Page:Cornish feasts and folk-lore.djvu/42

 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—

"The May-pole was allowed to remain up from a week to a