Cornish mythology

These tales are still popular today, with some events hosting a 'droll teller' or storyteller,[1][page needed] to share Cornish myths and legends.

Cornwall shares its ancient cultural heritage with its 'Brythonic cousins' Brittany and Wales, as well as Ireland and parts of England such as neighbouring Devon.

Part of Cornish mythology is derived from tales of seafaring pirates and smugglers who thrived in and around Cornwall from the early modern period through to the 19th century.

For many fishing villages, loot and contraband provided by pirates supported a strong and secretive underground economy in Cornwall.

[2][page needed] Legendary creatures that appear in Cornish folklore include buccas, knockers, Giants, and Pixies.

[3] Tales of these creatures are thought to have developed as supernatural explanations for the frequent and deadly cave-ins that occurred during 18th century Cornish tin mining, or else a creation of the oxygen-starved minds of exhausted miners who returned from the underground.

Many landscape features, from the barren granite rock features on Bodmin Moor, to the dramatic cliff seascape, to the mystical form of St Michael's Mount are explained as the work of Giants and English tales such as the early eighteenth century Jack the Giant Killer may recall much older British folk traditions recorded elsewhere in medieval Welsh language manuscripts and closely related to the folk traditions of Dartmoor in neighbouring Devon.

[4] For example, the Cornish name of St Michael's Mount is Karrek Loos y'n Koos, literally, "the grey rock in the wood".

The Doom Bar at the mouth of the River Camel was, according to legend, created by the Mermaid of Padstow as a dying curse, after being shot by a sailor.

Popular local legend claims that Joseph of Arimathea, a tin trader, visited the mine and brought a young Jesus to address the miners, although there is no evidence to support this.