The Ham Nomads

31 Aug 2014. <GB-ENG> Boscastle, & Land's End, Corn —

A promising day — fine and sunny. We got moving quickly and into Boscastle. There's a considerable slope down into the village, and Warren was a little concerned that we might not get back out (unfounded, we hasten to add!).

Boscastle has had a rather traumatic recent history. It is a very pretty little village, in a very steep valley, opening out onto a harbour at the bottom. In 2004 it was hit by a savage summer flood which destroyed much of the village — much like Granville in Queensland a couple of years ago, although in their case there was no loss of life. They seem to have made a full recovery, and the village is a mecca for tourists.

We went out to explore the harbour and headland area — a lot of climbing over slate paths and cliffs, but a very picturesque location. Although we didn't go up the opposite side of the harbour to visit the Forrabury Common, this is a fascinating survival of an ancient Celtic agricultural practice called 'stitchmeal': the Forrabury high ground is divided into 42 stitches, long plots or strips which are cropped individually by their tenants from Lady Day (25 March) to Michaelmas (29 September). At other times the land becomes common grazing land for the entire village. Each stitch becomes its own little ecosystem. Modern-day farmers don't like this practice, liking larger patches that would allow a form of monoculture, but the National Trust has determined that this type of farming will continue here, if only to provide a living picture of the historical past.

We watched some kayakers leave the harbour and paddle out to sea, and we watched a little trawler powering back in to harbour. We then walked back into the village and had a light lunch/morning tea — no, not scones for a change. We're in Cornwall, so a nice nosh of Cornish pasty seemed to be in order.

We then wandered down to the Museum of Witchcraft, which seems to attract a lot of tourists into the area. Quite a fascinating place. They have collected from most of the best-known practitioners of wicca in the UK and even from the USA. Some of the exhibits are simply bizarre, but others are somewhat thought-provoking. Warren was interested in examples of St Brigid's Cross (or Bride's Cross), a good luck charm we had seen in 19th century dwellings in Ireland, and was also fascinated by the Rowan Cross, another good-luck charm that he has come across in his science fiction reading. There were also references to the three witches in Macbeth, who in Act II weave this spell:

Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.
Harpier cries, "'Tis time, 'tis time."

Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.

Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witch's mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat and slips of yew
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab.
Add thereto a tiger's chawdron,
For the ingredients of our cawdron.

Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Well, this sounds like a damned good spell. Some people think that our Will had some inside information from some practitioners of the craft. Whatever the real story, it seems that a lot of spells in the post-Shakespearean age have a significantly Shakespearean tone! There was documentation of the various witch crazes, dating back to Elizabethan times. Interestingly, many of the 'witches' so tried were basically competent herbalists who had a better cure record than the recognised medicos of the time. We wandered the museum, just musing at the various belief systems that were documented there — it even looked at the Knights Templar, the Freemasons and the Rosicrucians, and even Christianity.

Enough of that. We left Boscastle and decided to light out for Land's End, only an hour or so away. Got there with plenty of time to walk around. This is the westernmost point of the British mainland — so this means that we have become members of the select group of 'end-to-enders', having driven from John o' Groats at the north-eastern point of Scotland to Land's End at the south-western tip of Cornwall. Land's End has been given over to a tourist concession, so it's much like an amusement pier. We, however, simply walked the clifftops, almost around to Sennen Cove, a long mile (according to Sue) northwards. The views were fabulous, out to the Longships Lighthouse, 1½ miles offshore, and across to the Scilly Isles. There's a rather good saying about the weather here — 'If you can see the Scillies, it's going to rain; if you can't see them, it is raining.'

Longships Lighthouse

We then went back to a rather generous layby we had noted on the way out, on the A30 between Land's End and Penzance.

Distance driven — today, 88 miles ( 142 km ); to date, 6,826 miles ( 10,986 km )