Cornish Feasts and “Feasten” Customs

From Cornish Feasts and Folk-Lore
by Miss M. A. Courtney

1890

View on the River Camel Cornwall, from “Views in Cornwall" by Thomas Rowlandson.

Published in 1890, Cornish Feasts and Folk-Lore by Miss M. A. Courtney is one of the most vivid records of Cornwall’s seasonal life at the turn of the century. Courtney gathered memories, local traditions, and fragments of village lore at the very moment many of these customs were fading from everyday practice. What remains is a lively portrait of a community that marked the year with bonfires, feast days, mystery plays, well rituals, processions, puddings, and a remarkable sense of shared celebration. This excerpt captures that world in motion—part ethnography, part nostalgia, and wholly alive with the texture of Cornish culture.

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Cornwall has always been a county largely given to hospitality, and, as “all Cornish gentlemen are cousins,” they have from time immemorial made it a practice to meet at each other’s houses to celebrate their feasts and saints’ days.

Since “there are more saints in Cornwall than there are in heaven,” these friendly gatherings must necessarily be very numerous. Each parish has its own particular saint to which its church is dedicated. The feasts held in their honour, probably dating from the foundation of the churches, are kept on the nearest Sunday and Monday to dedication day, called by the people “feasten” Sunday and Monday.

Every family, however poor, tries to have a better dinner than usual on feasten Sunday; generally a joint of meat with a “figgy-pudden” (a baked or boiled suet-pudding with raisins in it).

On the preceding Saturdays large quantities of “plum cake” are baked; light currant cakes raised with barm (yeast), and coloured bright yellow with saffron (as dear as “saffern” is a very common simile in Cornwall). This “saffern cake” at tea is often supplemented with “heavy cake” (a delicacy peculiar to the county), a rich currant paste, about an inch thick, made with clotted cream, and eaten hot.

The Western hounds meet in all the villages situated at a convenient distance from their kennel, at ten o’clock on feasten Mondays, and, after a breakfast given by the squire of the parish to the huntsmen, start for their run from somewhere near the parish church (the “church town”). Three or four houses clustered together, and even sometimes a single house, is called in Cornwall “a town,” a farmyard is “a town place,” and London is often spoken of as “Lunnon church town.”

The first of the West Penwith feasts is that of Paul, a parish close to Penzance, which has not the Apostle Paul but St. Pol-de-Lion for its patron saint. It falls on the nearest Sunday to 10th of October. An old proverb says, “Rain for Paul, rain for all,” therefore, should the day be wet, it is of course looked upon by the young people as a bad sign for their future merry-makings. An annual bowling-match was formerly held on feasten Monday, between Paul and Mousehole men (Mousehole is a fishing village in the same parish); the last of them took place sixty years ago. Up to that time the bowling-green, an artificially raised piece of ground, was kept in order by the parishioners. No one in the neighbourhood now knows the game; the church schools are built on a part of the site, and the remainder is the village playground. If there were ever any other peculiar customs celebrated at Paul feast they are quite forgotten, and the Monday night’s carousal at the public-houses has here, as elsewhere, given place to church and chapel teas, followed by concerts in the school-rooms, although there are still a few “standings” (stalls) in the streets, for the sale of gingerbread nuts and sweetmeats, and one or two swings and merry-go-rounds, largely patronised by children.

October 12th. A fair, called Roast Goose Fair, is held at Redruth.

On the nearest Saturday to Hallowe’en, October 31st, the fruiterers of Penzance display in their windows very large apples, known locally as “Allan” apples. These were formerly bought by the inhabitants and all the country people from the neighbourhood (for whom Penzance is the market-town), and one was given to each member of the family to be eaten for luck. The elder girls put theirs, before they ate them, under their pillows, to dream of their sweethearts. A few of the apples are still sold; but the custom, which, I have lately been told, was also observed at St. Ives, is practically dying out. On “Allantide,” at Newlyn West, two strips of wood are joined crosswise by a nail in the centre; at each of the four ends a lighted candle is stuck, with apples hung between them. This is fastened to a beam, or the ceiling of the kitchen, and made to revolve rapidly. The players, who try to catch the apples in their mouths, often get instead a taste of the candle.

In Cornwall, as in other parts of England, many charms were tried on Hallowe’en to discover with whom you were to spend your future life, or if you were to remain unmarried, such as pouring melted lead through the handle of the front door key. The fantastic shapes it assumed foretold your husband’s profession or trade.

Rolling three names, each written on a separate piece of paper, tightly in the centre of three balls of earth. These were afterwards put into a deep basin of water, and anxiously watched until one of them opened, as the name on the first slip which came to the surface would be that of the person you were to marry.

Tying the front door key tightly with your left leg garter between the leaves of a Bible at one particular chapter in the Song of Solomon. It was then held on the forefinger, and when the sweetheart’s name was mentioned it turned round.

Slipping a wedding-ring on to a piece of cotton, held between the forefinger and thumb, saying, “If my husband’s name is to be —— let this ring swing!” Of course, when the name of the person preferred was spoken, the holder unconsciously made the ring oscillate. I have, when a school-girl, assisted at these rites, and I expect the young people still practise them.

In St. Cubert’s parish, East Cornwall, is a celebrated Holy well, so named, the inhabitants say, from its virtues having been discovered on All Hallows-day. It is covered at high spring tides.

St. Just feast (which, when the mines in that district were prosperous, was kept up with more revelry than almost any other) is always held on the nearest Sunday to All Saints’-day. Formerly, on the Monday, many games were played, viz.—“Kook, a trial of casting quoits farthest and nearest to the goal, now all but forgotten” (Bottrell), wrestling, and kailles, or keels (ninepins), &c. Much beer and “moonshine” (spirit that had not paid the duty) were drunk, and, as the St. Just men are proverbially pugnacious, the sports often ended with a free fight. A paragraph in a local paper for November, 1882, described a St. Just feast in those days as “A hobble, a squabble, and a ‘hubbadullion’ altogether.” Rich and poor still at this season keep open house, and all the young people from St. Just who are in service for many miles around, if they can possibly be spared, go home on the Saturday and stay until the Tuesday morning. A small fair is held in the streets on Monday evening, when the young men are expected to treat their sweethearts liberally, and a great deal of “foolish money” that can be ill afforded is often spent.

In many Cornish parishes the bells are rung on November 4th, “Ringing night.”

The celebration of Gunpowder Plot has quite died out in West Cornwall, but in Launceston, and in other towns in the eastern part of the county, it is still observed. As regularly as the 5th of November comes around, fireworks are let off, and bonfires lit, to lively music played by the local bands.

“This year, 1884, ‘Young Stratton’ celebrated the Fifth with much more than his customary enthusiasm. A good sum was raised by public subscription by the energy of Mr. C. A. Saunders. The Bude fife and drum band headed a grotesque procession, formed at Howl’s Bridge, and second in order came a number of equestrian torch-bearers in all kinds of costumes, furnished by wardrobes of Her Majesty’s navy, the Royal Marines, the Yeomanry, and numerous other sources. ‘Guido Faux’ followed in his car, honoured by a postilion and a band of Christy Minstrels; then came foot torch-bearers, and a crowd of enthusiastic citizens, who ‘hurraed’ to their hearts’ content. Noticeable were the banners, ‘Success to Young Stratton,’ the Cornish arms, and ‘God save the Queen.’ The display of fireworks took place from a field overlooking the town, and the inhabitants grouped together at points of vantage to witness the display. The bonfire was lit on Stamford Hill, where the carnival ended. Good order and good humour prevailed.”—(Western Morning News.)

When I was a girl, I was taught the following doggerel rhymes, which were on this day then commonly chanted:—

“Please to remember the fifth of November!
A stick or a stake, for King George’s sake.
A faggot or rope, to hang the Pope.
For Gunpowder Plot, shall never be forgot,
Whilst Castle Ryan stands upon a rock.”

This was in Victoria’s reign; where Castle Ryan stands I have never been able to learn.

The old custom formerly practised in Camborne, of taking a marrow-bone from the butchers on the Saturday before the feast, which is held on the nearest Sunday to Martinmas, was, in 1884, revived in its original form. “A number of gentlemen, known as the ‘Homage Committee,’ went round the market with hampers, which were soon filled with marrow-bones, and they afterwards visited the public-houses as ‘tasters.’ ”—(Cornishman.)

One night in November is known in Padstow as “Skip-skop night,” when the boys of the place go about with a stone in a sling; with this they strike the doors, and afterwards slily throw in winkle-shells, dirt, &c. Mr. T. Q. Couch says: “They strike violently against the doors of the houses and ask for money to make a feast.”

At St. Ives, on the Saturday before Advent Sunday, “Fair-mo” (pig fair) is held. This town is much celebrated locally for macaroons; a great many are then bought as “fairings.” The St. Ives fishing (pilchard) season generally ends in November, consequently at this time there is often no lack of money.

The feast of St. Maddern, or Madron feast, which is also that of Penzance (Penzance being until recently in that parish), is on Advent Sunday.

The last bull-baiting held here was on the “feasten” Monday of 1813, and took place in the field on which the Union is now built. The bull was supplied by a squire from Kimyel, in the neighbouring parish of Paul. A ship’s anchor, which must have been carried up hill from Penzance quay, a distance of nearly three miles, was firmly fixed in the centre of the field, and to it the bull was tied. Bull-baiting was soon after discontinued in Cornwall. The following account of the last I had from a gentleman who was well known in the county. He said, “This I think took place in a field adjoining Ponsandane bridge, in Gulval parish, at the east of Penzance, in the summer of 1814. I remember the black bull being led by four men. The crowd was dispersed early in the evening by a severe thunderstorm, which much alarmed the people, who thought it (I was led to believe) a judgment from heaven.”—(T.S.B.)

The Steps of a House at Mousehole, Cornwall (1880) by Walter Langley.

The second Thursday before Christmas is in East Cornwall kept by the “tinners” (miners) as a holiday in honour of one of the reputed discoverers of tin. It is known as Picrous-day. Chewidden Thursday (White Thursday), another “tinners’ ” holiday, falls always on the last clear Thursday before Christmas-day. Tradition says it is the anniversary of the day on which “white tin” (smelted tin) was first made or sold in Cornwall.

On Christmas-eve, in East as well as West Cornwall, poor women, sometimes as many as twenty in a party, call on their richer neighbours asking alms. This is “going a gooding.”

At Falmouth the lower classes formerly expected from all the shopkeepers, of whom they bought any of their Christmas groceries, a slice of cake and a small glass of gin. Some of the oldest established tradespeople still observe this custom; but it will soon be a thing of the past.

In some parts of the county it is customary for each household to make a batch of currant cakes on Christmas-eve. These cakes are made in the ordinary manner, coloured with saffron, as is the custom in these parts. On this occasion the peculiarity of the cakes is, that a small portion of the dough in the centre of each top is pulled up and made into a form which resembles a very small cake on the top of a large one, and this centre-piece is usually called “the Christmas.” Each person in a house has his or her especial cake, and every person ought to taste a small piece of every other person’s cake. Similar cakes are also bestowed on the hangers-on of the establishment, such as laundresses, sempstresses, charwomen, &c.; and even some people who are in the receipt of weekly charity call, as a matter of course, for their Christmas cakes. The cakes must not be cut until Christmas-day, it being probably “unlucky to eat them sooner.”—(Geo. C. Boase, Notes and Queries, 5th series, Dec. 21st, 1878.)

The materials to make these and nearly all the cakes at this season were at one time given by the grocers to their principal customers.

In Cornwall, as in other English counties, houses are at Christmas “dressed up” with evergreens, sold in small bunches, called “Penn’orths of Chris’mas”; and two hoops fastened one in the other by nails at the centres are gaily decorated with evergreens, apples, oranges, &c., and suspended from the middle beam in the ceiling of the best kitchen. This is the “bush,” or “kissing bush.” At night a lighted candle is put in it, stuck on the bottom nail; but once or twice lately I have seen a Chinese lantern hanging from the top one.

