Popular Romances of the West of England (Part One)

Nightriders, spriggans and the Mermaid of Padstow! We're back in Cornwall with part one of our wander through Popular Romances of the West of England by Robert Hunt, published by John Camden Hotton of London in 1865.

'When calms rest upon the ocean, and the waves can scarcely form upon the resting waters, still wailings creep along the coast. These are the wailings of this wandering soul. When midnight is on the moor or on the mountains, and the night winds whistle amidst the rugged cairns, the shrieks of Tregeagle are distinctly heard. We know, then, that he is pursued by the demon dogs.'

Tales From Antiquaria is a podcast dedicated to exploring the legacy of work published regarding folklore and local history during the golden age of antiquarian writing in the nineteenth century.

For show notes and links, visit the episodes page at thelocalmythstorian.com

Episode written, produced and presented by Eli Lewis-Lycett. All source material taken directly from the stated publication. Main theme music by Humanoid Media. Incidental music from Restum-Anoush. 

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Transcript

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Night Riders, Spriggans, and the Mermaid of Padstow. My name is Eli and this is Tales from Antiquaria: Popular Romances of the West of England, part one. Our second Cornish collection tonight, such a rich weave of lore in Cornwall. This one is from the folklorist Robert Hunt. Born in Cornwall in 1807, Hunt was a man of many interests. A poet, a pioneer of photography, and a serious, serious scientist. Professor of Mechanical Science at the Government School of Mines, nonetheless. Born in Plymouth, his love for the folklore and history of the Southwest shines through this collection, the full title of which is Popular Romances of the West of England or The Drolls, Traditions, and Superstitions of Old Cornwall, and was first published in 1865 by John Camden Houghton, with illustrations by the renowned artist George Crueshank. From the very opening, the personal connection between Hunt and the wider region and what it meant to him is clear. He writes, The beginning of this collection of popular romances may be truly said to date from my early childhood. I remember with what anticipations of pleasure, sixty-eight years since, I stitched together a few sheets of paper and carefully pasted them into the back of an old book. This was preparatory to a visit I was about to make with my mother to Bodmin, about which town many strange stories were told. My memory retains dim shadows of a wild tale of Render the Huntsman, of a narrative of streams having been poisoned by the monks, and a legend of a devil who played many strange pranks with the tower which stands on a neighbouring hill. I have, within the last year, endeavoured to recover those stories, but in vain. The Libyan people appear to have forgotten them. My juvenile notebook has been long lost. Those traditions are, it is feared, gone forever. Fifteen years passed away when failing health compelled my return to the west of England. Having spent about a month on the borders of Dartmoor and wandered over that wild region of granite tours, I resolved on walking through Cornwall. Thirty-five years since, on a beautiful spring morning, I landed at Salt Ash, and from the very ancient passage boat, which in those days conveyed men and women, carts and cattle across the river Tamar, where now that triumph of engineering, the Albert Bridge, gracefully spans its waters. Sending my belongings forward by a van, my wanderings commenced. My purpose being to visit each relic of old Cornwall and to gather up every existing tale of its ancient people. And so to the windswept vistas of Cornwall we go on giants. There is scarcely a pile of rocks around our western shore upon which the giants have not left their impress. We have the giant's chair and the giant's pulpit. Even a small mass of rocks behind Street and Noan near Penzance has the mark of the giant's foot. The priests, however, in the season of their rule, strove to obliterate the memories of those great pagans. Giants' footprints became the mark of the devil's hoof, where he stamped in rage at the escape of a sinner who threw himself from the rock, strong in faith, into the arms of the church. In more recent times, this footmark has been attributed to the devil jumping with joy as he flew off from that spot with some unfortunate miller who had lost his soul by mixing China clay with his flower. The metamorphosis of ancient giants into modern devils is a curious feature of our inquiry. The hack and cast in the parish of Garan is an entrenchment running from cliff to cliff and cutting off about a hundred acres of coarse ground. This is about twenty feet broad and twenty four feet high in most places. Marvellous as it may appear, tradition assures us that this was the work of a giant, and that he performed the task in a single night. This fortification has long been known as Thik Avosa and the Haken caste. The giant who lived on the promontory was the terror of the neighborhood, and were great rejoicings in Gurin when his death was accomplished through a stratagem by a neighbouring doctor. The giant fell ill through eating some children. A messenger, however, soon arrived at the residence of the doctor of the parish, and he bravely resolved to obey the summons of the giant and visit him. He found the giant rolling on the ground with pain, and he at once determined to rid the world, if possible, of the monster. He told him he must be bled. The giant submitted, and the doctor, moreover, said that to ensure relief, a large hole in the cliff must be filled with his blood. The giant lay on the ground, his arm extended over the hole, and the blood flowing a torrent into it. Relieved by the loss of blood, he permitted the stream to flow on until it at last became so weak that the doctor kicked him over the cliff and killed him. The well-known promontory of the dead man or Dodman is so called from the dead giant. The Alfin Creed of Cornwall. It should be understood that there are in Cornwall five varieties of the fairy family the small people, the spriggans, the piskies or pigsies, the bookers, bockles or knockers, and the brownies. Of the small people I have heard two