Page:Cornish feasts and folk-lore.djvu/35

 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:—

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

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.