Sarah Polgrain

There are many stories connected with the old superstition that when rash lovers make vows to be constant to each other, 'living or dead', and one of the pledged dies far away from the other, the freed spirit traverses sea and land to fetch its affianced home to the land of shadows: the legend of the lovers of Porthgwarra told previously is founded on the same notion.

The most recent story we know (in which the same belief is shown to be still current) is that of Sarah Polgrain and Yorkshire Jack. The woman, who lived in Ludgvan within the present century, was hanged for poisoning her husband, that she might make room for a horse-dealer known as Yorkshire Jack. 'Tis said that the latter was much enamoured of the woman, and that they had been for a long time criminally acquainted before he succeeded in instigating her to commit the diabolical deed. Jack accompanied the woman on to the scaffold, and there, standing by the beam from which the murderess was in a few minutes to be launched into eternity, the unholy pair kissed each other; and promises, confirmed by oaths, passed between them the moment before the woman was executed. 'Tis said that Jack vowed to be with her in three years. Soon after the woman's execution Yorkshire Jack went to sea, that a roving life might dispel the gloomy thoughts caused by the remembrance of the reckless vow carelessly made to satisfy the dying woman.

Disasters constantly followed all the ships in which this unhappy wretch sailed. Three years from the hour of the woman's death Jack was on board a timber ship returning from Quebec when, about midway across the Atlantic, it was surrounded by a violent storm; the affrighted crew saw in the lurid thunder-clouds the figure of a fiery female form and another of gigantic size, too dreadful to look at! The figures stood over the ship when the crest of a mountain wave broke on the stern and swept the doomed man, who was then at the wheel, into the ocean. Immediately afterwards Yorkshire Jack was seen flying away to the westward between the figures who came in the storm. These were no other than Sarah Polgrain and the evil spirit whose slave she had been on earth, and who was now her eternal master.

From the time that this western Jonah was taken away by the lady of his love and the devil, the ship was free from all the strange disasters which were constantly occurring on board during all the time that the haunted man was one of the crew.

This story obtained much notoriety from the anxiety of Ludgvan folks to prove that Sarah Polgrain had never been baptised in the water of their renowned saint's well, which is believed to protect all children baptised therein against the hangman and his hempen cord. Their joy was unbounded when it was found a mistake had been made about the woman's birthplace, and that she had been christened in a neighbouring parish, so that the wonderful character of the parish well obtained more widespread celebrity than ever, which it retains to this day.