Cornwall Sayings And Quotes

Next out of the hall came the sisters and their husbands. Before I could say anything, the captain had clamped his hand over my mouth and was lifting me off my feet as I kicked. Cornwall made as to draw his dagger, but Regan pulled him away. "You've just won a kingdom, my duke, killing vermin is a servant's task. Leave the bitter fool stew in his own bile." She wanted me. It was clear.

...Again I say it, therefore walk, and be merry; walk, and be healthy; walk, and be your own master! walk, to enjoy, to observe, to improve, as no riders can! walk, and you are the best peripatetic impersonation of holiday enjoyment that is to be met with on the surface of this work-a-day world!

Smirking slightly, I hold my hands out. “What do you think of my nail varnish?” There’s a stunned silence in the room before he leans forward. “I think it’ll look good in Cornwall,” he says deliberately. “What?” I jerk out. He smirks. “Welcome to the staff of Ashworth House, Oz. I think you’re going to do well.” “Are you mad?” I demand loudly. “I just gave the worst interview of my life.” Milo nods frantically and I gesture to him. “Yes. Even Milo knows this, don’t you?

The first thing to realize is that it is is a country that is still being imagined. Here every patch of earth has a story, all your places have nuances; if you say Cornwall to an English person, they think of smugglers, and King Arthur and fish. But there are great parts of my country about which American's know nothing beyond an idea of unimaginable vastness. Of course the Indians that live there know the spirits of these places, but that is not the point. You can't imagine how blue the sky is out West, Charlotte. So much space. It's really wild, not like your Lake District with its little stone walls. In the West the landscape is unmarked by man.

All three of the English types I have mentioned can, I think, be accounted for as the results of the presence of different cultures, existing side by side in the country, and who were the creation of the folk in ages distantly removed one from another. In a word, they represent specific " strata" of folk-imagination. The most diminutive of all are very probably to be associated with a New Stone Age conception of spirits which haunted burial-mounds and rude stone monuments. We find such tiny spirits haunting the great stone circles of Brittany. The "Small People," or diminutive fairies of Cornwall, says Hunt, are believed to be "the spirits of people who inhabited Cornwall many thousands of years ago. "The spriggans, of the same area, are a minute and hirsute family of fairies" found only about the cairns, cromlechs, barrows, or detached stones, with which it is unlucky to meddle." Of these, the tiny fairies of Shakespeare, Drayton, and the Elizabethans appear to me to be the later representatives. The latter are certainly not the creation of seventeenth-century poets, as has been stated, but of the aboriginal folk of Britain.

So it wasn’t Peggy I was interested in, not her tears, her crumpled looks. She reminded me too much of myself. It was her comforters I marvelled at. How they seemed to bow down and declare themselves in front of her. What had they been saying? Nothing in particular. All right, they said. It’s all right, Peggy, they said. Now, Peggy. All right. All right. Such kindness. That anybody could be so kind. It is true that these young men, brought to our country to train for bombing missions on which so many of them would be killed, might have been speaking in the normal accents of Cornwall or Kent or Hull or Scotland. But to me they seemed unable to open their mouths without uttering some kind of blessing, a blessing on the moment. It didn’t occur to me that their futures were all bound up with disaster, or that their ordinary lives had flown out the window and smashed on the ground. I just thought of the blessing, how wonderful to get on the receiving end of it, how lucky and undeserving was that Peggy.

It was at night,” I say. “What was?” “What happened. The car wreck. We were driving along the Storm King Highway.” “Where’s that?” “Oh, it’s one of the most scenic drives in the whole state,” I say, somewhat sarcastically. “Route 218. The road that connects West Point and Cornwall up in the Highlands on the west side of the Hudson River. It’s narrow and curvy and hangs off the cliffs on the side of Storm King Mountain. An extremely twisty two-lane road. With a lookout point and a picturesque stone wall to stop you from tumbling off into the river. Motorcycle guys love Route 218.” We stop moving forward and pause under a streetlamp. “But if you ask me, they shouldn’t let trucks use that road.” Cool Girl looks at me. “Go on, Jamie,” she says gently. And so I do. “Like I said, it was night. And it was raining. We’d gone to West Point to take the tour, have a picnic. It was a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky until the tour was over, and then it started pouring. Guess we stayed too late. Me, my mom, my dad.” Now I bite back the tears. “My little sister. Jenny. You would’ve liked Jenny. She was always happy. Always laughing. “We were on a curve. All of a sudden, this truck comes around the side of the cliff. It’s halfway in our lane and fishtailing on account of the slick road. My dad slams on the brakes. Swerves right. We smash into a stone fence and bounce off it like we’re playing wall ball. The hood of our car slides under the truck, right in front of its rear tires—tires that are smoking and screaming and trying to stop spinning.” I see it all again. In slow motion. The detail never goes away. “They all died,” I finally say. “My mother, my father, my little sister. I was the lucky one. I was the only one who survived.

