Cornwall Part 6

IX

CORNISH CUSTOMS

Old customs, and festivals carrying in them the germ of a meaning and significance long forgotten by those who practised them but intelligible to students of antiquity, continued to be observed in Cornwall when they had died out in most other places. There is no part of England where so many curious observances, superst.i.tions and festivals are still observed as in Cornwall.

Midsummer Day merrymakings were long kept up in many places, especially in regard to the part played by fire, and Richard Edmonds, secretary for Cornwall to the Cambrian Archaeological a.s.sociation, writing in 1862, says:--"It is the immemorial usage in Penzance, and the neighbouring towns and villages, to kindle bonfires and torches on Midsummer Eve....

St. Peter's Eve is distinguished by a similar display.... On these eves a line of tar-barrels, relieved occasionally by large bonfires, is seen in the centre of each of the princ.i.p.al streets in Penzance. On either side of this line young men and women pa.s.s up and down, swinging round their heads heavy torches made of large pieces of folded canvas steeped in tar and nailed to the ends of sticks between three and four feet long.... On these nights Mounts Bay has a most animating appearance although not equal to what was annually witnessed at the beginning of the present century when the whole coast from the Land's End to the Lizard, wherever a town or a village existed, was lighted up with these stationary or moving fires.... At the close of fireworks in Penzance, a great number of persons of both s.e.xes, chiefly from the neighbourhood of the quay, used always, until within the last few years, to join hand in hand forming a long string and run through the streets playing 'thread the needle,' heedless of the fireworks showered upon them, and oftentimes leaping over the yet glowing embers. I have on these occasions seen boys following one another jumping through flames higher than themselves."

This is a significant reminder of the custom of pa.s.sing children through the fire referred to in the Bible.

May Day celebrations are still kept up in the little town of Helston, the key to the Lizard. This saturnalia is held on the eighth of the month instead of the first, because the eighth is the festival of the apparition of St. Michael, who is represented in the Town Arms. The festival is called the "furry dance," a word which some writers have a.s.sociated with "forage" or "foray" because the young people make a raid on all gardens and out into the fields early in the morning to collect flowers and green boughs. Polwhele connects the word with the old Cornish "fer," a fair or jubilee. Rather unsuccessful attempts have also been made to bring in the G.o.ddess Flora, and suggest a corruption of Flora-day to fit the present name.

The day is a general holiday and anyone caught working is subjected to unpleasant penalties. About midday the most important person present leads off with his partner down the main street to the tune of a hornpipe--a local tune--and they are followed by a gay crowd. The throng threads in and out of the houses, in by the front door and out by the back if possible, for all doors are left open for them. Woe be to the churl who kept his shut! At length they arrive at the a.s.sembly Rooms where a real ball begins.

This curious performance slackened off for some years, but the Helstonians, finding that their little town owed a good deal of advertis.e.m.e.nt to this special festival, have revived it with goodwill, and now are inundated with visitors at the recurrence of the anniversary.

Furry Day used to be held at Penryn on May 3 and at the Lizard on May 1 and also in the parish of Sithney, but now it can only be seen at Helston.

May Day has peculiar significance as being the celebration of the return of spring, and it is the custom at dawn on that day in some parts to dip weakly infants in the holy wells, which abound in Cornwall, to ensure strength. This is still done, though either secretly or in a jesting spirit, at the holy well of Madron near Penzance of which Madron is the mother parish.

Many people adorn their houses in Cornwall with boughs and garlands in honour of the day even at the present time. May Day was the great day for miracle plays, so beloved by the old Cornishmen before they learned to consider them sinful under the teaching of Wesley. The best of the old amphitheatres, at any rate the one most accessible, is the Plan-an-Guare at St. Just referred to elsewhere.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AT NEWLYN]

At Padstow hobby-horses still prance round the town on May Day.

Edmonds says:--"The hobby horse, or effigy of a horse, is, at this festival of the moon, dipped in a pool of water, and, for the same reason perhaps, that a similar figure was, in Ireland, pa.s.sed through fire at the festival of the sun; to preserve the cattle from death and disease." Sun and moon being represented by fire and water.

Mr. Baring-Gould says:--"During the days that precede the festival no garden is safe. Walls, railings, even barbed wire, are surmounted by boys and men in quest of flowers. Conservatories have to be fast locked, or they will be invaded. The house that has a show of flowers in the windows is besieged by pretty children with roguish eyes begging for blossoms which they cannot steal. The Hobby-horse Pairs, as they were called, _i.e._, a party of eight men, then repaired to the 'Golden Lion,' at that time the first inn in Padstow, and sat down to a hearty supper of leg of mutton and plum-pudding, given them by the landlord.