In a few remote districts on Christmas-eve children may be, after nightfall, occasionally (but rarely) found dancing around painted lighted candles placed in a box of sand. This custom was very general fifty years ago. The church towers, too, are sometimes illuminated. This of course, on the coast can only be done in very calm weather. The tower of Zennor church (Zennor is a village on the north coast of Cornwall, between St. Ives and St. Just) was lit up in 1883, for the first time since 1866.

When open chimneys were universal in farmhouses the Christmas stock, mock, or block (the log), on which a rude figure of a man had been chalked, was kindled with great ceremony; in some parts with a piece of charred wood that had been saved from the last year’s “block.” A log in Cornwall is almost always called a “block.” “Throw a block on the fire.”

Candles painted by some member of the family were often lighted at the same time.

The choir from the parish church and dissenting chapels go from house to house singing “curls” (carols), for which they are given money or feasted; but the quaint old carols, “The first good joy that Mary had,” “I saw three ships come sailing in,” common forty years ago, are now never heard. The natives of Cornwall have been always famous for their carols; some of their tunes are very old. Even the Knockers, Sprig-gans, and all the underground spirits that may be always heard working where there is tin (and who are said to be the ghosts of the Jews who crucified Jesus), in olden times held mass and sang carols on Christmas-eve.

In the beginning of this century at the ruined baptistery of St. Levan, in West Cornwall (Par-chapel Well), all the carol-singers in that district, after visiting the neighbouring villages, met and sang together many carols. Mr. Bottrell says, “One was never forgotten, in which according to our West Country version, Holy Mary says to her dear Child:—

‘Go the wayst out, Child Jesus,
Go the wayst out to play;
Down by God’s Holy Well
I see three pretty children,
As ever tongue can tell.’

“This for its sweet simplicity is still a favourite in the west.”

An old carol or ballad,

“Come and I will sing you,” etc.,

known to many old people in all parts of the county, has been thought by some to be peculiar to Cornwall; but this is an error, as it has been heard elsewhere.

At the plentiful supper always provided on this night,1 egg-hot, or eggy-hot, was the principal drink. It was made with eggs, hot beer, sugar, and rum, and was poured from one jug into another until it became quite white and covered with froth. A sweet giblet pie was one of the standing dishes at a Christmas dinner—a kind of mince-pie, into which the giblets of a goose, boiled and finely chopped, were put instead of beef. Cornwall is noted for its pies, that are eaten on all occasions; some of them are curious mixtures, such as squab-pie, which is made with layers of well-seasoned fat mutton and apples, with onions and raisins. Mackerel pie: the ingredients of this are mackerel and parsley stewed in milk, then covered with a paste and baked. When brought to table a hole is cut in the paste, and a basin of clotted cream thrown in it. Muggetty pie, made from sheep’s entrails (muggets), parsley, and cream. “The devil is afraid to come into Cornwall for fear of being baked in a pie.”

There is a curious Christmas superstition connected with the Fogo, Vug, or Vow (local names for a cove) at Pendeen, in North St. Just.

“At dawn on Christmas-day the spirit of the ‘Vow’ has frequently been seen just within the entrance near the cove, in the form of a beautiful lady dressed in white, with a red rose in her mouth. There were persons living a few years since who had seen the fair but not less fearful vision; for disaster was sure to visit those who intruded on the spirit’s morning airing.”—(Bottrell, Traditions, &c., West Cornwall, 2nd series.)

The following is an account by an anonymous writer of a Christmas custom in East Cornwall:—

“In some places the parishioners walk in procession, visiting the principal orchards in the parish. In each orchard one tree is selected, as the representative of the rest; this is saluted with a certain form of words, which have in them the form of an incantation. They then sprinkle the tree with cider, or dash a bowl of cider against it, to ensure its bearing plentifully the ensuing year. In other places the farmers and their servants only assemble on the occasion, and after immersing apples in cider hang them on the apple-trees. They then sprinkle the trees with cider; and after uttering a formal incantation, they dance round it (or rather round them), and return to the farmhouse to conclude these solemn rites with copious draughts of cider.

“In Warleggan, on Christmas-eve, it was customary for some of the household to put in the fire (bank it up), and the rest to take a jar of cider, a bottle, and a gun to the orchard, and put a small bough into the bottle. Then they said:—

“Here’s to thee, old apple-tree!
Hats full, packs full, great bushel-bags full!
Hurrah! and fire off the gun.”

—(Old Farmer, Mid Cornwall, through T. Q. Couch, Sept. 1883, W. Antiquary.)

The words chanted in East Cornwall were:—

“Health to thee, good apple-tree,
Pocket-fulls, hat-fulls, peck-fulls, bushel-bag fulls.”

An old proverb about these trees runs as follows:—

“Blossom in March, for fruit you may search,
Blossom in April, eat you will,
Blossom in May, eat night and day.”

“At one time small sugared cakes were laid on the branches. This curious custom has been supposed to be a propitiation of some spirit.”—(Mrs. Damant, Cowes, through Folk-Lore Society.)

From Christmas to Twelfth-tide parties of mummers known as ‘Goose or Geese-dancers’ paraded the streets in all sorts of disguises, with masks on. They often behaved in such an unruly manner that women and children were afraid to venture out. If the doors of the houses were not locked they would enter uninvited and stay, playing all kinds of antics, until money was given them to go away. “A well-known character amongst them, about fifty years ago (1862), was the hobby-horse, represented by a man carrying a piece of wood in the form of a horse’s head and neck, with some contrivance for opening and shutting the mouth with a loud snapping noise, the performer being so covered with a horse-cloth or hide of a horse as to resemble the animal, whose curvetings, biting and other motions he imitated. Some of these ‘guise-dancers’ occasionally masked themselves with the skins of the head of bullocks having the horns on.”—(The Land’s End District, by R. Edmonds.)

Sometimes they were more ambitious and acted a version of the old play, “St. George and the Dragon,” which differed but little from that current in other countries.

Bottrell, in his Traditions in W. Cornwall (2nd series), gives large extracts from another Christmas-play, “Duffy and the Devil.” It turns upon the legend, common in all countries, of a woman who had sold herself to a devil, who was to do her knitting or spinning for her. He was to claim his bargain at the end of three years if she could not find out his name before the time expired. Of course, she gets it by stratagem; her husband, who knows nothing of the compact, first meets the devil, whilst out hunting, the day before the time is up, and makes him half-drunk. An old woman in Duffy’s pay (Witch Bet) completes the work, and in that state the devil sings the following words, ending with his name, which Bet remembers and tells her mistress:—

“I’ve knit and spun for her
Three years to the day;
To-morrow she shall ride with me
Over land and over sea.
Far away! far away!
For she can never know
That my name is ‘Tarraway.’ ”

Bet and some other witches then sing in chorus:—

“By night and by day
We will dance and play
With our noble captain,
Tarraway! Tarraway!”

Mr. Robert Hunt in his Romances and Drolls of Old Cornwall has a variation of this play, in which the devil sings—

“Duffy my lady, you’ll never know—what?
That my name is Ferry-top, Ferry-top—top.”

These “goose-dancers” became such a terror to the respectable inhabitants of Penzance that the Corporation put them down about ten years since, and every Christmas-eve a notice is posted in conspicuous places forbidding their appearance in the streets, but they still perambulate the streets of St. Ives. Guise-dancing wit must have very much deteriorated since the beginning of the present century, as writers before that time speak of the mirth it afforded; and the saying, “as good as a Christmas-play,” is commonly used to describe a very witty or funny thing.

It was the custom in Scilly eighty years ago for girls to go to church on Christmas morning dressed all in white, verifying the old proverb—“pride is never a-cold.”

“On Porthminster Beach on Christmas-day, as seen from the Malakoff, St. Ives, at nine o’clock in the morning the boys began to assemble on the beach with their bats and balls. As soon as twelve youths arrived a game commenced, called ‘Rounders.’ The first thing to be done was to right up the ‘bickens.’ This accomplished, the sides were chosen in the following manner:—Two of the best players, whom we will call Matthew and Phillip, went aside and selected two objects—the new and old pier. The old pier was Matthew and the new pier was Phillip. After this was arranged the ‘mopper’ selected the old pier, which meant he would rather have Matthew his side than Phillip. Then Phillip selected some one for his side; and so it went on until the whole twelve were elected one side or the other. Then they tossed up for the first innings. Phillip’s side won the toss, and it was their luck to go in first. While they are taking off their jackets and getting ready to go in I will briefly describe the game.

“The bickens, four in number, were piles of sand thrown up; each one being about ten yards from one another, and arranged so as to form a square. In the centre of the square the bowler was placed with ball in hand. Behind the batsman stands the ‘tip,’ while the other four were off a long way waiting for the long hits. The coats off, in went the first batsman. The ball was thrown towards him and he tipped it. The tip instantly took the ball and threw it at the batsman, and hit him before he arrived at the first bicken, and he was consequently out. The second batsman had better luck; for on the ball being thrown to him he sent it out to sea, and by that means he ran a rounder, or in other words he ran around the four bickens without being hit by the ball. The next batsman went in. The ball was thrown to him, when, lo! it went whizzing into the bowler’s hands and was caught. This unlucky hit and lucky catch got the whole side out, before three of them had a chance to show their skill. The other side then went in, laughing at the discomfiture of their opponents. The tables, however, were very soon turned; for the very first hit was caught, and this produced a row, and the game was broken up!

“I then went to the next lot: They were playing ‘catchers.’ There is only one bicken required in this game, and at this stood a lad called Watty, with bat and ball in hand. At last he hit the ball, and up it went flying in the air, descended, and passed through the hands of a boy named Peters. Peters took the ball from the sand and asked Watty, ‘How many?’ Watty replied—

‘Two a good scat,
Try for the bat.’

“Peters threw the ball to the bicken, but it stopped about three lengths short. Watty took the ball up and again sent it a great way. The question was again asked, and Watty gave the same answer. Again the ball was thrown to the bicken, but this time with better success; for it stopped at the distance of the length of the bat and so was within the distance named. Williams then went in. He was a strong lusty fellow, and the ball was sent spinning along the sand. It was picked up by Curnow, who asked, ‘How many?’

‘Three a good scat,
Try for the bat.’

“The ball was thrown home and rolled about three bats from the bicken. This point, however, was the breaking-up of the game, for Williams said it was more than three bats off, whilst Curnow maintained that it was not three bats off, and there being no chance of a compromise being arrived at the game was broken up.

“The next party was one of young men. They were playing rounders with a wooden ball, instead of an india-rubber one, as is generally used. They were twelve each side, and the bickens were about 20 yards distant. By this time the tide was out a great way, so that there was no fear of the ball being knocked to sea, as was the case with the other boys. When I got there they had been playing for about an hour, and the side that was in had been in about half of that time. The first hit I saw was ‘a beauty!’ The ball was sent about 75 yards, and the result was a rounder. Two or three other persons went in and did the same thing, and so the game went on for about an hour longer, when one of the fellows knocked up a catcher and was caught. This side had stayed in for about one hour and a half. The other side went in at about a quarter to three, and after playing about another hour they went home to tea.

“I went to tea also, but was soon up in the Malakoff again. It was so dark that the play was stopped for the time. At about seven o’clock the older part of the town began to congregate, and about a quarter-past seven they began to play ‘Thursa.’ This game is too well known to need description, and I need only say that it was played about one hour, when they began to form a ring with the intention, I supposed, of playing that best of all games, ‘Kiss-in-the-Ring’.”—(Cornishman, 1881.)

On St. Stephen’s-day, 26th December, before the days of gun-licences, every man or boy who could by any means get a gun went out shooting, and it was dangerous to walk the lanes. The custom is said to have had its origin in the legend of one of St. Stephen’s guards being awakened by a bird just as his prisoner was going to escape. A similar practice prevailed in the neighbourhood of Penzance on “feasten Monday,” the day after Advent Sunday; but on that day I have never heard of any religious idea connected with it.

In the week after Christmas-day a fair is held at Launceston (and also at Okehampton in Devonshire), called “giglet fair” (a “giglet or giglot” is a giddy young woman). It is principally attended by young people. “At this ‘giglet market,’ or wife-market, the rustic swain was privileged with self-introduction to any of the nymphs around him, so that he had a good opportunity of choosing a suitable partner if tired of a single life.”—(Britton and Brayley’s Devon and Cornwall.)

