Listed below are the historic texts that form the basis of much of the Montol Festival.
Our Christmas plays, also, are very similar to those of the saturnalia. The guise dancers (the same as the guisards of Scotland) may be always seen in the streets of Penzance in the evenings from Christmas-day to "
Twelfth-day," going to or from the houses wherein they are permitted to perform, attired in fantastic dresses, and variously disguised. A well-known character amongst them, about fifty years ago, was the hobby-horse, represented by a man carrying a piece of wood in the form of of a horse's head and neck, with some contrivance for opening and shutting the mouth with a loud snapping noise, the performer being so covered with a horse cloth, or hide of a horse, as to resemble the animal whose cur- vettings, biting, and other motions, he imitated. Some of these " guise-dancers" occasionally masked themselves with the skins of the heads of bullocks, having the horns on.
Richard Edmonds Jnr - Writing in Archaelogia Cambrenis (1858) from the original presented to Penzance Natural History & Antiquarian Society in 1851
(Guise-dancing) is no more nor less than a pantomimic representation or bal masque on an extensive scale, the performers outnumbering the audience, who in this case take their stand at the corners of the streets, which are but badly lighted with gas, and rendered still more dismal of late years by the closing of the tradesmen's shops after sunset during this season, on account of the noise and uproar occasioned, the town being literally given up to a lawless mob, who go about yelling and hooting in an unearthly manner, itt a tone between a screech and a howl, so as to render their voices as undistinguishable as their buffoon-looking dresses.
These "goose-dancers" became such a terror to the respectable inhabitants of Penzance that the Corporation put them down about ten years since, and every Christmas-eve a notice is posted in conspicuous places forbidding their appearance in the streets
Robert Hunt Popular Romances of the West of England 1902
In Cornwall, as we are informed by a contributor to Notes and Queries, the Yule log is called ' the mock,' and great festivities attend the burning of it, including the old ceremony of lighting the block with a brand preserved from the fire of last year. The Book of Days 1832
In a few remote districts on Christmas children may be, after nightfall, occasionally (but rarely) found dancing around painted lighted candles placed in a box of sand. This custom was very general fifty years ago. JS Courtney 50 years of Penzance.
On Solstice eve the 21st of December, secures the bush to the ceiling and taking great care, fastened a red candle inside the bush and light just before midnight then form a ring and dance under the bush welcoming the rebirth of the light and the year.
The Cornish "Montol"Christmas Bush
The following extract is from the CD of "The Western Antiquary or a Devon &
Cornwall Note-Book" from 1881. These queries, answers and articles originally
appeared in the newspaper "The Weekly Mercury".
CHRISTMAS IN CORNWALL.-
Can any of your
readers answer satisfactorily the fo1lowing queries? -
1. Is the Cornish "Christmas Bunch " so common incottages at Christmas-tide now a mere cheap imitation
of the "Christmas Tree," or a survival of an ancient custom?
2. There seems a tradition of some of the Cornish church towers being illuminated on Christmas-eve, is the lighting up of the windows in some of our houses witha Christmas bunch, &c., a sort of survival of this?
3. Is the putting up a triumphal arch of evergreens and flag with a "Merry Christmas as a motto (which I have seen in a Cornish fishing village), a modern, or survival of an old, custom?
(The Montol triumphal arch at the 2007 festival)
4. Does "guise-dancing" extend out of Penwith? It is still usual around Penzance where not hindered by the
authorities.
5. Is the Cornish play of "Saint George and the Turkish Knight -, still acted by the miners? I saw it
some fourteen years ago in a village near Liskeard.
(St George and the Turkish Knight at the 2007 Montol festival)
These Christmas plays are of great interest to students of folk-lore now. A very interesting paper was read
last session before the Folk Lore Society, and published in the Folk Lore Record, upon the Dorsetshire Christ-
mas play. I believe the "Christmas Play" was re-ferred to by the Cornish insurgents in the rebellion of
1549 against Edward VI.
6. Is "dancing round the candles ' at Yuletide common out of Penwith? I have seen a basket filled with sand,
candles stuck in it, and the children dancing round it. The appearance is that of a solemnization of the winter
solstice, as the Midsummer bonfire (still common, even in 1881) is of the summer solstice.
7. Is the Twelfth cake still usual in Cornwall? I think it still common in Devon, but I have not noticed
it in this County.