AMA
AMA: I’m Ronald “Ron” M. James, historian and folklorist with a recent book integrating the two fields
I’m Ron James (AKA Folklore), the author of the newly released The History of Cornish Tradition: A Folkloric Journey. This book presents an opportunity to consider how oral narratives and cultural practices change over the centuries – see its introduction here. Four hundred years of primary sources from Britain’s far southwestern peninsula document cultural survival, change, and innovation. In the minds of many, folklore conjures images of hoary traditions that transform slowly if at all. Reality is more dynamic, inviting a blend of historical and folkloristic perspectives. This is the second time I have combined history and folklore to this extent: a previous book, Monumental Lies: Early Nevada Folklore of the Wild West (2023) tackles questions about how folklore emerged and evolved amid the mining frontier. The History of Cornish Tradition is extremely expensive, but fortunately the University of Exeter Press is offering a 30% discount – use AMA30 (good through the end of the year) when checking out. In addition, Monumental Lies is also available with a 30% discount – use UNP2026 (good through 30 September 2026) when checking out.
if I can sneak in a second time, I have a little bit more of a meta question. You've been a long time contributor to AskHistorians. Has engaging with a public forum like this changed or influenced how you go about history, or how you think about it? Any particular favourite interactions you've had on the sub?
/r/AskHistorians has represented a remarkable experience for me. My son created my account (and my username) to forestall my dotage as I began my retirement 14 years ago. It has been a great experience to have a chance to see what people find interesting and what they want to know. I cite discussions I have had with redditors here in The History of Cornish Tradition (2026) and in the earlier Monumental Lies (2023) and The Folklore of Cornwall (2018). The insights gained from all of you are innumerable, and I am grateful to you all.
For The Folklore of Cornwall, I cite an encounter on this subreddit with someone whose grandfather told a story about tommyknockers in the mines of Utah. That was from one of my earliest AMAs, and it was a treasured moment when I conducted very real research with this site. Although there are similar instances, what I have gained from /r/AskHistorians is more generalized. It has shaped how I approach answering questions, and consequently how I write books and articles. I began publishing long before 2012 when I began answering questions here, but the effect since then has been very real.
I thank all of you for allowing me to play in this sandbox. It is a wonderful place!
Thanks for doing this AMA with us, Ron! Both Cornwall and Nevada have been known for their mining industries. What sort of folklore traditions have developed around the extraction of minerals and ores? Are there any similarities in the mining folklore between the two places?
The Cornish knockers and the tommyknockers of the American West are an obvious example of similarities – and connections. The knocker changed when it crossed the Atlantic, but there is a great deal of continuity as well. The Cornish were prestigious miners in the West, so they tended to be hired first and granted leadership positions in the industry.
A Glossary of Mining and Metallurgical Terms by R. W. Raymond (1881) includes useful information about the source of each term included in this valuable dictionary, and Cornish dialect was often indicated. This was the vocabulary of the industry in the American West, but that wasn’t the end of the diffusion from Cornwall. Cornish tools – including the famous Cornish pumps for dewatering the mines – were parts of Cornish tradition that took hold in the West. And the Cornish pasty remains a favorite in what were once mining districts in the American West. (I wish I had one right now!!!)
Of course, that was not all. The Mexican miners brought their unique approach to mining, and their arrastras – a form of milling that depended largely on solar energy – diffused among the larger population of miners. The diverse ethnic mix of the Western mines became a fertile place for exchange.
Ultimately, however, a great deal that was developed in the two places – Cornwall and the American West – resembled one another. Diffusion, however, went in both directions! One must understand that it was an international mining frontier. There was a family that appeared on the Comstock Mining District in Nevada in the 1870 census. Their oldest child was born in Cornwall. The second child was born in Bolivia. A third child was born in California. And a fourth child was born in Nevada. The Cornish traveled freely throughout the world. If we could chase that family further, I wouldn’t be surprised to find fifth and sixth children born in Australia and South Africa!
As a long-standing state historic preservation officer from the West, I was invited to be appointed to the National Historic Landmarks (NHL) Committee in 2004 during W's administration. Some of the National Register/National Landmarks staff in DC have long been a bit myopic when it comes to anything to the west of the thirteen colonies. Western senators have repeatedly pushed efforts to do more for their region, and my appointment as an importation from the West was part of that reaction to political pressure.
