Sunday 11 September 2016

American Publishers in the depths of Cornwall

Over the summer leave break, we did a 'staycation' and spent some lovely days around Devon and Cornwall looking at various sights we hadn't seen for some years.  As some of you know, I occasionally dabble in family history (although apart from my daughter I have no family left now) and after locating the birth and census details of one great-grandfather (Mark Snell) we found ourselves in St Neot, Cornwall after a walk around the nearby Dozmary Pool on Bodmin Moor.  This particular great-grandfather shows up in the 1871 Census as living with his parents, Richard and Elizabeth Snell in Lower Newton Farm, St Neot, Cornwall.

In the local pub, beside the charming St Neot church, we came across two Americans looking for fairies.  Once further into the conversation we quickly established they were publishers of a beautifully presented magazine called Faeirie Magazine  see http://www.faeriemag.com/  and had made a special trip from New York to Cornwall to investigate the West Country legends.

It was an absolute pleasure to meet Paul and Laren of the Faerie Magazine.  We discussed many aspects of creative writing, ideas, imaginations, literary form, poetry and magic.  They are now back in the United States.  We have kept in touch and here, on 11 September, a particularly difficult day for the American people, let us look forwards to the positive energy of good growing out of evil and take stock of all that is beautiful in the world.


N.B. Dozmary Pool, St Neot, Cornwall:  legendary resting place of King Arthur's Sword which was rumoured to have been thrown into the middle of the water by Merlin.  To this day, nobody knows the actual depth of the water.