I haven't got that much further with my research today, other than uploading my letter from the Bard of Cornwall and watching an episode of Coast (Series 6, episode 2 - Devon and Cornwall) that shows Morwenstow (right near the end of the programme) and Hawkers hut. It also mntions Rev Hawker once dressed up as a mermaid and the fact that he had a pet pig! I like this fellow.
Sadly, I couldn't find any photos of him dressed as a mermaid - but did find this really funny account of the event...so picture this....
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| Rev. Hawker |
The following text is taken from The Vicar of Morwenstow: A Life of Robert Stephen Hawker, M.A. By Sabine Baring-Gould. Which you can read online by using the link.
"At full moon in the July of 1825 or 1826, he swam or rowed out to a rock at "some little distance from the shore, plaited seaweed into a wig, which he threw over his head, so that it hung in lank streamers halfway down his back, enveloped his legs in an oilskin wrap, and, otherwise naked, sat on the rock, flashing the moonbeams about from a hand-mirror, and sang and screamed till attention was arrested. Some people passing along the cliff heard and saw him, and ran into Bude, saying that a mermaid with a fish's tail was sitting on a rock, combing her hair, and singing.
A number of people ran out on the rocks and along the beach, and listened awe-struck to the singing and disconsolate wailing of the mermaid. Presently she dived off the rock, and disappeared.
Next night crowds of people assembled to look out for the mermaid; and in due time she re-appeared, and sent the moon flashing in their faces from her glass. Telescopes were brought to bear on her; but she sang on unmoved, braiding her tresses, and uttering remarkable sounds, unlike the singing of mortal throats which have been practised in do-re-mi.
This went on for several nights; the crowd growing greater, people arriving from Stratton, Kilkhampton, and all the villages round, till Robert Hawker got very hoarse with his nightly singing, and rather tired of sitting so long in the cold. He therefore wound up the performance one night with an unmistakable "God save the King," then plunged into the waves, and the mermaid never again revisited the "sounding shores of Bude."
Source:
I've also just read that apparently:
St Morwenna's holy well was not located on the cliffs of Morwenstow as a source of water but as a means of tapping into the energy of Mother Earth.
I like the thought of that - although I'd read elsewhere that it was where Saint Morwenna rested that a 'spring sprung forth'. I guess it really means the same thing. So was she very connected to nature. Did she know the secrets of the healing plants?
http://www.camelot-hotel.co.uk/heritage-breaks-in-cornwall/hidden-cornwall.html
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