Ancient Cornish scripts brought together in exhibition

The Cornish Ordinalia is described as one of the "the finest examples of Middle Cornish literature

Ancient scripts of plays written in the Cornish language have been brought together for the first time in Cornwall.

The exhibition at the Kresen Kernow archive, Mes a'n Kemmyn (Cornish for Out of the Ordinary), includes pages from the 1400s, organisers said.

They added the works were a "very significant part" of Cornwall's heritage.

The exhibition at the centre in Redruth runs until 25 September.

The exhibition includes scripts for the Cornish Ordinalia and The Creation of the World, which are on loan from the University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries.

Joining those are Bewnans Meriasek (The Life of St Meriadoc) and Bewnans Ke (The Life of St Kea), which are on loan from the National Library of Wales.

Exhibition managers said the manuscripts formed "a very significant part of Cornwall's written and language heritage" and provided "glimpses of a distinct theatrical tradition which took place here centuries ago".

The home of Cornwall's archives, Kresen Kernow, opened in Redruth in 2019

The scripts from the 1400s of the Ordinalia, a trilogy of plays described by the Encyclopaedia Britannica as "the finest examples of Middle Cornish literature", was given to the Bodleian Library in 1615.

The Life of St Meriadoc was found in Wales in 1859.

The history of the copy of The Life of St Kea was "more of a mystery", organisers said.

It was only discovered in 2000 among the papers of a Welsh academic who died the year before, with its whereabouts for the previous 500 years being "completely unknown".

Chloe Phillips, from Kresen Kernow, said it was a mystery why the manuscripts left Cornwall.

She said: "We don't know how they left, when they left, whether some left together, or separately, or anything about them beyond their later discovery in libraries really."