Games From Folktales

Hunt notes that he has never heard a person called a “wizard”. This note seems incongruous because he uses it himself for Merlin, but what he seems to be saying is that folk witchcraft is practiced by men and women, and that there is no separate title for the male and female types. He does…

Hunt, whose work we are following in this series of episodes, gathered his folklore in in the 19th Century. At this point, Cornish memories of Arthur were at low ebb. He found a few, which I’ll pass on in this post, but for stories set in 1220, a lot of supplementary material will need to…

During this concentration of Cornish material, I’m trying to focus on folklore that can be easily turned into story hooks. The problem with Hunt’s chapter on saints is that there’s not a lot of useful material, so for the first time, this podcast will boil down two chapters in a week. Saints Cornish saints are…

Today we cover two of the traditional sports of Cornwall. We know the faeries play at least one of them, for they use monolithic stones as their goalposts for hurling. Again, this episode is wall to wall quotations Hurling THE game of ” Hurling” was, until a recent period, played in the parishes to the…

Several Cornish towns elect “sham mayors”. These seem to be similar to Lords of Misrule. When I boil this down, it’s likely to be a mystery, or a possessing faerie power. Today’s just wall to wall Hunt. Mylor “There was a curious custom in the town’ of Penryn in Cornwall, which long outlived all modern…