The Cornish Droll Tellers

The Cornish Droll Tellers Ronald M James Lien Gwerin: A Journal of Cornish Folklore, Number 4: 2020: pp. 42-49 After enjoying the legacy of the droll tellers of Cornwall for nearly a half century, I am in awe of their artistry. Collectors who preserved and published the words of these clever raconteurs filled the Cornish cultural treasure chest with gems that are the envy of the rest of Britain. The early folklorists deserve our thanks, but we must remember that without the storytellers themselves, this wonderful body of narratives would not exist. That is my musing about the Cornish droll tellers. People may embrace my words because they find meaning in them or perhaps because they have felt much the same while following their own paths to the folklore of Cornwall. Or some may reject my insights, seeing the situation differently. That is the problem with subjective assessments. They are leaky buckets that serve poorly when carrying water. Figure 1.1 A.K. Hamilton Jenkin wrote a series of books about Cornwall. This old house, portrayed in his 1929 publication Cornish Homes and Customs, appeared with the simple caption, ‘A Cottage Home in the Mining District’. Droll tellers visited these sorts of places in the previous century, but their world had vanished by Jenkin’s time and these relics were becoming scarce [caption from RMJ, The Folklore of Cornwall (Exeter, 2018)]. 1 What, then, can we confidently assert about the Cornish droll tellers of the nineteenth century and before? How can we understand them with the available facts? Answers rest with comparative studies, which open the door to a process removed from personal contemplation. There are at least two evidence-based ways to evaluate the storytellers of Cornwall and their accomplishments. The first is a historical consideration of the artistic, professional niche of the droll tellers. The second is to examine how they handled the traditional narratives that they heard and then repeated. The Cornish droll tellers were unusual and remarkable. That may sound subjective, but it can be demonstrated with historical evidence. From the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, writers described droll tellers as professionals who traveled and earned their living telling stories. In 1602, Richard Carew provided an early glimpse of a Cornish droll teller: he identified a contemporary storyteller who 'led a walking life with his harp, to gentlemen's houses, … and by his other active qualities, he was entitled Sir Tristram'.2 In the nineteenth century, the collectors Robert Hunt and William Bottrell both described professional droll tellers they had known, storytellers who walked the land, earning a living with their artistry. Their documentation speaks volumes since little is known about similar storytellers outside of Cornwall, except for those from Ireland. Since details appear elsewhere, it suffices to say that Hunt and Bottrell knew at least four droll tellers, describing them as versatile, creative, and always ready to change their stories to suit their local audience.3 Perhaps most importantly, at least one Cornish droll teller spoke for himself: Henry Quick of Zennor (1792-1857) was one of the few early modern European storytellers to leave his own record. Sometimes referred to as the last of the droll tellers, he made a meagre living telling stories, augmented by the newer approach of selling broadsheets of his poems. He also composed a lengthy autobiographical poem, a unique opportunity to understand his occupation. With Quick, we have that rarest of professionals, a storyteller who used his talent to earn a living and who tells us his own story.4 Cornish society had a niche for professional storytellers, but without comparative studies, all we could state at this point would be narrow observations of our own personal reflections. Fortunately, historical records lend assistance. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the classic era of collecting oral tradition, European folklorists from elsewhere occasionally wrote about the people who told them the folktales and legends that were then archived and sometimes published. Records typically describe people who enjoyed the art of storytelling but did not earn a living with that skill. 