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A Story of Cornwall
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A Story of Cornwall
by Nick Hart
with additional lyrics by Heather Taylor
Music interpreted by Dalla
Introduction and Acknowledgements
Telling the story of Cornwall in ten songs is like pouring Dozmary Pool into a limpet shell. There’s an awful lot left out! But I have long wanted to reflect in music some of the characteristics of our land and its human activity that have most fired my imagination. The work is a very personal response to the lives shaped by, and shaping, our wondrous landscape. It is a story of struggle and endeavour, of optimism and dashed hope, and ultimately of renaissance.
Dalla
Dalla was formed by Neil Davey and Hilary Coleman in 1999. The Davey and Coleman families have been integral parts of the Cornish Celtic music scene since the earliest days of the current revival.
Hilary’s books include Lev Krev, Hoolybus and most recently Shout Kernow.
A Story of Cornwall
Stones
The natural formations in Cornwall of verse 1 are juxtaposed with ancient man-made structures of verse 2. Wonderful ‘sculptures’ like the Cheesewring were once thought to be man-made and appear to be sites of pre-historic pilgrimage.
Can An Dowr - Song of the Water
Sources of safe and reliable drinking water were blessed indeed for early settlers. And the peninsular of Cornwall is bounded almost on all sides by water. From the silver trickle of the spring to the deep dropping pools of the incoming tide the Cornish relationship with water remains intense.
Myths and Monsters
Cornwall plays host to a rich cast of mythical characters and their wondrous tales - the Mermaid of Zennor, the cruel giants Cormoron and Gogmagog - often offering an explanation for the shapes and sounds of its beautiful landscape.
Saints
When the ‘saints’ arrived many of them probably took over pre-existing sacred sites, particularly those with pure water, which would have been of vital importance to communities. The legends of the Cornish ‘saints’ are likely more myth than anything resembling history. Their story segues straight into the politics of religion in Cornwall.
Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549
Church liturgy in Cornwall had always been in Latin. However, it is probable that the texts were ‘explained’ in the vernacular, thus in Cornish (particularly in the West, for example in the Cornish Mystery plays) and in English. The trauma of Henry VIII’s Reformation brought an end to a thousand years of Roman worship; unrest seeped across the whole of England. During the reign of his son, the boy-king Edward VI with his unpopular councillors, there was open revolt in many parts of the country. Charitable work and employment in monasteries had been rudely interrupted. Poverty was widespread as newly favoured landlords hiked up the rents. Changes to sacred ritual became the focus of dissent for an already disgruntled populace, and the new English prayer book seemed to many to be the embodiment of heresy. Traditionalists in Cornwall and Devon rebelled and were brutally punished.
The languages of Latin, Cornish and English had coexisted happily enough for years as a medium for communicating the religious mysteries in Cornwall. No longer. The Anglican way was now imposed - for theirs was the kingdom, the power and the glory. For ever and ever!
The piece incorporates three settings of Our Father - Cornish, Latin and English - before English comes to dominate.
Industrial Greatness
Cornwall was the world centre for tin and copper production in the 19th century, and was pioneering great technological innovations, particularly in the use of steam where Trevithick’s first locomotive preceded Stephenson’s Rocket by at least a decade. This section is re-creating the stamp and rhythm of the great mechanicals and is in 5/4 time (or 15/8), which has become a popular Cornish rhythm for dancing.
The Diaspora
In the 19th century Cornwall was the world’s leading producer of tin, copper and mining expertise. When global prices tumbled families faced ruin and starvation. Like so many people before and since - and to this day - thousands made the most desperate decision - to leave their loves and their lives, and to emigrate.
This event is evoked using a text from the Ordinalia - the Cornish Mystery Plays, which are among the only surviving examples of Cornish as it was spoken and written shortly before it died as a first language. ‘Ellas … ow map ker.’ Alas, … my dear son … I know not on what spot, in what place, I will abide.’ Mary’s last words to her son, Jesus.
Decline and Lament
The twentieth century was one of decline and depression and ruination of vast tracts of land with china clay spoil and caravan sites. Educational attainment and low aspiration went hand in hand, particularly in the old mining centres, where those who stayed behind vainly awaited the second coming - of tin. When it finally did (a bit) the jobs were taken by highly educated mining specialists from elsewhere. The text is from a poem by Heather Taylor commissioned for this performance.
