St Dennis’s Blood

The patron saint of the parish church of St Dennis was born in the city of Athens, in the reign of Tiberius. His name and fame have full record in the “History of the Saints of the Church of Rome.” How his name was connected with this remote parish is not clearly made out. We learn, however, that the good man was beheaded at Montmartre, and that he walked after his execution, with his head under his arm, to the place in Paris which still bears his name. At the very time when the decapitation took place in Paris, _blood fell on the stones of this churchyard_ in Cornwall. Previously to the breaking out of the plague in London, the stains of the blood of St Dennis were again seen; and during our wars with the Dutch, the defeat of the English fleet was foretold by the rain of gore in this remote and sequestered place. Hals, the Cornish historian, with much gravity, informs us that he had seen some of the stones with blood upon them. Whenever this phenomenon occurs again we may expect some sad calamity to be near.

Some years since a Cornish gentleman was cruelly murdered, and his body thrown into a brook. I have been very lately shewn stones taken from this brook with bright red spots of some vegetable growth on them. It is said that ever since the murder the stones in this brook are spotted with gore, whereas they never were so previously to this dreadful deed.