2 Figure 2. Henry Quick of Zennor (1792-1857) is remarkable on several levels. Few early modern storytellers are known to us by name, but Quick also left his own written record, which is unusual for his time. He was a gifted storyteller from the far west of Cornwall. Although Quick is often referred to as the last of the droll tellers, people who strive to tell a good story continue to thrive in Cornwall (print from R. T. Pentreath, (1833), P. A. S. Pool, The Life and progress of Henry Quick of Zennor (1963)). To find the equivalent of the Cornish droll teller, one must turn to Ireland where there were well-documented professional, travelling storytellers. Outside of Ireland, there are few other European examples of these sorts of people who earned their livings telling folktales and legends and bringing news from afar. The Highlands of Scotland had something similar. The 3 Welsh may have had a counterpart, but documentation is limited, and that is just about all there is when it comes to this occupation elsewhere in Europe. James Delargy (Séamus Ó Duilearga), of the Irish Folklore Commission, presented a benchmark lecture in 1945 on the seanchaithe, the Irish professional storytellers.5 He provides the means to consider the Cornish droll tellers by comparison. Renowned British folklorist, Katharine Briggs was one of the few to suggest considering the droll tellers by comparison, but ultimately, she only made rudimentary observations and posited questions. She noted, for example, that when compared to their Gaelic-speaking counterparts, the Cornish droll tellers exhibited 'no indication of the careful accuracy of transmission which was so important to the Irish and Highland bards, where every deviation from strict tradition was frowned upon'. She added that the Cornish droll tellers offered their audience 'spontaneous and happy innovation'. Further, Briggs notes that Cornwall's storytellers exploited 'the names of people remembered by the villagers; and when they knew that a man had incurred the hatred of his neighbours, they made him do duty as a demon, or placed him in no very enviable relation with the devil'.6 These, then, were the droll tellers of Cornwall: historical evidence demonstrates that they were unusual and remarkable, without the need of subjective assertion. With Briggs, we arrive at the opportunity to consider a second aspect of the Cornish droll tellers, again resting on a solid foundation. This involves the effect of their creativity on the narratives they heard and then repeated. To understand this aspect of the Cornish legacy, other tools must be applied, and historical analysis is less helpful. Instead, a comparative folklore method can arrive at objective observations of Cornish tradition. There are those who scorn comparative folklore analysis with critiques that fail to understand how traditional narratives are repeated and diffuse over time and space. It is a demonstrated fact that many folktales and legends have lingered in Europe for centuries, exhibiting diversity but also retaining cohesion. Critics are typically out of touch with the work that continues among trained folklorists: although this approach has its roots in the nineteenth century, it has inspired a great deal of analysis into the twenty-first century.7 Other times, criticism is rendered by people who make genuine contributions without using this method, writers who prefer to employ more subjective consideration of the legends and folktales. Comparative analysis and subjective musings should not exclude one another. The strength of one does not negate the power of the other. In addition, analysis should never be taken to dehumanize the artists who told the tales, nor to sterilize their words. Like all art, the narratives were and are expressions of humanity and the power of a well-crafted story is to help us comprehend ourselves and our moment in history; similarly, folklore can offer insight into the time when it was documented. We must remember, however, that personal reactions 4 to the material have value only to the extent that they strike subjective chords among others. Intimate considerations of folklore can offer insight, but they cannot be regarded as proof of anything or as providing the building blocks for more objective understanding. Pre-modern storytellers repeated what they heard, and the stories they told were part of a legacy that typically survived over expanses of geography and over centuries. By considering how similar stories manifest elsewhere, it is possible to sharpen our understanding of Cornish folklore. Without understanding Cornish legends and folktales in a larger context, evaluation cannot rise above being insular, provincial observations. The only way to lift Cornish folklore up to a level where it is recognized by the larger European community and understood for what it has to offer is to compare it to its counterparts elsewhere. Fortunately, the comparative methodology is well suited for the hundreds of published pages of Cornish folklore, and it opens the door to an understanding of the effect of the droll tellers' creativity on the stories they heard and repeated. To understand what the droll tellers were doing, one must consider the effect of their creativity on their material. The best way to accomplish that is by comparing their stories with those told elsewhere. Comparative analysis points to an inescapable