It is unlucky to begin a voyage on Childermas (Innocents’-day), also to wash clothes, or to do any but necessary household work.

On New Year’s-eve in the villages of East Cornwall, soon after dusk, parties of men, from four to six in a party, carrying a small bowl in their hands, went from house to house begging money to make a feast. They opened the doors without knocking, called out Warsail, and sang,—

“These poor jolly Warsail boys
Come travelling through the mire.”

This custom was common fifty years since, and may still be observed in remote rural districts. There is one saint whose name is familiar to all in Cornwall, but whose sex is unknown. This saint has much to answer for; promises made, but never intended to be kept, are all to be fulfilled on next St. Tibbs’s-eve, a day that some folks say “falls between the old and new year;” others describe it as one that comes “neither before nor after Christmas.”

Parties are general in Cornwall on New Year’s-eve to watch in the New Year and wish friends health and happiness; but I know of no peculiar customs, except that before retiring to rest the old women opened their Bibles at hap-hazard to find out their luck for the coming year. The text on which the fore-finger of the right hand rested was supposed to foretell the future. And money, generally a piece of silver, was placed on the threshold, to be brought in the first thing on the following day, that there might be no lack of it for the year. Nothing was ever lent on New Year’s-day, as little as possible taken out, but all that could be brought into the house. “I have even known the dust of the floor swept inwards.”—(T. Q. Couch, W. Antiquary, September, 1883.)

Door-steps on New Year’s-day were formerly sanded for good luck, because I suppose people coming into the house were sure to bring some of it in with them sticking to their feet.

Many elderly people at the beginning of the present century still kept to the “old style,” and held their Christmas-day on Epiphany. On the eve of that day they said “the cattle in the fields and stalls never lay down, but at midnight turned their faces to the east and fell on their knees.”

Twelfth-day (old Christmas-day) was a time of general feasting and merriment. Into the Twelfth-day cake were put a wedding-ring, a sixpence, and a thimble. It was cut into as many portions as there were guests; the person who found the wedding-ring in his (or her) portion would be married before the year was out; the holder of the thimble would never be married, and the one who got the sixpence would die rich. After candlelight many games were played around the open fires. I will describe one:—“Robin’s alight.” A piece of stick was set on fire, and whirled rapidly in the hands of the first player, who repeated the words—

“Robin’s alight, and if he go out I’ll saddle your back.”

It was then passed on, and the person who let the spark die had to pay a forfeit.—(West Cornwall.)

This game in East Cornwall was known as “Jack’s alive.”

“Jack’s alive and likely to live,
If he die in my hand a pawn I’ll give.”

In this county forfeits are always called “pawns”; they are cried by the holder of them, saying,—

“Here’s a pawn and a very pretty pawn!
And what shall the owner of this pawn do?”

After the midnight supper, at which in one village in the extreme West a pie of four-and-twenty blackbirds always appeared, many spells to forecast the future were practised. The following account of them was given to me by a friend. He says—“I engaged in them once at Sennen (the village at the Land’s End) with a lot of girls, but as my object was only to spoil sport and make the girls laugh or speak, it was not quite satisfactory. I suppose the time to which I refer is over forty years ago. After making up a large turf fire, for hot ‘umers’ (embers) and pure water are absolutely necessary in these divinations, the young people silently left the house in single file, to pull the rushes and gather the ivy-leaves by means of which they were to learn whether they were to be married, and to whom; and if any, or how many, of their friends were to die before the end of the year. On leaving and on returning each of these Twelfth-night diviners touched the ‘cravel’ with the forehead and ‘wished.’ The cravel is the tree that preceded lintels in chimney corners, and its name from this custom may have been derived from the verb ‘to crave.’ Had either of the party inadvertently broken the silence before the rushes and ivy-leaves had been procured they would all have been obliged to retrace their steps to the house and again touch the cravel; but this time all went well. When we came back those who wished to know their fate named the rushes in pairs, and placed them in the hot embers: one or two of the engaged couples being too shy to do this for themselves, their friends, amidst much laughing, did it for them. The manner in which the rushes burned showed if the young people were to be married to the person chosen or not: some, of course, burnt well, others parted, and one or two went out altogether. The couples that burnt smoothly were to be wedded, and the one named after the rush that lasted longest outlived the other. This settled, one ivy-leaf was thrown on the fire; the number of cracks it made was the number of years before the wedding would take place. Then two were placed on the hot ashes; the cracks they gave this time showed how many children the two would have. We then drew ivy-leaves named after present or absent friends through a wedding ring, and put them into a basin of water which we left until the next morning. Those persons whose leaves had shrivelled or turned black in the night were to die before the next Twelfth-tide, and those who were so unfortunate as to find their leaves spotted with red, by some violent death, unless a ‘pellar’ (wise man) could by his skill and incantations grant protection. These prophecies through superstition sometimes unluckily fulfilled themselves.”

During the twelve days of Christmas card-playing was a very favourite amusement with all classes. Whilst the old people enjoyed their game of whist with ‘swabbers,’ the young ones had their round games. I will append the rules of two or three for those who would like to try them.

Whist (or whisk, as I have heard an old lady call it and maintain that that was its proper name) with “swabbers.”

This game, which was played as recently as 1880, nightly, by four maiden ladies at Falmouth, is like ordinary whist; but each player before beginning to play puts into the pool a fixed sum for “swabs.” The “swab-cards” are—ace and deuce of trumps, ace of hearts and knave of clubs. The four cards are of equal value; but should hearts be trumps the ace would count double.

Entrance to Fowey Harbour, Cornwall (c. 1827) by Joseph Mallord William Turner.

“Board-’em,” a round game that can be played by any number of players, from two to eight; it is played for fish, and there must never be less than six fish in the pool. Six cards are dealt to each person; and the thirteenth, if two are playing, the nineteenth if three, and so on, is turned up for trumps. The fore-hand plays; the next player, if he has one, must follow suit, if not, he may play another suit, or trump. The highest card of the original suit, if not trumped, takes the trick and one or more fish, according to the number staked. If you have neither card in your hand that you think will make a trick you may decline to play, in which case you only lose your stake; but should you play and fail to take a trick you pay for the whole company, and are said to “be boarded.”

“Ranter-go-round” was formerly played in four divisions marked with chalk upon a tea-tray; or even, in some cases, on a bellows—it is now played on a table, and is called “Miss Joan.” Any number of players may join in it. The first player throws down any card of any suit, and says:—

“Here’s a —— as you may see.

2nd Player—Here’s another as good as he.

3rd Player—And here’s the best of all the three.

4th Player—And here’s Miss Joan, come tickle me.”

The holder of the fourth card wins the trick. He sometimes added the words wee-wee; but these are now generally omitted. If the person sitting next to the fore-hand has neither one of the cards demanded (one of the same value as the first played, in another suit), he pays one to the pool, as must all in turn who fail to produce the right cards. The player of the third may have the fourth in his hand, in which case all the others pay. The holder of the most tricks wins the game and takes the pool.

I once, about thirty years since, at this season of the year, joined some children at Camborne who were playing a very primitive game called by them “pinny-ninny.” A basin turned upside down was placed in the centre of a not very large round table. The players were supplied with small piles of pins—not the well-made ones sold in papers, but clumsy things with wire heads—“pound-pins.” A large bottle full of them might, then, always be seen in the general shop window of every little country village. Each in turn dropped a pin over the side of the basin, and he whose pin fell and formed a cross on the top of the heap was entitled to add them to his own pile. This went on until one player had beggared all the others. Poor children before Christmas often begged pins to play this game, and their request was always granted by the gift of two.

A wishing-well, near St. Austell, was sometimes called Pennameny Well, from the custom of dropping pins into it. Pedna-a-mean is the old Cornish for “heads-and-tails.”—(See Divination at St. Roche and Madron Well.)

All Christmas-cakes must be eaten by the night of Twelfth-tide, as it is unlucky to have any left, and all decorations must be taken down on the next day, because for every forgotten leaf of evergreen a ghost will be seen in the house in the course of the ensuing year. This latter superstition does not prevail, however, in all parts of Cornwall, as in some districts a small branch is kept to scare away evil spirits.

January 24th, St. Paul’s-eve, is a holiday with the miners, and is called by them ‘Paul pitcher-day,’ from a custom they have of setting up a water-pitcher, which they pelt with stones until it is broken in pieces. A new one is afterwards bought and carried to a beer-shop to be filled with beer.

“There is a curious custom prevalent in some parts of Cornwall of throwing broken pitchers and other earthen vessels against the doors of dwelling-houses on the eve of the conversion of St. Paul, thence locally called ‘Paul pitcher-night.’ On that evening parties of young people perambulate the parishes in which the custom is retained, exclaiming as they throw the sherds, ‘St. Paul’s-eve and here’s a heave.’ According to the received notions the first heave cannot be objected to; but, upon its being repeated, the inhabitants of the house whose door is thus attacked may, if they can, seize the offenders and inflict summary justice upon them.”—(F.M., Notes and Queries, March, 1874.)

I have heard of this practice from a native of East Cornwall, who told me the pitchers were filled with broken sherds, filth, &c.

The weather on St. Paul’s-day still, with the old people, foretells the weather for the ensuing year, and the rhyme common to all England is repeated by them:—

“If St. Paul’s-day be fine and clear,” &c.

St. Blazey, a village in East Cornwall, is so named in honour of St. Blaize, who is said to have landed at Par, a small neighbouring seaport, when he came on a visit to England. His feast, which is held on 3rd February, would not be worth mentioning were it not for the fact that—“This saint is invoked in the county for toothache, while applying to the tooth the candle that burned on the altar of the church dedicated to him. The same candles are good for sore-throats and curing diseases in cattle.”—(Mrs. Damant, Cowes.)

On the Monday after St. Ives feast, which falls on Quinquagesima Sunday, an annual hurling-match is held on the sands. Most writers on Cornwall have described the old game. The following account is taken from The Land’s End District, 1862, by R. Edmonds:—

“A ball about the size of a cricket-ball, formed of cork, or light wood, and covered with silver, was hurled into the air, midway between the goals. Both parties immediately rushed towards it, each striving to seize and carry it to its own goal. In this contest, when any individual having possession of the ball found himself overpowered or outrun by his opponents, he hurled it to one of his own side, if near enough, or, if not, into some pool, ditch, furze, brake, garden, house, or other place of concealment, to prevent his adversaries getting hold of it before his own company could arrive.”

The hurlers, quaintly says Carew (Survey of Cornwall, p. 74), “Take their next way ouer hills, dales, hedges, ditches—yea, and thorou bushes, briers, mires, plashes, and rivers whatsoever—so as you shall sometimes see twenty or thirty lie tugging together in the water, scrambling and scratching for the ball. A play verily both rude and rough.”

Hurling between two or more parishes, and between one parish and another, has long ceased in Cornwall: but hurling by one part of a parish against another is still played at St. Ives, as well as other places in Cornwall. At St. Ives all the Toms, Wills, and Johns are on one side, while those having other Christian names range themselves on the opposite. At St. Columb (East Cornwall) the townspeople contend with the countrymen; at Truro, the married men with the unmarried; at Helston, two streets with all the other streets; on the 2nd of May, when their town-bounds are renewed.

“Fair-play is good play,” is the hurlers’ motto. This is sometimes engraven on their balls in the old Cornish language. Private families possess some of these balls won by their ancestors early in the last century that are religiously handed down as heirlooms.

A Druidic circle at St. Cleer, in East Cornwall, is known as the Hurlers, from a tradition that a party of men hurling on a Sunday were there for their wickedness turned into stone.

‘Peasen or Paisen Monday’ is the Monday before Shrove Tuesday; it is so called in East Cornwall from a custom of eating pea-soup there on this day. This practice was once so universal in some parishes that an old farmer of Lower St. Columb, who had a special aversion to pea-soup, left his home in the morning, telling his wife that he should not come back to dinner, but spend the day with a friend. He returned two or three hours after in great disgust, as at every house in the village he had been asked to stay and taste their delicious pea-soup.

