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Cornish hope for the 21st century

1. ​

By Howard Curnow

Piran was born in Ireland in the 6th century AD where he was renowned for his miraculous deeds. But a group of kings were afraid of his powers and were jealous of his influence amongst the people. On a stormy day Piran was chained to a millstone, and thrown from the top of a high cliff into the sea below. The wind was blowing a tremendous gale, the sky was black with thunder clouds and the sea was white with foam.

As Piran was hurtling towards certain death the sun broke through the clouds, and instantly the winds abated and the raging sea became calm. As the stone hit the sea it floated, hundreds in the crowd above, seeing Ciaran alive, on the floating stone, were converted to Christianity.

Wind and weather remained favourable for our reluctant hero, and after many days at sea Piran landed safely on the beach that bears his name today - Perranporth, the cove or harbour of Piran, on the north coast of Kernow (Cornwall).

In the sand dunes, overlooking the Celtic Sea, Piran built a cell and a small church. His first converts to Christianity were a fox, a badger and a bear. [see the paintings by the Newlyn School of Artists in St. Hilary church.] The Cornish people flocked to him as news of his teaching spread. It is alleged that he lived to the age of 206, at which time he still had all his teeth, perfect eyesight and showed no sign of old age. He died in a state of drunkeness.

He used to decorate the altar of his church with flowers and crystals that he collected from the country-side round about. One day whilst preparing his meal, he noticed a stream of silvery white metal flowing out of the black stone of the hearth. He called the local people together, told them of his discovery and taught them how to extract this mineral, tin, from the rock. Everyone was overjoyed with their new-found treasure and launched themselves into a tremendous bout of feasting that lasted many days.

Well, so runs the folk legend of St Piran. However, one should never dismiss such stories out-of-hand. Often the old folk-stories, handed down from generation to generation, contained elements of the truth dressed up with centuries of embellishment by the story-tellers of the day. To reject the lot would be like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

So what are the facts of the case?

· It is a fact that there was a holy man living in Ireland around 500 to 560 A.D. called CIARAN of SAIGHIR, a town near Leinster. [The name Ciaran is found today in variants such as Kieran.]

· The letter ‘C’ in Irish mutates to ‘P’ in the Cornish language, e.g. the Irish word ‘cenn’ = head or headland becomes ‘pen’ in Cornish, as in Pen Sans = Holy Headland.

· Ciaran of Saighir’s Saint’s Day is March 5th. St. Piran’s Day is March 5th.

· There were considerable migrations of the Irish into Cornwall in the late 5th and early 6th cent. (including the Kern, hence Kernow = many Kern or land of the Kern).

· Celtic missionaries would carry with them small stone altar slabs, about 5 inches across, called a lecc. Obviously essential ecclesiastical equipment for a wandering priest, but was its use misinterpreted?

In reality it is not difficult to imagine a 6th century holy man dragging himself ashore from the wreck of his coracle on the North Cornish coast to be met by a number of ‘locals’. Their astonishment at his survival from the gale that had been raging led to their curiosity as to how he actually survived the storm. In reply, no doubt Piran held up his lecc, and with reference to his faith replied, ‘I came on this!’

It was likely that, for ease of carrying, this lump of stone, would have had a hole through the middle so as to carry it on a rope, perhaps hung around the neck. It would not be difficult therefore to imagine the local VIth news media declaring, ‘Read all about it. Read all about it. Holy Man arrives on Millstone!’ Thus legends are born!

Beneath the sands of Perranporth today probably lie the remains of a considerable monastic community. There was a church, measuring 29 feet by 16 feet with a stone bench set in the wall facing the altar. Apart from half-a-dozen monk’s cells there was also possibly a mill, a store, a refectory and a hospitium, or guest-house, together with a scriptorium, where the manuscripts were copied, and a cemetery (many hundreds of human bones have been found in this area through the ages).

In fact the whole of this early Celtic Christian community would have been similar to that of Saint Columba on Iona and Saint Cuthbert on Lindisfarne.

The first structure, in the late 6th century, was of wattle and daub (branches and clay). This was replaced, around 800 A.D., with a building (No.2) of the same dimensions, constructed of granite, moorstone and slate embedded in china clay. It is the remains of this building over which the commemorative stone lies today, and it is this building which is now the object of a determined rescue attempt. (see below).

