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The Devil won't come to Cornwall in case he is put inside a pie · The Corn(ish) Witch

• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Cornish Witch podcast.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host Freya, a witch who lives in Cornwall but who isn't a born and bred Cornish maid.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: In this bonus episode, I'm joined by Nick Elvie to talk about her lifelong connection to nature, a family lineage shaped by witchcraft and Romany traveller heritage, and the way those threads led into research on Cornish folklore.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Our conversation moves through the Cornish locations of China Clay, Roach Rock, Ritual Landscapes, and we discuss the overlooked role of women in keeping folklore alive through food, family memory, and practical creativity.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: We discuss how folklore can be buried in landscapes, recipes, and domestic stories, and why places still carry traces of older meanings.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Nick also shares her artwork and zines, including pieces inspired by soup, fortune-telling fish, and magical realism.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Hi! Welcome to the show.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for coming down and agreeing to record an episode.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, really looking forward to it.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Where would you where where would you like to start?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I could I can start with a bit that has got me in it, if you like.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so probably at the centre of everything I do is nature and landscape.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: As a as a job for a long time, I've been doing outdoor education.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I did start my working life as a teacher, secondary.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: That was scary.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: But that after having children, that kind of evolved into doing more community-based stuff.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was quite arts-based initially, and then I started doing some of that art stuff outside and realised that then you got this kind of double double benefit.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: So then you got the art bit, but you got all the benefits of being outside.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: Also, as a neurodivergent person, I think I ended up not on purpose, but somehow ended up working with lots of neurodivergent people, and quite often that can be easier for them outside.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I think I've always probably been a bit of an outdoor person.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: I was definitely an outdoor kid.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: Where I grew up wasn't massively kind of beautiful landscape, but I always kind of noticed things as they changed.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: I really loved the season change, I really loved weather, and I remember autumn and conquers and frosty grass, and I just loved everything, you know, as a kid.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that's never really gone away.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it's I do change what I'm interested in quite often.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: I can get bored quite quickly.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, this outdoor thing and nature has never gone away.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it's always been there, and it's not been something I've ever got bored of.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's probably at the centre of my spiritual anything.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's really key to me as a human and what I do, what I do creatively, but also what I believe.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: But in terms of sort of other spiritual beliefs, I do come from a family that is quite sort of witchy and magical.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: My my nan on my mum's side was a Wiccan.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I I kind of I think I sort of knew that as a kid.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: I remember her sort of reading Everybody's Tarot in the kitchen.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: But we weren't we weren't allowed in there.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: So like Yeah, but like all the female relatives would be around, and I remember that.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a really strong memory.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then later I ended up with some of her stuff after she died, and fairly recently I just discovered that she's got classic kind of wicken amber and jet beads in in this stuff that I've had for years.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, literally, maybe only this year, I I sort of recognized what they were.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, no, maybe last year, I think it's I went to an exhibition that was well, I went to the witchcraft museum in Boss Castle, and they had a specific exhibition in there, and then some of the photographs, they they just look like my Nam basically.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well I like that classic sort of very glamorous eyelinered, yeah, just stunning, you know, Wiccan women of the sort of 50s and 60s.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then someone was wearing these beads in the photograph, and I thought, hang on, I'm pretty sure there's something like that.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I went back to have a look in her stuff, and yeah, so and I I didn't know that I had this really important item.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I that's definitely a thing on one side of my family, and on the other side of my family, we think there's probably a sort of gypsy Roma traveller heritage there, although it's really hard to find.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I've done tons and tons of sort of ancestry stuff, you know, trying to dig into it, and I wasn't sure for a really long time if I was gonna actually find any hardcore evidence of any of that because there's just the kind of family narratives from my dad and my granddad and my grandma on that side, but I have actually found evidence of that now, you know.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's uh on a census someone is recorded as living on the side of a road in a tent, and then someone else is in a caravan somewhere, and there's quite a lot of history in parts of the country where they were kind of going and doing hot picking, you know, in Kent.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't so yeah, I've grown up with it.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know if that sort of means I kind of take it for granted a little bit, uh, but it's definitely like a stick of rock, it kind of is the thing that runs all the way through.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's so interesting.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Are you from Cornwall?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I moved to Cornwall.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't choose to move to Cornwall.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: My parents moved to Cornwall and I was 13.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I grew up here.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like all of my main sort of memories are here.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: My life is here.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: My kids have grown up here, two of them were born here.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: I still don't know whether that means that they're Cornish, mind you.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how many generations you have to have before you can be considered Cornish.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure if there are any Cornish listeners out there who know the answer to this.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's possible being that yeah, we're not Cornish yet.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my relatives were kind of in London and the London area, and then interestingly, when my parents chose to move to Cornwall, they moved to a house that was being sold by the witch of the village.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Which sounds like a fairy tale.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: No, I know, but it's like, yeah, it's really interesting.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: But again, I probably just kind of took that for granted to be fair.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but when we moved there, I remember there were like lots of sort of items around that were really quite obvious.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: But and I j but I don't know whether other people would have been put off buying this house.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because she hadn't made any effort to hide any of it, you know.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: So people looking at the house probably would have been really put off purchasing it.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: But my parents probably weren't bothered, you know, it would have been a part of what they understood as well.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds incredible.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds it's I I'm kind of getting practical magic vibes, like you've got like this magical history, heritage, lineage in your family, which is which is so lovely.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you it sounds like you're very you said you're very into nature, you're like, you know, a child of nature, and kind of like like I suppose if one would describe like what would be your church be, for you would it be nature?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh hundred percent, yeah.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: To the point where I've sort of explored, you know, things like animism and because it's such a an essential part of what I connect with, and I don't necessarily see it as something separate, you know, and then at and really, really tough times in my life where maybe it didn't feel like there were any people that were sort of safe or reliable or caring enough, then definitely nature has never kind of failed me.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's a really big thing.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And have you said you mentioned you have children?