The House of the Wicked

Baccan’s Maw





The wind gasped mournfully at the window, like a spirit locked outside and begging entrance. Then the belligerent pounding of heavy drops of rain that exploded in his ears like cannon fire.

His head was alight with a searing pain that drilled through his skull. The cold damp cloth he’d laid over his forehead and eyes was now warm and dry. He grimaced as he reached over to the bowl by his bed, dipped the cloth in water and squeezed it out, returning it to his forehead.

He’d be plagued by these ever since he was a child. A pain so intense he would often black out, and when he awoke it left a legacy of a throbbing headache and debilitating tiredness that would linger for yet more hours. He had no idea what triggered the events but he lived in dread of their occurrence. “An overactive mind,” said his mother. “A lazy one,” said his father. “The cricket ball that hit you in the temple,” offered his brother, “stopping my six.” Whatever the cause, he’d had various treatments but nothing had worked. Yet another bane to carry around with him, he thought, feeling decidedly sorry for himself.

The damned rain! Why must the night always amplify such things? His pillow felt ever more hard and unforgiving beneath his tired head.

Eventually, as the pain subsided, replaced by a dull ache that rose and fell with every heartbeat, Denning rose shakily from his bed, rubbed his eyes, the back of his neck. He glanced at a bottle of wine on the table and thought about taking a glass but refrained; it would only make matters worse.

What atrocious weather. Someone had told him it was the worst summer Pont Aven had seen in at least seven years. Of course, and it chooses the moment when he should be staying here to do it. That meant more fighting with the canvas just to keep it on its damned easel. More dust thrown up at his face, coating the smears of paint on his palette and turning the whole to sandpaper. He was beginning to detest the place. Maybe that’s what had brought on the headache.

The Hotel des Voyageurs was at least tolerable, but for having to suffer the many young pretenders who were better skilled at articulating affected theories and bragging of their ambitious intentions than painting. Some, to be fair, were decent fellows, decent artists too, and had money to sprinkle around, which was no bad thing, but they were the exception and in truth most were so preoccupied by their work they were the dullest folk on earth to waste too much time on.

He looked at the painting he’d been working on for a week now. Peasants cleaning out a country ditch. He screwed his face up at it, shook his head. Why, he asked himself? Why peasants, why the ditch? Yes, he knew the Realist theories that lay behind it; yes, it had felt new and exciting for a while; but he was quickly growing bored. If he’d wanted to paint misery he could find that in the streets of London. At times like these he began to seriously question what on earth he was doing here and what it was that would make him truly happy.

The dawn sky outside was beginning to turn sloe berry-blue. He just wasn’t a dawn person. Part of him, the artist, was rather taken with the colour of the sky, the way the raindrops glistened like blue pearls as they collected and slid their snail trails down the glass, and in his mind he was mixing the colours on his palette to replicate it; another part of him complained that modern man was not designed to see the dawn and that he ought to go back to bed. Then he heard a frantic knocking at the door that made him start.

“Stephen!” he heard. “Stephen! Open up!”

Recognising Wilkinson’s voice immediately, Denning went to the door and let him in. The man almost fell into the room and closed the door quickly behind him.

“Calm down, Terrance, there’s a good fellow! My head hurts like blazes.”

His eyes were wild, looking at Denning but not quite seeing him. His hair was a mess and his forehead bore a silken sheen of sweat. Wilkinson didn’t reply but instead went to the bottle of wine on the table and snatched it up. “Glass?” he snapped. Denning pointed one out and he watched as he poured out the bottle’s last dregs of wine into it. He raised it to his lips and downed it in one angry swig. “I could do with another,” he said, the whites of his eyes flaring, searching the room. Denning noticed there was mud on the man’s trousers, his shoes thick with it.

“I think you’ve had enough, judging by your appearance,” Denning said, taking the glass from him. “Whatever’s gotten into you? You look like you have the devil at your back. Sit down, man.”

He swiped a clawed hand across his hair and gave a plaintive groan. “A terrible thing has happened, Stephen! A terrible thing!”

They heard a noise from outside in the corridor. Wilkinson stiffened like card and stared manically at the door. The soft sound of boots thumping on carpet faded away.

“What do you mean? He took the man’s arm and led him to a chair. “Have you been hurt?”

“Hurt? Me?” He blinked stupidly. “No! No! Not hurt!” He shook Denning’s fingers away. “Get away from me! Oh, why did I ever get drawn into this?”

He looked exhausted, but he was obviously quite drunk too. Under a firm hand he was encouraged to sit and he hunched himself into a pathetic shadow of his ebullient self. He raised his head. “You don’t look well, Stephen,” he said, eyes narrowed. “Another of your attacks?”

