In the nineteenth century the small nation of Cornwall underwent profound social and economic change. It became one of the first European regions to industrialize, and exported tin and copper to the world, along with the engineers and miners who extracted them. But bust followed boom, and emigration became high. Mortality rates and famine took their toll on a small community which had recently lost its language and was struggling to maintain its identity in the face of growing encroachment from across the Tamar. In the 1840s, driven by a growing sense that modernity was driving out the old...

The central theme of this book is the importance of the act of shared memory in reconstituting identity in every generation. This is particularly so where the traditional culture of the community has been under threat from a powerful neighbour, as is the case in Cornwall, and this is why the same pattern tends to recur, not because of direct cultural transmission, but because the same problems evoke similar responses. In such a context, storytelling becomes an act of cultural resistance. This book is predicated on the importance of storytelling. We use stories to make sense of our lives and...

Otherworlds attempts to explore the key stories which have given Cornish culture its distinctive character over the centuries and explain how they have pointed the way to new ways of understanding and transforming the world, both for individuals and for the Cornish people. This process has ranged from the aristocratic stories of Arthur and of Tristan and Iseult, to the humble folktales told in the cottages of the far west and collected by Robert Hunt in the nineteenth century. These stories still possess the power to change minds and perhaps even history.