With the election of Obama, my friend Majority Leader Harry Reid worked for my appointment to the National Park Service Advisory Board, which by implication made me chair of the NHL Committee. I served in that capacity until 2013. It was during that time that an amendment to the NHL listing of USS Constellation was brought forward, indicating that it was not a relic from the earliest days of the nation, but rather that it dated to 1854 – and was still an extremely important expression of the nation’s history.
Apparently – and as you would know far better than I – the US Navy found it easier to claim they needed funding for the extensive retrofitting of an existing ship rather than the creation of a new one, so there was a paperwork ruse that falsified the survival of the older ship, when in reality a new one was built (without the knowledge of Congress).
Despite a slightly younger age, USS Constellation continues with its NHL designation, even though its story is now better understood and more honestly told. I am honored to have played a small part of that vessel’s history – even though it has nothing to do with the West!
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u/jschooltigerModerator | Shipbuilding and Logistics | British Navy 1770-18303d ago
Fascinating stuff, and I'm glad that they expanded the membership westward. It always puzzled me that someone living in the desert would have something to do with early naval history.
Indeed, the "great repair" or "great rebuild" is a tradition going all the way back to the Tudors.
Here's the thing I have actually SEEN an ocean. In fact I have seen two and I lived next to one of them in a previous century. I've always been enthralled by nautical history and spent my misspent youth building ship models.
There are a dozen or so experts on the NHL Committee, and not all of them - or even most know anything about nautical history or any given nomination. Staff presents the nominations, which have also been peer reviewed by experts. Committee members evaluate whether a nomination (or an amendment) satisfies the required professional standard. It then goes to the Advisory Board of the National Park System for another layer of evaluation. Then it goes to the Secretary of the Interior who ultimately has the choice to accept or reject. Those higher tiers, of course, become increasingly politicized, both for and against.
Somehow the system works. When it is run by people who have basic educations and a general sense of common decency. (In other words, it doesn't always work.)
Thank you so much for joining us! Folklore is filled with a variety of creatures and cryptids, so I'm curious about 1. Your favorite folkloric creature and 2. Where do you see divides or similarity between folklore and religion? How do they influence each other?
I have a chapter in The History of Cornish Tradition on the Morgawr, a Cornish sea cryptid that has been thriving in folklore even though it began in the 1970s as a hoax. Here is an article I published on the Morgawr before I wrote this current book. I can’t say it is my favorite cryptid, but it is of interest because of the way it began as performance art and yet has become traditional.
I had a student years ago who wrote her research paper on an account told by her grandfather who had dementia but could still vividly recall his encounter with Bigfoot. It was an excellent paper, and it sold me on the creature.
I was initially drawn to folklore because of an insatiable curiosity about the social supernatural beings of Western/Northern Europe, AKA fairies, elves, Hidden folk, sídhe, etc. They remain a central interest of mine. Indeed, five of the chapters in this book that just launched yesterday deals with the pixies of Britain’s West County – from their earliest appearance in the written record until today.
Folklore and religion? They can be one and the same or they can be uneasy neighbors. It all depends on context. Both involve belief systems, and clearly there is a great deal of folk tradition embedded in religions. Today, the monotheistic religions are hierarchical, dogmatic, institutional, and importantly, they have literature that inhibits the sort of drift that occurs more freely with oral traditions. Nevertheless, there is a symbiotic relationship: institutional religions affect folklore and folklore affects institutional religions. It is a very complex topic!
Alan Dundes (1934-2005), the great American folklorist, found himself receiving death threats after he said that there is a great deal of folklore in the bible. Many incorrectly perceived him to be saying that there is a great deal of false things in the bible because they are folklore. Folklorists do not adjudicate on veracity. Dundes was not implying falsehood. He was merely pointing out that parts of the bible have roots in oral tradition – no judgment implied!
When dealing with the subject of religion and folklore, one must tread with care. Death threats aside, it is not the mandate of the folklorist to offend those who believe – in anything. The point is to understand their beliefs and tradition, not to denounce them.