Norwich isn’t the north or the south; there’s a kind of otherness to it. It doesn’t have an overwhelming sense of itself, like, say, Yorkshire or Cornwall does.

The average Christian is never meant to find out that, before it was warped and distorted, everything he reads about between the pages of his Bible, as well as every element of his religion, originally came from Egyptian Amenism and Irish Druidism. The more Druidism is studied the more apparent is its relationship to the revealed religion of the Mosaic Law – Rev. C. C. Dobson (Did Our Lord Visit Britain as they say in Cornwall and Somerset, 1954) The Culdee establishment had now acquired a firm footing in the nation. Some of its members not only excelled in astronomy, poetry, and rhetoric, but also in philosophy, mathematics, and several other arts and sciences (which exactly correlates with the learned Druid magi)…It is among the Scottish Culdees, that we are to look for that pure pattern of Christian life, such as was exemplified in the African, Greek and Egyptian Anchorites – Rev. Alexander Low (History of Scotland from the Earliest Period, to the Middle of the Ninth Century, 1826) Nothing is clearer than that Patrick engrafted Christianity on the pagan superstition with so much skill that he won people over to the Christian religion before they understood the exact difference between the two systems of belief – Dr. Donovan (editor of The Annals of the Four Masters)

The three of us were wearing flat caps, green jackets, plus fours, as if we played for the same sports team. (In a way, I suppose, we did.) Pa, driving us out into the fields, asked about Meg. Not with great interest, just casually. Still, he didn’t always ask, so I was pleased. She’s good, thanks. Does she want to carry on working? Say again? Does she want to keep on acting? Oh. I mean, I don’t know, I wouldn’t think so. I expect she’ll want to be with me, doing the job, you know, which would rule out Suits…since they film in…Toronto. Hmm. I see. Well, darling boy, you know there’s not enough money to go around. I stared. What was he banging on about? He explained. Or tried to. I can’t pay for anyone else. I’m already having to pay for your brother and Catherine. I flinched. Something about his use of the name Catherine. I remembered the time he and Camilla wanted Kate to change the spelling of her name, because there were already two royal cyphers with a C and a crown above: Charles and Camilla. It would be too confusing to have another. Make it Katherine with a K, they suggested. I wondered now what came of that suggestion. I turned to Willy, gave him a look that said: You listening to this? His face was blank. Pa didn’t financially support Willy and me, and our families, out of any largesse. That was his job. That was the whole deal. We agreed to serve the monarch, go wherever we were sent, do whatever we were told, surrender our autonomy, keep our hands and feet inside the gilded cage at all times, and in exchange the keepers of the cage agreed to feed and clothe us. Was Pa, with all his millions from the hugely lucrative Duchy of Cornwall, trying to say that our captivity was starting to cost him a bit too much? Besides which—how much could it possibly cost to house and feed Meg? I wanted to say, She doesn’t eat much, you know! And I’ll ask her to make her own clothes, if you like. It was suddenly clear to me that this wasn’t about money. Pa might have dreaded the rising cost of maintaining us, but what he really couldn’t stomach was someone new dominating the monarchy, grabbing the limelight, someone shiny and new coming in and overshadowing him. And Camilla. He’d lived through that before, and had no interest in living through it again. I couldn’t deal with any of that right now. I had no time for petty jealousies and Palace intrigue. I was still trying to work out exactly what to say to Granny, and the time had come.

