Ornamental and Useful women on Bodmin.

[My wife Lunar Hine tells me that on parts of Bodmin some women can be separated into two camps.

If you are very beautiful, but not a lot else, you are 'ornamental'.

If you are good at doing stuff but not that much of a looker you are 'useful'...

These are considered slightly derogatory terms, but in quite a kindly way.]

Oakapple Day in Tiverton (part 2)

Oak Apple - By Bob Embleton [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

[cont..] "...On the reverse, Cromwell was represented by the coarsest and most repulsive-looking scoundrel the town could produce. He was naked to the waist, and gloried in a long shaggy tail made of a hempen rope much frayed at the end. With this he belaboured any mischievous urchin who dared to interfere with his progress. Around his waist was tied a huge bag filled with soot. Himself and attendants were thickly daubed with oiled lamp-black and other disgusting compositions. At noon, when Charles had triumphantly made his procession through the town, the mischief began. Cromwell so managed his affairs that the two parties met each other at the bottom of Bampton Street, just opposite the entrance to the " Three Tuns Hotel." Now the gambols began, Cromwell plentifully besmeared all on whom he and his followers could lay hands, and carried them off to imprisonment till later on. Of course, in the general scrimmage that ensued, prisoners were captured on both sides, to be ransomed by their own friends at five o'clock, when the street entertainments ended and wilder orgies at the public houses began. The money collected was spent in mad carousals and jollifications. No women could venture into the streets ; if there were any brave enough to do so, it was at the peril of their lives. Next day many a head ached, and vows were registered that " Never no more wid any body git up tii theyse zoart o' May games agen."

This barbarous pastime has now entirely died out, and is only held in remembrance by Blundell's scholars, who, in hopes of getting a half-holiday, decorate the masters' desks and chairs with oak boughs before morning school. Let us hope that the headmaster does not turn a deaf ear to their silent prayer."

Hewett 1900

Map - Tiverton

Devon Dreams A - C

"The following few examples shew " the stuff which dreams are made of."

Ass.
To dream one sees an ass labouring under a heavy burden, indicates that one will by diligent application to business amass a fortune.

Absent ones.
To dream of these ill, or in trouble, shows they are in danger ; if well, it is a sign they are prosperous.

Angels.
A happy dream, showing peace at home, and a good understanding with your friends.

Baby.
If you dream of holding a baby in your arms it signifies trouble.

Bells.
If you hear them ring it is a good sign, foretelling luck in business and speedy marriage.

Bees.
That you see a swarm of bees signifies you will be wise and highly respected. If they disturb or sting you, you will lose friends, and your sweetheart will abandon you.

Carriage.
If you dream that you are shut up in a carriage and cannot get out, it shows that your false friends are scandalizing you ; and you will suffer much at their hands.

Cats.
Dreaming of cats shews that your female friend are treacherous.

Cards.
If you dream you are playing cards it signifies that you will shortly be married."

Hewett 1900

Devonshire Wassail on Christmas Eve

Apple Tree in Winter - Some rights reserved by Enric Martinez

 

"Another custom in Devonshire, still practised, we believe, in one or two localities on Christmas Eve, is for the farmer with his family and friends, after partaking together of hot cakes and cider (the cake being dipped in the liquor previous to being eaten), to proceed to the orchard, one of the party bearing hot cake and cider as an offering to the principal apple-tree. The cake is formally deposited on the fork of the tree, and the cider thrown over the latter, the men firing off guns and pistols, and the women and girls shouting—

' Bear blue, apples and pears enow,
Barn fulls, bag fulls, sack fulls.
Hurrah ! hurrah ! hurrah !'"

Chambers 1888a

A Rhyme of the women of Saint Nectan's Keeve

Old Woman - By Hamed Saber (originally posted to Flickr as Sad Old Woman) [CC-BY-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

"Glen Nectan
IT is from Nectan's mossy steep
The foamy waters flash and leap;
It is where shrinking wild flowers grow,
They lave the nymph that dwells below. But wherefore in this far-off dell
The relics of a human cell,
Where the sad stream and lonely wind
Bring man no tidings of his kind? "Long years agone," the odd man said -
'Twas told him by his grandsire dead -
One day two ancient sisters came,
None there could tell their race or name. Their speech was not in Cornish phrase,
Their garb had signs of loftier days;
Slight food they took from hands of men,
They withered slowly in that glen. One died, - the other's sunken eye
Gushed till the fount of tears was dry;
A wild and withering thought had she, "
I shall have none to weep for me." They found her silent at the last,
Bent in the shape wherein she passed,
Where her lone seat long used to stand,
Her head upon her shrivelled hand! Did fancy give this legend birth
The granddam's tale for winter hearth?
Or some dead bard by Nectan's stream
People these banks with such a dream? We know not; but it suits the scene
To think such wild thing; here have been;
What spot more meet could grief or sin
Choose at the last to wither in?
-THE REV. ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER"Valentine (undated)Map - Saint Nectan's Keeve

The two mysterious ladies of Saint Nectan's Keeve

Saint Nectan's Keeve - Copyright Roddy Smith and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

 "At Longbridge a stream is crossed, which about a mile inland falls over a steep rock, forty feet high, into St. Nectan's Keeve. A keeve is a basin; the bowl used by a miner in washing his tin-nuggets is called a keeve.

"There is another leap of about ten feet," says Mr. White, "and you may descend to it by returning to the outside of the rocks, scrambling down to their base, and along the narrow, slippery path leading into the chasm. Here you see an arch below the edge of the keeve, in which a flat slab having lodged, the water, broken as it shoots through, falls a thin, flickering curtain into the pool beneath. The best view is from the farther margin of the stream, and to cross on the gravelly shallow below the pool will scarcely wet more than your shoesoles. The effect is singularly pleasing. You are at the very bottom of the dell, in complete seclusion, with trees above on each side forming a screen that admits but a dim light; a glimpse of the upper fall through the arch, and the pretty noise of the falling water-no other sound audible save the occasional twittering of a bird. Retracing your steps, you see where the stream flows past the massive slab of slate rock lying in its bed, and disappears in the brake. Then up the damp, weedy path to the top of the bank, where stand the walls of a cottage, once the habitation of two recluse ladies who lived in it some years - a mystery to the neighbourhood - and died without revealing their secret.""

Valentine (undated)

Map - Saint Nectan's Keeve

Traitor Pool and the Obby Oss of Padstow

Padstow Obby Oss (or Hobby Horse)
I must apologize to the author of Ritual Animal Disguise, I have not cropped out your comment, and thus this could be copyright infringement. The image its self is so old I thought it would be OK to use.

"On the 1st of May, a species of festivity, Hitchins tells us, was observed in his time at Padstow: called the Hobby-horse, from the figure of a horse being carried through the streets. Men, women, and children flocked round it, when they proceeded to a place called Traitor Pool, about a quarter of a mile distant, in which the hobby-horse was always supposed to drink. The head, after being dipped into the water, was instantly taken out, and the mud and water were sprinkled on the spectators, to the no small diversion of all. On returning home a particular song was sung, which was supposed to commemorate the event that gave the hobby-horse birth. According to tradition the French once upon a time effected a landing at a small cove in the vicinity, but seeing at a distance a number of women dressed in red cloaks, whom they mistook for soldiers, they fled to their ships and put to sea. The day generally ended in riot and dissipation."

Hope 1893

Map - Padstow

Nine Maidens stone circle on May the 1st

[Cog and Wheels, a local all-lady Morris team dance at the Nine Maidens stone circle at Belstone every May the 1st at dawn. Their website here.]