FROM THE GREAT LIBRARY OF DREAMS 143 - Negotium Perambulans by EF Benson

A tale of summers spent in a sleepy Cornish village where an ancient church holds a sinister and deadly secret...

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THE GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS ADVENT CALENDAR - Door 9 - The Mystery Girl of Cotehele House

Cotehele is a medieval house with Tudor additions, situated in the parish of Calstock in the east of Cornwall, England. It belonged to the Edgecumbe family from 1353 until it passed to the National Trust in 1947. Rich tapestries, works of art, four poster beds and timeworn steps are to be found throughout the property. 

However the house also has a permanent resident, a girl dressed in white. It's said her presence manifests as a scent of herbs. However it's not uncommon to see her. It is said that when the fifth Earl was dying, a nurse from Tavistock was called to tend him. While attending to the Earl, she saw a woman dressed in white stroll through the room. Now being a newcomer to the house, the nurse assumed it must have been the housekeeper. However, when she met the housekeeper later, she couldn't help noticing that she was dressed in black, and so asked 'Have you changed your dress because when you passed through the Earl's room you were in a white dress?’ The housekeeper replied: ‘You must have seen the ghost, for I have worn this dress all day and have not been near the Earl's room today.' 

Mrs Phyllis Julyan, who has lived at Cotehele for many years, recounts a sighting of the girl in white at Christmastime 1980. A friend had called with her husband to wish Mrs Julyan the compliments of the season. However after the visit, this lady asked whether Mrs Julyan had a young girl staying with her, a girl with long hair and wearing a white, flimsy dress. For she and her husband had seen such a girl on the main staircase as they had been leaving… 

To this very day, visitors to this fine old house often ask about the long haired girl in white who seems to live there... 

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FROM THE GREAT LIBRARY OF DREAMS 020 - The Horror Under Penmire by Adrian Cole

In this episode we are very proud to present a classic modern tale of the Cthulhu Mythos - The Horror Under Penmire by Adrian Cole, a story of Lovecraftian dread and ancient secrets lurking in mist-shrouded Cornwall! 

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FOLKLORE FLASHBACK #8 - Of Pasties and Pixies

This week on Folklore Flashback, we are headed down to Cornwall, to sample one of the all-time great British delicacies, the Cornish pasty!

Now not only is this a delicious snack, but the Cornish pasty has a long history that is interwoven with much folklore. In particular, this great British food is closely associated with a certain species of faery, that are said to dwell in the tin mines of Cornwall, the Knockers...

Part I can be found here -
http://hypnogoria.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/folklore-on-friday-of-piskies-and.html

And Part II lives here -
http://hypnogoria.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/folklore-on-friday-of-pasties-and.html

FOLKLORE ON FRIDAY - The Mermaid of Zennor

In the wild, windswept moorland of Cornwall, not far from Land's End and on the coast road to St Ives, is the little village called Zennor, and there you can find the church of St. Senara. Every year, hundreds of tourists flock to this quiet coastal village just to visit St Senara's, for it is home to a famous folkloric artefact, the Mermaid's chair. Displayed in the southern side of the church, the Mermaid's chair is an old wooden seat. It is believed to have been constructed from old bench ends, and its ornate carved sides are believed to be around 600 years old. It is adorned with a thin cushion with a pattern of fishes, and one side has a beautiful but unremarkable intertwining pattern. However on the other is a carving of a mermaid, which is said to commemorate an ancient local tale.

The short version goes like this. The choristers of St. Senara have always been famed for their singing, however once upon a time they had a truly exceptional talent - a handsome young fellow called Matthew Trewella, whose voice was so beautiful that every service at the church would close with him singing the last hymn solo. His singing was so enchanting that people came from far and wide just to hear him. But other stranger folks were listening too. And his performances were so enchanting that a local mermaid would creep out of the sea and into the church to listen. However one day, the handsome Matthew noticed his mystery admirer, and being as enchanted with her as she was with him, after one church service, he decided to follow her. And so he followed her as she made her way down to the sea, to Pendour Cove, and there, so the old tales say, both vanished beneath the waves and never to be seen again. And hence, the carved chair in St. Senara's is the very seat where the mermaid would sit and listen to Matthew singing...

