Robert Hunt divided Cornish faeries into five types: small people, spriggans, piskies, buccas and browneys. From a game perspective there are two more tribes, giants and merfolk. They have separate chapters.
Small people
Small people are the courtly faeries which Hunt compares to the creatures in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Nights Dream”. These sorts of creatures arguably don’t exist in folklore from 1220. They rise to become what people think of as the generic for faeries during the Victorian period. In 1220, faeries don’t even have wings. In parts of Cornwall moths, ants, and ferrets seem to be related to faeries. They are also said, by later authors, to be Catholics. He begins with origin myths and, as he notes, they may refer to all types of faeries.
“Of the Small People I have heard two accounts. Indeed, it is by no means clear that the tradition of their origin does not apply to the whole five branches of this ancient family. The Small People are believed by some to be the spirits of the people who inhabited Cornwall many thousands of years ago long, long before the birth of Christ. That they were not good enough to inherit the joys of heaven, but that they were too good to be condemned to eternal fires…When they first came into this land, they were much larger than they are now, but ever since the birth of Christ they have been getting smaller and smaller. Eventually they will turn into muryans (ants), and at last be lost from the face of the earth…In Cornwall, as in Wales, another popular creed is, that the fairies are Druids becoming because they will not give up their idolatries smaller and smaller…These Small People are exceedingly playful amongst themselves, but they are usually demure when they know that any human eye sees them. They commonly aid those people to whom they take a fancy, and, frequently, they have been known to perform the most friendly acts towards men and women.”
Changelings
There are many ways of getting your baby back: these are basically child abuse, so let’s skate past them rapidly, stopping only to mention a demon might convince step-parents to treat their wards as changelings. I mention step parents because there’s an argument that there’s a Divine protection on the bond between parents and their children (like the True Love virtue).
Virtue source : Faerie Allies
There are a few stories of foundlings who are faeries, and are raised by humans, then are called away by their parents. Such creatures could be Faerie Allies for player characters: foster brothers and sisters.
Plot hook: Saving children
Cornish faeries are known to kidnap, wash and groom children whose parents are neglectful. They return the child unharmed, asleep, scented with rare oils, and and surrounded in flowers. This is deliberately slightly sinister: it’s how children are buried in Cornwall at the time he’s writing. The parents tend to sober up quickly, and treat their children well afterwards. A redcap with a spare evening and the right magic items could do a world of good for some poor child in Cornwall, by pretending to be a faerie.
Faerie widower
This story is in Realms of Power: Faerie, so a brief version is as follows. A farm girl goes to the Fair seeking a place (a job) or, a woman has recently lost a baby and is offered a job as a wetnurse. She is led away by her new employer, who sometimes blindfolds her (to which she acquiesces on the assumption that he’s a lord and the baby is his bastard). The arrive in a splendid room with a banquet laid out, or a great garden, and meet a tiny, angelic boy. The woman is told this is her charge, and one of her duties is to wash his face each day with water from a particular ewer, or put a certain ointment in his eyes, but make sure she does not use the magical material herself. Eventually she gets some of it in one eye, and sometimes this leads to her being thrown out, or she just finishes her contract and goes home. Later she sees the widower in the market, but remarks she can only see him with one eye. The faerie curses her to blindness in that eye, and vanishes. She becomes poor, and pines for the luxuries of the faerie court.
Plot hooks: Why is he doing this?
There is awful lot of this going on. He turns up at least three times, and those are just the few recorded by chronologically distant authors on seaside holidays. Is the suffering of the woman what is really needed to suckle the baby? Is this an ordeal for a secret society? What happens to the women who don’t misuse the ointment?
Character background: a hedge witch tradition?
The ointment is said to be made of four-leafed clover at gathered at certain phases of the moon and to “render the invisible visible, and men invisible. Seeing faeries and invisibility are certainly enough power for a companion.
An elderly lady from Raftra Down in Penberth, bedridden for years, who was constantly entertained by faeries while no other humans were around. Her family dropped by food once a day, and looked after her, but her house was apparently a constant faerie fair. Why she was so honoured is entirely unclear. Was she the leader of the Faerie Widower’s Cult?