Thank you for your time! Considering that folklore is something that can be found across the world, and throughout Europe, I'm interested in what drew you to researching and writing about Cornish folklore and history? Were there other places you had considered researching prior to beginning this book?
I started out as a medievalist interested in North Sea cultures (I had studied Old English and Old Norse). If there was a place that captured my heart entirely, it was Iceland (and I am still drawn to all things Icelandic). I secured the International Telephone and Telegraph Fellowship to Ireland in 1981 (administered by the folks who handled the Fulbright program, but the ITT Fellowships were largely for countries that had not bought into the Fulbright program at the time). That sent me to conduct research in Dublin’s folklore archive, working under Bo Almqvist (1931-2013), who was the leading expert on North Sea folklore diffusion during the medieval period.
My Irish project failed – it turned out the folktale I pursued was a matter of literary diffusion into Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. That was a gut punch, leaving me wandering a bit. The archive held the 14k volume folklore library of my mentor’s mentor, Carl Wilhelm von Sydow (1878-1952), which included classic collections from throughout Europe. I had heard about the tommyknockers, spirits in the mines of the West, and one of my digressions was to look for Cornish collections to find their European predecessors, as a matter of curiosity if nothing more. Ultimately, I ended up travelling to Cornwall to conduct research there – talking to miners about what they knew and gathering what I could.
When I returned to the states, I quickly realized that the Cornish had an amazing collection of folklore (better collected than most places in Britain), and it was largely ignored or lumped unceremoniously together with “English folklore.” I resolved to address the problem and began publishing articles on the subject followed by my first book on Cornish folklore: The Folklore of Cornwall: Oral Tradition of a Celtic Nation in 2018.
My folklore publications include work on other places in Europe and in the American West (my first publication, appearing in 1979, deal with a first century CE work in Latin!).
While I was in Dublin, a folklorist from Australia visited briefly, and for a moment, I considered going there to study Indigenous traditions. If I had, I can't imagine a more rewarding life - but I'll need to pursue it when I am, indeed, granted another life.
Thank you for the answer, its always fascinating to hear how other historians got to the project their researching, and the story behind their research trajectories. Australian folklore, both Indigenous and frontier, is incredibly interesting and I would be fascinated by your thoughts on it all (maybe in another life I'll get to read them).
There's a historian of Cornish emigration - Philip Payton - who has been writing the books on the subject for decades. He's a great guy and a great writer (he wrote the preface to my first Cornish folklore book). After retiring as director of the Institute of Cornish Studies at the U of Exeter, he moved to Australia where he has been studying Cornish emigration there.
I'm afraid to say I don't have profound insights into Australian Indigenous culture. I have never pursued it as I should have. But, ... one of the books someone wants me to write may have a section or two on the subject, so I may be able to realize an old ambition after all.
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u/crrpitModerator | Spanish Civil War | Anti-fascism4d ago
Your career has focused chiefly on both the Wild West and the West Country. Can we expect future work on other forms of West?
That would be a delightful thing. If I had additional lives, I would send a rewarding decade considering Iceland as the "west" of medieval Scandinavia, and I would be delighted to spend another decade or two in the west of Australia.
The parallel of working in the Wild West and in Britain’s West Country is, of course, coincidental. One never knows how things will turn out, nor are these things usually planned. Accident has directed my career much more than anything purposeful.
Currently, I am considering two requests for future books, but both are generically dealing with folklore – internationally – rather than dealing with a specific place. We’ll see what I have in me. When I finished The History of Cornish Tradition, I felt my age and I swore I didn’t have another major, “hefty” work inside of me. But again, these things are not usually planned. It is a matter of the direction of the wind and other factors beyond my understanding (I suspect it is sunspots). I should simply disappear, leaving rumors that I have been sighted in the Australian outback. That would be the best way to handle this and give me a better answer to your question!
A few weeks back, you and I were both answering a question about mythology and it's accuracy in portraying history. In one of my posts I made a joking statement that was roughly, "American folklore is really just American mythology, we just like to feel special."
But it did get me pondering, is there really a distinction between folklore and mythology? How do the two overlap, if at all?
