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Crowdercref
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Last Login: 04/01/2010 22:23:46
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Mike O’Connor’s book Cornish Folk Tales, recently published by the History Press, is more than a simple reworking of traditional material. Known nationally as a storyteller and musician, Mike has conducted extensive research into traditional music and folklore in Cornwall. At the same time, in a decade of research, Mike has uncovered the almost unknown world of the itinerant storyteller and singer in early 19th century Cornwall – the travelling ‘Droll Teller’.
In his book Mike tells the story of one such traveller, Anthony James, who with his son tramped the lanes of Cornwall in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. But as well as retelling many folk tales and legends, through his scholarship Mike has recreated a framework for his stories that is essentially factual. As well as the main protagonists, the other characters are drawn from history and realistically placed in their social context.
Cornwall was then in some ways still a remote and insular land, though changing swiftly with the industrial revolution. The Cornish language was (just) still in use. Cornish Folk Tales provides a vivid window on the traditional and popular culture of this distant world. It illustrates the principal customs of the time, and includes vernacular poetry in both English and Cornish. The folk songs, dance tunes and dances mentioned are also the result of original research.
The reader is given an unprecedented insight, for Cornish Folk Tales performs a dual role. Not only does it recount the tales of its title but, in a unique way, it places them in a beautifully researched and completely realistic context, which effortlessly draws the reader into a lost world of two centuries past. It informs as much as it entertains, with no detriment to either.
Review This is a little jewel of a book. As it says on the cover, it is certainly a fine collection of Cornish Folk Tales, but it is much more than that. The stories themselves emerge from the pages as if they are being told by a storyteller, which indeed they are, for the whole book is the journey of a travelling storyteller, Anthony James, a figure not of fiction, but of history. This is the greater story, a fragment of the life of an 18th century "droll teller", meticulously researched and carefully sourced.
Yet the academic credentials unobtrusively underpin a really good read, appealing on different levels to all ages - my 11-year old niece was as engrossed as I was! Add to this the tantalising references to the music and musicians of the period, an area in which the author is uniquely qualified, and the delightful illustrations, and you have an enchanting book to be read and re-read many times. Barbara Griggs
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