BL Additional Manuscript 51020 is misidentified in the British Library catalogue as being by pioneer Celticist Edward Lhwyd (1659/60-1709) but is in fact in the hand of John Hickes of St Ewe (1659-1734), often confused with John Hicks of St Ives (died 1722) in Parliamentary histories. The manuscript is undated but can be dated to between 1707 and 1722, probably much nearer the earlier than later date, on internal analysis. It includes 6 images of inscribed stone monuments of Cornwall (at least 4 more are missing), and for one of them is the first known written mention and early transcription. The recording of these was at least in part at the instigation of Edward Lhwyd during his 1700 visit to Cornwall in search of the Cornish language and historical monuments of the Duchy. The manuscript also contains a unique folklore account of the Cornish spirits called Spriggans or Periwigians, identified as the spirits of still-born children, and their annual depredations on the Lizard peninsula. With Derek Williams I am hoping to get the manuscript published along with detailed contextual information and analysis. This talk will summarise some of our findings so far.

 

 

Matthew Spriggs is an emeritus professor of archaeology at ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology. Although his main field of research has been the Archaeology of the Pacific Islands and Island Southeast Asia, most recently involved in studies of the history of archaeology in the Pacific and Australia, he has a long-standing interest in Cornish language history and archaeology, viewed through a sociology of language perspective. He is on the Editorial Board of 1000 Years of Cornish: Writings in and on the Cornish language, AD 800-1800. a series of the University of Exeter Press. His most recent publication on matters Cornish was in Philip Payton (ed.) Cornwall in the Age of Rebellion, 1490-1690 (University of Exeter Pres, 2021), to which he contributed three chapters. Although a (sometimes) proud Cornishman, he now lives in Vanuatu in the South Pacific and is both Honorary Curator of Archaeology at the National Museum of Vanuatu, and Honorary Librarian of the Vanuatu and Pacific Collections in the National Library of Vanuatu.