It was on another beautiful Sunday morning many many years later, that a ship had dropped anchor off Pendower Cove, near Zennor. The captain was taking his ease on the deck, when he heard what seemed to be a woman’s voice, obviously in distress, at close quarters. He began to walk around, searching for the cause of this strange happening, when he heard the voice again, this time quite distinctly. What is more, it was calling him.
‘Cap’n!’ he heard. ‘Please help! Help me! Please help me, captain!’
He looked over the side. There, on the surface of the water, was a mermaid. Her exquisite face with its sea-blue eyes was turned towards him, and out on the water all round it flowed hair so golden that it looked like the halo of a saint. Like all other men who had ever set eyes on her, the captain felt heart and flesh alike rise to meet her, though he thrilled with superstitious dread, for every sailorman knows that the sighting of a mermaid can only bring disaster in its train. Spellbound by her beauty, though, he listened while she pleaded.
‘Captain, good captain! Please, please raise your anchor! That is all I ask. No harm shall befall you, I promise, if you will but wind your anchor in before it is too late! You have dropped it right across the door of my home, and all night long I have been trying to get back in! Can you not hear my husband calling? And my children crying for me, through the waves?’
The captain listened, and with thrills of horror chilling his spine, heard the mellow tenor voice of a man, mingled with the sobbing of many children, rising faintly from beneath the waves in dolorous, plaintive calls.
The mermaid wrung her beautiful hands, and called, ‘Wait! Wait, Mathey! I am coming home now!’
Then the captain’s senses returned to him, and he roared an order to his crew to weigh the anchor and set all sail for seaward, though he doubted in his heart that he would ever see land and his own family again.
As soon as the anchor rose above the surface of the water, there was a flash of gold and a gleam of bluish-green, and the mermaid was gone.
The ship stood out to sea; but no storm arose to distress it, and nothing untoward happened on board. Reminding himself of the mermaid’s promise, the captain at last put in to shore again, and chanced to make his way to Zennor. There, as seamen will, he told the tale of his extraordinary adventure. The old folk shook their heads in sorrow, for they remembered Matthew Trewella, the squire’s son with the beautiful tenor voice, who used to sing in church when they were children.
‘So that’s what happened to him!’ they said. ‘Poor Mathey! Poor Mathey! ’Tis no surprise, though, for many are the folk who have heard him singing from beneath the sea in Pendower Cove.’
Another nodded agreement. ‘My man has heard him, many’s the time, in years gone by,’ she said. ‘Sometimes singing, sometimes calling, sometimes alone, and sometimes with a woman’s voice, and children. Poor Mathey! Poor Mathey!’
When the priest and the squire heard the tale, they decided that a warning must be given to all other young men, lest a temptress should rise again and lure one to his doom. They gave orders that the tale should be kept alive for ever in the minds of the people, by carving on the end of the pew where she sat in church the figure of the mermaid, with her comb and her glass in her hand. And all who saw it shook their heads in sorrow, and said, ‘Poor Mathey Trewella! Poor Mathey!’
All? Well, perhaps not quite all. Old John Treganza and old Tom Penhalligon looked back into the distant past, and saw again the glowing face, the sea-deep tender eyes, and the sinuous blue-green body as she had smiled at Matthew Trewella that Sunday; and they felt again the longing for her they had felt then, and thought of the reports of Mathey’s singing from the deep, accompanied by the voices of many children. Poor Mathey Trewella? If it had not been for his musical voice, might it not easily have been one or the other of them? Poor Mathey Trewella indeed!’
But they kept their own counsel, for the sake of peace at home, and in the course of time they died. The mermaid is still to be seen on the pew end, though, and occasionally, so it is said, the voice of Mathey Trewella can still be heard coming from the sea, accompanied by his mermaid wife and their many, many children.
Domestic and Simpleton Tales
Domestic and Simpleton Tales
These are the most difficult of all tales to write down, as they inevitably lose something of their intrinsic nature in being separated from oral tradition and the vernacular.
The Last Word and ‘Get up and bar the door’
These two tales, the second in verse form, dwell on the age-old theme of contention between the sexes, in which the woman can almost always claim at least a moral victory.
The Last Word
She would always know best, and she would have the last word. If he said Sunday, she said Monday; if he said Easter, she said Christmas. Sometimes he grew tired of the argument, but it seemed to be the thing that kept her going. They grew older and older till he was bent and she was shrivelled, with a voice like a rusty saw; but still they argued, and still she managed to have the last word.
He had been recalling a tale from their young days, when she had had a bonnet trimmed with blue ribbons.
‘Green,’ she said.
‘No, blue. I’m sure.’
‘Green! You said at the time it was blue, but it wasn’t. It was green! We quarrelled about it, even then. But I know best. It was green!’
‘Ah, well! Have it your own way! All I know is that we quarrelled about it till I took my knife out o’ my pocket, and cut that ribbon clean off the bonnet.’
‘You did not! You used my scissors.’
‘I took my knife, out o’ my –’
‘Scissors! Scissors!’
‘Knife! KNIFE!’
