Bodmin
Moor, which surrounds the chapel at Roche Rock in Cornwall, is said to be
haunted by the ghost of Jan Tregeagle and his despairing cries.
Tregeagle
was an unpopular local magistrate in the seventeenth century who managed to
earn a great fortune through dubious deals and swindles. He spent half of
his fortune on
bribing
the clergy to bury him in consecrated ground when he died, even though he
had committed some awful crimes. This did not help him in the end, for only
a few years after he died he was brought from the grave to appear as a
witness in court.
Legend
has it that a court case was taking place which involved a piece of land
that, when Tregeagle had been alive, had wrongfully claimed was his. As the
judge was rounding up the case, the defendant called another witness. The
room developed a sudden chill and then Tregeagle appeared in the witness
box. After an initial pause while the court recovered from the shock, he was
cross-examined and found guilty of fraud. His spirit remained in the court
room despite the verdict. Tregeagle was passed over to the local clergy, who
took it upon themselves to set him tasks that would keep him occupied for
all eternity; as long as he toiled, he would be saved from the Devil.
He
was given the task of emptying the bottomless Dozmary Pool with only a
cracked limpet shell. Packs of headless hounds guarded him, ready to attack
if he stopped working for a single minute. One night, he did stop working
because of a tremendously fierce storm and ran across the moor to the chapel
at Roche Rock, the hounds in hot pursuit. When he reached the church, he
only managed to thrust his head through the window and his body was left to
the hounds. His screams were so loud that eventually one of the clergy came
to his rescue, freed Tregeagle and banished him forever to the moors.
The
ghost of Tregeagle can now be seen wandering on Bodmin Moor performing
endless tasks and mournfully crying over his misfortune.