Folk Custom and Culture in Creed Parish
Alex Langstone
Situated in
the Fal Valley, in the heart of Mid-Cornwall, you will find the village of
Grampound. The name is Norman-French, and means ‘great bridge’, and was
recorded in Cornish as Ponsmur, as
far back as 1308.[1]
The village has several old traditions and some interesting, recorded folklore.
In early January each year, the Grampound Wassail once took
place. Visiting the hostelries and homes of the settlement, this wassail was of
the ‘visit’ persuasion, and was probably similar to the Bodmin wassail, which
is still a living tradition. This kind of wassail visits homes and hostelries, and
in Grampound, they would have carried their wooden wassail bowl, collecting
money and beer, whilst entertaining the villagers with the Grampound wassail
song. The custom died out in 1933, when the bowl fell to pieces. The traditional
song was recorded by Dr
Stevens of Perranporth in 1933,[2]
and can be viewed online.[3]
The legend of the market cross features the 15th century
octagonal standing cross, which is sited in the centre of Grampound, in front
of the nineteenth century rebuild of St Naunter’s chapel. The monolithic monument is believed to stand
in its original position and its name and location indicate that it acted as a
focus for market trading and other meetings. There was previously a 14th
century chapel of ease on this site, built to help accommodate the growing
settlement around the large parish. Therefore, it is more likely that this
cross was originally an ecclesiastical monument linked to the old chapel. There
is a local tradition that if you run around the cross nine times, in an
anti-clockwise direction, you will summon the devil. The cross was described in
the 1920s as “no more like a Christian cross than chalk from cheese. The
discerning reader will recognise that it is a fertility symbol, phallic in
origin, and in purport comparable with the hermae of the Greek markets”[4]St Crida’s parish church lies to the south of Grampound, in
the hamlet of Creed which is nestled in a green valley, close to the banks of
the Fal. The legend of St Crida states that she was the daughter of King Mark,
and she founded the religious settlement, where the church now stands, for
herself and her followers during the 6th century. A spring that
flows at nearby Manheir is thought to be the place where Crida’s holy well was
once sited. There is still a spring marked on the OS map close to Manheirs Farm,
which may allude to this statement; and a village tale tells of Crida’s nuns,
who would stop at the stream that crosses the track close to the church, and
there would confer blessings and invoke prayer. You can still hear the running water from this
sacred brook, which flows unseen, beneath the road, as it makes its way to
merge into the River Fal in the valley below.
The name of the farm is probably a corruption of the old
Cornish language word managhes, which translates as nun,[5]
commemorating the sacred settlement that Crida founded in around 520 AD.
The church was largely rebuilt in the 15th
century, and during this time a guild of St Mary Magdalene was established at
the site, with an altar dedicated to her cult. However, the church is thought to have its
origins with the arrival of Crida in the 6th century. In the north
door there is a small hatch known as the devil’s hatch, which was customarily
opened during Christenings to allow evil spirits to escape the building to the
north.[6]
The mile long lane between Grampound village and St Crida’s
church, which undulates across the wooded hillside is undoubtedly an ancient route
and has been used for centuries as a church path, bringing the dead to be
buried in consecrated ground. There is an old stone coffin rest sited roughly
midway along the side of the lane, which gave respite for the teams of coffin
bearers on their journey.
Whitsuntide was once a grand affair in the parish, where a
Whit Tuesday processional march was enacted to St Crida’s church and back to
the Dolphin public house, where beer and black milk was consumed. There was also a teetotaller march in
afternoon, with a tea treat in the field opposite the town hall. The main event
was held in the evening, where the Grampound furry dance was held along the
main street. Cecil Sharpe collected some details of the Grampound furry during
his visit in 1913, where it was described as a similar dance to Helston’s more
famous counterpart. However, one or two differences were explained, where
couples held hands crossed in front of them as they danced forward, and how the
procession would stop every so often so that the dancers could reform in a
ring, going first clockwise then anticlockwise around in a circle. At the same
time, other dancers would perform a six-hand reel inside the circle, and every
so often the band would assemble to perform within the dancers.[7]
[1] Cornish
Place-Names and Language by Craig Weatherhill, p 114
[2] Grampound
and Creed: A Guide to the Churches by Mary Oliver (privately published church
guide).
[4] Pagan
Origins of Fairs by T. F. G. Dexter. New Knowledge Press, Perranporth, 1930
[5] Grampound
and Creed: A Guide to the Churches by Mary Oliver (privately published church
guide).
[6] Ibid
[7] http://www.an-daras.com/cornish-customs/Clay_Country_Customs.pdf
Article first published in Meyn Mamvro. © Alex Langstone
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