Or so the local legend says. However modern folklorists have theorized that actually the carving probably inspired the story and not the other way around. And in favour of that argument are the following facts. Firstly the carving dates back at least five hundred years whereas the earliest version of this fishy tale that we have heard, comes from the 19th century. Secondly, while at first it would seem unusual to find a representation of a mermaid in a church - after all, alluring ladies who are half fish and half naked aren't normally the first thing that springs to mind when contemplating the teachings of Christ - actually mermaids have a long history in church iconography. here in this marvelous round-up of church merfolk. At various times in history they have been used to represent vanity (hence appearing with combs and mirrors), the dual nature of Christ (with his human/divine nature symbolized in the mermaid's ability to live in the realm of air and the realm of water), and of course, given their famous beauty and scanty wardrobes, as warnings about the temptations of lust.    

 

On the flipside however, we must also note that we don't actually have too much folklore dated before 1800s, as quite simply it wasn't until the 19th century that people began documenting folk tales and local stories. Hence the tale of the Mermaid of Zennor may have been in circulating for untold years before it was recorded by Mr William Bottrell in Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall, Volume 2 in 1873.  So then, exactly how old the story actually is, it is impossible to say. Secondly, while the carving's depiction of the lady from the waves has her holding a comb and mirror, which suggests a medieval reminder on the sins of vanity, we should also note that this was also the traditional way mermaids were depicted. Indeed the Greek goddess Aphrodite was often pictured as a mermaid holding a comb and a quince - and in ancient depictions of mermaids there is some confusion as to whether the round object they are holding is a mirror or a fruit. The point is however, that medieval artwork was very stylised - with artists recreating an accepted set of images and symbols rather than crafting personal visions. Hence if the villagers of Zennor had instructed a woodworker to carve them a mermaid to commemorate the tale, it is highly likely a mermaid in the classic pose with mirror and comb would have resulted anyway.

So did the tale inspired the carving or the carving inspire the tale? Well as is often the case with folklore, it is always worth having a look at the original source to see what light it can shed on the matter. And so here is what William Bottrell  recorded in Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall, Volume II (1873) -

Hundreds of years ago a very beautiful and richly attired lady attended service in Zennor Church occasionally—now and then she went to Morvah also;—her visits were by no means regular,—often long intervals would elapse between them.
Yet whenever she came the people were enchanted with her good looks and sweet singing. Although Zennor folks were remarkable for their fine psalmody, she excelled them all; and they wondered how, after the scores of years that they had seen
her, she continued to look so young and fair. No one knew whence she came nor whither she went; yet many watched her as far as they could see from Tregarthen Hill.
She took some notice of a fine young man, called Mathey Trewella, who was the best singer in the parish. He once followed her, but he never returned; after that she was never more seen in Zennor Church, and it might not have been known to this day who or what she was but for the merest accident.
One Sunday morning a vessel cast anchor about a mile from Pendower Cove; soon after a mermaid came close alongside and hailed the ship. Rising out of the water as far as her waist, with her yellow hair floating around her, she told the captain that she was returning from church, and requested him to trip his anchor just for a minute, as the fluke of it rested on the door of her dwelling, and she was anxious to get in to her children.
Others say that while she was out on the ocean a-fishing of a Sunday morning, the anchor was dropped on the trap-door which gave access to her submarine abode. Finding, on her return, how she was hindered from opening her door, she begged the captain to have the anchor raised that she might enter her dwelling to dress her children and be ready in time for church.
However it may be, her polite request had a magical effect upon the sailors, for they immediately "worked with a will," hove anchor and set sail, not wishing to remain a moment longer than they could help near her habitation. Sea-faring men, who understood most about mermaids, regarded their appearance as a token that bad luck was near at hand. It was believed they could take such shapes as suited their purpose, and that they had often allured men to live with them.
When Zennor folks learnt that a mermaid dwelt near Pen-dower, and what she had told the captain, they concluded—it was, this sea-lady who had visited their church, and enticed Trewella to her abode. To commemorate these somewhat unusual events they had the figure she bore—when in her ocean-home—carved in holy-oak, which may still be seen.

However, it's the rough edges to this first account of the story that are most intriguing. For later versions would add several key details - for example many versions now give our mermaid a name - Morveren. One oft-repeated version even adds an epilogue in the form of the claim  that the sound of Matthew singing was frequently heard from beneath the waves and taken by the locals as a reliable warning of storms and rough seas to come.  While another very common version adds even more - that sailors over-heard the mermaid calling down to Matthew to attend to the children, and hence connecting the two incidents beyond doubt and smoothly rounding off the story. And all of this seems somewhat strange if the tale of the Mermaid of Zennor was supposedly inspired by the carving on the chair. 