The Small People’s Gardens
Hunt gives a lovely quote about a regio here:
“If the adventurous traveller who visits the Land’s End district will go down as far as he can on the south-west side of the Logan Rock Cairn, and look over, he will see, in little sheltered places between the cairns, close down to the water’s edge, beautifully green spots, with here and there some ferns and cliff-pinks. These are the gardens of the Small…Folk. They are beautiful little creatures, who appear to pass a life of constant enjoyment amongst their own favourite flowers. They are harmless ; and if man does not meddle with them when they are holding their fairs which are indeed high festivals the Small Folk never interfere with man or anything belonging to him.
They are known to do much good, especially when they discover a case of oppressed poverty; but they do it in their own way. They love to do good for its own sake, and the publication of it in any way draws down their censure, and sometimes severe anger, on the object whom it was their purpose to serve.
To prove that those lovely little creatures are no dream, I may quote the words of a native of St Levan : ” As I was saying, when I have been to sea close under the cliffs, of a fine summer’s night, I have heard the sweetest of music, and seen hundreds of little lights moving about amongst what looked like flowers. Ay ! and they are flowers too, for you may smell the sweet scent far out at sea. Indeed, I have heard many of the old men say, that they have smelt the sweet perfume, and heard the music from the fairy gardens of the Castle, when more than a mile from the shore.” Strangely enough, you can find no flowers but the sea-pinks in these lovely green places by day, yet they have been described by those who have seen them in the midsummer moonlight as being covered with flowers of every colour, all of them far more brilliant than any blossoms seen in any mortal garden.”
Plot hooks: early science fiction
If the characters go into the garden are they full size surrounded by tiny creatures, or shrunk down and surrounded by comparatively massive bugs and beetles
Faerie fairs and revels
What are faerie fairs like?
Bal Lane
Bal Lane [was] covered all over from end to end, and the Small People holding a fair there with all sorts of merchandise the prettiest sight they ever met with. Champion was sure he saw his child there ; for a few nights before, his child in the evening was as beautiful a one as could be seen anywhere, but in the morning was changed for one as ugly and wizened as could be ; and he was sure the Small People had done it. Next day, telling the story at Croft Gothal, his comrade was knocked backward, thrown into the bobpit, and just killed. Obliged to be carried to his home, Champion followed, and was telling of their adventure with the Small People, when one said, ” Don’t speak about them ; they’re wicked, spiteful devils.” No sooner were the words uttered than the speaker was thrown clean over stairs and bruised dreadfully, a convincing proof to all present of the reality of the existence of the Small Folks”
Note the taboo on insulting the fae…the Fair Folk, the Good Neighbours. This isn’t just politeness: this is propitiation. In your game, enforce this, but only on characters without Magic Resistance.
The Gump of St Just
There’s a lengthy story in Hunt about a man trying to sneak into the faerie revel to steal some of the treasures of the faeries. During the revel the music forced him to dance, and his senses were heightened. The court procession began with spriggans forming a perimeter, then children followed, strewing living flowers. These were followed by soldiers and gentlefolk, then a prince and princess were carried in on a throne. The man tried to put his hat over the prince. He failed, because during the procession he was surreptitiously surrounded and chained by spriggans. The chains hold him to the earth and paralyse his tongue until they dissolve at dawn.
What the man hoped to achieve by this is best understood by another story, Hunt gave a faerie revel in Towen. A man tried a similar thing, but failed because he made an exclamation of surprise at one of the marvels he saw, and he was called foolish by his wife because “had he but touched the end of a table with his finger, it would have been impossible for the fairy host to have removed an article, as that which has been touched by mortal fingers becomes to them accursed.”
Plot hook: Familiar away team
This taboo makes faeries difficult to include in the game. To negotiate with them, maybe send an away team of familiars?
Virtue source: Equipment
These faeries can be the source of money and magic items in character creation.
Many of the good old people were permitted to witness their revels, and for years they have delighted their grandchildren with tales of the songs they have heard, and of the sights they have seen. To many of their friends those fairies have given small but valuable presents ; but woe to the man or woman who would dare to intrude upon the ground occupied by them at the time of their high festivals.
