Cornish Folk Tales of Place: Traditional Stories from North and East Cornwall E-Book

Anna Chorlton

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 228

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Cornwall's rugged coast is etched with stories. Here you'll find tales of powerful mermaids, spiteful witches, crafty smugglers and woeful ghosts. Up on the moors are mischievous creatures, huge giants and elusive beasts. Let the piskeys lead you astray across the windy tors and sandy shorelines to experience wonder, miracles, secrets and magic. Bodmin Moor folklore writer Anna Chorlton retells tales of North and East Cornwall, illustrated by local artists and members of the community.

Leseprobe

First published 2019

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Anna Chorlton & Mazed Tales, 2019

Illustrations © individual illustrators, 2019

The right of Anna Chorlton & Mazed Tales to be identified as the Authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 9183 4

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

When I was a young child, in the woods behind our house in East Anglia, there was a ditch. It only had water in it during the wettest of winter months. For most of the year it was a deep, dry depression that ran into the heart of the dark wood. My grandfather told me it was the path that the black dog used when out hunting.

I never crossed that ditch.

Granddad has been dead many years. I moved to Cornwall. The story of the dog and the ditch has vanished. In Cornwall I have been introduced to many other stories, such as the ones in this collection, that could easily have disappeared the same way.

Walking on Bodmin Moor in the mist, I’ve even met some of the characters featured …

You don’t have to believe in magic – but it helps!