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Do you are your children into sort of nature or magical side of things?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well have they sort of adopted that from you and all that.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they're definitely nature-y and creative.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: One went off to do adventure studies, another one is really into nature, but from a more science perspective, and the youngest one is sort of overtly into folklore and those kinds of things.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, she makes film.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, she yeah, she's just off to uni in September to do a filmmaking course, but everything that she's done so far as a student has revolved around folklore, and she's very attached to the land and the sea of normal.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: She f really feels Cornwall.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: But in fact, she's gonna go to Norwich.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, but there was this sort of tussle for a really, really long time about whether to stay attached to the subject of you know her art or whether it was time to sort of move on.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I think nature definitely is a thread for all of them.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned your daughter's uh really into folklore and has been doing a film uh her filming around that.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's a really good segue actually for us to talk about folklore and and your work with folklore.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've been following you on Instagram for a little while.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: It all comes out now.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I and the artwork that you do and and the things that you post, I absolutely love it.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I love the uh I love the story you sent me of uh of those Cornish posters, and one in particular really made me giggle because it it said something like the devil will never step foot in Cornwall for fear he gets put into a pasty, which I thought was brilliant.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that's part of my research to look into folklore that uh centres women a bit more because uh I think folklore is really cool right now.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's really too.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a hot topic.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is a big thing.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: But such a lot of it is quite sort of male-centric or patriarchal, maybe that's a better word, it's still a bit kind of patriarchal, and there is a lot of evidence for women in folklore, but you just have to kind of look a bit harder.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's not on the street, it's not in a procession, but it's not those really big public celebrations that we all love.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: I love them, but when I go to them, I see them and I just sometimes I just literally think, well, where are all the women?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because they're not there.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I think folklore for women tends to be in places that are maybe kind of archived in families.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I I find this really fascinating because I just think there's so much information and treasure there, but often it sort of might stay within the family, and that might be uh anecdotal and verbal, uh, but it can be in the things that have been written, but in a very sort of particular family vibe.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: So things like recipe books, but family recipes, and so you might just have a weird sheet of paper from a relative or a friend's that you know has been doing the generations and it's a recipe for something or other, and you've just got it sort of stuffed in the back of another cookbook that you use.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing about the the devil, the devil won't come to Cornwall because he's afraid he'll get stuck in a pie.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's based on also this information and knowledge that is still there if you think about that as a saying that demonstrates that women of Cornwall were really, really good at making something from nothing to sustain their families and to sustain their communities and the people they loved.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I did find with a bit of research at Creson Kerno, I did find some uh recipes and recipe books, and you you you could put anything in a pie or anything in a pasty, and in times when it was like I don't know, maybe like harvests were not as great, or it was the wrong time of year for meat or for fish, or then literally they would just use anything and a lot of foraging, like just green herbs and weeds, things we would think of weeds now, and then turn them into something you know, lovely, usually in pastry.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: But then the interesting thing I think about this is that there's quite a lot of I don't know, people are really attached to the idea of what a proper pasty is, and the reality would have been in families like a century ago, a pasty would have had whatever there was.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: If she if you didn't have beef, there would be no beef in it, you'd have whatever else there was.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think Cornish women were kind of really well known for being creative about what was available.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so then that's led to this saying, you know, the devil won't come to Cornwall because he's scared he'll get stuck in a pie.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: I absolutely love that.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and just Cornish women very resourceful.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: What parts of Cornish folklore do you like to research the most, or do you have any sort of favourite stories?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I've been on a bit of a sort of a bit of a mission to try and investigate a bit more the what some people might call a sort of ritual landscape or a sacred landscape, maybe I don't know, of the China Clay area.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Which is really tricky because obviously it's like a lot of China clay industry and you know, pits and small heaps and stuff.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I grew up there and and I've lived in quite a lot of the uh China Clay villages weirdly as it happens, and then over the years I've just kind of sort of noticed little things, and then I've thought, well, I wonder how that relates to this or how that relates to this.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for people that live in Cornwall or are interested in Cornish folklore attached to the land, I think that whole area just is overlooked, understandably, completely understandably.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: However, you could argue that, you know, it is a mining, it's a mining industry in the China Clay, but a different type.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yet we've got tin mining, which is really kind of the stuff of legends, you know, and then we we will talk about buckers in the mines and things like that.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I do feel a bit I'm a bit of a fan of the underdog, no matter what really, but I do feel like the China Clay area is a bit of an underdog in terms of folklore and its stories and its heritage.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: For those listeners who aren't sort of to repair Cornwall and where it is or where it is or the history behind it, we could have a very brief on China Clay.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: So if anybody knows St Austell or St Austel Bay, the China Clay area is largely more inland, but will have taken in parts of the coast like Charlestown is really famous.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, anyone that uh watches Poldart will might be aware of Charlestown because that's where the China Clay would have gone and then gone out on ship.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: The China Clay was discovered after William Cookworthy uh was puzzling over how sort of China porcelain was so gorgeous and lovely, and then discovered it, uh, not actually in the China Clay area, the main China Clay area of St.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Austin, but somewhere else.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: But then later discovered that there was a better quality China clay in the ground in the St.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Austil area.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then it was essentially a bit like a gold rush.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um with lots of separate companies that eventually then came together and became In English China Clay and then later was taken over by Immerists.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: But it did mean that the parts of the lands, which now I think probably would not be dissimilar to say Bodman Moore, lots of more land was just well dug up basically.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so then everything that came out of the ground needed somewhere to go.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you end up with this sort of scenario where you've got pits that have been dug, but then also have other areas that have been covered because what comes out of the ground has to be kind of heaped up.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just started doing this investigation to see whether there were any clues.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: So the maybe the easiest example I can give you, and uh the most obvious example is in the village of Roach, which is also where Roach Rock is, which is also a bit of an underdog in terms of you know, a monument, it's amazing.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's a standing stone in the village of Roach, next to the Laumdret, in front of these kind of bungalows.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: In and it just seems really out of place, and that's because it is out of place.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: And when they were digging not so far away, they were starting to uh, you know, find a new area that they were gonna dig for China Clay.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: They moved this stone, and I mean in a way we're quite lucky that they chose to move it because I think there are other things that probably were destroyed rather than moved.