MORGAWR THE MONSTER?
Cornwall may not have any lakes or inland waterways to match the Scottish Lochs but we do have a rather large amount of wat r surrounding us. Loch Ness has of course ”Nessie” but do we have a monster of our own?
Well, it appears that we may. Through the centuries sailors have reported sightings of many types and sizes of sea monsters, many I expect can be attributed to good old sailors’ ”grog”.
There were no such reasons for a sighting reported by two local fisherman 25 miles south of The Lizard Point during the summer of 1976. John Cock and George Vinnicombe were in the fishing boat on a very calm day and enjoying excellent visibility when they saw what they initially thought was an enormous tyre sticking 4 feet out of the water. As they approached a large head came out of the water on the end of a long neck before it submerged slowly and swam away. The two men had reversed their engines to miss the creature which was virtually under their boat. They estimated the ”monster” to be in excess of twenty feet.
There have been many other sightings in the area of Falmouth Bay. So do we have our very own monster close by? Maybe!
UNDERGROUND WITH “THE KNOCKERS”
Miners have told stories of underground spirits :for hundreds of years. ”Knockers” as they were known were described as small dried up little creatures who may have been the spirits of the Jews that had crucified Christ , placed down the mines to work out their days.
Stories of their presence were common amongst early miners and not considered to be that unlucky. In fact they were often seen in the areas where the richest lodes could be found. They were however on occasions known to be somewhat spiteful and unreliable, to combat this the miners would often leave a ”didjan” (small morsel of pasty) or a piece of their ”croust” (a small piece of lunch) to try and buy the goodwill of the ”knockers”.
A small price to pay.
