Today, Penzance’s Golowan festival, established in 1991, is a vibrant week-long celebration of Midsummer which weaves the ancient traditions of the feasts of St John the Baptist and St Peter with modern customs. Costumed processions, music, dancing the hand-in-hand ‘serpent’ dance through the streets, a fair on the Quay, fireworks, a Mock Mayor election, a torchlit procession on St John’s Eve, the special appearances of Penzance’s ’obby ’oss Penglaz and his teaser, all to the musical pulse of Penzance’s very own traditional music band, Bagas Golowan (The Golowan Band) characterise this unique midsummer festival.
The word ‘golowan’
“In Cornwall, the Festival Fires, call’d Bonfires, are kindled on the Eve of St. John the Baptist, and St. Peter’s Day, and Midsummer is thence, in the Cornish tongue, call’d Goluan, which signifies both Light, and Rejoicing. At these Fires the Cornish attend with lighted torches, tarr’d and pitch’d at the end, and make perambulations round their Fires, and go from village to village carrying their torches before them.” – William Borlase
In 1754 William Borlase, antiquarian and rector of the village of Ludgvan, published a book called Observations on the Antiquities Historical and Monumental of the County of Cornwall. An original copy is held in the special collections of Penzance’s Morrab Library. In it, he describes some of our Midsummer customs and explains the meaning of the Cornish word Golowan (the modern spelling of ‘Goluan’). This is the earliest record of the term. It is made out of two words in Kernewek, the Cornish language. ‘Gool’ means ‘feast’, ‘fair’ or ‘festival’, ‘Jowan’ is the Cornish for the name John. So Golowan means, ‘Feast of St John’. It is the word that is still used to mean ‘Midsummer’ by Kernewek speakers today.
Since 1991 the name has, perhaps, gained as much significance, and has the ability to conjure as much anticipation as it did hundreds of years ago.
The festival today
Golowan today is a packed, vibrant festival that sees the whole town decorated in decorated silk flags made by artists and volunteers. They hang from shops, above roads, and even flutter from dedicated flagpoles along Penzance’s long seaside promenade.
The festival runs for a week, beginning with a launch party, a Sunday civic parade for the Feast services, a Monday ‘secret gig’ by the Golowan Band, boisterous Mock Mayor elections, a firework display followed by the late-night appearance of Penglaz, Golowan’s ’obby ‘oss, accompanied by the band and hordes of dancing in the packed streets by the harbour. The weekend, divided into Mazey Day (Saturday) and Quay Fair Day (Sunday), is the busiest period.
On Mazey Day, the town is woken by traditional music. The Golowan Band’s ‘dawn raids’ (at a more civilised 8am) sees the band divide into small groups who walk up and down the residential streets playing the tunes associated with Golowan. It really helps to get people into the mood for the day.
Every school in the area takes part in one of the many parades through the town accompanied by giant characters that they have created for this year’s theme, alongside musicians, local groups, and of course, the Golowan Band. Alongside the procession is a huge market, a street food market, and a folk stage showcasing local bands and Cornish music and dance. Tens of thousands visit and take part, with special charter trains bringing visitors from as far afield as Birmingham. When you live in Penzance, that’s a long way away.
Dancers can be sent around a bend at arm-wrenching speeds as they pass through an arch formed by the arms of the dancers at the rear, shouting, “An eye! An eye!”
By late afternoon, the lower streets see ’serpent dancing’, known as the Men & Maids procession. Originally known as “thread-the-needle”, this dance, led by the Golowan Band playing 4/4 Cornish tunes, sees a long line of people holding hands, weaving through the street, attempting to make their feet follow the 1-2-3-hop pattern. As the tunes speed up, the dance can start to get quite fast, and when the ‘serpent’ bends back on itself, dancers can be sent around a bend at arm-wrenching speeds as they pass through an arch formed by the arms of the dancers at the rear, shouting, “An eye! An eye!” It continues until feet and arms are sore, and the fingers of the band are worn out. Most happily retire home, or to the pub for more merriment and the occasional folk session.
On Sunday, Quay Fair Day, we see a more chilled-out vibe. The focus of the town shifts from the primary streets around the Market House to the smaller area around the harbour. Traditionally held on the day of the Feast of St John, it’s now fixed to the Sunday around this time. The roads are closed off to traffic, the markets and folk stage move to the quayside, and people relax around the water’s edge with occasional appearances from the Mock Mayor and the Golowan Band, mixed in with the various other music stages. It’s a heady mix of traditional and modern.
