ith a dim halo around
his head. He belongs to the sixth century, and was therefore a little
later than the saints of the Land's End country. In Ireland he is
reputed as St. Kieran of Saigir, but the British Celts, according to
their usual custom, changed the Gaelic _K_ into _P_. His Irish record
is much more full than his Cornish, but it must not delay us, except
to remember that he rescued an Irish girl, Bruinsech, from a chief who
had kidnapped her, and that she travelled to Cornwall, probably in his
company, to become the Buriena of St. Buryan. Piran is said to have
journeyed across the seas on a millstone, which is a mythical way of
saying that he brought his altar-stone with him. He is supposed to
have landed on these drifting sands that perpetuate his name, and to
have founded his first cell here, the oratory that still remains in
much mutilated ruin among the towans of Perran. So far as site is
concerned, this may be true enough; but the oratory, whose bare
foundations are now surrounded by a sheltering rail, is probably at
least two centuries later than the day of St. Piran, though it is just
possible that the huge skeleton found here might be his. There is no
reason why a saint may not also be a giant. But who shall establish
the identity of a mouldering skeleton? Only a fragment of gable, a
half-buried inscribed slab, and some loose rugged stones, have been
left to speak of what may be the earliest religious foundation in
England; but even in this matter of antiquity there are competitors.
We may suppose that the present oratory was raised over Piran's
original cell somewhere about the eighth century; and about two
centuries later it was found that the encroaching sands rendered its
further use impossible. It was deserted, and a second church raised a
little further inland, of which the site is now marked by a cross.
Visitors may be warned that both sites are very difficult to discover
without a guide. This second church became collegiate in the time of
the Confessor, with a dean and canons, being enriched by the offerings
of pilgrims who came from all parts of Cornwall to the shrine of St.
Piran. The establishment was presented by Henry I. to the canons of
Exeter. We may judge that at this time the first chapel was entirely
buried in the sands. In 1420 the second church was rebuilt; the older
church, even its site, was forgotten. At the close of the eighteenth
century the second church itself was threatened by