‘Scissors, I tell you, SCISSORS!’
‘We shan’t settle it now, not if we are going to be where we’re going on time. So get your coat on missus,’ he said. She did. Her eyes were flashing, and he could see by the way she worked her mouth that she was ready to start the quarrel again as soon as they were out of doors.
Before they reached the gate, she said, ‘It was my bonnet, so I ought to know what colour it was. It was green. And you snatched up my scissors, and cut that beautiful green ribbon off.’
‘It was my knife, I used,’ he protested.
‘Scissors!’
‘Knife!’
‘Scissors, you numbskull! Scissors, I tell you! Scissors! Scissors! Why must you forever be contradicting me? Scissors it was, and scissors I’ll say, until my dying breath.’
They were passing, as it happened, by the side of a canal, deep, and dark, and dangerous. And he knew that what she had said was right, and that as long as she lived, she would always have the last word. So he took her by the shoulders, and tippled her head over heels into the canal.
‘Knife!’ he said, as she hit the water. Down she went; but after a few moments he saw her rising to the surface, wildly thrashing her arms. As soon as her head broke the water, she took a great gasp of air, looked towards him, and shrieked.
‘Scissors!’ was what she said.
‘Knife!’ he shouted back, as she disappeared again. The water was troubled, as she rose again more slowly, helplessly flailing her arms.
‘Knife!’ he yelled.
She raised her head a fraction, found him with her eyes, and screamed ‘Scissors!’ in a voice still defiant though choked.
The bubbles told him where to look for the third and last rising. Her head was below the surface, now, but her arms were still feebly moving over the dark water. He waited, carefully judging his time, then cupped his hands, and bawled ‘KNIFE!’ at the drowning figure. Slowly she began to sink, but at the last moment, her right arm rose till wrist and hand stood above the surface. Then she opened first and second fingers wide, closed them, opened them, closed them and so continued, till inch by inch the arm grew shorter, and the scissoring fingers disappeared for ever.
So she had the last word after all.
‘Get up and bar
the door’
It fell about the Martinmas time.
And a gay time it was then,
When our goodwife got puddings to make,
And she boiled them in the pan.
The wind sae cauld blew south and north.
And blew across the floor;
Quoth our goodman to our goodwife,
‘Get up and bar the door.’
‘My hand is in my hussyfskep,
Goodman, as ye may see;
An it shouldna be barred this hundred year
It shall not be barred by me.’
They made a pact between them two.
They made it firm and sure,
That whoever should speak the very first word.
Should rise and bar the door.
Then by there came two gentlemen.
At twelve o’clock at night.
And they could neither see house nor hall,
Nor coal nor candle-light.
‘Now whether is this a rich man’s house,
Or whether it is a poor?’
But ne’er a word would one o’ them speak,
For fear of barring the door.
And first they ate the white puddings.
And then they ate the black;
Tho’ much thought the goodwife to hersel.
Yet never a word she spake.
Then said the one man to the other,
‘Here, man, take ye my knife;
Do ye shave off the auld man’s beard.
And I’ll kiss the goodwife.’
‘But there’s nae water in the house,
And what shall we do then?’
‘Why man, what ails the pudding broth,
That boils into the pan?’
O up then started our goodman.
An angry man was he:
‘Will he kiss my wife before my eyes.
And scald me with pudding-bree?’
Then up and started our goodwife,
Gied three skips on the floor:
‘Goodman, you’ve spoke the foremost word.
Now go and bar the door.’
Wise Men Three and The Twelfth Man
Here are just two of the many tales related about simple people acting with all the serious intent of the wise. Others tell of the truly wise pretending to be simple to gain their own ends. Both the stories below have now been firmly attached to Gotham, a village in Nottinghamshire.
Wise Men Three
A fellow from Gotham set out one morning for Nottingham. As he crossed the little humpbacked bridge, he met one of his neighbours going the opposite way.
‘Mornin’,’ says the neighbour.
‘Mornin’,’ says the other.
‘Where are you going?’ asks the neighbour
‘To Nottingham,’ says the other.
‘To Nottingham? What for?’ says the neighbour.
‘Marry, to buy sheep,’ answers the first.
‘To buy sheep, you say?’
‘Aye. To buy sheep.’
‘Which way will you bring them home?’
‘Marry! Over this bridge, of course.’
‘Nay! That thou shalt not.’
‘Who says so?’
‘I say so.’
‘Ah, then I will.’
‘Thou shalt not, I say!’
Then the man who was to buy the sheep looked about him, as if he already had them with him. He waved his stick to drive them on. The neighbour raised his stick to prevent their passage. The two met face to face, clutching their ash plants.
‘Tut here!’ says the first, bringing his stick down with a bang.
‘Tut there,’ says the other, glaring. Then they both began again to drive the imaginary sheep, with much whistling and calling and clouting of sticks upon the bridge.
‘Tut here!’ says the sheep buyer, catching his neighbour a hefty blow with his stick.
‘Tut there,’ replies the other, with a resounding whack.