Nennius tells us, what Gildas omits, the name of the British soldier who won the crowning mercy of Mount Badon, and that name takes us out of the mist of dimly remembered history into the daylight of romance. There looms, large, uncertain, dim but glittering, the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Somewhere in the Island a great captain gathered the forces of Roman Britain and fought the barbarian invaders to the death. Around him, around his name and his deeds, shine all that romance and poetry can bestow. Twelve battles, all located in scenes untraceable, with foes unknown, except that they were heathen, are punctiliously set forth in the Latin of Nennius. Other authorities say, “No Arthur; at least, no proof of any Arthur.” It was only when Geoffrey of Monmouth six hundred years later was praising the splendours of feudalism and martial aristocracy that chivalry, honour, the Christian faith, knights in steel and ladies bewitching, are enshrined in a glorious circle lit by victory. Later these tales would be retold and embellished by the genius of Mallory, Spenser, and Tennyson. True or false, they have gained an immortal hold upon the thoughts of men. It is difficult to believe it was all an invention of a Welsh writer. If it was he must have been a marvellous inventor. Modern research has not accepted the annihilation of Arthur. Timidly but resolutely the latest and best-informed writers unite to proclaim his reality. They cannot tell when in this dark period he lived, or where he held sway and fought his battles. They are ready to believe however that there was a great British warrior, who kept the light of civilisation burning against all the storms that beat, and that behind his sword there sheltered a faithful following of which the memory did not fail. All four groups of the Celtic tribes which dwelt in the tilted uplands of Britain cheered themselves with the Arthurian legend, and each claimed their own region as the scene of his exploits. From Cornwall to Cumberland a search for Arthur’s realm or sphere has been pursued.The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning. One specimen of this method will suffice: "It is reasonably certain that a petty chieftain named Arthur did exist, probably in South Wales. It is possible that he may have held some military command uniting the tribal forces of the Celtic or highland zone or part of it against raiders and invaders (not all of them necessarily Teutonic). It is also possible that he may have engaged in all or some of the battles attributed to him; on the other hand, this attribution may belong to a later date." This is not much to show after so much toil and learning. Nonetheless, to have established a basis of fact for the story of Arthur is a service which should be respected. In this account we prefer to believe that the story with which Geoffrey delighted the fiction-loving Europe of the twelfth century is not all fancy. If we could see exactly what happened we should find ourselves in the presence of a theme as well founded, as inspired, and as inalienable from the inheritance of mankind as the Odyssey or the Old Testament. It is all true, or it ought to be; and more and better besides. And wherever men are fighting against barbarism, tyranny, and massacre, for freedom, law, and honour, let them remember that the fame of their deeds, even though they themselves be exterminated, may perhaps be celebrated as long as the world rolls round. Let us then declare that King Arthur and his noble knights, guarding the Sacred Flame of Christianity and the theme of a world order, sustained by valour, physical strength, and good horses and armour, slaughtered innumerable hosts of foul barbarians and set decent folk an example for all time.

The Jews," says Whitaker (Origin of Arianism, p. 334.), "denominated themselves, and were denominated by the Britons of Cornwall, Saracens, as the genuine progeny of Sarah. The same name, no doubt, carried the same reference with it as borne by the genuine, and as usurped by the spurious, offspring of Abraham.

He stopped speaking as Cassandra made her way down the stairs. Garbed in a Grecian gown of blue-green satin that matched her eyes perfectly, she looked like a goddess descending from Olympus to bestow a rare blessing. Her upswept auburn hair gleamed like burnished copper with silken tendrils framing the sculpted perfection of her face and brushing her smooth bared shoulders. The breath fled from his body. Surely he was unworthy of touching such a miraculous creature. “Rafe?” She frowned. He dragged his gaze from the curves of her breasts. “Yes?” Her frown deepened and she gave him a strange look. He realized she must have asked him a question. “I am sorry. What was that, Querida?” Vincent guffawed behind him, but fell silent as Lydia appeared in a matching gown of gold-spangled ivory. “God, Lydia…” He breathed. “You look quite smart as well, my lord,” she drawled sweetly. “Albeit a trifle overdressed for my taste.” The Lord of Cornwall eyed his wife. “I could say the same of you.” Rafe looked down at his feet and sighed. The sight of those two mooning over each other used to make his stomach roil. Now a twinge of envy gnawed at his heart. If only Cassandra would look at him with such adoration. If only they could share such suggestive, silly banter. “The

