Young, 'The Earliest Piskey Story'

Lien Gwerin: A Journal of Cornish Folklore Number 8, 2024

This is an abridged chapter for a planned sequel to my book, The Folklore of Cornwall: The Oral Tradition of a Celtic Nation (Exeter 2018). Cornish revivalist, R. Morton Nance (1873-1959), celebrated this remarkable seventeenth century Cornish-language folktale, a manifestation of type ATU 910B (Aarne-Thompson-Uther 910B 'The Observance of the Master's Precepts'). He concluded that as the indigenous language of Cornwall faded, so too did most folklore. Nance dismissed nineteenth century versions as poor renditions of this original. Analysis here demonstrates the folktale's survival, even as language shifted to English. Nance's conclusion that folklore died with language was incorrect.

Folklore, 2020

A consideration of pixy traditions of Devon and Cornwall reveals similarities and differences. Although people from both places described the supernatural beings in similar ways, examples of migratory legends diverge, particularly when comparing those from the far west of the peninsula with those from Devon. A method employing Reidar Christiansen’s index demonstrates that differences in these narratives reflect the isolation of far western Cornwall. This analysis indicates that nineteenth-century Cornish folklore should be seen as distinct from English traditions.

Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries 137,167-69., 2007

Three Cornish Fairy Notes: (1) William Dunn and the Piskies, 1869, (2) The Brownie of Penzance, 1879, (3) Piskeys on the Border, c. 1930’ Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries 41, 1-4

Folk-lore, 2019

The Folklore of Cornwall, 2018

This is the introduction to my book, The Folklore of Cornwall: The Oral Tradition of a Celtic Nation (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2018). Besides providing an overview of the book, the introduction describes key arguments that the book advances. This is a PDF from a draft text that was used for the introduction. Page numbers do not coincide with the final published text. In the book, the introduction appears on pages 1-7.

2022

In March 2020, I published an article comparing the pixies of Devon and Cornwall, appearing in Folklore, the journal of the Folklore Society. Since that time, I found a relevant source, Ingram, Cooke, and Co., English Forests and Forest Trees, Historical, Legendary, and Descriptive (1853). It includes remarkably early references to Devonian pixies, enhancing the ability to understand the traditions of the two neighbors on either side of the Tamar River, which forms much of the boundary separating Cornwall and Devon. This source (featuring ML 7015 and ATU 124) allows for an augmentation of my original article, enhancing and supporting the conclusion that I reached, namely that the pixy traditions of Devon and the far west of Cornwall were not expressions of diffusion from one place to the other.

The 16th century financial accounts of the churchwarden int the Norfolk village of Snettisham contain multiple references to the plough-trailing custom and two (the earliest known in England) to sword-dancing. This paper examines the records, suggests that the sword-dancers may have accompanied the plough-trailing, a combination documented in the 19th century in Goathland, North Yorkshire; the suggestion has implications for the historical development of the mummers' plays