Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-10-19

IN mine, Is IL OuenOS tne kuOcAcfo,
while fishermen would throw a man over
board who would whistle at sea after night
fall. Killing the first butterfly of the season
brings good luck. If the limbs of corpse
remain flexible, another member of the de-
ceased's family will shortly die.
A CURIOUS CURE.
A black cats tail passed over child's
sore eyes nine times will effect q cure. The
croak Of a raven over the house bodes death.
Children born in May are May "chets, and
vii! never have luck. Aperjurer will never
again see the color of sunlight. Amilprive,
or adder-stone, will prove an antidote to the
poison of that reptile. At midnight on
Christmas Eve all the oxen of Cornwall
may be found on their knees in the attitude
of alteration. If one touches a Logan or
rocking stone nine times at midnight, he
instantly becomes a witch In the fishing
hamlets, if fish be eaten from "head to
tail" all the fish will be driven from the
coasts. And you are no true Cornishman
If you will not assert that the shipwrecked
dead hail" or call aloud their names above
the roaring of the storms along the coast.
The entire disappearance of the Cornish
language has occurred since the reign
Elizabeth. The centennial of the last SER
mon preached in Celtic at Landewedneck
(the white-roofed church of st. Wednack)
was celebrated in 1878. Even at the begin
ming OF this century divers old folks could
be found who were constantly moaning,
"Cornoack eve all ne cea yer yen poble
younk:" Cornish is all forgot with the
young people," Consequently the Cornish
dialect is still rich in expressions wholly
without meaning to one unwilling to patient
ly observe. delve and study.
EXTRAORDINARY cLANNIsHNEss.
Among people of such antiquity, isola-
tion, meager and sharply-defned pursuits
there cannot but be found two striking char
acteristics. One is their extraordinary clan
nishness and loyalty to each other; and the
other, an obstinate clinging to old and
priced customs. The monument to the great
Camden in Westminster Abbey will not
stand SO long as his own famous couplet,
written three centuries since,
''By Ire, Ros, Pol, Lam Caer and Pen,
You may know the most of Cornish men"
He might also have added, places; for
nine-tenths of the names of Cornish places,
as well as of individuals and families, con-
tanned, or still contain, these roots and pre-
fixes Ire, answering to the Saxon tun,
means an inclosure; Ros,. heath; Pol,
pool; Caer, a defended place, and Pen, a
head. All this filtering through antiquity,
and peoples folklore, in time became some
thing of shibboleth, shortened finally to
Tire, Pol and Pen," further intensified and
treasured by the Cornish national toast of,
tires, Pols and Pens-One and All p
Then to still further intensity the feeling of
national indivisibility, along in the reign of
james II. came the famous ballad of Sire
lawney," one electrifying quatrain of which
will be roared forth in ireside, social and
,;e1
with voice, is left ''above grass" to do it.
The origin of the song was the incarcera-
tion and prosecution for seditious libel of
the Archbishop of Canterbury and six
other bishops in 1858, because they refused
the reading of a royal declaration of indul-
gence for liberty of conscience. The good
Bishop Trelawney was one of these offend
ers. He was a Cornishman besides. In
stantly all Cornwall rang with
And will they scorn Ire, Pol and Pen,
And shall Treawney die?
There's twenty thousand underground
Will know the reason why!''
And this shout of the wild fttwenty thou
sand" miners of Cornwall had more to do
than all else with the acquittal and victori-
Gus return of Trelawney and his peers.
oLD-TIME CUSTOMS.
With such loyalty to each other, never
failing of expression at home, and, if possi-
BILE more admirable and faithful in the
sturdy and prized groups that may be found
thousands of miles from their loved homes
in the copper mines OF. the Superior region,
in the silver mines of Colorado, or in the
sitting pits of Australia, it is not surprising
that such people cling tenaciously to the
strangest of olden customs. / would like to
write fully of these; but have only space
in which to name few of those which oc-
cur to me as the most interesting. In some
districts pail of cider containing roasted
apples is taken into the orchard and drank
to the good health of the apple trees which
are thus wassailed. On nearly all farms
notice is given that harvest is ended by
crying the neck" A small sheaf of the
best heads of wheat is gathered BY some old
man, who as he raises it aloft three times.
is greeted by the reapers with great cheers
and jollity, after which some kissing of
the girls and other harmless frolicking are
INDUCED in.
A comfortable apple market is sustained
on Allen Day before Halloween at st. Ives
from the sale of apples for apple pies to be
hidden under pillows by lads and maidens
on Halloween night. Furry Day." or
Flora Day, has for centuries been observed
in this old town by all manner of musical
frivolities, gathering of flower and fruit
blossoms, and dancing in and out of houses
throughout the entire day and evening, in
which festivity old and young, rich and
poor, alike radiantly join. "Vagrum Fair"
or vagrant fair is sort of wild midnight
hullabaloo of boys and men with clubs, bells
and whistles, in which travelling wild beast
shows, passing from one town to another
during Whitsun' week, are received and es-
corted from one hamlet to another; and the
clubs are carefully preserved as trophies of
a sort of defensive and protective idea of
most ancient origin.
May Day, as through other portions of
England, is watched" for all night and
ushered in with all manner of shrill musi-
cal instruments. AT st. Ives on Shroye
Tuesday professions of boys demand and
secure pancakes and ha'pennies at all
houses where they may apply; while at
Penzance, and indeed at nearly all villages
of West Cornwall, on the ewes of the festi-
walls of st. John and st. Peter, the ceremony
oflighting fires and carrying torches through
the streets has for centuries been observed
and is unquestionably a remnant of the
pagan Irish la ma Bealtina, or the day of
Baal fires. EDGAR L. WAKEMAN,
Corsetsl Corsetsl Corspt.,