Episodes 21,23 & 24: The Enchanter of Pengersick

Three parts a fool….

A literary Cornish legend which somehow grew into the first (and likely only) 3 part story.

Episode 21: Part 1 – Dastardly Deeds starts the story off. There is no Enchanter but magic, marriage, murder and mayhem abound, in a story packed with more folkloric elements than you can shake an enchanted stick at.

Episode 23: Part 2 – Plots and Schemes has plots and schemes: there’s poison, there are ghosts, there’s pirates! “An Enchanter” you ask? Did I mention the pirates?

Episode 24: Part 3 – feat an Enchanter features destinies fulfilled, wizard school, magical battles, renovations and, just in the nick of time, an Enchanter.

(If you’re wondering what happened to episode 22 it was this special Christmas story: The Mistletoe Bride)

Fanart! Lady Godolphin

I am absolutely delighted to say that this was the first ever episode to attract some fan art, inspired by a very particular line I utter itself of course a reference to a certain megalomaniacal mouse. I absolutely love it and find myself in some debt to @drawnbypelican for this creation.

This is a two parter and you’ll want to click both images

(Containing incredibly mild spoilers).

Featured Folklorist: William Bottrell

Pictures of Pengersick, Praa Sands and Kydance Cove

Despite taking up such a large amount of podcast time this is a rather obscure story and so has not had many illustrations done of it at all. And even those that have been done are buried in books not in the public domain.

I could have illustrated this with generic pictures of pirates, ghosts witches etc as I have for other stories but given the uniqueness of this one I have instead opted to have these tourist board worthy photos with just one illustration of a ghostly rabbit used in one of the editions of Bottrell’s book (and I think originally meant for something else).

Photo credits: Top left: Wiganwoking, Top Right, Nathan Stazickier. Both by CC SA 3.0, Middle left, Alice Penger by CC SA 4.0, Bottom Middle, Rod Allday by CC SA 2.0

Oh… I almost forget there is this illustration of the Witch of Fraddam being a bit angry, but this is taken from her appearance in a completely different, and entirely literary story, “Roger Trewinion“, by Joseph Hocking. Not exactly the witch as I imagine her, and she’s clearly survived to a far later time period!

She does seem to crop up in a couple of other folklore tales unrelated to the Enchanter story.

The tiny village of Fraddam has it’s own Wikipedia page that somehow totally fails to mention the Witch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraddam

Most Haunted Castle in England!

I reference this video in the discussion sections of the episodes. It has good historical information and then starts talking about ghosts at about 4 minutes in, referring to the rather specific “At least 27 presences”, which tickles me.

If you find yourself wanting more than that. Well there’s a whole set of most haunted videos you can watch that are a little more… sensational.

If you want to visit the castle yourself you can get married there or just have a really expensive party if you’re not in the marrying mood. They also used to do Ghost Hunts but at time of writing, just after Covid, I’m unsure if these are still running https://www.pengersickcastle.com/

Selected Sources

• Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall, Vol. 2 – A legend of Pengersec (sic) William Bottrell – this is really the only real text for this story
• Popular Romances of the West of England Robert Hunt – published earlier but with Bottrell as the source this is a shorter story