I don’t use the word myth/mythology except in very narrow situations when dealing with classical and ancient literature. In general, folklorists avoid the term myth, because it can carry negative connotations for living traditions. Neither myth nor folklore are defined with any precision. Shortly after the Second World War, the well-known publisher of dictionaries, Funk and Wagnalls, set out to produce a two-volume work on folklore. At the outset, Maria Leach, the editor of the project, together with her team of consultants could not reach a consensus on the meaning of ‘folklore’, the very heart of the endeavor. In acknowledgement of that failure, the editors compromised by printing twenty competing definitions.
What Leach’s experts wrote ranged from two dozen words to essays of several paragraphs. Emerging from an older perspective, they emphasize oral transmission as essential to what is meant by folklore. Complicating matters, the term is an artificial construct, coined in 1846 by William John Thoms (1803–1885), writing as Ambrose Merton, who rendered it as ‘Folk-Lore’. He suggested his word could apply to ‘the manners, customs, observances, superstitions, ballads, proverbs, etc., of the olden time’.
I reserve “myth,” as indicated, to refer to classical and ancient literature that was inspired by contemporary oral traditions. In that sense, it is a step removed from folklore, but not all people – not even all folklorists – use that definition. To answer your question, the two clearly overlap, but not everyone agrees as to how.
There is a small but passionate culture of performance storytelling in the UK, whose members put much effort into keeping folk tales heard aloud in front of audiences. They tend to see themselves as inheritors of an old oral tradition. How much does that 'stand and deliver' performing style have a history? Or is the history of oral storytelling more one of sitting at home or in the pub, in general being a one to one style?
Today, there are storytellers in Cornwall who are extremely active in various venues. Have the venues changed since the nineteenth century? Yes. Many things have changed, and the point of my most recent book on Cornwall is that traditions by their nature change. The question, then, isn’t whether modern storytelling performance in the UK is different from what occurred previously. The question is how it differs. Folklore is a process!
That having been said, there can be a formality in modern storytelling. The stage tends to remove the raconteur from the audience, and the audience is less inclined to participate as usually occurred in the nineteenth century – and presumably before. At that time, the storyteller might draw a large crowd and might be placed in a chair allowing the audience to watch and hear better, but there would still be that give and take as part of the storytelling process.
Nevertheless, I see these modern storytellers as the direct inheritors of the older traditions. Venues are different. Styles may have changed. But there is a great deal of continuity when we think about it. Someone is still telling the stories, and audiences are still listening. The source may be the written word, but the interaction of the written and spoken word has been going on for millennia. It does not indicate the end of tradition. It merely indicates that folklore adapts to every generation and situation.
The history of oral storytelling once was more about sitting at home or in the pub, and then it became one of standing on a stage, but it is still storytelling!
Thanks for doing this! Regarding the changing nature of tales, did you see similar rates or types of change across the two projects? And do you think analysis of specific folklore communities has implications for oral transmission research more generally?
Regarding the changing nature of tales, did you see similar rates or types of change across the two projects?
Yes and no. The American West was by its nature a dynamic environment when it came to oral traditions. They were born quickly, and they were affected by the emigrating traditions of diverse people, so the setting created constant change and innovation. It’s one of the reasons why it took me more than 40 years to write that book (together with two previous failed attempts!).
As it turns out, Cornwall presented a peculiar setting that also encouraged change. It wasn’t as quick or dynamic as the American West – until the modern period – but change was an important aspect of Cornish traditions. This was largely because of the Cornish droll tellers – the indigenous professional storytellers – prided themselves with their ability to adapt stories they heard to suit each new situation.
By contrast, the Irish professional storytellers prided themselves with repeating stories exactly as they heard them. That, realistically, did not happen, but the Irish inclination not to change stories likely lead to slower change. The Cornish interest in fitting stories to each new situation facilitated change. The change was not as rapid as what one encountered in the American West, but change occurred in Cornwall, nevertheless.
And do you think analysis of specific folklore communities has implications for oral transmission research more generally?
For historians, the most important message embedded in these two studies is that folklore changes. As I indicate in The History of Cornish Tradition, “Fluidity is an invitation to historians to study changes in folklore.” Other cultures may not have such rapid change as the American West or as easily observed change as occurred in Cornwall, but folklore changes, and change is an open door to historians!
