About this deal
Hanging from the roof near the window is a model of a West Country schooner, created as a memorial to WA Proctor, who died on a solitary round-the-world voyage, and also to all unnamed sailors who were shipwrecked along this stretch of the Cornish coast. As a Trewhela (my lot dropped the extra l and changed the pronunciation somewhere along the line), it’s always been a source of pride that my ancestor fell in love with a mermaid.
We gathered nouns and adjectives, using our senses, imagining what it must have been like for Tom and Zac to live there.Warey of stories of Mermaids the captain weighed anchor and headed for deeper water fearing the mermaid would bring the ship bad luck.
It’s said that if you stand looking out to sea at Zennor on a warm summer’s evening you may well hear the sound of Matthew and Morvehen’s singing emanate from beneath the waves.
Generally, being by the sea, being at the very far end of the UK, not having any big cities, means that Cornwall has a much slower pace of life.
Zennor folks tell the following story, which, according to them, accounts for a singular carving on a bench-end in their Church. His stories were longer than similar versions published by others and reflected the way the old story tellers embellished the basic tales to increase the entertainment value.
Although the earliest records we have of the present beautiful building date from 1150, it is a certainty that a church of some sorts has stood on this site since at least the 6th century, when the Irish and Breton missionaries came to Cornwall with the intention of converting the natives to their religion. The small village of Zennor huddles around the medieval churc hbetween the West Cornwall moors and North Cornish coast not far from St Ives. The story supposedly solves the mystery of the missing choir boy, Matthew Trewhella, but another mystery remains; did the carving on the bench-end come first and inspire the story, or did the story lead to the carving? With that Mathew picked up Morveren and ran into the sea never to be seen by the folk of Zennor again. It’s one of Cornwall’s most famous legends – the tale of a mermaid enticing a handsome Cornish lad to live with her beneath the ocean forever and ever.
There are alternative versions of the story but the overriding consensus is that after miraculously washing up on land she gave birth to her son and then spent her time converting people to Christinity in Ireland and Cornwall.Sea-faring men, who understood most about mermaids, regarded their appearance as a token that bad luck was near at hand. On one of these occasions he reversed the role of the mythic siren and entranced a mermaid with his beautiful voice. Visitors are drawn to Zennor Church from all over the world by the legend of the Zennor Mermaid and by the magical story of the ancient Mermaid Chair. From his songs, the fishermen of Zennor knew when it was safe to put to sea, and when it was wise to anchor snug at home. Interestingly, he did not include the story in his first volume (1870) of stories from West Cornwall but in the second, a few years later.