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I’m so excited to share that the Scilly Labyrinths Project is coming to mainland Cornwall this week: On Friday August 7th the Falmouth Poly @polyfalmouth will be screening Vanishing Labyrinths of the Isles of Scilly alongside @goldentreecornwall’s Kerdroya film. Followed by a Q&A with myself, Layan and Will Coleman. The screening starts at 7:30pm, shown as part of The Poly’s Cornish Stories On Screen film season. With support of the BFI Film Audience Network, awarding funds from the National Lottery in order to bring this project to more audiences across the UK. If you are in Falmouth, it would be wonderful to see you there - tickets via the link in my bio 🎥🐚🌀

Images are:
A little trailer of the Vanishing Labyrinths of the Isles of Scilly film 🎥
An aerial photo of Troy Town Maze on St Agnes 🌀
The Bullhorn and the Biggal-Fool Lammastide pageant starring myself and the talented and beautiful @lycanthropocene 🐌
Digital scans of Giant’s Castle Maze by @folkculturekernow 🧜🏻‍♂️
Restoring Giant’s Castle Maze with @aeonlung 🪏
Dancing the labyrinthine Snail Creep with @rowan_gatherer 🎻
Another of @folkculturekernow‘s digital scans of Giant’s Castle Maze 📀

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Come and celebrate the ✨culmination✨ of the Scilly Labyrinth Project with us at a short film screening and artist talk about the project. It’s the last event in our schedule and we are so excited 🎉 We will be at the Old Town Inn on St Mary’s on Sunday Night starting at 8:30pm. Tickets at £7 via the @iosculturalcentreandmuseum link-in-bio under “Culture on Scilly Events” or if you can’t afford it, message us - nobody turned away for lack of funds - be there or be spiral! 🌀✨🎉

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The Biggal-Fool character from our Scilly Labyrinths project - created as a counterpart-companion to the monstrous, Minotaur-inspired Bullhorn: guardian of the labyrinth. But unlike the violent Theseus, the Biggal-Fool must approach the monster (in our myth, a giant snail) with playful caution to win its trust and lead it from the maze, so that it may bestow its blessings. The Biggal-Fool’s jester motley was made from silk dyed with Scillonian elm and contact-dyed cotton left to moulder, and exhibited alongside these photographs of the fool at Giant’s Castle Maze.

I took this photo of myself with a tripod and I think it’s one of my favourite photos I’ve ever taken - not sure if I am more amazed by my lighting proficiency or my fiendishly strong core strength here! 📸💪

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We returned to Bora Maze a few months later to see how this new labyrinth (that we made with a team of volunteers on @stmartinsscilly at Summer Solstice) was settling in. We were delighted to see that, after some initial damage (very usual in these kinds of pebble mazes) the labyrinth had been mended by someone, and this mending had changed the shape of the paths at the centre, so now it is its own beautifully unique shape. It made us so happy to see that it is being looked after by somebody - hopefully it has also survived the winter storms and was can visit again next year.

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“In Mercurial fashion, the movement through the labyrinth veers back and forth, round and round, creating a dance whose steps eventually weave a vessel strong enough to hold what was at first intolerable experience. A transcendent pattern eventually emerges, which lifts one to a new vantage point.”
- from the Taschen Book of Symbols: Reflections on Alchemical Images

The Snail Creep dance is a labyrinth-like dance from North Cornwall, where a long line of people dance in an inward-turning spiral, led by a band. When the spiral reaches the centre, the band turn abruptly and walk back in the opposite direction, continuing the spiral (outwards this time) in a coiling counter movement. We danced a version of this dance at the celebratory reopening of Giant’s Castle Maze, and while seen from above, besides the newly restored maze, it’s clear to see the comparison between the dancers’ movements and the labyrinths.

This dance is attributed to the “tea-treat” dances practiced by the strict methodists communities that were prevent across Cornwall, but there is evidence that the Snail Creep is also danced in traditional Cornish witchcraft practices as well.

Thanks to all who joined in the Snail Creep with us; to wonderful @alicebeadleviolin for leading the dance and encouraging our mischief; to @goblin.band for learning the traditional Snail Creep music; to @ingart.co.uk for amazing drone photography; to @aceagrams and @heritagefunduk for funding this participatory activity; and to @scillywildlife for permission to dance on the heathland.