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: So you can go and see this standing stone in Roach, not in its original position, but it's evidence, if you like, that the area did have that kind of ritual landscape features that that you would expect to see in other places, maybe like on Bobby Moore or down west.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh with a bit more digging, there are other other clues that you can find.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, for example, there's a bit of China clay works that is called nine stones.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: So presumably where that those works are, there might have been nine stones, and we won't know if it was in you know a row or a circle or you know what form that took.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe someone out there knows and they can let me know because that'd be amazing.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's another clay clay pit, clay works called Guna Barrow, which then points to the fact that there are loads of barrows all around there, there are loads of burial mounds, and one of one of the few places that still actually exists is called Hens Barrow, and it would have been the highest point in that area where from that that sort of view you could have seen so much around you.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: But now if you go there, there's like clay tips, clay spoil that is much much higher than what would have been the highest point at the time, and from there you can sort of see that there are, especially if you get your maps out.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: I do love a map, so I do like to also dig into old maps, but you can see that from that hens barrow point, lots of things would have maybe been in view.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's there, yeah, but it's just not there in the way that it would be on Bob and Moore or it would be, you know, in Penzance down that way.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: So see, it takes quite a lot of digging and it takes quite a lot of patience and uh you know, tragically also quite a lot of guesswork because some of it we we won't necessarily know, but I am still on that kind of journey of trying to unpack it all and see what there is.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Have you come across any with the China Clay mines, have you come across any folkloric stories about the Tommy Knockers?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't, not not specifically, because I think that the the way that China Cla Clay is mined is quite different to how Tin was mined.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a different process, and although it's like really dangerous, it was kind of dangerous in a different way.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so it wasn't all necessarily about you know, going underground and then those things like with the buckers would have been really, really key.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: But it's slightly different, and so no I'm sure it's there somewhere, but again it's Not as obvious.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's so interesting.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's like you said, it can chin or clay does get quite missed.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so much history to it.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so much more to be discovered as well.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, it is it is an underdog.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Compared to the copper mines, the tin mines, and then all of the the folklore around the Tommy Knockers within those as well.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: So hopefully that as your research goes on, you'll be able to you'll you'll hopefully discover some, as you do more digging.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: So no pun intended, but I know.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you'll discover more, which is uh yeah, incredible.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: You've brought in some beautiful artwork here and you've and your scenes.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Zinn.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Do you say z I don't know how some real does Words are hard.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Do you pronounce it zin or zines?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Zin.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Zine.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: This one's beautiful, or Roach Rock.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Roach Rock.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: What's the history behind Roach Rock?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: So Roach Rock is now it is a medieval chapel that was built on top of what was already an outcrop of rock.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um I just I think Roach Rock is fascinating in itself because I feel like if that was in a different area of Cornwall, it would probably have a heritage centre or something.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's such such a beautiful monument.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then for a long time I wasn't sure if, you know, pre-the chapel being built, which of course would have been a Christian thing, whether it had any meaning.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then I came across some quite lengthy sort of archaeological reports where just over the road they were doing some excavations to see whether it would be okay to build some new houses.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And what they'd discovered were some Neolithic pits, and quite a few of them.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: And they had items in them, and the way that they were left suggested that they could have actually been ritual, like they could have been a part of a sort of ritual visit to the area.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the pits themselves had kind of ritual items deposited in them.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then I just thought, oh wow, this is like amazing.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so as part of this kind of clay area, uh sacred landscape research that I was doing, this was a really, really key thing.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: It demonstrated that people were travelling to the area.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: They were coming specifically to Roach Rock before the chapel, obviously, and they didn't stay for very long, and that was sort of evident in the kind of cooking and everything that they did and what and what was left there.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: But the items that they left were quite key and gave us some information about what the landscape would have been like, so it would have been a lot more wooded, but not completely.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think there were like hazelnut shells.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: And hazel quite likes kind of wet moorland.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know it enjoys that kind of environment, but it won't grow if it hasn't got enough sunlight.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it sort of demonstrated that there would be some open areas.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I just thought that was such an important piece of information for us to understand about that area generally and about the outcrop without the chapel.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: But then this week actually, I just went on a walk uh that was around Roach and uh they did stop at it was like an organized walk, sorry, it was with with someone from the Old Cornwall Society.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we did stop at Roach Rock for a bit, but then he was talking about how they discovered a Neolithic longhouse also not very far away, when they were having to investigate what could have been there before they built the new road.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: And something else as well, but I can't remember.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: What else would it have been?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's definitely a longhouse, and apparently he said that's only the second one that we know to have in Cornwall.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: So that area generally would have been important, it would have been quite significant.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: In what ways we're not really fully sure, but it definitely has a history that is, you know, linked to something that was maybe, you know, important not just in terms of survival and agriculture later, but also some kind of ritual journeys that people would have been going on.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if there's any ley lines that go through Roach.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's the chapel I think is called St Michael's Chapel, and then I think there is a ley line that does some or several probably that do include Roach Rock in it, and uh I don't know whether it might be the St Michael one, because then obviously further down there's St Michael's Mount and you know there's quite a few things, but I think it does link.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's a map on Google that you can look up where someone but it is crazy because there are so many alignments on there, but yeah, Roach Rock is taken into that quite quite often, and then if you carry on to the coast towards St Hostel, there's a really well-known well there called Menacuddle Well, which lots of people like to go and visit, and that does align with things like Hensborough Downs that I mentioned, and then Roach Rock, and then it carries on, and there's lots of other things right over to the other coast.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh great, okay.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's I've never paid much attention to Roach, and now I feel quite bad.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: I feel it's always been a phase that you just kind of passed through.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: It seems like a quite a sort of a strange betwixt liminal space.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I never really paid it much attention.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: I just sort of passed through it.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was it that was there wasn't much there, but and I always knew about Roach Rock, but again, I never really it was never at the forefront of my mind, and now it's I'm so thankful that we have people like yourselves who go and visit these places and and take an interest and discover the history behind it because I've got to learn something new, but also I have a much more appreciation for Roach now, and it's definitely something that I'm gonna wanna now make the effort to go to and explore some more.