This is a tale told in Robert Hunt’s ‘Popular Romances of the West of
England, or The Drolls, Superstitions and Traditions of Old Cornwall’. First
published in 1865 it went into three editions and was illustrated by George
Cruikshank, of whom more below. The third edition begins with a selection of
tales about some of the many Cornish giants. This particular one was called Bolster.
Like most giants he was a disreputable character, but unlike most giants he
fell madly in love with the local St Agnes. He was in fact a sort of giant stalker,
but I’m not sure which of the pair I disapprove of most – him, or her.
Bolster must have been a giant of enormous size, since it is stated that he could stand with one foot on St Agnes’ Beacon and the other on Carn Brea; these hills being distant, as the bird flies, six miles. In proof of this, there still exists in the valley running upwards from Chapel Porth, a stone in which may be seen the impression of the giant’s fingers. On one occasion, while enjoying his usual stride from the Beacon to Carn Brea, Bolster felt thirsty and stooped to drink out of the well at Chapel Porth, resting while he did so on the above-mentioned stone.
We hear but little of the
wives of our giants, but Bolster had a wife, who was made to labour hard by her
tyrannical husband. On the top of St Agnes’ Beacon there yet exist the
evidences of the useless labours to which this unfortunate giantess was doomed,
in grouped masses of small stones gathered from an estate at the bottom of this
hill [which] whenever Bolster was angry with his wife, he compelled her to
[...] carry in her apron to the top...
Be this as it may, the giant
Bolster fell deeply in love with St Agnes, who is reputed to have been
singularly beautiful and a pattern of virtue. The giant allowed the lady no
repose. He followed her incessantly, proclaiming his love and filling the air
with the tempests of his sighs and groans. St Agnes lectured Bolster in vain on
the impropriety of his conduct, he being already a married man. This availed
not [and] the persecuted lady, finding there was no release for her while this
monster existed, resolved to be rid of him at any cost, and eventually
succeeded by the following stratagem.
Agnes appeared at last to be
persuaded of the intensity of the giant’s love, but she told him she required
one small proof more. There exists at Chapel Porth a hole in the cliff at the
end of the valley. If Bolster would fill this hole with his blood, the lady
would no longer look coldly on him.
The huge bestrider-of-hills thought
it was an easy thing which was asked of him: he could fill many such holes and
be none the weaker for loss of blood. Stretching his great arm across the hole,
he plunged a knife into a vein, and a torrent of gore rushed forth. Roaring and
seething, the blood fell to the bottom, and the giant expected to see the hole
filled in a matter of moments. Yet it required much more blood than Bolster had
supposed: still, in a short time it must
be filled, so he bled on. Hour after hour the blood flowed from the vein, and
the hole was not filled. Eventually the giant fainted from exhaustion. The
strength of life within his mighty frame enabled him to rally, but he had no
power to lift himself from the ground and was unable to staunch the wound he
had made. So it was, that after many throes, the giant Bolster died!
In proposing this task, the
cunning saint was well aware that the hole opened at the bottom into the sea,
and as rapidly as the blood flowed into the hole it was washed away. Thus, the
lady got rid of her lover, Mrs Bolster was released, and the district freed
from its tyrant. The hole at Chapel Porth still retains the evidence of this
tradition, in the red stain which marks the track down which flowed the giant’s
blood.
A footnote to this story takes
us to an amusing letter written by the artist George Cruikshank to the book’s
publisher Mr Hotten. Cross swords with an artist at your peril:
263
Hampstead Rd, N.W., April 18th,
1865
Dear Mr. Hotten, – I
have received your note, in which you express a doubt as to whether some
portion of the public will understand my representation of the giant “Bolster”.
To all such persons, I would beg them to reflect, that if
a giant could stride six miles across a country, he must be twelve miles in
height, according to the proportions of the human figure. In order to get a
sight of the head of such a giant,
the spectator must be distant a mile or two from the figure. This would, by
adding half the “stride” and above
eleven miles perpendicular, place the spectator about fifteen miles distant
from the giant’s head, which head, in proportion to other parts of the body,
would be about three-quarters of a mile measuring from the chin to the crown of
the head. Now, let anyone calculate, according to the laws of perspective, what
size such a head would be at such a distance. To give a little insight into the
matter of perspective, let anyone imagine they are looking down a street,
fifteen miles long, of large houses, and then calculate what size the last house would be at the farther end of the street; and it must
therefore be recollected that every part of such a huge body must lessen in the
same way – body and limbs – smaller by degrees, if not beautifully less.
I selected this subject from my friend Robert Hunt’s work
as one of the numerous proofs, which are shown in both the volumes, of the
horrible dark ignorance of the Early Ages – a large amount of which ignorance
and darkness, I am sorry to find, still remains.
I hope that these few lines will explain satisfactorily
why Giant “Bolster” has been thus displayed by, – Yours truly, George
Cruikshank.
PS. – The
first time that I put a very large
figure in perspective was about forty years back, in illustrating that part of
“Paradise Lost” where Milton
describes Satan as
“Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
Lay
floating many a rood.”
This I never published,
but possibly I may do so one of these days.
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