Lelant: Faerie burial
Now for a creepy vis source:
“At length he saw, moving along the centre aisle, a funeral procession. The little people who crowded the aisle, although they all looked very sorrowful, were not dressed in any mourning garments…they wore wreaths of little roses, and carried branches of the blossoming myrtle. [He] beheld the bier borne between six whether men or women he could not tell but he saw that the face of the corpse was that of a beautiful female, smaller than the smallest child’s doll…The body was covered with white flowers, and its hair, like gold threads, was tangled amongst the blossoms. The body was placed within the altar ; and then a large party of men, with picks and spades, began to dig a little hole close by the sacramental table. Their task being completed, others, with great care, removed the body and placed it in the hole…As it was lowered into the ground, they began to tear off their flowers and break their branches of myrtle, crying, ” Our queen is dead ! our queen is dead ! ” At length one of the men who had dug the grave threw a shovelful of earth upon the body…In a moment, all the lights were extinguished, and the fairies were heard flying in great consternation in every direction. Many of them brushed past the terrified man, and, shrieking, pierced him with sharp instruments. He was compelled to save his life by the most rapid flight.”
There are some faries aligned to each of the moral realms, so presumably these are Dominion faeries.
St Levan
The gate at the end of Trezidder Lane often leads to a faerie revel. A man who disturbed it saved himself by turning a glove inside out and throwing it among the faeries, which scared them off. He collected a tiny set of silver knee-buckles from where the faerie folk were dancing, to prove his claims.
Vis source: Ants
“The ant is called by the peasantry a Muryan. Believing that they are the Small People in their state of decay from off the earth, it is deemed most unlucky to destroy a colony of ants. If you place a piece of tin in a bank of Muryans at a certain age of the moon, it will be turned into silver. ”
Spriggans
Hunt again: The Spriggans are quite a different class of beings. In some respects they appear to be offshoots from the family of the Trolls of Sweden and Denmark. The Spriggans are found only about the cairns, coits, or cromlechs, burrows, or detached stones, with which it is unlucky for mortals to meddle. A correspondent writes : “This is known, that they were a remarkably mischievous and thievish tribe. If ever a house was robbed, a child stolen, cattle carried away, or a building demolished, it was the work of the Spriggans. Whatever commotion took place in earth, air, or water, it was all put down as the work of these spirits. Wherever the giants have been, there the Spriggans have been also. It is usually considered that they are the ghosts of the giants ; certainly, from many of their feats, we must suppose them to possess a giant’s strength. The Spriggans have the charge of buried treasure.”
Plot hook: Ghosts…treasure…you can fill this one in.
Plot hook: Spriggan party house
There’s a story about a woman whose house was used as a feasting site by spriggans while she slept. She occasionally found coins that had fallen from the spriggan loot, so she put up with their mess. Eventually stayed awake and surprised the spriggans, scaring them off. She took their money and changed address. In this plot hook, springing up with a cross won’t work: the lady needs the magi to help spring the trap.
The spriggans meet in the depths of the deepest mines on Christmas Eve and have a Mass. During which they sing a carol that Hunt calls “Now Well!” In a footnote, he amuses by giving the lyrics as “Now Well! Now well! the angel did say / to certain poor shepherds in fields who lay / lay in the night, folding their sheep / a winter’s night, both cold and deep. Now well! now well! now well! Born is the King of Israel!” They have a temple for this purpose, that they built themselves, and it is magnificent.
Piskies
This fairy is a most mischievous and very unsociable sprite. His favourite fun is to entice people into the bogs by appearing like the light from a cottage window, or as a man carrying a lantern…Moths, ants, and weasels it would seem are the forms taken by those wandering spirits.
Plot hooks: Will o’ the wisp
In Cornwall, the will o the wisp is a piksie
These little fellows were great plagues to the farmers, riding their colts and chasing their cows….So wide-spread were their depredations, and so annoying their tricks, that it at one time^was necessary to select persons whose acuteness and ready tact were a match for these quick-witted wanderers, and many a clever man has become famous for his power to give charms against Pigseys. It does not appear, however, that anything remarkable was required of the clever man.
Character background: Cornish clever man
Bluecap
Sometimes people see a blue flame underground which makes full mine carts move by themselves, as if pushed by a strong, skilled man. This is Bluecap, and his wages need to be paid promptly and correctly, by leaving them in a disused corner of the mine.
Piksey
Piskey still leads benighted people astray ; this sprite wanders alone and is always spoken of in the singular. It is somewhat remarkable that a green bug, frequently found on bramble
bushes in autumn, is called by this name. After Michaelmas, it is said, that blackberries are unwholesome because Piskey spoils them then.
