The woodwose, or wild man of the woods, is an old figure in British and European folklore. It was usually imagined as a hairy, untamed humanlike being living beyond the edges of settled life, in forests, remote valleys, and other places outside ordinary society. Medieval writers and artists treated the woodwose in several ways. Sometimes it appeared as a frightening wild creature, close to a beast. At other times it became a symbol of humanity before civilisation, baptism, law, or restraint. The word itself has deep medieval roots, and related forms appear in manuscripts, church carvings, heraldry, romances, and pageantry. Although Cornwall is better known for piskies, giants, spriggans, mermaids, and knockers, the idea of a wild human presence in woodland also sits comfortably within the wider folklore of the South West. One modern Cornish account places such a being near St Mawgan, where a local man claimed to have seen a large copper coloured figure in thick woodland in 2000. He had been working nearby, making bird cages connected with pheasant shooting, when he began noticing strange knocks, rustling, clicks, and whistles among the trees. At first, these sounds had no clear explanation. Later, while waiting alone near the edge of the wood, he saw what he believed to be a face looking back at him from the undergrowth. The figure then rose to more than six feet tall before disappearing from view. When he asked his employer what he had seen, the reply was calm and matter of fact: they called them woodwoses, and it was best to leave them alone. This account has often been compared with modern Bigfoot or wildman sightings, but the word woodwose gives it an older cultural frame. In medieval tradition, the woodwose was not simply an unknown animal. It represented the wilderness itself, the figure beyond the hedge, beyond the field, and beyond the rules of the village. The St Mawgan story preserves some of that atmosphere: a watcher in the trees, sensed before it is seen, neither fully animal nor fully human. The sounds described in the account, including knocks and whistles, also belong to a wider body of modern cryptid reports, but they can equally be read through older woodland folklore, where strange noises marked the presence of beings that did not wish to be disturbed. Medieval art gives the woodwose a surprisingly rich history. Manuscripts show hairy wild men surrounded by dogs, carrying clubs, holding shields, or taking part in pageantry. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, wild men appear among the dangers of the landscape through which Gawain travels. Other medieval texts place similar beings in distant or exotic lands, showing how the woodwose could represent both local wilderness and imagined foreign danger. Churches also preserved the figure in stone and wood. The fifteenth century font at Ludham in Norfolk is especially unusual because it includes both male and female woodwoses, carved among other religious imagery. Such figures may have represented unregenerate humanity, standing in contrast to baptism, order, and Christian renewal.
The Owlman of Mawnan Smith is one of Cornwall’s best known modern legends. Unlike many folklore stories that reach back hundreds of years, this tale began in the 1970s, around the old church of St Mawnan and St Stephen near Falmouth. The creature is usually described as a man sized figure with wings, feathers, clawed feet, and large red eyes. Its story sits somewhere between local folklore, eyewitness testimony, cryptid legend, and possible misidentification. The first widely known Owlman sighting took place at Easter in 1976, when two sisters, June and Vicky Melling, said they saw a large winged creature near Mawnan Old Church. According to later accounts, the creature was hovering near the church tower, had an owl like face, glowing red eyes, dark claws, and made a harsh hissing sound. Their father, Don Melling, reportedly ended the family holiday early after the girls became distressed. A sketch attributed to one of the sisters was later shared with Tony “Doc” Shiels, a local paranormal researcher and magician who helped bring the story to wider attention. Further reports followed later that year. In July 1976, two teenage girls camping near the church claimed to see a similar figure among the trees. Another reported sighting came in 1978, again involving a young witness near the same area. Later accounts appeared in 1989, 1995, and 2009, with descriptions often repeating the same details: a tall feathered figure, glowing eyes, large wings, and a frightening presence near the church or surrounding woodland. Some reports from the 1990s and early 2000s also described strange lights around the churchyard, although these are not direct Owlman sightings. These accounts added to the atmosphere around Mawnan Old Church and helped strengthen its reputation as a place linked with unusual experiences. The church’s age, isolated position, and surrounding woodland have all played a part in the way the story has developed. There are several possible explanations for the Owlman. Some believe witnesses may have seen a large owl or escaped exotic bird, especially in poor light or during moments of fear. Others think the legend may have been exaggerated or shaped by Tony Shiels, whose involvement has made sceptics question the reliability of the early reports. Cryptid researchers have treated the Owlman as a possible unknown creature, while paranormal writers have linked it to local earth energies, spirits, or other supernatural ideas.