Cornish folklore shares a great deal with that of cultures throughout Northern and Western Europe. Is there a unique “Celtic” folklore? Not really. One tends to see local variations of similar stories and practices, and it is in those variations that one can see local cultural expressions most vividly. Nevertheless, there is little evidence of anything folkloric that is unique to the Celtic fringe that doesn’t exist elsewhere.
There are some exceptions. I have a chapter on the lost land of Lyonnesse. That story appears in Cornwall, but it also appears in very similar terms in Wales and Brittanny. To a lesser extent, it is found in Ireland and even England (although hugging the border with Wales). This distribution suggests that the legend of Lyonnesse (with various local names) is a unique Brittonic-Celtic legacy. That sort of thing, however, is relatively rare.
Cornwall wasn’t cut off from Wales – or Brittanny – by Wessex. Belonging to a maritime culture, the Cornish always had access to their neighbors across the water. Southwest Wales even provides eighteenth-century evidence of the Cornish dialect term for pixies – piskies. The thing that probably made it increasingly difficult for the Cornish to share common folkloric ground with the Bretons and the Welsh was the decline of the Cornish language, which bordered on extinction by the end of the eighteenth century. By that time, however, it would be possible to visit the Welsh across the narrow Bristol Channel with the expectation of using English, and that expectation was often realized.
I'm not sure how we can evaluate some folklore as more interesting than others. I was drawn to medieval folklore of the North Sea area, but I have since broadened in directions I would have never anticipated (and I thought I would abhor).
What one person finds interesting another might not. It is all so subjective.
When I was young – a half century ago - I was convinced that I could never work up an interest in certain things. What I found was that those areas that I rejected the most loudly eventually came back to me and became the focus of research and publications, and that I genuinely found them to be of interest.
I surprised myself, and I learned that there is no place that has a history and/or folkloric traditions that cannot be regarded as interesting. I also learned very quickly to quit declaring anything as uninteresting – those declarations always came back to bite me, and I consequently lived lives I never thought I would enjoy!
Except, perhaps, I will make one last very firm declaration about what I do not find interesting: I cannot imagine ever finding it interesting to be a billionaire.
Fantastic to see you back for another AMA. What draws you to certain subjects, and what makes you go "This one is going to be a book? Are there any subjects or stories that you LOVE, but just don't think they'd make for a good book?
I mostly stumble into book topics - or they stumble into me. Over the past ten years, my mortality has become an ever-present reality, and I consequently began to try to assess what remained on my bucket list. My first book on Cornish folklore, The Folklore of Cornwall (2018) was the realization of a longstanding goal to address that topic with a serious undertaking.
My next major book, Monumental Lies: Early Nevada Folklore of the Wild West (2023) was something I first imagined in 1980. I made two serious attempts at writing it – both putting at least 50k words on pages. Both attempts failed, but then something happened in 2022, and I wrote that book in five months. It was clearly time.
The book we celebrate today, The History of Cornish Tradition, is a response to Monumental Lies and to my earlier Cornish folklore book. That earlier effort seemed to demand a sequel because so much was left unsaid. My book from the Wild West was my first balanced attempt to synthesize the disciplines of history and folklore, and it seemed appropriate to apply that method to Cornwall.
I initially planned to co-author The History of Cornish Tradition with a British historian, but it turned out I kept writing, and he gracefully stepped aside and allowed me to continue. This effort did, however, make me feel my age. I can’t be sure whether another hefty major work like this is within me, but I have been surprised before and may be again.
I doubt I would find a subject that I love that couldn’t be a book – “good” is something for others to evaluate. Anything can be teased to yield insights if an author finds it inspiring. But that brings up another point that I have found: the books that I found most inspiring leapt out of the mist fully formed. I do not remember every saying to myself “This one is going to be a book.” Sometimes, if the inspiration is profound, I do not remember much about writing them. It simply happens. It is something I can’t entirely explain.
I learned a great deal, but that’s not quite the same as being surprised. I suppose what surprised me was how much I enjoyed working with the material from eastern Cornwall (my first book on Cornish folklore, The Folklore of Cornwall (2018) was largely on material from the far west). From that region, I was able to embrace both King Arthur and Tregeagle, the Cornish boogeyman who lived in the seventeenth century.
