Page:Cornish feasts and folk-lore.djvu/101

 Legmids of Parishes, etc. 89 founder of his, and there is a curious structure at the north-east of the churchyard, known as St. Germoe's chair or King Germoe's throne. " There is more than one story attached to this chair. One is to the effect that the saint sat in the central chair with two assessors, one on either side of him ; another legend is that the priests rested in the chair; ■v^^hilst a third is that pilgrims to the tomb of the saint also rested therein. Be that as it may, how- ever, it is possible that this is a shrine, and that the body of St. Germoe rests underneath it." — Rev. W. A. Osborne, Transactions Penzance Natural History Society, 1886, l8Sy. At Great Work Mine (Huel Vor) near by, a narrow level (not far down) is still thought to have been made by Christian slaves, when the first church at Germoe was built. " 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." — Through Rev. S. Rundle. All Cornishmen at one time were supposed to be "wreckers," and from the peninsular- shape of their county came the proverb, "'Tis a bad wind that blows no good to Cornwall." But the dwellers in Breage and Germoe must in olden times, from the following distich, have been held in worse repute than their neighbours : " God keep us from rocks and shelving sands, And save us from Breage and Germoe men's hands." The most noted and daring Cornish smuggler of the last century, Coppinger, a Dane, lived on the north coast, and of him a legendary catalogue of dreadful tales is told, all to be found in the Rev. R. S. Hawker's book, the Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall. He lays the scene of his exploits in the neighbourhood of Hartland Bay, my informant near Newquay. He swam ashore here in the prime of life, in the middle of a frightful storm, from a foreign-