Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/79

 Local Meetings and Other Notices. 7 r

" for having beat the Devil and his myrmidons by the well-known device of employing them to spin ropes of sand, denying them even the aid of chaff to supply some degree of tenacity." 1

The wild Cornish spirit, Tregeagle, brings life into these somewhat tame accounts of futile industry. The wandering soul of a tyrannical magistrate, Tregeagle was bound to fruitless labor on coast or moor, his toil pre- vented and his work destroyed by storm and tide. His cries sounded above the roar of winter tempests ; his moanings were heard in the sough- ing of the wind ; when the sea lay calm, his low wailing crept along the coast. More than one task was laid upon this tormented soul. On the proposal of a churchman and a lawyer, it was agreed that he should be set to empty a dark tarn on desolate moors, known as Dosmery (or Dozmare) Pool, using a limpet-shell with a hole in it. Driven thence by a terrific storm, Tregeagle, hotly pursued by demons, sought sanctuary in the chapel of Roach Rock. From Roach he was removed by a powerful spell to the sandy shores of the Padstow district, there to make trusses of sand, and ropes of sand with which to bind them. 8 Again we find him tasked " to make and carry away a truss of sand, bound with a rope of sand, from Gwenvor (the cove at Whitsand Bay), near the Land's End." 8

The Cornish pool which Tregeagle had to empty with a perforated shell is said to be the scene of a tradition of making bundles and bands of sand. "A tradition . . . says that on the shores of this lonely mere (Dosmery Pool) the ghosts of bad men are ever employed in binding the sand in bundles with ' beams ' (bands) of the same. These ghosts, or some of them, were driven out (they say horsewhipped out) by the parson from Launceston." 4

I place these roughly gathered facts together in the hope of gaining fur- ther instances, especially instances of (1) Ritual use of ropes, or of perfor- ated water-vessels ; (2) Futile rope-making in custom or story ; (3) Futile water-carrying in custom or story ; (4) Asses in connection with any of the above acts, and in connection with (a) water in any form, (b) death and the underworld.

G. M. Goddcn.

Ridgfield, Wimbledon, nr. London.

��LOCAL MEETINGS AND OTHER NOTICES.

Boston Branch. — The annual meeting was held at the Charlesgate on Friday, April 22, at 8 p. m., and the election of officers resulted in the following choice : President, Prof. F. W. Putnam ; Vice-Presidents, Mr. W. W. Newell, Mr. Frank Russell ; Treasurer, Mr. Montague Chamber-

1 Denham Tracts, ii. 116.

2 Taken from Hunt, Popular Romances of the West of England, 3d ed. pp.

131 ff- 8 Courtney, Cornish Feasts and Folk-Lore, p. 73. 4 Ibid., quoting Notes and Queries, December, 1850.

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