Mark Camp

Visit Cornwall

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Illustrations

Preface

Introduction

TALES FROM EAST CORNWALL’S COAST

1Polperro

The Fisherman and the Piskeys

Colman Grey

The Midwife’s Tale

The Devil’s Doorway

2Looe

The Spectral Coach

The White Hare of Looe

The Cock-crow Stone

Joseph of Arimathea brings Jesus to Looe by Boat

Amram and Jochabed

3Seaton to Rame

The Seaton Mermaid

A Voyage with the Piskeys

Finnygook

TALES FROM EAST CORNWALL’S RIVERS

4The River Lynher

Lady Mount Edgcumbe’s Ring

Patten Peg

The Witch and the Toad

Blackberry Round

Dando and his Dogs

King of the Cormorants

A Ghostly Feast at Bethany

5The Looe River

Saint Keyne

Saint Cuby

Saint Nona

The Liskeard Poem

The Pipewell Stories

TALES FROM BODMIN MOOR

6Caradon Hill

The Legend of the Cheesewring

The Angel and the Cockerel

The Rillaton Cup

The Old Storm Woman

Piskey Led

Figgy Hobbin

7Bodmin Moor: The Moor’s Edge

The Piskeys and the Housework

King Alfred and King Dungarth

The Phantom Beast

The Piskey who Lost his Laugh

TOWNS ON THE EDGE OF THE MOOR

8Callington

The Challenge

Caradoc Gets the Girl

Caradoc Briefbras

The Mantle

Dupath Well

9Launceston and Surroundings

The Ghost of Dockacre

Digory Piper

Betsy Laundry

BODMIN AND BEYOND

10Goss Moor, Bodmin and Fowey

The Piskey Warriors

Petroc and the Monstrous Dragon

Tristan and Isolde

TALES FROM NORTH CORNWALL’S MOORS

11Bodmin Moor: The High Moor

Piskeys on the Mare’s Neck

The Boy Who Played with the Piskeys

The Piskey’s Revenge

Skerry Werry

TALES FROM NORTH CORNWALL’S COAST

12Padstow

How Jan Brewer was Piskey Laden

The Small People’s Fair

Mother Ivey

Reefy, Reefy Rum

Why Jan Pendoggit Changed his Mind

13Tintagel and Boscastle

St Nectan’s Kieve and the Lonely Sisters

The Wind Witches

Forrabury Bells

The Piskey who Rode in a Pocket

14Morwenstow and Bude

Cruel Coppinger

The First Mole of Cornwall

Thomasine Bonaventure

The Illustrators

Sources, Folklorists and Tellers

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the droll tellers and folk tale collectors who have told and retold, collected and nurtured the folk tales of Cornwall. Without the tradition of droll tellers, travelling and telling tales along the hearth sides of Cornish homes, the tales would be lost as winter leaves. Thanks also go to Sue Field for creating Monochrome Mazed and Mazed Tales on which Cornish Folk Tales of Place is based, and who collected the Mazed Tales: her research, inspiration and ideas have been invaluable. Many thanks to Nicola Guy, Local Commissioning Editor at The History Press, for her guidance and for making Cornish Folk Tales of Place possible. Thanks also to Ronald M. James for writing the foreword, and to Mark Camp for his story. Many thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund and Feast Cornwall for funding Mazed and Mazed North digital collections of folk tales of place. Thank you to Denzil Monk for his creativity in producing the animations for Mazed, to Awen’s Nick Harpley for the Mazed website, and to all those who took part in Mazed.

A big thank you to everyone who took part in Monochrome Mazed and illustrated Cornish Folk Tales of Place so beautifully. Many thanks to the funders for Monochrome Mazed: Feast Cornwall and The History Press. Many thanks to John Roberts of PuppetCraft for the beautiful puppets of Bill and Nellie and for illustrating the Caradoc ballads. Thanks also go to artists Stephen Lambert, Mark Gregory, Keith Sparrow, Alex Goodman and Sophie Fordham for allowing their illustrations from Mazed North to be used in Cornish Folk Tales of Place; and to Katherine Soutar for the front cover illustration. Many thanks to Alicia Breakspear for the author photograph.

My thanks to Liz Berg, Beta Reader, and to the Society for Storytelling Gathering in Plymouth organized by Liz, where the idea for this book began. Many thanks also to the folklore collectors Enys Tregarthen and Robert Hunt, and to Barbara Spooner for Betsy Laundry: her story collecting remains as fragments in the journals of the Old Cornwall Society. Many thanks to Simon Young for his advice, and to Robert Keys for Finnygook, Dando and his Dogs, Lady Mount Edgcumbe’s Ring, Patten Peg. Blackberry Round and King of the Cormorants. These are his stories, told to him as a child and through generations of his family living around the Rame Peninsula. They can be found in the Institute of Cornish Studies book, Memory Place and Identity, 2012 Frances Boutle publishers. Many thanks to John Buckingham and friends for taking the time to talk about Padstow past and present. And finally, thank you to Dougie Cummings for his family tale, A Ghostly Feast at Bethany.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Monochrome Mazed (part of Mazed Tales) was a lovely community arts project giving people the opportunity to be involved in illustrating their own traditional tales. It brought artists and a storyteller into schools, libraries and a community centre to illustrate the tales of Cornish Folk Tales of Place during the summer of 2018.

Three schools took part in Monochrome Mazed. A storyteller visited the schools and told a selection of Mazed Tales to the children, who were then familiar with the stories and characters they were to illustrate. Artists taught illustration techniques to pupils. All the children involved did a fantastic job of illustrating the tales in this book.

Mark Gregory (markgregoryart.weebly.com) ran pen and ink drawing workshops at Launceston Library and Egloskerry Primary School (Year Six, witch tales).

Sue Field (www.mazedtales.org) told the stories at all of the sessions. She worked with silhouettes at Bodmin Library to capture piskey mischief and at Looe Primary Academy potato printing piskeys with Year One and silhouetting saints and smugglers with Year Five.

Keith Sparrow (www.kaspar.co.uk) taught Manga illustration to Year Five at Dobwalls Community Primary School.

Sophie Fordham (www.sophiefordham.co.uk) led an Intaglio printmaking workshop at Liskerrett Community Centre in Liskeard, producing illustrations of the birds and animals found in the tales.