The Porthtowan dragon is said to have once lived inland, just off Chapel Hill on the way into Portreath. Before it became a creature of the sea, it was feared across the surrounding farmland. It hunted livestock, frightened local people, and left farmers unable to protect their cattle and sheep. The creature was described as the colour of the local rock, powerful and heavily scaled, with wings, claws, and a long, forked tail. No one in the district was willing to face it directly. One May Eve, a large white dog appeared while the dragon was stalking a farmer’s ewe. The dragon did not notice the dog until it attacked, biting into her leg. When the dragon turned on it, her claws passed through the animal as if it were not fully flesh and blood. The dog then seized the dragon’s forked tail and tore away its tip, leaving the creature wounded and humiliated. The loss of the tail changed everything. The dragon was proud of it and could not bear to remain on land after being disfigured. It fled through the valley towards Porthtowan and disappeared into the sea. From that point on, the story says, it stopped troubling the farmers and no longer came inland to take their animals. The white dog was never found, but it became part of the tale. Some say it can still be seen near Porthtowan on May Eve, moving along the beach or cliffs. Its role is to keep watch and make sure the dragon remains in the sea,
Cornish piskies are among the best known of Cornwall’s small folk. They are usually described as mischievous fairy beings who belong to the inland places of Cornwall, especially moors, hedgerows, fields, valleys, ancient sites, and lonely tracks. In older descriptions, they are small but not childlike, often imagined with wrinkled faces, bright eyes, and a weathered appearance, like tiny old men shaped by the land itself. Their clothing is said to be made from natural materials such as moss, grass, leaves, and lichen, allowing them to blend into the colours of the Cornish landscape. They are not usually presented as purely evil, but they are unpredictable. A pisky might help someone in need, tend to the old or vulnerable, leave a small gift, or perform a useful task, but it might just as easily play tricks, hide objects, or lead an unwary traveller into trouble. One of the most familiar ideas in Cornish folklore is the person who becomes “pisky-led.” This happens when a traveller loses their way after being confused or enchanted by piskies. The victim might follow strange lights, hear music in the distance, or find that a familiar path has suddenly become strange. Fields, lanes, moors, and boggy ground seem to shift around them, and the more they try to find their way home, the more lost they become. This belief reflects the real danger of Cornwall’s open and remote landscapes, especially in mist, darkness, or bad weather. Ancient places such as stone circles, barrows, and old ceremonial sites are often linked with piskies, giving these landscapes a sense of hidden life and unseen movement. In folklore, they are places where the ordinary world feels thin, and where a person might accidentally step into the territory of the small folk. There are several different traditions about where piskies came from. Some accounts describe them as the spirits of unbaptised children, while others suggest that they are pagan souls caught between worlds. Another idea presents them as older gods or spirits reduced in power after the coming of Christianity. These explanations were often shaped by later Christian interpretations, but they show how piskies came to occupy a space between older belief, local storytelling, and moral teaching. Folklore also says that piskies are growing smaller with each passing age and may one day disappear entirely. This idea gives them a fading quality, as though they belong to an older Cornwall that can still sometimes be glimpsed, but only briefly and never on demand. One well known pisky tale is “The Lost Child of St Allen.” In this story, a young boy wanders from home while gathering flowers and follows the song of a bird into a valley. There he encounters piskies, who hide him and care for him rather than harm him. When he is eventually found days later, he is safe, asleep, and unharmed. In some versions, he remembers a hidden place filled with shining stones, honey, music, and warmth. The story is important because it shows the gentler side of piskies. They may lead people away from ordinary life, but they are not always cruel. The child grows up blessed by the encounter, living to old age without serious illness or misfortune. This kind of tale sits alongside darker warnings about being pisky-led, showing how Cornish folklore often allows the same beings to be both dangerous and protective. The pisky also became part of Cornwall’s wider cultural identity, especially as folklore began to be collected and published in the nineteenth century. Earlier stories survived mainly through oral tradition, carried by droll tellers, local storytellers, and families, before writers such as Robert Hunt, William Bottrell, and others recorded them. Later, the growth of tourism and railway travel helped spread simplified versions of Cornish legends, including stories of piskies, giants, knockers, spriggans, and Bucca. The Great Western Railway’s “Line to Legend Land” pamphlets used these traditions to present Cornwall as a place with a distinct Celtic inheritance. Today, piskies remain one of Cornwall’s most recognisable folkloric figures, but they should not be reduced to harmless fantasy creatures. In the older stories, they belong to paths, the moors and the spaces in between day-to-day life, and perhaps are a relic of time when the veil between our world and theirs was much thinner.
Joan the Wad is now one of the most recognisable figures connected with Cornish piskies, often described as their queen and associated with luck, fire, and protection. Her name is usually explained through the old Cornish word “wad,” meaning a bundle of straw or a torch, which suits her later image as a small figure carrying light. In popular tradition, she became a guiding presence, linked with the idea of helping people find their way through darkness or bad weather. This association is captured in the rhyme recorded in the nineteenth century: “Jack the lantern, Joan the wad, that tickled the maid and made her mad, light me home, the weather’s bad.” The rhyme suggests that Joan and Jack were once understood as flickering lights or pisky-like beings connected with mischief and guidance, rather than as formal fairy royalty. The earliest recorded mention of Joan the Wad appears in a 1855 letter by Thomas Quiller-Couch of Polperro, who discussed local beliefs about piskies and pisky-leading. At this stage, Joan was not clearly presented as a queen, but as one name among the small, elusive figures of Cornish fairy lore. The reference to tickling or pinching fits a much wider tradition in British folklore, where fairies punish lazy maids, untidy households, or people who fail to observe proper customs. Like Jack o’ Lantern, Joan seems to belong partly to the world of will o’ the wisp lights, spirits that could mislead travellers but might also be invoked for help. This makes her early identity uncertain and interesting, sitting somewhere between pisky, guiding light, household spirit, and trickster. Joan’s modern fame owes a great deal to commercial reinvention in the twentieth century. In 1932, F. T. Nettleinghame registered trademarks for “Joan the Wad” and “Jack o’ Lantern” and began selling small brass charms. These presented Joan as “Queen of the Lucky Cornish Piskeys,” a figure who could bring health, wealth, happiness, and good fortune. The charms were marketed with booklets, postcards, stories, and claims that they had to be dipped in a lucky saint’s well in Cornwall to become effective. In reality, the charms were manufactured in Birmingham before being brought to Cornwall for the ritual dipping. The marketing was highly successful, and Joan the Wad charms were sold widely through shops, mail order, advertisements, and tourist trade. This commercial success helped shape the way many people came to understand Joan. She was no longer simply an obscure name from a rhyme or a minor will o’ the wisp figure, but a fully developed emblem of Cornish luck. Her image as a pointed metal figure crouched on a mushroom became familiar through charms, china, pamphlets, and tourist goods. Jack o’ Lantern was recast as her consort, and other figures such as Billy Bucca and Sam Spriggan were added to the same imagined world. Competitors later produced their own lucky charms, but Joan remained one of the most successful. Joan the Wad is therefore a useful example of how folklore can change over time. She may have begun as a local name attached to pisky lights, mischief, and guidance, but she was transformed by twentieth-century tourism and advertising into the Queen of the Cornish piskies. That does not make her unimportant. Instead, it shows how older fragments of belief can be reshaped, sold, adopted, and eventually folded back into popular tradition. Today, Joan the Wad belongs both to folklore and to the history of Cornish identity, tourism, lucky charms, and the continuing appeal of piskies as guardians, tricksters, and figures of local imagination.
