A festival, supposed to have been instituted in honour of Thomas-à-Beckett, called “Bodmin-Riding,” was (although shorn of its former importance) until very recently held there on the first Monday and Tuesday after the 7th of July.
In the beginning of this century all the tradespeople of the town, preceded by music and carrying emblems of their trades, walked in procession to the Priory. They were headed by two men, one with a garland and the other with a pole, which they presented and received back again from the master of the house as the then representative of the Prior. Mr. T. Q. Couch had the following description of this ceremony from those who took part in its latest celebration:—
“A puncheon of beer having been brewed in the previous October, and duly bottled in anticipation of the time, two or more young men, who were entrusted with the chief management of the affair, and who represented ‘the Wardens’ of Carew’s Church-ales, went round the town (Bodmin) attended by a band of drummers and fifers, or other instruments. The crier saluted each house with—‘To the people of this house, a prosperous morning, long life, health, and a merry riding.’ The musicians then struck up the riding-tune, a quick and inspiriting measure, said by some to be as old as the feast itself. The householder was solicited to taste the riding-ale, which was carried round in baskets. A bottle was usually taken in, and it was acknowledged by such a sum as the means or humour of the townsmen permitted, to be spent on the public festivities of the season. Next morning a procession was formed (all who could afford to ride mounted on horse or ass, smacking long-lashed whips), first to the Priory to receive two large garlands of flowers fixed on staves, and then in due order to the principal streets to the town-end, where the games were formerly opened. The sports, which lasted two days, were of the ordinary sort—wrestling, foot-racing, jumping in sacks, &c. It is worthy of remark that a second or inferior brewing from the same wort was drunk at a minor merry-making at Whitsuntide.”—(Popular Antiquities, Journal Royal Institute of Cornwall, 1864.)
In former days the proceedings ended in a servants’-ball, at which dancing was kept up until the next morning’s breakfast-hour.
A very curious carnival was originally held under a Lord of Misrule, in July, on Halgaver Moor, near Bodmin, thus quaintly described by Carew:—
“The youthlyer sort of Bodmin townsmen vse to sport themselves by playing the box with strangers whom they summon to Halgauer. The name signifieth the Goat’s Moore, and such a place it is, lying a little without the towne, and very full of quauemires. When these mates meet with any rawe seruing-man or other young master, who may serue and deserue to make pastime, they cause him to be solemnely arrested, for his appearance before the Maior of Halgauer, where he is charged with wearing one spurre, or going vntrussed, or wanting a girdle, or some such felony. After he had been arraygned and tryed, with all requisite circumstances, iudgement is given in formal terms, and executed in some one vngracious pranke or other, more to the skorne than hurt of the party condemned. Hence is sprung the prouerb when we see one slouenly appareled to say he shall be presented at Halgauer Court (or take him before the Maior of Halgauer).
“But now and then they extend this merriment with the largest, to preiudice of ouer-credulous people, persuading them to fight with a dragon lurking in Halgauer, or to see some strange matter there, which concludeth at least with a trayning them into the mire.”—(Survey of Cornwall.)
Heath says in his Description of Cornwall, “These sports and pastimes were so liked by King Charles II., when he touched at Bodmin on his way to Scilly, that he became a brother of the jovial society.”
“Taking-day.”—“An old custom, about which history tells us nothing, is still duly observed at Crowan, in West Cornwall. Annually, on the Sunday evening previous to Praze-an-beeble fair (July 16th) large numbers of the young folk repair to the parish church, and at the conclusion of the service they hasten to Clowance Park, where still large crowds assemble, collected chiefly from the neighbouring villages of Leeds-town, Carnhell-green, Nancegollan, Blackrock, and Praze. Here the sterner sex select their partners for the forthcoming fair, and, as it not unfrequently happens that the generous proposals are not accepted, a tussle ensues, to the intense merriment of passing spectators. Many a happy wedding has resulted from the opportunity afforded for selection on ‘Taking-day’ in Clowance Park.”—(Cornishman, July, 1882.)
At St. Ives, on the 25th July, St. James’s-day, they hold a quiennial celebration of the “Knillian-games.” These have been fully described by the late J. S. Courtney in his Guide to Penzance, as follows:—