Places frequented by goats are believed to be the favourite haunts of fairies. It is uncertain whether Bucka can be regarded as one of the fairy tribe ; old people, within my remembrance, spoke of a Bucka Gwidden and a Bucka Dhu by the former they meant a
good spirit, and by the latter an evil one, now known as Bucka boo. I have been told, by persons of credit, that within the last forty years it was a usual practice with Newlyn and Mousehal fishermen to leave on the sand at night a portion of their catch for Bucka.
Piksies
- Around this time, Piksie horsemen ride the roofs of Padstow.
- A lot of Cornish houses have a little hole to let the piksies in and out, so they don’t get annoyed. How do they deal with the Aegis?
- Juneish: the same time, people in Poliperro put up a bun, which gradually reduces in size until they replace it the next year. Sounds like a faerie bribe.
- There’s a friendly piksie called Joan of the Woad that can be summoned as a guide by people with her brass (later called pewter) charm and the right rhyme. She’s a friend of Jack-of-the-lantern.
- You can go across the bogs by standing on “piksie beds”. Are these trods of some kind?
Buccas
In 1220 Jews are kept from many professions. They are allow to work as merchants and bankers, and Hunt records traditions that they rented the lands that were mined from the Crown, and in turn leased them to miners. Hunt gives the tradition that the churches of Dartmoor were all raised by Jews as a tax for the tin stream licenses.
He goes further though. Mining is a terrible job, uncomfortable, dangerous and giving wages only at random. Jews were not, in some recorded folklore, forbidden from engaging in this profession. The ghosts in the mines are Jews because the people in the mines were Jews: Jews that allow you to have player characters who are not Shakespearean bankers and merchants.
A related idea, mentioned in Hunt, is that the knockers are the ghosts are Jews, but that they were the slaves of Romans, forced into the mines during the Empire. The knockers are also called buccas. Knockers only work productive lodes, so their presence is liked by the miners.
The Buccas or knockers…are the sprites of the mines…They are said to be the souls of the Jews who formerly worked the tin-mines of Cornwall. They are not allowed to rest because of their wicked practices as tinners, and they share in the general curse which ignorant people believe still hangs on this race.
In the parish of Towednack there was a well where those industrious small people might every day be heard busy at their labours digging with pickaxe and shovel. I said, every day. No ; on Christmas-day on the Jews’ Sabbath on Easter-day and on All- Saints’ day no work was done…Any one, by placing his ear on the ground at the mouth of this well, could distinctly hear the little people at work.
[In the story given by Hunt, a wastrel named Barker lays by the well for weeks, to learn the speech of the buccas.]…He discovered that each set of labourers worked eight hours, and that, on leaving, they hid their tools….One evening he heard one say, he should place his tools in a cleft in the rock ; another, that he should put his under the ferns ; and another said, he should leave his tools on Barker’s knee.
He started on hearing his own name. At that moment a heavy weight fell on the man’s knee ; he felt excessive pain, and roared to have the cursed things taken away. His cries were answered by laughter. To the day of his death Barker had a stiff knee ; he was laughed at by all the parish.
Faerie power: Weird Cornish Elfstroke
This is an odd version of elfstroke, which is generally spread by faerie archers. In Cornwall, though, the artefacts that elsewhere would be thought of as elvish arrowheads are thought to be created by lightning striking the ground.
Knockers
it was nearly dark, he seed scores of knackers restan on their tools. They were miserable, little, old, withered, dried-up creatures the tallest of them no more than three foot six, or
thefe away, with shanks like drum-sticks, and their arms as long or longer than their legs. They had big ugly heads, with grey or red locks, squintan eyes, hook noses, and mouths from ear to ear. The faces of many were very much like the grim visages on old cloman jugs, so Tom said, and more like those of brutes than Christians. One older and uglier than the rest if possible seemed to take the lead in makan wry faces, and all sorts of mockan tricks. When he put his thumb to his nose and squinted at Tom, all those behind him did the same. Then all turned their backs, stooped down, lolled out their tongues, and grinned at
him from between their spindle shanks. Tom was now much scared. He noticed that his candle was burnt down to the clay, and knew that he must have slept nearly two hours.