Exciting pictures and prints from all the workshops were displayed on banners in Looe Library, Launceston Library and Liskerrett Community Centre over the summer holidays 2018.

The Monochrome Mazed artists have all contributed illustrations to the book, as have other artists from Mazed and Mazed North.

John Roberts (www.puppetcraft.co.uk) illustrated the Caradoc ballads.

Stephen Lambert illustrated ‘The Piskeys Revenge’.

Alex Goodman (www.hope-anchor.co.uk) illustrated Mother Ivey.

The cover illustration is by Katherine Soutar (katherinesoutarillustration.com), cover illustrator for The History Press’s Folk Tales series.

PREFACE

The folklore of Cornwall should not be underestimated. Nineteenth-century Cornish folk tales and legends rival those of Celtic cousins in Wales and Scotland, and its publications outdistance those of each English county. Collectors including Robert Hunt, William Bottrell, Nellie Sloggett (writing as Enys Tregarthen) and the father–son team of Jonathan and Thomas Quiller Couch produced books that record traditions to make Cornwall proud. These authors documented a legacy that this volume celebrates.

It would be easy to stop with that point, namely that books preserve an astounding amount of Cornish folklore, but the story does not end there. The publications of collectors and writers would not have been possible had it not been for the storytellers, known in Cornwall as droll tellers. These masterful entertainers took narratives they heard and, in a jovial way, they manipulated them and made them their own. The droll tellers embraced tales from a forgotten time and passed them on to folklorists just as the era of the storyteller seemed to be fading. The droll tellers and their collectors allow the Cornish of today to enjoy a superb cultural inheritance.

With this book, however, Anna Chorlton and Mazed Tales ask us to move beyond cherished publications from previous centuries to resist allowing old narratives to linger as fossilised heirlooms. Cornish Folk Tales of Place explores ways that these stories can remain alive, to act as vibrant signposts of what it means to be Cornish. Through retellings and with enchanting illustrations, Anna and a range of artists demonstrate that the age of the droll tellers need never end. This spectrum of talent challenges the reader, challenges all of us to grab the baton and to be our own droll tellers. Cornish Folk Tales of Place hints at how each of us can explore the possibilities; how we can all be droll tellers; how we can all be artists.

Ronald M. James

October 2018

Author of The Folklore of Cornwall: The Oral History of a Celtic Nation (2018)

INTRODUCTION

Cornish tales are linked to her beautiful and varied landscape. Along the coasts can be found tales of mermaids, witches and smugglers. Along the cliffs are tales of the Cornish fairy folk known as piskeys. Tiny beings, piskeys wear colourful hats and jackets or dresses and often riding breeches. The character of the piskey folk is changeable. They can be helpful and work hard on farms in the day and in homes at night, bringing with them a friendly blessing. If a human interferes in their work, piskeys become mischievous and relish playing tricks. When someone is led astray on their journey by the piskeys, it is said they have been ‘mazed’ (confused) by them and ‘piskey led’. Piskeys love to dance and sing in the fields and woods of the Cornish countryside. Piskeys ride horses across the moors and take little lanterns along the marshlands. The Cornish moors are also home to tales of great giants and beasts.

At firesides, Cornish tales were traditionally told by droll tellers; wandering storytellers who travelled from place to place, telling tales for supper and a bed for the night.

There are many collections of the tales of West Cornwall; the giants of St Michael’s Mount and the Mermaid of Zennor have become widely known. This collection of tales of East Cornwall seeks to redress the balance.

Mazed Tales (www.mazedtales.org) is a successful community arts project collecting the stories of East Cornwall on which Cornish Folk Tales of Place is based. Mazed Tales presents the folk tales of East Cornwall on a website of tales, each connected with beautiful photographs of the places they are set in. A geolocational app showed fantastic short animations of twelve of the tales: these can now be viewed on the website and Cornish language (Kernewek) versions are also available. Cornishibai is Mazed’s version of Japanese street storytelling using a bike and illustrations of Cornish folk tales to tell the stories. This book is a collection of Mazed Tales and some new tales, with an introduction to each of the places in which the tales are set. Each chapter begins with an old Cornish saying. Cornish Folk Tales of Place is illustrated by Mazed artists and the community of East Cornwall.

