most of those in Wales and Scotland are nearer still. The coastline lies
for thousands of miles, with a host of off-shore islands ranging from
Scilly to Shetland and Wight to Lewis. It is hardly surprising then that
our long and eventful maritime history is complemented by a rich heritage
of nautical stories and superstitions, beliefs and customs, many of which
continue to affect our daily lives – even oil rigs, very much a twentieth –
century phenomenon, have tales of their own. Inland water, too, are the
subjects of stories which echoes the folklore of the coasts and seas.
BENEATH THE WAVES
Many tales are told of submerged lands, and of church bells ringing
ominously from beneath the waves. Between Land’s End and the Scilly Islands
lies a group of rocks called The Seven Stones, known to fishermen as “The
City” and near to which the land of Lyoness is believed to lie, lost under
the sea. There is a rhyme which proclaims:
Between Land’s End and Scilly
Rocks
Sunk lies a town that ocean
mocks.
Lyoness was said to have had 140 churches. These and most of its
people were reputed to have been engulfed during the great storrn of 11
November 1099. One man called Trevilian foresaw the deluge, and moved his
family and stock inland – he was making a last journey when the waters
rose, but managed to outrun the advancing waves thanks to the fleetness of
his horse. Since then the arms of the grateful Trevilian have carried the
likeness of a horse issuing from the sea. A second man who avoided the
catastrophe erected a chapel in thanksgiving which stood for centuries near
Sennen Cove.
Another area lost under water is Cantre’r Gwaelod, which lies in
Cardigan Bay somewhere between the river Teifi and Bardsey Island. Sixteen
towns and most of their inhabitants were apparently overwhelmed by the sea
when the sluice gates in the protective dyke were left open. There are two
versions of the story as to who was responsible: in one it is a drunken
watchman called Seithenin; in another, Seithenin was a king who preferred
to spend his revenue in dissipation rather than in paying for the upkeep of
the coastal defences.
A moral of one kind or another will often be the basis of tales about
inland settlements lost beneath water. For example Bomere Lake in
Shropshire – now visited as a beauty spot was created one Easter Eve when
the town which stood there was submerged as a punishment for reverting to
paganism. One Roman soldier was spared because he had attempted to bring
the people backto Christianity, but he then lost his life while trying to
save the woman he loved. It is said that his ghost can sometimes be seen
rowing across the lake at Easter, and that the town,s bells can be heard
ringing. There is another version of the same story in the same place, but
set in Saxon times: the people turn to Thor and Woden at a time when the
priest is warning that the barrier which holds back the meter needs
strengthening. He is ignored, but as the townsfolk are carousing at
Yuletide the water bursts in and destroys them.
There is a cautionary tale told of Semerwater, another lake with a
lost village in its depth. Semerwater lies in north Yorkshire not far from
Askrigg, which is perhaps better known as the centre of “Herriot country”,
from the veterinary stories of James Herriot. The story goes that a
traveller – variously given as an angel, St Paul, Joseph of Arimathea, a
witch, and Christ in the guise of a poor old man – visited house after
house seeking food and drink , but at each one was turned away, until he
reached a Quaker’s home, just beyond the village: htis was the only
building spared in the avenging flood that followed.
One lost land off the Kent coast can be partially seen at high tide:
originally, the Goodwin Sands were in fact an island, the island of Lomea
which according to one version disappeared under the waves in the eleventh
century when funds for its sea defences were diverted to pay for the
building of a church tower at Tenterden. The blame for that is laid at the
door of a n abbot of St Augustine’s at Canterbury who was both owner of
Lomea and rector of Tenterden. However, sceptics say that Tenterden had no
tower before the sixteenth century, nor can archeologists find any trace of
habitation or cultivation of the sands. Even so, the tales continue to be
told; one of these blame Earl Godwin, father of King Harold, for the loss
of the island. He earl promised to build a steeple at Tenterden in return
for safe delivery from a battle, but having survived the battle, he forgot
the vow and in retribution Lomea, which he owned, was flooded during a
great storm. The Sands still bear his name.
