INSTITUTE OF CORNISH STUDIES CORNISH STUDIES Cornish Studies (second series) exists to reflect current research conducted Second Series internationally in the inter-disciplinary field of Cornish St?dies. It is edited by Professor Philip Payton, Director of the Institute of Cornish Studies at the University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus, and is published by University of Exeter Press. The opinions expressed in Cornish Stu~ies are those of EIGHTEEN individual authors and are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher. The support of Cornwall Council is gratefully acknowledged. edited by · Philip Payton UNIVERSITY Cover illustration: 'By the Committee Boat: Are you Ready?' of by W. H. Bartlett. Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1890, · it shows the start of a race from the 1896 swimming matches in. St Ives EXETER (courtesy ofDavid Tovey) PRESS Contents :· J . ~· .. Fmt published in 2010 by . ~ . ~ University of Exeter Press Reed Hall, Streatham Drive Notes on contributors vii Exeter EX4 4Q!l UK Introduction 1 www.exeterpress.co.uk 1 Mining the Data: What can a Qyantitative Approach tell © Philip Payton 2010 us about the ~1icro-Geography of Nineteenth-Century The right of Philip Payton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted Cornish mining? 15 by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and PatentS Acts 1988. Bernard Deacon (Institute of Cornish Studies, University of Exeter) British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 2 South Crofty and the Regeneration of Pool: National ISBN 978 0 85989 860 7 Agenda v Cornish Ethnicity? 33 Richard Harris (Institute of Cornish Studies, University of Exeter) 3 When is a NIMBY not a NIMBY?: The case of the St Dennis Anti-Incinerator Group 58 Jon Cope (University College Falmouth) 4 Meanings of Cornishness: A Study of Contemporary Cornish Identity 70 Typeset in Adobe Caslon Robert Dickinson (Institute of Cornish Studies, University of Exeter) by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster Printed in Great Britain by TJ International, Padstow 5 Imagining the Swimming: Discourses of Modernity, Identity and Nationhood in the Annual Swimming Matches in Late Victorian Cornwall 101 Geoffrey Swallow (St Ives, Cornwall) ..~o/_': vi Cornish Studies: Eighteen 6 Cornish Folklore: Context and Opportunity 121 Ronald M. James (Nevada State Historic Preservation Office, and University of Nevada, Reno, United States of America} 7 Bucca Redivivus: History, Folklore and the Construction of Ethnic Identity within Modern Pagan Witchcraft in Cornwall 141 Notes on Contributors Jason Semmens (Horsham Mus~m, West Sussex) 8 The Stage of the Nation in Medieval Cornwall 162 Eleanor Lavan (New York University, United States of America) Jon Cope leads the Advertising, Public Relations and Events programme at University College Falmouth. Prior to joining the University College, he had 9 The Preterite in Cornish 179 pursued a 12-year career in communications, focusing particularly on social · Nicholas]. A. Williams (University College Dublin) marketing, issues management and .health communications. He completed his Master of Arts degree in Critical Global Politics at the University of 10 The Three Epitaphs of Dolly Pentreath 203 Exeter in 2010, with a special interest in media discourse analysis. Matthew Spriggs {Australian National University) and Richard Bernard Deacon is Senior Lecturer in Cornish Studies at the Institute of Gendall (Liskeard, Cornwall} Comish Studies at the University of Exeter's Cornwall Campus, where he is also director of the Master of Arts in Cornish Studies programme. He has written extensively on Cornish topics, including Cornwall· A Concise History (2007). ' . Robert Dickinson works as a translator in Geneva, Switzerland. In 2010 he graduated from the University of Exeter with a Master of Arts degree in Cornish Studies. His research interests include representations of Cornwall in travel writing and the contemporary Cornish identity. f Richard Gendall was formerly Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of Cornish Studies, University of Exeter, and is the leading expert on the Comish language in its Late or Modem stage as well as a prominent architect of revived Cornish. His comprehensive dictionary on Late/Modern Cornish is shortly to appear. Richard Harris graduated from the University of Exeter in 2010 with a Master of Arts degree in Cornish Studies, and is currently studying for a PhD at the Institute of Cornish Studies. Ronald M.James is State Historic Preservation Officer for the State of Nevada, United States of America, and adjunct faculty at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he teaches folklore and history. He has written widely on the history and folklore of the Western mining frontier of North America, with particular reference to the Cornish. In 1981-82, he was the viii Cornish Studies: Eighteen International Telephone and Telegraph Fellow in Ireland, where he studied at the Department of Irish Folklore at University College Dublin. Eleanor Lavan is a Fulbright Postgraduate Award scholar at the New ·· York University English faculty, where she is studying on the English and American Literature Master of Arts programme, her specialist interests including Modernism, Irish literature, literary theory, and performance studies. She also holds a BA degree in English Language and Literature . 