Cornwall Museum and Art Gallery: Cornish Myths and Legends

This exhibition runs until the 1st November 2026

This is a delightfully curated exhibition with something for everyone.  They cleverly bring together different elements of their collection and have then filled in a few gaps with items from other collections held in Cornwall.

Large banners with line drawings on are perhaps the first thing that really stands out.  I think these are copies of pictures from old books.  The original artwork would probably have been engravings.  I have always loved engravings.  Its a well developed and precise art of a particular time when books were first being mass produced.  The fine detail is always incredible and in blowing parts of these pictures up, it's incredible to see just how much detail there is.  The only thing is, there is no information about the origins of these pictures, so I am guessing a little.  

These banners punctuated the exhibition, breaking up the different stories and myths the exhibition focuses on.  My favourite aspects were the more botanical or landscape parts.  There was a stunning tree that I absolutely fell in love with.  It's such a lovely idea enlarging them and really making them a focus.

After the full stops of the banners, the capital letter of each sentence is a large white board detailing the the myth or legend the following displays look at.  These were clear and informative.  There were also a few black boards with white writing that look at overarching themes such as how landscape and legends go together, or how so many stories contain special objects that act as amulets or talismans.  Another looked out how we can relate to the people in the stories as they fulfilled specific roles.

The museum then took the opportunity to display a number of paintings throughout that had pre-Raphaelite feel.  These sorts of paintings often drew on mythology and folklore for their subject material.  This made them the perfect accompaniment for the stories told.  This style was Victorian and romanticised these stories.  Four artists that painted in Cornwall are featured and their paintings provide a beautiful and colourful aspect to the exhibition.

Elizabeth Forbes was a Canadian artist who with her husband, Stanhope Forbes, founded an art school in Newlyn.  Her Dream Princess stands over a sleeping man in front of a water mill.  As You Like It shows two women in a woodland watching a man.

Henry M Rheum was a late pre-Raphaelite painter and the first cousin of Henry Scott Tuke, which was a influence in his choosing to settle in Newlyn from Yorkshire.  His Girl with Daffodils is part of piskie story as it shows a woman in woodlands, distracted and searching for something.  The Dragon's Cave shows a young female royal kneeling down outside a cave that contains a black dragon.  The Manikin shows a young woman leaning towards a little person, a fae.  Pandora's Box shows Pandora aboutt o open the box.  The Fortune-teller shows a woman visiting with an old lady who is reading her cards as another watches on.

R H Carter was an artist that lived in Truro and then Falmouth.  A Sunday Evening: The Return from Church is a lovely painting showing a family in a small boat rowing to shore where some houses are set back a little from the sea.

W J Chapman is not an artist I can find much information about.  His painting of Tamson Blight, The White Witch of Helston is an incredible opportunity to see what an actual witch looked like.  Tammy Blee as she was known locally, was a good witch who only did good deeds.  As she died in 1856, there really is not many images of her.

The last feature of the wall displays are little clusters of smaller pictures with accompanying notes.  These items are diverse reproductions of original images held in different collections.  They included photographs, maps, illustrations, smaller watercolours and engravings.  The origin of each item is not necessarily given.  It occurs to me now, I possibly should have picked up one of the exhibition pamphlets as there may have been more information in that.

Hilda Quick was a Penzance born painter and wood engraver who collaborated with Rowena Cade to produce theatre programmes for the Minack Theatre.  Reproductions of several pieces held by the Morrab Library have been included.  Dominion of Dreams shows two little women sitting at the base of some poppy stalks.  Pennywort shows a figure amongst the leaves of Pennywort, which was believed to be a favourite hiding place for Piskies.  Demons and Damsels illustrates the story of the Merry Maidens stone circle where two pipers tempted some young women to dance and they missed church.  A Maiden and A Fairy was used to illustrate the story of Cherry from Zennor.  Another un-named piece shows fae circling a young woman sat at the base of a tree.  The Nature of Fairies shows fae enjoying rides on Sycamore seeds as they spiral down.

Innocence is a lovely picture of a male figure with a sleeping dragon curled round them.  It is a watercolour by Thomas Cooper Gotch who lived in Newlyn and was a friend of the Forbes.

One of my favourite pieces was a diagram of Tintagel from an original by Norden in 1626.  It documents a version of Tintagel that existed at that time which is now lost to us.  Some of the things were known from recent history but had been lost to time or the sea.  For instance, the location of a drawbridge is given but is described as decayed.

The photos are lovely, they document the ancient places and rituals of Cornwall.  Cornwall has retained a large number of events that have much older roots.  A lovely map was part of the exhibition which showed the locations of folk festivals and traditions both those from the past and those current as well as myths and legends.  We have such a rich heritage but we are also not afraid to put together new events or reinvent old ones.  Many of these events are based on local stories.

One such story is that of the Obby Oss which is a May Day celebration in Padstow based on fertility folklore.  Two hobby horses go through town with their attendant teasers.  It was lovely to see two Oss's in the exhibition as they are lovely objects people don't often get to look at closely.  While one was made for Penglaz, the other was on loan from Wildworks, a theatre company, so it was more likely a theatre prop.

Another item on loan from Wildworks was the stunning figure of Silver, whose face was half a mosaic of mirrors and half a riot of roots and twigs.  These items show that the Cornish heritage of story telling is still very much alive in our local theatre companies.  Versions of the old stories as well as newer stories based on our landscapes are still being told.

The last part of the exhibition were the historical items.  The smaller items were in three glass cabinets but there were other larger items too.  A glorious painted screen depicting a sea monster.  An old desk used to display different herbs and information on their use, some much more superstitious than medicinal.  The Presidents Chair.  An old cauldron.

The smaller items ranged from archaeological items that showed evidence of superstition to much more recent items.  Its incredible to see such a variety, from protective rings to an old tarot deck from Bude, that no one is quite sure exactly how they entered the museum.  An 1883 wedding gift was a fuel burner where a cauldron hung from a tree over a mushroom with an owl perched in a tree.  These cabinets were rich with snippets of folklore and superstition.

One myth that was touched on throughout was how our retellings take history and colour it with our own times.  In the original stories, they would not have worn the medieval clothing the Pre-Raphaelites liked to paint.  This did not wear metal armour as it would not have been available.  The retelling of these stories has been constant, and this is why the versions told in local theatres are just as relevant as those tole in Victorian paintings.

It's always interesting to see how an exhibition looks at a museums collection, and the additional items it can borrow to supplement what they themselves have.  It is like placing a lens over the collection, to look at it in a slightly different way, to learn different things and see a different set of items.