Spriggans are among the most feared of Cornwall’s fairy folk. Their name is often connected with the Cornish words “spyres” or “spyryjyon,” meaning spirit or fairy, but in folklore they are usually very different from the more playful piskies. While piskies might confuse travellers, move household objects, or lead people astray, spriggans were remembered as darker and more openly hostile beings. They belonged to lonely places, old ruins, cliff edges, barrows, cromlechs, and ancient burial sites. In stories, they were not simply mischievous. They were malicious, unpredictable, and dangerous to anyone who disturbed the places they guarded. Their appearance reflected their reputation. Spriggans were often described as small, ugly, wizened creatures, with shrivelled bodies, oversized heads, and unpleasant expressions. They were sometimes imagined as looking like twisted old men, but with something unnatural about them. Despite their small size, they were believed to possess great strength. One tradition claims that spriggans were the ghosts of ancient giants who once lived in Cornwall. This helped explain why they could guard places associated with the deep past and why they were said to swell to huge proportions when angered. A person who laughed at their size or tried to challenge them might find that the small figure before them could suddenly become monstrous. Spriggans were especially associated with treasure. Cornwall’s prehistoric tombs, stone chambers, barrows, and old sacred sites were often believed to hide gold, grave goods, or buried wealth. Spriggans acted as guardians of these places, keeping watch over what had been hidden beneath stone and earth. Anyone who tried to dig into a barrow or disturb an ancient monument risked provoking them. In some tales, they warned intruders away with hissing, spitting, grimacing, and threatening gestures. In others, they brought direct punishment, using fear, illness, storm, accident, or sudden misfortune to protect the old places from interference. Their cruelty was not limited to treasure guarding. Spriggans were blamed for many of the harsher misfortunes of rural life. They could raise sudden storms, send hail and heavy rain to ruin crops, steal cattle, damage buildings, and make lonely journeys dangerous. Most disturbing of all was their connection with changeling belief. Like other feared fairy beings, spriggans were said to steal human babies from their cradles and leave behind one of their own strange offspring in the child’s place. This belief reflects older fears around illness, disability, unexplained behaviour, and infant mortality, but in folklore it gave spriggans a particularly sinister role within the household as well as the landscape. There were traditional ways to protect against them. One common charm was to turn an item of clothing inside out, a practice often used in British and Cornish fairy belief to confuse or repel supernatural beings. The idea suggests that spriggans belonged to a world where reversal, disorder, and hidden meanings mattered. They were feared because they stood at the boundary between the living and the dead, the human world and the old fairy world, the present landscape and the buried past.
The knockers are among the best known supernatural beings connected with Cornish mining. They were usually imagined as small underground people, sometimes only about two feet tall, with large heads, long arms, wrinkled skin, white whiskers, and clothing resembling that of miners. They belonged to the deep world beneath Cornwall, where tin and copper were worked in dangerous conditions for centuries. To miners, the knocks heard underground could mean many things. They might be the sound of the little people working the lode, the warning of a collapse, or the sign of rich ore nearby. In some stories they were helpful mine spirits, guiding men towards wealth and away from danger. In others, they were tricksters who stole tools, hid food, blew out candles, or punished disrespect. One tale from Ransom Mine shows both the generosity and danger of the knockers. In one part of the mine, their knocking was heard more than anywhere else, and the miners believed that great wealth lay hidden in that end of the lode. Yet no pair of men was willing to work there, because it was regarded as the ground of the small people. An old man named Trenwith and his son, from near Bosprenis, went out on Midsummer Eve and watched until they saw the little miners bringing up shining ore. Somehow, perhaps through secret knowledge, they reached an agreement with them. Trenwith and his son would work the ground and bring the ore to grass, but they would leave one tenth of the richest stuff properly dressed for the knockers. For a time, the bargain brought great success. The old man kept faith with the knockers and always left them their share. Because he honoured the agreement, the mine yielded wealth and he prospered. After his death, however, his son became greedy. He tried to cheat the knockers and keep more than had been agreed. From that point, everything failed. The lode gave out, his luck turned, and nothing he attempted succeeded. He drank away the money his father had made and died in poverty. Like many Cornish mining tales, the story teaches that underground wealth was never entirely human property. It had to be earned, shared, and approached with respect. The knockers were treated seriously by many miners. Offerings were left for them, often the last piece of a pasty, partly as thanks and partly to avoid offence. Miners were careful not to speak badly of them, and some traditions warned against whistling underground or leaving tools crossed, as such things might anger the spirits. There were different explanations for what knockers were. Some said they were fairy folk or little people of the earth. Others believed they were the spirits of miners who had died underground and now warned the living against the same fate. Another tradition, now best understood as a later legend rather than history, claimed they were the ghosts of ancient Jewish miners. Whatever their origin, the belief gave shape to the real sounds and dangers of underground work. The knocker tradition travelled far beyond Cornwall. In the nineteenth century, Cornish and Welsh miners carried these stories with them to America, especially to Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, and California. There they became known as Tommyknockers, still linked with stolen tools, warning sounds, and the hidden life of mines. Cornish miners, often called Cousin Jacks, were said to be reluctant to enter new workings unless the knockers were already there to protect them. Belief in Tommyknockers continued in parts of the American mining world into the twentieth century, and in one Californian case miners’ descendants even asked that a sealed mine be opened so the spirits could be released.