“Never mind me. Whatever is wrong?”

For a while Wilkinson simply stared into Denning’s eyes, then he seemed to relax, ran his hand through his hair again and gave a little laugh. “Forgive me, Stephen. I have taken far too much tonight. It has addled my brain, as you know it does. I shall leave you to your bed and try and find my own.” He got stiffly to his feet, swayed ever so slightly. “He glanced urgently about the room, his attention resting on Denning’s crumpled clothing thrown onto the back of a chair.

Denning steadied him. “Are you sure you’re alright? You look damnably pale, even for you.”

He smiled but it was a grim affair. “I am perfectly well. I am sorry to bother you. Goodnight, Stephen.”

Wilkinson left the room giving a half-hearted wave of his hand, and Denning watched him stagger his way down the corridor.

Not thinking too much about it – there had, after all, been many such occasions – Denning went back to bed and rested the cloth back on his head, the brief affair racking up the pain again.

Two days later they had just taken breakfast and were in the lobby when two gendarmes arrived, their shining black boots rapping loudly on the tiled floor; they asked for and were greeted by Madame Guillou herself. They tipped their kepis in greeting and one of them engaged her in earnest conversation whilst the other, a shorter man with a rifle slung over his shoulder, looked about him. Madame Guillou put a hand to her chest as though surprised, and motioned with her hand to the lobby. The two men immediately set about questioning the few people who were around.

“I wonder what has happened now?” said Denning turning to Wilkinson. But the man’s face was ashen and he looked like he was about to keel over in a faint. “Terrance, what’s come over you, man?” he said. Then realised he stood in fear of the gendarmes.

“I cannot say,” he breathed, and he turned about and dashed away, up the stairs. Denning quickly followed. He would not answer to his calls until they were safe inside his rooms and the door was closed.

“Now tell me what all this madness is about. You were surely not afraid of the gendarmes.”

He was pacing about in a panic. “It wasn’t me, Stephen! It wasn’t me!”

“You’re not making sense. Is this to do with the other night, when you came home drunk, bursting into my room at God knows what unearthly hour of the morning?”

“Yes! Yes!” He flung his arms up in the air. “A monstrous thing!”

Denning was used to such emotional outpourings from Wilkinson, but today he felt there was something more ominous about his demeanour. He bade him sit down.

Denning pulled up a chair beside him. “Calm yourself. It’s obviously not as bad as you make out. You are in one of your states again. Tell me what happened.”

Wilkinson’s head swung round to a sound outside.

“It is nothing, probably just those frightfully cheerful Norwegians off to the river,” explained Denning.

“Yes, of course,” he muttered. And at this he sunk his head into his hands.

“Now be a good man and explain why all this fuss over those two uniformed dullards downstairs.”

“Let me think,” he said. “Let me think!” Finally he gave a deep sigh. “The other night,” he said, “I had been taking a drink and playing cards at Monsieur Jacques.” His fingers peeled away from his face like a grotesque bloom and he looked up. “Yes, I know, I have been warned of it before.”

Monsieur Jacques was a small and notorious illegal house tucked quietly away into the Breton countryside on the fringes of the beech forest of Bois D’amour where it was supposedly hidden from prying eyes but of which everyone seemed to know, if not by frequentation then by its sordid reputation. The authorities had tried many times to stamp it out but it lingered like a bad stain, providing for the many young foreigners a raft of illicit diversions. He seemed obscenely attracted to these places, thought Denning. It had been the same in Paris. Driven by his art, Wilkinson would have him believe, but he’d never been entirely convinced of that.

“I had lost a good deal of money at the gaming table and taken far more liquor than was good for me,” he continued. “The place was busy with the usual sorts of people, and I’m afraid I was a little taken with the atmosphere. There were a couple of young women with whom I was intrigued, for I thought at first glance they would be tolerable models for my latest rural piece. They had…” he struggled for words, pointed to his cheek, “…weathered, expressive faces for ones so young. I engaged them in conversation, bought them drinks, but in the end I decided against them and sat down to a game of cards. One of them, the smallest and in truth the prettiest, called Marie – not her real name of course – lingered around me like an irritating little moth and would not leave me in spite of my increasing abruptness with her. She was a queer sort, but you know the type, as in Paris. Poor, unfortunate creatures that are driven by their masters to sell themselves at every turn or feel staves about their shoulders. But I told her that I needed her not, in any form, and to throw her charms on someone else.”

He stared as if picturing the scene unfolding before him. Drew in a trembling breath. “Go one,” urged Denning.