“This day also in East Cornwall bears the name of ‘Hall Monday,’ why, I know not. And at dusk on the evening of the same day it is the custom for boys, and in some cases for those above the age of boys, to prowl about the streets with short clubs, and to knock loudly at every door, running off to escape detection on the slightest sign of a motion within. If, however, no attention be excited, and especially if any article be discovered, negligently exposed or carelessly guarded, then the things are carried away, and on the following morning are seen displayed in some conspicuous place, to disclose the disgraceful want of vigilance supposed to characterise the owner. The time when this is practised is called ‘Nicky Nan’ night, and the individuals concerned are supposed to represent some imps of darkness, that seize on and expose unguarded moments.”—(Polperro, p. 151, by T. Q. Couch.)

A custom nearly similar to this was practised in Scilly in the last century.

The dinner on Shrove Tuesday in many Cornish houses consists of fried eggs and bacon, or salt pork, followed by the universal pancake, which is eaten by all classes. It is made the full size of the pan, and currants are put into the batter.

In Penzance large quantities of limpets and periwinkles are gathered in the afternoon by poor people, to be cooked for their supper. This they call “going a-trigging.” Any kind of shell-fish picked up at low water in this district is known as “trig-meat.”

Many other customs were formerly observed in Penzance on Shrove Tuesday, peculiar, I believe, to this town.

Women and boys stood at the corners of the streets, with well-greased, sooty hands, which they rubbed over people’s faces. I remember, not more than thirty years ago, seeing a little boy run into a house in a great hurry, and ask for what was he wanted. He had met a woman who had put her hands affectionately on each side of his face, and said, “Your father has been looking for you, my dear.” She had left the marks of her dirty fingers.

The butchers’ market was always thoroughly cleaned in the afternoon, to see if the town hose were in perfect repair, and great merriment was often excited by the firemen turning the full force of the water on some unwary passer-by.

People, too, were occasionally deluged by having buckets of water thrown over them. Every Shrove Tuesday after dusk men and boys went about and threw handfuls of shells, bottles of filth, etc., in at the doors. It was usual then for drapers to keep their shops open until a very late hour; and I have been told that boys were occasionally bribed by the assistants to throw something particularly disagreeable in on the floors, that the masters might be frightened, and order the shops to be shut. Still later in the evening signs were taken down, knockers wrenched off, gates unhung and carried to some distance. This last was done even as far down as 1881. Pulling boats up and putting them in a mill-pool (now built over) was a common practice at Mousehole in the beginning of the century.

“In Landewednack, on Shrove Tuesday, children from the ages of six to twelve perambulate the parish begging for ‘Col-perra’ (probably an old Cornish word); but, whatever be its meaning, they expect to receive eatables or half-pence. As few refuse to give, they collect during the day a tolerable booty, in the shape of money, eggs, buns, apples, etc. The custom has existed from time immemorial, but none of the inhabitants are acquainted with its origin.”—(A Week in the Lizard, by Rev. C. A. Johns, B.B., F.L.S.)

I have been favoured by the Rev. S. Rundle, Godolphin, with the formula repeated by the children on this occasion (now almost forgotten): “Hen-cock, han-cock, give me a ‘tabban’ (morsel), or else ‘Col-perra’ shall come to your door.”

Boys at St. Ives, Scilly, and other places, went about with stones tied to strings, with which they struck the doors, saying:—

“Give me a pancake, now! now! now!
Or I’ll knock in your door with a row, tow, tow!”

This custom has only lately (if it has yet) quite died out. The rhyme at Polperro ran thus:—

“Nicky, Nicky, Nan,
Give me some pancake, and then I’ll be gone,
But if you give me none
I’ll throw a great stone,
And down your door shall come.”

T. Q. Couch.

Cock-fighting at Shrovetide was once a very favourite amusement in Cornwall, and in some of the most remote western villages has until recently been continued. “The Cock-pit” at Penzance, a small part of which still remains as a yard at the Union Hotel, belonged to and was kept up by the Corporation until (I think) the beginning of the present century.

“Sir Rose Price, when young, was a great patron of the pit between the years 1780–1790. His father disapproved, and in consideration of his son giving up cock-fighting bought him a pack of hounds, the first foxhounds west of Truro.”—(T.S.B.)

“At St. Columb, about sixty years ago, on Shrove Tuesday, each child in a dame’s school was expected by the mistress to bring an egg, and at twelve o’clock the children had an egg-battle. Two children stood facing each other, each held an egg, and struck the end of it against that of the opponent lengthwise, the result being that one or both were broken.

“An unbroken egg was used again and again to fight the rest, and so the battle raged until all, or all but one, of the eggs were broken. The child who at the end of the fight held a sound egg was considered to be the conqueror, and was glorified accordingly. To save the contents of the eggs, which were the perquisite of the mistress, she held a plate beneath; and at the end of the battle the children were dismissed. And the old lady having picked out all the broken shells, proceeded to prepare her pancakes, of which she made her dinner.”—(Fred. W. P. Jago, M.B., Plymouth, W. Antiquary, March, 1884.)

“It must be now about thirty years ago that I was a day-scholar at the National School of St. Columb, and it was the custom then for each boy and girl to bring an egg. One of the senior boys stood at a table and wrote the name of the donor upon each. At about eleven o’clock the schoolmaster would produce a large punchbowl, and as he took up each egg he read the name, and broke the egg into the bowl. Eggs at that time were sold at three for a penny.”—(W. B., Bodmin, W. Antiquary, March, 1884.)

In the eastern part of the county at the beginning of Lent a straw figure dressed in cast-off clothes, and called “Jack-o’-lent,” was not long since paraded through the streets and afterwards hung. Something of this kind is common on the Continent.

The figure is supposed to represent Judas Iscariot. A slovenly ragged person is sometimes described as a “Jack-o’-lent.”

1st March.—In Mid-Cornwall, people arise before the sun is up, and sweep before the door to sweep away fleas.—(T. Q. Couch, W. Antiquary, September, 1883.)

5th March.—St. Piran’s day is a miners’ holiday. St. Piran is the patron saint of “tinners,” and is popularly supposed to have died drunk. “As drunk as a Piraner” is a Cornish proverb.

The first Friday in March is another miners’ holiday, “Friday in Lide.” It is marked by a serio-comic custom of sending a young man on the highest “bound,” or hillock, of the “works,” and allowing him to sleep there as long as he can, the length of his siesta being the measure of the afternoon nap of the “tinners” throughout the ensuing twelve months.—(T. Q. Couch.) Lide is an obsolete term for the month of March still preserved in old proverbs, such as “Ducks won’t lay ‘till they’ve drunk Lide water.

Of a custom observed at Little Colan, in East Cornwall, on Palm Sunday, Carew says: “Little Colan is not worth observation, unlesse you will deride or pity their simplicity, who sought at our Lady Nant’s well there to foreknowe what fortune should betide them, which was in this manner. Upon Palm Sunday these idle-headed seekers resorted thither with a Palme cross in one hand and an offring in the other. The offring fell to the Priest’s share, the crosse they threwe into the well; which if it swamme the party should outliue the yeere; if it sunk a short ensuing death was boded; and perhaps not altogether vntimely, while a foolish conceite of this ‘halsening’ myght the sooner helpe it onwards.”

Holy Thursday.—On that Thursday, and the two following Thursdays, girls in the neighbourhood of Roche, in East Cornwall, repair to his holy or wishing well before sunrise. They throw in crooked pins or pebbles, and, by the bubbles that rise to the surface, seek to ascertain whether their sweethearts will be true or false. There was once a chapel near this well, which was then held in great repute for the cure of all kinds of diseases, and a granite figure of St. Roche stood on the arch of the building that still covers it.

“Goody Friday” (Good Friday) was formerly kept more as a feast than a fast in Cornwall. Every vehicle was engaged days beforehand to take parties to some favourite place of resort in the neighbourhood, and labourers in inland parishes walked to the nearest seaport to gather “wrinkles” (winkles), &c.

On the morning of Good Friday at St. Constantine, in West Cornwall, an old custom is still observed of going to Helford river to gather shell-fish (limpets, cockles, &c.); this river was once famous for oysters, and many were then bought and eaten on this day.

“Near Padstow, in East Cornwall, is the tower of an old church dedicated to St. Constantine. In its vicinity the feast of St. Constantine used to be annually celebrated, and has only been discontinued of late years. Its celebration consisted in the destruction of limpet-pies, and service in the church, followed by a hurling match.”—(Murray’s Cornwall.) Another writer says: “The festival of St. Constantine” (March 9th) “was until very lately kept at St. Merran” (Constantine and Merran are now one parish) “by an annual hurling match, on which occasion the owner of Harlyn” (a house in the neighbourhood) “had from time immemorial supplied the silver ball. We are informed, on good authority, that a Shepherd’s family, of the name of Edwards, held one of the cottages in Constantine for many generations under the owners of Harlyn, by the annual render of a Cornish pie, made of limpets, raisins, and sweet herbs, on the feast of St. Constantine.”—(Lysons’ Magna Britannia.)

At St. Day a fair was formerly held on Good Friday, now changed to Easter Monday.

“On Good Friday, 1878, I saw a brisk fair going on in the little village of Perran Porth, Cornwall, not far from the curious oratory of St. Piran, known as Perranzabuloe.”—(W. A. B. C., Notes and Queries, April 23rd, 1881.)

But, although many still make this day a holiday, the churches are now much better attended. Good Friday cross-buns of many kinds are sold by the Cornish confectioners; some, highly spiced, are eaten hot with butter and sugar; a commoner bun is simply washed over the top with saffron, and has a few currants stuck on it. There is one peculiar, I believe, to Penzance: it is made of a rich currant paste highly covered with saffron; it is about an eighth of an inch thick, and four inches in diameter, and is marked with a large cross that divides it into four equal portions.

“In some of our farmhouses the Good Friday bun may be seen hanging to a string from the bacon-rack, slowly diminishing until the return of the season replaces it by a fresh one. It is of sovereign good in all manners of diseases afflicting the family or cattle. I have more than once seen a little of this cake grated into a warm mash for a sick cow.”—(T. Q. Couch, Polperro.) There is a superstition that bread made on this day never gets mouldy.

Many amateur gardeners sow their seeds on Good Friday; superstition says then they will all grow. “There is a widely known belief in West Cornwall, that young ravens are always hatched on Good Friday.”—(T. Cornish, W. Antiquary, October, 1887.)

On Easter Monday, at Penzance, it was the custom within the last twenty years to bring out in the lower part of the town, before the doors, tables, on which were placed thick gingerbread cakes with raisins in them, cups and saucers, etc., to be raffled for with cups and dice, called here “Lilly-bangers.” Fifty years since a man, nicknamed Harry Martillo, with his wife, the “lovelee,” always kept one of these “lilly-banger stalls” at Penzance on market day. He would call attention to his gaming-table by shouting—

“I’ve been in Europe, Ayshee, Afrikee, and Amerikee,
And come back and married the lovelee.”

I have heard that both used tobacco in three ways, and indulged freely in rum, also “tom-trot” (hardbake), strongly flavoured with peppermint. Of course a lively market would influence the dose, and as for “lovelee,” it must have been in Harry’s partial eyes.—(H.R.C.)

“Upon little Easter Sunday, the freeholders of the towne and mannour of Lostwithiel, by themselves or their deputies, did there assemble, amongst whom one (as it fell to his lot by turne), bravely apparelled, gallantly mounted, with a crowne on his head, a scepter in his hand, a sword borne before him, and dutifully attended by all the rest also on horseback, ride thorow the principal streete to the Church; there the Curate in his best ‘beseene’ solemne receiud him at the Church-yard stile, and conducted him to heare diuine seruice; after which he repaired with the same pompe to a house fore-prouided for that purpose, made a feast to his attendants, kept the table’s end himselfe, and was serued with kneeling, assay, and all other rites due to the estate of a Prince; with which dinner the ceremony ended, and every man returned home again.”—(Carew.)

The ancient custom of choosing a mock mayor was observed at Lostwithiel, on 10th October, 1884, by torchlight, in the presence of nearly a thousand people. The origin of both these customs is now quite forgotten. “A custom still existing at St. John’s, Helston, and also at Buryan. The last mayor of the Quay, Penzance, was Mr. Robinson, a noted authority on sea fishing, etc. He died about ten years ago.”—(H.R.C.)

