parish is the port or
creek or haven, called the Gonell or Ganell. It also, at full sea,
affordeth entrance and anchorage for ships of greatest burthen, if
conducted by a pilot that understandeth the course of the channel."
But tradition goes further back than this, and speaks of Crantock as
having been once part of a large town or district named Langarrow, or
sometimes Languna, most of which now lies beneath the sand-towans.
This town is said to have had many fine churches and buildings, vying
with the best cities in the Britain of that day, which seems to have
been the tenth century. With wealth drawn from a fertile soil, a
productive sea, and from rich mines of tin and lead, the inhabitants
waxed proud in their prosperity, and revelled in luxurious vice. It
would seem that a problem as to the provision of labour for the
mines--still a vexed question in parts of the British dominions--led
the Government of that day to convert Langarrow into a criminal
settlement. There were no opposition newspapers in those times, or
their perusal would be deeply interesting. The convicts were not
allowed to reside within the town, but had a reservation or compound
outside, and they passed most of their time toiling in the mines for
the enrichment of others. Such work was probably done chiefly by means
of quarrying and "streaming," rather than by the burrowing underground
which we now generally understand as mining. This importation of
criminal labour added greatly to the wealth of the neighbourhood, but
it gradually induced its ruin. The daughters of Langarrow began to
marry with the convicts; a slow process of contamination took place
among those whose morals were already sapped by luxury. At last the
town absolutely reeked with wickedness--so says the highly moral
legend. When the sin had reached its utmost the wrath of God
descended. The cities of the Plain were destroyed by fire; this
Cornish town was overwhelmed by a terrible uprising of wind and sea.
The waves broke angrily over the haunts of man's degradation, followed
by driving sands that blotted them out for ever. But perhaps it may
not be for ever. Some day the fickle sand may desert that which it
once buried, or the spade may lay bare relics that shall prove the
tradition's truth. The lost church of St. Piran has been found; it may
be so with the lost Langarrow. Already many human remains have been
found among the sand-heaps that extend intermittently from here to
Perranp