And the reverse of
Απας δε τραχυς, ὁστις αν νεον κρατῃ.
These circumstances account for the continuance of old manners and of old customs longer here than in other places.
All towns appear to have adopted, on one day at least in the year, practices similar to the Roman Saturnalia; in most places, the lines of society having become broad and strongly impressed, their observances descended to the more vulgar, or rather perhaps to the vicious; and changing their character from harmless amusements to practices of
outrage and violence, they have been discontinued or suppressed: but in Helston an ancient observance of this kind, refining with the refinement of the age, still continues in activity.
The origins of all these customs are obscured or totally lost in their remote antiquity. That of Helston corresponded, however, precisely with its name—“a foray,” locally corrupted into furray; the young people rushed out of the town into the country early on the eighth of May, when, entering all houses without leave or ceremony, they appeared to seize whatever they wanted, and from the real nature of the transactions, whatever they wanted was sure of being found; and ultimately they returned to the town in triumph, dancing and decorated with flowers, where the scenes of the morning were, in some degree, repeated. All these practices, however, are less and less persevered in from year to year, so that the whole is rapidly tending towards the single entertainment of a ball; and if the ladies had succeeded in a classical fancy, which, some how or other, got possession of their minds, the very memory of this festival would have been lost.
Not intimately acquainted, one may presume, with the true history of the patroness they had selected to sanction their gaieties, the goddess Flora was made to preside over a foray, instituted, as some assert, before the Norman conquest, and in commemoration of a victory obtained over the Saxons, who had landed at a cove still called Perthsasnac; but the utter absurdity of the substitution, and the popularity given to the word FORAY by Sir Walter Scott’s Poems, have restored the ancient and true appellation.
Causes similar to those which have retained the foray, have also kept up the practice of bowling; so that in Helston alone can one now see the principal gentlemen of the town assembled on the bowling-green, enjoying at once exercise, fresh air, and agreeable intercourse, free from any
spirit of gambling and from the slightest indulgence of a habit more common and less excusable.
The word faddy is used to express the dance, the air, or both, used in celebrating the foray; the origin of this term is quite unknown.