Crumbs for Bucca
I often heard when a child, there are some lines about leaving the buryans (crumbs) for Bucca.” And one would think the tribe of small folks always made their speeches in ryhmes. When I was young, it was a custom in the harvestfield, at croust (afternoon’s refreshment), observed by most old folks, to pour a few drops of their liquor on the ground for good
luck ; and to cast a fragment of bread over their right shoulder for the same reason. Fishermen, too, were in the habit of leaving on the sand, at night, a fish for Bucca ; and they were also very careful to feed and make much of their cats, to insure them good luck in their fishing. If tinners in going to bal met with a ‘bulhorn’ (shell-snail) in their path, they always took care to drop before it a crum from their dinner, or a bit of grease from their candle for good luck.
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Browneys
This spirit was purely of the household. Kindly and good, he devoted his every care to benefit the family with whom he had taken up his abode. The Browney has fled, owing to his being brought into very close contact with the school-master, and he is only summoned now upon the occasion of the swarming of the bees. When this occurs, mistress or maid seizes a bell-metal, or a tin pan, and, beating it, she calls ” Browney, Browney ! ” as loud as she can until the good Browney compels the bees to settle.
The story of making clothes for brownies is found everywhere in Cornwall.
Statistics
See Realms of Power: Faerie
- Small People as Sprites p.85, but powers vary by story.
- Piskies as Sprites (p.85) but change the physical description).See also Fool’s Fire p.92.
- Spriggans: There’s no quick way to do these, but I’ be tempted to just use the stats for Size 3 giants, but change the physical description so they have ridiculous Strength for their size.
- Buccas pp.96-97
- Browneys p.81
Bridge of Wadebridge
Lovebone was the vicar of Wadebridge, and there was a ferry across the river. It was a frequent custom for the farmers to ride their horses and to drive their cattle across when
the tide was low, and frequently men and beasts were lost in the quicksands formed on the rising of the tide. A sad accident of this kind happened, and Lovebone resolved on building a bridge…
Great was the labour, and frequent the disappointment. Pier after pier were built, and then they were lost in the sands. A “fair structure” was visible at night, in the morning there was no trace of the work of the masons. Lovebone almost despaired of success, indeed he was about to abandon the work, when he dreamed that an angel came with a flock of sheep, that he sheared them, let the wool fall into the water, and speedily built the bridge upon the wool.
Lovebone awoke with a new idea. He gathered from the farmers around, all the wool they would give him, he put it loosely into into packs, placed these thickly upon the sand, and built his piers. The work remains to this day in proof of the engineering skill of the suggesting angel.”
Plot hooks
There’s a myth that says London Bridge was similarly built on wool sacks.
In Transforming Mythic Europe I made a deliberate omission, and no-one has picked me up on it, so time to come clean: the great rings which surround the magical islands? The height measurements assume a subsidence of zero. That never happens, unless you are putting the building onto rock (which is assumed in this case) or, like modern bridge-builders, you drive steel piles into the mud on the bottom of the water you are trying to cross. If wool can replace that, then it fixes the subsidence problem without the assumption of a stone ocean floor.
The Lizard People
“There is a tradition that the Lizard people were formerly a very inferior race. In fact it is said that they went on all fours, till the crew of a foreign vessel, wrecked on the coast, settled among them, and improved the race so much that they became as remarkable for their stature and physical development as they had been before for the reverse. At this time, as a whole, the Lizard folks certainly have among them a very large population of tall people, many of the men and women being over six feet in height.”
Plot hooks: Will o’ the wisp
Deep Ones, obviously.
Who interbreeds with them to make the locals tall? s it a covenant’s turb? Covenfolk tend to be well fed and protected from disease spirits by the covenant’;s magical defences.
The Hooper of Sennen Cove
Many of the ” sawns ” in the western cleaves have also similar legends connected with them, only the dwellers in sea-side caverns, are either of the mermaid race, or what we call Hoopers. The latter are beneficent spirits who warn fishermen from going to sea when there is an approaching tempest. The Hoopers shroud themselves in a thick fog which stretches across coves frequented by them.
The Hooper is a fog bank that stretches across thew bay, to warn sailors not to venture out. It is rarely seen in modern times, because a man who was desperate for money ignored it, led a crew through it, and they died in the squalls.