The legend of Giant Bolster is one of the best known stories from the St Agnes area. Bolster was said to be so enormous that he could stand with one foot on St Agnes Beacon and the other on Carn Brea, a distance of several miles. In the valley above Chapel Porth, a stone is still traditionally said to bear the marks of his fingers, preserving a physical trace of the giant in the landscape. Bolster was feared for his size and strength, but also for his cruelty. He had a wife, though Cornish giant stories often say little about such figures. According to the tale, Bolster treated her harshly and forced her to carry stones in her apron whenever he was angry. These details present him not only as a monster of the hills, but as a tyrant whose power brought misery to those closest to him. The giant eventually became obsessed with St Agnes, who was remembered as beautiful, virtuous, and determined. He pursued her constantly, declaring his love and giving her no peace. Local men, including the knight Sir Constantine and others from the district, tried to face Bolster in combat at Chapel Porth, but they were no match for him. Realising that force would not defeat the giant, Agnes relied on cunning instead. She told Bolster that she would accept him if he proved his devotion by filling a hole in the cliff at Chapel Porth with his blood. Believing this an easy task, he cut open a vein and let the blood flow. What he did not know was that the hole opened into the sea, so it could never be filled. Bolster bled until his strength failed, and there he died. Every May Day weekend, the villagers of St Agnes re-enact the legend with a procession of the giant and other figures from the story through the village and across the clifftops above Chapel Porth.
The wreck of the Schiedam lies off Dollar Cove at Gunwalloe on Cornwall’s Lizard Peninsula. The ship was originally a Dutch cargo vessel, or fluyt, before being captured by Barbary pirates and then retaken by the Royal Navy. After this, she became known as the Schiedam Prize and was used as a transport ship. In 1684, while carrying people, horses, cannon, and military stores from Tangier, she was separated from her convoy in a gale and wrecked on the Cornish coast. The wreck remained hidden for centuries beneath sand and surf. It was first identified in 1971 by diver Anthony Randall, who began long-term archaeological work on the site. Since then, more than 150 artefacts have been recovered, many of which are now held at the Charlestown Shipwreck and Heritage Centre. More recent work by divers, including Mark Milburn and David Gibbins, through Cornwall Maritime Archaeology and Historic England, has helped record the site and monitor its condition. The finds from the Schiedam show the military nature of her final voyage. Artefacts include cannons, gun carriage fragments, hand grenades, and other equipment. Some grenades have even been found washed ashore near Dollar Cove centuries after the wreck. At first, they can look like ordinary encrusted stones, but several were later identified and safely dealt with by the British Army. These objects give a direct link to the ship’s cargo and the wider military events connected with Tangier. The site is fragile because it lies in a highly active coastal environment. Much of the ship’s wooden structure has decayed, but storms sometimes strip away the sand and expose cannon, ironwork, and other remains before covering them again. This makes the wreck difficult to study, as each storm can reveal new material while also causing further damage. The shifting seabed means that the Schiedam is both an important archaeological resource and a vulnerable maritime site. The Schiedam is now protected as a designated wreck site by Historic England. Its significance lies in the unusual journey of the vessel, from Dutch merchant ship to pirate prize, naval transport, and wreck on the Cornish coast.
The legend of the Dragon of Trewoofe Well belongs to the old landscape around Trewoofe, near Lamorna in west Cornwall. At the centre of the story is a spring or holy well, remembered as a place of fresh water and possible healing. In folklore, however, the well was not freely accessible. It was said to be guarded by a dragon, a powerful creature whose presence turned the spring from a source of life into a place of fear. The dragon was described as a monstrous beast with shining green scales, bright eyes, and fiery breath. Like many dragon stories, the tale places the creature beside something valuable, not treasure in this case, but water. According to tradition, the people of Trewoofe depended on the well but were forced to approach it with caution. The dragon controlled access to the water and demanded offerings from those who came near. Over time, these demands became harder to bear, and the well became a symbol of oppression within the village. The story reflects an old pattern found in many dragon legends, where a community is held in fear until someone breaks the power of the monster. In this case, the dragon’s hold over the spring made the threat especially serious, because water was not a luxury but a necessity for daily life. The tale says that a hero eventually came forward to face the creature, though his name has not survived clearly in the tradition. He did not defeat the dragon through strength alone. Instead, the story emphasises cunning, patience, and knowledge of the landscape. Some versions suggest that the dragon was tricked into revealing its weakness, while others describe the hero using the ground around the well to trap or overcome it. In the end, the dragon was defeated and the villagers were freed from its control. Some tellings say that the creature was turned to stone, becoming part of the landscape it once dominated. Trewoofe Well also has a historical tradition beyond the dragon story. A letter written in 1667 by Alexander Daniel of Laregan records that the water was believed to have healing properties. In his account, it cured a young woman, Miss An Levelis, of a severe wart that was feared to be turning into a disfiguring ulcer. The same letter also claimed that the well helped eyesight and other ailments, and that people of status had visited it for its reputed powers. Nicholas Orme does not include Trewoofe Well among the Cornish saint wells, but the seventeenth-century reference shows that it had some local reputation.