“Eventually I rose from the table, informed my temporary companions that I would take some air and return with a clear head to recoup some of my losses. I took a stroll down the lane there to the edge of the forest, and I stood in the warm moonlight for a while. I was disturbed in my thoughts by Marie, who had followed me. In her desperation she presented herself to me again, but once more I refused. I took pity on her and offered her a few francs to buy a drink but she swiped it from my hand and cursed me for the impotent foreigner I was. I said I could not help her and went back inside, joining another game at the table and thinking no more of it.

“The game ended quickly, my companions drifted off and I decided on a last drink before heading home. I had risen to leave when a fellow, breathless and plainly so disturbed that he could scarce speak, rushed into the place and declared that he had happened on Marie who was lying on the ground in the forest and quite dead. At first I did not believe what I heard, for it had not seemed all that long since I had left her, but of course it might have been longer. It is so difficult to remember as it is all becoming a blur. The few of us that were left rushed outside to see and we found and gathered round the corpse of that pitiable, ill-fated girl.”

“You are certain she was dead?” Denning asked. “She may have been lying in a faint or senseless with drink.”

Wilkinson’s face was deathly pale, his expression grave. “I shall not forget the sight as long as I live, Stephen. Her dress was…” He made a hand motion to indicate it had been lifted to her waist. “It looked like she had first been raped and then her throat had been cut.”

Denning gasped. “Oh my Lord! That is terrible! And you did not notify anyone?”

Slowly he shook his head. “I drifted off into the night, whist their attention was on the body of the woman. So did the rest, the place soon as dead as if no one had ever been there. Stephen, don’t you see, they would think that I had committed that horrible crime for I fear I was the last to be seen with her. I did not dare stay to answer those charges. I ran all the way back, through the forest, and that’s how you found me.”

“But we must tell the gendarmes at once!” He rose but Wilkinson whipped out a hand and grabbed him by the wrist, as if he were afraid Denning would march that very moment out of the door.

“They will blame me! They will build up all the facts and come to the wrong conclusion; they must not know I was there. I fear for my life, Stephen. If they should come here asking questions you must tell them I was here with you, all evening. Yes, that’s right; we did not leave this room.”

He shook his head. “I cannot lie, Terrance! You were seen there, played cards at the table with others.”

“But they do not know me. There were many others there. People were drunk, did not see straight or will not be able to remember clearly. We are all nameless who frequent that vile place. Stephen, I beg of you; please help your friend! You must stick with the story that I was here all along, for both our sakes!”

“Both our sakes?”

Wilkinson was almost deranged with emotion, and tears were beginning to fall from his lids. His grip was determined, desperate, like a man clinging for his life to a cliff face. “You do believe me, don’t you?”

“Of course I believe you!” said Denning. “You are not capable of such a thing.” He paused, put his fingers to his forehead as if to massage his thoughts. “But they are likely to find the real murderer soon, for there are sure to be some witnesses.”

“Yes! Yes! That’s true, they will find him soon enough!” He looked imploringly at Denning. “Please, Stephen…”

He studied the sky outside, it promised to be a beautiful day, so unlike the past few. Not the kind of day on which you expect to be drawn into something like this. “And this Marie, she is of a certain kind,” he said. “They open themselves up to many such atrocities.”

“It happens all the time to such women. It is their lot in life.”

There was a knocking at the door and both men stared at it. Denning made a move towards it and Wilkinson gripped his arm all the harder to bring him to a halt. “Please, I beg of you… Remember our story.”

“I…” he faltered, then pulled free his sleeve and opened the door. The two gendarmes were standing outside. They explained that they were asking questions of everyone in the hotel, for there had been a most regrettable murder in the vicinity. Denning invited them in, offered them a seat but the taller of the two, the one who’d talked to Madame Guillou, refused for both of them. The other readjusted the rifle at his shoulder, his sharp black moustache glistening.

The gendarme removed his kepi and put it under his arm, began by asking them their names, which he took down in a notebook, and then if they knew of a place called Monsieur Jacques, to which they both answered yes. When questioned if they had been there on the night of the murder Denning hesitated. Both officers locked their eyes on him and he felt himself getting quite nervous and hot around the neck.

“We have never been there, even though we have heard it spoken of,” said Wilkinson calmly. “I understand the English are not looked upon favourably, as you may vouch, in such a place as Monsieur Jacques. A magnet for all manner of crimes, I am told, and therefore it is wise to avoid them. We were, in fact, both here, all evening. Is that not so, Stephen?”

Again he hesitated for what to him seemed an age as he struggled to know how to respond. “Yes!” he blurted. “Of course we were.” He noticed a tiny fleck of spittle fly from his lips. “Terrance and I were planning today’s painting expedition for which, as you can see, we are all packed to go.” He pointed out the easel and cases of materials that Wilkinson had prepared for the day’s outing.

