United States or Bouvet Island ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
We do not ask what fetish or totem the sleepers in the grassy barrows believed in; we may ask if they lived their lives truly and faithfully, doing that which was good according to the light of their primitive consciences. Between the two headlands of Penhale Point and Kelsey Head lies Holywell Bay, the larger portion of which is in the parish of Cubert. It is a wild region of blown sand.
The bay and the sands are named after the holy well of St. Cubert, formerly one of the most famous of Cornwall's numerous wells. St. Cubert, the titular patron of the parish and well, has been mistaken for St. Cuthbert; but it is obvious to any one who has devoted any study to Cornish saint-lore that the Northumbrian saint has no business here, good man though he was.
Cubert is still peaceful and primitive, being a little too far from Newquay to be overrun by the summer visitors. A pleasant and fairly good road leads towards Crantock, passing by Trevowah, beyond which a turning to the left takes us to West Pentire and the small bay known as Porth or "Polly" Joke. The "joke" needs explanation; possibly it is the corruption of some forgotten Cornish word.
He has been intruded to displace some earlier and less widely known possessor. Cuthbert was certainly never in Cornwall, and the older Cornish dedications are almost invariably the actual footprints of Celtic missionaries. It is probable that the true Cubert was St. Cybi, or Cuby, whom we find at Cuby near Grampound, and whose name also survives in the Caergybi and Llangybi of Wales.
Yet the spring flows on, heedless of its neglect as it was heedless of its worship; it is only the false, the fantastic, the deceptive that have passed the truth, the loveliness remain. About two and a half miles from the well, across the sand-downs and commons, is the little church-town of Cubert.
Word Of The Day