Ghostly Tales of Cornish Ground

Ghostly Tales of Cornish Ground

Near the tavern of Jamaica Inn, at Bolventor on Bodmin moor, the ghost of a murdered sailor of ancient times is seen  in moonlight on the stone brick walls, cursing the devil who caused this all.

But at the Dolphin Inn down Penzance way, Judge Jeffries, the hanging judge did sentence to death on the gallows tree, a captain of navy and sailors three, smuggling rum in barrels so big, the whole of Penzance did dance the death jig, as drunk as a lord when they hung up the four  but their mates cut the ropes tight round their necks, to escape Judge Jeffries and start smuggling once more.

Stranger still is the tale from the Punch Bowl Inn at Lanreath a stones throw from Lostwithiel and the mad black demonic cockerel who can still hear it crow, as it fly’s through the night, stretching as it goes.

In Boscastle’s Wellington Hotel many a ghost has cast its spell, the coachman dressed in leathers of black, who wonders through brick walls, this way and that and the serving wench of a bye gone age who threw herself from the roof of this inn, to be near to her lover, the coachman in black who walks through the walls, this way and that.

There is the Phantom Coach down Mevagissey way, four horses and driver on a four wheeled coach, who vanish into thin air, the moment they approach, but barrels of rum and brandy most fair, cascade from the coach before it goes up in to smoke, so smugglers they say from Truro’s fair town chased by the peelers for stealing the rum, but free drinks are the order from these barrels of fun.

Yet  another tale from the Cornish ways, but my friends I will tell you, on another day

Peter Wicks