“Murder, you say? What a terrible thing,” Wilkinson said. “Who was the unfortunate victim?”

“A young woman of the street named Marie,” the gendarme replied crisply and without feeling. His dark blue tunic gave him a shadowy appearance.

“Do you have a suspect?”

The man studied Wilkinson intently. “I cannot disclose that, monsieur,” he said. He turned to Denning. “You artists, you like to paint the field workers?” He said it with just a sliver of amusement.

“We try to capture what their poor lives entail, yes.”

“Poor lives,” he repeated, chewing long on the words “Did you ever paint the poor lives of the street girls?” Now all amusement vanished.

Denning squirmed. He felt like he was on trial and wished to God he’d had the strength of character to tell the truth when he had the chance. “It is an area that has not attracted my attention,” he said.

The man put his kepi back on. “It is an area that has attracted someone’s attention. That is for certain.” His gaze wandered over the room, settled briefly on the two men and then he bade them a stiff goodbye.

When the door was closed on them Denning released a long, hard breath and sat down heavily. “Oh God!” he said. “That was – that was frightful!”

“Thank you, Stephen,” said Wilkinson. “I knew you would not let me down. I owe you a great deal.”

He could not look him in the face.

They heard no more from the authorities, though the death of the prostitute named Marie was the subject of energetic speculation for a day or two before people lost interest and it was soon forgotten.

But Denning could not forget. He was plagued by a swarm of biting doubts. Wilkinson soon recovered completely and behaved as if nothing had happened, but it was Denning who was haunted by the young woman’s death and suffered many a fractured night’s sleep because of it. The image of Wilkinson on that night, so hysterical, covered in mud, snagged at his mind like a thorn. He began to question why he had agreed to lying. Why he had so easily dismissed the poor woman because of her regrettable profession. Why he should be the one caught up in such hateful things.

Then, just as Denning was beginning to shake away all those lingering uncertainties, he went to see Wilkinson a few days later. He knocked at his door but as was his custom did not wait for an answer and stepped right in. He found him bending by the fireplace, a large fire burning in the grate in spite of the warm day. He was shoving some material into the flames with a poker. Denning saw a crumpled shirt. On the sleeve he noticed dark splashes of red. It looked like blood. The shirt quickly took light and was soon being consumed.

“Those marks. Did you cut yourself, Terrance?”

Wilkinson did not seem the least perturbed. “I hang onto too many old, worn out and marked clothes,” Wilkinson explained. “I ruin so many things because of my careless splashing of paint, and so now I vow to order a whole new wardrobe to replace them!”

His smile reminded Denning of one of those vulgar Punch puppets.



* * * *



Thus he lay in the night with only a wasteland of troubled memories for company. He could think of nothing but energy-sapping scenes from his life that played out before him in endless, excruciating circles like a dog chasing its tail, till he was exhausted by it. He wondered if every young man could draw on such a vast reserve of misgiving and self-recrimination for such a short life; or whether they were all as prone as he to inadvertently adding to it in spite of themselves, a further course of rancid dishes to be served up and picked over on future sleepless nights.

The wind grew in strength till it howled around the eaves of the old cottage. Its dried wooden bones shifted and creaked in the night and the door rattled on its hinges.

Though his eyes felt as annoying as sores he could not find sleep. To shut out the cold draughts that seeped in through unseen cracks he’d first tried sleeping with the curtains drawn in front of the bed, but for a man of the city where comforting lamplight had filtered through gauzy curtains the darkness was too complete, too solid, so he whipped them open. Faint moonlight dripped in from the small window, until the moon was obscured by the clouds, when it fell as dark in the corners of the room as surely as if he’d drawn the blanket closed. The fire threw out a feeble russet glow and barely held back the encroaching shadows, but the light did little to ease his troubled mind.

Denning could not get the story of the dead Connoch woman out of his head, pictured her lying there on the floor before the fire. She and the murdered French woman from Pont Aven became a single ghastly mound of white, blood-spattered female flesh. At times he fancied he saw something squirm on the rug, but chided himself for being such a fool over harmless shadows being shivered by a few lingering flames flickering over exhausted coals. Then his thoughts would go to the matted black dog outside, waiting – on guard – amidst its accumulation of tiny bones and limpet shells. He even thought he caught the high note of its wheezing old lungs within the symphony played by the wind.

In the end he rose from his bed and lodged the back of the pine-railed chair against the door handle. To stop the infernal rattle, he told himself. But somewhere deep inside was the nagging fact there was no lock on the door. He re-lit the old lamp, smelling stomach-churning fish oil as he did so, and shovelled another few lumps of coal onto the fire. It is so cold and cheerless in here, he thought.

