A Landscape Shaped by Legends

Cornwall is a county where the ground itself tells stories. Granite moorland, engine houses perched on cliff edges, hollowed hillsides and hedged lanes all carry the memory of generations who worked the land and, more importantly, the rock beneath it. Between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries, Cornish tin and copper mining shaped not only the economy but the imagination. Deep underground, in darkness broken only by candlelight, miners explained the creaks, knocks and whispers around them in the only way that made sense: with stories.

Those stories were not written down at first. They were told aloud, in kitchens and at mine shafts, and they gave names and personalities to the unknown. Out of that tradition came piskies, knockers, buccas and a whole host of beings that still colour how Cornwall talks about itself today.

Piskies: The Mischief-Makers of the Moors

Piskies are Cornwall's small folk — closely related to, though never quite the same as, the fairies of neighbouring counties. They are usually described as tiny, dressed in rags or green, and living on the moors, in ancient stone circles and among the granite outcrops that dot the landscape. They are not evil, but they are reliably troublesome. A traveller who wandered off the path, lost their bearings in fog, or found themselves walking the same stretch of lane for an hour was said to be piskie-led.

The traditional remedy was pleasingly practical. Turning your coat inside out was believed to break the spell — a trick that also worked against the pixies of Devon and Somerset, suggesting the belief travelled along the old drovers' routes. Leaving a small offering, such as a crust of bread or a few grains, was another way to keep on the right side of them.

Piskies were blamed for more than lost travellers. They tangled horses' manes, soured milk, hid tools and led miners to the wrong shaft. Yet they could also be generous, and stories abound of those who helped a piskie and found their fortunes changed. In older tellings, piskies were sometimes said to be the souls of babies who died unbaptised — a sober reminder that these tales carried real grief as well as mischief.

Knockers: The Helpers Underground

No figure is more closely tied to Cornish mining than the knocker. These underground spirits lived in the mines and announced themselves by tapping on the rock — sometimes a warning of a collapsing stope, sometimes a hint that a rich lode lay just ahead.

Miners treated them with a mixture of respect and caution. To shout, swear or whistle underground was considered foolish, and mockery of the knockers was thought to bring bad luck or injury. The most famous custom was leaving a piece of a pasty — specifically the last corner of the crust — on the rock for the knockers. The crust was the part a miner held with dirty hands, so it was no real sacrifice, but the gesture mattered. Some accounts describe miners hearing the knockers working alongside them, and crews were known to leave a section of a level untouched as a mark of respect.

The knockers' reputation as guides rather than threats is a good example of how practical knowledge and folklore intertwined. Miners learned to read the sounds of a working mine — timber creaking, water dripping, rock shifting — and the knockers gave those sounds a shape and a name.

Buccas, Spriggans and Mermaids

Knockers and piskies were far from alone in Cornish folklore.

• Buccas — sea and shore spirits, often described as two: Bucca Dhu, the dark one who brought storms, and Bucca Gwidden, the fair one who brought good fortune. Fishermen left a portion of their catch for them.
• Spriggans — the ghosts of giants, said to guard buried treasure at cairns and barrows. They could swell to enormous size, cause whirlwinds and were blamed when a mine's roof fell in.
• The Mermaid of Zennor — a mermaid who lured a chorister, Matthew Trewhella, from Zennor church down to the sea. A carved bench-end in the church still depicts her holding a comb and mirror.
• Jan Tregeagle — a notoriously harsh magistrate whose ghost was set impossible tasks, such as emptying Dozmary Pool with a leaking limpet shell.

Place names preserve the memory of these beings. Piskie Lane, Bucca Lane and countless Men-an-Tol style stones carry a folklore that predates the mining boom by centuries.

How the Tales Were Passed Down

For most of their history these stories lived only in speech. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, professional storytellers known as droll tellers travelled between farms, fairs and fishing villages, trading tales for food and a bed. Families told them at the hearth during long winter evenings, and miners carried them underground, where they took on a new usefulness as safety warnings.

The drolls were preserved largely thanks to Victorian collectors such as Robert Hunt and William Bottrell, who wrote down versions gathered from elderly residents — sometimes just in time. Even so, written versions often smoothed out the rougher, more local detail that made the oral tellings distinctive.

Keeping the Old Stories Alive

Today the legends survive in Cornish place names, pub signs, church carvings and the revival of traditional crafts. Cornish hedging, thatching, net making, pilchard curing and knitting of the distinctive Cornish guernsey all belonged to the same working world that produced the knockers and piskies — a world where skill, luck and the unpredictable behaviour of nature were inseparable.

If you want to meet the legends, start in the landscape itself. Walk a section of the coastal path near Zennor, visit the engine houses of the Tin Coast between St Just and Pendeen, or step inside a preserved mine. Listen to the wind in the shafts and the sea below, and the old stories stop being quaint. They start making very good sense.