A Cornish Bestiary
Will be published approx. on 1. October 2026
Book
Hardback
978-1-83705-281-3 (ISBN)
Description
Did you hear about the Redruth girl who vomited snails? Or how the saint of Gunwalloe saved his sister's eye from a goose? Can you cure warts with a slug, or whooping cough with spiders?
Sea serpents and bear-dogs, giant birds and bigfoots, devil-fish and sea ghosts - these are the beasts that haunt the landscape of Cornwall. In this book of bizarre beasts you'll find familiar faunal favourites like the red-eyed Owlman of Mawnan Smith and the Beast of Bodmin Moor as well as Camborne's Frog King and Ladock's feathered fiend, plagues of flies and octopuses and shoals of Holy fish. You'll find beavers and boars, rhymes for curing adder bites and the reason we feed pasties to snails.
This compendium of Cornwall's most curious creatures brings together stories from natural history and folklore, broadside ballads and news reports, celebrating the wonderful stories we share with the animals around us.
Sea serpents and bear-dogs, giant birds and bigfoots, devil-fish and sea ghosts - these are the beasts that haunt the landscape of Cornwall. In this book of bizarre beasts you'll find familiar faunal favourites like the red-eyed Owlman of Mawnan Smith and the Beast of Bodmin Moor as well as Camborne's Frog King and Ladock's feathered fiend, plagues of flies and octopuses and shoals of Holy fish. You'll find beavers and boars, rhymes for curing adder bites and the reason we feed pasties to snails.
This compendium of Cornwall's most curious creatures brings together stories from natural history and folklore, broadside ballads and news reports, celebrating the wonderful stories we share with the animals around us.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Stroud
United Kingdom
Product notice
Laminated cover
Illustrations
30 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 138 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-83705-281-3 (9781837052813)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Persons
LUKE THOMPSON is a writer, publisher and academic from Cornwall, whose work focuses on the relationships between people and other animals, as well as on the literature of Cornwall. His work has been shortlisted for the Michael Murphy Prize and has won a Holyer an Gof award. He has also made some playful performative works, including a Phonetic Ouija Board and Psychic Test Cards, which have been performed across the UK. He teaches at Falmouth University and has a BA in Philosophy, an MA in Writing, Nature and Place, and an archive-based PhD on the Cornish poet Jack Clemo.