Superstitious and magical!

Second in four Allantide posts - the last was about divination!

Starting out with superstitions - the Cornish types aren't just reserved for October and Allantide, they go much deeper and span all kinds of professions and places. They also can get fairly gruesome, so full warnings ahead! 

The most common and well known (even taught to us in primary school!) is the miner's rule of throwing the crust of a pasty into the depths of the mines for the knockers. Like a lot of superstitions, this has a dual purpose of both practical and folkloric. The practical side - the crust of a Cornish pasty is the perfect way to hold it and in fact kept the miners from eating the harmful chemicals and grime their bare hands collected while deep in the earth, and tossing it away was the easiest disposal. The folkloric? Giving the knockers gifts of food kept the mines from collapsing and ensured everyone got to go home to their partners and children at the end of the day. Conversely, whistling in a mine would draw their ire and potentially cause a collapse! Whistling in mines is not so dissimilar from the St. Ives superstition of not whistling at night by the ocean, for fear of merfolk.

There’s two quite startling ones incoming, so count this as warning number 2!

One custom (that wasn’t entirely unique to Cornwall) is that the hand of a dead felon held magical properties, from healing to lighting up any kind of darkness. Another is that if a boat were to go looking for a lost fisherman, the vessel would stop over the top of their corpse despite the weather.

Some magic now - did you know that a specifically knotted string could call up a fierce wind? Or perhaps the custom of witch balls - glass fishing weights hung in the house to ward off ill magic or curses. Or, maybe, a famous Cornish pellar?

Thomasine Blight (locally known as Tammy Blee) was a Pellar* local to the Helston area of west cornwall. Known for her curse-breaking abilities, she was locally revered and people travelled far and wide for her treatments. Allegedly her husband, a mine engine driver, had similar gifts. 

Tammy's practice started out in Redruth, lifting curses from livestock and plying her trade in the service of small cures and charms for fisherfolk. While she was renowned for doing mostly good deeds, it’s not out of the question that when her husband fled she likely cursed him all the way! Even on her deathbed though, people brought to her for cures would magically rise with just an incantation from their stretchers.

She died on 6th October 1856, the year the painting was completed. 

*I hesitate to ascribe any kind of modern-terms like “white” witch, “black” witch, or even witch in general unless there’s no description of a practitioner from their time. Cornish witchcraft wasn’t divided as rigidly as the general witchcraft world is today, and it’s common that a cornish pellar, witch or any kind of practitioner would need to know how to curse and how to break curses, how to hurt and how to heal. 

Take an Allan Apple......Cornish divination during Allantide

For every Sunday leading up to Allantide I'm going to make every effort in the world to post a blog entry detailing some specific part of Cornish folk customs around the event! Today is the function of Allan Apples in divination, along with other fun divination methods!

An Allan Apple is any highly shined, big red apple. There's no requirements beyond that! They're easy to get hold of and their use is central to Allantide! Traditionally there were Allan Apple markets where people could go and buy their apples for the festival.

Before the discussions of apples and divination it's important to confirm what Allantide is! 

Allantide, also translated to Kalan Gwav (first day of winter), Nos Kalan Gwav (first eve of winter) or Dy' Halan Gwav (day of the first day of winter), is analogous to Hallowe'en or Hollantide of England and Cymru, or Samhain from Éire. As a result it's in-keeping with the themes of death, open gateways, divination and the dark of winter. More controversially (only because it divests the day and night of it's Christian attachments) it is also a festival of magic and charms. It's a particularly rich time for the appearance of ghosts, spirits and the Pobel Vean. Along with most Cornish festivals, fire and beacons are also very important.

Back to the apples - how to they factor into Allantide aside from the name? Divination...of course! The most important function of an Allan Apple was fortelling the users true love. They were generally given as gifts, so was a fairly easy affair. Older girls and young women would simply tuck the apple under the pillow during the night and sleep on it - that was enough to induce dreams of their future lover. Another more expansive use was to tell general fortune for the rest of winter, and even young children involved themselves in that. 

Gifts of Allan Apples also brought luck to the receiver even if their divinatory use wasn't fulfilled! 

Along with the apples, young hopefuls would throw molten lead or other metals into cold water and divine their future lovers occupation from the shapes they took - a fish would be a fisherfolk, for example. There was also the tradition of couples throwing walnuts onto an open fire to ensure their fidelity to each other throughout the coming year. 

In more modern times the gifting and use of all of these divination methods fell out of favour, largely in part to increased Christianisation of Cornwall. It's starting to resurface more and more with the resurgence of folk witches and folk traditions, with apples being used as more than just divination - some offer them as gifts to ancestors passed on or as an offering to Ankow or the newly empowered Bucca Dhu. 