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, honestly, if you went to just Roach without considering any of the sort of surrounding areas, you could go visit Roach Rock, you could go and see the menu, the stone that's next to the laundry.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: There is also really old, I'm not sure how old it would have been, but there is an old cross that's in the uh churchyard, St.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Gamonders, in there, and that's really interesting and important, and apparently that would have been used as a sort of preaching stone before it became the place for the church.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then just over near the services, there is another well, it's really hard to find, and it's a bit of a trek, but it's for people that are interested in Holy Wells, it's like a it's a good one because it you have to earn it, it is quite sort of hard to find.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then you could go up and you could find um Hens Barrow and get a sense of you know everything that you can see.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's right next to Gossmore, Roach is next door to Gossmore, so there are some barrows there too.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you go to I'm not sure if you can see it from Roach Rock, but definitely from Hens Barrow, you can see Castle and Dinus or Castle and Dinus just over the A30, and genuinely you could spend a good sort of half a day mooching round there and looking at different kinds of magical, sacred, ritual things, but it does involve a bit of an effort and having to go off off the the obvious map, I think, the obvious folklore map.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: Roach Rock itself has got quite a lot of stories that surround it, so they think that maybe a hermit lived there or that it was a hermitage, the chapel that was built.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: And have you heard of Jantra Geagle?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: So there is a story about Jan Trageagle, is the kind of classic Cornish bad person in in Cornish mythology who is really interesting because their parts of their story seem to be in lots of bits of Cornwall, not just there.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so they were kind of fleeing the devil apparently, and then ended up at Rach Rock.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I think they might have been scared out of Rach Rock by the Devil's Hounds or something like that.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: But Jan Tregigal was a really bad man and was actually based on someone real, right?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: Who I think was maybe buried at St.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Rioch Church.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: So one day, as part of our sort of outdoor education stuff, we had a little mini bus tour where we went and visited lots of the places in the area that was related to this Jan Tregigle character.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: So Roach Rock was one, that was like really obvious.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: We went to St.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Rioch Church.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: We also went to Dosmory Pool because apparently one of the tasks he'd been given was to empty Dosmory Pool with a limpet shell that had a hole in it.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: But then it's not just all in that area because apparently he had another task where he had to weave the sand into rope, and that might have been more kind of Helston-ish, maybe like low bar down there.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: So Roach Rock is actually quite a key part of that folk story.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: But John Trigido as a character is kind of quite broad.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: He's also considered to be one of the giants.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's interesting when you look into it, because sometimes he's a giant and sometimes he isn't.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I think he also was a magistrate at Imbodme.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: So we went to visit the corpse there as a part of this tour.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's quite a central place, right?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: I would say.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Has it got any supernatural stories like any hauntings or sort of creatures that were sort of gonna come under that folklore umbrella, things that are that things that are uncanny around it?
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh Jan Tregougal is a kind of semi-human, semi supernatural sort of figure.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um but obviously the devil.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then I what I do know is I think it was used in one of the Omen films.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think it there is there is a part of one of the Omen films, I think, where Roach Rock actually figures in it.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it's obviously got this you know reputation of being a bit of a spooky place.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: But it's interesting that you asked this, because actually on this walk this week, the the guy who was leading and and you know, talking about all these different places on the tour, he very specifically said that he doesn't go for the idea that there were witches there.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's this other side of the the mythology of Roach Rock that it is a place where witches go.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: But according to him and the other people in the village, they've never known anything like that.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: So there might be places, well, there definitely are places in Cornwall that will be really well known as you know, um a site where witches might like to hang out.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: But apparently, according to him, he thinks definitely not.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was really emphatic about it, it was quite interesting.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Apparently, not at Roach Rock, but if anybody knows that to not be true, that would be amazing information.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: They can let you know, let me know.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know of you must you probably do know of Carnbray and Carnebrew Castle?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: I find that place absolutely fascinating, and I I've been to the castle a couple of times for it's a restaurant now, it's amazing.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: I took my mum, my mum there and her friends for her birthday a couple of years ago, and I got an awesome picture of my mum and her two friends, and my mum was kind of wearing like this sort of long shawl and poncho, and they were standing on this rock facing the castle, and then you could see the castle, it's all its glory with the rocks where it's being held up by the rocks underneath, and it just looked like three witches doing this towards it was amazing an amazing, amazing photo.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I find that place so interesting, and again, I don't know much of the history around it, and just the way that castle is structured on those boulders is incredible, like yeah.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's not unusual for those high places to then be adapted and have something built on it, and yeah, and it might be something that is a dwelling or or a fort or a or like in the case of Roach Rock, you know, like a chapel.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's happened quite a lot, and then in some places we know that something was there, but it's no longer there.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: So one of my other f favourite places, which is just sort of over the road from Roach Rock, is Castle and Diners.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I think there's another one of the same name, but maybe down west.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: But this is like an Iron Age fort, and when you go up there, you can actually see like a full 360 on a good day, anyway, not on a mizzle day, no, and it's amazing, and you just think, wow, yeah, of course this would have been an important place because you could see everything, you could see if people were on their way to you, you could see all the resources all around you, you could see oncoming weather, you know, it's like really good advantage point, such such an important place, and then I I also have just always felt, you know, being up on a hill of any sort, it doesn't even have to be a mountain.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, really, a mountain is quite a sort of lofty thing because you can just go up your local hill and still get a sense of you know where you are, and I I think hills would have been really, really important, and then we know this because they built various scenes on them, and then another clay area hill is what is now St Dennis Church, so in the village of St.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: Dennis, where St Dennis Church is was also an Iron Age fort, and then so you can start to kind of kind of connect this in the landscape, and you look at Hensborough, and then you look at St Dennis, which is a church, and we would almost forget it now because it's got a church on it, but it didn't used to have a church on it, and then uh you can look over to Cast and Dinus, and all of these things are all in the same kind of view, yeah.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then look a bit further over, and you've got Rosenun and Downs, and then on the top of those downs you can clearly see the silhouette of two really strong barrows that are still there.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then in that area is an enormous monolith, maybe one of the tallest in Cornwall, I'm not sure about that.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh St.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Rioch monolith, my near.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's beautiful, um, but all in places where I think are not the most obvious to go and visit.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: So if people if people feel like they've done the the sort of usual stones and folklore map, then definitely, you know, go and check out that area.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: Have you experienced any strange occurrences of a little, you know, something you couldn't explain when you are when you've been in those spaces?
