Vestiges of the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Tongues

When wondering by the lovely shores of the Mount's Bay one may often hear the fisher boys shouting to each other 'Jack, where did you get your breel?' (Mackerel) and on board the mackerel boat when the nets are taken up, the men exclaim: 'Breel! mata! idn! deaw, try, pedwar, pymp, whea, all scawd!' (A mackerel! His fellow, 1,2,3,4,5,6 all the shoal!) A few years ago the hearth or fireplace used in these boats was a piece of granite hollowed out, and it was called 'myn olla'; the same kind of simple hearth is still used by the Breton fishermen and they call it by the same name 'myn olla'.

Notes

• In September 1865, J. H. Nankivell of Penzance, wrote to the Gentleman's Magazine on what he described as 'Vestiges of the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Tongues'

References

• The Cornish Language and Its Literature, Peter Berresford Ellis, 1974. p126