That it appears less often when ignored argues to me that it’s a faerie. Can the players get it to come back?
Jack Harry’s Lights
Jack Harry’s Lights are a sort of naval will-o-the-wisp. They look like ship lights, or even known ships. People who follow them never seem to catch them, and it causes them time and trouble, although it does not seem to lure directly onto rocks. It is generally seen before great squalls, so some sailors take it as a warning.
Wisps are the sort of small faeries some magi take as familiars. They have a lot of uses to a magus, like illumination, signalling and scouting. Could a magus tame Jack Harry’s Lights? There’s no explanation of the name in Hunt’s book, by the way. I presume “Jack” means a sailor.
Merrymaids
There is a parish in the north of Cornwall called Morva, sometimes written Morveth, which has a name based on the Breton that links it to the “Morgern” (sea women) and “Morverch” (sea daughters). A nearby parish has a lot of mermaid symbolism about the place, based on so many of the apostles being fishers of men. Hunt suggests the same may hold true for two other parishes, Morval and Morwenstow. Hunt half-suggests “Morwenna’s Stow” may have a mermaid link, but given that Saint Morwenna is buried in the Church of Saint Morwenna and John the Baptist, under a leadlight window of Saint Morwenna, I’m dubious.
Mermaids guard some harbours. Seaton and Padstow are both said to have been cursed, so that their harbours filled with sand. after a person tried to shoot the guardian merrymaid.
The Old Man of Cury
In “The Old Man of Cury”, a man is having a stroll by the seaside and notices a woman sitting on a rock. She cries out when she sees him and slips into a rockpool. The man thinks she was a bather, and may drown, so he rushes to the pool. He realises the woman is actually a mermaid, and she seems distressed. After coaxing her to the surface, by telling her he’s an old man and no more threatening than her grandfather, he asks her some questions. He learns that her husband and children are napping in a cave, and she wanted to view the land and smell the flowers. These are, we may note, the flowers of Land’s End that mortals can smell but not find save at liminal times. She was distracted by dressing her hair, using the pool as a mirror, and stranded by the tide. She was worried her husband would be angry, if he woke and she was away, as he was terribly jealous.
Time to quote Hunt:
“She begged the old man to bear her out to sea. If he would but do so, she would procure him any three things he would wish for. Her entreaties at length prevailed ; and, according to her desire, the old man knelt down on the rock with his back towards her. She clasped her fair arms around his neck, and locked her long finny fingers together on his throat. He got up from the rock with his burthen, and carried the mermaid thus across the sands. As she rode in this way, she asked the old man to tell her what he desired. ” I will not wish,” said he, ” for silver and gold, but give me the power to do good to my neighbours : first, to break the spells of witchcraft ; next, to charm away diseases ; and thirdly, to discover thieves, and restore stolen goods.”
All this she promised he should possess ; but he must come to a half- tide rock on another day, and she would instruct him how to accomplish the three things he desired. They had reached the water, and taking her comb from her hair, she gave it to the old man, telling him he had but to comb the water and call her at any time, and she would come to him. The mermaid loosened her grasp, and sliding off the old man’s back into the sea, she waved him a kiss and disappeared. At the appointed time the old man was at the half-ide rock, known to the present time as the Mermaid’s Rock, and duly was he instructed in many mysteries. Amongst others, he learned to break the spells of witches on man or beast ; to prepare a vessel of water, in which to show to any one who had property stolen the face of the thief ; to charm shingles, tetters, St Antony’s fire, and St Vitus’s dance ; and he learnt also all the mysteries of bramble leaves, and the like.
The mermaid…persuaded her old friend to take her to some secret place, from which she could see more of the dry land, and of the funny people who lived on it, “and had their tails split, so that they could walk.” On taking the mermaid back to the sea, she wished her friend to visit her abode, and promised even to make him young if he would do so, which favour the old gentleman respectfully declined. A family, well known in Cornwall, have for some generations exercised the power of charming, &c. They account for the possession of this power in the manner related. Some remote great-grandfather was the individual who received the mermaid’s comb, which they retain to the present day, and show us evidence of the truth of their being supernaturally endowed. Some people are unbelieving enough to say the comb is only a part of a shark’s jaw.
Sceptical people are never lovable people.