Cornwall Rejoice!
There is a new self-confidence in Cornwall - and recognition of its special nation status. Cornish studies continue with attempts to introduce a modern form of Cornish. Tourism has gone sharply up-market thanks to Eden, Rick Stein, Poldark, Doc Martin and others. Cornwall champions abound with national and international fame - extraordinary sailors, cheeses, wines, theatre companies, jazz musicians, and a whole raft of creative industries.
Please join in this chorus!
Can Kernow - Song of Cornwall
This is a recapitulation of the ideas in A Story of Cornwall, and set to the tune of Can An Dowr.
Royal Cornwall Museum Project
The RCM has worked with St Neot and Marazion Schools to enable them to enrich their curriculum studies. Each school has visited the museum with a specific study focus and a practitioner has worked with the pupils back in their own schools.
A key idea of the performance in the museum was to encourage an engagement with the history of Cornwall while surrounded by its physical heritage.
Stones
Colvannick and Penkestle.
Brunwenelly, Kilmar Tor,
One geologic blink - we came -
You’ll watch us go once more.
We heaved you into rings and rows
And broke you up for homes,
We fashioned temples for our gods,
To better bet the eternal odds,
And laid our bones
Beneath your stones
Lands End to Bodmin Moor.
Chorus
Cheesewring, Brown Gelly, Trewortha,
Roughtor and Garrow Tor,
We’re chasing the galloping shadows
Whispering over the moor.
From Nine Stones to Nine Maidens,
Trethevey to Lanyon,
By sainted wells that washed our sins,
And laugh when we are gone,
We stand - to understand your place -
Or kneel or throw a coin;
We tell the tale of what you are,
In legends calling from afar,
And what you mean
Or might have been,
Trethevey to Lanyon.
Can an Dowr
(Song of the Water)
Silver the trickle that dances and sparkles,
Golden the ripple that whispers on pebbles,
Flickering blue, the damsel fly flits on her stream.
Chorus
Sing of the spring where the water’s born,
Sing of new life in the greening thorn,
Sing of the story each valley can tell,
Sing of the soul of the well.
Tumbling like children who rollick at playtime,
Darting with swallows, cascading in shallows,
Swiftly the flow discovers the quickening way.
Lazy the lovers who lie by the river,
Moss for their pillow, green dapples their cover,
Gently the wave caresses the vigilant stone.
Chorus
Deep dropping pools on the incoming tide
Mix ocean and river as parent with child,
To end in the end by beginning again.
Chorus
Myths, Monsters and Mermaids
I’ll whistle the air of a fishy young maid,
I’ll dance you a jig of a fight,
I’ll drum you the beat of a giant’s last leap
And I’ll pluck you with strings of delight.
Cormoron
Cormoron, Cormoron, shrouded in myth,
More of a monster than man,
Cormoron, Cormoron, what to do with?
On The Mount, a legend began.
Chorus
Moor stones, more stones, more mighty moor stones,
Pile them high and never wonder why.
Moor stones, more stones, more, evermore!
St Michael’s Mount almost touches the sky!
Cormoron sings:
I must eat before I sleep
Twenty cows and thirty sheep,
Forty boys and naughty girls,
And shave their heads and sell their curls.
(child solo)
But you won’t, no you won’t, no you won’t eat me!
Cormoron
You’ll be my crib, right down to your toes,
Fee! Fie! I’ve so many foes!
child
I’ll add to your troubles, I’ll add to your woes,
You’re going to darkness where nobody goes.
Down here, deep underground,
Down, down where the Devil is found,
I tricked you with treats and promises sweet,
And battered your head so you’re dead! Yea!
All sing
Cormoron, Cormoron, now we are free,
You are resting in peace;
Cormoron, Cormoron’s path on the sea,
Means we walk on the causeway with ease.
Chorus
Moor stones, more stones, more mighty moor stones,
Pile them high and never wonder why.
Moor stones, more stones, more, evermore!
St Michael’s Mount almost touches the sky!
Gogmagog
My name is Corin the Great of Troy,
And my greatest feat since I was a boy
Was to conquer this land of hill and bog,
And kill the giant Gogmagog.
Gogmagog still lives in the fog,
He sucks you in if you step in a bog,
His eyes stare out from under a log,
The West Wind howls: ‘I’m Googmagoog!’
