of higher culture, of the later Stone or early Metal Age, opposed to the greater physical strength but inferior weapons of a lower scale in civilisation. Methods and materials of war were the standard of advance then, as they seem to be still the measure of dominance now. All tradition states that the struggle between Corineus and the giant took place on Plymouth Hoe, on a spot now partly covered by the Citadel. Plymouthians so devoutly cherished the legend that they preserved the figures of the two wrestlers, cut in the turf after the manner of the famous White Horses ; but either a greater scepticism or another need for the site has caused the figures to vanish long since. As Corineus, by the same tradition, became first Duke of Cornwall, it was supposed that he bestowed his name on the Duchy; but the "Corn" is not so easily identified as this, and to get at the true origin we should have to understand more definitely the derivation of the tribal name Cornavii. But it does seem that the Plymouth