Western Morning News, Cornish wrestling: history and recent revival (1946)

NOTES IN THE WEST. Cornish Wrestling.

Recent wrestling tournaments, particularly at Newquay and Falmouth, attracted many spectators, and it is apparent that Cornish people are still keenly interested in this Celtic pastime of a long and proud history. It has been often stated that the game is so deeply rooted in the Cornish nature that, however neglected, a little attention soon produces a robust growth.

More than five hundred years ago the Cornish contingent that accompanied Henry V. to the battle of Agincourt in 1415 marched under a banner upon which was depicted a pair of wrestlers in a “hitch,” and a replica of this is the banner of the County Wrestling Association. In Elizabethan times it is recorded that every village had its village green, and there was not an assembly of Cornish boys but was always ready and willing to improvise a ring and demonstrate the art of wrestling. Such practice was common even in recent years, and there are yet elderly men who as youngsters played the game of “Shuffle hats and wrastle,” hats being tossed into the ring and their owners wrestling off in accordance with the pairing of the hats.