April 1st. The universal attempts at fooling on this day are carried on in Cornwall as elsewhere, and children are sent by their schoolfellows for penn’orths of pigeon’s milk, memory powder, strap-oil, etc., or with a note telling the receiver “to send the fool farther.” When one boy succeeds in taking in another, he shouts after him, Fool! fool! the “guckaw” (cuckoo).

Towednack’s (a village near St. Ives) “Cuckoo” or “Crowder” feast is on the nearest Sunday to the 28th April. Tradition accounts for the first name by the story of a man who there gave a feast on an inclement day in the end of April. To warm his guests he threw some faggots on the fire (or some furze-bushes), when a cuckoo flew out of them, calling “Cuckoo! cuckoo!” It was caught and kept, and he resolved every year to invite his friends to celebrate the event. This, too, is said to be the origin of the feast.

“Crowder” in Cornwall means a fiddler, and the fiddle is called a “crowd.” In former days the parishioners of Towednack were met at the church door on “feasten” day by a “crowder,” who, playing on his “crowd,” headed a procession through the village street, hence its second name.

The only May-pole now erected in Cornwall is put up on April 30th, at Hugh Town, St. Mary’s, Scilly. Girls dance round it on May-day with garlands of flowers on their heads, or large wreaths of flowers from shoulder to waist. Dr. Stephen Clogg, of Looe, says that “May-poles are still to be seen on May-day, at Pelynt, Dulver, and East and West Looe.”—(W. Antiquary, August, 1884.) In the beginning of this century, boys and girls in Cornwall sat up until twelve o’clock on the eve of May-day, and then marched around the towns and villages with Musical Instruments, collecting their friends to go a-maying. May-day is ushered in at Penzance by the discordant blowing of large tin horns. At daybreak, and even earlier, parties of boys, five or six in number, assemble at the street corners, from whence they perambulate the town blowing their horns and conchshells. They enter the gardens of detached houses, stop and bray under the bed-room windows, and beg for money. With what they collect they go into the country, and at one of the farmhouses they breakfast on bread and clotted cream, junket, &c. An additional ring of tin (a penn’orth) is added to his horn every year that a boy uses it.

Formerly, on May-morn, if the boys succeeded in fixing a “May bough” over a farmer’s door before he was up, he was considered bound to give them their breakfasts; and in some parts of the county, should the first comer bring with him a piece of well-opened hawthorn, he was entitled to a basin of cream.

“In West Cornwall it is the custom to hang a piece of furze to a door early in the morning of May-day. At breakfast-time the one who does this appears and demands a piece of bread and cream with a basin of ‘raw-milk’ (milk that has not been scalded and the cream taken off).

“In Landrake, East Cornwall, it was the custom to give the person who plucked a fern as much cream as would cover it. It was also a practice there to chastise with stinging nettles any one found in bed after six on May-morning.”—(Rev. S. Rundle, Vicar, Godolphin.)

Young shoots of sycamore, as well as white thorn, are known as May in Cornwall, and from green twigs of the former and from green stalks of wheaten corn the children of this county make a rude whistle, which they call a “feeper.”

Until very lately parties of young men and women rose betimes on May-day and went into the country to breakfast; going a “a junketing” in the evening has not yet been discontinued.

At Hayle, on May-day (1883), as usual, groups of children, decorated with flowers and gay with fantastic paper-clothes, went singing through the streets. In the evening bonfires were lit in various parts of the town, houses were illuminated with candles, torches and fire-balls burnt until a late hour. The last is a new and dangerous plaything: a ball of tow or rags is saturated with petroleum, set fire to, and then kicked from one place to another; it leaves a small track of burning oil wherever it goes.

“On May-morning, in Polperro, the children and even adults go out into the country and fetch home branches of the narrow-leaved elm, or flowering boughs of white thorn, both of which are called ‘May.’ At a later hour all the boys sally forth with bucket, can, or other vessel, and avail themselves of a license which the season confers—to ‘dip’ or wellnigh drown, without regard to person or circumstance, the passenger who has not the protection of a piece of ‘May’ conspicuously stuck in his dress; at the same time they sing, ‘The first of May is Dipping-day.’ This manner of keeping May-day is, I have heard, common in Cornwall. We are now favoured with a call from the boy with his pretty garland, gay with bright flowers and gaudily-painted birds’-eggs, who expects some little gratuity for the sight.”—(T. Q. Couch.)

“At East and West Looe the boys dress their hats with flowers, furnish themselves with bullocks’ horns, in which sticks of two feet long are fixed, and with these filled with water they parade the streets and dip all persons who have not the sprig of May in their hats.”—(Bond.)

“First of May you must take down all the horse-shoes (that are nailed over doors to keep out witches, &c.) and turn them, not letting them touch the ground.”—(Old farmer, Mid-Cornwall, through T. Q. Couch, W. Antiquary, September, 1883.)

May-day at Padstow is Hobby-horse day. A hobby-horse is carried through the streets to a pool known as Traitor’s-pool, a quarter of a mile out of the town. Here it is supposed to drink: the head is dipped into the water, which is freely sprinkled over the spectators. The procession returns home, singing a song to commemorate the tradition that the French, having landed in the bay, mistook a party of mummers in red cloaks for soldiers, hastily fled to their boats and rowed away.

“The May-pole on the first of May at Padstow has only been discontinued within the last six or eight years (1883). It was erected in connection with the ‘Hobby-horse’ festival by the young men of the town, who on the last eve of April month would go into the country, cut a quantity of blooming yellow furze, and gather the flowers then in season, make garlands of the same; borrow the largest spar they could get from the shipwright’s yard, dress it up with the said furze and garlands, with a flag or two on the top, and hoist the pole in a conspicuous part of the town, when the ‘Mayers,’ male and female, would dance around it on that festival-day, singing—

‘And strew all your flowers, for summer is come in to-day.
It is but a while ago since we have strewed ours
In the merry morning of May,’ &c.

“The May-pole was allowed to remain up from a week to a fortnight, when it was taken down, stripped, and the pole returned.”—(Henry Harding, Padstow, W. Antiquary, August, 1883.)

“Formerly all the respectable people at Padstow kept this anniversary, decorated with the choicest flowers; but some unlucky day a number of rough characters from a distance joined in it, and committed some sad assaults upon old and young, spoiling all their nice summer clothes, and covering their faces and persons with smut. From that time—fifty years since—(1865) the procession is formed of the lowest.

“The May-pole was once decorated with the best flowers, now with only some elm-branches and furze in blossom. The horse is formed as follows: The dress is made of sackcloth painted black—a fierce mask—eyes red, horse’s head, horse-hair mane and tail; distended by a hoop—some would call it frightful. Carried by a powerful man, he could inflict much mischief with the snappers, &c. No doubt it is a remnant of the ancient plays, and it represents the devil, or the power of darkness. They commence singing at sunrise.

‘The Morning-Song.
‘Unite and unite, and let us all unite,
For summer is comen to-day;
For whither we are going we all will unite,
In the merry morning of May.
‘Arise up, Mr. ——, and joy you betide,
For summer is comen to-day;
And bright is your bride that lays by your side,
In the merry morning of May.
‘Arise, up Mrs. ——, and gold be your ring,
For summer is comen to-day;
And give us a cup of ale, the merrier we shall sing
In the merry morning of May.
‘Arise up, Miss ——, all in your smock of silk,
For summer is comen to-day;
And all your body under as white as any milk,
In the merry morning of May.
‘The young men of Padstow might if they would,
For summer is comen to-day;
They might have built a ship and gilded her with gold,
In the merry morning of May.
‘Now fare you well, and we bid you good cheer,
For summer is comen to-day;
He will come no more unto your house before another year,
In the merry morning of May.’ ”

(George Rawlings, September 1st, 1865, through R. Hunt, F.R.S., Droles, &c., Old Cornwall.)

Mr. Rawlings all through his song has written “For summer has come unto day,” but this is clearly a mistake. He also gives another which he calls the “May-Song,” but it is not as well worth transcribing: it bears in some parts a slight resemblance to that sung at the Helston Hal-an-tow.

Mr. George C. Boase, in an article on “The Padstow May-Songs,” has many additional verses in “The Morning-Song.” He also gives “The Day-Song,” sung in honour of St. George, of which I will quote the first verse, and the last paragraph of his paper.

“Awake, St. George, our English knight O!
For summer is a-come and winter is a-go,
And every day God give us His grace,
By day and by night O!
Where is St. George, where is he O!
He is out in his long boat, all on the salt sea O!
And in every land O! the land that ere we go.
Chorus—And for to fetch the summer home, the summer and the May O!
For the summer is a-come and the winter is a-go, etc.”

The only account of “The Hobby-horse” found in the Cornish histories is in Hitchins and Drew’s Cornwall (vol. i., p. 720; vol. ii., pp. 525, 529), where it is stated that there is a tradition of St. George on horseback having visited the neighbourhood of Padstow, where the indentation of his horse’s hoofs caused a spring of water to arise. The spot is still known as St. George’s well, and water is said to be found there even in the hottest summer.—(W. Antiquary.)

View on Sir John Moreshead's Estate at Blisland near Bodmin, Cornwall by Thomas Rowlandson.

In East Cornwall they have a custom of bathing in the sea on the three first Sunday mornings in May. And in West Cornwall children were taken before sunrise on those days to the holy wells, notably to that of St. Maddern (Madron), near Penzance, to be there dipped into the running water, that they might be cured of the rickets and other childish disorders. After being stripped naked they were plunged three times into the water, the parents facing the sun, and passed round the well nine times from east to west. They were then dressed, and laid by the side of the well, or on an artificial mound re-made every year, called St. Maddern’s bed, which faced it, to sleep in the sun: should they do so and the water bubble it was considered a good sign. Not a word was to be spoken the whole time for fear of breaking the spell.

A small piece torn (not cut) from the child’s clothes was hung for luck (if possible out of sight) on a thorn which grew out of the chapel wall. Some of these bits of rag may still sometimes be found fluttering on the neighbouring bushes. I knew two well-educated people who in 1840, having a son who could not walk at the age of two, carried him and dipped him in Madron well (a distance of three miles from their home,) on the first two Sundays in May; but on the third the father refused to go. Some authorities say this well should be visited on the first three Wednesdays in May; as was for the same purpose another holy well at Chapel Euny (or St. Uny) near Sancred.

The Wesleyans hold an open-air service on the first three Sunday afternoons in May, at a ruined chapel near Madron well, in the south wall of which a hole may be seen, through which the water from the well runs into a small baptistry in the south-west corner.

Parties of young girls to this day walk there in May to try for sweethearts. Crooked pins, or small heavy things, are dropped into the well in couples; if they keep together the pair will be married; the number of bubbles they make in falling shows the time that will elapse before the event. Sometimes two pieces of straw formed into a cross, fastened in the centre by a pin, were used in these divinations. An old woman who lived in a cottage at a little distance formerly frequented the well and instructed visitors how to work the charms; she was never paid in money, but small presents were placed where she could find them. Pilgrims from all parts of England centuries ago resorted to St. Maddern’s well: that was famed, as was also her grave, for many miraculous cures. The late Rev. R. S. Hawker, Vicar of Morwenstow, in East Cornwall, published a poem, called “The Doom Well of St. Madron,” on one of the ancient legends connected with it.

“A respectable tradesman’s wife in Launceston tells me that the townspeople here say that a swelling in the neck may be cured by the patients going before sunrise on the first of May to the grave of the last young man (if the patient be a woman), to that of the last young woman (if a man) who had been buried in the churchyard, and applying the dew, gathered by passing the hand three times from the head to the foot of the grave, to the part affected by the ailment. I may as well add that the common notion of improving the complexion by washing the face with the early dew in the fields on the first of May prevails in these parts (East Cornwall), and they say that a child who is weak in the back may be cured by drawing him over the grass wet with the morning dew. The experiment must be thrice performed, that is, on the mornings of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of May.”—(H. G. T., Notes and Queries, 14th December, 1850.)