1

POLPERRO

Piskey fine

Piskey gay

Piskey then will fly away.

Polperro’s tales are of piskeys. Polperro is a pretty and ancient fishing village. At the entrance to Polperro is Crumplehorn Inn, the place where the smugglers’ banker Zephaniah Job lived and issued his own banknotes. The River Pol runs alongside the road with many stone bridges crossing it. An icy wind blows in from the sea. Farmland and wooded hills edge Polperro on both sides of a long, narrow valley, providing plenty of shelter for piskeys and smugglers alike. Walking or driving through Polperro, visitors have a job not to be piskey led. The lanes are very narrow and delivery vans get stuck: one woman brings wood to her cottage using a quad bike; one lane is a dead end leading directly into the river; a house is propped up by stilts. The houses rise out of the river and surround the harbour: it is almost as if the buildings were floating. A small hole in the harbour wall is the gateway to the sea. The village and the sea live in very close proximity. Fishermen come out of their houses and down steps into their boats. Fisherman John would definitely have been able to hear the piskeys making mischief from his house on the harbour. The past doesn’t feel very far away: the tale of ‘The Fisherman and the Piskeys’ could happen again tonight.

THE FISHERMAN AND THE PISKEYS

A fisherman called John was having a rare night at home in bed instead of out at sea, when there was a shout outside his window. Thinking it was a call to go and secure his boat, John got up and walked the few steps to the harbour. It was a calm night; no gale to be heard, nothing but a faint chattering. The tide was out, his boat was beached and sitting in a ring around it were a group of piskeys.

The piskeys threw their caps into the ring. A piskey with a large sack began dealing out gold pieces. Not one to miss an opportunity, John jumped down onto the sand and slipped his own cap into the ring. When it was more or less full, he snuck his cap out again and started for home. Hearing a shout, John looked back and saw chasing after him a crowd of piskeys. He ran up the steps to his door being closely pursued. Just in time, John closed the door behind him and stuffed a gold piece into the keyhole. He could hear the angry piskeys outside. Now John knew the tales of piskey gold; he knew it always turned from heavy gold coins to bags of leaf and dust in human hands. Making sure the keyhole was properly sealed, John left his cap on the table and climbed the stone stairs to his bed.

In the morning, he woke later than usual and ran down to the kitchen to make a quick breakfast. He kept shaking his head and muttering to himself. What curious dreams he’d been having all night. Piskeys indeed. A fisherman has much greater adversaries in the arms of the sea. John knew he would never have been bothered by a few pesky piskeys on land. Clearing the table, he found his cap from the night before. John looked inside his cap and to his surprise it was still filled with piskey gold.

COLMAN GREY

A large car park stands at the top of Polperro – once it was fields, where a kind farmer lived.

A farmer was walking home across the fields when he met a very, very small person sitting on a stone. The farmer felt suddenly sorry for the little person because it was huddled up looking cold and miserable. On an impulse, the farmer whisked it up into his pocket and headed on for home. Inside the farmhouse kitchen, the farmer’s wife took off the little person’s wet clothes and wrapped it in a blanket. She gave it some milk and hoped it would feel happier. And happier it was; the little person looked around the family and grinned at each and every one of them. Then it sprang to life and began to dance and be merry.

For three days the little person entertained the farmer and his family. It brought a good feeling into the poor and work-weary household and somehow things felt easier than before. Everyone had more energy and went about their tasks more willingly.

On the fourth day a voice called out, ‘Colman Grey. Colman Grey. Colman Grey.’

And the little person said, ‘My dad has come, I must be gone.’

