Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/95

 Rh Tradition assigns this king another Cornish castle as a huntingseat, viz. the old earth-round of Castle-an-dinas, near St. Columb, from whence it is said he chased the wild deer on Tregoss Downs. A dreary drive through slate-quarries takes you from Tintagel to Camelford. Near that town is Slaughter Bridge, the scene of a great battle between King Arthur and his nephew Modred, whom by some writers he is said to have killed on the spot; others have it that Arthur died here of a wound from a poisoned arrow shot by Modred, and that, after receiving his death wound at Camelford, he was conveyed to Tintagel Castle, where, surrounded by his knights, he died. All the time he lay a-dying supernatural noises were heard in the castle, the ssa and winds moaned, and their lamentations never ceased until our hero was buried at Glastonbury. Then, in the pauses of the solemn tolling of the funeral bells, sweet voices came from fairyland welcoming him there, from whence one day he will return and again be king of Cornwall. No luck follows a man who kills a Cornish chough (a red-legged crow), as, after his death, King Arthur was changed into one.

"In the parish of St. Mabyn, in East Cornwall, and on the high road from Bodmin to Camelford, is a group of houses (one of them yet a smith's shop), known by the name of Longstone. The legend which follows gives the reason of the name:

"In lack of records I may say: 'In the days of King Arthur there lived in Cornwall' a smith. This smith was a keen fellow, who made and mended the ploughs and harrows, shod the horses of his neighbours, and was generally serviceable. He had great skill in farriery, and in the general management of sick cattle. He could also extract the stubbornest tooth, even if the jaw resisted, and some gyrations around the anvil were required.

"'There seems ever to have been ill blood between devil and smith, and so it was between the fiend and the smith-farrier-dentist of St. Mabyn. At night there were many and fierce disputes between them in the smithy. The smith, as the rustics tell, always got the advantage of his adversary, and gave him better than he brought. This success, however, only fretted Old Nick, and spurred him on to further encounters. What the exact matter of controversy on this