Scilly Isles and Cornwall

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Scilly Isles and Cornwall

Postby Donna » 3:44 pm

At the southern tip of Cornwall is Porthcurno (taken to be the Port of Kernow)......... on the Isles of Scilly there is Porthcressa.........

Cressa comes from the Greek word for Gold

The girl's name Cressa \c-ressa, cr(es)-sa\ is a variant of Cressida (Greek), and the meaning of Cressa is "gold".

Port Gold?? Is there any evidence of gold mining on Scilly?

When searching on Cressa and Curno I came across two towns in the North of Italy, 70 miles apart, called Cressa and Curno.......

Does Curno have a meaning in Greek? Is this just a coincidence?
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Re: Scilly Isles and Cornwall

Postby hvered » 3:45 pm

Curno/Kernow sounds like crown which has 'gold' connotations. There's a legend concerning Lyonesse, the drowned island connecting Scilly to the mainland.
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Re: Scilly Isles and Cornwall

Postby Donna » 3:48 pm

Curno/Kernow sounds like crown

That's coz it's the same word (OK, cognate): corn, horn (crown of horns), corona...

Cornwall wasn't the corner until Lyonnesse was drowned, I suppose. (Unless there's always a corner that ebbs and flows?)
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Re: Scilly Isles and Cornwall

Postby Maribel » 3:51 pm

Cornwall wasn't the corner until Lyonnesse was drowned, I suppose

Something to do with Atlantic weather maybe. La Corunna in Galicia was Faro de Burgo, or simply the 'burgo' with the lighthouse (the Roman 'Brigantium') jutting out into the Atlantic; the isthmus widened later.
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Re: Scilly Isles and Cornwall

Postby Boreades » 3:04 pm

There is a great book called "Explorations of a Drowned Landscape" by Charles Thomas. All about the Scillies as originally one land mass, with megalithic remains, mostly in the form of chambered cairns, and plenty of those have no trace of ever having been used for burials at all. The book is now out of print, but copies can be found on Amazon etc.
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Re: Scilly Isles and Cornwall

Postby Mick Harper » 5:18 pm

In the Age of Sail, westernmost points in general were always critical because the prevailing winds are westerlies so these places are ‘lee shores’, coastlines upon which ships can easily get blown and shipwrecked. Sailors habitually put a Ho! into shouts of warning, as in ‘Land Ho!’ so that ‘Lee Ho!’ becomes part of the ancient sailors’ lexicon.

‘Lee Ho!’ names crop up wherever there are important lee-shores. For example, all three of Europe’s western ‘land ends’ confirm this:
Cape Finisterre (= end of land), the westernmost point of Spain, is in the kingdom of Leon
Cape Finistère, the westernmost point of France, is in the county of Léon
Land’s End in England was once part of the now drowned land of Lyonnesse.
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Re: Scilly Isles and Cornwall

Postby Mick Harper » 11:05 pm

And just in case you thought this was a coincidence:
Cádiz, the south-western land's-end of Europe, was built on an island called Leon
the westernmost island of the Channel Islands is Lihou (pronounced Leo).
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Re: Scilly Isles and Cornwall

Postby Maribel » 8:04 am

Land’s End in England was once part of the now drowned land of Lyonnesse.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle -- which let's face it, is pretty good history -- Lyonnesse disappeared under the sea on the 11th November 1099.

In Brittany in the Finistere department the upper part between Brest and Roscoff is called "the Leon". Near Roscoff on the Channel coast is the little town of St Pol de Leon.So Insula Tristanni could be in this area.

The submerged city of Ys is said to be not far from the Island of Sein facing Douarnenez in the South part of Finistere (both the north and south part are separated by a mountain range called the Monts d'Arree).

So the ancient Kingdom of Leon is not completely under water.
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Re: Scilly Isles and Cornwall

Postby Malmaison » 8:05 am

Caer-leon (castle of Leon?) in southern Wales is situated on the site of an old Roman fortress and arena . Its round amphitheatre was later associated with King Arthur's round table.
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Re: Scilly Isles and Cornwall

Postby Donna » 8:17 am

The most south-westerly point in the whole of the British Isles is called Troy Town in the Scillies.

The city of Carthage was founded by Trojans (Dido and Aeneas) and according to Geoffrey of Monmouth (again!) it was a Trojan prince, Brutus, who gave his name to Britain.

The Cornish tin-trade was controlled by the Phoenicians who founded Carthage. Troy-town is the first landfall when travelling from Carthage to Cornwall.
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