e actual bitterness of
working in the mines.

Having thus disposed of the Jews, we now turn to the Saracens in Cornwall.
We shall not enter upon the curious and complicated history of that name.
It is enough to refer to a short note in Gibbon,(83) in order to show that
Saracen was a name known to Greeks and Romans, long before the rise of
Islam, but never applied to the Jews by any writer of authority, not even
by those who saw in the Saracens "the children of Sarah."

What, then, it may be asked, is the origin of the expression _Attal
Sarazin_ in Cornwall? _Attal_, or _Atal_, is said to be a Cornish word,
the Welsh _Adhail_, and means refuse, waste.(84) As to _Sarazin_, it is
most likely another Cornish word, which by a metamorphic process, has been
slightly changed in order to yield some sense intelligible to Saxon
speakers. We find in Cornish _tarad_, meaning a piercer, a borer; and, in
another form, _tardar_ is distinctly used, together with axe and hammer,
as the name of a mining implement. The Latin _taratrum_, Gr. {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}, Fr.
_tariere_, all come from the same source. If from _tarad_ we form a
plural, we get _taradion_. In modern Cornish we find that _d_ sinks down
to _s_, which would give us _taras_,(85) and plural _tarasion_. Next, the
final _l_ of _atal_ may, like several final _l_'s in the closely allied
language of Brittany, have infected the initial _t_ of _tarasion_, and
changed it to _th_, which _th_, again, would, in modern Cornish, sink down
to _s_.(86) Thus _atal tharasion_ might have been intended for the refuse
of the borings, possibly the refuse of the mines; but pronounced in Saxon
fashion, it might readily have been mistaken for the Atal or refuse of the
Sarasion or Saracens.

POSTSCRIPT.

The essay on the presence of Jews in Cornwall has given rise to much
controversy; and as I republish it here without any important alterations,
I feel it incumbent to say a few words in answer to the objections that
have been brought forward against it. No one, I think, can read my essay
without perceiving that what I question is not the presence of single Jews
in Cornwall, but the migration of large numbers of Jews into the extreme
West of Britain, whether at the time of the Phoenicians, or at