Chapter VII: Part 7

That is, when Easter falls on Lady-day, March 25, which happens when the Sunday Letter is G, and the Golden Number 5, 13, or 16. See Aubrey's Miscellanies, ed. 1696, p. 21.

In July
Some reap rye.
In August,
If one won't, the other must.

From Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, given in Hone's Year-Book, col. 1595.

In March
The birds begin to search;
In April
The corn begins to fill;
In May
The birds begin to lay.

From Lancashire. This resembles in its character the cuckoo song we have given at p. 160.

Friday night's dream
On the Saturday told,
Is sure to come true,
Be it never so old.

When it gangs up i' sops,
It'll fall down i' drops.

A North country proverb, the _sops_ being the small detached clouds hanging on the sides of a mountain. Carr, ii. 147.

To-morrow come never,
When two Sundays come together.

This is sometimes addressed to one who promises something "to-morrow," but who is often in the habit of making similar engagements, and not remembering them.

TIT FOR TAT.

The proverb of _tit for tat_ may perhaps be said to be going out of fashion, but it is still a universal favorite with children. When any one is ill-natured, and the sufferer wishes to hint his intention of retaliating at the first convenient opportunity, he cries out—

Tit for tat,
If you kill my dog,
I'll kill your cat.

LAZY LAWRENCE.

Lazy Lawrence, let me go,
Don't me hold summer and winter too.

This distich is said by a boy who feels very lazy, yet wishes to exert himself. Lazy Lawrence is a proverbial expression for an idle person, and I possess an old chapbook, entitled "the History of Lawrence Lazy, containing his birth and slothful breeding; how he served the schoolmaster, his wife, the squire's cook, and the farmer, which, by the laws of Lubberland, was accounted high treason." A West country proverb, relating to a disciple of this hero, runs thus:

Sluggardy guise,
Loth to go to bed,
And loth to rise.

March will search, April will try,
May will tell ye if ye'll live or die.

Sow in the sop,
'Twill be heavy a-top.

That is, land in a soppy or wet state is in a favorable condition for receiving seed; a statement, however, somewhat questionable.

A cat may look at a king,
And surely I may look at an ugly thing.

Said in derision by one child to another, who complains of being stared at.

He that hath it and will not keep it,
He that wanteth it and will not seek it;
He that drinketh and is not dry,
Shall want money as well as I.

From Howell's English Proverbs, 1659, p. 21.

Gray's Inn for walks,
Lincoln's Inn for a wall;
The Inner-Temple for a garden,
And the Middle for a hall.

A proverb, no doubt, true in former times, but now only partially correct.

In time of prosperity friends will be plenty,
In time of adversity not one amongst twenty.

From Howell's English Proverbs, p. 20. The expression _not one amongst twenty_ is a generic one for not one out of a large number. It occurs in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, v. 2.

Trim tram,
Like master like man.

From an old manuscript political treatise, dated 1652, entitled a Cat may look at a King.

Beer a bumble,
'Twill kill you
Afore 'twill make ye tumble.

A proverbial phrase applied to very small beer, implying that no quantity of it will cause intoxication.

Lancashire law,
No stakes, no draw!

A saying by which a person, who has lost a verbal wager, avoids payment on the plea of no stakes having been deposited.

As foolish as monkeys till twenty and more,
As bold as a lion till forty-and-four;
As cunning as foxes till three score and ten,
We then become asses, and are no more men.

These proverbial lines were obtained from Lancashire. An early version occurs in Tusser, p. 199.

They that wash on Monday
Have a whole week to dry;
They that wash on Tuesday
Are not so much agye;
They that wash on Wednesday
May get their clothes clean;
They that wash on Thursday
Are not so much to mean;
They that wash on Friday
Wash for their need;
But they that wash on Saturday
Are clarty-paps indeed!

A North country version of these common proverbial lines, given by Mr. Denham, p. 16. _Clarty-paps_ are dirty sluts.

The children of Holland
Take pleasure in making
What the children of England
Take pleasure in breaking.

Alluding to toys, a great number of which are imported into this country from Holland.

VIII.—PLACES AND FAMILIES.

This division, like the last, might be greatly extended by references to Ray and Grose.

ELTON.

The following lines are still remembered by the members of the Elton family:

_Upon Sir Abraham Elt being knighted, and taking
the name of Elton._

In days of yore old Abraham Elt,
When living, had nor sword nor belt;
But now his son, Sir Abraham Elton,
Being knighted, has both sword and belt on.

MS. Harl. Brit. Mus. 7318, p. 206.

NOEL.

N. for a word of deniance,
E. with a figure of L. fiftie,
Spelleth his name that never
Will be thriftie.

MS. Sloane 2497, of the sixteenth century.