This tale is connected with Picrous Day, a miners’ festival once observed in Luxulyan. The day was held in honour of Picrous, who was traditionally credited with discovering tin. By the time the story was recorded, the old observance had become a supper and evening of merrymaking. On one such night, the captain and men of a nearby stream work gathered at The Rising Sun before returning home across the disturbed ground of the Couse, where generations of tinners had searched the alluvial deposits for tin. One of the men, John Sturtridge, set off towards Luxulyan Churchtown after drinking more than enough ale. He reached Tregarden Down safely, but there he encountered a group of piskies dancing and laughing near a great granite boulder. Frightened and confused, he tried to find his way across land he knew well, but every path seemed changed. When the piskies cried, “Ho! and away for Par Beach,” John repeated the words and was instantly carried to the sands. The same thing happened again when the piskies cried, “Ho! and away for Squire Tremain’s cellar.” John repeated the words and found himself among the beer and wine at Heligan. There he drank freely, but became so muddled that he failed to repeat the next cry when the piskies left. In the morning, he was discovered by the butler stumbling among the barrels. His explanation was not believed, and he was tried, convicted of burglary, and sentenced to death. On the morning of his execution, John stood beneath the gallows before a large crowd. Just as the sentence was about to be carried out, a small lady with an air of authority pushed through the crowd and called in a voice he recognised, “Ho! and away for France!” John answered the cry and vanished from the scaffold, leaving the officers and spectators astonished. The story is a classic example of being pisky-led, where a person is carried from place to place by repeating the words of the small folk.
This tale explains why the Devil is said to have avoided Cornwall after seeing what Cornish people were willing to put in a pie. It begins during a famine on the Rame Peninsula, when the fields had failed and food was scarce. People were hungry, and fear spread that the Devil was making his way through Devon towards Cornwall. The sound of his hoofbeats was imagined in the ground, and the people believed that if he reached them, their suffering would only grow worse. In their desperation, the people baked whatever they could find into pies. Lamb, herbs, parsley, pork, conger eel, and anything else that might fill a crust was used. The land had been stripped bare, the markets were almost empty, and there was little left except flour and well water. With the Devil still approaching, the people decided on one last kind of pie that had not yet been made: a stargazy pie, with fish laid into the crust so their heads and tails pointed upwards. The people rushed to gather fish from the rough sea and prepared the pie in the marketplace. A pastry base was filled with whatever vegetables remained, and the fish were set into it with their heads and tails showing through the crust. In the story, this was not just decoration. It followed the old idea that pilchards should be eaten tail to head, otherwise they might swim away from the harbour. By the time the pie was finished, the ground was heating and the Devil had reached the Tamar. The Devil paused on the border, sniffed the air, and saw the stargazy pie steaming below. Horrified, he decided that Cornish people would put anything into a pie, from animals on land to fish from the sea and even birds from the sky. Fearing that he might be next, he turned back towards Devon and never came into Cornwall. The tale gives a comic explanation for the Devil’s absence from the county while also celebrating Cornwall’s long tradition of practical, inventive food folklore.
Trencrom Hill is closely tied to stories of giants. One of the best known tales tells of Tom, a young giant who lived in the area and was known more for his appetite and idleness than for hard work. Although small by giant standards, he was still said to stand around eight feet tall and possessed enormous strength. His mother often tried to push him into being useful, but Tom preferred food and rest until events forced him into a more active role. His story places Trencrom within the wider Cornish tradition of giants who shaped the land, built great walls, guarded treasure, and left their mark on hills, stones, and ancient places. Tom’s main opponent was Blunder, an older and more dangerous giant who had taken control of the roads and surrounding land. One day, while Tom was driving an ox cart loaded with beer from Penzance to St Ives, he found several men struggling to move a fallen tree. Tom lifted it aside with ease, attracting Blunder’s anger. When Blunder tried to drive him away, Tom instead entered his land and challenged his authority. The two giants fought, with Blunder using a huge branch and Tom defending himself with the wheel and axle from his cart. Tom eventually defeated Blunder, who asked to be buried properly and left his wealth and lands to the younger giant. The legend says that Blunder was buried near Trencrom Hill, around Wheal Reeth, and that his treasure remained hidden in the surrounding landscape. Like many Cornish treasure stories, the wealth was believed to be guarded by spriggans, the fierce fairy beings said to protect ancient barrows, stones, and buried riches. The tale of Tom and Blunder therefore links Trencrom not only with giants, but with the idea that the hill and its surroundings hold older powers beneath the surface. It is a story of strength, inheritance, hidden wealth, and the uneasy boundary between folklore and landscape. Trencrom Hill itself has a history far older than the written versions of these stories. Its name is thought to come from the Cornish “torr crobm,” meaning something like “hunched bulge,” a fitting description of its distinctive shape. The summit contains a Neolithic tor enclosure that was later adapted as an Iron Age hillfort, with cairns, hut circles, and stone features showing that the hill was significant over many centuries. From the top, there are wide views across west Cornwall, including Mount’s Bay, St Michael’s Mount, Carn Brea, Godolphin, and, on clear days, the higher ground of Bodmin Moor. Since 1946, Trencrom Hill has been managed by the National Trust and also serves as a memorial to Cornish men and women who died in the two World Wars. Today it is valued for its archaeology, views, wildlife, and folklore. The stories of Tom, Blunder, hidden treasure, and spriggans are not separate from the hill’s history, but part of the way people have understood and explained its presence in the landscape.
