A small Cornish tale from Sylvia Moon and Lillian Hartley

“People do talk such nonsense about Friday the thirteenth,” Sylvia said.

She was standing at the kitchen window watching the harbour. A pale winter sun had slipped through the clouds and laid a thin path of light across the water.

Lillian looked up from her book.

“Nonsense in what sense?” she asked.

Sylvia turned.

“They say it’s unlucky.”

“Well,” said Lillian, adjusting her glasses, “statistically speaking people have believed that for centuries.”

Sylvia waved a dismissive hand.

“Statistics don’t know the first thing about Cornwall.”

Lillian smiled faintly. That was a point she could not easily refute.

Sylvia poured tea into two cups and sat down.

“You see,” she said, “Friday the thirteenth was never meant to be unlucky. Not here. Not along this coast.”

“What was it meant to be, then?” Lillian asked.

Sylvia leaned back in her chair, as though preparing to tell something that had been told many times before.

“It’s a day when the sea listens.”

Lillian waited.

“Long ago,” Sylvia continued, “before the harbour lights and the ferries and all the rest of it, fishermen here had a habit. When the thirteenth day of the month fell on a Friday, they would walk down to the water at dusk.”

“And do what?” Lillian asked.

“They’d speak to the sea.”

“Speak?”

“Aye. Not loudly. Just a word or two.”

Sylvia’s voice softened.

“Some asked for calm weather. Some asked for a good catch. But most of them asked for something simpler.”

“What was that?”

Sylvia looked toward the window.

“They asked the sea to carry away what was troubling them.”

Lillian closed her book.

“That sounds more like therapy than folklore.”

Sylvia chuckled.

“Well, my dear, the Cornish were doing therapy long before anyone gave it a name.”

Outside, a gull cried over the harbour.

“The fishermen believed something curious,” Sylvia went on. “They said the sea was strongest on Fridays. And the number thirteen—well, that was the number of tides in a moon’s turning that truly mattered.”

“Thirteen tides?” Lillian said thoughtfully.

“A witch knows these things.”

“I imagine a tide chart might know them too.”

Sylvia ignored this.

“So on Friday the thirteenth they would stand by the water and say whatever weighed on them.”

“And the sea solved their problems?” Lillian asked.

“Oh no,” Sylvia said. “The sea doesn’t solve anything.”

She smiled.

“But it does carry things away.”

Lillian considered this.

Outside, the harbour was quiet now. The tide had begun to turn.

“So you’re saying,” Lillian said slowly, “that today isn’t unlucky at all.”

Sylvia shook her head.

“Quite the opposite.”

“What is it, then?”

Sylvia rose and picked up her coat.

“A good day to let go of something.”

She paused at the door.

“Come along.”

“Where are we going?” Lillian asked.

Sylvia smiled that secretive smile of hers.

“Down to the harbour.”

“And what are we supposed to do there?”

Sylvia opened the door, letting in the salt air.

“Tell the sea what we don’t need anymore.”

Lillian sighed, but she stood up all the same.

After all these years, she had learned one thing about Sylvia Moon.

Sometimes the old stories turned out to be true.

And even when they weren’t…

They still helped.

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