charging a penny a head. This was taking a "Pen'nord of Say." When not paid for, a short row is a "Troil." (Troil is old-Cornish for a feast.)
Although this fair has not yet been discontinued, the number of those attending it grows less and less every year, and not enough money is taken to encourage travelling showmen to set up their booths. The old charter allowed the publichouses at the quay to keep open all night on the 24th of June, but such is no longer the case. Quay fair was sometimes known as Strawberry fair, and thirty years ago many strawberries were sold at it for twopence a quart. They were not brought to market in pottles, but in large baskets containing some gallons, and were measured out to the customers in a tin pint or quart measure. They were eaten from cabbage-leaves. Before the end of the day, unless there were a brisk sale, the fruit naturally got much bruised. They are still sold in the same way, but are not nearly as plentiful. Many of the strawberry fields, through which public footpaths often went, have been turned up, and are now used for growing early potatoes. On St. John's day Cornish miners place a green bough on the shears of the engine-houses in commemoration of his preaching in the wilderness.
This day is with Cornish as with other maidens a favourite one for trying old love-charms. Some of them rise betimes, and go into the country to search for an even "leafed" ash, or an even "leafed" clover. When found the rhymes they repeat are common to all England.
An old lady, a native of Scilly, once gave me a most graphic description of her mother and aunt laying a table just before midnight on St. John's day, with a clean white cloth, knives and forks, and bread and cheese, to see if they should marry the men to whom they were engaged. They sat down to it, keeping strict silence—
"For, if a word had been spoken,
The spell would have been broken."
As the clock struck twelve the door, which had purposely been left unbarred, opened, and their two lovers walked in, having, as they met outside, both been compelled by irresistible curiosity to go and see if there were anything the matter with their sweethearts.