This chapel was abandoned between 1050 and 1100 AD owing to the encroachment, yet again, of the sand. Another chapel (No.3) was built some 400 yards away to the north, a short distance from the Celtic Cross, Cristel Mael. Between 1100 and 1150 a Norman parish church (No.4) was built there, incorporating the third building. This is now being excavated.

The building on the original site (No.2) was visible at the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086, and an indication of the prosperity of this religious foundation can be imagined from the mention in an inventory of 1281 of St. Piran’s pastoral staff ornamented with gold, silver and precious stones.

However, by 1284 the “new” (fourth) parish church was also being threatened by the encroachment of sand. Various historians regularly mention this problem. In 1543 John Leland refers to “St Piran in the Sands”. Some 40 years later William Camden records the chapel as “in sabulo positum”, situated in the sands, from which we get the name of the present day parish, Perranzabuloe (Piran-in-sabulo).

In 1584 John Norden painted a graphic picture, “... the parish being almoste drowned with the sea sande, that the north-weste winde wherleth and driueth to the lande, in such sorte, as the inhabitantes haue bene once alredye forced to remoue their church. And yet they are so annoyde as they dayly loose their Lande.”

In 1620 Nicholas Roscarrock recalled, as a boy, seeing the relics of St Piran (including the head) “being carried up and down the country” (it was customary to raise income for the church by taking relics on tour like this). He describes the oratory/chapel as “drowned” with sand, and in 1755 Dr William Borlase writes that the parish church is “in no little danger” from sand.

A report written by Davies Gilbert, President of the Royal Society, in 1820, stated that, “... thousands of teeth and other human bones, even whole skeletons lie exposed in regular order”, and 15 years later Caroline Fox, of the great Quaker family, mentions seeing “... great quantities of human bones and skulls”.

Because of this inability to still the ever-shifting sand and prevent it from inundating the church [by no means a unique occurence in Cornwall, vide the churches of St Enodoc, St Gocianus at Gwithian, & St Winwalloe at Gunwalloe] the present Perranzabuloe church (No.5) was built in 1805, three miles distant from the old church, this time on rock!

[Why does it always take so long to learn the lessons of the Gospels?]

In 1835 the 9th century chapel/oratory was excavated. In 1892 an iron railing was placed around the walls, and in 1910 a concrete cover was built over the remains, ‘to protect them’. However, the battle of the sands was a losing one. Without the funds, or the necessary technology, or the will to save one of the oldest Christian sites in Britain, Westminster, in the form of the Department of the Environment, covered the site in 1980.

The Cornish erected the present day memorial stone, a rough hewn piece of granite, directly above St. Piran’s Oratory. This small piece of the towans (sand dunes) is now in the ownership of Perranzabuloe Parish Council.

At the start of the 21st century it is the aim of a new group, ‘The St. Piran Project Trust’, to reveal once again this 9th century building, one of the oldest Christian structures in Britain.

Apart from the vast acres of sand-dunes, there are today a number of reminders of the man who, as well as being the patron saint of tinners, has become the patron saint of Cornwall, together with St.Petroc and St.Michael.

A short distance away there is one of the most beautiful and best preserved Celtic crosses in Cornwall. Carved in granite, standing eight feet high, this cross was mentioned in a charter of the English king, Edgar, in 960 A.D. Such crosses were often set up 1000 paces from the Saint’s shrine. Here it marks the boundary of Piran’s sanctuary, Lanpiran.

In the centre of the towans is the site of St. Piran’s Well, whilst out in the Bay where Piran came ashore there is Piran’s Rock. A short distance away, at Rose, there is the more ‘modern’ Perran Round, a Plen an Gwary which saw performances of the Cornish Miracle Plays in the Middle Ages.

Perhaps Piran’s most notable gift to Cornwall is the Cornish flag, Baner Kernow. A white cross on a black background, it signifies the white pure tin coming out of the black ore. It also represents the light of truth shining in the darkness, a reference to the early Celtic Christianity brought to Cornwall by many such holy men, centuries before the arrival of Augustine in Canterbury at the end of the 7th century.

