E-text prepared by Lionel Sear
With a vivid recollection of the keen enjoyment I myself found in thestrange and wonderful Romances and Legends of Old Cornwall, now sorapidly being forgotten; with a remembrance too of the numerous longand involved paragraphs—even pages—that I skipped, as being prosyor unintelligible, written as they were in a dialect oftenuntranslatable even by a Cornish child, I have here tried to presenta few of these tales in simpler form, to suit not only Cornish children,but those of all parts.
M.Q.C.
Long, long ago, when Cornwall was almost a desert land, cold, bleak, andpoor, and inhabited only by giants, who had destroyed and eaten all thesmaller people, Brutus and Corineus came with a large Trojan armyintending to conquer England, or Albion as it was then called, and landedat Plymouth for that purpose.
These two valiant chiefs had heard strange tales of the enormous size ofthe people in that part of the island, so, like wise generals, beforeventuring inland themselves, they sent parties of their men to explore,and find out what they could of the inhabitants. The soldiers, who hadnever heard anything about the giants, went off very full of glee, andcourage, thinking, from the miserable look of the country, that they hadonly some poor half-starved, ignorant savages to hunt out, and subdue.
That was how they started out. They returned nearly scared to death,rushing into camp like madmen, pursued by a troop of hi