HELSTON FUERY DAT. 



Bt the Eev. W. S. Lach-Szyrma, B.A. 



• :o: 



The Helston Furry Festival is notoriously one of the most 

 singular of the institutions of Cornwall — a singular and in 

 some senses almost an unique survival of a long forgotten age. 

 As such it is the subject of much enquiry among archaeologists, 

 and, I may add, of many inaccurate statements and unfounded 

 or unsatisfactory theories. The too often accepted theory that the 

 Helston Furry day is a mere continuation or survival of the 

 Eoman Floralia is in my opinion very dubious. There was a 

 time when it might have been taken for granted — when the 

 fashion was to deduce everything from Greece and Home. 



The rites of the first week of May are almost co-extensive 

 with Europe, or at least were so, until modern civilization and 

 pseudo-culture stamped them out. They extend from the 

 Lithuanian forest to the Land's End, from the Baltic to the 

 Mediterranean. There is no reason by any means to associate 

 them with the Latin races and with them only. 



The deity which the heathen Britons celebrated in May it 

 would seem not merely was not the Roman Flora, but not even 

 a goddess at all, but the summer God Taranis, whom the Britons 

 worshipped as bringing sunshine and rain and the fruits of the 

 earth. He was rather like the Northern Thor, the Thunder God, 

 than Flora the soft flower Goddess of Rome. He was honoured 

 by the leek and hawthorne, and Mr. Elton is of opinion that the 

 Helston Furry Day and other Cornish jubilees were survivals of 

 British feasts in his honour. 



The Furry Day, May 8th, was actually the anniversary fete 

 of the Apparition of St. Michael, but also certainly it was the 

 octave of May day, i.e. of St. Philip and James, as it was called 

 in the Christian calendar, to consecrate the great spring festival 

 of Europe. As S. Michael was the patron of Helston it is not 

 improbable that the May festival was transferred there from 

 May 1 (or S.S. Philip and James), when it was observed else- 

 where, or from the Sunday after, to the local wake or patron's 



