May 8.]

APPARITION OF ST. MICHAEL.

Cornwall.

The most remarkable observance of antiquity remaining in this county is the “Furry festival” which has been celebrated from time immemorial on the 8th of May. At Helston the day used to be ushered in very early in the morning by the music of drums and kettles, and other pleasant sounds, the accompaniments of a song:—

It was a general holiday: so strict, indeed, used the observance of this jubilee to be held that if any person chanced to be found at work, he was instantly seized, set astride on a pole, and hurried on men’s shoulders to the river, where he was sentenced to leap over a wide space, which if he failed in attempting he of course fell into the water. There was always, however, a ready compromise of compounding for a leap. About nine o’clock the revellers appeared before the grammar-school, and demanded a holiday for the school-boys, after which they collected money from house to house. They then used to fadÉ into the country (fadÉ being an old English word for to go), and about the middle of the day returned with flowers and oak-branches in their hats and caps, and spent the rest of the day until dusk in dancing through the streets to the sound of the fiddle, playing a particular tune; and threaded the houses as they chose—claiming a right to go through any person’s house, in at one door and out of the other. In the afternoon the ladies and gentlemen visited some farmhouse in the neighbourhood; whence, after regaling themselves with syllabubs, they returned, after the fashion of the vulgar, to the town, dancing as briskly the fadÉ-dance, and entering the houses as unceremoniously. In later times a select party only made their progress through the streets very late in the evening, and having quickly vanished from the scene, reappeared in the ballroom. Here meeting their friends, they went through the usual routine of dancing till supper; after which they all faddÉd it out of the room, breaking off by degrees to their respective houses. At present this custom is fast falling into disuse, and the day is only celebrated by a few of the lower classes.

Murray, in his Handbook for Cornwall, 1865, p. 301, says that the furry festival is in commemoration of the following curious legend:—A block of granite, which for many years had lain in the yard of the Angel Inn, was in the year 1783 broken up and used as a part of the building materials for the assembly-room. This stone, says the legend, was originally placed at the mouth of hell, from which it was one day carried away by the devil as he issued forth in a frolicsome mood on an excursion into Cornwall. Here he traversed the country, playing with his pebble; but it chanced that St. Michael (who figures conspicuously in the town arms and is the patron saint of the town) crossed his path; a combat immediately ensued, and the devil, being worsted, dropped the Hell’s stone in his flight; hence the name of the town.

There have been many opinions regarding the meaning and derivation of the word furry. Polwhele says (History of Cornwall, 1826, vol. ii. p. 41) that furry is derived from fer, a fair: a derivation which seems probable from the expression in the furry-song. “They both are gone to the fair, O.” Some think that the word in question is derived from the Greek fe??, to bear. The rites of the furry correspond most intimately with the a??e? f??ea, a Sicilian festival, so named ap? te fe?e?? a??ea, or from carrying flowers, in commemoration of the rape of Proserpine, whom Pluto stole as she was gathering flowers—“herself a fairer flower!” Others derive the word furry from the Cornish furrier, a thief, from the green spoils they brought home from the woods.—See Potter’s Antiquities, vol. i., and Gent. Mag. vol. lx. pp. 520, 873, 1100.