Cornish Folk Tales of Place: Traditional Stories from Mid and West Cornwall

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PENZANCE AND NEWLYN

Penzance boys up in a tree

Looking as wisht as wisht can be,

Newlyn buccas as strong as oak,

Knocking them down at every poke.

This corner of Cornwall is built around the sea and her industry. Penzance is a vibrant town with a seawater pool, Jubilee Pool, Cornwall's only promenade and an excellent bookshop, The Edge of the World Books. The stories are of fishermen and women, smugglers and Bucca (who can be mermen). The land is the playground of giants.

LONG ROCK AND LONG BEACH

There is a sea wind and little turquoise waves crashing in. A flat sandy beach, easy to bring a boat in. Beyond the sand are pebbles in white, black, tan and orange, all smooth as apples slung ashore by the sea. Looking towards the sea, Penzance is on the right and St Michael's Mount and Market Jew or Marazion to the left. The train runs alongside the hidden beach, a coastal path leads through what was once Eastern Fairy Green. Fairy Green lies beneath Sainsburys on the edge of Penzance, and Eastern Green Heliport is named after it. The Fairy Green of this first tale may have been built over but the pebbles are still there for the Spriggans to skim.

THE SMUGGLER AND THE SPRIGGANS

Long ago, when fairies danced on Eastern Green, fisherman Tom Warren of Paul brought his boat ashore along Long Rock and his men began to unload. They had a boat full of smuggled goods: brandy, tobacco and tea. A smuggler's catch, no fish today. Tom was well known to be the bravest and boldest smuggler along the coast, and he loved the free-trading life. That night, the men split up to deal with the load. Two men set out to Market Jew (Marazion) where waited their best customers, another went to look after the horses. Tom thought he would take a nap; he lay down amongst the soft grass which grew all along Eastern Green in those days.

He was not long snoring and dreaming of the sea, when he was awoken by a clanging and clinking, a strumming and a tinkling, as little pipes and little fiddles played, as drums bounced and tambourines tapped. Tom was lying right in the middle of the fairy green. As he opened just one eye to look about him, he saw the moon high in the sky sending a mysterious hue across the sea and the green. It was then Tom saw the little people dancing about him. They wore green jackets and red hats. 'I can deal with the little people,' Tom thought to himself. 'I'm the boldest and bravest smuggler along these Cornish shores.' Tom watched them for a time and laughed out loud at their long, scraggly beards, falling almost to their toes.

'Have a shave, have a shave, old red-caps!' Tom taunted.

Tom started to chant at the little men, 'Shave! Shave! Shave!'

Then, as he was grinning to himself, he suddenly felt a little afeard, for all the men were armed. Little bows and arrows pointed at his eyes and slight slings aimed at his thighs. He saw tiny spears glinting in the moonlight. Tom watched as the spriggans grew bigger and bigger until he could see the snarls on their faces, feel the anger on their breath. These were no mischievous piskies, these were vicious spriggans and Tom had been foolish enough to anger them right here on Eastern Fairy Green.

All at once, the spriggans charged at Tom, who turned on his heel and ran as fast as he could back to his boat. It took Tom a little while to get any speed, as he first had to untangle the ropes he hadn't yet tidied away. The spriggans hurled a rain of pebbles after the smuggling boat but Tom knew one thing: these angry beings hated salt water, they would never try to follow him into the sea.

'Shave! Shave! Shave!' Tom called out.

But, as he squinted to see their angry little faces, he realised they had all disappeared, and in their place stood his fellow smugglers. They were all laughing at Tom for rowing the boat out in terror, when there was nothing pursuing him from the shore.

From that night on, Tom enjoyed telling the tale of how an army of spriggans chased him out to sea. But even though he often thought of them as he napped on the beach, Tom never again heard the little drums, nor has anyone since seen the fairies on Eastern Green.