After supper a great many young men joined the 'pairs,' _i.e._, the _peers_, the lords of the merriment, and all started for the country, and went round from one farmhouse to another, singing at the doors of each, and soliciting contributions to the festivities of the morrow.

"They returned into Padstow about three o'clock in the morning, and promenaded the streets singing the 'Night Song.' After that they retired to rest for a few hours. At ten o'clock in the morning the 'pairs'

a.s.sembled at the 'Golden Lion' again, and now was brought forth the hobby-horse. The drum-and-fife band was marshalled to precede, and then came the young girls of Padstow dressed in white, with garlands of flowers in their hair, and their white gowns pinned up with flowers. The men followed armed with pistols, loaded with a little powder, which they fired into the air or at the spectators. Lastly came the hobby-horse, ambling, curvetting, and snapping its jaws. It may be remarked that the Padstow hobby-horse is wonderfully like the Celtic horse decoration found on old pillars and crosses with interlaced work. The procession went first to Prideaux Place, where the late squire, Mr. Prideaux Brune, always emptied a purse of money into the hands of the 'pairs.' Then the procession visited the vicarage, and was welcomed by the parson. After that it went forth from the town to Treator Pool 'for the horse to drink.'"

In Hitchins' _History of Cornwall_, edited by Samuel Drew, he says of the hobby-horse of Padstow: "The head, being dipped into the water, is instantly taken up and the mud and water are sprinkled on the spectators to the no small diversion of all."

The Maypole festivities have been given up of recent years, but hobby-horses still prance the streets.

Hitchins gives an account of a few local superst.i.tions, some of which are not peculiar to Cornwall:--

"The sound of the cuckoo, if first heard on the right ear, denotes good luck; but to hear the voice first on the left, is an omen of undefinable disasters. To spit on the first piece of money that is received in the morning will ensure a successful day in trade; and to hold up a silver coin against the new moon on its first appearance can hardly fail to secure lunar virtue for a month. To bite from the ground the first fern that appears in the spring is an infallible preventive of the toothache during the year; and the first ripe blackberry that is seen will put away warts. To pay money on the first day of January is very unlucky as it ensures a continuance of disburs.e.m.e.nts during the year; and to remove bees on any day besides Good Friday will ensure their death; while to work oxen on that day is an act which few would dare to perform lest they should suddenly die in the yoke. To whistle underground is an offence which few miners will suffer to pa.s.s over in silence; but to whistle while the farmer is winnowing his corn will as inevitably bring the wind as on board of a ship or boat, it is certain to secure a favourable breeze."

Polwhele says: "The custom of saluting the apple-trees at Christmas with a view to another year, is still preserved both in Cornwall and Devonshire. In some places the parishioners walk in procession visiting the princ.i.p.al orchards in the parish; in each orchard single out the princ.i.p.al tree, salute it with a certain form of words and sprinkle it with cyder or dash a bowl of cyder against it. In other places, the farmer and his workmen only, immerse cakes in cyder and place them on the branches of an apple-tree in due solemnity; sprinkle the tree, as they repeat a formal incantation and dance round it."

The harvest custom where the last handful of corn is cut, being called "a neck," and then dressed with flowers and carried off in triumph has been often referred to.

The men of Cornwall have long been celebrated for wrestling, they being no whit behind the men of Devonshire and Somerset in this.

They have other special games of their own too. Of which the chief is "hurling," though now only kept up in the parishes of St. Columb Major and Minor, in other words in the neighbourhood of Newquay, though a collection is made at St. Ives in a silver "hurlers' ball." The game is that of a ball being flung and thrown from one to the other, with goals which may be two miles apart. Sometimes one match takes days to decide.

It is an extremely rough-and-tumble sport. In the season a match is played on the wide flat firm expanse of Newquay sands and hundreds take part in it, badges being used to discriminate between the players. And on Shrove Tuesday a game is played in the town of St. Columb the ball being thrown up in the market-place and all traffic being held up for the occasion. The goals used to be "either the mansion-house of one of the leading gentlemen of the party, a parish church, or some other well-known place." The ball is rather larger than a cricket-ball, but not so large as a football, and is silvered over. The struggle is expressively described by Carew:--"The hurlers take their way over hills, dales, hedges and ditches, through bushes, briers, mires, plashes, rivers; sometimes twenty or thirty lie tugging together in the water, scrambling and scratching for the ball."

These customs and sports are only samples, for there are many quaint ideas still held in certain parishes which would almost provide the material for a book by themselves, and are far too numerous to collect together in a sketch like the present. However, enough has perhaps been said to show how the Cornish spirit still lingers in spite of the influx of "foreigners" growing ever greater yearly.