But what of these traditions? Where did they come from?
A fiery history
Golowan goes back much further than the last 30 years. Today’s celebrations took many inspirations from the very fiery revels from the 19th century and further back. The stories of what happened in Penzance around Midsummer up until the 1880s will raise – or singe – a few eyebrows.
“To the early torches succeeded the first hand-rockets, which send all who have not made up their minds to be salamanders to the shelter of the house. Gradually the tar-barrels were ignited throughout the length of the principal streets. The scene, even at this stage, is picturesque, though it be barbarous. The thoroughfares are filled with dense smoke; but through this can be seen perhaps fifty torches, the lurid and ever-moving flames crossing and re-crossing each other, and, as they approach you, throwing a light which would have delighted Rembrandt on all around.” An account of St John’s Eve, Penzance, The Telegraph, Wednesday 30 June 1875, p. 4 (Reprinted letter to the Royal Cornwall Gazette, 4 July 1801).
Until the late 19th century in Penzance, there was a whole week of partying. Between the feast days of St John (24th June) and St Peter (29th June) the town burst into life. Fairs, bonfires, music, dancing, fireworks, drinking, fighting, boat trips, hill-top beacons, and general noise-making took place across the town and parts of the wider Mounts Bay area. Shopkeepers boarded up their windows. Those who didn’t want to take part sheltered at home with their shutters or curtains closed. Those who did had the times of their lives.
“Midsummer eve was observed in Penzance and neighbourhood as usual. While the hills all around showed beacon lights, the Green Market of Penzance was like a fiery furnace, and from nine to midnight there was an incessant discharge of hand and sky rockets.” Cornubian and Redruth Times, 2 July, 1880.
There was no funding back then to put on an organised festival, such as we have today. Pub landlords would buy fireworks and build a bonfire outside their establishment:
“We should not forget to mention that in addition to the numerous respectable tradesmen who had aided and abetted in the fun (spite of his Worship’s prohibition). Mr Hemmings, of the ‘Three Tuns,’ sent up one balloon, provided several bonfires, and many fireworks, Mr Connack, long noted in this line of business, furnished another aerial voyager and some beautiful rockets.” The Cornish Telegraph of 27 June 1851.
Backyard assembly lines were created in parts of the town to make fireworks:
“Some of us have been busily engaged in the secret recesses of out-houses in the rolling-up of rocket cases. Sheet after sheet of pasted brown paper, tightly enveloping an iron bar, have been made the depository of a mixture of gunpowder and steel filings. This explosive and glittering compound has been smartly compressed, the top of the hand-rocket finished off with a piece of touch-paper, and, dozen after dozen, the completed weapon placed in a secret corner for re-production and use on the famed Midsummer Eve.” The Cornish Telegraph, 30 June 1875.
It wasn’t all without organisation – or music – though:
“A trusted few formed themselves into what we call a committee – an anonymous but representative body to whom is confided a large sum of money, never larger than this year, with longer pockets; and these find money for a band of musicians, all the tar barrels and other casks of the neighbourhood, firewood, furze, &c., and men to place and ignite the combustibles. All this self-imposed labour – some of it highly dangerous, as is the pastime to which it leads, and yet the gods of misrule seem never to have permitted a serious accident – is in honour of saturnalia which are as old as the hills.” The Cornish Telegraph, 30 June 1875.
Old wooden barrels were stockpiled. Lumps of pitch were stowed away ready to line them. Rows of candles were fixed to windowsills. Branches and flowers were gathered days before, ready to decorate the town. The anticipation was palpable.
It must have looked incredible. There are some wonderful descriptions to be found in the 19th century newspapers that paint an imaginative vignette of Penzance at Midsummer. One of the earliest, from the Royal Cornwall Gazette in 1801, really sets the scene:
“The joyful moment arrives! The torches make their appearance! The heaped-up wood is on fire! The tar-barrels send up their immense flame! The ladies and gentlemen parade the streets, or walk in the fields, or on the terrace that commands the bay! Thence they behold the fishing-towns, farms, and villas, vying with each other in the number and splendour of their bonfires.”
The author of this description, signed just by the initials ‘T. J. R.’ goes on to describe rockets and crackers thrown in the streets:
“The torches quickly moving along the shore, are reflected from the tide; and the spectacle, though of the cheerful kind, participates of the grand. In the right time, rockets and crackers resound through every street and the screams of the ladies on their return from the shew, and their precipitate flight into the first passage, shop, or house, that happens to be open, heighten the colouring and diversion of the night.”