After that the action waxed fast and furious, till both men were bruised from head to foot and out of breath, but neither the one nor the other would give in.
Then, after a time, up comes a third man from the village, with his horse and cart, taking a sack of head-corn to the miller’s to be ground. He looks at his two neighbours, and wonders what they can be at such loggerheads about. So he climbs down from his cart, and goes up to them.
‘What are ye doing?’ says he.
‘I say I will drive my sheep over this bridge!’ Says the one.
‘And I say he shall not,’ says the other.
Then they began tutting again, and striking at each other afresh, while the third man scratched his head in perplexity. When they paused for breath he asked:
‘Where are the sheep, neighbours?’
‘Marry!’ says the first. ‘Am I not on my way to Nottingham to buy them?’
Then the third man laughed, fit to burst his sides, at their foolishness.
‘Why! What a couple of numbskulls you are!’ he says.
‘Why?’ says one.
‘How?’ says the other.
‘Come now,’ says the third. ‘I’ll show you just what a pair of fools you are. Help me with this sack of corn.’
Looking foolish, the two neighbours watched as he urged the horse and cart to the brow of the little bridge. Then they helped to drag the heavy sack of corn to the edge of the cart.
‘Help me to get it onto my back,’ its owner commanded, and they obeyed, so that the sack sat on his shoulders. Then he staggered with the tremendous weight to the side of the bridge, and balanced the sack on the parapet.
‘Undo the top of the sack,’ he says; they obeyed him, wondering at his cleverness.
Then he gently inclined the sack, till the dry grains of corn began to flow like golden water from its mouth, and cascade over the parapet down into the stream beneath. When the last grain had fallen, he shook the sack by its bottom corners, to demonstrate its complete emptiness.
‘Now you numbskulls,’ he says. ‘How much wheat is there now in my sack?’
‘Marry, none,’ says one.
‘Tis empty,’ says the other.
‘Well,’ says the third. ‘That’s right. And there’s just as much wheat in my sack now as there is in both your heads put together, to set up a quarrel about driving sheep that so far ye have not got!’
The Twelfth Man
The men of Gotham loved to go fishing. One day, twelve of them set out to spend a long happy day with rod and line. When they reached the river, they separated so as to leave each other a fair stretch of water. Some sat on the river bank, some stood in the water, and others leaned from the parapet of the little humpbacked bridge. The fish were biting well, and by the time the sun began to go down they had a really fine catch.
As they gathered their tackle together to set off for home, one of them said. ‘Well, that’s been a right good day, that has. What a good thing none of us fell in the river and got drowned!’
‘Yes,’ said another. ‘We ought to be truly thankful. I suppose we are all here? We’d better count, just to make sure.’
So they began to count. Again and again they counted.
‘How many do you make?’ said one to another.
‘I make eleven,’ was the answer.
‘Aye, and so do I,’ said another.
So each of them asked all the rest but the answer was always the same. Every man counted eleven others, and forgot to count himself. Then they all became very worried and distressed.
‘Neighbours,’ said the spokesman. ‘We have all counted us, and it is certain that where twelve set out, only eleven have gathered to go home again! One of our party is lost, maybe drowned! What shall we do?’ They began to discuss plans for setting up a search, but they were in such sorrow for the missing fisherman that none could think clearly, or decide.
While they still stood, trying to fix on a plan, along came a merry young fellow riding on a tolerably good horse, ambling along and singing happily to him
self as he rode. When he reached the bridge, he found it occupied by the men of Gotham, who by this time were all wringing their hands in grief at the loss of a dear friend and neighbour.
The cheery traveller reined in his horse.
‘Well met, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I can see that something is troubling you. Is there ought I can to help?’
‘Sir,’ said the spokesman. ‘We fear that one of our number is lost. Twelve of us came out fishing this morning, and we can count but eleven to go home.’
The stranger on the horse sat silently looking at them for a moment or two. Then he said. ‘What will you give me if I find the missing man live and well for you?’
‘We will give you anything we have!’ they all cried. ‘Anything you ask for!’
‘Will you give me your day’s catch?’ he asked.
‘With all our hearts, and welcome!’ cried the spokesman. ‘It would be little enough to pay to have our brother restored whole to us! Do you agree friends?’
‘Aye!’ ‘Aye,’ they all said. ‘Such help would indeed be cheap at the price.’
Then the fellow got off his horse, and asked them all to stand on the bridge, in a row with their backs to the parapet.
Tapping the first lightly on the chest, he said ‘One!’ and on to the next, ‘Two – and so on to the end. ‘Eleven! Twelve!’ he said. ‘See, here is the twelfth man.’
Then the men of Gotham broke into happy cries of relief and gratitude.
‘Sir,’ said the spokesman. ‘We can find no words to thank you enough for finding our lost neighbour for us. Take all the catch, with our thanks. We can now all go home as happy as we set out.’
So the cheerful rogue packed the fish in his panniers, and turned his horse towards the nearest market while the men of Gotham went back to their village rejoicing at their good luck in having met him just at the moment when they so much needed help.
The Book of English Folk Tales Page 38