Somewhere about the middle of the south coast of Cornwall, a noble headland, the Dodman Point, stretches abruptly into the Channel, towering, at its summit, 370 odd feet above the waves. It is one of the landmarks of the south coast well known to every sailorman.
Unimaginative people, like antiquaries and professors, will tell you that Dodman only means “Stone Point,” and is merely a corruption of the old Cornish “Duadh Maen”; but the country folk take no heed of that; they know the old story handed down from long dead ages. They know that Dodman means “Deadman,” and this is why.
Ever so long ago there lived a giant in his castle on Dodman Point. The rugged earthworks, remains of the castle, are there to-day for you to see if you doubt it. This giant was the terror of the neighbourhood. He fed upon the best of the cattle and sheep, and very often children were missing, for the giant liked variety in his food.
The country people were powerless against this ogre whose size and strength were stupendous. To keep off intruders he dug, in one night, the great ditch—which is still there—that runs from sea to sea across the Point. But one stormy night he fell sick, and his howls of agony were heard for miles around, terrifying the simple peasant folk with their blood-curdling tones.
At last, towards midnight, there arrived at the village of St. Goran, a mile and a half inland, a messenger from the giant demanding the local doctor instantly, and threatening horrible revenge were he to delay. Now the local doctor was a very brave man, also he had suffered a good deal from the depredations of the evil giant, so he obeyed the summons and went back with the messenger, his neighbours never thinking to see him again.
Arrived at the castle, he found the giant rolling in agony on the ground, and he swiftly devised a plan for ridding Cornwall—and the world—of this horrible ogre.
“You must be bled,” he said, following the general medical treatment of the day.
The giant roared out that he would do anything to be rid of his pain. His voice was so loud, they say, that he could be heard distinctly at Mevagissey. So the doctor got to work and the treatment gave relief.
To complete a perfect cure, the doctor explained, the giant must sit on the edge of the cliff at the point of the headland, and the giant obeyed the instruction. And then the doctor, standing by and looking very wise and serious, allowed the monster’s blood to flow away until with weakness he became unconscious. The huge and hideous head sank lower and lower, the great powerful body crumpled, until at last the doctor, with a mighty effort, rolled his evil patient to the cliff’s edge—and kicked him off on to the rocks beneath.
Then he returned to tell the glad news to St. Goran, where, to celebrate it, they held a feast lasting five days. And ever after that the Giant’s promontory was known as the “Deadman,” or as we have come to call it, the “Dodman.”
There it is to-day as wild and beautiful a headland as any in Cornwall. In the giant’s mighty bulwark known locally as the “Hack and Cast,” wild flowers bloom. From the summit a wonderful view, from the Lizard to the west to the Devon coast eastward, extends.
Mevagissey, one of the most characteristic of Cornish fishing ports, is less than four miles away, and all about is a fascinating little known country of deep fertile little valleys and seldom-visited villages, while the coast scenery of Mevagissey and Veryan Bays, which the Dodman practically divides, is rugged and charming.
Here you get the full freshness of the Atlantic breezes, fierce enough at times, but more often soft and soothing.
St. Austell is your nearest railway station, an interesting old town, the centre of Cornwall’s china clay industry. It is on the main line and may be reached easily from any part of south or west Cornwall, and from there country omnibuses will take you within a few miles of the remote Dodman, the scene of that village doctor’s wonderful “cure,” so many centuries ago.
