58 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
Christianity with that old form of Nature cultus known as Serpent 
Worship, of which every land with a history yields some trace. 
The most pronounced and at the same time most corrupt illustra- 
tion remaining in the West, is the legend of the combat of St. 
Michael with the dragon who sought to destroy Helston — the 
exceedingly recent form of which is shown by the attempted 
derivation of Helston (Hals-dun = Moor-hill) from Hell-stone — the 
stone with which the dragon sought to destroy the town — a 
derivation which would have had no meaning before the Cornish 
language had been supplanted by the English. 1 
There are other facts of kindred character. We have an excellent 
illustration how far even a casual tradition may fill a gap in re- 
corded history in the intense animosity shown towards red-haired 
people in further Cornwall. There is hardly a more abusive 
epithet in the Land's End district than "red-haired Dane." Yet 
the current chronicles have little to say concerning Danish ravages 
in that locality. 2 We may be sure, however, that after the defeat 
of the Danes and West Welch at Hingston by Ecgberht, the North- 
men turned upon and harried their quondam allies. This hatred 
of the " red-haired " as surely continues the memory of Danish 
descent, as the cliff castles so common in Cornwall, so rare in 
Devon, preserve the proofs of still earlier incursions to which the 
inhabitants of the Western Peninsula were subject. 
The ancient Well Worship, notwithstanding the anathemas of 
councils, kings, and popes, is yet practised in the West. Madron 
Well, near Penzance, affords the most notable example; pins are still 
dropped into it for the purpose of divination, and rags hung upon 
the thorns around. " Not only is this practice an exact counterpart 
of a custom at Balmano, in Scotland, and in the Orkneys ; but it 
1 I think the Dartmoor tradition that tin mines were worked when 
"wolves and winged serpents" (dragons) dwelt in the valleys, may allude to 
the inroads of Northmen in their " sea snakes ; " and so with the association of 
dragons with barrows— the legend may typify the race of the silent "dweller 
in the cairn." 
2 The " Castles-an-dinas " are not to the purpose, as dinas has nothing to 
do with Danes, but is the old Cornish word for a fortification, which castle 
reduplicates. There is, however, an old vernacular proverb which seems to 
point in this direction — "People from far inhabit castles." A curious tradition 
lingers of the occupation by Danes of the " Hembury Fort," near Ashburton, 
and their defeat by means of the strategy of the Saxon women, whom they 
had carried off to their haunt. 