The 8th of May is at Helston given up to pleasure, and is known as Flora-day, Flurry-day, Furry-day, and Faddy. To “fade” meant in old English to dance from country to town. A legend says this day was set apart to commemorate a fight between the devil and St. Michael, in which the first was defeated. The name Helston has been fancifully derived from a large block of granite which until 1783 was to be seen in the yard of the Angel hotel, the principal inn of the place. This was the stone that sealed Hell’s mouth, and the devil was carrying it when met by St. Michael. Why he should have burdened himself with such a “large pebble” (as Cornish miners call all stones) is quite unknown. The fight and overthrow are figured on the town-seal.

The week before Flora-day is in Helston devoted to the “spring-clean,” and every house is made “as bright as a new pin,” and the gardens stripped of their flowers to adorn them.

The revelry begins at day-break, when the men and maidservants with their friends go into the country to breakfast; these are the “Hal-an-tow.” They return about eight, laden with green boughs, preceded by a drum and singing an old song, the first verses of which ran thus:—

“Robin Hood and Little John
They both are gone to fair, O!
And we will to the merry greenwood
To see what they do there, O!
And for to chase—O!
To chase the buck and doe.

Refrain—With Hal-an-tow! Rumbelow!
For we are up as soon as any O!
And for to fetch the summer home,
The summer and the May O!
For summer is a-come O!
And winter is a-gone O!

The whole of this song may be found with the music in the Rev. Baring Gould’s “Songs of the West,” and the first verse set to another tune in Specimens of Cornish Provincial Dialect, by Uncle Jan Trenoodle. (Sandys.)

The Hal-an-tow are privileged to levy contributions on strangers coming into the town.

Early in the morning merry peals are rung on the church-bells, and at nine a prescriptive holiday is demanded by the boys at the grammar-school. At noon the principal inhabitants and visitors dance through the town. The dancers start from the market-house, and go through the streets; in at the front doors of the houses that have been left open for them, ringing every bell and knocking at every knocker, and out at the back, but if more convenient they dance around the garden, or even around a room, and return through the door by which they entered. Sometimes the procession files in at one shop-door, dances through that department and out through another, and in one place descends into a cellar. All the main streets are thus traversed, and a circuit is made of the bowling-green, which at one end is the extreme limit of the town. Two beadles, their wands wreathed with flowers, and a band with a gaily-decorated drum, head the procession. The dance ends with “hands across” at the assembly room of the Angel hotel, where there is always a ball in the evening. Non-dancers are admitted to this room by a small payment (which must be a silver coin), paid as they go up the stairs either to the landlord or a gentleman,—one stands on each side of the door. The gentlemen dancers on entering pay for their partners, and by established custom, should they be going to attend the evening ball, they are bound to give them their tickets, gloves, and the first dance. The tradespeople have their dance at a later hour, and their ball at another hotel.

The figure of the Furry dance, performed to a very lively measure, is extremely simple. To the first half of the tune the couples dance along hand-in-hand; at the second the first gentleman turns the second lady and the second gentleman the first. This change is made all down the set. Repeat.

I have appended the tune, to which children have adopted the following doggerel:—

“John the bone (beau) was walking home,
When he met with Sally Dover,
He kissed her once, he kissed her twice,
And he kissed her three times over.”

Some writers have made the mistake of imagining that the tune sung to the Hal-an-tow and the Furry dance are the same.

Formerly, should any person in Helston be found at work on Flora-day, he was set astride on a pole, then carried away on men’s shoulders to a wide part of the Cober (a stream which empties itself into Loe-pool close by), and sentenced to leap over it. As it was almost impossible to do this without jumping into the water, the punishment was remitted by the payment of a small fine towards the day’s amusement. Others say the offender was first made to jump the Cober and then set astride on a pole to dry.

In many of the villages around Helston the children, on Flora-day, deck themselves with large wreaths, which they wear over one shoulder and under the other arm; and at Porthleven I observed, in 1884, in addition to these wreaths, several children with large white handkerchiefs arranged as wimples, kept on their heads with garlands of flowers.

One of the first objects on entering the village of St. Germans (East Cornwall) is the large walnut-tree, at the foot of what is called Nut-tree Hill. Many a gay May-fair has been witnessed by the old tree. In the morning of the 28th of the month splendid fat cattle from some of the largest and best farms in the county quietly chewed the cud around its trunk; in the afternoon the basket-swing dangled from its branches filled with merry, laughing boys and girls from every part of the parish. On the following day the mock mayor, who had been chosen with many formalities, remarkable only for their rude and rough nature, starting from some “bush-house” where he had been supping too freely of the fair-ale, was mounted on wain or cart, and drawn around it, to claim his pretended jurisdiction over the ancient borough, until his successor was chosen at the following fair. Leaving the nut-tree, which is a real ornament to the town, we pass by a spring of water running into a large trough, in which many a country lad has been drenched for daring to enter the town on the 29th of May without the leaf or branch of oak in his hat.—(R. Hunt, F.R.S., Drolls, &c., Old Cornwall.)

The wrestlers of Cornwall and their wrestling-matches are still famous, and in the May of 1868 4,000 assembled one day on Marazion Green, and 3,000 the next, to see one. The wrestlers of this county have a peculiar grip, called by them “the Cornish-hug.”

Any odd, foolish game is in West Cornwall called a May-game (pronounced May-gum), also a person who acts foolishly; and you frequently hear the expression—“He’s a reg’lar May-gum!” There is a proverb that says—“Don’t make mock of a May-gum, you may be struck comical yourself one day.”

Whit-Sunday.—It was formerly considered very unlucky in Cornwall to go out on this day without putting on some new thing. Children were told that should they do so “the birds would foul them as they walked along.” A new ribbon, or even a shoe-lace, would be sufficient to protect them. Whit-Monday is generally kept as a holiday, and is often made an excuse for another country excursion, which, if taken in the afternoon, ends at some farm-house with a tea of Cornish “heavy-cream cake,” followed (in the evening) by a junket with clotted-cream.

Carew speaks of a feast kept in his time on Whit-Monday at the “Church-house” of the different parishes called a “Church-ale.” It was a sort of large picnic, for which money had been previously collected by two young men—“wardens,” who had been previously appointed the preceding year by their last “foregoers.” This custom has long ceased to exist.

The Wesleyans (Methodists) in Cornwall hold an open-air service on Whit-Monday at Gwennap-pit. The pit is an old earth-round, excavated in the hill-side of Carn Marth, about three miles from the small village of Gwennap, and one from Redruth. This amphitheatre, which is then usually filled, is capable of holding from four to five thousand people, and is in shape like a funnel. It is encircled from the bottom to the top with eighteen turf-covered banks, made by cutting the earth into steps. It is admirably adapted for sound, and the voice of the preacher, who stands on one side, about half way up, is distinctly heard by the whole congregation. Wesley, when on a visit to Cornwall, preached in Gwennap-pit to the miners of that district, and this was the origin of the custom. Many excursion-trains run to Redruth on Whit-Monday, and a continuous string of vehicles of every description, as well as pedestrians, may be seen wending their way from the station to the pit, which is almost surrounded by “downs,” and in a road close by rows of “standings” (stalls) are erected for the sale of “fairings.” An annual pleasure-fair goes on at the same time at Redruth, and many avail themselves of the excursion-trains who have not the least intention of attending the religious service.

“In Mid-Cornwall, in the second week of June, at St. Roche and in one or two adjacent parishes, a curious dance is performed at their annual ‘feasts.’ It enjoys the rather undignified name of ‘Snails’ creep,’ but would be more properly called ‘The Serpent’s Coil.’

“The following is scarcely a perfect description of it:—The young people being all assembled in a large meadow, the village band strikes up a simple but lively air, and marches forward, followed by the whole assemblage, leading hand-in-hand (or more closely linked in case of engaged couples), the whole keeping time to the tune with a lively step. The band or head of the serpent keeps marching in an ever-narrowing circle, whilst its train of dancing followers becomes coiled around it in circle after circle. It is now that the most interesting part of the dance commences, for the band, taking a sharp turn about, begins to retrace the circle, still followed as before, and a number of young men with long, leafy branches in their hands as standards, direct this counter-movement with almost military precision.”—(W. C. Wade, W. Antiquary, April, 1881.)

A game similar to the above dance is often played by Sunday-school children in West Cornwall, at their out-of-door summer-treats, called by them “roll-tobacco.” They join hands in one long line, the taller children at the head. The first child stands still, whilst the others in ever-narrowing circles dance around singing, until they are coiled into a tight mass. The outer coil then wheels sharply in a contrary direction, followed by the remainder, retracing their steps.

23rd of June. In the afternoon of Midsummer-eve little girls may be still occasionally met in the streets of Penzance with garlands of flowers on their heads, or wreaths over one shoulder.

This custom was, within the last fifty years, generally observed in West Cornwall. And in all the streets of our towns and villages groups of graceful girls, rich as well as poor, all dressed in white, their frocks decorated with rows of laurel-leaves (“often spangled with gold-leaf”—Bottrell), might in the afternoon have been seen standing at the doors, or in the evening dancing along with their brothers or lovers.

In Penzance, and in nearly all the parishes of West Penwith, immediately after nightfall on the eves of St. John and St. Peter, the 23rd and 28th of June, lines of tar-barrels, occasionally broken by bonfires, were simultaneously lighted in all the streets, whilst, at the same time, bonfires were kindled on all the cairns and hills around Mount’s Bay, throwing the outlines in bold relief against the sky. “Then the villagers, linked in circles hand-in-hand, danced round them to preserve themselves against witchcraft, and, when they burnt low, one person here and there detached himself from the rest and leaped through the flames to insure himself from some special evil. The old people counted these fires and drew a presage from them.”—(Bottrell.)

Regularly at dusk the mayor of Penzance sent the town-crier through the streets to give notice that no fireworks were allowed to be let off in the town; but this was done simply that he should not be held responsible if any accident happened, for he and all in Penzance knew quite well that the law would be set at defiance. Large numbers of men, women, and boys came up soon after from the quay and lower parts of the town swinging immense torches around their heads; these torches (locally known as “to’ches”) were made of pieces of canvas about two feet square, fastened in the middle either to a long pole or a strong chain, dipped until completely saturated in tar. Of course they required to be swung with great dexterity or the holder would have been burnt. The heat they gave out was something dreadful, and the smoke suffocating. Most of the inhabitants dressed in their oldest clothes congregated in groups in the street, and a great part of the fun of the evening consisted in slyly throwing squibs amongst them, or in dispersing them by chasing them with hand-rockets. The greatest good humour always prevailed, and although the revellers were thickest in a small square surrounded by houses, some of them thatched, very few accidents have ever happened. A band stationed here played at intervals. No set-pieces were ever put off, but there were a few Roman-candles. Between ten and eleven a popular mayor might often have been seen standing in the middle of this square (the Green Market), encircled by about a dozen young men, each holding a lighted hand-rocket over the mayor’s head. The sparks which fell around him on all sides made him look as if he stood in the centre of a fountain of fire. The proceedings finished by the boys and girls from the quay, whose torches had by this time expired, dancing in a long line hand in hand through the streets, in and out and sometimes over the now low burning tar-barrels, crying out, “An eye, an eye.” At this shout the top couple held up their arms, and, beginning with the last, the others ran under them, thus reversing their position. A year or two ago, owing to the increasing traffic at Penzance, the practice of letting off squibs and crackers in the streets was formally abolished by order of the mayor and corporation. Efforts are still made and money collected for the purpose of reviving it, with some little success; but the Green Market is no longer the scene of the fun. A few boys still after dusk swing their torches, and here and there some of the old inhabitants keep up the custom of lighting tar-barrels or bonfires before their doors. A rite called the Bonfire Test was formerly celebrated on this night. Mr. R. Hunt, F.R.S., has described it in his Drolls, &c. Old Cornwall:—“A bonfire is formed of faggots of furze, ferns, and the like. Men and maidens, by locking hands, form a circle, and commence a dance to some wild native song. At length, as the dancers become excited, they pull each other from side to side across the fire. If they succeed in treading out the fire without breaking the chain, none of the party will die during the year. If, however, the ring is broken before the fire is extinguished, ‘bad luck to the weak hands,’ as my informant said (1865). All the witches in West Cornwall used to meet at midnight on Midsummer-eve at Trewa (pronounced Troway), in the parish of Zennor, and around the dying fires renewed their vows to their master, the Devil. Zennor boasts of some of the finest coast scenery in Cornwall, and many remarkable rocks were scattered about in this neighbourhood; several of them (as does the cromlech) still remain, but others have been quarried and carted away, amongst them one known as Witches’ Rock, which if touched nine times at midnight kept away ill-luck, and prevented people from being ‘over-looked’ (ill-wished).”