But still he could not sleep. He swore he heard a scratching at the door, yet heard it no more. He gave a start when he heard a mournful sigh rise from the floor, but it was merely the fire settling in the grate. The keening wind rolled something down the cobbled road outside. The door gave a violent lurch and the chair clattered noisily to the floor.

He sat upright as if launched by a spring. “Fool!” he said aloud, if only to hear his own voice. “You have had one brandy too many!”

He lay back down but his mind was filled with an image of Wilkinson’s face that he could not shake away, bearing that same frightful expression as on that awful night in Pont Aven.

Over time he had accepted that Wilkinson was indeed innocent of the woman’s death, as he had believed on the night, and that his own part in the events quite legitimate, given the circumstances. No harm done. Best forget it. His misgivings faded so that he scarce thought on it. But Wilkinson’s appearance at his studio had stirred up a whole cloud of doubts that he believed had long ago drifted to form the seldom disturbed sediments of his unwanted past. He did not know whether he now experienced guilt or shame, or anger at the inconvenience of it all. Whatever it was, that and the gruesome little tale Kenver had left him with as his parting gift were conspiring to keep him fully awake.

But there had been at least one shining beacon in the day, and that had been Jenna Hendra. He did his best to let his mind’s eye focus on that particular light. In a little while his disquiet shuffled off to sulk in a dark corner and he lay watching the tiny puffs of fire dancing like spirits over the coals, seeing her face implanted there.

On impulse he thought about the book she had given him, wondered whether the smell of her perfume lingered on the leather binding, and he flicked back the bedcovers to seek it out. He picked it off the table where he’d left it, held it close to his nose but was disappointed. It was the same dry, musty smell of his father’s study. The lamplight picked out the fading gold letters on the spine:



Mackenzie’s Complete Almanac of Cornish Folk Tales 1809



He idly flicked through the pages till he found the chapter Jenna had told him about.



* * * *



The plaintive sound of a solitary fiddle scratched the air, rising and falling with the wind, a tune both jaunty and melancholy. He headed towards it, passing under the looming, empty arches of the crumbling monastery. A mat of ivy lay across its decaying stone, leaves silvered by the moon, the agitated air fingering through them and causing them to sing like crickets in long summer grass. Ahead, against the backdrop of the featureless wood, a number of small fires twinkled. The music became louder as he left the ruins behind and approached the campfires, the notes more distinct, and he heard laughter, a murmur of voices.

Before each campfire were huddled small groups of people, at their backs makeshift shelters and tents, some no more than large sheets of canvas or sailcloth strung between the limbs of trees. The smell of smoke drifted over to him, and along with it the smell of cooked food, which caused his empty stomach to contract painfully.

They did not pay him heed as he entered their temporary camp. He observed men, women and children, each going about their own business – eating, sleeping, talking, laughing, drinking or simply staring into the embers of their fires. The branches overhead rocked and clattered against each other in the wind, but down here at the roots of the trees its efforts were limited to the odd-trembling of leaves and flames that burst energetically sending a flurry of sparks skywards.

Jowan Connoch found himself an unoccupied spot at the base of an elm, and shrugged his bundle to the mossy floor. By a campfire opposite, a man glanced up from his plate of food, the fire casting a long shadow of his nose that striped his face; he briefly studied the young man and then resumed the ladling of steaming potato to his lips. Two more shared his fire – a woman and another man.

Jowan unrolled a blanket and set it on the ground. He sat cross-legged on it and took out a piece of cheese and a chunk of bread, which he broke carefully in two, stowing one half away into his bag and nibbling at the other, washing it down with a measured sip of water from a bottle. As he chewed he removed the small bag he was given by the sailor in Liverpool. Stared at it.

“Do you not have a shelter?”

It was the man opposite, by the fire.

“And what business is it of yours?” he returned, putting away the bag.

The man shrugged. “It is none of my business, true; but it’s threatening rain, is all. You need shelter or you’ll catch your death.”

“Thank you for your advice.” He turned away.

“No fire?”

“Are you to question me all night?”

He shrugged again. “It’s not going to be warm, is all.”

He didn’t respond. Carried on eating. The man turned to his companions, held a short discussion and then addressed Jowan again.

“You’re welcome to share our fire, till you get sorted,” he said, pointing needlessly at it. Jowan eyed him from under shadowed brows. “And share a bite to eat? Not much, but warms a man through.”

Jowan could not resist the cooked food. He picked up his meagre belongings, scraped up his blanket and went over to sit by the fire. The man held out his hand to shake; it was warm from holding his plate. The smell of stew bubbling in a pan suspended over the fire was overwhelming. He shook the man’s hand.

