Cornish Feasts and Folk-lore

A section headed Cornish Feasts and Feasten Customs says that, since there are more saints in Cornwall than there are in heaven, friendly gatherings must necessarily be very numerous. The text says every family, however poor, tries to have a better dinner than usual on feasten Sunday, generally a joint of meat with a figgy-pudden. An account says that in Warleggan, on Christmas-eve, it was customary for some of the household to bank up the fire and the rest to take a jar of cider, a bottle, and a gun to the orchard.

A proverb quoted in the text runs: blossom in March, for fruit you may search; blossom in April, eat you will; blossom in May, eat night and day. Where Falmouth now stands there were only a few houses, called Pennycomequick, and the text says the name really means the head of the valley of the creek. A verse tells of someone who all the day long begged for relief and all the night long played the false thief, for seven years together.