With that the piskey flew through the keyhole and was gone. The farmer and his family never did see the piskey again but a little of his merry energy stayed with them for the rest of their days.

THE MIDWIFE’S TALE

Polperro’s tales were collected in the nineteenth century by Jonathan Couch, a doctor who lived in a house that still overlooks the river today. He helped the local midwife with difficult deliveries.

In a cottage in Polperro village lived a midwife called Beth. Beth was a little lady with curling brown hair. Evening time, she sat by the fire knitting and waiting to see if a family needed her service. One night, there came a knocking at the door. When Beth opened it, she was very surprised to see a tiny man, much smaller than even she.

‘I am in need of your service,’ said the piskey sternly.

Now Beth was unsure of strangers and she hesitated in her reply.

‘You’ll have use for this,’ said the piskey and he thrust a pouch of gold coins into her hands.

Gold was not to be argued with and Beth gathered her things and closed the door to behind her. The piskey helped Beth up onto his horse. Until a moment ago, the piskey horse had been so small Beth hadn’t noticed it was there. The horse held her weight and they galloped away through the village, the woods and the fields until they came to a tiny house. The piskey motioned for Beth to hurry. The house was dark and smelled musty and there was very little furniture. A tiny piskey lady lay crying on some straw. Wasting no time, Beth went to the piskey mother and set about her work. She delivered the baby and took it into the bathroom to give it a bath in some warm, soapy water.

While she was carefully washing the baby, some soapy water flicked into her eye. All at once, Beth saw the interior of the house totally differently: it had warm cheerful furnishings and bright lights. Returning to the living room, Beth was overwhelmed by piskeys in every corner, celebrating the birth of the baby in her arms. Beth passed the baby back to its smiling mother and decided not to let on she could see all the visitors. The piskey father ushered her out of the door and onto the horse and they galloped back over the fields and down the valley to Beth’s cottage. On the doorstep, the piskey father said, ‘Thank you for saving my wife and child. However, you must never breathe a word about tonight to anyone and you will never see me or my family again.’

Beth said simply, ‘Good night,’ and went back to her knitting.

Polperro’s midwife forgot all about her visit from the piskey, that is until the day of the fair. She was enjoying looking at the stalls and had already picked out some fine red wool, when she saw the piskey father moving between the stalls. At each one he stopped to take something and then moved on to the next without paying. Beth decided to have words with the piskey; after all most of the stalls were collecting for charity. Her voice stern but kind, she approached him and said, ‘I can see you taking things from the stalls and I hope you don’t mind me saying so but you need to pay.’

‘Which eye have you seen me with?’ shouted the piskey, running towards her.

‘Well this eye I think,’ said Beth, pointing to her right eye.

The piskey jumped up and punched Beth in the eye. He ran off without an explanation and Beth lost her piskey sight and all sight in her right eye from that moment to this.

THE DEVIL’S DOORWAY

Some say, long ago, there was an earthquake in Polperro that caused the rock to split. Some say it was the Devil himself. For the Devil lived a time in the slate behind Polperro, hiding there in the day. At night, he would ride out on his great black horse and cart, shrieking as he raced along the wild Cornish coast. The fishing families and the farming families slept through the Devil’s games as they were exhausted after a long day’s work outside.

One night, the Devil rode out: his eyes were red burning coals, his hands razor-sharp talons, his cloak and hood blacker than night. He stank of rancid caves. His apparition was so frightening the very rock beneath him split in a huge tear. The Devil’s horse reared in triumph. As its hooves crashed down, a hoof print was left in the rock, leaving behind a hoof-shaped pool.

2

LOOE

‘Jack the giant with nothing to do

built a hedge from Lerryn to Looe.’

