pickColquhoun covers a lot of territory, geographically and thematically, in her survey of the Western Cornish peninsula, as indicated by the tags I used on my Library Thing record:
• travel
• biography-memoir
• history
• nature
• birds
• mythology and folklore
• ghosts
• food
• arthurian
• occult-esoteric
• witches and witchcraft
• non-fiction
Her writing folds together personal memoir of her post-war removal to Lamorna Cove to focus on her ⬇️⅓
“The Cornish language did not die a natural death; it was executed like a criminal by the oppressing Saxon power.”
I hadn't intentionally paired my reading of these two books, but they're both paeans to ancient cultures, adopted by self-exiled women, which have been colonised and exploited by invaders who have appropriated the rich heritage of a native people, while simultaneously seeking to destroy them.
"It was the place of deluge."
#FirstLineFridays @shybookowl
I came across Ithell Colquhoun in an article Stewart Lee wrote about her in issue 4 of the Weird Walk zine. She was a surrealist painter, poet and occultist, who lived in and was inspired by the Cornish landscape.
The Living Stones: Cornwall is an artistic travelogue of the county in the '50s post-war period. I'm hoping to love it 🤞🏼📖❤️
The Living Stones: Cornwall | 
As an occultist, she uncritically accepts Cornwall as an outpost of lost Atlantis and Lyonesse, whilst also applying a sceptical eye to certain superstitions and contemporary media hype. I loved this contrast. ⬇️ 2d
Ithell expresses liberal views on several subjects that would undoubtedly attract socially conservative backlash if she was posting on today's digital media, and I think I have fallen a little in love with her. 2d