accounts. Indeed, it's by no means clear that the tradition of their origin does not apply to the whole five branches of this ancient family. The small people are believed by some to be the spirits of the people who inhabited Cornwall many thousands of years ago, long, long before the birth of Christ. That they were not good enough to inherit the joys of heaven, but that they were too good to be condemned to eternal fires. They were said to be poor innocents. When they first came to this land they were much larger than they are now, but ever since the birth of Christ they have been getting smaller and smaller. Eventually they will turn into ants and at last be lost from the face of the earth. These small people are exceedingly plainful amongst themselves, but they are usually demure when they know that the human eye is upon them. They commonly aid those people to whom they take a fancy, and frequently they have been known to perform the most friendly acts towards men and women. The above notion corresponds with the popular belief in Ireland, which is that fairies are a portion of the fallen angels, who, being less guilty than the rest, were not driven to hell, but were suffered to dwell on earth. In Cornwall, as in Wales, there is another popular creed that the fairies are druids. These small people in many things closely resemble the elves of Scandinavia. The Spriggans are quite a different class of being. In some respects they appear to be offshoots from the family of the trolls of Sweden and Denmark. The Spriggans are found only about the cairns, coits and cromlicks, with which it is unlucky for mortals to meddle. A correspondent writes This is known that they were a remarkably mischievous and thievish tribe. If ever a house was robbed, a child stolen, cattle spirited away, or a building demolished, it was the work of the spriggans. Whatever commotion took place on earth, air or water, it was all put down as the work of these spirits. Wherever the giants have been, there the spriggins have been also. It's sometimes considered that they are the ghosts of giants. Certainly from many of their feats we must suppose them to possess a giant strength. The Piske is a fairy and a most mischievous and very unsociable sprite. His favourite fun is to entice people into the bogs by appearing like a light from a cottage window, or as a man carrying a lantern. The Piskey partakes in many respects at the character of the Spriggan, so widespread were their depredations, so annoying their tricks. No pixie or piskey could harm a man if his coat were on inside out, and it became a very common practice for persons who had to go from village to village by night to wear their jacket or cloak so turned. The bookers or knockers are the spirits of the mines, and correspond to the cabals of the German mines, the Drugers and the Trolls. They're said to be the souls of those who formerly worked in the tin mines of Cornwall. They are not allowed to rest because of their wicked practices as tinners, and they share in the general curse which ignorant people believe still hangs on them. The brownie is the spirit purely for the household. Kindly and good, he devoted his every care to the benefit of the family with whom he had taken up his abode. The night riders. I was on a visit when a boy at a farmhouse situated near the Fowee River told that the Piskey people had been riding Tom again, and this the farmer regarded as leading to the destruction of a fine young horse. I was taken to the stable to see the horse. There could be no doubt that the animal was much distressed and refused to eat his food. The mane was said to be knotted into fairy stirrups, and the farmer told me he had no doubt at least twenty small people had sat upon the horse's neck. He even assured me that one of his men had seen them urging the horse to his utmost speed around and round one of the fields. Who has not heard of the wild spirit trag eagle? He haunts equally the moor, the rocky coasts, and the blown sand hills of Cornwall. From north to south, from east to west, this doomed spirit is heard of, and to the day of judgment he is doomed to wander, pursued by avenging fiends. The howls of the spirit are louder than the roaring of the winds. When calm rests upon the ocean, and the waves can scarcely form up upon the resting waters, the wailings creep along the coast. These are the wailings of this wandering soul. When midnight is on the moor or the mountains, and the night winds whistle amongst the rugged cairns, the shrieks of Treg Eagle are distinctly heard. We know then that he is pursued by the demon dogs. He must fly with all speed before them. The voice of Treg Eagle is everywhere and yet he is unseen by the human eye. The Wish Hounds. The tradition of the midnight hunter and his headless hounds, always in Cornwall, associated with Treg Eagle, pervades everywhere. The Abbot's Way on Dartmoor, the ancient road which extends into Cornwall, is said to be the favourite courseing ground of the Wish or Wished Hounds of Dartmoor. It's said that if dogs hear the cry of the Wish Hounds, they will all die. The Mermaid of Padstow. The port of Padstow has a good natural harbour so far as rocky area goes, but it is so choked up with drifting sands as to be nearly useless. A peasant recently thus explained the cause. He told me how it was once deep water for the largest vessel, and under the care of a merry maid, as he called her. But one day, as she was sporting on the surface, a fellow with a gun shot at her. She dived for a moment, but reappearing raised her right arm and vowed that henceforth the harbour should be desolate. We have had commissions and I know not what about converting this place into a harbour of refuge. A harbour of refuge would be a great blessing, but not all the government commissions in the world could keep the sand out, nor make the harbour deep enough to swim a frigate. Unless the Parsons can find out the way to take up the Merry Maid's Curse. Well, I wonder if it's connected to Ireland just being across the sea. And those traditions and stories would have been doing the rounds being exchanged through sailors for centuries. We'll be back soon with our second part of the collection. So until then, take care and may your God go with you. You can find out more about the show and about my other projects at the local mythstorian.com.