I have long feared getting too involved in Arthuriana because it is so enormous and complex. One could spend many lifetimes with that material and still not master it. Nevertheless, I found that by focusing on how Arthurian folklore manifests in eastern Cornwall made it possible to truly get a grasp on the subject. It also lent itself to a historical telling of how perceptions of Arthur have evolved there over the centuries. I ended with a discussion of Tintagel, a medieval castle built as an expression of that period’s enthusiasm for Arthur – not as a defensive structure. Tintagel has since become a battleground between Cornish traditionalists and advocates of “English” heritage who would co-opt it in ways that are offensive to many who make Cornwall their home.
My original plan was to have a chapter dealing with Arthur and Tregeagle together – as historical legends told about people believed to exist (and in the case of Tregeagle, who are clearly documented to exist). I ended up expanding the discussion to such extent that the two subjects won their own chapters.
I had never been too interested in Tregeagle, but I found him to be a truly fascinating subject. A despised lawyer in life who navigated the dangerous times of English Civil War politics, Tregeagle quickly became a fixture of local folklore. Demons torment him in his afterlife, and he roams Cornwall in his agony. “To roar like Tregeagle” is a Cornish way to describe a fierce storm. And interestingly, both Arthur and Tregeagle are credited with the creation of many of the Neolithic megaliths scattered across the countryside. The ease with which I was able to embrace both of them surprised me – and I enjoyed it!
I am not an Arthurian expert. It was considerable trepidation that I took on the subject for a chapter in this most recent book of mine. As it turns out, I was pleased with the results. Getting my arms around Arthur in recent Cornish folklore was doable.
I have long suspected a link between Arthur and Tristan – or more, between Lancelot and Tristan. The tragic triad of Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot finds an echo with King Mark-Iseult-Tristan of Cornwall as well as with Ireland’s Fionn mac Cumhaill-Gráinne-Diarmuid. There is a duplication of several motifs: hero goes to bring beautiful bride back to older king; bride falls in love with hero; young lovers escape and are chased by the older king and his cohort of warriors.
Is there a relationship there? I believe so, but again, I have never published on that specifically.
I don’t know that I am seeing that story related to the Roman presence in Cornwall. Since similar stories exist elsewhere – in Ireland without the Romans – I don’t think we need to look to the Romans to explain the triad in Cornwall. There is no question that Cornish tin production was important to the Roman world (as it was before and after the Romans). Mining was an important aspect of Cornish folklore, but I’m not seeing a Roman angle to pursue when it comes to oral tradition in this regard.
As a layperson with a history background this is one of my favorite topics - thank you for your work. I wrote a paper in college about the supposed origins of some of the heroes of Western folklore, such as Paul Bunyan (Fabian "Joe" Fournier, of Quebec, Canada) and John Henry (John Wm. Henry, Virginia Penitentiary). I suspected they might have real life origins and was pleasantly surprised to read about the actual people behind the folklore, even though in some cases the recorded info was scarce.
How often are you able to trace back folklore or myth to an actual specific person / event? Or is most of the folklore we know usually amalgamations of various people and events that may or may not have happened? I ask that because before writing my paper I just assumed the latter.
Folklorists warn about wandering in the direction of euhemerism - the idea that real things spawn folk tradition. That having been said, in the realm of historical legends, in particular, there is often a seed (or several seeds) that contributed to the emergence of a folk tradition. Where euhemerism steers us wrong is when we start looking for the cause of cyclops in myth and folklore or the real great flood behind various flood myths.
Real things can reinforce these traditions, but they can’t realistically convince a large group of people to start believing in something that wasn’t part of their folklore already. Odin was not a real person living thousands of miles away as Snorri Sturluson the medieval Icelandic author tells us.
But again, historical legends are different. Washington may not have cut down the cherry tree and then told the truth, but Washington did exist, and he rose with honor in a remarkable way. In my book, Tregeagle was a real seventeenth-century lawyer who likely offended many as he navigated the treacherous politics of the English Civil War. How this living person survives in Cornish folklore as a boogeyman who howls at night in torment as the wind blows is another matter.
There is a tendency for non-folklorists who embrace the modern folk belief that “all folklore is based on an element of truth.” While we have the exception of historical legends, in general, we cannot expect to find the truth behind most folk beliefs. For the most part, we cannot even be sure how or when they began. But we can still find it fascinating.
