THE INSULATION OF ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT. 9 
name of the ‘ Hoar rock in the wood’;* and addresses himself 
mainly to the following topics :—(1) The dense forest mentioned 
by William of Worcester as having at one time surrounded the 
Mount, (2) the alleged British name of the Mount, and (3) the 
translation of the said name. The results of his investigations 
on the last three points may be best given in his own words :— 
“‘ And here we find— 
(1) That the legend of the dense forest by which the Mount 
was believed to have been surrounded existed, so far as we know, 
before the earliest occurrence of the Cornish name, and that it owes 
its origin entirely to a mistake which can be accounted for by 
documentary evidence. A legend told of Mont St. Michel “(in 
Normandy)” had been transferred ipsissimis verbis to St. Michael’s 
Mount, and the Monks of that priory repeated the story which 
they found in their chronicle to all who came to visit their estab- 
lishment in Cornwall. They told the name, among others, to 
William of Worcester, and to prevent any credulity on his part, 
they gave him chapter and verse from their chronicle, which he 
carefully jotted down in his diary.” 
‘*(2) We find that when the Cornish name first occurs it lends 
itself, in one form, to a very natural interpretation, which does 
not give the meaning of ‘Hore rock in the wodd,’ but shows the 
name Cara cowz in clowze to have been a literal rendering of the 
Latin name ‘Mons in tumba,’ originally the name of Mont St. 
Michel, but at an early date applied in charters to St. Michael's 
Mount.” 
(3) We find that the second form of the Cornish name, viz., 
cara clowse in cowze may either be a merely metamorphic corrup- 
tion of cara cowz in clowze, readily suggested and supported by 
the new meaning which it yielded of ‘grey rock in the wood ;’ or, 
even if we accept it as an original name, that it would be no more 
than a name framed by the Cornish-speaking monks of the Mount, 
in order to embody the same spurious tradition which had given 
rise to the name of ‘ Hore rock in the wodd.’” T 
The Critic in the Saturday Review, already mentioned, whilst 
looking on the Professor's “explanation as perfectly successful,” 
* pp. 331-2. 
T pp. 355-6. 