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: Not anything not anything really strong and not anything really disturbing, but I do find that some places, some sites are more welcoming than others.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's somewhere that I really, really love, which again is is kind of in it's on this same sort of area map, if you like, but more towards Weybridge.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: There's a coit called Porton Coit, and people that are really into these things have probably been there and visited it, but uh lots of people won't know about it.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um It's just really lovely.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: It just feels like I don't know, it's almost like less bothered, you know.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: It hasn't been hassled by as many people, and it just feels really lovely and really calm and sort of clean, if that makes sense.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that's just a really nice place to go, but it is kind of a bit across some fields that I'm never quite sure if you're supposed to walk through.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: But I think if you you know sort of careful and subtle and respectful, then yeah, it's fine.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then another another place that I had a really lovely experience at was actually on Baldwin Moor, and it was a it was a new stone circle that I'd gone to find because I think I'd seen it on a map, but I wasn't aware it was there.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: So you know what uh from the village of minions, and you can go to Chinese ring and the Hartley, and there's you know, there's loads of stuff there.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's also like the barrow where the relating cup was discovered, and you know, it's like treasure, isn't it, in every direction.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I just kind of went over in a slightly different area, and there was a stone circle that was mostly all lying flat.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: But again, I just sort of, you know, I calmed down, have a sit down, tuned in a little ground with myself, and it was just like really lovely, just really kind, you might say, which is not necessarily always the case.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I tend to pick up like the positive yeah, that's nice.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: The positive vibes from the place, but I don't think I've had anything uh really awful.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: Although I have heard it about some places, maybe like is it Madrin?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: I've heard some people that go and try to find the the Holywell down at Madrin where lots of people hang cluties on the trees.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh right.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I've heard stories about people almost feeling like they're being chased out.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't they they arrive there and then they leave pretty quickly because they feel like they're physically being sort of chased out.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel really fortunate that I've not experienced that, but I kind of hope that that's because I might have picked up before I even got there that it wasn't a great idea to help me.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: Spider sensors, maybe, yeah, maybe, yeah.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um the research that you do, do you work with a a local group like a historical society or like a with archaeologists or anything like that?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm sort of probably a bit of a lone ranger really.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's a miracle that I'm on this podcast with you.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: I like I just kind of do my own thing, and I am not always very aware of other people that are around me doing doing sort of similar things.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: My my degree was in art history with Art for Society, which sort of brings together all the arty stuff.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: But then later I did go and do a master's in research, and I just like really love research.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's something about it, yeah.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: I just really enjoy it.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm almost kind of compelled to do it.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think you can do it in your own way as well, you know.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that is sparking that creative fire in you.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: It is a wonderful thing.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think there is a bit of nervousness around doing research in some areas of of kind of folklore and this kind of magical arena that we're in, because I think some people are full experts in it, and you just feel like you can never know whether you know what what you're thinking is is under-researched or whether you genuinely are on a kind of new path where you've discovered something new.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I do find that a bit nerve-wracking, but yeah, I just I th I think I'm also always interested in the things that other people aren't thinking about or don't appear to be thinking about.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: I like to research things that are on the edges and are a bit more liminal, so that's why I was like, I love the folklore stuff, but actually, where are all the women in folklore?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: And okay, so Cornwall is this amazing magical landscape, we all know that.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: But what about any area, you know?
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I've naturally become interested in in the parts of things that other people seem to be uh maybe neglecting or not interested in.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then if they're not interested in it, I think, why aren't they interested in it?
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there must be something there.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: Going back to women in folklore and in in Cornwall, and I'm just trying to think, apart, I mean, I I can only really think of the mermaid of Xena.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's more female mythical creature.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I know you mentioned that they are found, women are found uh within the fi the kitchen.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like sort of like almost like kitchen witchery, like hidden hidden recipes and stuff like that.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just trying to wr I'm just wrecking my brains right now, and I don't know if it's because I'm just thinking too hard, but I I'm just trying to think of I mean Tommy Knockers, Piskeys, the Booker.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: I can't think of a bit I mean you've got the you've got the the maidens who are turned to stone um there as well.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: I can't think of oh and you've got you've got the witches, I mean, the witches that are sort of like the east side of Cornwall, I was like east side, west side, east more the east of Cornwall witches, like they turn into toads, and like the west court west of Cornwall, they will turn into hares.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I know there's a folklore story of a of a man who was always trying to get this hair and he could never catch the hair, and his dog could never catch the hair, and then one at one time um he either shot it or his dog's caught or injured it, and it ran into a house, and they went into the house.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, it was a woman at the table and she was bleeding, but the hair had been injured.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I home, like though you know, there are ghost stories connected to perhaps families in certain parts of the land, which is where you find you find that sort of stuff everywhere, all over the country.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm just trying to think of a of a of a female character or a woman.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just can't think of one actually, if in in in Cornish folklore.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm going mad, maybe I'm just maybe my bike my mind's gone blank.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I can't think of specifically.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: And there might be listeners on here screaming at me, go, Oh my god, how are Why haven't you thought of that?
