"Tap a tap shoe, [32] that would I do,
If I had but a little more leather.
We'll sit in the sun till the leather doth come,
Then we'll tap them both together."
Here the two little feet are struck lightly one against the other.
Several letters have lately appeared in the Western Morning News,
giving different versions of the old rhymes--
"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Pray bless the bed that I 'lay' on,
Four corners to my bed,
Four angels there are spread,
Two 'to' foot and two 'to' head,
And six will carry me when I'm dead."
Although attributed by the correspondents to Cornwall, I have always
understood that they were known all over England.
Children with rickets were taken by their parents on the three first
Sundays in May to be dipped at sunrise in one of the numerous Cornish
holy wells, and then put to sleep in the sun, with sixpence under their
heads. Small pieces torn from their clothes were left on the bushes
to propitiate the pixies. For the same disease they were passed nine
times through a Mên-an-tol (holed stone). A man stood on one side,
and a woman on the other, of the stone. The child was passed with
the sun from east to west, and from right to left; a boy from the
woman to the man, a girl from the man to the woman. This order is
always, in these charms, strictly observed. As lately as 1883, in
the village of Sancred, West Cornwall, a little girl, suffering from
whooping-cough, was passed from a man to a woman nine times under a
donkey's belly; a little boy standing the while at the donkey's head
feeding it with "cribs" of wheaten bread. My informant did not know
if on this occasion any incantation was repeated. Another family, he
tells me, some years back were in the same neighbourhood cured of the
whooping-cough by donkey's hair, which was dried on the baking iron of
the open hearth, reduced to powder, and administered to them. There
are very various ways of doing this, one is between thin slices of
bread and butter. Some authorities say the latter ingredients must
belong to a couple called John and Joan. Mr. Robert Hunt gives a
charm which in a measure combines the two above-mentioned. "The child
must be passed naked nine times over the back and under the belly
of a female donkey. Three spoonfuls of milk drawn from the teats of
the animal, three hairs cut from its back, and three from its belly,
are to stand in the milk three hours, and to be given in three doses
repeated on three mornings." Mr. Hunt also says, "There were some
doggerel lines connected with the ceremony which have escaped my
memory, and I have endeavoured in vain to find anyone remembering
them. They were to the effect that as Christ placed the cross on the
ass's back when he rode into Jerusalem and so rendered the animal holy,
if the child touched where Jesus sat it should cough no more." I will
quote another of Mr. Hunt's charms. "Gather nine spar-stones (quartz)
from a running stream, taking care not to interrupt the free passage
of the water in doing so. Then dip a quart of water from the stream,
which must be taken in the direction in which the stream runs--by
no means must the vessel be dipped against the stream. Then make the
nine stones red-hot, and throw them into the quart of water. Bottle
the prepared water, and give the afflicted child a wine-glass of this
water for nine mornings." Other remedies are to cross the child over
running water nine times, or under a bramble bough bent into the ground
(this latter and through a cleft ash are also tried for hernia). Some
nurses take children, with whooping-cough, out for a walk, in hopes of
meeting a man on a white or piebald horse. Should they be fortunate
enough to do so, they ask the rider how they can cure the patient:
his advice is always implicitly followed.
Children with dirty habits are often told that a "mousey pasty"
shall be cooked for their dinners.
Cornish children are warned by their nurses not to grimace, lest,
whilst so doing, the wind should change and their faces always remain
contorted. There is another form in which this warning is often given:
"Don't make mock of a 'magum' (May-game), for you may be struck comical
yourself one day." "Magum" in most cases means a facetious person,
one who is full of merry pranks; and the expressions, "He's a reg'lar
magum," or "He's full of his magums," are often heard. But the idea
intended to be conveyed in the first saying is that it is wrong to
make fun of a person suffering from an infirmity, which may at any
time afflict the jeerer. The puritanical notion of Sunday lingers in
the belief in Cornwall that it is unlucky to use a scissors on that
day, even to cut your nails; you must
"Cut them on Monday, before your fast you break,
And you'll have a present in less than a week."
Children here are pleased to see "gifts" (white spots) on their
thumb-nails, as
"Gifts on the thumb are sure to come,
But gifts on the finger are sure to linger."
Occasionally white spots on the five fingers are named as follows:
"A gift, a friend, a foe, a true lover, a journey to go." Should the
little ones, when picking flowers, sting themselves with nettles, they
are of course in this locality, as elsewhere in England, taught to rub
the spot with dock-leaves, repeating the words, "In dock, out nettle;"
but they are often told in addition to wet the place affected with
their spittle, and make a cross over it with their thumb-nails, pressed
down as heavily as possible. School-boys and school-girls often years
ago practised a cruel jest on their more innocent companions. They
induced them to pick a nettle by saying "Nettles won't sting this
month." When the children were stung and complained, the retort was,
"I never said they would not sting you." The blue scabious in Cornwall
is never plucked. It is called the devil's bit, and the superstition
is handed down from one generation of children to another that, should
they transgress and do so, the devil will appear to them in their
dreams at night. But anyone who wishes to dream of the devil should
pin four ivy-leaves to the corners of his pillow. Flowers plucked from
churchyards bring ill-luck, and even visitations from spirits on the
plucker. Wrens and robins are sacred in the eyes of Cornish boys, for
"Hurt a robin or a wran,
Never prosper, boy nor man."
A groom who had, when a lad, shot a robin and held it in one of his
hands told me that it shook ever after. But they always chase and try
to kill the first butterfly of the season; and, should they succeed,
they will overcome their enemies--I suppose, in football, etc.
"To hear the first cuckoo of spring on the right ear is lucky, on the
left unlucky; as many times as it repeats its notes will the number
of years be before the hearer is married. The cuckoo song--
'In April, come he will,
In May, he sings all day,
In June, he alters his tune,
In July, he prepares to fly,
Come August, go he must'--
is known all over the county, with additions and slight variations,
such as--
'In March, he sits upon his perch,
In Aperel, he tunes his bell.'"
--South-east Cornwall, W. Pengelly.
"A bat in Cornwall is called an 'airy-mouse;' village boys address
it as it flits over their heads in the following rhymes--
'Airy-mouse, airy-mouse! fly over my head,
And you shall have a crust of bread,
And when I brew, or when I bake,
You shall have a piece of my wedding cake.'"
--Polperro, T. Q. Couch.