We wrestled three days under blazing sun
And three more in snow and still we were’t done,
We wrestled on moorland and down in the glyn,
But from cliff top - I threw him in.
Chorus
The Mermaid Of Zennor
Two quainty feet skipped down the street,
The pretty maid of Zennor,
She sang so sweet and looked so neat,
And loved the local tenor.
Her fancy fell, as folks do tell,
Upon this fine fitty fella,
His voice a bell, she cast her spell
On handsome Matt Trewella.
Follow Me! Follow me, fine and free,
Follow me over the sea.
Matthew Trewella
I hear you call me in the night,
Your voice enchantment’s toll;
I’ll follow where you’re burning bright
Beyond the dune, beneath the ocean’s roll.
Upper voices sing
Follow Me! Follow me, fine and free,
Follow me into the sea.
The sparkling strand of golden sand,
Two lovers in the foam;
No more they stand on dreary land,
Her fishtail feet swim home.
Follow Me! Follow me, fine and free,
Follow me into the sea.
Saints and Prayer Book Rebellion
Piran and Petroc,
Berion and Mewan,
The Word was borne on the water,
They saw that it was good.
Open the rock’s dark heart
Flow sweetly the fount
Pagan and pure
Fresh to the parched
Of lip and life
Balm to heal and to cure
The cross of their mast held a spirited sail
And a powerful faith in the wood.
The Word was at one with the water;
They saw that it was good.
Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum.
Agan Tas ni, eus yn nev, bennigys re bo Dha Hanow,
Our Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
For Mine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen
Industrial Greatness
Ting Tang Gonamena
Trefusis, Tolvaddon, Bozweddan, Pengenna, Stencoose
Wheal and bal and wheal and ball and hiss.
The wheal of fortune favours the bold adventure,
The lure of the each lode can carry a striking rich seam,
A kibble of ore promises treasures on earth,
Tin, copper and gold haunt the dark place in a dream.
Coal, piston, cylinder and beam,
Bob wall, condenser boiler, steam,
Wheel turning, pumping, stamping rock,
Crush, grind cassiterite, the block
Tackle lifting kibble rattle stop.
Diaspora
ellas, A Gryst, ow map ker,
yn mur bayn pan y’th welaf!
ellas, dre guth, yn clamder
dhe’n dor prak na omwhelaf?
dre ow map pyth yu ow cher?
pup ur-ol y’n bynygaf.
ellas, ny won py tyller -
byth moy po le - y trygaf. Eyghan!
rak y fynnyr - mara kyllyr
gans paynys mur ow dyswul glan.
Alas! O Christ, my dear son,
In much pain that I should see thee!
Alas! through shame, fainting
To the earth why do I not cast myself?
Through my son, what is my state?
At all times I bless him;
Alas! I know not in what place,
Evermore I shall dwell,
Oh! Woe!
For it is wished - if it could be,
With great sorrows,
To destroy me quite.
Lament
(by Heather Taylor)
Let Cornwall turn to gladness!
Oh let the light of long-forgotten skies
Dilate the mind and rest upon her eyes.
But this vast night
And lean twilight
Enshrouds that once supernal light,
Ellas! with cares and sadness.
That trackless world of dreaming!
That wheal-song-world with huer-cry-hope, more real
Than any dream-gold wealth or rich ideal!
For in the dark
Men made their mark,
A purer, fiercer, white-song spark,
Such ore that’s brightly gleaming.
Too swift the vision shatters,
For stark moonlight traps in a swirling rush
Those wheals that keep a stern perpetual hush,
While slow time hides
Like ebbless tides
All things that this fine nation prides,
Eyghan! and all that matters.
The mind hates gloomy places
Where dreams flame fast to ash and poor are shorn
Of dignity and pride; still hope’s new-born.
That vesper hymn
Shall never dim
Though people still this land dislimm
And fetter Cornish spaces.
Heartsore men sigh despairing:
“Those cool praxitelean cloud-like slopes
Were but the scorched white spoil of all our hopes!”
They craved the dream
To seek the gleam
That through their minds would ever stream.
Ellas! where is the caring?
A new song joins the sadness,
For now the waves explode with hostile voice,
Brute-bleak and howling harsh; none may rejoice
This prophecy
Sung by the sea
That loud laments, and ceaselessly:
“Ellas! Ellas! No gladness.”
Cornwall Rejoice!