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so sorry.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm having one of those moments.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so in in folk tales terms for Cornwall, one of one of the things that I did think of, which kind of is an example of what we're trying to say.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: So you have uh Tom Alcock's Eve, you know, where you've got the famous Stargazy pie in Mausel.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then one day I just because I was sort of thinking around food and recipes and and folk celebrations that involved women.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, well, who cooked that pie?
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this really well-known pie.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, okay, Tom Borcott, total legend, went out in a storm, came back, everyone was fed.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: Brilliant.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: But who cooked the pie?
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and then fairly recently I read something where someone had said, Who cooks the last supper?
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then I thought, well, yeah, okay, so we're on the same sort of question here.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I and so I tend to think of sort of folk stories, folk celebration in in that kind of a way.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: More recently, I did I I wrote an article, it's on Substack if anyone's interested, and it I think it's called The Merry Month of May.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I found this, I think it was a poem or a piece of writing that was talking about how uh women and girls were really, really involved in the first of May, and it was all about flowers.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was all about flowers and what they did with flowers, and they would do all the obvious things like they would decorate the place with flowers, they would decorate themselves with flowers, but then they also had some other really interesting things that I'd never heard of.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: So they used to make a kind of ball of flowers, and then it sounded like almost volleyball over a garland of flowers, and and it was such an important thing, and then they would get up in the morning um and then go out and pick flowers straight away, and it was just focused really heavily on women and girls and flowers, and then I just thought, well, where was this gone?
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I did a bit of digging, and we in Cobble, obviously, we have flora day, right?
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: So okay, there it is, it's really strong.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: Flowers are still really fully in that.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, I think it might even be happening today.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: But the Bodman riding festival, yeah, uh, that was largely uh centered around flowers and garlands, and there's a hint of it.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think they've acknowledged it in the festival, but I think in what actually happens publicly, it doesn't make it.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I think there's a point at which we have to think have these things look been lost, or are we just choosing not to centre them for something else that seems more uh exciting or more important?
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: More consumable.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe, yeah, maybe more marketable.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so I we we are there, but you do have to really search and then I think it that you know would take some really brave people to to bring some of those, you know, if you think about a huge community festival, whatever it is, wherever it is, food and drink are going to be a massive part of that.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: And who is largely, you know, leading the food and drink within a community?
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's women.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: But when you go to most festivals, you know, folk celebrations, it's not always there.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the Tom Bor Course pie is like it's quite a good example of that.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it makes that point.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let's have a chat about your uh your art a little bit more, which is just so lovely.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we've talked about the roach rock zine, which I'll take a picture of for people to have a look, which is absolutely lovely.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: We've also got uh this one here, which is lost fur.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's what sort of what creature is this on the front?
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a so I don't know, it's kind of like uh a wolf with a partial human face.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: I like I mean, I like it, it's yeah, yeah, it's it's amazing.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not unusual.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: I some of my art is what I might call magical realism.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: So it's taking something and representing it as it would be, but then maybe changing something so that it's maybe a bit uncanny.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think a wolf with a human head is a bit obvious.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I say, for example, I've got a painting that is of a jaybird, but it's got teeth.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and you know, so there's just something a bit uncanny, a bit unusual, yeah, but feasible, weirdly feasible.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of really is it so what's cryptids, a bit like cryptids, yeah.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: Where they're kind of yeah, strange creatures, but not as far as cryptids, maybe more feasible than cryptids.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: You've got something in here called the soup tree, and you mentioned you've got your uh love letters to soup, yeah, earlier, which was so we can bring these two together.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um but everyone knows that money doesn't grow on trees.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, we're told this all the time, especially when we want something.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: It has never occurred to most of us to consider if soup grows on trees, I love this.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um there is a village north of here where it is said that an entire generation of villagers, their children and their grandchildren, have been saved in hard times by a tree that grows and pushes bowls and bowls of the tastiest, heartiest soup from its roots.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's just that's just great.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of like imagine folklore, I guess.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: But based on, you know, some real folk tales, so something that I use quite a lot in my outdoor work, which also inspires quite a lot of my creative work, is a story called Stone Soup.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: Stone soup.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: So uh Stone Soup is a story, and we quite often use this while cooking actual soup with a group of people at the fire or over the fire, and it's set in a village that is has fallen on hard times for whatever reason, you know, almost in famine but not quite.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then a traveller arrives and says, Hey everybody, let's make the best soup there is, we're gonna make stone soup.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then they have this kind of magic stone, and then they set about making a soup that is just apparently from this stone.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: But then what happens as the story goes on?
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: The traveller says, Oh well, this is gonna be so great, this stone soup.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: But hey, has anyone got an onion?