COLLINGWOOD.

The Collingwoods have borne the name,
Since in the bush the buck was ta'en;
But when the bush shall hold the buck,
Then welcome faith, and farewell luck.

Alluding to the Collingwood crest of a stag beneath an oak tree.

THE CAULD LAD OF HILTON.

This fairy or goblin was seldom seen, but his gambols were heard nightly in the hall of the great house. He overturned everything in the kitchen after the servants had gone to bed, and was, in short, one of the most mischievous sprites you could imagine. One night, however, the kitchen happened to be left in great confusion, and the goblin, who did everything by contraries, set it completely to rights; and the next morning it was in perfect apple-pie order. We may be quite sure that, after this occurrence, the kitchen was not again made orderly by the servants.

Notwithstanding, however, the service thus nightly rendered by the Cauld Lad, the servants did not like it. They preferred to do their own work without preternatural agency, and accordingly resolved to do their best to drive him from their haunts. The goblin soon understood what was going on, and he was heard in the dead of night to warble the following lines in a melancholy strain:

Wae's me! wae's me!
The acorn is not yet
Fallen from the tree,
That's to grow the wood,
That's to make the cradle,
That's to rock the bairn,
That's to grow to a man,
That's to lay me.

He was, however, deceived in this prediction; for one night, being colder than usual, he complained in moving verse of his condition. Accordingly, on the following evening, a cloak and hood were placed for him near the fire. The servants had unconsciously accomplished their deliverance, for present gifts to fairies, and they for ever disappear. On the next morning the following lines were found inscribed on the wall:

I've taken your cloak, I've taken your hood;
The Cauld Lad of Hilton will do no more good!

A great variety of stories in which fairies are frightened away by presents, are still to be heard in the rural districts of England. Another narrative, by Mr. Longstaffe, relates that on one occasion a woman found her washing and ironing regularly performed for her every night by the fairies. In gratitude to the "good people," she placed green mantles for their acceptance, and the next night the fairies departed, exclaiming—

Now the pixies' work is done!
We take our clothes, and off we run.

Mrs. Bray tells a similar story of a Devonshire pixy, who helped an old woman to spin. One evening she spied the fairy jumping out of her door, and observed that it was very raggedly dressed; so the next day she thought to win the services of the elf further by placing some smart new clothes, as big as those made for a doll, by the side of her wheel. The pixy came, put on the clothes, and clapping its hands with delight, vanished, saying these lines:

Pixy fine, pixy gay,
Pixy now will run away.

Fairies always talk in rhyme. Mr. Allies mentions a Worcestershire fairy legend which says that, upon one occasion, a pixy came to a ploughman in a field, and exclaimed:

Oh, lend a hammer and a nail,
Which we want to mend our pail.

FELTON.

The little priest of Felton,
The little priest of Felton,
He kill'd a mouse within his house,
And ne'er a one to help him.

SIR RALPH ASHTON.

Sweet Jesu, for thy mercy's sake,
And for thy bitter passion,
Save us from the axe of the Tower,
And from Sir Ralph of Ashton.

This rhyme is traditionally known in the North of England, and refers, it is said, to Sir Ralph Ashton, who, in the latter part of the fifteenth century, exercised great severity as vice-constable. The ancient custom of _riding the black lad_ at Ashton-under-Lyne on Easter Monday, which consists of carrying an effigy on horseback through the town, shooting at it, and finally burning it, is alleged to have taken its origin from this individual, who, according to tradition, was shot as he was riding down the principal street. According to another story, the custom commemorates the valiant actions of Thomas Ashton at the battle of Neville's Cross.

PRESTON.

Proud Preston, poor people,
Fine church, and no steeple.

LANCASHIRE.

Little lad, little lad, where wast thou born?
Far off in Lancashire, under a thorn,
Where they sup sour milk in a ram's horn.

LEYLAND.

A village in Lancashire, not far from Chorley. There is, or was sixty years since, a tradition current here, to the effect that the church, on the night following the day in which the building was completed, was removed some distance by supernatural agency, and the astonished inhabitants, on entering the sacred edifice the following morning, found the following metrical command written on a marble tablet on the wall:

Here thou shalt be,
And here thou shalt stand,
And thou shalt be called
The church of Ley-land.

Leyland church stands on an eminence at the east side of the village. The ancient tower is still standing, but the body of the church is modern.

HUGH OF LINCOLN.

He tossed the ball so high, so high,
He tossed the ball so low;
He tossed the ball in the Jew's garden,
And the Jews were all below.

Oh, then out came the Jew's daughter,
She was dressed all in green;
Come hither, come hither, my sweet pretty fellow,
And fetch your ball again.

