Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/136

 128 CORNISH FE4STS

while applying to the tooth the candle that burned on the altar of the church dedicated to him. The same candles are good for sore- throats and curing diseases in cattle." — (Mrs. Damant, Cowes.)

On the Monday after St. Ives feast, which falls on Quinquagesima Sunday, an annual hurling-match is held on the sands. Most writers on Cornwall have described the old game. The following account is taken from The Land's End District^ 1862, by R. Edmonds : —

" A ball about the size of a cricket-ball, formed of cork, or light wood, and covered with silver, was hurled into the air, midway between the goals. Both parties immediately rushed towards it, each striving to seize and carry it to its own goal. In this contest, when any individual having possession of the ball found himself over- powered or outrun by his opponents, he hurled it to one of his own side, if near enough, or, if not, into some pool, ditch, furze, brake, garden, house, or other place of concealment, to prevent his adversaries getting hold of it before his own company could arrive."

The hurlers, quaintly says Carew {Survey of Cornwall, p. 74), thorou bushes, briers, mires, plashes, and rivers whatsoever — so as you shall sometimes see twenty or thirty lie tugging together in the water, scrambling and scratching for the ball. A play verily both rude and rough."
 * ' Take their next way oner hills, dales, hedges, ditches — yea, and

Hurling between two or more parishes, and between one parish and another, has long ceased in Cornwall ; but hurling by one part of a parish against another is still played at St. Ives, as well as other places in Cornwall. At St. Ives all the Toms, Wills, and Johns are on one side, while those having other Christian names range them- selves on the opposite. At St. Columb (East Cornwall) the towns- people contend with the countrymen ; at Truro, the married men with the unmarried ; at Helston, two streets with all the other streets; on the 2nd of May, when their town- bounds are renewed.

" Fair-play is good play," is the hurlers' motto. This is some- times engraven on their balls in the old Cornish language. Private families possess some of these balls won by their ancestors early in the last century that are handed religiously down as heirlooms.