Post by Catsmate on May 7, 2024 11:15:59 GMT
A slightly meandering post, incorporating giants, knights, archaeology, Cornwall, mining and radioactivity.
Last Sunday saw the annual 'Bolster Day' parade in St. Agnes in Cornwall. A fascinating holdover in a county noted for the richness of it's folklore.
According to Cornish legend (and tourist information….) Bolster was a giant said to live near the cliffs at St Agnes who consumed children, sheep, cattle and people at random. Then a brave Knight, Sir Constantine, and other local dignitaries challenged Bolster to a fight to the death, which (also according to legend) says that the fights took place at Chapel Porth.
The Knight lost, the giant overcame all who challenged him.
But there's more! The legend continues to say that he fell in love with a beautiful young girl called Agnes who stole his heart. And young Agnes was the one to finally vanquish the giant. She asks him to fill a nearby hole in the clifftops with his blood to prove his love for her, knowing that there is a crack in the hole which runs out to the sea. Bolster cuts himself to fill the hole and dies due to blood loss.
The events of Bolster day recreate this story in more detail.
There's probably a message there; brains beats brain. Or don’t trust women
St Agnes is a rather pretty village (or small town) on the north coast of Cornwall, about nine kilometres north of Redruth and fifteen southwest of Newquay. Historically it was a centre for mineral mining (the famous South Crofty, the last operational tin mine in the region, is about 17km away), mainly copper, tin and arsenic
Most of the mining ended in the 1920s.
Today the town is a tourist centre, with some fishing.
The St Agnes region and it's history of mining and related industry, had led to a surge in industrial archaeology.
Much of the landscape around the town is of geological interest, and there are stone-age remains (~12kyBP) in the parish, in addition to Bronze Age barrows.
Legends of a giant, mining, tourists and archaeologists, there’s a game scenario there. Something weird, be it nasty, hibernating, dangerous, valuable or anachronistic, might be found by an archaeologist. Is Bolster really dead? Just what was s/he?
There’s no reason to limit ourselves to the modern day for such a scenario. I'll pass over the Pulp and the UNIT eras, plenty of examples there, and go back to the days of steam trains, Hanson cabs2 and gaslight.
The missing Sherlock Holmes case of “the Addleton tragedy and the singular contents of the ancient British barrow” which I mentioned in my posts on 'missing' Holmsian cases could be set here. Interestingly two tellings of the story have included an element of radioactivity in the mystery, as the cause of the mysterious deaths.
If you do go with the modern day, then such an investigation would be a perfect place for UNIT to send the Misfit Mob ("Giants? Send the weirdo squad"), perhaps to butt heads with Section 9J and the actual archaeologists. And, for Doc Martin fans, don't forget a few locals trying to make money from the discovery. Perhaps the local pub has a lump of Green Jim on a shelf ("From my granddad's day") that's actually a raw Chronos Crystal and has started to glow strangely?
And there I'm done, work calls. You have a uranium mine, suggestions of Sherlock Holmes, knights, meddling archaeologists, giants, and more.
Suggestions or ideas?
1. Perhaps with a couple of companions? Including a a clever female blacksmith.
2. And, by the way, a 'Hansom' (never 'Handsome') is a two-wheeled, two-passenger vehicle with one horse and a rear driver. This fact seems to evade a number of writers of Victorian set fiction and is deeply irritating.
3. The South Terras site remains significantly radioactive, typically 5-20 times background levels (including on the public road) outside the mine area, but inside the level ranges from 50-200 times background. This is mostly gamma rays.
Last Sunday saw the annual 'Bolster Day' parade in St. Agnes in Cornwall. A fascinating holdover in a county noted for the richness of it's folklore.
According to Cornish legend (and tourist information….) Bolster was a giant said to live near the cliffs at St Agnes who consumed children, sheep, cattle and people at random. Then a brave Knight, Sir Constantine, and other local dignitaries challenged Bolster to a fight to the death, which (also according to legend) says that the fights took place at Chapel Porth.
The Knight lost, the giant overcame all who challenged him.