Brothers,” he continues, “are lifelong. And though you take that field tonight, you have also taken that field before, just as you will tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. That field is your home—your battlefield—and those other men are intruders. They don’t respect it. They’re trespassing—unwanted guests..“I can assure you they didn’t,” my father says. Again, the room chants, “Hoorah!” I hold my breath because this next part, more than anything that led up to it, is what I’ve been waiting for. I check the camera, my father still centered in my frame and his face as serious as I’ve ever seen it. Our team has won the first two games of the year, but he knows that two is not ten. A loss, at this point, will be unforgiveable. “What’s that word on your backs?” His question echoes, and the answer is swift. “Honor, sir!” they all shout in unison. They always do. It’s more than memorization, and it’s always made me sit in awe of how it all plays out. “Honor! That’s right. There are no individuals in here. We all have one name. It isn’t the mascot. It isn’t your nickname or some fad that will be forgotten the second the yearbook is printed. It’s a word that means heart, that means drive and ambition, that means giving your all and leaving the best of every goddamned thing you’ve got out there on that field. Turn to your right!” They all do, seated in a circle on the benches, looking at the helmets and heads of their teammates. My dad should have been a preacher, or perhaps a general. He was born to stand before boys and make them believe that for two and a half hours, they are men. “Turn to your left!” All heads shift, the sound swift, but mouths quiet. “Honor. Brotherhood. Tradition.” He pauses, his team still sitting with heads angled and eyes wide on the dark blue sheen of the helmets and sweat-drenched heads next to them. “Again…” he says, and this time they say it with him. “Honor. Brotherhood. Tradition.” “Whose house is this?” my father asks, quiet and waiting for a roar. “Our house!” “Whose house is this?” He’s louder now. “Our house!” “Whose house…” My dad’s face is red and his voice is hoarse by the time he shouts the question painted above the door that the Cornwall Tradition runs through to the field. The final chant back is loud enough that it can be heard through the cinderblock walls. I know, because last week, I filmed the speech from outside. With chests full, egos inflated, voices primed and muscles ready for abuse, this packed room of fifty—the number that always takes the field, even though less than half of them will play—stands, each putting a hand on the back of everyone in front of them.

out and started again? Well, she hated cold tea, so she tipped it onto the grass, holding her breath. No complaint, so she began again. ‘Milk?’ Hannah studied him from under her hair. ‘Yes, please, just a small amount. Lapsang is a very delicate tea and too much milk kills the flavour.’ ‘I’ll need lots of milk then.’ Balancing the cup, saucer and spoon carefully, she offered it. ‘Thank you, Miss Hollis.’ ‘Hannah.’ She poured her own tea, wondering if it would taste like the ashtray it smelled like. With cup only in hand, she leaned against the back of the wooden chair then threw a leg over the side arm. ‘So, Miss Hollis, what brings you to Cornwall?’ ‘Call me Hannah. Miss Hollis makes me sound like some old school marm.’ ‘Is that a problem? Most old school marms, as you call them, of my acquaintance are delightful people.’ ‘Sure, but boring I bet.’ ‘Not at all.’ ‘Right. Not to you, maybe.’ Hannah braved a sip and winced. ‘Back to the question: what has brought you to Cornwall?’ ‘Bloody bad luck,’ she said, frowning at her tea. ‘No need to swear,’ he said. ‘I didn’t swear.’ ‘You did,’ he said. ‘What? Are you talking about bloody?’ she asked. ‘Yes. It is a curse.’ ‘No,’ she said. ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, maybe in the dark ages it was, but it isn’t now.’ She began to wonder if she’d walked through a time machine when she’d come through the gate earlier. It was a nice one, though. The orchard was beautifully laid out and the table and chairs were a lovely weathered blue. ‘Who advised you of this?’ he asked. Hannah sat up and put her empty cup on the table, not quite sure when she had drunk it. ‘Look, it’s a word that’s used every day.’ ‘Yes, but does that change its meaning?’ he asked. ‘No, but no one takes it like that any more.’ ‘Who is no one?’ he asked. ‘I mean no one who hasn’t lived in the dark ages.’ She looked at his wrinkled skin and tried to guess his age. ‘You mean anyone over the age of, say, sixty?’ he suggested. ‘Yeah, sort of.’ ‘Well, as I fit that category, could you refrain from using it?’ ‘Yeah, I guess. If it bothers you that much.’ ‘Thank you. Would you be kind enough to pour more tea?’ Old Tom leaned back into his chair. The sun wasn’t coming through the east window when Maddie opened her eyes for the second time that day; instead, she found Mark standing at the end of the bed with a tray. She blinked. When she last peered at the bedside clock, it had been eight a.m. and she’d thought that if she slept for another hour, she would begin to feel human. What a wasted day. What had Hannah been up to? Had she come into the room and seen her like this? Well, it was a lesson in what not to do in life. The end of last night, no, this morning, was more than fuzzy; in fact, she didn’t remember coming up to her room. The last clear memory was saying goodbye to Tamsin and Anthony. She and Mark had gone back into the kitchen and had another glass of wine or two. ‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘It’s not that late?’ ‘Almost time for a drink.’ He smiled. She winced. ‘Oh, don’t.’ ‘Would a bit of tea and toast help?’ ‘It might.’ Maddie eased herself onto her elbows and then slipped back down again. She was only wearing knickers. Mark’s eyes widened. ‘Could you hand me that shirt on the end of the bed?’ she asked. ‘Certainly.’ She wrestled with it under the duvet. ‘Sorry. I couldn’t find your pyjamas last night.’ ‘What?’ Maddie