For stories are much like stones on a beach, for the retelling of stories has an action upon them like that the tides, slowly wearing away the jagged edges and rough spots, and after several generations, all that is left are rounded shapes with smooth curves. And as any explorer of folklore will tell you, generally the more recent the version of the tale, the smoother the story runs. One just has to compare our modern fairy stories with the first versions recorded - one finds they are often a good deal crueler and darker and in many case missing many details which make them what we would now consider to be a well-rounded tale. So there is - if you'll pardon the pun - something fishy going on here. 

Now in the original account above we appear to have in effect two stories, both which bear the same rough textures as many other authentic bits of folklore recorded in the 19th century. Possibly they were originally two separate local tales that over the years have been have linked together, with the second becoming in effect an explanation for the first. And it is only after the story is published in the 1870s that the process of storyification begins to take place, with the two strands of the account given by Mr Botterell become united into a whole cohesive narrative with the expected beginning, middle and an end. A  similar process can be seen in the evolution of other well-known tales, for example in the earlier versions of Red Riding Hood, no woodcutter turns up to save her and the story ends with the little girl being eaten.  And much like the original Red Riding Hood story, both parts of the Zennor tale as recorded by Mr Botterell are not traditional fairy stories, instead they are more fragmentary. They are not well-rounded tales meant to entertain, rather they are reports of incidents which are meant to be cautionary, with the first part of the Zennor tale being a clear warning about following strangers, while the second is a more general caution to heed the appearance of literally ominous unnatural things. 

Now in general, churches do not really go in for recording well-loved local stories as part of their décor. Usually any artwork or decoration is either symbolic or commemorative, and hence we find in church artworks allusions to local history and the expected Biblical symbolism. However it is not unusual for certain church features to have legends attached to them, often after their original meaning has been forgotten.  And bearing all of this in mind, I would say the best guess about the origin of the Mermaid’s Seat, would most likely be that actually that either one did not inspire the other. But rather an independently existing tale - the story of the disappearance of Mathy Trewella, was later linked to a second local story of sailors encountering a mermaid in Pendour Cove, and once this connection was made and two stories began being told as one, a further connection was made to the medieval mermaid carving in the church at Zennor. 

But possibly there is a grain of truth in the legend too. That is to say, there was a real life disappearance of a local fellow, which later on was "explained" by another odd event. And it is even possible, given the propensity of local history to find its way into church décor, that  either the disappearance or the sailor’s sighting (and indeed or both stories taken together as one) was commemorated by the carving of the mermaid seat. 

It is worth bearing in mind that he seating in in a church, traditionally in England. was traditionally often very bound up with local families.  Indeed it was often the case that well standing locals would pay for the installation of benches and pews, and their decoration. You may heard the old phrase “gone to the wall” and this actually relates to this ancient church custom. For when a family could no longer pay  for the upkeep of their bench or pew  in the local church, they would have to stand with the rest of the congregation at the back of the church. And their only form of seating would be to lean against the church walls. Hence if a family lost its fortune, it was said to have - you guessed it - gone to the wall.

 Now in great many English churches various carvings on benches and pews have a significance for a local family and hence I wonder whether it was the family of the missing man or the family of sailors that commissioned the mermaid carving. However bearing in mind the family connection to church benches, it is also equally possible that the mermaid was a heraldic device for some forgotten wealthy  family  who paid for the making of the Mermaid’s Seat. Certain mermaids do feature in many coats of arms, and were popular symbols for sea-faring businesses, and so this possibility is I think highly likely. And hence long after this family were gone, this carving was associated with emerging stories of local disappearances and sightings of mermaids. 

We will probably never know the truth, but there is one possibility that might shed some light on the matter. Perhaps it is time some enterprising soul searched the parish records in search of Mathey Trewella... So far researchers have established that Trewella is a common old Cornish name, and indeed there are Trewella documented as living in the local area.  But the further back in time you go the less complete the extant records are, and so far a Mathy or Matthew has not been discovered.  But if he could be found, that would give us some indication of the age of the tale. And it would be most interesting to discover that if there was such a person, if he did indeed disappear in mysterious circumstances....

The Mermaid of Zennor by John Reinhard Weguelin (1900)

FOLKLORE ON FRIDAY - Of Pasties and Piskies Part II

Last week we examined the legends and lore that have grown up around the humble Cornish pasty, and discovered how this pastry delight became the perfect meal for the tin miners in 19th century Cornwall. However the pasty was also popular among the non-human denizens of the mines too...

