5th March.—St. Piran’s day is a miners’ holiday. St. Piran is the patron saint of “tinners,” and is popularly supposed to have died drunk. “As drunk as a Piraner” is a Cornish proverb.
The first Friday in March is another miners’ holiday, “Friday in Lide.” It is marked by a serio-comic custom of sending a young man on the highest “bound,” or hillock, of the “works,” and allowing him to sleep there as long as he can, the length of his siesta being the measure of the afternoon nap of the “tinners” throughout the ensuing twelve months.—(T. Q. Couch.) Lide is an obsolete term for the month of March still preserved in old proverbs, such as “Ducks won’t lay ‘till they’ve drunk Lide water.
Of a custom observed at Little Colan, in East Cornwall, on Palm Sunday, Carew says: “Little Colan is not worth observation, unlesse you will deride or pity their simplicity, who sought at our Lady Nant’s well there to foreknowe what fortune should betide them, which was in this manner. Upon Palm Sunday these idle-headed seekers resorted thither with a Palme cross in one hand and an offring in the other. The offring fell to the Priest’s share, the crosse they threwe into the well; which if it swamme the party should outliue the yeere; if it sunk a short ensuing death was boded; and perhaps not altogether vntimely, while a foolish conceite of this ‘halsening’ myght the sooner helpe it onwards.”
Holy Thursday.—On that Thursday, and the two following Thursdays, girls in the neighbourhood of Roche, in East Cornwall, repair to his holy or wishing well before sunrise. They throw in crooked pins or pebbles, and, by the bubbles that rise to the surface, seek to ascertain whether their sweethearts will be true or false. There was once a chapel near this well, which was then held in great repute for the cure of all kinds of diseases, and a granite figure of St. Roche stood on the arch of the building that still covers it.
“Goody Friday” (Good Friday) was formerly kept more as a feast than a fast in Cornwall. Every vehicle was engaged days beforehand to take parties to some favourite place of resort in the neighbourhood, and labourers in inland parishes walked to the nearest seaport to gather “wrinkles” (winkles), &c.
On the morning of Good Friday at St. Constantine, in West Cornwall, an old custom is still observed of going to Helford river to gather shell-fish (limpets, cockles, &c.); this river was once famous for oysters, and many were then bought and eaten on this day.
“Near Padstow, in East Cornwall, is the tower of an old church dedicated to St. Constantine. In its vicinity the feast of St. Constantine used to be annually celebrated, and has only been discontinued of late years. Its celebration consisted in the destruction of limpet-pies, and service in the church, followed by a hurling match.”—(Murray’s Cornwall.) Another writer says: “The festival of St. Constantine” (March 9th) “was until very lately kept at St. Merran” (Constantine and Merran are now one parish) “by an annual hurling match, on which occasion the owner of Harlyn” (a house in the neighbourhood) “had from time immemorial supplied the silver ball. We are informed, on good authority, that a Shepherd’s family, of the name of Edwards, held one of the cottages in Constantine for many generations under the owners of Harlyn, by the annual render of a Cornish pie, made of limpets, raisins, and sweet herbs, on the feast of St. Constantine.”—(Lysons’ Magna Britannia.)
At St. Day a fair was formerly held on Good Friday, now changed to Easter Monday.
“On Good Friday, 1878, I saw a brisk fair going on in the little village of Perran Porth, Cornwall, not far from the curious oratory of St. Piran, known as Perranzabuloe.”—(W. A. B. C., Notes and Queries, April 23rd, 1881.)
But, although many still make this day a holiday, the churches are now much better attended. Good Friday cross-buns of many kinds are sold by the Cornish confectioners; some, highly spiced, are eaten hot with butter and sugar; a commoner bun is simply washed over the top with saffron, and has a few currants stuck on it. There is one peculiar, I believe, to Penzance: it is made of a rich currant paste highly covered with saffron; it is about an eighth of an inch thick, and four inches in diameter, and is marked with a large cross that divides it into four equal portions.