Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/53

 Rh Ireland in a wicker-boat covered with hides, and landed at St. Warna's bay. Like many other saints she had her holy-well; and often the superstitious inhabitants of St. Agnes (five families in all), who enjoyed the reputation of being the most daring and unscrupulous amongst the Scilly wreckers of those days, threw crooked pins into it, and daily invoked and prayed her to send them "a rich wreck." There was no church there then, and its people rarely visited the other islands. But it chanced one fine morning the entire population started in their boats for the church of Ennor, in St. Mary Old Town, as two of them wished to be married. After the ceremony was over the clergyman, in the presence of most of his parishioners, who had assembled to witness it (between whom and the men of St. Agnes there was always a bitter feud), rebuked them for their lawless deeds. They, angry at being put to shame before their enemies, answered with many profane and mocking words, and were with difficulty restrained from coming to blows. So incensed were they that they took no notice of the signs which heralded a coming storm, and hastily got on board their boats to return to their own home, which none of them were ever destined to reach, as it broke with great fury when they were about half-way across. When close to land and the rowers were straining every nerve to get there, one wave larger than the rest broke over them, and every soul found a watery grave. This was of course said to be a judgment on them for their wicked ways. Leland briefly chronicles it. From that time St. Warna's well was neglected; there was no one left the day after twelfth-day, as had been the custom, to clean it out and return her thanks for her bounty: it gradually got filled with stones, and at the present day is little more than a hole.

There is a curious labyrinth on this island called "Troy-town," which it is popularly supposed to represent; but all intricate places in Cornwall are so denominated, and I have even heard nurses say to children when they were surrounded by a litter of toys that they looked as if they were in Troy-town.

A peculiar mode of punishment was formerly practised in Scilly. The offenders were placed in a chair called a "ducking chair," and publicly at St. Mary's quay-head "ducked" in the salt water.