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

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Local Meetings and Other Notices.
71

"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 prevented and his work destroyed by storm and tide. His cries sounded above the roar of winter tempests; his moanings were heard in the soughing 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.[2] 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."[3]

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 further instances, especially instances of (1) Ritual use of ropes, or of perforated 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. Godden.

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.
  3. ↑ Courtney, Cornish Feasts and Folk-Lore, p. 73.
  4. ↑ Ibid., quoting Notes and Queries, December, 1850.
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