“Percy Cotter,” he said. He had a long, drawn out face, too much forehead and chin. Pinpricks of firelight danced in the whites of his eyes. “My sister, Connie, and brother, Philip,” he pointed out. “Cotters all.”

“Jowan,” was all he said in reply, nodding at the others. They all shared the same stretched features. The young woman, eating noisily, watched him with watery-eyed indifference. “From the north, are you?”

“Aye, Whitby originally. We follow the fish. Been to Porthgarrow a few times over the years but pickings here are slim now, what with the fishing being so bad. But it’s pretty much the same everywhere else. Connie here is one of the fastest gutters of fish around, that not so, lass? She’ll always get the work.” She gave him a bored roll of the eyes. “You’re Cornish – local?” He said it like he knew it.

“Yes, I was born here.” He took a plate of stew handed to him by the brother, Philip, and he tore into the food hungrily. “I thank you for this,” he said through gravy-glazed lips.

“Born here and yet having to share the cliff top with us outsiders.” It was a question in another guise but Jowan didn’t bite. “So what you goin’ to do about a shelter?” asked Percy.

“I’ll manage.”

“I can give you a hand building one. A few stout branches, a good layering of bracken, and that will keep most of the weather out for you.”

“You don’t have to.”

Percy took up his plate and began to eat again. “True, but us clifftoppers have to look after one another. It’s the unspoken nature of things. Always has been.”

“No thank you,” he said, concentrating on eating.

Philip and his sister exchanged glances.



* * * *



Porthgarrow’s Bane: The legend of Baccan



The poor, labouring classes are destined to live their lives at the complete mercy of the elemental forces of nature. They might fill their bellies one year by its abundant generosity, and yet shrivel in starvation the next when such favours are cruelly denied them. Their desperate need and ignorance cause them to look upon God’s blessed natural laws with slavish reverence, for to show them scant respect is thought to bring down a full and vengeful wrath.

Such a populace inevitably puts great store in the observation of superstitions, many whose origins lay so far back in time that their exact purpose is now lost to us. Misguided they may be, yet one cannot but feel a certain pity in their desire to prevent or avoid ill fortune, to foretell what lies ahead, to guarantee good luck, or to appease those pagan spirits still said to inhabit the very rocks, the air and the sea, who hold in their magical and fanciful hands the fragile destiny of man. For, even in such enlightened times as ours, there are many who cling to the absurdity of our distant and uncivilised ancestors.

Such a community of believers is to be found still within the small fishing village of Porthgarrow, or Powgaen, as the ancients called it, where even to this day they hold true to their old beliefs. They have a great many superstitions that they observe, as if to do so were as natural as the sun setting, but by far the strangest of all, and most compelling to the people of Porthgarrow, is the enduring legend of Baccan.

As we have found within other tales I have related, there is to be found a mischievous and often dangerous spirit known throughout Cornwall as Bucca. To this day his name is spoken with trepidation, and some may say fear, for he is said to control the very winds and the ocean that the people depend on for their livelihoods. He is to the sea what the pixie or piskey is to the land, and his great powers, as he is so disposed, can be used for both good and evil. Throughout many centuries the church has tried to turn people away from belief in this spirit, but it lingers still. I myself, during an early morning constitutional, witnessed fishermen foolishly tossing fish onto the beach to appease Bucca, much to the consternation and frustration of the local clergy.

It is said in some parts that Bucca was not born alone, but had a twin called Baccan. Where Bucca had a periodic inclination to use his powers for good, Baccan used his only for dark deeds. He held a deep distrust of mankind; but he also needed the evil wrought by man, for this was as food to this spirit, and he grew strong upon it.

All men lived in fear of Baccan, and kept their heads low when he was in ill temper. They would avoid going out to sea when they knew his dark form was upon the waters for he would sink their boats and claim their souls for his. All men save one. His name was Myghal Connoch, who was known in those parts by the more terrifying soubriquet of Sinkblade Connoch. He and his accursed family had long lived in the cove of Porthgarrow, like wild animals inhabiting the many caves and passages that scored through the cliffs.

They were skilled at drawing ships onto the rocks at night by clever use of firebrands burning on the shore, and unwitting mariners, believing themselves in sight of a safe harbour were lured to their doom. Once the ships were thus wrecked, the family would fall upon any left alive and murder them, for they could legally lay claim to anything if all were dead. The sea, it is said, ran constantly red with innocent blood as the Connochs plied their nefarious trade. No one was safe from the Connochs’ cruel hands and their name was held in dread throughout the land, and none more so than their leader Myghal Sinkblade Connoch.

