A Word in Farewell
Round this wonderfully indented coast, up the winding Tamar, and across the moors! You who have gone with me on this delightful journey, can you think of any county with a greater variety, historical, antiquarian, natural, to offer you for the good and bracing time of a holiday? And if in the years to come you find time to look back and in thought travel over the self-same ground, will you be able to do it without the longing—put into words by the poet who spent so much of his time at Camborne:
"To sleep and to take my rest,
The old sea here at my door,
The grey hills there in the West—
What can a man want more?"
Lowry.
APPENDIX A
The Green Book of St. Columb
In olden days the parish as distinct from the church was an entity with the power not only of appointing a sort of select vestry of twelve (was this number chosen because of the Apostles?) with wardens for the parish, for the poor, for the coffer, and for the pews, but of holding property such as sheep, cattle, and land. It lent money, sometimes at interest, sometimes gratis, it kept ladders, charging for their hire, and, above all, it encouraged Morris dancing and Robin Hood entertainments.
For instance, in 1616, we find in the Green Book, "The young men of the parish wh: played a stage-play, 3s. 4d."
In the list of parish goods set down in 1585 we have: "Ladder. Five coats for dancers. A Friar's Coat. Twenty-four dancing bells. A streamer of red moccado and locram. Six yards of white woollen cloth."
In most places the Morris dance was part of the pageant of Robin Hood, and that this was the case at St. Columb is shown by the "Friar's Coat." The bells were worn on a band at the knee, and the streamer or flag was of two materials, no longer known under those names, the moccado resembling coarse velvet, and the locram an equally coarse linen.