tempus fugit

By ceridwen

Frantic?

Not very. There's no reason at all why Raki should be interested in the old fox hound buried here. We do not know why Frantic was so named, nor why s/he merited this memorial but we can assume the dog was one of the local Squire Worthington's celebrated pack of hounds that terrorised the fox population in these parts during the second half of the 19th century.  It's still possible to read the exact progress of each chase in old newspapers online and, rather satisfyingly, I have found one from the Pembrokeshire Herald and General Advertiser of January 10 1862 which describes the horses and their riders becoming bogged down in a valley I know well  and having to be pulled out with ropes - meanwhile the fox makes its getaway. Hard to say who would have been more frantic, the animal or its pursuers.

Frantic too must have been the occasion in the 18th century when pirates attacked the nearby harbour looking for spoil and fired a few cannon balls into the meagre cluster of mariners' and fishers' cottages. One of these balls [extra] can be seen  embedded in the wall right opposite this memorial  (not the point at which it originally came to rest, rather it was found in the garden behind.) Its small and knobbly appearance  confirms it as a pirates' ball since they were cobbled together from any old bits of pig iron.
 This occasion preceded the celebrated  French invasion of  Fisguard 1797 - that really was a frantic time.

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