conclusion about the droll tellers: because they readily changed the stories they heard, they created variants separate from what was told elsewhere. Limits of space allow but one example here: the 'Lenore Legend' is a widespread European narrative involving a bridegroom killed in war and returning for his betrothed for a nighttime ride to his grave. The story manifests several times in nineteenthcentury collections of Cornwall exhibiting a great deal of variation, but significantly, several versions have the young man drowned at sea and the stories replace the horse with a boat. The earthly grave becomes the chill depths of the sea.8 One often encounters this type of change with Cornish folklore when comparing it to traditions of neighbors. Often differences have no meaning in themselves, but these are evidence of how the Cornish storytellers created their own distinct traditions. Not surprisingly, this process often drew on the unique environment of Britain's far south west. This conclusion is grounded in objective observation and comparative folklore analysis, and it defines the place that Cornish folklore can take among its peers.9 The insight gained through comparative historical and folklore analysis grants objective status to the conclusion that the droll tellers were unusual and remarkable and that thanks to their creativity, their stories took the form of variants distinct from those of neighbors. By demonstrating this aspect of Cornish culture, it is possible to view the legacy of its collectors and droll tellers with pride. The artistic contribution of Cornwall, when it comes 5 to folklore, is tremendous and unique. Cornish droll tellers stand tall amongst their peers. That is not my personal, subjective musing. That is a demonstrable fact. Endnotes 1 The two illustrations and captions presented here were not present in the original article. Richard Carew, Survey of Cornwall (London: B. Law, 1769 [1602]), 309. The honorific Sir 'Tristram/Tristan' refers to an Arthurian knight of Cornwall. 3 Robert Hunt, Popular Romances of the West of England or the Drolls, Traditions, and Superstitions of Old Cornwall (London: Chatto and Windus, originally in two separate volumes, 1865, then printed together in various editions; a 1903 book is the source of citations here), 26-28; William Bottrell’s Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall (Penzance: Beare and Son, 1870), vi, 63. See also Ronald M. James, The Folklore of Cornwall: The Oral Tradition of a Celtic Nation (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2018), 27-29. 4 P.A.S. Pool, The Life and Progress of Henry Quick of Zennor (St Ives: W.J. Rowe, 1963). Ireland's Máiréad "Peig" Sayers (1873-1958) provides a similar example of a storyteller's autobiographical voice: recorded in the 1930s, the narrative provides excellent insight into the life of a brilliant storyteller with an enormous repertoire; she did not travel and she was not a professional storyteller, however. Peig Sayers, Peig: The autobiography of Peig Sayers of the Great Blasket Island, translated by Bryan MacMahon (Dublin: Talbot Press, 1974). 5 James H. Delargy (Séamus Ó Duilearga), ‘The Gaelic Story-Teller with some notes on Gaelic Folk-Tales’ (The Sir John Rhŷs Lecture, presented 28 November 1945; published 1946). 6 Katharine Briggs, An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures (New York: Pantheon Books, 1976), 426. 7 Hans-Jörg Uther, The Types of International Folktales (Parts I–III) (Helsinki: FF Communications No. 284, 285, and 286, 2011); see also Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson, The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography (Helsinki: FF Communications No. 184, 1961; second revision, fourth printing, 1987). Over the long history of the approach, it has been misused by ideologues, but that does not make the method invalid. Also, consider Alan Dundes, editor, International Folkloristics: Classic Contributions by the Founders of Folklore (Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999). 8 James, The Folklore of Cornwall, 107-21. 9 The is the conclusion of the author's The Folklore of Cornwall; see also his article, 'The Other Side of the Tamar: A Comparison of the Pixies of Devon and Cornwall', Folklore (anticipated 2020). 2 6 Bibliography Aarne, Antti and Stith Thompson, The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography (Helsinki: FF Communications No. 184, 1961; second revision, fourth printing, 1987). Bottrell, William, Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall (Penzance: Beare and Son, 1870). Briggs, Katharine, An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures (New York: Pantheon Books, 1976). Carew, Richard, Survey of Cornwall (London: B. Law, 1769 [1602]). Delargy, James H. 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