Yet worse was to follow, for scores of ships and the lives of some 50
000 sea farers have been lost on the Goodwins, and ill-fortune seems to dog
the area. For example, in 1748 the “Lady Lovibond” was deliberatly steered
to her destruction on the Sands by the mate of the vessel, John Rivers.
Rivers was insanely jealeous because his intended bride, Anetta, had
foresaken him to marry his captain, Simon Reed. The entire wedding party
perished with the ship in the midst of the celebrations, but the remarkable
thing is that the scene made a phantom reappearance once every fifty years
– until 1948, when the “Lady Lovibond” at last failed to re-enact the
drama.
Another fifty - year reappearance concerns the Nothumberland; she
was lost on the Goodwind sands in 1703 in a storm, along with twelve other
men – of - war, but in 1753 seen again by the crew of an East Indiaman –
sailors were leaping in to the water from the stricken vessel though their
shouts and screams could not be heard.
The Nothumberland was under the command of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, to
whom is attached a further tale. Three years afterwards, the admiral’s
flagship, the Association, was wrecked on the Gilstone Rock near the Scilly
Isles. The fleet was homeward bound after a triumphant campaign against the
French and some maintain that the crews were drunk. But the story which
Scillonians believe to this day is that a sailor aboard the flagship warned
that the fleet was dangerously near the islands, and that for this he was
hanged at the yardarm for unsubordination, on the admiral’s orders. The man
was granted a last request to read from the Bible, and turned to the 109
psalm: “ Let his days be few and another take his place. Let his children
be fatherless and his wife a widow”. As he read the ship began to strike
the rocks.
The admiral was a very stout man and his buoyancy was sufficient to
carry him ashore alive, though very weak. However, official searches found
him dead, stripped off his clothing and valuables, including a fine emerald
ring. The body was taken to Westminster Abbey for interment, and his widow
appealed in vain for the return of the ring. Many years later a St Mary’s
islander confessed on the deathbed that she had found Sir Cloudesley and
had “squeezed the life out of him” before taking his belongongs. The hue
and cry had forced her to abandon the idea of selling the emerald, but she
had felt unable to die in peace before revealing her crime.
A commemorative stone marks the place where the admiral’s body was
temporarily buried in the shingle of Porth Hellick, on St Mary’s Island. No
grass grows over the grave.
THE WRECK OF THE RAMILIES
Many hundreds of shipwrecks have their own songs and stories. Although
the Ramilies, for example, was wrecked well over 200 years ago, tradition
perpetuates the event as clearly as if it had happened only yesterday. In
February 1760 the majestic, ninety – gun, triple decked ship was outward
bound from Plymouth to Quiberon Bay when hurricane – force winds blew up in
the Channel and forced the captain to turn back and run for shelter.
Sailing East , the master thought he had passed Looe Island, and had only
to round Rame Head to reach the safety of Plymouth Sound. In fact the ship
was a bay further on and the land sighted was Burgh Island, in Bigbury Bay.
The Promontory was Bolt Tail with its four hundred foot cliffs, and beyond
lay no safe harbour at all, but several miles of precipitous rocks. As soon
as the sailing master realised his mistake the ship was hove to, but the
wind was so violent that the masts immediately snapped and went overboard.
The two anchores that were dropped held fast, but their cables fouled each
other, and after hours of fierce friction, they parted and the ship was
driven to destruction on the rocks.
Of more than seven hundred men on board only about two dozen reached
safety. Led by Midshipman John Harrold, they scrambled up the cliffs, by
pure luck choosing the one place where this was possible. Next day a
certain William Locker travelled to the scene to try to find the body of
his friend, one of the officers. Locker himself would have been aboard the
“Ramillies” but his lieutenant’s commission had come from the admiralty too
late, arriving just a few hours after she had sailed. He found the shores
of Bigbury Bay strewn with hundreds of corpses, their clothing torn away by
the sea’s pounding, their features unrecognisable. The village nearest to
the scene of the wreck was Inner Hope, and some there still maintain that a
Bigbury man aboard the “Ramillies” pleaded with the captain to alter
course; but he was clapped in irons, and went down with the ship. They say
