Tregeagle 1: Bodmin Bargain

The howl of John Tregeagle rolls across the moors and in and out of lonely villages. His wailing bites at the doors of stranded farmhouses and frightens strangers as they wander the lanes. Some say Tregeagle still rages through all Cornwall; moaning along the north coast cliffs to Bude, scampering back and forth along the southerly coast to Rame.

In his lifetime his job was chief Steward to the Lord Robartes of Lanhydrock House, near Bodmin, in charge of the rents for land. Tregeagle was not an honest steward, he sat at his big wooden desk working into the night. He forged ancient deeds for a large area of lands around Bodmin and claimed all the rents for himself. He sold off bits of land to whoever asked. Instead of reporting the sales to the Lord, Tregeagle behaved as if the lands of Lanhydrock estate belonged to him to do with as he pleased. The land-owning families all round Bodmin got themselves in a pickle due to Tregeagle’s creative stewardship. Adding to this, Tregeagle was careless with his record keeping: rents and sales were not properly recorded, leaving only Tregeagle with the power to say who owned what.

Wicked was Tregeagle to a succession of wives and sons. Some said he had murdered; all said he had harmed. To everyone who came across him, Jan did some wrong. He amassed a great fortune through dishonest means and relished the excesses money allowed. An offer from the devil seemed trivial enough. Tregeagle had manipulated countless highborn men; surely swindling the devil could pose him no challenge. They struck a bargain. Tregeagle would wallow in excessive riches until the day he died, and in return he promised the devil his soul, an easy lie.

'A bargain ! A bargain’ he said out aloude;

‘At my lot I will never repine;

I swear to observe it, I swear by the roode.

And am readye to seale and sygne with my bloode,

Both my soul and my body are thine.'

Cleverly, or so he thought, Tregeagle found a way to bypass his part in the bargain. He paid the priests hard cash in exchange for immunity from his pact with the devil; he would have a church burial, and the priests’ protection.

After some time Tregeagle died, and the priests gathered round his grave nightly, chanting to ward off the waiting darkness.

Tregeagle would not rest for long. Shortly after his death, two landowners entered a bitter dispute over ownership of land, both ending up at Bodmin court. Tregeagle had acted as Steward to one of the landowners. As we know, Tregeagle had forged deeds, sold off land and leased other parts, recording none of it. The lord of Lanhydrock having looked through his rent book, believed the lands belonged to him and wanted his rent to be paid. The dispute could not be resolved and in deep frustration one of the landowners called on Tregeagle as a witness.

'Spirit of John Tregeagle, I call you forth to testify!'

The court stood frozen in terror, and watched with growing horror as the evil spirit Tregeagle appeared from the dead. The judge gave the case in favour of the man who had recalled Tregeagle.

When the trial was over the court felt pleased enough but the spirit turned and cunningly said, 'You, who have raised me for your own ends, will not rest me with such ease.'

From that moment on, the ghost of Tregeagle hounded and taunted the man who had won the case, and terrorised the whole of Bodmin. Something had to be done.