This curious performance slackened off for some years, but the Helstonians, finding that their little town owed a good deal of advertisement to this special festival, have revived it with goodwill, and now are inundated with visitors at the recurrence of the anniversary. Furry Day used to be held at Penryn on May 3 and at the Lizard on May 1 and also in the parish of Sithney, but now it can only be seen at Helston. May Day has peculiar significance as being the celebration of the return of spring, and it is the custom at dawn on that day in some parts to dip weakly infants in the holy wells, which abound in Cornwall, to ensure strength. This is still done, though either secretly or in a jesting spirit, at the holy well of Madron near Penzance of which Madron is the mother parish. Many people adorn their houses in Cornwall with boughs and garlands in honour of the day even at the present time. May Day was the great day for miracle plays, so beloved by the old Cornishmen before they learned to consider them sinful under the teaching of Wesley. The best of the old amphitheatres, at any rate the one most accessible, is the Plan-an-Guare at St. Just referred to elsewhere. [Illustration: AT NEWLYN] At Padstow hobby-horses still prance round the town on May Day. Edmonds says:--"The hobby horse, or effigy of a horse, is, at this festival of the moon, dipped in a pool of water, and, for the same reason perhaps, that a similar figure was, in Ireland, passed through fire at the festival of the sun; to preserve the cattle from death and disease." Sun and moon being represented by fire and water. Mr. Baring-Gould says:--"During the days that precede the festival no garden is safe. Walls, railings, even barbed wire, are surmounted by boys and men in quest of flowers. Conservatories have to be fast locked, or they will be invaded. The house that has a show of flowers in the windows is besieged by pretty children with roguish eyes begging for blossoms which they cannot steal. The Hobby-horse Pairs, as they were called, _i.e._, a party of eight men, then repaired to the 'Golden Lion,' at that time the first inn in Padstow, and sat down to a hearty supper of leg of mutton and plum-pudding, given them by the landlord. After supper a great many young men joined the 'pairs,' _i.e._, the _peers_, the lords of the merriment, and all started for the country, and went round from one farmhouse to another, singing at the doors of each, and soliciting contributions to the festivities of the morrow.