Page:Cornish feasts and folk-lore.djvu/36

 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." ist 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, Carcw says : " Little Colan is not worth observation, unlesse