Note 1 — THE LAST THREATENED INVASION: COMMOTION AND FALSE ALARM IN THE WEST.

“Don’t ’e mind, too,” resumed Uncle Honney, “how notices were put upon Church doors, and other places, forbiddan any bonfires to be made at Midsummer, lest they might be mistaken for bickan-fires,1 and give a false alarm, like Santusters ded, when they thoft the French had one night landed on Gwenvor Sand, where the Danes used to come ashore and pillage the country round. There were trusses of dry furze kept upon all the bickan-hills, ready for firan; it was the women in Santust ’Chtown who raised the alarm and caused the bickans to blaze from Chapel Carn Brea to Plymouth; troops were dispatched from garrison, but they didn’t know where to take to, lost their way west of Falmouth, and were found down in Gweek, a week after ‘jousters’ and other market-folk had brought news of this false alarm to Falmouth. About that time it was when this song was often singed by tinners around Redruth.