A song has been written by a delightful Cornishwoman called Brenda Wootten and it can be found here: 

Next Sunday's post will be about magic and superstition in Cornwall! 

Autumnal Equinox hike

 In celebration of the equinox and to give offerings to my land-ancestors, a friend and I went on a hike across Penwith. We picked our places in advance and tried to stick to them with minimal wandering - it's rough terrain with plenty of mine shafts to disappear into.

In order we tried to get to - Madron Holy Well, Lanyon Quoit, Lanyon Tea Room (we needed refreshments!), Bosilack Barrow, the Men-an-Tol, Mên Scryfa and the Venton Bebibell holy well, before hiking over to Morvah to get the bus back home. I took a baked lavender loaf along to leave a bit in each place as an offering to ancestors and the land.

5:30am start for me - thankfully I slept well enough that I didn't crash immediately. Breakfast and out into a misty street which felt especially appropriate for the day. Our travel before we actually start the hike took two hours via bus, but it was nice to sit back and watch rolling Cornish fields go by!

Morning mist, on the way to the bus station.

St. Michaels Mount, on the way to Penzance.

Once we got off in Madron we started the walk - the footpaths are well worn into the ground and none of them were paved (aside from loose rocks...but that doesn't quite count). It was fairly easy between the bus stop and the Chapel, it was still a bit of a trek across fields and a very humid trail to the chapel. I threw the first off the loaf deep into the flora, letting the Piskies know it's all theirs as a gift. We found the chapel and sat with a snack and a drink, and enjoyed the incredible peace that we found there. There was a very funny bird call - sounding like a whistle for our attention. In retrospect it was likely a blackbird! What a wonderful thing to hear during a day of transition - from the last of summer into true Autumn, AND a day full of magical occurrences. We headed back along the trail but unfortunately we could only hear the well, we couldn't get to it because of an awful lot of mud and brambles (my legs look like they did as a child on adventures)! My friend and I tied up some cotton muslin (biodegradable - it'd be disrespectful to leave something polluting there) and made our wishes.

The first of many public footpaths - worn down by many feet before ours.

The sign for Madron chapel & well - looked after by a Network I hadn't heard of until now.

Madron Chapel - the previous well?

Wishing tree at Madron.

Wishing tree at Madron.

Wishing Tree with my fabric tied up.

After trying (and failing) to get closer to the Holy Well, we decided to stop squelching about in the mud and head up and out towards Lanyon Quoit. We trekked up a very buzzy right of way, I squealed about a Cornish Cross in the verge, got slightly turned around in a field full of cows (and I lost a button getting over the wall), and ended up with wet feet before we finally got to the Quoit. It had a very "homey" atmosphere - like walking into a close relatives house while they've got a party with all the familiar ancestors. We elected to eat the majority of our lunch there under the quoit, sharing bread and coffee with the ancestral spirits and chatting quite openly between both ourselves and any unseen hosts.

A Cornish Cross out in the wild!

Lanyon Quoit marker stone

View over the stile.

Lanyon Quoit

Lanyon Quoit

Back across the stile and off down to Lanyon Tea Room to get a coffee and a sit down (and use a toilet!). The most beautiful little spot in the middle of nowhere and well worth a visit if anyone visits the area. All along our hike we saw birds of prey - beautifully circling and hunting. They were the most wonderful and direct signal from Annown that ancestors and spirits were watching and guiding us today. After our little coffee stop we doubled back up the path to Bosiliack Barrow.

It was a rougher hike to it and we didn't realise how close we were until we were on it. It was a much more sombre and unsettled energy, a tomb forgotten and crying and lost in a landscape that became unfamiliar to the ancestors there. The barrow is a neolithic tomb with a Scillonian entrance - it aligns with the rising winter solstice sun. I sat with my back against the stones, letting the energy settle and it truly felt like someone resting their hand over mine. I left a large chunk of the bread and burning incense there, and have made a promise to myself and them to include space on my altar for the unsettled ancestors to seek peace. 

Bosiliack Barrow

There was a mild case of getting piskey-laden while trying to make our way to the  Mên-an-Tol - every gate was like the wrong gate until pockets were turned inside out and a very firm "please stop!" was yelled into the land. It was still a struggle after that though for different reasons - the path was incredibly overgrown with brambles and thistles and all kinds of grasses and I came out very cut up and my friend had a panic with how close and bug-y everything was. It didn't last long - only five or ten minutes - and then we were on a much more established path that runs from Ding Dong mine through to the Mên-an-Tol. We went past more than a few caved in mine tunnels - the whole land beneath us like swiss cheese. 