Plot hooks
- Note how trusting the man is: some faeries would ride him into the sea.
- Do faeries just keep meeting men, and eating the bad ones, so that we only hear this story about a nice old chap?
- The man is a nympholept: a human who learns magical powers from a nymph. See Realms of Power : Faerie for the Virtue
- Is the comb an External Vis Source?
- A plot hook from Hunt: “An old tradition the particulars of which I have failed to recover says that a flock of sheep were blown from the Gwithian Sands over into St Ives Bay, and that the St Ives fisher- men caught them, believing them to be a new variety of fish, either in their nets, or with hook and line, and brought them ashore as their night’s catch.” Strong belief brings faeries. Does this create a merrymaid shepherdess?
In the real world
Shingles is a rash casued by the chickenpox virus.
Tetters is any skin disease that causes pustules. or crusting. Ringworm and eczema are tetters.
Saint Antony’s Fire either refers to ergotism (poisoning based on a natural relative of LSD) or an inflamed skin infection caused by a strain of strep.
St Vitus Dance is a disease that manifests as spasmodic movements. It is a result of an autoimmune response to rheumatic fever.
So, this is the origin story of a hedge tradition.
Domazy Pool has a spirit called the “Old Storm Woman” who creates storms as she draws power to herself. May be a sort of giant ghostly mermaid.
Fiddlers’ Green
Cornish Sailors’ Isle op Avalon. — It is known to most persons who have mixed much with Cornish sailors that they often speak of the ” Green,” which they frequently call Fiddler’s Green amongst themselves. They describe this place as an ” Isle of the Blest,” in which honest Tars, after the toils of this life, are to enjoy unmixed bliss with their old comrades and favourite fair ones. In orchards of fruit, ever ripe, they are to be entertained with music, dancing, and everything else in which they delighted in their lifetime. The idea of this Fairy Land is probably derived from Celtic mythology, as well as that of
” The island valley of Avilion, Where falls not hail, or rain, or snow ; Nor ever -wind blows loudly ; but it lies Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard lawns, And bowery hollows orown’d with summer seas.”Thither King Arthur was wafted in a barge with three fair
queens when his table, man by man,” Had fallen in Lyonness about tlieir Lord.”Breton and Welsh sailors have similar notions.
One story mentions that faeries are apparently the ancient, pagan dead. They worship the stars, and can take the form of any bird.
Faerie is accessible through mounds and tunnels. We don’t need the woodlands they have everywhere else. Some people are drawn into Faerie by following a tune, sleeping, or crossing a stream. It is abundant and beautiful.
In Rillaton there are two black dogs. The ghost of a druid appears to people and asks for water. He died when refused by a local lord, and so now the local lord is cursed to always give food and water to travellers. The location of the druid’s grave in known (it overlooks the town). He was buried with his sword, knife and cup. The Rilllaton Cup is a real world object.
Notes
An obvious treasure or contested vis source
“Every now and then, down to the present time, many persons have dug all about the cairns on Trecrom, of moonshiny nights, in hopes of finding the crocks of gold that the giant buried there, but whenever they dig so deep as to touch the flat stone that covers the mouth of the crock, and hear it ring hollow, out from the crevices of the rocks and cairns come troops of frightful-looking spriggens who raise such dreadful weather that it scares the diggers away.”
A stopping place for Mercere, or a faerie inn?
“He was one of an ancient family that came from Normandy and settled in Sennen soon after the Conquest. They held their lands, ’tis said, as a gift from the Conqueror. The two oldest branches of the family terminated in daughters, who gave themselves, and their lands, to other names; but, at the time, they had not much to bestow, as the ‘First and Last’ inn of England belonged to them for many generations and they could do no less, they thought, than be the best customers to their own hotel.”
A faerie trick
“…before the good men came home from work. They would be sure to go out to coursey (gossip) a bit while the cake was baking. Then Bucca would steal in, carry off the cake, and place a turf under the bake-pan carefully covered with fire again. When the gossip came to take up the nice bit, she might be heard to exclaim, “Well, I never thought I’d been out so long; my cake is burned to ashes!”
- Carburrow Tor has two cairns on it. Each contains a king in a golden coffin. They are guarded by a flock of birds.
- An archdruid at Rillaton lost a magic cup, because it was buried with its thief.
Games From Folktales 