And finally, dancing:
“Then comes the finale: no sooner are the torches burnt out, than the inhabitants of the quay-quarter, (a great multitude) male and female, young, middle-aged, and old; virtuous and vicious, sober and drunk, take hands, and forming a long string, run violently through every street, lane, and alley crying “An eye! An eye! An eye!” At last they stop suddenly; and an eye to this enormous needle being opened by the last two in the string, (whose clasped hands are elevated and arched) the thread of the populace run under, and through: and continue to repeat the same, till weariness dissolves their union, and sends them home to bed – which is never till near the hour of midnight.”
Rough, rowdy and increasingly dangerous
“No town in England, not even Exeter or Lewes now, can equal the scene presented by Penzance last night.”
Cornish Telegraph
The combination of urban street bonfires, fireworks, dancing and drinking had always meant that there was the occasional fight or property damage. The newspapers often, in the weeks following Midsummer, feature short reports from the magistrate’s court where people answered for their crimes.
A lengthy report in the Cornish Telegraph of 8 July 1857 records the case of a Mr Norton, who was attacked on three separate occasions on St Peter’s Eve. He was severely burnt, his clothes were destroyed, and his assailants followed him home and set a burning tar barrel against his house.
From the court accounts, it really was a lawless night in Penzance. Even the police had to shelter from the rockets fired at them, reporting burns to their uniforms. Mr Norton was awarded damages of £3 15s from the three defendants, despite the defending counsel protesting that his client “had only done what it had been the custom and usage to do in Penzance from time immemorial, and what every Penzance man had done for generations and centuries past.”
Things seemed to get worse year on year. By 1880, the Cornish Telegraph reported:
“Considerable discomfort was caused by the presence of bands of roughs who arm-in-arm rushed among the town knocking people down. The son of Mr Rogers, butcher, Market-jew-street, was knocked down and had his collar bone broken. No town in England, not even Exeter or Lewes now, can equal the scene presented by Penzance last night.”
There were reports of lit rockets being stuffed unknowingly into people’s pockets, and windows were broken by rocket fire.
In 1881, the Cornish Telegraph (7 July) reports that on St Peter’s Eve, a firework smashed the window of a sitting room above a shop in the Green Market (where some of the bigger bonfires were traditionally burned) and struck a man in the eye, which also set another man’s coat on fire, and burnt another’s arm. Someone else was injured by the flying glass. It was a violent night.
The days were numbered for fireworks and bonfires in the streets of Penzance. By 1890 the streets were silent at night across the town. A combination of increasing fire premiums and strict enforcement of the Gunpowder and Fireworks Act, along with the strengthened provisions and punitive fines of the 1875 Explosives Act, meant financial ruin for any breach of the rules. A few were made examples of, and just like that, the spirit and revelry were snuffed out for a hundred years.
‘Osses and misrule
Today, one striking figure of our modern Golowan is Penglaz, Penzance’s boney ‘obby ‘oss. This striking figure consisting of a large horse skull with a tall cloth body can be seen, led by its ‘teaser’, charging through the crowds during the modern St John’s Eve torchlit procession and after the fireworks on Mazey Eve when they emerge from their ‘stable’ at the Barbican to the music of the Golowan Band.
The image of Penglaz’s skull has become emblematic of Golowan. Although not strictly recorded as being part of the midsummer celebrations, we do know that in July 1595, during the Spanish raids on Mounts Bay, their commander, Don Carlos de Amézola, wrote in his log that when sacking the village of Paul, to the south of Penzance, they discovered, “a horse carved in wood and greatly embellished, serving as an idol, worshipped by the people”. Out of this, and a few other inspirations taken from midwinter, the midsummer Penglaz was created. Part of the spirit of the festival is unarguably embodied by Penglaz and their antics.
Misrule is still alive in the modern festival in many guises, not least from boney horses. The elections of the Mock Mayor of the Quay are a key part of Golowan. In the 19th century and earlier, the Mock Mayor was elected in the Green Market area of the town, and showered with sparks from fireworks. Today, usually a couple of days before Mazey Day, candidates create their characters, costumes and ludicrous manifestos. The election event itself is held in a large marquee close to the seafront, and is a spectacle not to be missed.
Each candidate has a short time to introduce themselves and their manifestos on a stage in front of the baying crowd. If the crowd boos they are unceremoniously pulled off stage. Bribes are rife, in the form of sweets and bags of crisps being handed out (or thrown – in either direction). In recent years Lord Justice Socks, a beloved Golowan figure, has overseen the proceedings. In the end, the candidate with the loudest cheers wins and gets to stand with Penzance’s official mayor to address a crowd of thousands from the steps of the Market House on Mazey Day.
