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, and go 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. Non-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,—one stands on each side of the door. The gentlemen dancers on entering pay for their partners, and by established custom, should they be going to attend the evening ball, they are bound to give them their tickets, gloves, and the first dance. The tradespeople have their dance at a later hour, and their ball at another hotel.
The figure of the Furry dance, performed to a very lively measure, is extremely simple. To the first half of the tune the couples dance along hand-in-hand; at the second the first gentleman turns the second lady and the second gentleman the first. This change is made all down the set. Repeat.
I have appended the tune, to which children have adopted the following doggerel:—
“John the bone (beau) was walking home,
When he met with Sally Dover,
He kissed her once, he kissed her twice,
And he kissed her three times over.”
Some writers have made the mistake of imagining that the tune sung to the Hal-an-tow and the Furry dance are the same.
Formerly, should any person in Helston be found at work on Flora-day, he was set astride on a pole, then carried away on men’s shoulders to a wide part of the Cober (a stream which empties itself into Loe-pool close by), and sentenced to leap over it. As it was almost impossible to do this without jumping into the water, the punishment was remitted by the payment of a small fine towards the day’s amusement. Others say the offender was first made to jump the Cober and then set astride on a pole to dry.