bucca

In the folklore of Cornwall, a supernatural being. The bucca is comparable to the Welsh pwca, the English puck, and the Irish púca. Some lived in mines while others lived among fishermen. They were generally helpful to them, unless they were not properly propitiated in which case they would plague them. Newlyn fishermen were wont, when they had a good catch, to throw a fish into the sea as an offering to the bucca-boo, or toss a piece of bread over their left shoulder and spill some beer on the ground.

In the west of England there was belief in a bucca gwidden, the white or good spirit, and in a bucca dhu, the black, malevolent one.

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