Once we got to the Mên-an-Tol we took it in turns to wriggle through the holey stone, now neither of us will get rickets, and admire the landscape around us. We also took a moment to have a few snacks and drink some water, coming up the last of our hike stops before we headed down to Morvah. The Mên-an- Tol still has ancestral energy but it's vastly different - Lanyon Quoit and Bosiliack Barrow were homes and tombs, but the Mên-an-Tol is a ritual site! A place of ceremony and celebration! It was relaxed and welcoming. Quite a few people had left gifts of their own there, so it's nice to know our own gifts are in good company. 

The Mên-an-Tol

After the Mên-an-Tol we walked up the incredibly easy track to Mên Scryfa - a carved standing stone. I left bread on the very top of it as a gift to the ancestor it marks - Mên Scryfa translates to "Stone with Writing" and commemorates Rialobranus son of Cunovalus (Wikipedia and other sites go into much more detail about it). It was a very open energy - Madron Chapel & Bosiliack Barrow were both closed, intense energies while Lanyon Quoit, the Mên-an-Tol & Mên Scryfa have open inviting and relaxed energies (along with the rest of the land's sprowl). It was wonderful to see it. Afterwards we tried to find the Venton Bebibell holy well but unfortunately while we heard and just saw the bottom, it was incredibly overgrown and unsafe for us to get too close too (not for lack of trying)!

The Mên Scryfa

Mên Scryfa

Morvah standing stones.

After hiking down to Morvah, bothering the most beautiful cows and waiting for the bus back, google maps totalled our walk to 8.3 miles (I'm not sure if that includes going up hill & down dale though). Tiring, rewarding, a chance to reenergise with sprowl and imbue my wiggly ritual knife with the serpents energy. I've already started planning a trip back to the barrow on the winter solstice to pay respects and care for the ancestral soul there, next time I won't get my socks wet in the first few minutes though!

The most beautiful cow! 

Sunset over Penwith

Guldize

Guldize, also called Nicklydize, is a festival held near the end of September near Michaelmas and the Autumn Equinox. The date varies but is always in line with the last harvest on Farms. It's almost always accompanied with the Crying the Neck ceremony - a staple in farming communities.

It's a time when the whole community comes together and helps finish the harvest and farmers are traditionally very generous in return.

Crying the Neck was revived by the Old Cornwall Society as a ceremony, and the following explanation is given in The Story of Cornwall by Kenneth Hamilton Jenkin

“In those days the whole of the reaping had to be done either with the hook or scythe. The harvest, in consequence, often lasted for many weeks. When the time came to cut the last handful of standing corn, one of the reapers would lift up the bunch high above his head and call out in a loud voice 

     "I 'ave 'un! I 'ave 'un! I 'ave 'un!"

The rest would then shout,

    "What 'ave 'ee? What 'ave 'ee? What 'ave 'ee?"

and the reply would be:

    "A neck! A neck! A neck!"

Everyone then joined in shouting:

    "Hurrah! Hurrah for the neck! Hurrah for Mr. So-and-So"

(calling the farmer by name.)"

In Kernewek that’s:

    An Tregher (the reaper) – “Yma genef! Yma genef! Yma genef!”

    An Re erel (the others) – “Pandr’us genes? Pandr’us genes? Pandr’us genes?”

    An Tregher – “Pen Yar! Pen Yar! Pen Yar!”

    An Re erel – “Houra! Houra! Houra!”

The last neck of Corn would be fashioned into a dolly - the pattern unique to the place and they hold significance in the community. 

Sources -

The Cornish Traditional Year, Simon Reed (pages 26 - 36)

https://calendarcustoms.com/articles/crying-the-neck/

The Pobel Vean

 Piskies (singularly a Piskey, collectively known as the Pobel Vean and also spelt: piskie, pigsy & pizkie) are a staple of Cornish folklore. Differentiated from Spriggans by their general benevolence & from Knockers with their preference for aboveground , they are mostly defined by being small, blue tricksters that love to dance. They’re most akin to Aos sí from Ireland and the Sìth in Scotland. It’d be an insult to lump them in with faeries - the two groups were said to have done battle in Somerset with the Piskies being victorious and the English faeries banished further north.

Variously described as folk from Annown, ancestor spirits, land guardians and then with the pressure of Methodism as unbaptised child spirits (though the latter has fallen out of use). Piskies are led by their queen Joan the Wad and sometimes by her partner & king of the piskies, Jack o’ the Lantern*.

