bal maiden—Bal is the Cornish word for mine. Bal maidens were young women and girls employed to work above ground at the mines, usually hammering ore into smaller pieces. Their workdays were long and grueling year-round, even in the most extreme weather conditions.
brambles—The common blackberry.
chough—(Rhymes with ruff.) A member of the crow family, these birds have a black body, a slender, down-curved reddish beak, and reddish legs. Once common in Cornwall, they are now rare.
devil’s hour—The hour between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m., when spirits and demons are most likely to be out and about. A period of bad luck.
dredgy ore—Inferior ore.
duw genes—“Good-bye” in Cornish.
fairings—A Cornish biscuit (cookie) made with ginger and other spices, similar to a ginger snap.
free traders—Another term for smugglers.
hevva cake—(Heavy cake.) A thin, dense cake made of flour, lard or butter, sugar, and dried currants. A crisscross pattern is often scored along the top to represent fishing nets.
Landguard—Mounted customs officers sent to patrol areas of heavy smuggling. There were usually not nearly enough Landguard officials to do much damage to the smuggling gangs. Underpaid and persecuted by smugglers, many of the Landguard turned to smuggling themselves.
lugger—A small sailing ship with two or three masts. Very popular with smugglers.
meur ras—“Thank you” in Cornish.
moorstone—Granite, the prevalent stone of the Cornish moors.
pasty—(Rhymes with “nasty” but is actually quite delicious.) A meat pie usually consisting of beef, potatoes, onions, and turnips baked in a pastry, like a turnover. Very popular with the miners, as they were easily transportable. Many of the mines contained arsenic and other toxic minerals. The miners would hold the pasty by the thick crust to keep from transferring these minerals from their hands to their food, then discard the crust.
pilchard—A small silvery fish in the herring family. Heavily fished off the Cornish coast.
piskey—One of the fairy folk—a pixie. Sometimes considered mischievous, sometimes lucky.
revenuers—Customs officials whose job was to collect the import taxes and prevent the smuggling of goods.
stargazy pie—A traditional Cornish dish made of baked whole pilchards, eggs, and onions. It is placed in a dish and covered with a crust, like a pot pie. The pilchards are placed so that the fish heads are all poking out above the crust, as if gazing at the sky.
tetty-rattle—Cornish stew made with potatoes—“tetty” refers to potatoes.
wreckers—Men who plundered wrecked ships along the coast.