Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/285

 CRANTOCK, NEWQUAY, MAWGAN 279 bare relics that shall prove the tradition's truth. The lost church of St. Piran has been found ; it may be so with the lost Laugarrow. Already- many human remains have been found among the sand-heaps that extend intermittently from hero to Perranporth, and traces of "kitchen-middens" which would throw back the date of Langarrow a thousand years or so. Some have imagined that the destruction occurred at the time when Lyonesse was swallowed by the waves, leaving only the Scillies to point to its former extent ; and there have been those who identified this catastrophe with the tempest mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the date 1099. Others, again, without daring to name a date, have thought that the storm which destroyed Langar- row may have been the same as that which over- whelmed the "Lost Hundred" of Cardigan Bay. But without denying these convulsions of nature, we cannot venture to identify or time them. The name of Langarrow, however, may safely be regarded as historic ; and this, with its variants of Languna or Langona, is the earliest name that we can trace at Crantock. It proves the existence of a settlement here before the time of St. Carantoc ; it seems also to prove the earlier existence of a church. The "garrow" might denote an untraceable St. Garrow or Carrow. Langona has been differently interpreted as the " Meadow Church " and the " Church on the Downs," either of which names would be appro- priate. But we reach something more definite when we come to St. Carantoc himself, the Irish Cairnech or Crannach. He is a genuine per- sonality of British saint-lore, the only doubt being whether he was an Irishman, a Welshman, or