Holiburn was remembered as one of the more sociable and kindly giants of west Cornwall. According to tradition, he lived among the rocks of Carn Galva, a remote and dramatic place between Zennor and the high ground above the coast. Unlike many Cornish giants, who were feared for their violence or greed, Holiburn was said to have maintained good relations with nearby farmers. They gave him sheep and oxen, and in return he protected them from the more dangerous giants of Trecrobben. The stories present Holiburn as a defender rather than a threat. He was said to have fought many battles on behalf of his human neighbours, keeping away predatory giants who might otherwise have attacked farms or stolen livestock. The only serious harm he caused to one of his neighbours was described as an accident. While playing with local people, he became excited by the efforts of a young peasant and gave him a friendly tap on the head. Being a giant, he misjudged his strength, and the blow killed the man. There are also traditions that Holiburn may have married a farmer’s daughter. Some accounts suggest that a strong local family, with a name not unlike his own, descended from this union. This kind of detail is common in giant lore, where legendary beings are sometimes used to explain unusual strength, local ancestry, or the origin of family names. In Holiburn’s case, the story makes him less monstrous than many giants and places him closer to the human community around Carn Galva. The landscape between Carn Galva, Zennor, and Trecrobben is full of places connected with giants. Local people pointed out Giant’s Quoits, Giant’s Chairs, a Giant’s Dinner Plate, and other named stones. These features helped bind the stories to the land, turning natural granite formations into traces of a vanished race. Such names also show how strongly giants were believed to have shaped the western hills, leaving behind seats, bowls, plates, graves, and stones from their games. A note by the Zennor postman and poet recorded how persistent these beliefs were. He described the great quoit, Logan rocks, the giant’s washing bowl on Trecrobben Hill, and seats near Zennor vicarage as part of a landscape still marked by giant tradition. He also observed that, although the giants were gone, they were followed in local belief by a smaller race of beings, too small to be seen by ordinary eyes.
The giant Wrath was said to have lived in a great fissure in the cliffs near Portreath, about ten miles east of Hayle. This place was known as the Giant’s Zawn, and later as Ralph’s Cupboard, after a smuggler named Ralph used the same rocky gorge for landing contraband. In the older legend, the zawn opened like a huge mouth in the rock, with the sea crashing into it at high tide and leaving a dry cave at the back. There Wrath made his home, watching the coast for ships, fishing boats, and anyone unfortunate enough to pass too close. Wrath was feared by the fishermen of St Ives, who knew the danger of the water around his lair. When a sea mist, or lew, rolled across the coast and blurred the line between sky, water, and cliff, the giant was said to be at his most eager. Hidden by fog, he would wade into the sea in his heavy boots, listening for voices and smelling the salt, fish, and fear in the air. If a boat came within reach, he stunned the men, tied the vessel to his girdle, and dragged it back to his cave. The strongest and best fed sailors were kept for food, while the leaner ones were thrown back into the sea. One tale tells how a seine boat from St Ives was blown off course in thick fog while searching for pilchards near the coast. The crew heard Wrath splashing through the water and shouting that he would have them for his meal. Rather than wait to be taken, the fishermen laid out their seine net in the waves and used it against him. As Wrath thrashed about in the fog, creatures of the sea seemed to gather around him, biting, clinging, and confusing him. Then the net closed around his arms, legs, hair, and shoulders. The more he struggled, the more tightly he became trapped. The fishermen towed the tangled giant back towards his own zawn and left him there. Then, in the story, thunder shook the cliff and lightning struck the cave, bringing the roof down with a crash and leaving only the fissure in the rock behind. Wrath survived, but he was humbled by the fishermen and their nets. From that day on, he was said to have given up eating the men of St Ives and promised to trouble smugglers instead.
The story of Corineus and Gogmagog belongs to the legendary foundation history of Britain. John Milton included the tale in his History of Britain, drawing on older traditions about Brutus, the supposed Trojan founder of Britain, and Corineus, the warrior who gave his name to Cornwall. In this tradition, Britain was not yet called Britain, but Albion, and it was inhabited by a surviving race of giants. Brutus defeated most of them and divided the island among his followers, while Corineus received Cornwall, partly because the largest and fiercest giants were said to remain hidden in its rocks and caves. The most famous of these giants was Gogmagog, sometimes called Goemagog, who was described as the greatest and strongest of his kind. According to the legend, Brutus and his people had landed at Totnes in Devon and were holding a festival when a band of giants broke in upon them. The attackers were eventually overcome, but Gogmagog was kept alive so that Corineus could wrestle him. The match was not only a contest between two individuals but a symbolic struggle between the old giants of Albion and the incoming Trojan settlers who were imagined to bring a new order to the land. Different versions of the story place the wrestling match on Plymouth Hoe. Gogmagog was said to be enormous, sometimes twelve cubits high and elsewhere eighteen feet tall. Corineus, though human-sized, was skilled, disciplined, and fearless. During the fight, Gogmagog caught him up and broke three of his ribs, but Corineus recovered his strength, seized the giant, lifted him, and carried him towards the cliff. He then threw him down onto the rocks below, where the giant’s body was shattered by the fall. The place was remembered as Gogmagog’s Leap, or Langoemagog, meaning the Giant’s Leap. Later retellings add further detail to the battle. In one version, scouting parties sent inland by Brutus returned in terror, pursued by giants from the country beyond. The Trojans rallied and attacked, driving the giants back towards Dartmoor. Gogmagog, wounded in the leg, hid in a bog but was found by moonlight, bound, and brought back to the camp. Rather than being killed at once, he was treated honourably and allowed to recover before proposing a trial of strength. Whoever won the wrestling match would determine who ruled Cornwall and the western lands. The legend became part of a larger tradition explaining Cornwall’s association with giants. Corineus was remembered as the first king of Cornwall, while Gogmagog represented the older, wilder inhabitants of the land. Stories even claimed that large bones, teeth, or jaws found during later digging works at Plymouth were remains of the giant.
