GiantFamous
The Giant's Wife
She chose the lighter stone. He woke up.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Tidal island with castle and causeway
- Legend from
- Cornish tradition
- Best time
- Low tide for the causeway
- Tone
- Light-hearted
A giantess with an apron full of stone, and a giant who woke up too soon.
St Michael's Mount is a tidal island in Mount's Bay, reached by a causeway at low tide. Its old Cornish name is said to mean the grey rock in the wood. Robert Hunt tells how the giant Cormoran built the Mount from white granite, forcing his wife Cormelian to carry the stones in her apron. One day, while he slept, she took a lighter mass of greenstone instead. He woke, saw it, and kicked her. Her apron-string broke and the greenstone fell onto the sands, where it lies still, later crowned by a small chapel. Cormoran is best known as the giant killed by Jack the Giant Killer.