Cornwall is a land rich in faery lore, and as the Cornish people are descended from Celts they have not only their own ancient language - Kernowek, a Brittonic Celtic tongue related to both Welsh to Breton - but also their own distinct legends and folklore. There are many varieties of Cornish faeries, such as the piskies, tiny faery folk who were mostly benign but sometimes mischievous, and spriggans - ugly beings that were malign, powerful and generally best avoided - haunted old ruins and other lonely places. Generally the Cornish landscape, from the sea, to trees, to wells, and hills was said to be the home of the bucca. Some were good and called bucca gwidden, while more malevolent entities were the bucca dhu, with farmers and fishermen leaving out offerings to stay in the buccas' good graces. 

However the most famous of the bucca are the knockers. They were the spirits of caves and wells, and with the tin mining booms in Cornwall, they also became the denizens of the mines. Their names comes from the fact that miners often heard the sounds of mysterious unseen miners working alongside them in the dark. The sound of tapping and knocking was heard in the dark, and sometimes distant voices were heard singing in the dark of the deep. Of course like most faerie folk, the knockers were prone to mischief - missing tools were often blamed on the knockers. But they also had their own peculiar quirks too, for example, knockers hated people whistling, and if they heard a miner whistling a merry air in the shafts and galleries of the mines, misfortune would follow. 

A silhouette of knocker formed by natural deposits in the Geevor mine, Cornwall

They also hated being seen by mortal folk and this is illustrated by a popular old tale. A rather idle fellow called Barker from Towednack did not believe in the knockers or their powers and to prove his point, he camped by an old mine where the knockers were said to dwell. It was no hardship for the lazy Barker to lie in the sun waiting to catch a glimpse of the famed knockers and soon he heard little voices chattering in the mine. He heard that the knockers worked in eight hour shifts and were soon to finish for the day. Furthermore as knockers apparently enjoyed playing tricks on each other as well as humans, several were discussing where they would find their tools so their fellows could not make mischief with them. 

Well on hearing this, Barker resolved to listen intently and discover these hiding places and steal the knockers' tools for himself. He listen close to the tiny voices emanating from the mine... "I shall hide mine in a cleft in the rocks!" said one, "I shall hide mine beneath a fern!" replied another. "And," exclaimed a third, "I shall hide mine ON BARKER'S KNEE!". And at that very moment, the unfortunate Barker was wracked with pain as a heavy crushing blow from an unseen force battered his left kneecap.  He screamed and scream and fled as fast as he could from the place with the laughter echoing from the mine ringing in his ears. And for the rest of his days, he was to walk with a limp, and the tale is remembered in a common Cornish phrase - "as stiff as Barker's leg".  

However the knockers were also a boon to the miners, for the tin miners of old soon learnt that it was wise to heed the odd noises that were purportedly the knockers working down in the deep. It is was said the knockers' sounds could lead a miner to rich seams, or more importantly give warning of an imminent tunnel collapse. Therefore soon it was considered unsafe to work in mines that didn't have knockers in them, and old mines were never entirely sealed up to let the knockers come and go as they pleased. And to keep in good favour with these mysterious mining spirites, the miners would leave them gifts and offerings. However rather than the usual cream, milk or bread that traditionally one leaves out for the faeries, the miners would leave tallow and candle ends for the knockers' lanterns. But also, the miners would leave a portion of their beloved Cornish pasties for the knockers, with some claiming the pasty's distinctive ridged crust being specially designed to throw into the darkness for the little folk. 

The Cornish mining industry was so successful that soon Cornish miners were in demand overseas, with mine owners across the Atlantic in the USA, and even on the other side of the world in Australia, looking for Cornishmen to come over and bring their expertise. And naturally these migrating tin miners took their favourite meal with them, and hence the Cornish pasty became the world famous dish it is today. However the knockers also came with them, and soon where up to their usual tricks in mines across the globe.

And while over time ideas about what the knockers actually were would change - for example, similar to the Cauld Lad of Hilton, the original concept that they were bucca who lived underground shifted to them being the spirits of deceased miners - belief in these mining spirits would persist well into the 20th century. Not only did the descendants of the original travelling Cornish miners claimed that their luck in finding new seams or dodging tunnel collapses was due to the aid of the knockers, but they also insisted that the old ways were respected - refusing to work if an old mine was totally sealed up. Nor would they to begin work in a new one if the familiar sounds of knocking in the dark had not been heard. And while the old ways of mining are now gone, tales of the knockers persist and these mysterious sprites are still held to be working in old abandoned mines to this very day. 

