MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES: A strange story concerning adders from west Cornwall

Dear Cryptodames and dudes.

I have been in consultation with The Dear Leader Kim Jong Jon Downes I and it has been decided that I`ll try and do a Muirhead`s Mysteries blog once a week like I did in its glory days. So here is a blog about an incident involving an adder in west Cornwall, in around the 1920s or `30s.At a moor near Trembothick to be precise. I found this out in a  book by the poet (now deceased) and author Mary Hocking, in `Safari West` (1996) page 17.

THE POT AND THE ADDERS

The moors do,unfortunately, accommodate adders. It was said Trembothick moor was so infested  with adders that no cattle could be turned onto it in the Summer .One day a man, who was cutting the peat turf on the moor, went to his pot of milk he had placed in the shade for his refreshment. To his surprise an adder had won him to it(sic). He placed a large turf upon the receptacle which stopped the adder getting away. The adder then gave out a  most peculiar noise, which attracted more adders around the pot. These in their turn seemed to call others until, from all parts of the moor, they had slithered in a straight course and enclasped, one and all, into a solid heap around the captive and pot.

It did not take long either for the man to call the other men on the moor to depart until eventide,or to decide a plan of action ..They decided to place furze around the adder pile which was said  by them to be the size of a large haycock ( a haycock is about 3ft tall) .They had been cutting peat for the winter`s fuel so they also put this on top of the furze and set it all alight. The noise made by these creatures was said to be horrendous and frightening. Similar stories to this have been told of other moors in the area.

DAVID BYRNE     LAZY

  

I'm Lazy when I'm loving 
I'm Lazy when I play 
I'm lazy with my girlfriend, a thousand times a day 
I'm lazy when I'm speakin 
I'm lazy when I walk 
I'm lazy when I'm dancin 
I'm lazy when I talk

Open up my mouth 
Air comes rushin out 
Nothin doin nada never how you like me now? 
Wouldn't it be mad, wouldn't it be fine 
Lazy lucky lady dancin lovin all the time