Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/239

Rh preceded by a drum and singing an old song, the first verses of which run thus:—

The whole of the song may be found with the music in Specimens of Cornish Provincial Dialect, by Uncle Jan, Trewoodle. (Sandys.)

The Hal-an-tow are privileged to levy contributions on strangers coming into the town.

Early in the morning merry peals are rung on the church-bells, and at nine a prescriptive holiday is demanded by the boys at the grammar-school. At noon the principal inhabitants and visitors dance through the town. The dancers start from the market-house, going through the streets; in at the front doors of the houses that have been left open for them, ringing every bell and knocking at every knocker, and out at the back, but if more convenient they dance around the garden, or even around a room, and return through the door by which they entered. Sometimes the procession files in at one shop-door, dances through that department and out through another, and in one place descends into a cellar. All the main streets are thus traversed, and a circuit is made of the bowling-green, which at one end is the extreme limit of the town. Two beadles, their wands wreathed with flowers, and a band with a gaily-decorated drum, head the procession, The dance ends with "hands across" at the assembly room of the Angel hotel, where there is always a ball in the evening. Now dancers are admitted to this room by a small payment (which must be a silver coin), paid as they go up the stairs either to the landlord or a gentleman who stands on each side of the door. The