On Midsummer-day (June 24th) two pleasure fairs are held in Cornwall: one at Pelynt, in the eastern part of the county, where in the evening, from time immemorial, a large bonfire has been always lighted in an adjoining field by the boys of the neighbourhood (some writers fix on the summer solstice as the date of Pelynt fair, but this, I believe, is an error); and the second on the old quay at Penzance. It is called “Quay Fair,” to distinguish it from Corpus Christi fair, another and much larger one held at the other extremity of the town, and which lasts from the eve of Corpus Christi until the following Saturday. Quay fair was formerly crowded by people from the neighbouring inland towns and villages; their principal amusement was to go out for a short row, a great number in one boat, the boatmen charging a penny a head. This was taking a “Pen’nord of Say.” When not paid for, a short row is a “Troil.” (Troil is Old-Cornish for a feast).

Although this fair has not yet been discontinued, the number of those attending it grows less and less every year, and not enough money is taken to encourage travelling showmen to set up their booths. The old charter allowed the public-houses at the quay to keep open all night on the 24th of June, but such is no longer the case. Quay fair was sometimes known as Strawberry fair, and thirty years ago many strawberries were sold at it for twopence a quart. They were not brought to market in pottles, but in large baskets containing some gallons, and were measured out to the customers in a tin pint or quart measure. They were eaten from cabbage-leaves. Before the end of the day, unless there were a brisk sale, the fruit naturally got much bruised. They are still sold in the same way, but are not nearly as plentiful. Many of the strawberry fields, through which the public footpaths often went, have been turned up, and are now used for growing early potatoes. On St. John’s-day Cornish miners place a green bough on the shears of the engine-houses in commemoration of his preaching in the wilderness.

This day is with Cornish as with other maidens a favourite one for trying old love-charms. Some of them rise betimes, and go into the country to search for an even “leafed” ash, or an even “leafed” clover. When found, the rhymes they repeat are common to all England.

An old lady, a native of Scilly, once gave me a most graphic description of her mother and aunt laying a table, just before midnight on St. John’s-day, with a clean white cloth, knives and forks, and bread and cheese, to see if they should marry the men to whom they were engaged. They sat down to it, keeping strict silence—

“For, if a word had been spoken,
The spell would have been broken.”

As the clock struck twelve, the door (which had purposely been left unbarred) opened, and their two lovers walked in, having, as they said, met outside, both compelled by irresistible curiosity to go and see if there were anything the matter with their sweethearts.

It never entered the old lady’s head that the men probably had an inkling of what was going on, and to have hinted that such was the case would, I am quite sure, have given dire offence.

The following charm is from the W. Antiquary:—Pluck a rose at midnight on St. John’s-day, wear it to church, and your intended will take it out of your button-hole.—(Old Farmer, Mid-Cornwall, through T. Q. Couch.)

“It was believed that if a young maiden gathered a rose on Midsummer-day, and folding it in white paper, forbore to look at it or mention what she had done until the following Christmas-day, she would then find the flower fresh and bright; and further if she placed it in her bosom and wore it at church, the person most worthy of her hand would be sure to draw near her in the porch, and beseech her to give him the rose.”—Neota—Launcells. Charlotte Hawkey.

In connection with Midsummer bonfires, I mentioned those on St. Peter’s-eve; although they are no longer lighted at Penzance, the custom (never confined to West Cornwall) is in other places still observed. Many of the churches in the small fishing villages on the coast are dedicated to this saint, the patron of fishermen, and on his tide the towers of these churches were formerly occasionally illuminated.

On St. Peter’s-eve, at Newlyn West, in 1883, many of the men were away fishing on the east coast of England, and the celebration of the festival was put off until their return, when it took place with more than usual rejoicings. The afternoon was given up to aquatic sports, and in the evening, in addition to the usual bonfires and tar-barrels, squibs, hand and sky-rockets were let off. The young people finished the day with an open-air dance, which ended before twelve. In this village effigies of objectionable characters, after they have been carried through the streets, are sometimes burnt in the St. Peter’s bonfire. I have often in Cornwall heard red-haired people described “as looking as if they were born on bonfire night.” At Wendron, and many other small inland mining villages, the boys at St. Peter’s-tide fire off miniature rock batteries called “plugs.”

I must now again quote from Mr. T. Q. Couch, and give his account of how this day is observed at Polperro.

“The patron saint of Polperro is St. Peter, to whom the church, built on the seaward hill (still called chapel hill) was dedicated. His festival is kept on the 10th of July (old style). At Peter’s-tide is our annual feast or fair. Though a feeble and insignificant matter, it is still with the young the great event of the year. On the eve of the fair is the prefatory ceremony of a bonfire. The young fishermen go from house to house and beg money to defray the expenses. At nightfall a large pile of faggots and tar-barrels is built on the beach, and, amid the cheers of a congregated crowd of men, women, and children (for it is a favour never denied to children to stay up and see the bonfire), the pile is lighted. The fire blazes up, and men and boys dance merrily round it, and keep up the sport till the fire burns low enough, when they venturously leap through the flames. It is a most animated scene, the whole valley lit up by the bright red glow, bringing into strong relief front and gable of picturesque old houses, each window crowded with eager and delighted faces, while around the fire is a crowd of ruddy lookers-on, shutting in a circle of impish figures leaping like salamanders through the flames.

“The next day the fair begins, a trivial matter, except to the children, who are dressed in their Sunday clothes, and to the village girls in their best gowns and gaudiest ribbons. Stalls, or ‘standings,’ laden with fairings, sweetmeats, and toys, line the lower part of Lansallos Street, near the strand. There are, besides, strolling Thespians; fellows who draw unwary youths into games of hazard, where the risk is mainly on one side; ballad-singers; penny-peep men, who show and describe to wondering boys the most horrid scenes of the latest murder; jugglers and tumblers also display their skill. In the neighbouring inn the fiddler plays his liveliest tunes at twopence a reel, which the swains gallantly pay. The first day of the fair is merely introductory, for the excitement is rarely allayed under three. The second day is much livelier than the first, and has for its great event the wrestling-match on the strand, or perhaps a boat-race. On the third day we have the mayor-choosing, never a valid ceremony, but a broad burlesque. The person who is chosen to this post of mimic dignity is generally some half-witted or drunken fellow, who, tricked out in tinsel finery, elects his staff of constables, and these, armed with staves, accompany his chariot (some jowster’s huckster’s cart, dressed with green boughs) through the town, stopping at each inn, where he makes a speech full of large promises to his listeners, of full work, better wages, and a liberal allowance of beer during his year of mayoralty. He then demands a quart of the landlord’s ale, which is gauged with mock ceremony, and if adjudged short of measure is, after being emptied, broken on the wheel of the car. Having completed the perambulation of the town, his attendants often make some facetious end of the pageant by wheeling the mayor in his chariot with some impetus into the tide.”—Polperro, 1871, pp. 156–159.

The ceremony of choosing a mock mayor was also observed at Penryn (near Falmouth), but it took place in the autumn, on a day in September or October, when hazel-nuts were ripe, and “nutting day” was kept by the children and poor people. The journeymen tailors went from Penryn and Falmouth to Mylor parish, on the opposite side of the river Fal. There they made choice of the wittiest among them to fill that office. His title was the “Mayor of Mylor.” When chosen, he was borne in a chair upon the shoulders of four strong men from his “goode towne of Mylor” to his “anciente borough of Penryn.” He was preceded by torch-bearers and two town-sergeants, in gowns and cocked hats, with cabbages instead of maces, and surrounded by a guard armed with staves. Just outside Penryn he was met with a band of music, which played him into the town. The procession halted at the town-hall, where the mayor made a burlesque speech, often a clever imitation of the phrases and manners of their then sitting parliamentary representative. This speech was repeated with variations before the different inns, the landlords of which were expected to provide the mayor and his numerous attendants liberally with beer. The day’s proceedings finished with a dinner at one of the public-houses in Penryn. Bonfires, &c., were lighted, and fireworks let off soon after dusk. It was popularly believed that this choosing of a mock mayor was permitted by a clause in the town charter.

A festival, supposed to have been instituted in honour of Thomas-à-Beckett, called “Bodmin-Riding,” was (although shorn of its former importance) until very recently held there on the first Monday and Tuesday after the 7th of July.

In the beginning of this century all the tradespeople of the town, preceded by music and carrying emblems of their trades, walked in procession to the Priory. They were headed by two men, one with a garland and the other with a pole, which they presented and received back again from the master of the house as the then representative of the Prior. Mr. T. Q. Couch had the following description of this ceremony from those who took part in its latest celebration:—

“A puncheon of beer having been brewed in the previous October, and duly bottled in anticipation of the time, two or more young men, who were entrusted with the chief management of the affair, and who represented ‘the Wardens’ of Carew’s Church-ales, went round the town (Bodmin) attended by a band of drummers and fifers, or other instruments. The crier saluted each house with—‘To the people of this house, a prosperous morning, long life, health, and a merry riding.’ The musicians then struck up the riding-tune, a quick and inspiriting measure, said by some to be as old as the feast itself. The householder was solicited to taste the riding-ale, which was carried round in baskets. A bottle was usually taken in, and it was acknowledged by such a sum as the means or humour of the townsmen permitted, to be spent on the public festivities of the season. Next morning a procession was formed (all who could afford to ride mounted on horse or ass, smacking long-lashed whips), first to the Priory to receive two large garlands of flowers fixed on staves, and then in due order to the principal streets to the town-end, where the games were formerly opened. The sports, which lasted two days, were of the ordinary sort—wrestling, foot-racing, jumping in sacks, &c. It is worthy of remark that a second or inferior brewing from the same wort was drunk at a minor merry-making at Whitsuntide.”—(Popular Antiquities, Journal Royal Institute of Cornwall, 1864.)

In former days the proceedings ended in a servants’-ball, at which dancing was kept up until the next morning’s breakfast-hour.

A very curious carnival was originally held under a Lord of Misrule, in July, on Halgaver Moor, near Bodmin, thus quaintly described by Carew:—

“The youthlyer sort of Bodmin townsmen vse to sport themselves by playing the box with strangers whom they summon to Halgauer. The name signifieth the Goat’s Moore, and such a place it is, lying a little without the towne, and very full of quauemires. When these mates meet with any rawe seruing-man or other young master, who may serue and deserue to make pastime, they cause him to be solemnely arrested, for his appearance before the Maior of Halgauer, where he is charged with wearing one spurre, or going vntrussed, or wanting a girdle, or some such felony. After he had been arraygned and tryed, with all requisite circumstances, iudgement is given in formal terms, and executed in some one vngracious pranke or other, more to the skorne than hurt of the party condemned. Hence is sprung the prouerb when we see one slouenly appareled to say he shall be presented at Halgauer Court (or take him before the Maior of Halgauer).

“But now and then they extend this merriment with the largest, to preiudice of ouer-credulous people, persuading them to fight with a dragon lurking in Halgauer, or to see some strange matter there, which concludeth at least with a trayning them into the mire.”—(Survey of Cornwall.)

Heath says in his Description of Cornwall, “These sports and pastimes were so liked by King Charles II., when he touched at Bodmin on his way to Scilly, that he became a brother of the jovial society.”

“Taking-day.”—“An old custom, about which history tells us nothing, is still duly observed at Crowan, in West Cornwall. Annually, on the Sunday evening previous to Praze-an-beeble fair (July 16th) large numbers of the young folk repair to the parish church, and at the conclusion of the service they hasten to Clowance Park, where still large crowds assemble, collected chiefly from the neighbouring villages of Leeds-town, Carnhell-green, Nancegollan, Blackrock, and Praze. Here the sterner sex select their partners for the forthcoming fair, and, as it not unfrequently happens that the generous proposals are not accepted, a tussle ensues, to the intense merriment of passing spectators. Many a happy wedding has resulted from the opportunity afforded for selection on ‘Taking-day’ in Clowance Park.”—(Cornishman, July, 1882.)

