338 ''JEWS IN CORNWALL"; AND ''MARAZION." 



the little market was held, somewhere near, on ground not be- 

 longing to the Prior, was called in the vernacular, as we have it 

 in Earl Robert's charter, Ilarghashigan, and in the Bishop's register, 

 by a literal translation. Parvus Mercatus ; and it is possible that 

 though the little town itself may have borne some name derived 

 from the connection of the Jews with the place, or a tradition of 

 something of the kind in former times, when the particular 

 sites where the Thursday-market and the Little-market were held, 

 had lost their distinctive appellations, and the various names, of 

 which Marhet Jew and Marazion are corruptions, had come to be 

 ajjplied indifferently to the whole town, (some persons using one 

 and some the other form), as both u and n are plural terminations, 

 persons of a rationalistic turn of mind might understand by both 

 forms simply "Markets," — the place where the Jews had held 

 their market, and where the Thursday-market, the Little-market, 

 and other markets or fairs were still held. 



But now, is there any reason for supposing that this place 

 must have had a name in more ancient times 1 We believe there 

 is, and that it is quite possible that the several names, or modes 

 of spelling the same name, admitting of such different significa- 

 tions, in the then vernacular, may be modifications of the old 

 name accommodated to the altered circumstances of the place ; 

 that is, that these old names themselves are the result of the 

 metamorphic process, in the same way that some geologists sup- 

 pose the so-called primitive rocks are. 



Convinced that the Phoenicians traded here for tin, and that 

 S. Michael's Mount, 



" Both land and island twice a day, 

 Both fort and port of haunt," 



was the Iktis of Diodorus Siculus, where the old inhabitants used 

 to carry their tin across the causeway, laid bare by the ebb of the 

 tide, we also feel assured that the site of Marazion must have 

 been a place of considerable importance, and must either have had 

 a name of its own, or have been named from the adjoining mart 

 for tin. 



We know little about the Phoenician language. But in Ezekiel, 

 c. xxvii, where we have a particular description of the extensive 

 and rich trade of Tyre, there is a word used several times for 



