Most people are aware that the island of Britain is home to three ancient identities, English, Scots and Welsh, each with its own cultural traditions, language and flag. But fewer know that recently there was a successful campaign to add a fourth identity, Cornish. The inhabitants of Cornwall have long been aware that they are distinct from the English, and many refuse to call themselves English, preferring the term Cornish. As you can see in the thumbnail above the Cornish identity has its own flag, the cross of St Pirran, and there have recently been successful moves to resurrect the Cornish language as a cultural resource. The language, a Celtic tongue,is spoken as a second tongue by some people and is distinct from both Welsh and Irish.
Cornwall was a Celtic kingdom distinct from Wales that came to be dominated by England in the tenth century. Under the Normans it was a crown possession distinct from England, but which was eventually absorbed into England for administrative reasons.
The county is replete with archaeological sites, such as dolmens [remnants of stone tombs] and stone circles. These reflect the ancient Celtic culture of the county. There are many abandoned tin mines, for mining reaches back into the depths of Cornish history. The ancient Phoenicians even made the long and dangerous journey from Lebanon into the Atlantic to the place that they called the Cassiterides, the Tin Isles, to purchase this metal essential to smelting bronze. The last mine eventually closed in 1983 though there is a possibility of their re-opening to exploit rare earths. You can still see the giant granite engine houses that contained the engines that kept the massive machines used to pump the water from the mines. So essential to the Cornish identity was mining that it used to be said that a mine is a hole in the ground with a Cornishman in it.
There is a thriving agricultural economy based very much on beef and dairy cattle, and in recent years the Cornish apple industry has developed with the production of craft ciders, often with one farm as their source, which gives each cider a distinct character. Fishing is not as strong as it was, but the industry still survives, and the famous chef Rick Stein has a very well-regarded sea food restaurant in Padstow on the south coast.
The Norman castle of Tintagel, a ruin overlooking the sea, was linked in Cornish myth with the legend of king Arthur, but that is all it is, a legend. I believe that there was a real Arthur, but he was from North Wales.
Comments
Well, Richard never got the throne, so what became of his efforts?Nothing really.
Geoffrey may have promoted a Cornish Arthur because the Normans were in conflict with the Welsh, so a Welsh Arthur would have been a propaganda gain for the Welsh.
frankbeswick, Oh, I can't believe that I forgot about all that, especially Richard, earl of Cornwall, king of the Romans and son-in-law of William Marshal. The latter is represented on this side of the pond as having integrity but also street smarts in serving five kings without losing job or status.
I remember Richard's surviving bloodline as through Joan de Vautort, but nothing about Cornwall. Were his efforts for naught, and why was Geoffrey of Monmouth so intent upon promoting a Cornish Arthur?
Earlier! The supposed historian Geoffrey of Monmouth,now deemed unreliable,invented the tale of a Cornish Arthur in the 1200s. Later on Richard,a prince who was brother of Henry the Third, promoted the legend. Richard was lord of Tintagel castle, which was the supposed birth place of Arthur, and so he sought to boost his prestige through his Arthurian connections.
frankbeswick, Thank you for the explanations. Cornish aristocratic claims to properties and titles? Was this around the time of Cornish support for Perkin Warbeck as one of the two Princes in the Tower, Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York?
The Cornish legend of Arthur arose because certain aristocrats wanted a legend that would be used to legitimate their claims.
frankbeswick, That's a most compelling and interesting reason. It passed me by, perhaps because of having read of repeat battles that have been represented more as power plays -- U.S. forces were doing better so they decided to take back something not necessarily all that strategically important that they'd lost, Vietnam forces were doing better so they likewise decided to take back what they'd lost -- between the United States and Vietnam than as perhaps forces from the area not wanting to let go of the particular part of Vietnam that they called home.
Hi Derdriu.
Winds from the South East combine with currents to produce dangerous boating conditions in Cornish seas.Small fishing boats must be careful.
I think that Arthur was from North Wales because we are told that Arthur fought several battles on the river Douglas.Why several in the same place? You defeat invaders on your borders, and there is a river Douglas in South Lancashire, which was then in Wales.If the Welsh kingdom of Gwynedd extended from North Wales into South Lancashire, which is only thirty miles from Wales, this battle tradition makes sense. An Arthur based in Chester, a Roman fortification on the English-Welsh border,not very far from Lancashire, seems very credible to me. He would be well placed to fight invading Picts or other British tribes on what was then the Welsh border and is now in England.
frankbeswick, Thank you for the entrancing photos, practicalities and products.
The picturesque town of Mineral Point in southwestern Wisconsin claims a Cornish immigrant/Cornish-American past. One of its hilly streets goes by the name Shake Rag Alley because of Cornish immigrant miners' wives standing outside their Cornish-style homes to shake pieces of cloth to let their husbands know to take breaks for meals.
Why do Cornish boatmen refrain from going out when the wind is from the southeast?
The Québec television stations once had a program about King Arthur, with the actor Richard Harris as host, and may have suggested a Welsh connection for the personage that was represented as being called "the high king" in Latin texts. Why is it that you favor a north Wales connection?
One little known fact is that there used to be a language spoken in South East Ireland known as Ivernic, which was said to be related to British Celtic. By the time of the early Celtic saints this language had become extinct. Could this have been a missing link between Welsh and Irish?
I am not really surprised by this. Welsh isn't standardised as a language as such. My husband tried to learn it when our son was at University in Wales and he was astonished at how locational the Welsh language is - different for each area. IT will be hard to standardise Welsh. Dutch used to be like that but is more standardised now. I would expect therefore that Cornish would be more similar to Irish than Welsh.