FOLKLORE ON FRIDAY - Of Piskies and Pasties Part I

The ancient lands of Cornwall are steeped in myth and legend, brimming with tales of giants, saints, monsters and witches. And as is often the case, its folklore is often tied to its own geography, with tales, traditions and customs growing up around certain sites and areas. However folklore is full of surprises, and over the years, certain Cornish traditions have not only intertwined and given rise to new folk tales, but also have been successfully exported round the world.

Cornwall is famous for many things, and while folklorists treasure its wealth of faery lore, food lovers celebrate its most famous export, the Cornish pasty. And surprisingly despite seemingly being very unrelated, this pair have enjoyed a special relationship over the years. Now pasties have been appearing in historical documents, and even in ancient recipe books, since the 13th century. Likewise as long as there has been a Cornwall, there has been tales of the piskies, the local little people. However it wasn't until the 1800s, when tin mining became a huge industry in Cornwall that the two came together.

Now the pasties of centuries past had very much been a snack favoured by the rich, with early recipes having the pastry case being filled with fancy fare such as venison or fine fruits and berries. But in the 19th century, the dish became popular among tin miners, and hence the traditional Cornish pasty was born. Now the proper, traditional Cornish recipe has minced beef - the cut known as steak skirt to be exact - baked in a pastry case along with sliced potatoes and turnip, and lightly seasoned with salt and pepper. The filling is mixed, then packed still uncooked in a circle of pastry that is then folded over and the edges crimped together to form a long thick crust that runs the entire length of the pasty. It is said that a proper Cornish pasty is folded to make a semi circular shape, but vintage cooking tomes and pictures show that crimping up the crust along the top of the pasty is equally traditional. 

Pasties were not only cheap to make and but also made for a filling meal - effectively you got a full dinner in one handy pastry package. They were easy to carry down the mines, compact to carry on your person, and stayed warm a long time. And if they did get cold, they were easily warmed up on a shovel held over a candle, with the bigger mines actually having ovens down the pits to reheat the miners' pasties. Pasties very soon became part of mining culture and developed a folklore all of their own. Firstly is was said that the mark of a good, proper, well-baked Cornish pasty was that it could be dropped down a mine shaft and land without breaking apart. 

Now there is no evidence to suggest that this was the usual delivery method of pasties at lunch time, however the popular call and response of "Oggie! Oggie! Oggie! Oi! Oi! Oi!" does come from dinner deliveries at the tin mines! The Cornish word for pasty is "hogen" which became "oggie" in miners' slang. Hence when the girls who worked on the surface, the bal maidens, lowered down a basket of pasties, they would cry "Oggie! Oggie! Oggie!" to let the menfolk know dinner was coming. And the miners would give the time-honoured reply of "Oi!Oi! Oi!" to let them know the pasties had been received and the basket was ready to be hauled up again. 

Another tale about the pasty, that is often said to be culinary folklore but is actually true, is the traditional recipes that expanded the pasty into a two course meal. By means of adding a pastry partition, the canny Cornish folk devised a pasty that contained not just dinner but a dessert too! The bulk of the pasty would be the traditional filling of meat and veg, but a section at one end would contain a sweet of fruit, apple being a favourite. And a traditional family recipe for these ingenious two course pasties can be found here. Also there is an attendant piece of lore attached to this inventive practice - it was commonly said that the enthusiasm for pasty making and experimenting with the recipe was so great, that the Devil himself was afraid to set foot, or rather hoof, over the River Tamor and cross from Devon to Cornwall for fear of ending up the filling in a Cornish pasty! 

Other legends have grown up around the pasty crust itself. It is often claimed that the thick hard ridge of pastry formed a useful handle to eat the pasty with, negating the need to bring knives and forks down the mines. Furthermore it has been claimed that as mining tin often brings up arsenic, the tradition of not eating the crust spared many a miner from a bout of poisoning. Modern pastyologists however have cast doubt on this belief however, citing pictures and photographs of tin miners eating their pasties from end to end and hold them in paper or muslin bags. 

Photo from 1893 showing tin miners eating their pasties in bags

But aside from these modern theories about avoiding arsenic poisoning, there is an older tradition regarding not eating the crusts. For while Old Nick may have had a fear of pasties, other supernatural beings were said to have a taste for them... and we will discover more about these fellows next week!