Some of the best Cornish folk tales involve animals. They feature domestic beasts; cows and pigs at St Buryan, flying sheep at Gwithian, dogs caring for each other at Saltash, ponies ridden by piskeys. On Bodmin Moor the elusive Beast roams the fields and moors, only ever seen fleetingly out of the corner of an eye, it may be a big cat, who knows.
Ghost animals haunt the coast. The ghostly white dog of Porthtowan puts the dragon in its place, whilst the white hare of Looe is the ghost of a jilted lover. Whist hounds howl all along the cliffs with an eery whining and baying.
Some of the animals in the tales were once something or somebody else, children or adults changed into animal form by magic or mishap. In West Cornwall witches turn into rare hares to disguise themselves, run faster or escape through tunnels, though the hare in the Vale of Lanherne has a different twist. The witches of East Cornwall have toads as their familiars and change into them for disguise. Blackberry Round ends with a tragic canine transformation. In Padstow animal carvings shake off their stony cases at night and come alive.
There are magical creatures too: griffins appear at the most precious stones in East Cornwall encountering giants and saints. The foxes and badgers, deer and otters, rats and weasles, wild creatures of the woods and banks, don’t appear in Cornish folk tales.