'f lntroc from King's College London. Born in Cornwall, she grew up in Devon and Belfast. She is an award-winning writer - in 2002 her anthology Bully for You won Amnesty International's competition 'A Fairer World: A World Without Torture', and 2006 she was the youngest finalist in the Vogue magazine Young The 'New Cornish Studies' project is : Talent Contest, ultimately placed third. She is also an experienced actress and on how and where one locates its 1 theatre-maker. Her own production company, Sidelong Glance, presented The progeny - the 'new Cornish histor Bud Opens at The Drill Hall in London in June 2009. science' - that emerged in the earl) Jason Semmens comes from Camborne, Cornwall, and is currently Assisatnt sought to investigate and elucidate Curator at Horsham Museum, West Sussex. He is an independent researcher as to discuss its implications for sc with Master of Arts degrees from the Universities of Exeter and Leicester. Cornwall. His publications includ~ The Witch of the West: Or, The Strange and Wonderful In some respects, the project hi Ifjstory :J 1homasid·nehBlig.Wih~ h(2004)Ghand 7hChe Cornishd ~tl.~~;ftnd:;:CWilliaml'f ;i and the Cornish are increasingly nenry raynter an t e ttc ery, osts, arms an .ro 1<.1ore 0 ornwa i 'Britishness', from the formation of (2009), along with numerous contributions to journals, including Folklore l expansion of an Imperial 'British V and Journal for the Academic Study of Magic. '.i United Kingdom of the twenty-first :1 has brought together scholars from ar Matthew Spriggs is Professor ofArchaeology in the School ofArchaeology and 1 linguistics, and political science, 2 Anthropology at the Australian National University, Canberra. His research t methodologies, both quantitative an interests are Pacific and Island Southeast Asian Archaeology, and Cornish history and biography. Reflexive an language history, both ·the former and latter because of family connections. has also acknowledged its normafr Geoffrey Swallow is a writer and project consultant. His 2008 Master of Arts studying Cornwall and the Cornish 1 in Cornish Studies dissertation, 'A Foot in the Surf or a Body in the Waves: identity in the contemporary world, f Surfing's Early Formation in the Cultural Construction of Place in Cornwall Cornish aspirations - and has souE ~ 1906-1966', was the first extended academic treatment of the cultural history these in the light of academic del: . of surfing in Cornwall. His work on the annual ·swimming .matches in the subtle appreciation of diversity with South West is part of his MPhil research into the early cultural construction as culturally and temporally, a scho of sea bathing in Cornwall. He is also currently working on a biography of but positively demands recognition - . George Kistler, Cornwall's leading swimmer of the Victorian professional each worthy of separate, comparati era. Although much of this debate · by no means exclusively) under the Nicholas J. A. Williams retired as Associate Professor of Celtic Studies at practitioriers of 'New Cornish St University College Dublin. He has published and lectured extensively on the upon community engagement - v Cornish, Manx and Irish languages, and is editor with Graham Thomas of calls 'Impact' - and have endeavou Bewnans Ke/The Life of St Kea: A Critical Edition with Translation (2007). This has meant, sometimes, pub! 202 Cornish Studies: Eighteen Nance R; M. Nance, An English-Cornish Dictionary (Marazion, 1952). OM 'Orgio Mundi', Edwin Norris, 7he Ancient Cornish Drama (London 1859 [reprinted New York/London, 1968]), vol. i, 1-219. ' ' ,,r' PA Whitley Stokes (ed.), 'Pascon agan Arluth: the Passion of Our Lord', 10 i Transactions of the Philological Society (186o-61, Appendix 1-100). l \' PC 'Passio Domini Nostri Jhesu Christi', Edwin Norris, 7he Ancient Cornish r Drama (London, 1859 [reprinted New York/London 1968]), vol. i, 221-479. '1.:11 RC Revue Celtique. The Three Epitaphs RD 'Resurre:x:io Domini Nostri Jhesu Christi', Edwin Norris, 7he AnCient ~ :i:j ·I· Cornish Drama (London, 1859 [reprinted New York/London, 1968)), of Dolly Pentreath ii! vol. ii, 1-199. SA Sacrament an Alter, text quoted from an unpublished edition by i D. H. Frost, Sacrament an Alter: Part II (St David's College, 2003). Matthew Spriggs and Richard Gendall '.i .'.l TH John Tregear, Home/yes xiii in Cornysche (British Library Additional MS 46397) [text quoted from a cyclostyled text published by Christopher Bice [s.1.) 1969)). i j~ wi I " ,, 'Hail mousehole! birth place of Old Doll Pentreath'1 -~ . ~· ···'.:1 Dolly (or Dorothy) Pentreath's iconic status in Cornish Studies is scarcely .. ·.~ in doubt today, portrayed on postcards and tea-towels in her home village 1:~ ..