Towednack people were nicknamed “Cuckoos” from the institution of what
was called their “Cuckoo Feast.” The story runs that, in old times,
“Towednackers” fretted themselves very much because the winters were so
long “up there” in that bitter cold country; besides, they grieved all
the more on account of their having no feast, as in parishes round.
They owed this grievance either to their not having had a patron saint,
or he had ceased to be commemorated by an annual festival, if he ever
were thus honoured. At length the principal people of the parish agreed
to meet at the public-house that they might lay their heads together
and, by their united wisdom, devise some plan for bettering their
condition in both respects. Abundance of strong drink and some eatables
were provided for the occasion. They met on the last week of April,
and, after a long deliberation, one of the wisest proposed to hedge in
a cuckoo, if ever she came there again, which was a rare occurrence.
One and all declared that nothing could be better; they would go the
very next day and begin to hedge in a place on Cold Harbour Downs, and
leave a gap in the enclosure through which she could be driven into it.
They stayed together a week rejoicing over their schemes, and singing
the old refrain,—
“The cuckoo is a pretty bird,
And sings as she flies;
And brings us fine weather,
And tells us no lies.”
They would have remained longer but their drink ran short.
The story doesn’t say if they commenced hedging or not. They were so
well pleased, however, with the joyous way in which they had passed a
week together that all of them determined, henceforward to meet every
year, at the same date, to hold a feast, and to invite their friends
from other parishes to come there and be entertained.
The good folk kept their resolution, held a feasten week in a jovial
way, and their winters seemed shorter to them ever after. There are
other versions of this old droll, all of them intended to ridicule
simple folk for confounding cause and effect; all show, too, that there
was something unusual in the establishment of Towednack feast.
This feast was also called “Crowder feast,” from an old custom which
was there kept up at “the tide,” long after it had fallen into disuse
in other parishes.
On the feasten-Sunday morning, the people, with their “feasters”
(visitors from other parishes) met in Churchtown, at or near the inn.
Whilst the bells rung, they arranged themselves to form a kind of
procession; when the bells ceased calling them, the fiddler struck up a
lively tune on his “crowd” (fiddle) and led them on to the Church door.
After service they again formed in order on leaving the Church, and
headed by the “crowder,” fifers, and others playing a cheerful
strain—whilst the bells rung,—as was their wont at “the tide,”—they
marched together three times round or through the village before they
dispersed and took their various roads home.
This custom was regarded, by good people, as natural enough in more
simple and sociable times, when it was “Merrie England.”
There is a saying that calves are christened at Towednack Quay Head.
One would like to know how this arose?
St. Ives people are known as “hake whippers,” the tradition running
that upon one occasion they flogged the hakes out of the bay, which
accounts for none having been seen there since. But at St. Ives they
will tell you that the Hake flogged was a man of that name, and that he
well deserved it.