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: An onion would make this stone soup the best soup there ever was, and it goes on like that, and then there's like a carrot and a potato and whatever, and then the whole point of the story is that obviously, as a whole community, they've got everything they need if they just thought to sort of come together and share what they have, and but when you're in that kind of mindset of lack, you know, it's it's quite hard to imagine that, and so somebody from the outside to help everybody with that is really useful, and but then they all have this lovely hearty meal, and then I just say I've had a bit of a feel about soup for for a long time, and people that know me from sort of various you know aspects of my life will know this, but I just think soup is like amazing, it and in terms of something that kind of is a bridge between the magical and the material, if you like, soup is just like fantastic.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: It is a really everyday magic spell, magic potion, whatever, and it's the easiest thing to cook in great quantity to feed a million people.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: You can cook it in lots of different ways.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: Every culture in the land has some version of soup.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's brilliant.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: Very nutritious.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: You can use what there is, you know, you can use the wobbly carrots from the bottom of your fridge, and it's and it's all good, you know.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's really important.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: But how the soup overlaps into this kind of love letters to soup thing, that's where we link the you know, looking for women in folklore and the my personal fascination with soup.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because I just thought one of the ways that we know what women were doing and the actual things that they recorded, uh, because there aren't really many written records, women weren't publishing, you know, and they weren't writing back in history.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: And but what they were doing is they were writing letters, they were writing recipes down, they were writing diaries, and so I just kind of brought all those things together as what were the actual real ways that women would have been archiving their experiences and I I guess they were my love letters to Sue.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also a nod towards the way that women were allowed and able to communicate, which is through letter writing, yeah, through cooking and nurturing families.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: Can we talk about the fish as well?
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, the hex and fish.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: The hex and fish, yes.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: So they're in a they were designed so that they would fit in an actual sardine tint.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: They're fantastic.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: They're based on pilchards, but they're not really the size of pilchards because pilchards are a larger sardine.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: But these are inspired there's also actually an article about this on Substack if anyone wants like the history.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I went to visit the witchcraft museum in Boscastle, and then I saw a thing I hadn't seen before, and I go quite regularly, and it's so crammed full of treasure that every time you go you see something different.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then this time I went, I noticed this Victorian fortune telling doll where the skirts were kind of paper, and Victorian ladies had these.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: There were like I think there was a bit of a Victorian fascination with fortune telling of different sorts, but lots of Victorian ladies would have had these, they were quite popular, and then you could sort of choose in a sort of concertina fan and then open one of the bits of paper up and then it would give you your fortune.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought, like, I really want to recreate that without copying it.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I was sort of thinking around it, and I thought, oh yeah, it'd be really obvious to have an animal or something like that.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'd been thinking about pilchards and how important they are to Cornwall, they're like such a crucial part of the history of Cornwall.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I looked into you know the symbolism and the folklore of that a bit more, and I thought, oh yeah, no, so I wonder if I could make some fortune-telling fish.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I've made a version of that where you can open and see.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: I tell you what, it's a way better than the fortune-telling fish you get in the Christmas cracker.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, do you know what though?
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: It says this in the article about it, but I also a long time ago I had this kind of big art project, like a sort of immersive art project that was called uh Miss Elvie's Cabinet of Curiosities.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it was secretly really influenced by the Witchcraft Museum, if I'm honest about it.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: But as part of this experience at Port Elliot Festival, which we haven't had for a while, but I was in this sort of Victorian costume and went round and then gave out these fortune-telling fish, you know, the ones that you get in the crackers, along with a card which would sort of have a fortune on it.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then so I just thought that's also really interesting because there is a bit of uh uh history already of fish fishes telling fortunes, and so yeah.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: Those those terrible fortune telling fish were actually also a part of this little project.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I think it's absolutely fantastic.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any more plans uh to create any more zines?
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if can where can people get them if they want to?
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I'm kind of making zines all the time to be honest, and I've got really small ones.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_01: The good thing about zines is that they're about whatever you want them to be about.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I've I've got one that is about my favourite vegetables, for example.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_01: I've got another one which is like the best things about springtime, and you know, and I just and I make these with groups that I work with as well quite a lot.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to do a zine making workshop actually, that would be a nice thing to sort.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we are having a creative space.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'd have been in town and I'll take you to it afterwards, it's just down the road.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: But back who is running it, she is looking for people to come in and facilitate workshops.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_00: So brilliant, yeah.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_00: She would be absolutely hundreds of bite your arm off.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a great thing.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do have them to sell, but you know, some I create for specific events and they might be sold at the event.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: If anyone really wants anything from me, if they message me, then I'll just get their address and send them what they want.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_00: With regards to your artwork, and you you mentioned that you did an immersive piece, which sounds incredible.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any any more plans for the future for big uh sort of art installations or exhibitions?
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do have some plans.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: I did I was working on this kind of a play area project and it was going to I was making different bits of work that were going to be in an exhibition about that.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: At the moment, I am just about to move house.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I've kind of pressed pause on most uh creative projects at the moment because on oh yeah, moving house is so stressful, a thing.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, what a nightmare.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, there are definitely things that I am thinking about and working on, and yeah, so probably by winter.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be certain.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'll be happy to advertise them on the which weekly matches.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's so nice.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that'll be good.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_00: So Nick, if people want to contact you, they want to sort of uh see see what you do online, your substat, your socials, how can they find you?
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm pretty active on Instagram and the account I'm most active on and most relevant to this is folkloric.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I think it might be a little kind of hyphen than folkloric, but it will come up anyway.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_00: I will I will link it for listeners in the show notes.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a mixture of things, it's like little films of places that I've been to visit, talking about the history of the folklore.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: Some of it's my artwork, some of it's folk stuff we've been to visit, you know, it's uh films also because I'm a massive film fan, and so's my daughter, as as I've mentioned, and so sometimes I talk about a film that people might be interested in.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a real mishmash of lots of different things, but all kind of under this folklore-ish umbrella.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing that people can engage with, especially if they like a bit more detail and information and research like I do, is on Substack folklorican.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_01: Folklorican, and I will link that in the show notes for people to go into as well.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's been doing quite nicely.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_01: I recently wrote an article called Folk Anxiety, uh, which has done really well and you know urge people to kind of think about how we're exploring folk, especially as it sort of explodes in popularity.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like, let's just consider what it means and what we're doing with it, and lots of people might have already found that because it had quite a good yeah, I got quite a lot of messages about that as that went out.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, but there's like a a mixture of things on there, and the article where you mentioned the poster, yeah, the devil in the pie.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's also an article that has that in it, and so yeah, those are the two best places, probably.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_00: Are you interested in folk horror?