(Words Nick Hart and Heather Taylor)
Chorus
Now feel the hope of Cornwall grow
And blossom from an ember dream.
Strong in her will she spreads her wings
To gain that far horizon gleam.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Cry One and All!
Now revel in our liberty.
Proclaim your love for this bright land
Inspired with new vitality
Our hopes and fears
For coming years
No more are tinged with mournful tears,
For now we hear the beating drum
Declaring that our time has come.
Chorus
Can Kernow
Sing of our land now her story’s told,
Sing of a future and sing of old,
Sing of the moorland, the valleys, the sea,
Sing Cornwall’s beauty to me.
Circles and chambers and great standing stones,
Caverns and gunnies where spriggans still roam,
Echoes in names remember a once-spoken tongue.
Golden Olympians and wines for a queen,
Gardens of Eden and places to dream,
Sing ‘One and All!’, Sing ‘Cornwall!’, Sing ‘Cornwall Our Home!’
Support for this production:
FEAST harnesses the many talents and energies of Cornwall’s artists and communities to create inspiring opportunities for people to come together and enjoy high quality arts as participants and audiences.
FEAST brings artists together with community volunteers to launch or invigorate local festivals and events. We also work with partner organisations to offer new creative ways of tackling some of the social, economic or environmental issues facing Cornwall.
www.feastcornwall.org
Derris Watson, County Councillor, Community Fund
www.cornwall.gov.uk
Cornwall Music Education Hub champions, celebrates and grows Cornwall’s rich music heritage through inclusive, dynamic and innovative learning, inspiring children to achieve their musical potential.
cornwallmusiceducationhub.org
Royal Cornwall Museum
Learning at the Royal Cornwall Museum is central to everything we do, so it should be no surprise therefore to find that our Learning Service for schools has been recognised, nationally, as award winning. We support learning with Museum workshops, independent visits and loans to schools.
royalcornwallmuseum.org.uk
Front cover
Bodmin Moor
by Colin Gibbs
Colin and his wife Catherine, both, from New Zealand spent six weeks in the summer of 2015 in St Neot, collecting inspiration for a series of paintings about Cornwall. His work from this period will be exhibited in New Zealand later this year.
Contact [email protected]
by Nick Hart
with additional lyrics by Heather Taylor
Music interpreted by Dalla
Introduction and Acknowledgements
Telling the story of Cornwall in ten songs is like pouring Dozmary Pool into a limpet shell. There’s an awful lot left out! But I have long wanted to reflect in music some of the characteristics of our land and its human activity that have most fired my imagination. The work is a very personal response to the lives shaped by, and shaping, our wondrous landscape. It is a story of struggle and endeavour, of optimism and dashed hope, and ultimately of renaissance.
Dalla
Dalla was formed by Neil Davey and Hilary Coleman in 1999. The Davey and Coleman families have been integral parts of the Cornish Celtic music scene since the earliest days of the current revival.
Hilary’s books include Lev Krev, Hoolybus and most recently Shout Kernow.
A Story of Cornwall
Stones
The natural formations in Cornwall of verse 1 are juxtaposed with ancient man-made structures of verse 2. Wonderful ‘sculptures’ like the Cheesewring were once thought to be man-made and appear to be sites of pre-historic pilgrimage.
Can An Dowr - Song of the Water
Sources of safe and reliable drinking water were blessed indeed for early settlers. And the peninsular of Cornwall is bounded almost on all sides by water. From the silver trickle of the spring to the deep dropping pools of the incoming tide the Cornish relationship with water remains intense.
Myths and Monsters
Cornwall plays host to a rich cast of mythical characters and their wondrous tales - the Mermaid of Zennor, the cruel giants Cormoron and Gogmagog - often offering an explanation for the shapes and sounds of its beautiful landscape.
Saints
When the ‘saints’ arrived many of them probably took over pre-existing sacred sites, particularly those with pure water, which would have been of vital importance to communities. The legends of the Cornish ‘saints’ are likely more myth than anything resembling history. Their story segues straight into the politics of religion in Cornwall.
Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549
Church liturgy in Cornwall had always been in Latin. However, it is probable that the texts were ‘explained’ in the vernacular, thus in Cornish (particularly in the West, for example in the Cornish Mystery plays) and in English. The trauma of Henry VIII’s Reformation brought an end to a thousand years of Roman worship; unrest seeped across the whole of England. During the reign of his son, the boy-king Edward VI with his unpopular councillors, there was open revolt in many parts of the country. Charitable work and employment in monasteries had been rudely interrupted. Poverty was widespread as newly favoured landlords hiked up the rents. Changes to sacred ritual became the focus of dissent for an already disgruntled populace, and the new English prayer book seemed to many to be the embodiment of heresy. Traditionalists in Cornwall and Devon rebelled and were brutally punished.
The languages of Latin, Cornish and English had coexisted happily enough for years as a medium for communicating the religious mysteries in Cornwall. No longer. The Anglican way was now imposed - for theirs was the kingdom, the power and the glory. For ever and ever!
The piece incorporates three settings of Our Father - Cornish, Latin and English - before English comes to dominate.
Industrial Greatness
Cornwall was the world centre for tin and copper production in the 19th century, and was pioneering great technological innovations, particularly in the use of steam where Trevithick’s first locomotive preceded Stephenson’s Rocket by at least a decade. This section is re-creating the stamp and rhythm of the great mechanicals and is in 5/4 time (or 15/8), which has become a popular Cornish rhythm for dancing.
The Diaspora
In the 19th century Cornwall was the world’s leading producer of tin, copper and mining expertise. When global prices tumbled families faced ruin and starvation. Like so many people before and since - and to this day - thousands made the most desperate decision - to leave their loves and their lives, and to emigrate.
This event is evoked using a text from the Ordinalia - the Cornish Mystery Plays, which are among the only surviving examples of Cornish as it was spoken and written shortly before it died as a first language. ‘Ellas … ow map ker.’ Alas, … my dear son … I know not on what spot, in what place, I will abide.’ Mary’s last words to her son, Jesus.
Decline and Lament
The twentieth century was one of decline and depression and ruination of vast tracts of land with china clay spoil and caravan sites. Educational attainment and low aspiration went hand in hand, particularly in the old mining centres, where those who stayed behind vainly awaited the second coming - of tin. When it finally did (a bit) the jobs were taken by highly educated mining specialists from elsewhere. The text is from a poem by Heather Taylor commissioned for this performance.
Cornwall Rejoice!
There is a new self-confidence in Cornwall - and recognition of its special nation status. Cornish studies continue with attempts to introduce a modern form of Cornish. Tourism has gone sharply up-market thanks to Eden, Rick Stein, Poldark, Doc Martin and others. Cornwall champions abound with national and international fame - extraordinary sailors, cheeses, wines, theatre companies, jazz musicians, and a whole raft of creative industries.
Please join in this chorus!
Can Kernow - Song of Cornwall
This is a recapitulation of the ideas in A Story of Cornwall, and set to the tune of Can An Dowr.
Royal Cornwall Museum Project
The RCM has worked with St Neot and Marazion Schools to enable them to enrich their curriculum studies. Each school has visited the museum with a specific study focus and a practitioner has worked with the pupils back in their own schools.
A key idea of the performance in the museum was to encourage an engagement with the history of Cornwall while surrounded by its physical heritage.
Stones
Colvannick and Penkestle.
Brunwenelly, Kilmar Tor,
One geologic blink - we came -
You’ll watch us go once more.
We heaved you into rings and rows
And broke you up for homes,
We fashioned temples for our gods,
To better bet the eternal odds,
And laid our bones
Beneath your stones
Lands End to Bodmin Moor.
Chorus
Cheesewring, Brown Gelly, Trewortha,
Roughtor and Garrow Tor,
We’re chasing the galloping shadows
Whispering over the moor.
From Nine Stones to Nine Maidens,
Trethevey to Lanyon,
By sainted wells that washed our sins,
And laugh when we are gone,
We stand - to understand your place -
Or kneel or throw a coin;
We tell the tale of what you are,
In legends calling from afar,
And what you mean
Or might have been,
Trethevey to Lanyon.
Can an Dowr
(Song of the Water)
Silver the trickle that dances and sparkles,
Golden the ripple that whispers on pebbles,
Flickering blue, the damsel fly flits on her stream.
Chorus
Sing of the spring where the water’s born,
Sing of new life in the greening thorn,
Sing of the story each valley can tell,
Sing of the soul of the well.
Tumbling like children who rollick at playtime,
Darting with swallows, cascading in shallows,
Swiftly the flow discovers the quickening way.
