Cornish mysteries

By Charlotte MacKenzie

This book explores Cornish mysteries from Georgian Cornwall.
Folk lore and the supernatural.
Skilful aunts and village doctresses.
Cornish fugitives and missing persons.
Real people from Cornwall’s past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781446630846

Book preview

Cornish mysteries

Cornwall History

2023

Copyright © Charlotte MacKenzie 2023

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the copyright owner.

First printing: 2023

ISBN 978-1-4466-3084-6

Imprint lulu.com

Contents

Acknowledgements

‘Knowing Men’

‘Skilful Aunts’

Billy Borlase

Cornish fugitives

The mystery of Mary Broad

Further reading

This book was mainly researched online. Nonetheless, it could not have been completed without access to the unique Cornish manuscript and book collections of the Morrab Library in Penzance, Kresen Kernow in Redruth, and the Courtney Library at the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro. The research on ‘knowing men’ and ‘skilful aunts’ was partly funded by the Q Fund, and a shorter article was published in the Autumn 2023 Old Cornwall journal. My thanks for questions and comments from the audiences of talks about the research published here, including to the Lerryn heritage group about Mary Broad. The cover illustration is courtesy of the Wellcome Collection. 

Charlotte MacKenzie

December 2023.

Robert Heath's A natural and historical account of the Islands of Scilly (1750) uniquely recorded some aspects of island life in the 1740s. Heath keenly observed customs and conduct which were new to him, recording folk lore and customary traditions. Including reports of the islanders' resort to 'the knowing Men of Cornwall' who had 'charm'd, cast in a Spell, or conjur'd out of the Islands' troublesome 'haunted Houses, Giants, and Apparitions'. Heath did not say whether or not these transformations had required the Cornish men's presence on the islands.

Here, I explore related historical evidence in a quest to identify individuals who were 'knowing Men'. Heath did not name 'the knowing Men of Cornwall'. So I looked at whether there were other contemporary or contextual references to charmers, conjurors, or casters of spells in Cornwall? Or accounts of enchantment, the supernatural, and exorcism on the Isles of Scilly? Some Cornish women, as well as men, were named as charmers or witches, although so far I have not found any references to a woman who was an exorcist.

Historians have established an academic tradition in which a diversity of practitioners are referred to generically as ‘cunning folk’. As far as possible, I retain original descriptors, as historical information may be embedded in the words which were chosen and used by contemporary speakers and writers. Heath referred to islanders travelling to and from ‘England’ as though it were a separate country, but did not record any differences of language or dialect, such as speaking Cornish.

The Cornish vicar, Richard Polwhele, noted disapprovingly of the medieval past that 'the study of medicine which was almost confined to the clergy ... was subjected to the influence of astrology and magic'. Writing in the early nineteenth century, Polwhele did not state whether any of his contemporary clergy or medical practitioners had an interest in astrology or magic, although he wrote an account of a man he knew as the 'conjuror of Ladock'.

Direct evidence of astrological traditions and practitioners who were associated with Cornwall is scarce. The early fifteenth century astrological physician Richard Trewythian kept a notebook containing charts drawn at specific times for himself and two sons; his prognostications; and notes on some of his patients. It is unlikely that Trewythian did not have family origins or connections in Cornwall, given that his surname was a toponym that derived uniquely on the Roseland. Nonetheless, Trewythian lived in London, and, other than his surname, any evidence of Cornish connections remains to be found. Trewythian may have acquired his knowledge of medicine and astrology while travelling, given he did not attend university in Britain.

A century later, John Dotin’s memorial in 1561 described him (in Latin) as a ‘physician, and excellent astrologer’ as well as vicar. It is the alumni records of Oxford University which identify one person of that name completing first degrees in the 1520s, and returning two decades later to study medicine, in which he obtained qualifications in the 1540s and 1550s. Dotin is buried and memorialised in Somerset, but held a number of church appointments and livings including St Issey, and Whitstone, in Cornwall, as well as being the chaplain of Exeter College, Oxford. He was a Cornish vicar during the turbulent years of the prayer book rebellion in 1549, as well as the later reign of the Catholic Queen Mary I. Dotin’s first degree in medicine predated the rebellion, but it is possible that he chose to pursue further medical studies in Oxford, during the reign of Queen Mary, where he obtained his doctorate in medicine in 1559.

The 13th century church at Whitstone was built next to St Anne’s holy well, over which there is a possibly ancient carving of a human face in greenstone. Apart from Dotin’s university registrations little is known of where he lived when, or his medical and astrological practice. Nonetheless, his church appointments confirm that, historically, at least one astrologer held influential positions in Cornish communities. A reputed, open practitioner of an esoteric tradition, which was later recalled in Cornish folk tales as associated with sorcerors, exoticised Saracen travellers from the East, alchemy and medieval mysteries at Pengersick, as well as in other times and places.

Folk lore is more than fiction. The Cornish folklorists - Thomas Couch, Robert Hunt, and William Bottrell - had individual literary styles and interests, and adopted different approaches to organising and presenting their collections. Nonetheless, these writers relayed varied versions of some of the same Cornish tales. In origin, many of these folk tales may have derived from historical events, which the community iterated and retold as part of an ever evolving oral tradition. These were not contemporary accounts of occurences, and folk tales by themselves are not evidence that there was a tradition of customary practices. The forename, or spelling of individuals’ names sometimes varied in folk tales, as they did occasionally in historical records. Or tales related to more than one person of the same family name became elided or conflated.

The Cornish folklorist William Bottrell produced his third volume with assistance. Possibly from his friend, the then editor of the Cornishman newspaper, Albert Charles Wildman. It was this volume, published in 1880, which suggested that, in Cornwall

the bettermost class of farmers ... [were] so much given to the study of astrology that they were regarded as conjurors by their domestics and more ignorant neighbours, who, seeing the horoscopes and schemes in the gentlemen's old books, believed these strange-looking figures to be the secret signs of the means used for dealing with the invisible world, or for commanding the spirits of light and darkness, over whom it was devoutly believed that many skilful astrologers of the west had (by means of their books) perfect control.

Naming men from five West Penwith parishes - St Buryan, St Just, Madron, Morvah, and Sennen - plus