Chorus--And for to fetch the summer home, the summer and the May O! For the summer is a-come and the winter is a-go, etc."
The only account of "The Hobby-horse" found in the Cornish histories is in Hitchins and Drew's Cornwall (vol. i., p. 720; vol. ii., pp. 525, 529), where it is stated that there is a tradition of St. George on horseback having visited the neighbourhood of Padstow, where the indentation of his horse's hoofs caused a spring of water to arise. The spot is still known as St. George's well, and water is said to be found there even in the hottest summer.--(W. Antiquary.)
In East Cornwall they have a custom of bathing in the sea on the three first Sunday mornings in May. And in West Cornwall children were taken before sunrise on those days to the holy wells, notably to that of St. Maddern (Madron), near Penzance, to be there dipped into the running water, that they might be cured of the rickets and other childish disorders. After being stripped naked they were plunged three times into the water, the parents facing the sun, and passed round the well nine times from east to west. They were then dressed, and laid by the side of the well, or on an artificial mound re-made every year, called St. Maddern's bed, which faced it, to sleep in the sun: should they do so and the water bubble it was considered a good sign. Not a word was to be spoken the whole time for fear of breaking the spell.
A small piece torn (not cut) from the child's clothes was hung for luck (if possible out of sight) on a thorn which grew out of the chapel wall. Some of these bits of rag may still sometimes be found fluttering on the neighbouring bushes. I knew two well-educated people who in 1840, having a son who could not walk at the age of two, carried him and dipped him in Madron well (a distance of three miles from their home,) on the first two Sundays in May; but on the third the father refused to go. Some authorities say this well should be visited on the first three Wednesdays in May; as was for the same purpose another holy well at Chapel Euny (or St. Uny) near Sancred.
The Wesleyans hold an open-air service on the first three Sunday afternoons in May, at a ruined chapel near Madron well, in the south wall of which a hole may be seen, through which the water from the well runs into a small baptistry in the south-west corner.