If you’d like to know more about the history of the Snail Creep dance, take a look at our blog post - link in bio 👯🐌🎶

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“The Labyrinth was never a static object or a place. It was never a stone corridor. Instead, it was an event. It was a ritual dance to honour the bull and the annual rising of certain constellations. Each “passageway” was a chain of human hands, a serpentine gyration of gestures. The labyrinth was only ever the sacred relationship of people dancing - ecstatically, kinetically - inscribing the patterns of the sky into the soft dirt of the ground.” - @cosmogyny in The Flowering Wand.

Inspired by the links between labyrinths and dancing, and the labyrinthine Serpent Dance and Snail Creep dances practiced for centuries in nearby Cornwall, we partook in our own Snail Creep dance out on Salakee Down, to re-enchant the newly-restored maze. The incredible @alicebeadleviolin led our Snail Creep and @goblin.band played the traditional Snail Creep music from Rescorla in mid-Cornwall and spirals were danced all across the heather-strewn landscape.

The Snail Creep was many people’s favourite part of the day - joining in together to this ancient dance, our on the magical heathland, connecting with the island, with each other, and with the people and practices of the past.

Thanks to everyone who danced with us; to incomparable @alicebeadleviolin for leading us; to @goblin.band for playing the (insanely-ear-wormish) Snail Creep song; to @ingart.co.uk for photography; to @aceagrams and @heritagefunduk for funding us; and to @scillywildlife for permission to hold the dance here.

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“The shells of snails are favoured also, not only for their protective shell, but for their traditional associations in the West Country with power - s🐚xual force, fertility, fecundity and creation. Also here are the creatures credited with the ability to bestow blessings upon places and people, thus are their shells gathered to fashion charms to bring protection, potency, passion and good fortune upon the home and life endeavours of their keeper.” - The Black Toad: West Country Witchcraft and Magic by Gemma Gary 🐌✨

Even though we understand that we invented the whole thing, this mummers’ play did feel truly ritualistic and oddly moving to be part of; through conjuring the characters of The Biggal-Fool and The Bullhorn, the high-summer energies had been made manifest and collectively transformed through ritual theatre.

It was only later that we realised how we had unconsciously and intuitively tapped into existing mythology within the Cornish mythic cannon, and the more we read about traditional Cornish witchcraft and folk practices, the more we discover that the elements we thought we were making up we’re actually somehow intuited from a little-known tradition that must be laying latent - in the land and in our collective memories - ripe and keen to bubble up into new celebratory iterations.

Despite intuiting this deeper meaning, The Bullhorn and the Biggal-Fool is not an ancient myth, but all traditions have to start somewhere. We now have a sense of what it may have felt like, centuries ago, for those people who did first create the old (now mostly lost) folk practices of Scilly, that honoured the land and the seasonal changes, and the importance of coming together as a community. We are so starved of this kind of interaction - with the land, the mythic, and each other - in our modern world, but we are actually all craving it, which is likely why this silly play about a fool and a giant snail became something that was genuinely very moving to be part of. 🐚👯

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The mummers’ play we performed at the reopening of Giant’s Castle Maze was our own take on the medieval practice of “mumming” or “guizing” - an ancient practice which was still known to be performed in Scilly on New Years Eve only a few generations back. We combined this with the world’s most famous labyrinth myth, that of Theseus and the Minotaur from ancient Crete, and considered what a Minotaur myth for Scilly may look like.

We took inspiration from the nearby Iron Age cliff castle, which reminds us of times when these islands were not so safe or peaceful. The hot, calm months of summer (when we staged our pageant) would have been a time of high anxiety for islanders, as the calm seas and long hours of daylight meant that fierce raiders could arrive on these shores more easily, to plunder and ransack. The character of The Bullhorn draws upon the wilder-man myths prevalent across Europe. Ritually engaging with this figure would dispel this high-summer anxiety - making manifest the monsters of the imagination, so that they might be transformed. In this way, we could also imagine creating protection from the truly dangerous monsters of the past, who could have appeared on the horizon to threaten the islanders at this time of year.

The figure of The Biggal-Fool took its name from the many rocks around Scilly named “Biggal,“ which translates from Cornish as “tender of, shepherd of, keeper of” usually in reference a larger rock or island close by, like “Gorregan” and “Biggal of Gorregan” - where the smaller Biggal rocks “tends” to the larger islet of Gorregan. In our play, the Biggal-Fool tends to and keeps The Bullhorn, drawing on the dynamic of the traditional Cornish folk-figures of the “Oss” and the “Teaser,” which originated from Padstow’s ancient May Day celebrations and are now common additions to Cornish folk revival festivals, like those in nearby Penzance.

Unlike the hero Theseus, who slays the Minotaur in the labyrinth, The Biggal Fool uses humour and tenderness to charm The Bullhorn from its lair so that it could bestow its lucky blessing on the islanders ✨🍀

For more about The Bullhorn and The Biggal-Fool check out or project blog. Link in bio.

