2 points might be worth adding:

(1) According to the CD-ROM of MIDIs of traditional music available from www.traditionalmusic.co.uk available from Rod Smith (?possibly from Crowborough in Sussex, but this would be given somewhere on the website) the Floral Dance was written by one Kate Moss - obviously not the well-known supermodel but someone who lived much earlier!

(2) On "Giles Farnaby's Dream Band" (a classic and unfortunately it seems almost unobtainable folk album which my brother used to have but lost and which I am still trying to obtain - anyone know of a source?) there is a song (which I think was sung by the late Trevor Crozier) which is obviously based on the Helson Furry Dance. As far as I remember the song went:

John the Bon was marching on when he met with Sally Dover (repeat first line)
He kissed her once and he kissed her twice, and he kissed her three times over (repeat second line)

John said to me one day "Can you dance the Floral?" (repeat first line)
"Yes I can with a nice young man, round the streets of Truro" (repeat second line)

On a subsequent LP by Trevor Crozier called "Trouble over Bridgewater" he does a track (whose name I forget) in which, in the spoken introduction, he says "This song leans heavily for its melodic line on the Helston Furry, but never mind" (or words to that effect). This shows that Crozier was aware of the Helston Furry Dance (I think he hailed from SW England, possibly from around Somerset).

I also remember Hal-an-Tow (I think it was spelled this way) on another LP which went missing; I think this was by the Watersons. One of the verses which I can remember went:

Hal-an-Tow, the jolly Rumbelow
We were up, long before the day-oh
To welcome in the summer, to welcome in the May-oh
For summer is a coming and the winter's gone away oh

"BUTTERFLY" (SENT FROM AN INTERNET CAFE IN BALLYVAUGHAN, COUNTY CLARE, 13.10 HOURS 9.9.2003