Legend Land, Vol. 1 | Page 5

they sang him to sleep with a strange
soothing lullaby, which for the rest of his life he was always just on the
point of remembering, but which as certainly escaped him. He
remembered nothing more until he was awakened and taken home to
his parents.
The wise folk of St. Allen maintained that only a child of the finest
character ever received such honour from the small people, and that the
fact that they had shown him the secrets of their hidden dwelling
augured that for ever afterwards they would keep him under their
especial care. And so it was; the boy lived to a ripe old age and
prospered amazingly. He never knew illness or misfortune, and died at
last in his sleep; and those that were near him say that as he breathed
his last a strange music filled the room. Some say that the piskies still
haunt the woods and fields around Trefronick, but that they only show
themselves to children and grown-ups of simple, trusting nature.
Anyhow, those that wish to try to see them may reach the place where
the lost child was spirited away in an hour and a half's walk from Truro,

Cornwall's cathedral city, which is at the head of one of the most
beautiful rivers in the world.
The trip from Truro down the Truro river and the Fal to Falmouth at
any time of the year is a pleasurable experience that can never be
forgotten. Truro is an ideal centre for South Cornwall. Wild sea coast
and moorland, and woods and sheltered creeks, are all close at hand,
yet the city itself has the cloistered calm peculiar to all our cathedral
towns.
The tourist neglects Truro too much, for as a lover of the Duchy once
said: "It is the most convenient town in Cornwall; it seems to be within
an hour and a half's journey of any part of the county."
[Illustration: Truro Cathedral]
[Illustration]

THE GIANTS WHO BUILT THE MOUNT
St. Michael's Mount, that impressive castle-crowned pyramid of rock
that rises from the waters of Mounts Bay, was not always an island. In
fact, it is not always an island now. At low tide you may reach it from
the mainland along a causeway. But once upon a time the Mount stood
in the midst of a forest; its old name, "Caraclowse in Cowse," means
"the Grey Rock in the Wood," and that was at the time when the Giants
built it.
Cormoran was one of the Giants; he lived in this great western forest,
which is now swallowed up by the sea, and there he determined to erect
for himself a stronghold that should rise well above the trees. So he set
to work to collect huge stones from the neighbouring granite hills, and
his new home grew apace.
But the labour of searching far afield for suitable stones, and of
carrying them to the forest and piling them one upon another, was a
wearying task even for a giant, and as Cormoran grew tired he forced

his unfortunate Giantess wife, Cormelian, to help him in his task, and
to her he gave the most toilsome of the labour.
Was there a gigantic boulder in a far part of the Duchy that Cormoran
coveted, unhappy Cormelian was sent to fetch it; and she, like a dutiful
wife, never complained, but went meekly about her work, collecting the
finest and biggest stones and carrying them back to the forest in her
apron. Meanwhile Cormoran, growing more lazy, spent much of his
time in sleep, waking up only very occasionally to admonish his wife
or to incite her to greater efforts.
One day, when Cormelian had been twice as far as the Bodmin moors
to fetch some particularly fine stones Cormoran had seen, and was
about to set off on a third journey, she, noticing her husband fast asleep,
thought to save herself another weary walk by going only a short
distance and breaking off some huge masses of greenstone rock which
existed in the neighbourhood and placing them upon the nearly
completed Mount without being seen. Although Cormoran had insisted
that the stone be grey, Cormelian could see no reason why one stone
was not as good as another.
So, carrying out her plan, she was returning with the first enormous
piece of greenstone, walking ever so carefully so as not to awaken
Cormoran, when, unfortunately, he did awake. He flew into a terrible
rage on seeing how his wife was trying to delude him, and, rising with
a dreadful threat, he ran after her, overtaking her just before she
reached the Mount.
Scolding her for her deceit, he gave her a terrific box on the ear. Poor
Cormelian, in her fright, dropped the huge greenstone she was