ST MICHAEL'S MOUNT

Walking along the causeway, a hum of laughter and conversation. A cormorant glides by and a bee, far out on the horizon a fleet of boats racing in the National Sailing Contest, bladderwrack on the rocks and green weeds on the cobbles. The tide is way out and the Chapel Rock stands huge on the sands, revealing the scale of the giantess who in one version of the legends lies buried beneath it. I had imagined a small green rock, but Cornelian's rock is vast and sprawling with little pathways cut into the surface. Someone asks me to take their photograph with the backdrop of the Mount and I snap, wondering what the giantess would have thought of the swarm of visitors marching towards her home. A submerged forest lies beneath the waves at Mount's Bay, on a low spring tide tree stumps are visible in the sands. St Michael's Mount is called Karrek loos yn Kos (Grey Rock in the Wood).

I arrive imagining a huge gleaming giant's castle, but the evidence is to the contrary. Despite this, I amuse myself looking for traces of the giant's rule. From the gardens we look across the sea to fields, and houses cladding the coast, sea in swathes of azure and turquoise, rugged stones on the beaches and fields empty of cattle. The Mount is managed by the St Aubyn family and the National Trust, they sell us ice cream and coffee. As we climb, I look out for lichen in pale greens and whites on Giant Cormoran's boulders. We climb higher and find, on the approach to the castle, the granite is flocked with silver white lichen and channels of creamy white quartz crystal, these are huge slabs of granite that can only have been moved here by giants.

The castle has a little door with a black wooden frame just the right height for me, an impossible entrance for a giant. The chapel was built in 1135. In 1535, Henry VIII decided to keep the church on the Mount, it was spared his purge. Instead, he provided funding to fortify the island.

The island is home to Lord and Lady St Levan of the St Aubyn family. The Chevy Chase, the refectory of the priory, is the oldest part of the building. It houses a vast wooden table and carved chairs, and here the St Aubyn family still gather for occasional meals. I can imagine Christmas dinner on the Mount with the wind rattling the little windows would be an experience.

The chapel has a stained-glass window, I sit and look up into it for a long while, dreading the slope. It feels as if this place belongs to the past and the elements or something greater, as if it is reproached by the stream of people taking a bite at its obscurity. We sink into benches at the base with ice cream or coffee and dream of partaking in the cream tea.

THE GIANT OF ST MICHAEL'S MOUNT

There was once a forest stretching across Mount's Bay, and scattered beneath the tall trees were boulders of granite, shimmering white with quartz and lichen. Cormoran the giant lived there, and he loved rocks. Cornish giants enjoyed playing games with rocks and stones. Cormoran loved to play quoits with large flat stones and bob-button with huge boulders. He was always playing games with his friend, the giant of Trencrom Hill, and he loved hunting for the best bits of granite to play with. In time, the woodland giant decided he would like a home for himself and his wife, a home from which he could look far out to sea, but also above the trees in case any enemy giants were approaching. An island rose out of the sea, he thought he could build a sturdy house on top of it.

Cormoran could have built his home out of logs, but they would get soggy and rotten and blown over by sea storms. Cormoran needed something stronger, and he had just the very thing lying about: huge great slabs of granite to be found right where he had thrown them.

Giant Cormoran also liked to stomp over Cornwall and beyond, he had great long legs which made wandering far and wide easy enough. Off he stomped to Bodmin Moor, where he met the giant who lived at Trethevy. The Trethevy giant's house was built with stunning granite boulders covered in white crystal quartz. 'I like it,' thought Cormoran to himself, 'I'd like a house built out of white rock that sparkles in the sun.' He hunted in the forest and he hunted on the moors for flat boulders glittering with white quartz and lichen. Cormoran began to build his castle with the whitest boulders he could find. The quartz gleamed in rhythm with the summer sun glinting on the waves. When he had spent a whole day building, Cormoran stood back and admired his work; he needed a lot more boulders, and quickly. He walked for miles seeking the very best, remembering vaguely where they had landed as he and Giant Trecrobben played, but still he needed more rocks, so he called his wife to help.

'Cornelian, my beauty, come and help me find some rocks.'

'Yes, my 'ansome,' said Cornelian. 'Any rocks?'

'Only the white ones,' Cormoran grumbled. 'The really white ones, mind, nothing dull grey or green.'

'Bit exact, isn't it?' she said, smiling wryly.

'Look at our house, my lovely,' said Cormoran proudly. 'No other giant has built anything like this.'

'I'll do my best,' said Cornelian, and she began to search in the woods for rocks. However, Cormoran had already...