[Interestingly, only two countries in the world have flags without colour, the Gwyn ha Du (black & white), Cornwall and their close cousins in Brittany.]

Two other points need to be cleared up.

Firstly, did Piran discover tin? NO. Tin was being taken out of Cornwall more than 1000 years before his day, but he may well have been responsible for organising the extraction and smelting of this very valuable metal amongst the local people.

Secondly, did he die in a drunken stupor? That would be very difficult to verify even if his relics were found and DNA testing carried out on them, but an expression still used in Cornwall is to be “as drunk as a Perraner”, so be careful when you are throwing out the bathwater.

Soon after the Saint’s death, Perranzabuloe became a popular place of pilgrimage. It lay on the pathway between Petroc’s stowe (Padstow) on the north Cornish coast and St.Michael’s Mount and the fishing village of Porth Enys (Mousehole) in west Cornwall. These were important ports for travellers from Ireland and Wales en route to Brittany, all countries where Piran is held in high regard, and thence on to complete their pilgrimage in Santiago de Compostello in north-western Spain.

In the summers of the late 20th century ‘pilgrims’ still come to Cornwall in search of sun and sand, to the large holiday resort a few hundred yards to the west of the ancient site. After an interval of a few centuries, the ancient custom of pilgrimage to honour Piran was re-introduced by the writer in 1991.

Every year since, on the morning of St Piran’s Day, 5th March, hundreds of schoolchildren, parents and friends, Bards of the Cornish Gorsedd, members of Old Cornwall Societies, the clergy and the general public come from all over Cornwall to a simple celebration around the one object known to have been in situ throughout the whole of the last millennium, St. Piran’s Cross, Cristel Mael, to remember and honour a great Cornishman (by adoption), PIRAN.

In 2000 AD St. Piran’s Day fell on a Sunday. A huge, picnic-carrying, flag-waving crowd of about 2,500 departed from Perran Sands Holiday Camp at 12.30 pm.

Within five minutes of starting, in a dramatic change to previous years, we witnessed a silhouette scene on top of a distant sand-dune where Kieran was arrested and ‘thrown from the clifftop into the raging sea’. An audible gasp went up from the on-lookers.

Some five minutes later at the site of the buried Oratory (the 9th c. No. 2) the crowds saw Kieran/Piran step from a coracle and walk ashore through the water to address the crowds, first in Irish, then in Cornish. Next he got on with the business of building his (first) Oratory. The re-enactment of the building of this simple wattle frame, into which our 21st century Piran then walked to bless the crowds, had many crossing themselves and falling on their knees in wonder.

Scene three took place ten minutes later at the site of the Celtic Cross. (adjacent to the site of No.3 which became the parish church, No.4, until the new one was built 3 miles away at Lambourne, 200 years ago.)

Here Piran discovered how to smelt tin (according to the legend) and passed this on to the Cornish people, who (today) wove long strips of silvery ‘tin’ (our modern visual aids) in and out of the crowd before proceeding to get “drunk out of their minds” (alcohol was not available!), in recognition of the tradition, that “one can get as drunk as a Perraner”.

This was followed by a scene depicting the rise and decline of Cornish mining and then, simply but very movingly, a portrayal of the Cornish diaspora around the world.

The finale showed Piran rising up, with his flag, and joined by all the flag-waving crowd the towans echoed to the triumphant singing of Trelawney – representing Cornish hopes for the 21st century.

In 2001 everything was cancelled at the last minute because of the restrictions placed on walking in the countryside due to Foot & Mouth disease. Nevertheless, the usual St. Piran’s Day celebrations took place in pubs and clubs, Town Halls and Churches – parades, dancing, flag-waving, singing and general merriment, all proving that St. Piran still walks amongst the Cornish people worldwide.

In 2002 the whole of the proceedings were handed over to the residents of the parish of Perranzabuloe who continue with these traditions in what has become a very popular and important fixture in the Cornish calendar.

In 2010 the procession will commence at 2.00pm on Sunday 7th March from the Perran Sands Holiday Camp. All are welcome, but bring a St. Piran’s flag with you.