Custom
Tom Bawcock's Eve
Fish heads poking through the pastry, gazing at the stars.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Small harbour village with Christmas lights
- Legend from
- Recorded 1927
- Best time
- 23 December
- Tone
- Light-hearted
A storm, an empty larder, and one fisherman who would not stay ashore.
On 23 December Mousehole remembers Tom Bawcock, a legendary fisherman who, the story goes, put to sea in a severe storm when the village was starving and brought home enough fish for everyone. The festival centres on stargazy pie, a fish, egg and potato pie with whole fish heads poking out of the pastry, and in some years a lantern procession around the harbour. It was first described by Robert Morton Nance in 1927, writing of the custom as it was around 1900. The name Bawcock may simply mean a fine fellow. The story inspired the children's book The Mousehole Cat.