Lazy the lovers who lie by the river,
Moss for their pillow, green dapples their cover,
Gently the wave caresses the vigilant stone.
Chorus
Deep dropping pools on the incoming tide
Mix ocean and river as parent with child,
To end in the end by beginning again.
Chorus
Myths, Monsters and Mermaids
I’ll whistle the air of a fishy young maid,
I’ll dance you a jig of a fight,
I’ll drum you the beat of a giant’s last leap
And I’ll pluck you with strings of delight.
Cormoron
Cormoron, Cormoron, shrouded in myth,
More of a monster than man,
Cormoron, Cormoron, what to do with?
On The Mount, a legend began.
Chorus
Moor stones, more stones, more mighty moor stones,
Pile them high and never wonder why.
Moor stones, more stones, more, evermore!
St Michael’s Mount almost touches the sky!
Cormoron sings:
I must eat before I sleep
Twenty cows and thirty sheep,
Forty boys and naughty girls,
And shave their heads and sell their curls.
(child solo)
But you won’t, no you won’t, no you won’t eat me!
Cormoron
You’ll be my crib, right down to your toes,
Fee! Fie! I’ve so many foes!
child
I’ll add to your troubles, I’ll add to your woes,
You’re going to darkness where nobody goes.
Down here, deep underground,
Down, down where the Devil is found,
I tricked you with treats and promises sweet,
And battered your head so you’re dead! Yea!
All sing
Cormoron, Cormoron, now we are free,
You are resting in peace;
Cormoron, Cormoron’s path on the sea,
Means we walk on the causeway with ease.
Chorus
Moor stones, more stones, more mighty moor stones,
Pile them high and never wonder why.
Moor stones, more stones, more, evermore!
St Michael’s Mount almost touches the sky!
Gogmagog
My name is Corin the Great of Troy,
And my greatest feat since I was a boy
Was to conquer this land of hill and bog,
And kill the giant Gogmagog.
Gogmagog still lives in the fog,
He sucks you in if you step in a bog,
His eyes stare out from under a log,
The West Wind howls: ‘I’m Googmagoog!’
We wrestled three days under blazing sun
And three more in snow and still we were’t done,
We wrestled on moorland and down in the glyn,
But from cliff top - I threw him in.
Chorus
The Mermaid Of Zennor
Two quainty feet skipped down the street,
The pretty maid of Zennor,
She sang so sweet and looked so neat,
And loved the local tenor.
Her fancy fell, as folks do tell,
Upon this fine fitty fella,
His voice a bell, she cast her spell
On handsome Matt Trewella.
Follow Me! Follow me, fine and free,
Follow me over the sea.
Matthew Trewella
I hear you call me in the night,
Your voice enchantment’s toll;
I’ll follow where you’re burning bright
Beyond the dune, beneath the ocean’s roll.
Upper voices sing
Follow Me! Follow me, fine and free,
Follow me into the sea.
The sparkling strand of golden sand,
Two lovers in the foam;
No more they stand on dreary land,
Her fishtail feet swim home.
Follow Me! Follow me, fine and free,
Follow me into the sea.
Saints and Prayer Book Rebellion
Piran and Petroc,
Berion and Mewan,
The Word was borne on the water,
They saw that it was good.
Open the rock’s dark heart
Flow sweetly the fount
Pagan and pure
Fresh to the parched
Of lip and life
Balm to heal and to cure
The cross of their mast held a spirited sail
And a powerful faith in the wood.
The Word was at one with the water;
They saw that it was good.
Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum.
Agan Tas ni, eus yn nev, bennigys re bo Dha Hanow,
Our Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
For Mine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen
Industrial Greatness
Ting Tang Gonamena
Trefusis, Tolvaddon, Bozweddan, Pengenna, Stencoose
Wheal and bal and wheal and ball and hiss.
The wheal of fortune favours the bold adventure,
The lure of the each lode can carry a striking rich seam,
A kibble of ore promises treasures on earth,
Tin, copper and gold haunt the dark place in a dream.
Coal, piston, cylinder and beam,
Bob wall, condenser boiler, steam,
Wheel turning, pumping, stamping rock,
Crush, grind cassiterite, the block
Tackle lifting kibble rattle stop.
