496 CORNISH DEDICATIONS. 



After a while, taking his portable altar with him, he went 

 to the Severn, and threw his altar in, resolving to settle 

 wherever it was washed up. 



Here is interpolated a passage that cannot possibly belong 

 to the life of S. Oarantoc. We are told that in those days Cado 

 and Arthur ruled the land, and the latter had his dwelling at 

 Dindrarthou. In the adjoining district of Carron was a dragon, 

 which Arthur summoned Carantoc to overcome. 



Arthur meanwhile had got hold of Carantoc' s altar table, 

 and designed appropriating it to his own use. However, when 

 Oarantoc had tamed the dragon, he reluctantly surrendered the 

 altar, which Carantoc again threw into the sea. 



Dindrarthou is Dinedor, in Herefordshire, a dinas or 

 fortress commanding the Wye valley, and Carron is the marshy 

 region of the Garran. Here there is a church called Llangarran. 



Possibly under this fable we may detect a substratum of 

 history, that Carantoc did visit the Garran basin, and there 

 tried to overcome the j)aganism that still lingered there. But 

 all that portion of the legend which concerns Cado and Arthur 

 must be dismissed, as they flourished about 630 ; the death of 

 the latter is given in the Cambrian Annals as taking place in 

 537. It is therefore impossible to make Carantoc, who assisted 

 in the compilation of the Seanchus Mor, in 430, a contemporary 

 of Arthur. 



Carantoc crossed to Cornwall. There, we are led to suppose, 

 his altar was washed up, for he had again thrown it into the sea 

 after its surrender. The place is called, in the Life, Gwellit (the 

 Grassy). It was probably the long curious creek called the 

 Gannel. There he resolved to settle, and he borrowed a spade 

 from a poor man, wherewith to dig the ground. He also cut 

 for himself a staff, and at intervals, when tired of digging, he 

 took to whittling the handle of the staff. 



Presently he observed a wood-pigeon fly out of the adjoin- 

 ing grove and carry off in its beak some of the shavings from 

 his staff. He resolved to follow the bird, and he found that she 

 had dropped the chips in one particular spot. He determined to 

 build a church there. This is quite in accordance with Celtic 

 custom of looking out for an omen, from bird or beast, before 

 founding a church, or naming a child. 