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_00: I love a bit of folk horror.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_00: What's your favourite folk horror?
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, I'm so bad at answering.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: When anyone says it's your favourite anything, yeah, but I like it all, it's all good.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I have on my Instagram, if anyone is into folk horror, I've definitely done a few posts about, you know, really good folk horror films.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, why have you asked me that?
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's so difficult.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_01: All that's coming into my head right now is this thing where myself and my daughter, we went to the Black Shock Festival last year, and it which was really cool.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the events we booked into was Sing Along with a Man, and that's all I can think of.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I wouldn't necessarily say that Wicker Man is my favourite folk horror because there's so much out there, it's that is utterly gorgeous and brilliant.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_01: But the Sing Along with a Man, if anyone is anywhere and they don't, like, go do it because it was like the most fun evening ever that we'd had.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's the original one with Chris Christopher Lee in it, yeah, and the all the all the all the folk longs, folks longing in it comes up for you to sing along.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but it's so much more than that.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like a whole experience, like they give out props and things, and then sounds like a bit like a Rocky Horizon.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_01: You get it, you get a little bag of stuff, and then when certain things happen in the film, then you kind of interact with it with this bag of stuff that they've given you.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was just the best thing, and then they also do a really cool kind of intro where they give you some of the history of it and like some of the things that people might not know about, and we weren't dressed up because we weren't sure if we were gonna be able to get tickets for it, but loads of people in the audience were also dressed up in a very sort of rocky row way, but yeah.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: I hope they do that again.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to go to something like that.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds like so much fun.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_01: The the other thing, the other film that is coming into my mind, which must mean I don't know if it's my favourite, but it's obviously sort of very important and prominent, is The Lighthouse.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, which is like so dark and brilliant.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I just I just love it.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's awful.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a devastating, it's not fun, do you?
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's not you come away.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: Most folk horror isn't really fun.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: Some Robert Heroes?
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think it is, yeah.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because he did The Witch, and that's one of my favorites.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that is a good one.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_01: He's got a new one coming out.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_01: The wolf.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, or something like that.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_01: What was he filmed on Darkmoor?
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_01: Spoken in old English, apparently.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm all going to see that.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we all know.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we should like get a party of people's.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that'll be awesome.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_00: My first introduction to folk horror was the Wickerman, the original, and and I must have been about 13, 14 when I watched it.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember watching it being like, this is really weird and we're really, really boring.
• 1:02:46
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_00: Typical teenager.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then I got to the end and I came away emotionally damaged.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I just watched a man.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's what is so wonderful about that film is the ending with that crescendo.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's daylight.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's you know, it's it's summer, it's colourful, and it's like the horror of how real it is, and that's something absolutely terrible.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_00: That the world one of the worst deaths you can imagine is happening to this person, and this whole community is for it in the daylight, in the summer, and it's just the screams that you hear at the end.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what left such a sort of uh arc on me.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and now I think, oh no, I really, I really appreciate it for what it is, and I can talk about it, you know, in that kind of way.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I do remember coming away going, Oh my god, that was awful.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_00: That was that was terrible.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what am I just watched?
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but now it's just wonderful, wonderful piece of cinema, yeah.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's just so chilling, and and I love when horror is done in the daytime because we're so used to seeing horror at night and the jumber scares and the ghosts and the boo.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that and I think uh is it midsummer by Ariaster?
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_00: Again, that's all done in the daytime, has a very, very similar effect, and it's so colourful, especially with the flowers in it as well.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's just at the end, the ending, it's just yeah, fant fantastic.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, really good.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of sort of folk horror around Cornwall, then some people might be aware of uh Mark Jenkin, the uh filmmaker director, who is based in Cornwall and I think works at or sometimes works at Family Funi on the film course there.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um so he's got what is known as the Cornish trilogy and I think his work kind of skates around folk horror in various ways.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_01: So if you haven't seen any of Mark Jenkins' films, they're set in Cornwall.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wow.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_01: They've got some Cornish actors in them as well.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, check that out.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_00: Nick, it's been so lovely having you on the show.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_00: I have really enjoyed talking to you and learning so much about China Clay and a little bit more about Cornish folklore and Roach and you know about women as well.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you so much for bringing your beautiful artwork in.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_00: I will take pictures so my listeners can see it on Instagram, and I will also link uh all of your socials in the show notes so people can yeah, go have a look and see see the work that you're doing.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like there's so much more that we could talk about, so I would love to have you back on again at Season.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, I can go back and let's do it again.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_00: All right, yeah, let's do it again.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_00: This has been absolutely wonderful.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're very welcome.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed listening to this bonus episode of my conversation with the lovely Nick.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was recorded back in July, and I remember the studio space being really hot as we were in the middle of one of those many summer heat waves.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you all for being so patient and understanding with me over the summer.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_00: The podcast will return in October, and I will be bringing some book reviews, more conversations from magical people in Cornwall and South Devon, and the witch weekly events are also making their return.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is an independent personal project created outside of my professional life.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_00: It exists as a space for conversation with witches, spiritual practitioners, and those walking their own paths, sharing lived practice, ritual, experience, and folklore often rooted here in Cornwall and the land itself.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you value these conversations and would like to support the continuation of the podcast, there is a voluntary link in the show notes.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_00: Listening will always remain free and there is no expectation to contribute.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you support here, listen quietly, or carry these stories onward by sharing them with others, thank you.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: Your presence honours the craft and keeps these tellings alive.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_00: May these stories find you when they are meant to.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_00: And until next time, may the path rise to meet you.