The Magic of Boscastle

It's amazing, that we traveled along the edge of Dartmoor and along the edges of Bodmin into a totally different world. Leaving sunny skies behind as we rose up onto the Cornish moorlands we entered into a heavy all encompassing fog. But we were going to Boscastle, home of the famous Witchcraft museum and the best harbour for smuggling I have seen. The scene had been set.

The lane becomes narrow and winding as you drop down towards the sea. The village being set along the path of a small river carrying water away from the moors. A steep combe shelters the village that lines it's path to the sea. The river mouth flows into a medieval harbour, the harbour wall being built in 1584, dividing the flowing stream from the stormy tidal waters that thunder through the natural twisting cliffs. It's this twist of coastline that hides Boscastle from those out at on the waves. It's a hidden, secret little gem!



The coastline offers fantastic walks, Tintagel being only a few miles away, though what with being a pregnant lady just a little to far for me! How ever walking a little way up the cliff path was worth it to get the great birds eye view of the narrow ravine. Be there at high tide and watch the fishing boats navigate through to the open sea.The witchcraft museum is worth a visit. It holds a huge collection of witchy and magical artifacts from around the world that have been put together over the last 40 years. Ranging from the magical herbal knowledge of a wise woman to the weird and strange........including very creepy looking mandrake roots and information on modern day witchy folk.

The magical powers of witches and wizards aside, Boscastle does have a magical air of it's own and you don't need tools of the craft to find them.
Thomas Hardy was greatly inspired by the area and fell in love with not just it's beauty but also that of the lovely 'Emma' who he later married. He returned here after the marriage ended in tragedy and wrote "A Pair of Blue Eyes" that describes all the valleys and cliffs up to High Cliff (731 ft), the highest in Cornwall. Below is a poem inspired by his Cornish wife!

"A Dream or No"

Why go to Saint-Juliot? What's Juliot to me?
I've been but made fancy
By some necromancy
That much of my life claims the spot as its key.

Yes. I have had dreams of that place in the West,
And a maiden abiding
Thereat as in hiding;
Fair-eyed and white-shouldered, broad-browed and brown-tressed.

And of how, coastward bound on a night long ago,
There lonely I found her,
The sea-birds around her,
And other than nigh things uncaring to know.

So sweet her life there (in my thought has it seemed)
That quickly she drew me
To take her unto me,
And lodge her long years with me. Such have I dreamed.

But nought of that maid from Saint-Juliot I see;
Can she ever have been here,
And shed her life's sheen here,
The woman I thought a long housemate with me?

Does there even a place like Saint-Juliot exist?
Or a Vallency Valley
With stream and leafed alley,
Or Beeny, or Bos with its flounce flinging mist?

February 1913