Page:Cornish feasts and folk-lore.djvu/22

 The words chanted in East Cornwall were:—

An old proverb about these trees runs as follows:—

"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,