Porthcurno is best known for its pale sand, clear water, and dramatic coastal setting, but it also has a darker strand of folklore. One local legend tells of a ghostly ship seen near the cove after dusk. Robert Hunt described it as a black, square-ribbed, single-masted vessel that seemed to move unnaturally over the sand before vanishing inland. This phantom ship has sometimes been compared with Cornwall’s own version of the Flying Dutchman. In the tale, seeing it was considered an omen of misfortune. Its strange movement from sea to land gave it an especially unsettling character, as though it belonged neither fully to the water nor to the shore. Another story from the area tells of a sinister stranger who once lived near Chygwiden with a disturbing servant and a pack of dogs. They were rumoured to be pirates who went out to sea in violent weather and hunted by night. After the stranger’s mysterious death, both he and his servant disappeared, leaving behind a reputation that became attached to the cove. Some explanations link these stories with natural lights in the water, sometimes called Jack Harry’s Lights, caused by glowing marine life in the waves. Others suggest that smugglers may have encouraged frightening tales to keep people away from the shore.
The story of Cherry of Zennor is another Cornish tale of a human drawn into the world of the small people. Cherry was the daughter of Old Honey, who lived with his wife and many children in a small hut on the cliff side at Trereen, in Zennor. The family was poor, living from a little rough ground, fish, potatoes, limpets, and periwinkles. Cherry was lively, fast, and full of mischief, but as she grew older she became restless. She longed for decent clothes, for fairs, for church, and for the ordinary pleasures other young women seemed to enjoy. When her mother could not provide the promised new dress, Cherry decided to leave home and look for service in the lower country. She set out towards Ludgvan and Gulval, but once she lost sight of Trereen she became homesick and sat crying at the crossroads on Lady Downs. There she was approached by a gentleman who seemed to appear from nowhere. He told her he was a widower looking for a clean, capable girl to keep house and care for his little son. Cherry, unsure and still upset, agreed to go with him. As they walked, the road changed around her. The lanes became shaded with trees, filled with flowers, fruit, birdsong, and sweet scents. After crossing a clear stream, they came to a beautiful garden and a house that seemed richer and brighter than anything Cherry had ever known. The household was strange from the beginning. The gentleman’s child looked young in size but old in expression, with sharp eyes and a crafty face. An old woman named Aunt Prudence ruled much of the house, watching Cherry closely and warning her not to ask questions, open locked doors, or look at things she was not meant to see. Cherry’s work was ordinary enough at first: washing the child, anointing his eyes with a special ointment, milking a mysterious cow, scalding milk, making butter, and cleaning bowls. Yet the place was clearly not ordinary. When Aunt Prudence later took Cherry into a forbidden room, she saw figures of people turned to stone, and a strange coffin-like object that gave out a terrible sound when rubbed. Cherry fainted, and the master angrily drove Aunt Prudence from the house. For a time Cherry became mistress of the household, and her master treated her kindly. But curiosity remained stronger than comfort. She noticed that the ointment made the child’s eyes bright and strange, and wondered what he could see that she could not. One morning, after using it on the child, she secretly touched a little to her own eye. It burned fiercely, but when she washed it in the pool she saw the hidden truth of the place. Beneath the water were hundreds of small people at play, and her master was among them, no longer a tall gentleman but one of their kind. The garden and house were filled with small beings hiding in flowers, swinging in trees, and moving through the grass. Cherry had gained fairy sight, but with it came jealousy and fear. When she later saw her master among the small people, singing and kissing a beautiful lady who seemed like a queen, Cherry confronted him. He realised at once that she had used the forbidden ointment. Sorrowfully, he told her she must return home, because he would not keep someone who spied on his hidden life. Before dawn he led her through long uphill passages and left her near the Lady Downs, with gifts of clothes and other things. When the sun rose, the beautiful garden had vanished, and Cherry found herself alone on the moor. Her family had believed her dead, and at first thought she was a ghost. She told her story many times and never changed it, though people doubted her at first. After that, Cherry was never quite the same, and on moonlit nights she was said to wander back to Lady Downs, still looking for the master she had lost.