The Cornish Midsummer Bonfire Song
This being TradFolk, we can’t ignore the fabulous – and once controversial – song that the antiquarian William Sandys published in 1846 in his book Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England. ‘The Cornish Midsummer Bonfire Song’ is introduced with the words:
“The custom of lighting fires on Midsummer-eve, being the vigil of St John the Baptist is still kept up in several parts of Cornwall. On these occasions the fishermen and others dance about the fires and sing appropriate songs. The following has been sung for a long series of years at Penzance and the neighbourhood, and is taken down from the recitation of the leader of a West Country choir.”
Cornish traditional music expert, Mike O’Connor, suggests that the words, “sit uneasily alongside devout Cornish Methodism,” and are, “certainly not Puritan.” In 1929, Ralph Dunstan reproduced the song in his Cornish Song Book, Lyver Canow Kernewek. He felt some of the lyrics were “corrupt” and “unprintable.” In his book, the line, “Lay sporting on the ground,” became, “Skip it featly on the ground.” We trust TradFolk readers will not be offended by the unexpurgated version:
The bonny month of June is crowned
With the sweet scarlet rose;
The groves and meadows all around
With lovely pleasure flows.
As I walked out to yonder green,
One evening so fair;
All where the fair maids may be seen
Playing at the bonfire.
Hail! lovely nymphs, be not too coy,
But freely yield your charms;
Let love inspire with mirth and joy,
In Cupid’s lovely arms.
Bright Luna spreads its light around,
The gallants for to cheer;
As they lay sporting on the ground,
At the fair June bonfire.
All on the pleasant dewy mead,
They shared each other’s charms;
Till Phoebus’ beams began to spread,
And coming day alarms.
Whilst larks and linnets sing so sweet,
To cheer each lovely swain;
Let each prove true unto their love,
And so farewell the plain.
These words have since been translated from Kernewek by Cornish Bard Telynor an Weryn, Dr Merv Davey, and set to the tune of another but unrelated folk song called ‘The Marigold’. This tune is perhaps more widely known as that of ‘Dives and Lazarus’ and also the Irish song, ‘Star of the County Down’. It is also known as ‘Tansys Golowan’, meaning ‘Midsummer bonfires’ in Kernewek. A lively recording of this version was made by the Golowan Band, sung by Phil Knight, on their 2005 album (see above).
The bigger picture
“When our Penzance lads are lighting their fires or waving the torches around their heads it is a strange thought that far to the North, amidst the fjords of Norway, on the crags of Scotland; to the South, amidst the Menhirion of Brittany; to the East, in the forests of Russia, or on the Carpathian peaks, fires will be burning on the same evening in honour of Midsummer-tide. Penzance and Krakow are at one on this point.” The Cornishman, 17 June 1880, p.4.
The creation of the modern Golowan festival and Penzance’s reconnection with the celebration of Midsummer sees us once again play our part in something much bigger. When the torchlit procession on St John’s Eve (23rd June) wends its fiery way down Chapel Street towards the quayside, in Estonia it is Jaaniõhtu, celebrated in many towns and villages with bonfires, singing and dancing. In Finland it is Juhannus, when bonfires are lit near lakes and the sea and many homes place branches from birch trees either side of their doors to welcome visitors. Jāņi is celebrated in Latvia with great enthusiasm, incorporating fires, decorating houses with leaves, singing, dancing, and drinking. In parts of Bulgaria, fires are lit with daring barefoot dances on hot coals. Some French towns still create tall bonfires that are lit on St John’s Day. In Spain, Hogueras de San Juan, and Portugal, Fogueiras de São João – Bonfires of St John can be seen burning on 24 June.
Golowan bys vykken! (Golowan Forever!)
Today’s Golowan festival is loved by nearly everyone in Penzance. It means a great deal to the townsfolk. Many who grew up here and have since left return for Golowan each year. Since every school in the area takes part, literally thousands have grown up with that sense of anticipation each Mazey Day. That feeling of being part of something special runs deep.
Come and visit Golowan this year, bring an instrument or your voices, dress up, adorn your hair with flowers, watch the processions, listen to the music, dance in the streets and celebrate this magical time of year, Penzance-style.
In 2023, Golowan runs from 16th-25th June and more information can be found on the festival website golowanfestival.org. Some of the text from this article was used in the 2021 Golowan exhibition, researched and written by the same author.