PICROUS DAY.
Reading edition
Cornwall.
The Second Thursday before Christmas Day is a festival observed by the tinners of the district of Blackmore, and known as “Picrous Day.” It is said to be the feast of the discovery of tin by a man named Picrous. It is not at present marked by any distinctive ceremonies, but it is the occasion of a merry-making, and the owner of the tin stream contributes a shilling a man towards it. Mr. T. Q. Couch says his first impression was that the day took its name from the circumstance of a pie forming the pièce de resistance of the supper; but this explanation is not allowed by tinners, nor sanctioned by the usages of the feast.—Hunt’s Romances of the West of England, 1871, p. 468.