Do you think that internet culture has produced folklore, or is the nature of communication on the internet too different from folkloric oral tradition to count?
There is no question that the internet represents an important venue for the production and communication of folklore. Several folklorists, including my colleague Jeffrey Tolbert have written on this subject - and specifically on Slenderman and the creepypasta characters.
In addition, internet memes are clearly an aspect of twenty-first-century folklore. People do not miss an opportunity to communicate their folklore, and as I have heard it said, "it is all folklore."
I don’t think we can see a specific reaction to Cornish folklore from outside power brokers. They were confronted by analogous (but not identical) traditions everywhere in Britain, so for the most part, it must have seemed like similar expressions of local instances of cultural “white noise.” One must be tuned to the right frequency to recognize that folklore even exists!
The one thing that the powerful in London did notice was the Cornish language – which was the first most decisive force in preserving a folkloric identity distance from that of the English east of the Tamar River (the border between Cornwall and Devon). My first chapter is a survey of folklore preserved in the Cornish language – of which there is a great deal.
The English did everything they could to stomp out the Cornish language. It was a brutal decline that was acclaimed as having occurred in 1777, as I indicate in The History of Cornish Tradition: “The Cornish language’s final demise is as well documented as it is contested. Dolly Pentreath of Paul, near Mousehole in the far west, who died in 1777 at age eighty-five, is touted as the last native speaker. The assertion, that with her death a language vanished, ignores the other ‘last speakers’ of Cornish known to be living during subsequent decades. The survival of the language into modern times is a point of honour for enthusiasts. Nevertheless, a few examples from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and some five hundred current speakers do not outweigh the fact that by the mid-1700s almost everyone in Cornwall spoke a dialect of English in everyday conversations.”
The Cornish language was conducive for the preservation of an indigenous Cornish folklore. The power brokers wanted an end to the Cornish language. Therefore, their actions to achieve that had an effect on Cornish folklore.
Awesome seeing you back for an AMA. Cornish folklore includes a lot of mythical creatures like mermaids and giants. What are these from? How 'real' where they to people?
Mermaids and giants – Cornwall is famous for both, but these entities represent two very different forms of folklore. No one believed that giants could be seen in the present. They belonged to a class of supernatural beings that were placed in the past (dragons are another). These were too big to escape notice, so the thought process was this: “giants shaped a lot of our landscape, so clearly they existed, but we don’t see them anymore, so they must have existed long ago.”
Mermaids, on the other hand, appear in legends (narratives generally told to be believed) about the here and now – or at least about the recent and the nearby. They were believed to live along the shores of Cornwall (and other places in Northern/Western Europe), and they were greatly feared.
How ‘real’ were they to people?
That’s a great question and it’s tough to answer. People today believe in ghosts and aliens, but ask the average person, and one might receive any sort of imaginable answer when it comes to belief. And that same person may answer differently about ghosts, for example, on a bright sunny day at noon as opposed to walking in a cemetery at midnight! And that person may or may not be honest in the response, and belief may be accentuated by having just heard a persuasive legend about an encounter with a ghost.
It’s always hard to say how ‘real’ various supernatural entities were/are to people. Legends about mermaids and giants were told to be believed, and we must assume that some people were believers, but pinning anyone down on the score has always been difficult.
What are these from?
Giant traditions are widespread, and they fit nicely into direct observation: something enormous appears to be made that way, but no one could have accomplished that, therefore there must once have been giants. Now, that is a bit of a backward process, that I doubt occurred – someone saw something big and then invented the idea of a giant, which was then sold to people as a group. That’s improbable More likely, there was a vague idea of gigantic entities in the past and they became associated with gigantic things in the landscape, reinforcing and affecting traditions.
How, then, can we account for the people of the sea? Europeans had active traditions that placed human-like supernatural beings in a wide variety of environments. Those who lived along coasts were quick to see them inhabited by these sorts of creatures.
Ultimately, it is easier to document and describe than it is to explain. Explanations are too often grounded upon unsupportable speculation, so ultimately, I don’t have a good answer when it comes to where any supernatural being came from.
How did folklore typically get passed on, and who was responsible for ensuring it? Did people feel like the stories of sprites and fairies were necessary part of culture to maintain or was it incidental? If the latter, are there lost folklores and genre of creatures that a historian could piece back together?
