Legend Land, Vol. 1 | Page 4

to make a foundation for
his fire. The heat being more intense than usual one day, these stones
melted and a stream of white metal flowed from them.
The saint and his companion, St. Chiwidden, told the Cornish people of
their discovery, and taught them to dig and smelt the ore, thus bringing
much prosperity to the country, the story of which eventually reached
the far-away Phoenicians and brought them in their ships to trade with
the Cornish for their valuable metal.
Good St. Piran has left his name all over the wonderful country
south-west of Newquay. In Perranporth, with its rocks and caves and
glorious bathing beach; in St. Piran's Round, that strange old
earth-work not far away; in the parish of Perranzabuloe, which means
Perran in the Sands; in Perranwell, near Falmouth, and even further
south in Perranuthnoe, which looks out across the waters of Mounts
Bay.
But although memorials of him are to be found over most of South
Cornwall, it is the district of the Perran Sands, where he landed, lived
and died, that is his true home. There, where the soft Atlantic breezes
or the fierce winter gales sweep in to Perran Bay, you may look out
over the dancing sea towards Ireland and America with nothing but
Atlantic rollers between, or wander amid the waste of sand dunes that
comprise the Perran Sands and breathe in health with every breath you
take.

Perranporth is on the edge of these sandhills, which stretch away
north-east to within four miles of Newquay--all within seven hours'
journey from London.
[Illustration: St. Piran's Chapel]
[Illustration]

THE LOST CHILD OF ST. ALLEN
They never talk of fairies in Cornwall; what "foreigners" call fairies the
Cornish call "piskies," or "small people." And all about the Duchy
piskies still abound for those who are fitted to see them. The old folk
will still tell you many strange stories of the piskies. One of the best
known is that of the lost child of St. Allen. St. Allen is a parish on the
high ground about four miles from Truro, and there, in the little hamlet
of Treonike, or, as it is now called, Trefronick, on a lovely spring
evening years and years ago, a small village boy wandered out to pick
flowers in a little copse not far from his parents' cottage.
His mother, looking from the kitchen door, saw him happily engaged in
his innocent amusement, then turned to make ready the supper for her
good man, whom she saw trudging home in the distance across the
fields. When, a few minutes later, she went to call her boy in to his
evening meal, he had vanished.
At first it was thought that the child had merely wandered further into
the wood, but after a while, when he did not return, his parents grew
alarmed and went in search of him. Yet no sign of the boy was
discovered.
For two days the villagers sought high and low for the missing child,
and then, on the morning of the third day, to the delight of the
distracted parents, their boy was found sleeping peacefully upon a bed
of fern within a few yards of the place where his mother had last seen
him. He was perfectly well, quite happy, and entirely ignorant of the
length of time that had elapsed. And he had a wonderful story to tell.

While picking the flowers, he said, he had heard a bird singing in more
beautiful tones than any he had heard before. Going into the wood to
see what strange songster this was, the sound changed to most
wonderful music which compelled him to follow it. Thus lured onward
he came at length to the edge of an enchanted lake, and he noticed that
night had fallen but that the sky was ablaze with huge stars. Then more
stars rose up all around him, and, looking, he saw that each was in
reality a pisky. These small people formed themselves into a procession,
singing strange fascinating songs the while, and under the leadership of
one who was more brilliant and more beautiful than the rest they led
the boy through their dwelling place. This, he said, was like a palace.
Crystal pillars supported arches hung with jewels which glistened with
every colour of the rainbow. Far more wonderful, the child said, were
the crystals than any he had seen in a Cornish mine.
The piskies were very kind to him, and seemed to enjoy his wonder and
astonishment at their gorgeous cave. They gave him a fairy meal of the
purest honey spread on dainty little cakes, and when at last he grew
tired numbers of the small folk fell to work to build him a bed of fern.
Then, crowding around him,