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To visually represent the act of restoring Giant’s Castle Maze, we made two banners - one representing the pre-restoration maze, with its ruined paths and overgrown shape, and one representing the post-restoration design, where it has been made into a usable unicursal labyrinth again.

These banners became a visual point for all the participants to join together under, when we assembled at Old Town Beach to begin the procession. They were then held aloft to lead the procession along the coast path out to the labyrinth site, carried by @aeonlung and our dowser, Michael, who surveyed the energy lines out at the site at the beginning of the project.

To conclude our day of mazey celebration, we ceremonially exchanged these banners in the centre of the maze - helped by a student from the Five Islands Academy, who had been involved in restoring the maze with us. The old maze design was honoured and thanked with libations, before being ritually exchanged for the banner representing the new design. 🍷🥖🌀🐚

So much thanks to Layla and Michael, to @ingart.co.uk and @sianaserres for photography; to @aceagrams and @heritagefunduk for funding us; and to @scillywildlife for permissions.

If you want to know how and why we made and used these banners, there is a new post on our project blog, link in bio.

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Artist hijinks behind the scenes at the Labyrinth festival this summer:

1. Beach dinner at Pelistry Bay, with flatbreads cooked on hot rocks by @aeonlung 🏕️🔥
2. Labyrinthine pilgrimage route way-markings 🌀🖌️
3. @goblin.band join the folk night at Jack’s Bar 🍺🎻
4. Making dinner on our beach fire - @poppy_litchfield wold-class barbecutonist 🔥🥘
5. Little day out on the tripper boats 🏝️⛵
6. @daisyrickman plays at the Old Town Inn 🎵🪕
7. Marsbars feels jealous of the giant snail 🐌🐈
8. @goblin.band join the folk night at Jack’s Bar 🍻🥁
9. @goblin.band play at the Old Town Inn 🪗👯
10. Labyrinthine pilgrimage route way-markings 🎌🐚
11. The inimitable @lycanthropocene with her counterpart snail ⚜️🎪
12. Labyrinth signposts on the procession route 🎨🌿
13. Transporting the giant papier-mâché snail out to Salkakee down with @lycanthropocene, through the many rain showers… possibly not the most sensible medium to combine with remote and windswept coastal locations… ⛈️🤺
14. @rowan_gatehrer adapting beautifully to island life 🚣‍♂️🦭
15. Tripper-boat queens 🧜‍♀️✨
16. Taking our friends to meet the ancestors - Santa Warna’s holy well 🔮🕯️
17. Sharing our favourite beach dinner spot with our pals 🪸🫓
18. It was all very civilised before the sock wrestling 🧦🏖️
19. @lycanthropocene holds a butterfly on a stone, Cove beach, St Agnes 🦋🪨
20. @aeonlung having a little lie down ☠️⚰️

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The festivities we organised around the celebratory reopening of Giant’s Castle Maze meant we could bring together a team of trusted and admired creatives - working across music, food, performance, photography, etc. Bringing these artists over to the islands - to engage with Scilly’s labyrinth heritage and the landscape of the islands, was a really beautiful experience. One of the first things we did together was to walk out along the proposed procession route to Giant’s Castle Maze, taking in the incredible views and rock formations along the way, so that everyone could get acquainted with the maze ahead of the performances.

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As part of the Celebratory Reopening pageantry for the restored Giant’s Castle Maze, @lycanthropocene and I performed a mummers’ play about The Bullhorn (a giant, fierce, wilder-man monster, half-person half-snail) and The Biggal-Fool (a jester-pilgrim teaser from a liminal realm).

At the high-summer, Lammastide festival, The Bullhorn (named after the Cornish word for “snail” and distantly related to the Cretan Minotaur) incarnates inside Giant’s Castle Maze, where it fiercely guards the central wish-stone, letting no-one approach. The Biggal-Fool - The Bullhorn’s counterpoint character - must approach undetected and bewitchingly tame it. Only then can The Bullhorn be led out of the labyrinth, where it will ritually bless those in attendance, honouring the ancient Cornish belief that snails are symbols of good fortune 🐌🌀🔮

Huge thanks: to @ingart.co.uk and @sianaserres for photography; to @goblin.band for their jaw-harp accompaniment; to @aceagrams and @heritagefunduk for funding us; to @scillywildlife for permissions; and to captivating performance artist @lycanthropocene who spellbound everyone while I spent most of my time growling inside a papier-mâché snail shell.

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