But there's more! The legend continues to say that he fell in love with a beautiful young girl called Agnes who stole his heart. And young Agnes was the one to finally vanquish the giant. She asks him to fill a nearby hole in the clifftops with his blood to prove his love for her, knowing that there is a crack in the hole which runs out to the sea. Bolster cuts himself to fill the hole and dies due to blood loss.
The events of Bolster day recreate this story in more detail.
There's probably a message there; brains beats brain. Or don’t trust women
St Agnes is a rather pretty village (or small town) on the north coast of Cornwall, about nine kilometres north of Redruth and fifteen southwest of Newquay. Historically it was a centre for mineral mining (the famous South Crofty, the last operational tin mine in the region, is about 17km away), mainly copper, tin and arsenic
Most of the mining ended in the 1920s.
Today the town is a tourist centre, with some fishing.
The St Agnes region and it's history of mining and related industry, had led to a surge in industrial archaeology.
Much of the landscape around the town is of geological interest, and there are stone-age remains (~12kyBP) in the parish, in addition to Bronze Age barrows.
Legends of a giant, mining, tourists and archaeologists, there’s a game scenario there. Something weird, be it nasty, hibernating, dangerous, valuable or anachronistic, might be found by an archaeologist. Is Bolster really dead? Just what was s/he?
- Sir Constantine is probably a reference to a minor king, 'Constantine of Cornwall' who may have been a sixth-century ruler of Dumnonia. He may have converted to Christianity, may be abdicated to become a monk and might be the person roundly condemned by Gildas Badonicus for the treacherous murder of his nephews. To describe records from the era as 'scanty' is being generous.
- Of course this is the perfect reason for a time travelling historian, or group thereof, to pop back and properly document matters. Do I hear the call of 'Max Max' Maxwell?
- Constantine almost certainly wasn't a kinsman of King Arthur's kinsman, or his successor, despite what Geoffrey of Monmouth says. Unless of course he was in your game.
- Though there's absolutely no prohibition on you making him (or indeed her) a time displaced late-medieval knight (complete with stirrups, lance and plate armour)1, a Victorian re-enactor or even a modern day SCA type practitioner. I've a fondness for Sir Andre de la Croix....
There’s no reason to limit ourselves to the modern day for such a scenario. I'll pass over the Pulp and the UNIT eras, plenty of examples there, and go back to the days of steam trains, Hanson cabs2 and gaslight.
The missing Sherlock Holmes case of “the Addleton tragedy and the singular contents of the ancient British barrow” which I mentioned in my posts on 'missing' Holmsian cases could be set here. Interestingly two tellings of the story have included an element of radioactivity in the mystery, as the cause of the mysterious deaths.
- They are Poul Anderson’ ‘Time Patrol’ and Barrie Roberts’ ‘The Mystery of the Addleton Curse’. The former has time travel too.
- In fact St. Agnes is about 20km from South Terras, the only specific uranium mine that operated in Cornwall, yielding ‘Green Jim’ (Torbernite) and Pitchblende from ~1870 to ~19303.
If you do go with the modern day, then such an investigation would be a perfect place for UNIT to send the Misfit Mob ("Giants? Send the weirdo squad"), perhaps to butt heads with Section 9J and the actual archaeologists. And, for Doc Martin fans, don't forget a few locals trying to make money from the discovery. Perhaps the local pub has a lump of Green Jim on a shelf ("From my granddad's day") that's actually a raw Chronos Crystal and has started to glow strangely?
And there I'm done, work calls. You have a uranium mine, suggestions of Sherlock Holmes, knights, meddling archaeologists, giants, and more.
Suggestions or ideas?
1. Perhaps with a couple of companions? Including a a clever female blacksmith.
2. And, by the way, a 'Hansom' (never 'Handsome') is a two-wheeled, two-passenger vehicle with one horse and a rear driver. This fact seems to evade a number of writers of Victorian set fiction and is deeply irritating.
3. The South Terras site remains significantly radioactive, typically 5-20 times background levels (including on the public road) outside the mine area, but inside the level ranges from 50-200 times background. This is mostly gamma rays.