Curse
The Doom Bar
She raised her right arm, and the sands came in.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- Sandbank at the mouth of an estuary
- Legend from
- Cornish tradition
- Best time
- Low tide
- Tone
- Eerie
A shot rang out across the estuary. When the mermaid came up, she raised one arm and cursed the harbour.
The Doom Bar is a sandbank across the mouth of the Camel estuary, below Padstow, where many ships have been wrecked. Tradition says it formed in the reign of Henry VIII and harmed the port's trade. A legend explains why. A mermaid once looked after the harbour and kept it deep, but one day a man shot at her as she played on the surface. She dived, came up again, raised her right arm and swore the harbour would be desolate for ever. An old man told Robert Hunt that no government commission could keep the sand out unless the parsons could lift her curse.