Baccan heard of the Connochs’ evil deeds, and filled with burning curiosity he travelled to Porthgarrow to seek them out. He sat before the great Connoch cave within which they lived and called out: “Myghal Connoch, it is I, the mighty Baccan who seeks an audience with you.”

But instead of cowering before him, Myghal laughed and said, “Why should I leave my warm fire to stand out in the cold and talk to you?”

Baccan was furious, but swallowed his pride, for simply being here before the murderer was as an elixir to the beast.

“I will make you rich beyond your wildest imaginings,” he promised, upon which Myghal agreed to talk to him.

They made an unholy pact between them, that Baccan would send fearsome storms which would drive ships onto the rocks so that the Connochs might indulge their devilish feast of blood. In his turn Baccan would feast off the Connochs’ evil doings and grow strong. He would also take for himself a share of the gold and silver they stole. For many years this ungodly alliance endured, and many hundreds of lives were lost amongst the cliffs of Porthgarrow, their skulls, it is said, piled high and thick at the back of their cave as macabre tokens.

Then one day Baccan discovered that Myghal had been cheating him, and that he had been hiding treasure which should have gone to the spirit. Baccan was seized with a monstrous rage and swore that he would destroy the Connochs. Not content with that he threatened to kill every man, woman and child within the land as retribution for the great wrong he had endured. He beset the coast with violent storms that turned summer into winter; he stirred up gargantuan tempests that knocked down houses and blew away the fishing boats. His was a fury that could not be stemmed.

The Connochs were cowed and felt terror for the first time. The people inhabiting the land about, knowing that Baccan was growing powerful on the Connochs’ evil, took arms and came as a mighty crowd to drive them out, banishing them from the land. But Baccan’s revenge would not be blunted. He increased his torment and the people began to starve for lack of fish and vegetables, their animals driven away or killed by the storms.

In their hour of desperation the people called upon the good Saint Feloc, for they had heard he could talk to animals and calm even the most savage of beasts. They begged him to help them and he went down to the sea to talk to the warring spirit. But his words were as a twig thrown into a river to alter its course and Baccan paid him no heed. Saint Feloc took himself to the highest point above Porthgarrow and stood on the cliffs facing out to sea. He looked to the heavens and beseeched Archangel Michael fly down from heaven to help the poor, starving people of Porthgarrow.

The winged warrior saint in shining armour and carrying a flaming sword answered his pleas. For seven days and seven nights he fought with the hellish creature, their battle throwing up a mighty gale that caused the sun to be obscured as if it were night, and night to fall so dark that it was as the deepest grave. On the eighth day Baccan grew weak and seizing his chance Archangel Michael fastened the beast to a massive rock with a chain whose links had been forged in heaven. Baccan struggled against his bindings, consumed with a boiling rage and hatred of mankind, gnashing his teeth so much that many were dislodged and flung into the sea. Eventually Baccan lay still and exhausted, his power all but extinguished, yet his hatred of man, especially the people of Porthgarrow, burnt in his breast like a firebrand.

According to legend, he lies there to this day, and the great black rock to which he is supposedly chained can be seen there still, marked on maps as Baccan’s Rock – a most chilling sight when the sea mist hangs low over it. There is a ring of sharp and rocky protrusions, submerged just below the surface at high tide, but presenting a chilling aspect to any sailor pushed too close to the cliffs. These are known as Baccan’s Teeth.

Any storm or bad season is said to be the work of Baccan, for the people still believe he feeds off the ill-doing of man, and as his strength returns so does his anger. They remain terrified that one day he will grow as strong as to break his bonds and destroy Porthgarrow and its inhabitants. If the weather blows cruel, or the fish harvest is poor they will blame Baccan. They do not like to speak his name too often, particularly between dusk and dawn, for they are certain this too will rouse him, and to frustrate the beast are often to be seen tossing a limpet shell – a potent symbol of his secure fastening to the rock – and say, as they do so, ‘As a limpet on a rock, may Baccan stay till Baccan rots’.

You will rarely find in Porthgarrow such lewd behaviour as you would discover in our larger towns and villages; there is no theft, no swearing, and rarely do the inhabitants indulge in drink, such is the power of Porthgarrow’s curse, for any ill-doing is frowned upon and dealt with swiftly lest Baccan feeds upon it. It remains as fixed a belief as ever it was. It is my estimation that this strange little tale of Porthgarrow’s very own devil may linger in the hearts, minds and nightmares of the people of this tiny cove for a good many years hence.



“What absolute drivel!” said Denning snapping the book closed and placing it back onto the table.



