For summer is comen to-day;
He will come no more unto your house before another year,
In the merry morning of May.'"
(George Rawlings, September ist, 1865, through R. Hunt, F.R.S., Droles, &c., Old Cornwall.')
Mr. Rawlings all through his song has written "For summer has come unto day," but this is clearly a mistake. He also gives another which he calls the "May-Song," but it is not as well worth transcribing: it bears in some parts a slight resemblance to that sung at the Helston Hal-an-tow.
Mr. George C. Boase, in an article on "The Padstow May-Songs," has many additional verses in "The Morning-Song." He also gives "The Day-Song," sung in honour of St. George, of which I will quote the first verse, and the last paragraph of his paper.
For summer is a-come and winter is a-go,
And every day God give us His grace.
By day and by night O!
Where is St. George, where is he O!
He is out in his long boat, all on the salt sea O!
And in every land O! the land that ere we go.
For the summer is a-come and the winter is a-go, etc."
The only account of "The Hobby-horse" found in the Cornish histories is in Hitchins and Drew's Cornwall (vol. i., p. 720; vol. ii., pp. 525, 529), where it is stated that there is a tradition of St. George on horseback having visited the neighbourhood of Padstow, where the indentation of his horse's hoofs caused a spring of water to arise. The spot is still known as St. George's well, and water is said to be found there even in the hottest summer.—(W. Antiquary.)
In East Cornwall they have a custom of bathing in the sea on the three first Sunday mornings in May. And in West Cornwall children were taken before sunrise on those days to the holy wells, notably to that of St. Maddern (Madron), near Penzance, to be there dipped into the running water, that they might be cured of the rickets and