Looe is a town of the senses: the smells of pasties, beer, chips, fish and the sea; the sounds of boats, clattering cutlery, conversation; and sights perfect for a photograph. Every alleyway and reflection has something beautiful about it. Every inch of the river, the subtle reach of a calm sea, an invitation to jump in a boat of any description or simply swim. Or on a rough, stormy day, experience the feeling of closeness to nature’s savagery while standing in the heart of town. This gives Looe an edgy dimension, an undercurrent to a place whose stories are of smugglers and ghosts.

THE SPECTRAL COACH

Between Polperro and Looe is the village of Talland and this is the tale of a vicar of Talland church, a Reverend Richard Dodge. Reverend Dodge was vicar at Talland between 1713 and 1747 and was well known for being an exorcist. Every night, Dodge went out onto the highway to remonstrate with restless spirits. It was said that on seeing him the spirits screamed, ‘Dodge is come, I must be gone,’ and disappeared into the night. Some say the exorcisms were a cover for a large smuggling operation he was running from the beach up Bridle Lane to the church, and that’s as well may be. This however, is not a tale of smuggling; it is a tale of the laying to rest of the Spectral Coach.

Blackadon Moor, near Lanreath, had always been common land until, that is, the local landowners tried to claim it. An ugly dispute broke out and one of the landowners got so worked up by the failure to resolve the dispute – and divide up the land – he died of a rage. Even in death, he would not give up his claim to the land. He haunted it as a terrible apparition driving a coach pulled by headless horses.

The most direct route to Lanreath village was to cross the common land and it became a regular occurrence for villagers to become mazed, confused of their direction, or even to suffer insanity as a result of an encounter with the Spectral Coach. The well-being of the village was becoming increasingly and adversely affected by the Spectre. One day, the Reverend Parson Mills of Lanreath sent a letter to Reverend Richard Dodge of Talland asking him to lay the Spectre to rest. Dodge arranged to meet Mills one dark night out on the moor.

Dodge and Mills talked long into the night and prayed for the Spectre’s soul. When it didn’t appear, the two men thought the job must have been done and they went their separate ways. Dodge had ridden most of the way back to Talland, when his horse stopped still and refused to go forward. He gave the horse its head and it threw Dodge off and galloped back up to the moor. Dodge ran after it, stumbling along the uneven path. When finally he reached the moor, a terrifying sight played out before him.

Mills lay on the ground at the feet of two steaming, headless horses, a coach and a horrifying Spectre with burning red eyes set within a huge black skull. The Spectre dismounted and walked toward Mills. With all the strength and power within him Dodge began to pray. He prayed with more passion and conviction than ever before, willing his fear to disperse so he could calmly defeat the Spectre. All at once the Spectre turned towards Dodge and for one terrible moment, the brave reverend thought he would be consumed by the anger sweeping from the apparition. Then it shrieked, ‘Dodge is come, I must be gone.’

The Spectre climbed back into the coach, he drove away across Blackadon Moor and disappeared.

Those inflicted with insanity immediately felt well and the villagers of Lanreath never saw the angry coachman again.

If you are walking along the cliffs or fields between Talland and Lanreath and you see the Spectral Coach, you know what to say.

‘Dodge is come! So, you be gone.’

THE WHITE HARE OF LOOE

Sarah was a serious girl with every good intention. She worked in the harbour, hawking the catch. She had her life planned and made certain she got what she wanted. Simon was a cheerful lad but fickle. He loved Sarah deeply for a year and a day until he changed his mind. Simon decided Sarah was a bit bland, and he started dating Sally, a barmaid at the Jolly Sailor. Now Sarah still loved Simon truly and deeply, and she could not change her opinion. She thought Simon would make a suitable husband and had their life together all mapped out – but it was not to be. Simon now loved Sally. The humiliation of rejection stung and jibbed at poor, serious Sarah’s soul. Her pride was hurt and her spirit seethed with resentment. When Simon became Sally’s husband and not Sarah’s, Sarah died of a broken heart. Simon lived together with Sally in a higgledy-built house in West Looe. Their home was just up from the harbour and a tiny saunter from the Jolly Sailor