* * * *



“So, Jowan, what’s the tail-end of your name?” asked Percy Cotter idly.

Jowan rested his spoon on his plate. “Connoch,” he said.

He saw them all visibly stiffen. Philip Cotter turned to his sister. “Go,” he said, and she rose and went inside their tent. He fixed Jowan with an icy stare. “No woman is safe from a Connoch, and no Connoch shares our fire,” he snarled, glancing across to his brother, eyes silently demanding. But Jowan was already on his feet, shrugging his bundle onto his shoulder. “In fact, you’re not welcome in our camp. If you know what’s good for you, get yourself out before anyone else knows you’re here.”

“I thank you for the food, Percy,” he said who didn’t look him in the eyes but studied the fire instead.

He left the two men exchanging words, the warmth of the fire gradually leeching from his skin into the cold air. Soon the voices and the music became muffled, replaced by the whispering of the wind in the trees and the sound of the ever-present heaving of the sea below. The path he trod was a barely visible scar through the wood, the dark in places like something solid, but he knew this place well, remembered from his childhood. Then the wood was at his back, that same path now cutting close to the cliff edge on his right. The bleached remains of a wooden fence stood out of the gorse like rotted teeth, the remainder having fallen down into the sea. He walked a little way, drawn to where the sea had carved out a large amphitheatre-sized piece of cliff, and stood close to the lip of the drop, looking down into the whirling waters below.

The sea glinted under the scratch of a new moon like liquid pewter, foaming around the many sharp and unusually shaped rocks that rose black and terrifying from the sea. This vile place had witnessed the death of many, he thought bleakly. The underworld made visible. The last earthly sight of mariners blown onto the rocks by storms, or drawn there, if legend were to be believed, by those that shared his own name. The crumbling cliffs had caught many unawares, giving way beneath the unwary, sucking them down as if into a hungry mouth packed with blackened, animal-like fangs.

This cove was Baccan’s Maw, and this is where his own father plunged to his death thirteen years ago.

He did not hear the men steal up behind him until he felt the sharp, searing pain of something hard and unyielding smash across his back. It caused him to sink to his knees, gasping fro breath. An arm snaked under his chin and fastened round his throat, jerked his head violently. A fist rammed into the small of his back and he was sent sprawling onto the ground choking. He rolled to avoid a boot he saw being directed at his side, but could not move in time and it landed home with such force the breath was knocked from him in a loud grunt.

Hands grabbed both his legs, and though he kicked out he could not dislodge them, making out the two men who held him, their faces masked by swathes of dark material. In a moment he was being dragged bodily over the rocks and could do nothing to prevent it, the fiery pain in his body excruciating.

“Over here!” he heard a third man call.

With sickening realisation he knew he was being taken closer to the cliff and fought frantically, but he was bundled over as if he were a doll, forced to lie face down with his head hanging over the edge of the precipice. He stared into the black abyss, the sound of the thundering sea melded with the sound of the blood rushing in his ears. He groaned as the weight of someone’s knee pressed firmly down between his shoulder blades, someone else on his legs, and he lay as helpless as a pinned butterfly.

His canvas bundle, which had been knocked from him, was lying beside him. A boot lashed out and sent it skimming over the side of the cliff. He tried to make a grab for it but his arm was thumped numb by a hefty fist. He saw his few belongings tumble into the dark, bouncing off rocks till all was swallowed up by the night completely.

“Take a long, last look, Connoch!” a voice growled near his ear. Jowan knew by his accent it was a man of the cove. “You should never have come back.”

“Now!” rasped another. “Over the edge with him!”

“Ready to join your father in hell, Connoch?” The man was relishing the moment.

Jowan sucked in a breath. “Bastards!” he croaked and felt the knee press harder, boring into his already injured muscles.

“Not good to be alone in the dark, walking up on these cliffs. A man might slip and lose his footing; the cliff might crumble. He might easily fall to his death like so many others have.”

An alarmed shout in the distance. And in an instant his assailants had released him, the sound of their boots crashing through bracken and scrub as they ran away. More hands on him, but this time pulling him away from the cliff, turning him over.

“Jowan, are you all right?”

It was Percy Cotter, bending concernedly over him. Walking towards them was his brother Philip holding a long wooden stave and looking back over his shoulder into the darkness.

Philip ambled over and loomed over Jowan. “This does not mean to say I like you, Connoch,” he said, spitting onto the ground and wiping his mouth.

The young man stared wildly up at him. He pointed over the cliff. “I saw him!” he said with a trembling voice. “When my head was hanging over the edge – I saw him, on the rocks below!”

“Who, man?” said Percy. “Who did you see?”

“I saw Baccan!”



* * * *