The story of Dando belongs to the area around St Germans, near the old priory church and the wooded country beside the River Lynher. Dando was remembered as a priest whose life sat uneasily beside his vows. He was sociable, generous in manner, and liked by many people, but he was also given to rich food, drink, hunting, and self-indulgence. In the tale, his apparent kindness hid a deeper failing. He forgave the faults of others easily because he had no wish to confront his own, and over time, his position as a priest became less a calling than a cloak for appetite and pride. Dando was especially known as a huntsman. He rode across the surrounding country with horses, hounds, and companions, following game through fields, woods, gardens, and farmland without much concern for the damage left behind. Cornfields were trampled, cottage gardens were ruined, and local people cursed him under their breath, though many still feared his priestly power too much to oppose him openly. His worst offence was that he would hunt even on the Sabbath, turning a day of worship into another occasion for sport, drinking, and reckless display. One Sunday morning, Dando and his companions were hunting across the Earth estate. The sport was good, but after a long chase, he became exhausted and called for a drink. When his followers told him that their flasks were empty, he demanded more and joked that they should go to hell for it if they could not find it on Earth. At that moment, a strange hunter appeared among them, mounted on a magnificent black horse with shining eyes. He offered Dando a rich flask and said the drink came from the very place the priest had named. Dando drank deeply, and the liquor seemed to cling to his lips until he was overcome. Even in his drunken state, Dando noticed that the stranger had taken some of the game from the hunt. His selfishness rose at once. He claimed the game as his own, while the hunter replied that what he caught, he kept. Dando raged, swore, and staggered towards the stranger, but the black horse turned aside and sent him crashing to the ground. When Dando shouted that he would go to hell after the game if he had to, the hunter answered that he would. He seized Dando, lifted him as though he weighed nothing, and set him before him on the horse. The horse rushed down the hill with its hooves striking fire, followed by the barking hounds. It reached the banks of the Lynher and leapt far out into the water. Horse, rider, priest, and hounds vanished in a blaze of fire, and for a moment the river itself was said to boil before flowing on as before. Dando was never seen again. The tale became a warning against hypocrisy, greed, Sabbath-breaking, and the misuse of spiritual office. In St Germans Church, a carved chair was said to preserve the story of Dando and his dogs, while local tradition claimed that his hounds could still sometimes be heard early on Sunday mornings, running unseen in pursuit of game.
Big cat folklore has become one of Britain’s most persistent modern legends. Across the country, people have reported seeing large black cats, pumas, panthers, or lynx-like animals moving through moors, woods, fields, and lanes. Some sightings may come from escaped exotic pets, misidentified animals, or the power of suggestion, but the stories endure because they speak to a familiar unease: the thought that something wild, watchful, and not fully explained might still live close to human settlement. In Cornwall, that wider tradition is most strongly represented by the Beast of Bodmin Moor. The Beast of Bodmin Moor is one of Cornwall’s best known modern legends, but it sits within a much older pattern of stories about strange animals, wild places, and creatures seen at the edge of certainty. For many people, the Beast has become a joke or a tourist image, but the original reports were taken seriously by witnesses, farmers, police, journalists, and later government investigators. The idea is simple: a large cat, often described as black, dark brown, or puma-like, was said to be roaming the isolated moorland of central Cornwall. Whether it was an escaped animal, a surviving wild predator, a misidentified dog or cat, or something stranger, the Beast became part of the folklore of Bodmin Moor because it gave shape to real fears about remote land, livestock losses, night sightings, and the unknown. The incident that brought the story to national attention happened on 26 October 1993, when Jane Fuller was walking her dog near Cardinham. She said she was struck from behind, knocked to the ground, and briefly stunned. When she came round, her dog was growling at something in the darkness, and she saw what she described as a very large, dark, cat-like creature with a long upward curling tail. The police stated that she was suffering from severe shock and examined the area for evidence, including reports of a footprint and strands of hair. Newspapers quickly seized on the story, and within days the name “Beast of Bodmin” was appearing across the national press. The publicity made the story famous, but farmers on Bodmin Moor had already been reporting strange attacks for years. Some accounts of livestock deaths went back at least to the early 1980s, especially around East Moor. Farmers such as Rosemary Rhodes of Ninestones Farm and John Goodenough of Goodaver Farm believed they had seen a large cat and blamed it for repeated losses of sheep and other animals. Rosemary sold her flock after several killings, and John Goodenough became one of the strongest voices arguing that the authorities were not taking the danger seriously. He warned that a big cat killed differently from a dog, leaving less mess, and he even put up a sign warning of wild big cats in the area. The police and press both became involved in increasingly unusual ways. Wildlife experts were consulted, and some newspapers offered large sums for photographs of the animal. In November 1993, a female puma named Promise was reportedly brought to the moor in a cage near Jamaica Inn in an attempt to lure out the Beast, which some believed to be a male puma. Nothing decisive came from the attempt, but sightings and livestock attacks continued. In December 1993, Rosemary Rhodes captured blurry footage of what she believed was the creature, and some experts were said to have thought it showed a big cat. Others remained sceptical. Local witnesses included farmers, pub customers, clergy, and tradesmen, some of whom insisted that what they had seen was not an ordinary domestic cat. In 1995, the government ordered an official investigation, sending wildlife biologist Charlie Wilson to Bodmin Moor. His report concluded that there was no verifiable evidence of a big cat living on the moor, though it did not prove that one had never been there. Later, a large cat skull found near the River Fowey seemed briefly to offer stronger evidence, but the Natural History Museum identified it as a leopard skull that had probably been imported as part of a skin rug. Theories have continued ever since, including escaped pumas from private collections, released zoo animals, surviving wildcats, misidentification, deliberate exaggeration, or paranormal folklore.