At St. Ives, on the 25th July, St. James’s-day, they hold a quiennial celebration of the “Knillian-games.” These have been fully described by the late J. S. Courtney in his Guide to Penzance, as follows:—

“Near St. Ives a pyramid on the summit of a hill attracts attention. This pyramid was erected in the year 1782, as a place of sepulture for himself, by John Knill, Esq., some time collector of the Customs at St. Ives, and afterwards a resident in Gray’s Inn, London, where he died in 1811. The building is commonly called ‘Knill’s Mausoleum’; but Mr. Knill’s body was not there deposited, for, having died in London, he was, according to his own directions, interred in St. Andrew’s church, Holborn. The pyramid bears on its three sides respectively the following inscriptions, in relief, on the granite of which it is built: ‘Johannes Knill, 1782.’ ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth.’ ‘Resurgam.’ On one side there is also Mr. Knill’s coat-of-arms, with his motto, ‘Nil desperandum.’

“In the year 1797, Mr. Knill, by a deed of trust, settled upon the mayor and capital burgesses of the borough of St. Ives, and their successors for ever, an annuity of ten pounds, as a rent-charge, to be paid out of the manor of Glivian, in the parish of Mawgan, in this county, to the said mayor and burgesses in the town-hall of the said borough, at twelve o’clock at noon, on the feast of the Nativity of St. John (Midsummer-day) in every year; and, in default, to be levied by the said mayor and burgesses by distress on the said manor. The ten pounds then received are to be immediately paid by the mayor and burgesses to the mayor, the collector of customs, and the clergyman of the parish for the time being, to be by them deposited in a chest secured by three locks, of which each is to have a key; and the box is left in the custody of the mayor.

“Of this annuity a portion is directed to be applied to the repair and support of the mausoleum; another sum for the establishment of various ceremonies to be observed once every five years; and the remainder ‘to the effectuating and establishing of certain charitable purposes.’ ”

The whole affair has, however, been generally treated with ridicule. In order, therefore, to show that Mr. Knill intended a considerable portion of his bequest to be applied to really useful purposes, we annex a copy of his regulations for the disposal of the money:

“First. That, at the end of every five years, on the feast-day of St. James the Apostle, Twenty-five pounds shall be expended as follows, viz. Ten pounds in a dinner for the Mayor, Collector of Customs, and Clergyman, and two persons to be invited by each of them, making a party of nine persons, to dine at some tavern at the borough. Five pounds to be equally divided among ten girls, natives of the borough, and daughters of seamen, fishermen, or tinners, each of them not exceeding ten years of age, who shall between ten and twelve o’clock in the forenoon of that day dance, for a quarter of hour at least, on the ground adjoining the Mausoleum, and after the dance sing the 100th Psalm of the Old Version, ‘to the fine old tune’ to which the same was then sung in St. Ives church.

“One pound to the fiddler who shall play to the girls while dancing and singing at the Mausoleum, and also before them on their return home therefrom.

“Two pounds to two widows of seamen, fishermen, or tinners of the borough, being 64 years old or upwards, who shall attend the dancing and singing of the girls, and walk before them immediately after the fiddler, and certify to the Mayor, Collector, and Clergyman that the ceremonies have been duly performed.

“One pound to be laid out in white ribbons for breast-knots for the girls and widows, and a cockade for the fiddler, to be worn by them respectively on that day and the Sunday following. One pound to purchase account-books from time to time and pay the Clerk of the Customs for keeping the accounts. The remaining Five pounds to be paid to a man and wife, widower, or widow, 60 years of age or upwards, the man being an inhabitant of St. Ives, and a seaman, fisherman, tinner, or labourer, who shall have bred up to the age of ten years and upwards, the greatest number of legitimate children by his or her own labour, care, and industry, without parochial assistance, or having become entitled to any property in any other manner.

“Secondly. When a certain sum of money shall have accumulated in the chest, over and above what may have been required for repairs of the Mausoleum and the above payments, it is directed that on one of the fore-mentioned days of the festival ‘Fifty’ pounds shall be distributed in addition to the ‘Twenty-five’ pounds spent quiennially in the following manner; that is Ten pounds to be given as a marriage-portion to the woman between 26 and 36 years old, being a native of St. Ives, who shall have been married to a seaman, fisherman, tinner, or labourer, residing in the borough, between the 31st of December previously, and that day following the said feast-day, that shall appear to the Mayor, Collector, and Clergyman, the most worthy, ‘regard being had to her duty and kindness to her parents, or to her friends who have brought her up.’

“Five pounds to any woman, single or married, being an inhabitant of St. Ives, who in the opinion of the aforesaid gentlemen shall be the best knitter of fishing-nets.

“Five pounds to be paid to the woman, married or single, inhabitant of St. Ives, or otherwise, who shall, by the same authorities, be deemed to be the best curer and packer of pilchards for exportation.

“Five pounds to be given between such two follower-boys as shall by the same gentlemen be judged to have best conducted themselves of all the follower-boys in the several concerns, in the preceding fishing-season. (A follower is a boat that carries a tuck-net in pilchard-fishing.)

“And Twenty-five pounds, the remainder of the said Fifty, to be divided among all the Friendly Societies in the borough, instituted for the support of the Members in sickness or other calamity, in equal shares. If there be no such Society, the same to be distributed among ten poor persons, five men and five women, inhabitants of the borough, of the age of 64 years or upwards, and who have never received parochial relief.”

The first celebration of the Knillian games, which drew a large concourse of people, took place in Knill’s lifetime on July 25th, 1801.

The chorus then sung by the 10 virgins was as follows:—

‘Quit the bustle of the bay,
Hasten, virgins, come away:
Hasten to the mountain’s brow,
Leave, oh! leave, St. Ives below.
Haste to breathe a purer air,
Virgins fair, and pure as fair.
Quit St. Ives and all her treasures,
Fly her soft voluptuous pleasures,
Fly her sons and all the wiles
Lurking in their wanton smiles;
Fly her splendid midnight halls,
Fly the revels of her balls,
Fly, oh! fly, the chosen seat
Where vanity and fashion meet!
Thither hasten: form the ring,
Round the tomb in chorus sing.’

These games have been repeated every five years up to the present time.

Morvah feast, which is on the nearest Sunday to the 1st August, is said to have been instituted in memory of a wrestling-match, throwing of quoits, &c., which took place there one Sunday, “when there were giants in the land.” On the following Monday there was formerly a large fair, and although Morvah is a very small village without any attractions, the farmers flocked to it in great numbers to drink and feast, sitting on the hedges of the small fields common in West Cornwall. “Three on one horse, like going to Morvah Fair,” is an old proverb.

On August 5th a large cattle-fair is held in the village of Goldsithney, in the parish of Perran-Uthnoe. Lysons, in 1814, says:—“There is a tradition that this fair was originally held in Sithney, near Helston, and that some persons ran off with the glove, by the suspension of which to a pole the charter was held, and carried it off to this village, where, it is said, the glove was hung out for many years at the time of the fair. As some confirmation of the tradition of its removal it should be mentioned that the lord of the manor, a proprietor of the fair, used to pay an acknowledgment of one shilling per annum to the churchwardens of Sithney.” The same author makes the statement that Truro fair, on November 19th, belongs to the proprietors of Truro Manor, as high lords of the town, and that a glove is hung out at this fair as at Chester; he also says that these same lords claim a tax called smoke-money from most of the houses in the borough.

In Cornwall the last sheaf of corn cut at harvest-time is “the neck.” This in the West is always cut by the oldest reaper, who shouts out, “I hav’et! I hav’et! I hav’et!” The others answer, “What hav’ee? What hav’ee? What hav’ee?” He replies, “A neck! A neck! A neck!” Then altogether they give three loud hurrahs. The neck is afterwards made into a miniature sheaf, gaily decorated with ribbons and flowers; it is carried home in triumph, and hung up to a beam in the kitchen, where it is left until the next harvest. Mr. Robert Hunt says that “after the neck has been cried three times they (the reapers) change their cry to ‘we yen! we yen!’ which they sound in the same prolonged and slow manner as before, with singular harmony and effect three times.” After this they all burst out into a kind of loud, joyous laugh, flinging up their hats and caps into the air, capering about, and perhaps kissing the girls. One of them gets the “neck,” and runs as hard as he can to the farm-house, where the dairy-maid or one of the young female domestics stands at the door prepared with a pail of water. If he who holds the “neck” can manage to get into the house in any way unseen, or openly by any other way than the door by which the girl stands with the pail of water, then he may lawfully kiss her; but if otherwise he is regularly soused with the contents of the bucket.

The object of crying the “neck” is to give notice to the surrounding country of the end of the harvest, and the meaning of “we yen” is we have ended.

The last sheaf of the barley-harvest (there is now but little grown) was the “crow-sheaf,” and when cut the same ceremony was gone through; but instead of “a neck,” the words “a crow” were substituted.

When “the neck” is cut at the house of a squire, the reapers sometimes assemble at the front of the mansion and cry “the neck,” with the addition of these words, “and for our pains we do deserve a glass of brandy, strong beer, and a bun.”—(John Hills, Penryn, W. Antiquary, October, 1882.)

In East Cornwall “the neck,” which is made into a slightly different shape, is carried to the mowhay (pronounced mo-ey) before it is cried (a mowhay is an inclosure for ricks of corn and hay). One of the men then retires to a distance from the others and shouts the same formula. It is hung up in the kitchen until Christmas-day, when it is given to the best ox in the stalls.

The harvest-home feast in the neighbourhood of Penzance goes by the name of “gool-dize,” or “gool-an-dize.” In Scilly it is known as the “nickly thize.” Farmers there at that season of the year formerly killed a sheep, and as long as any portion of it was left the feast went on.

Ricks of corn in Cornwall are often made, and left to stand in the “arish-fields” (stubble-fields) where they were cut. These are all called “arish-mows,” but from their different shapes they have also the names of “brummal-mows” and “pedrack-mows.”

Probus and Grace fair is held on the 17th of September, through a charter granted by Charles II. after his restoration, to a Mr. Williams of that neighbourhood, with whom he had lived for some time during the Civil Wars.

Probus is in East Cornwall, and its church is famed for its beautiful tower. Tradition has it that this church was built by Saint Probus, but for want of funds he could not add the tower, and in his need asked St. Grace to help him.

She consented, but when the church was consecrated Probus praised himself, but made no mention of her. Then a mysterious voice was heard, repeating the following distich:—

“St. Probus and Grace,
Not the first but the la-ast.”

This town, consequently, has two patron saints.

I know of no other feasten ceremonies in this month; but here, as elsewhere, the children of the poor make up parties “to go a blackberrying.” This fruit, by old people, was said not to be good after Michaelmas, kept by them 10th October (old style); after that date they told you the devil spat on them, and birds fouled them.

I knew an old lady whose birthday falling on that day she religiously kept it by eating for the last time that year blackberry-tart with clotted cream.

This brings me round to the month from which I started. Many of the feasts are of course omitted, as no local customs are now connected with them. There must be one for nearly every Sunday in the year, and a mere record of their names would be most wearisome. I cannot do better, therefore, than finish this portion of my work with two quotations. The first, from “Parochalia,” by Mr. T. Q. Couch, Journal Royal Institute of Cornwall, 1865, runs thus:—

“The patron saint of Lanivet feast is not known; it is marked by no particular customs, but is a time for general visiting and merry-making, with an occasional wrestling-match. A local verse says:—

“On the nearest Sunday to the last Sunday in A-prel,
Lanivet men fare well.
On the first Sunday after the first Tuesday in May,
Lanivrey men fare as well as they.”

In some parishes the fatted oxen intended to be eaten at these feasts were, the day before they were killed, led through the streets, garlanded with flowers and preceded by music.

Quotation number two is what Carew wrote in 1569:—

“The saints’ feast is kept upon dedication-day by every householder of the parish within his own doors, each entertayning such forrayne acquaintance as will not fayle when their like time cometh about to requite him with the like kindness.”

These remarks, and the jingling couplets, could be equally well applied to all the unmentioned feasts.