While piskies are neighbours with the Devonshire pixie, they don’t stray any further than the Tamar river in the north - tied to the burial mounts, stone circles, menhirs & quoits littered throughout the county. Described as anywhere between palm-sized to knee height, they’re blue skinned with pointed ears and cheeky faces. Pre-Victorian folklore tells of ragged hand-made clothes or just nakedness, later replaced with green clothes and pointed caps (though again, this hasn’t stuck around much aside from tourist trinkets).

The piskies are mostly a benevolent lot - singing and dancing in great numbers on the moors and sometimes helping humans with little tasks about the home. To have happy piskies around is good luck - indeed there’s still the strong practice of carrying a little pewter piskey charm around to draw luck and money.

Piskies can also offer gifts to larger folk - helping with grain harvest or hiding sweet and delicious foods around the house. Unlike faerie foods, piskies foods can be eaten with no danger of becoming trapped.

Despite their generally good nature, there are still stories of travellers becoming piskey-laden on the moorland and in quiet country paths. The most accessible one was taken down by Enys Tregarthen - How Jan Brewer was Piskey-Laden. The only way to avoid coming piskey-laden (or to escape it) is either turning all clothes inside out, or all pockets inside out. Often those who are piskey-laden have stumbled across a dance and the piskies, preferring their celebrations to be secret and disliking spies, confuse and maze someone until they are lost.

Some more malicious piskey tales tell of them leading travellers astray on Bodmin Moor by appearing like a lantern in a cottage window, loosing a farmer's horses and cows, or causing general misfortune and naughtiness. In folktales, these naughtier piskies meet their match with a quick witted and competent traveller charming them back and escaping any chance of being laden.

Good practice when visiting a stone circle or other favoured piskey home is to bring a little milk and bread (or scone, split or hot bun) and leave it about as a gift. They also enjoy gifts of fabric and ribbons to incorporate into their outfits!

*A note - Wad is an Eastern Cornish colloquialism for a bundle of straw used as a torch, tying Joan and Jack both to fire. Joan is also associated with water & good luck.

The Bucca

 The Bucca, also called the Grand Bucca or simply ‘Bucca’, is a Cornish deity with very little written record of Their existence. They represent the constant change that takes place in Cornwall - the tides, weather, seasons, harvest, life, death & renewal. They also take the role of the trickster in more recent times - teasing the overly-serious, overly-rigid structures in place in Modern Cornwall.

Made of two halves (Bucca Dhu and Bucca Gwidder), the Bucca is a androgyne deity - encompassing all genders and transcending them in equal measure, referred to by myself as They/Them in english and hynn/ho in kernewek. They straddle and freely ride the line between deity and pobel vean - a folk deity confined to the Cornish landscape with far reaching influence on weather and fish. They freely move between Annown, here and Nevek, encompassing the threefold track.

To me, the Bucca presents Themself as a goat-skulled figure in black and white, though the impression is a far cry from someone looming and threatening. They carry the air of a reveller, looking for a party and friends for the night. Mazed and chaotic but all smiles, laughs, good humour and jokes. Approachable, someone to pull your hair back behind the hedge when you throw up, someone to stagger home with and to ensure you do get home. 

At the same time, Their hands speak of hard work with the soil and sea, broad shouldered and resolute like the cornish oaks or a harbour wall. Land would be traditionally given over to Them by a farmer, a corner to grow wild and harbour life which would be tended and nurtured by Them. Still, when something dies They help guide them away, and are equally responsible for conjuring up fierce and terrible storms that sink ships or dash them on rocks.

There's a lot more to Them than just this - this is more of a starting point and a way forward. 

Goal Est

Goal Est (August feast), also known as Galan Est (August First) is the Cornish equivalent to Lammas or Lughnasadh. It marks the cutting of the first wheat. Celebrated every year on August 1st, there are scant records about it’s folk customs aside from Morvah Fair, where people would come from all over the county to eat and drink copious amounts.

The amount of revelry incited a priest to go on a campaign in the 19th century to ban the fair. Regrettably, it worked and there was nothing held until the 1970s. There was an effort to bring it back & strengthen the community in the form of Pasty Day - which is now an annual event held on the first Tuesday of August!

Some sources -

The Cornish Traditional Year, Simon Reed (pages 21 - 25)

https://museumofwitchcraftandmagic.co.uk/news/lammas-window-display/

https://thisissallybell.wordpress.com/2015/07/22/the-celebration-of-lammas-the-first-harvest/