Giant - Cormoran and West Cornwall

[DaRC]

The summer holidays mean that the people of England migrate to the SouthWest - now my grandparents use to live in Penzance, overlooking the beautiful St. Michaels Mount and Mount's Bay and we used to travel there at least once a year. As we used to travel around the Bay she told us the stories of Cormoran, the Giant of St. Michaels Mount:

The tradition is that St. Michaels Mount Mount was formerly called in old Cornish, Careg-luz en kuz*, and that it rose from the midst of an extensive
forest. Fossilised traces of this forest are supposed to be visible at low tide. Now Cormoran and his wife Cormelian lived in the
forest, that once covered Mount's Bay from Penzance to Marazion. Cormoran wanted to build himself a stronghold of white granite and forced
his wife to help by carrying the great boulders in her apron. One day, Cormelian, seeing her husband asleep decided it would be much easier to
fetch greenstone instead, as it was much closer to hand. Unfortunately, Cormoran awoke as she was halfway there and seeing her with
greenstone flew into a rage, he gave her such a kick that broke her apron strings and the greenstone fell. The forest is now submerged but
If you look on the causeway to St. Michaels Mount you can see that piece of greenstone still.

If you travel up to Trencrom Hill you will see not only the best views in West Cornwall but also that it's littered with huge boulders.
This was the result of a game that Cormoran and Trecrobben, the giant of Trencrom Hill, used to play of hurling rocks at each other to
catch, although some say they were playing "bob-buttons" - "The Mount was the 'bob', on which flat masses of granite were placed to
serve as buttons, and Trecrobben Hill was the 'mit', or the spot from which the throw was made. Sometimes they switched such as the
Mount was the mit and the Hill the button."

Cormoran and the giant Trecrobben were very friendly. They had only one cobbling-hammer between them, which they would throw from one to the other, as either required it. One day the giant on the Mount wanted the hammer in a great hurry, so he shouted,
"Holloa, up there! Trecrobben, throw us down the hammer, woost a'?"

"To be sure," sings out Trecrobben; "here! look out, and catch 'm."

Now, the giant's wife, alwyas ran ran out of her cave to see Trecrobben throw the hammer. She had no hat on and was very nearsighted; coming out of the dark cave into the light, she was blinded. Consequently, she did not see the hammer coming through the air, and received it between her eyes. The force with which it was flung was so great that the massive bone of the forehead of the giantess was crushed, and she fell dead at Cormoran's feet. You may be sure there was a great to-do with the two giants. They sat wailing over the dead body, and with their sighs produced a tempest. All of this was unavailing to restore the old lady, and all they could do was bury her. So they buried her under Chapel Rock.

Cormoran was eventually killed by Jack the Giant Killer but that, as my mother used to say, is a story for another day....

*The White Rock in the Forest

[DaRC]

As an addendum - Giants, Jotun's also called Ents appear in many myths of the northern tribes; usually as enactors of great natural forces.

I know that many in the druidic community link to dragon energies and wondered if any link to giant forces?

[AndyN]

Did you know that the Trecrom giants' names are Cornish? No - I mean in the Cornish language. They are Cormoran - the blackberry giant and Cormellian - the clover giant. The name Trencrom for the hill comes from the Cornish tor crom meaning hunched bulge or belly. In late Cornish consonants were added to some words and crom became crobm. So the giant's name is probably just the name of the hill.

[DaRC]

Thanks AndyN I was aware that the name of the giant Trecrom was from the name of the hill but didn't know the meaning of the Giant's names in Cornish.

I keep dabbling in Cornish but still haven't got round to sitting down and properly learning Cornish. Is there a version you would recommend?

[AndyN]

Ah - now that's a good question.

Until recently I would have recommended Kernewek Kemmyn, which is the version I learnt. However after much angst and discussion a standard written form was agreed in 2008 which is supposed to be the wversion which will be used by public bodies and taught in schools. There are actually two "standard written forms", one based very closely on Kernewek Kemmyn and one which uses late Cornish spelling. There are as yet no dictionaries for the SWF and so far as I am aware few learning aids. So although it would make sense to learn the SWF it doesn't seem to be practical at present. I suggest that you leant KK meanwhile. Have a look at http://www.kdl.org.uk/kernewek.htm which does an online course in Cornish.

Best of all if you live in the right place go to evening classes in Cornish.

[Dendrias]

Isn't that story linked to the bird, at all? Or are the names just coincidence?

[DaRC]

AndyN that's great I shall have a look at the course

Dendria Cormorant AFAIK comes from the Old English / early French and is a corruption of the latin Corvus Marinus and so it's linguistic roots are different.

[AndyN]

The Cornish for cormorant is morvran, literally sea crow.

[Dendrias]

Sorry, my mistake. The bird's German name is without the -t at the end, so I, without checking, assumed it to be the English name, as well. "Corvus marinus" means "sea crow", as well - what a coincidence.
My thought was, that there is perhaps kind of an etiological story that makes this Cormoran change into the bird, and that giant cormorants lived in Cornwall.

I've been to Penzance and Torquay some years ago. Very beautiful area.

[AndyN]

Well I've never heard of giant cormorants in Cornwall - so I think I'll stick to the Cornish language explanation.

By the way the old name for St Michael's Mount that you will see spelled in many variations is, according to Robert Hunt's 19th century collection of Cornish folk tales, Carreg luz en kuz as DarC said, which means the grey rock in the wood.

Another version of the story of the giants of the Mount says that when they were building it Cormellian tried to use greenstone instead of granite and that Cormoran killed her when he realised this. She is supposed to be buried under a big outcrop of greenstone close to the causeway across to the Mount