Diaspora
ellas, A Gryst, ow map ker,
yn mur bayn pan y’th welaf!
ellas, dre guth, yn clamder
dhe’n dor prak na omwhelaf?
dre ow map pyth yu ow cher?
pup ur-ol y’n bynygaf.
ellas, ny won py tyller -
byth moy po le - y trygaf. Eyghan!
rak y fynnyr - mara kyllyr
gans paynys mur ow dyswul glan.
Alas! O Christ, my dear son,
In much pain that I should see thee!
Alas! through shame, fainting
To the earth why do I not cast myself?
Through my son, what is my state?
At all times I bless him;
Alas! I know not in what place,
Evermore I shall dwell,
Oh! Woe!
For it is wished - if it could be,
With great sorrows,
To destroy me quite.
Lament
(by Heather Taylor)
Let Cornwall turn to gladness!
Oh let the light of long-forgotten skies
Dilate the mind and rest upon her eyes.
But this vast night
And lean twilight
Enshrouds that once supernal light,
Ellas! with cares and sadness.
That trackless world of dreaming!
That wheal-song-world with huer-cry-hope, more real
Than any dream-gold wealth or rich ideal!
For in the dark
Men made their mark,
A purer, fiercer, white-song spark,
Such ore that’s brightly gleaming.
Too swift the vision shatters,
For stark moonlight traps in a swirling rush
Those wheals that keep a stern perpetual hush,
While slow time hides
Like ebbless tides
All things that this fine nation prides,
Eyghan! and all that matters.
The mind hates gloomy places
Where dreams flame fast to ash and poor are shorn
Of dignity and pride; still hope’s new-born.
That vesper hymn
Shall never dim
Though people still this land dislimm
And fetter Cornish spaces.
Heartsore men sigh despairing:
“Those cool praxitelean cloud-like slopes
Were but the scorched white spoil of all our hopes!”
They craved the dream
To seek the gleam
That through their minds would ever stream.
Ellas! where is the caring?
A new song joins the sadness,
For now the waves explode with hostile voice,
Brute-bleak and howling harsh; none may rejoice
This prophecy
Sung by the sea
That loud laments, and ceaselessly:
“Ellas! Ellas! No gladness.”
Cornwall Rejoice!
(Words Nick Hart and Heather Taylor)
Chorus
Now feel the hope of Cornwall grow
And blossom from an ember dream.
Strong in her will she spreads her wings
To gain that far horizon gleam.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Cry One and All!
Now revel in our liberty.
Proclaim your love for this bright land
Inspired with new vitality
Our hopes and fears
For coming years
No more are tinged with mournful tears,
For now we hear the beating drum
Declaring that our time has come.
Chorus
Can Kernow
Sing of our land now her story’s told,
Sing of a future and sing of old,
Sing of the moorland, the valleys, the sea,
Sing Cornwall’s beauty to me.
Circles and chambers and great standing stones,
Caverns and gunnies where spriggans still roam,
Echoes in names remember a once-spoken tongue.
Golden Olympians and wines for a queen,
Gardens of Eden and places to dream,
Sing ‘One and All!’, Sing ‘Cornwall!’, Sing ‘Cornwall Our Home!’
Support for this production:
FEAST harnesses the many talents and energies of Cornwall’s artists and communities to create inspiring opportunities for people to come together and enjoy high quality arts as participants and audiences.
FEAST brings artists together with community volunteers to launch or invigorate local festivals and events. We also work with partner organisations to offer new creative ways of tackling some of the social, economic or environmental issues facing Cornwall.
www.feastcornwall.org
Derris Watson, County Councillor, Community Fund
www.cornwall.gov.uk
Cornwall Music Education Hub champions, celebrates and grows Cornwall’s rich music heritage through inclusive, dynamic and innovative learning, inspiring children to achieve their musical potential.
cornwallmusiceducationhub.org
Royal Cornwall Museum
Learning at the Royal Cornwall Museum is central to everything we do, so it should be no surprise therefore to find that our Learning Service for schools has been recognised, nationally, as award winning. We support learning with Museum workshops, independent visits and loans to schools.
royalcornwallmuseum.org.uk
Front cover
Bodmin Moor
by Colin Gibbs
Colin and his wife Catherine, both, from New Zealand spent six weeks in the summer of 2015 in St Neot, collecting inspiration for a series of paintings about Cornwall. His work from this period will be exhibited in New Zealand later this year.
Contact [email protected]