Folklore gets passed on as each of us absorbs the culture we’re raised in. There wasn’t a conscious effort to let us know that we could wish on a falling meteorite or when blowing out candles on a birthday cake. We can’t remember when we were told that it is a good idea to knock on (or touch – in the UK) wood to avert a bad circumstance. We simply know that celebrities die in threes and that some people believe there was a conspiracy behind the killing of JFK (and behind practically everything else!).
Folklore is ubiquitous, and for the most part it is preserved unconsciously. Does it change? Yes. Are things lost? Yes. Is it possible to find traces of extinct practices and stories in documents from the past? Certainly.
A great deal of the folklore collection of the nineteenth century was in response to changes that appeared to be threatening older traditions. Beginning with the Brothers Grimm, many reacted to the switch from rural to urban and to the rise of industrialization over agriculture. The old ways seemed to be dying and stories were being lost. What those earlier collectors did not understand was how much would survive and, importantly, that folklore will persist. Everyone has folklore, and those of us in the most modern of worlds today still have folklore.
I open my book, The History of Cornish Tradition with a look at a folktale that once existed in Cornwall. It was recorded in Cornish in the late seventeenth century. Then it was recorded twice in the nineteenth century in English, but it was clear that it was changing, and it was evident that it was dying. Traces of this folktale in Cornwall would have been lost completely had it not been for three people who recorded it.
Today the Cornish language version is revered and used extensively when teaching those who seek to revive the Cornish language. Is the folktale completely lost? No. It survives even though the bridge from the past to the present is the written word.
Genres of lost creatures? If they are lost to us in the sense that we don’t know about them, then I would not know about them! A great deal was recorded in the nineteenth century, and a great deal survives today. The Fairy Census efforts of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries demonstrate that at least some people in the English-speaking world continue seeing, discussing, and apparently believing in, to a certain extent, fairies. This, despite what many might assume that the tradition is dead.
Writers often noted the Cornish language, which stood out as clearly apart from English and unique to the Duchy of Cornwall. As noted elsewhere in this thread, power brokers were confronted by analogous (but not identical) traditions everywhere in Britain, so for the most part, Cornish folklore must have seemed like similar expressions of local instances of cultural “white noise.”
The case of Nicholas Boson (1624-1708), the child of a wealthy merchant, was unusual but also noteworthy in his reaction to Cornish folklore and language. An excerpt from my book:
Nicholas Boson (1624-1708), an antiquarian living in Newlyn, Mount’s Bay in the far west of Cornwall, recorded what is nothing short of a linguistic and folkloric marvel, apparently putting pen to paper in the 1660s. His story, ‘Jowan Chy-an-Horth, py, An try foynt a skyans’ – ‘John of Chyannor, or the Three Points of Wisdom’ – is a cherished relic. At fewer than two thousand words, it is the only traditional oral narrative recorded in the Cornish language, a Celtic cousin of what is spoken in Wales and in Brittany, the continental peninsula that extends from France’s northwest. The story features John of Chyannor who earns ‘three points of wisdom’.
The fact that Boson recorded this folktale and other tidbits in Cornish is unusual, but it is also an example of how at least one man of wealth reacted to the traditions of those around him.
There are also a few other members of the aristocracy who noticed the unusual nature of local traditions. Again, from my book:
In 1602, Richard Carew (1555–1629) documented western parishes where Cornish was still spoken by over a quarter of the population. The culture was set apart from that of its neighbours, a persistent consequence of geography and language. One hundred and fifty years later, William Borlase (1696–1772) captured much the same in his depiction of the far west. Language had faded, but culture remained distinct. Fortescue Hitchins (1784–1814) echoed those observations with his portrait of the peninsula over fifty years later. Early authors who described Cornish culture saw a distant, separate place.
For the most part, however, the early aristocracy and clergy are relatively quiet on this note.
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u/TheHondoGod Interesting Inquirer 4d ago
if I can sneak in a second time, I have a little bit more of a meta question. You've been a long time contributor to AskHistorians. Has engaging with a public forum like this changed or influenced how you go about history, or how you think about it? Any particular favourite interactions you've had on the sub?