I mean – my mum and dad often talk about how great it would be to put us to sleep. In long car journeys mostly. They say they’d like a glass screen to slide up between the front seats and the back seat, and some kind of gas to pump in, so as soon as we went “Are we nearly—” they could freeze us. Five hours later when the car got to Cornwall they’d just hit the defrost button and we’d go “—there yet?”. – Ben

They are loud and boisterous, skylarking in the way that so many men in their twenties do – only just making the train, with the plumped-up platform guard blowing his whistle in furious disapproval. After messing about with the automatic door – open, shut, open, shut – which they inevitably find hilarious beyond the facts, they settle into the seats nearest the luggage racks. But then, apparently spotting the two girls from Cornwall, they glance knowingly at each other and head further down the carriage to the seats directly behind them. I smile to myself. See, I’m no killjoy. I was young once. I watch the girls go all quiet and shy, one widening her eyes at her friend – and yes, one of the men is especially striking, like a model or a member of a boy band. And it all reminds me of that very particular feeling in your tummy. You know. So I am not at all surprised or in the least bit disapproving when the men stand up and the good-looking one then leans over the top of the dividing seats, wondering if he might fetch the girls something from the buffet, ‘. . . seeing as I’m going?’ Next there are name swaps and quite a bit of giggling, and the dance begins. Two coffees and four lagers later, the young men have joined the girls – all seated near enough for me to follow the full conversation. I know, I know. I really shouldn’t be listening, but we’ve been over this. I’m bored, remember. They’re loud. So then. The girls repeat what I have already gleaned from their earlier gossiping. This trip to London is their first solo visit to the capital – a gift from their parents to celebrate the end of GCSEs. They are booked into a budget hotel, have tickets for Les Misérables and have never been this excited. ‘You kidding me? You really never been to London on your own before?’ Karl, the boy-band lookalike, is amazed. ‘Can be a tricky place, you know, girls. London. You need to watch yourselves. Taxi not tube when you get out of the theatre. You hear me?’ I am liking Karl now. He is recommending shops and market stalls – also a club where he says they will be safe if they fancy some decent music and dancing after the show. He is writing down the name on a piece of paper for them. Knows the bouncer. ‘Mention my name, OK?’ And then Anna, the taller of the two friends from Cornwall, is wondering about the black bags and I am secretly delighted that she has asked, for I am curious also, smiling in anticipation of the teasing. Boys. So disorganised. What are you like, eh?

In the fishing village of Mousehole in Cornwall it is traditional to eat 'stargazy pie' on the evening of 23 December. It is an intriguing pie, made with pilchards placed so that their heads poke through the crust at the centre of the pie, gazing at the stars, as it were. It is made in honour of a local mythical hero, Tom Bawcock ('bawcock' is an old word meaning 'a fine fellow'), whom legend says sent out on a bad night during a bad season, returning with sufficient fish to save the locals from starvation.