These lines refer to the well-known story of the murder of a child at Lincoln by a Jewess. The child was playing at ball, and threw it into the Jew's garden. She enticed him into the house to recover it, killed him, and, to conceal her guilt, threw the body into a deep well. According to the ballads on the subject, the spirit of the boy answers his mother's inquiry from the bottom of the well, the bells ring without human aid, and several miracles are accomplished. The above fragment of some old ballad on the subject was given me by Miss Agnes Strickland as current in the country nursery.

CUCKSTONE.

If you would go to a church miswent,
You must go to Cuckstone in Kent.

So said because the church is "very unusual in proportion." Lelandi Itin. ed. 1744, ii. 137.

SAINT LEVAN.

When with panniers astride
A pack-horse can ride
Through St. Levan's stone,
The world will be done.

St. Levan's stone is a great rock in the churchyard of St. Levan, co. Cornwall.

ROLLRIGHT.

The "Druidical" stones at Rollright, Oxfordshire, are said to have been originally a general and his army who were transformed into stones by a magician. The tradition runs that there was a prophecy or oracle which told the general,—

If Long Compton thou canst see,
King of England thou shalt be.

He was within a few yards of the spot whence that town could be observed, when his progress was stopped by the magician's transformation,—

Sink down man, and rise up stone!
King of England thou shalt be none.

The general was transformed into a large stone which stands on a spot from which Long Compton is not visible, but on ascending a slight rise close to it, the town is revealed to view. Roger Gale, writing in 1719, says that whoever dared to contradict this story was regarded "as a most audacious freethinker." It is said that no man could ever count these stones, and that a baker once attempted it by placing a penny loaf on each of them, but somehow or other he failed in counting his own bread. A similar tale is related of Stonehenge.

HAMPDEN.

The following relation is given in the additions to Camden's Britannia, co. Bucks, p. 318. Tradition says the Black Prince, who held Hartwell, had large possessions at Prince's Risborough, where they show part of a wall of his palace, and a field where his horses were turned called Prince's Field, and repeat these lines on a supposed quarrel between him and one of the family of Hampden:

Hamden of Hamden did foregoe
The manors of Tring, Wing, and Ivinghoe,
For striking the Black Prince a blow.

RIBCHESTER.

It is written upon a wall in Rome
Ribchester was as rich as any town in Christendom.

Camden says that Ribchester was famous for its remains of ancient art.

HAWLEY.

Blow the wind high, blow the wind low,
It bloweth good to Hawley's hoe.

These lines are said to relate to one John Hawley, a wealthy merchant of Devon some centuries ago, who was fortunate in his shipping. According to Prince, p. 477, "so was the gentleman's habitation in that town (Dartmouth) call'd the Hoe or Haw."

GOTHAM.

Three wise men of Gotham
Went to sea in a bowl;
And if the bowl had been stronger,
My song would have been longer.

Honour to whom honour is due! Mr. Lower will have it that Sussex is the county of the Gothamites. Gotham is near Pevensey, and many traditionary anecdotes are still current respecting the stupidity of the people of that town. On one occasion, the mayor, having received a letter, was reading it upside down, the messenger very respectfully suggested that he would sooner arrive at the meaning of its contents by reversing its position. "Hold your tongue, sir," replied the chief magistrate; "for while I am mayor of Pemsey, I'll hold the letter which eend uppards I like!"

BUCKLAND.

Buckland and Laverton,
Stanway and Staunton,
Childswickham, Wickamford,
Badsey and Aston.

These are places in Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, and Somersetshire. Staunton is pronounced _Stawn_, and Aston is commonly called _Awn_.

COLEBROOK.

There were three cooks of Colebrook,
And they fell out with our cook;
And all was for a pudding he took
From the three cooks of Colebrook.

GILLING.

Tradition informs us, but leaves us in ignorance as to the nature of the offence offered, that once upon a time, a long time ago, his satanic majesty took dire displeasure at the good folks of Hartforth, for some naughty trick, no doubt played upon him, during one of his visits to that locality; so finding a stone of enormous bulk and weight to the south of Gilling, his majesty, in his rage, raised the ponderous mass in one hand, and uttering this exclamatory couplet,—

Have at thee, Black Hartforth,
But have a care o' Bonny Gilling!

cast it from him with all his strength. It would appear that the devil's vision is rather of a telescopic character; for, as luck would have it, he missed his aim, and the stone, which flew whizzing through the air, at last fell harmless far beyond the former place; and now lies, bearing the impression of his unholy fingers, on the rising ground to the north side of Gatherly Moor.[45]

[Footnote 45: Communicated by Mr. M. A. Denham.]

SHREWSBURY.

The inhabitants of Shropshire, and, it is said, especially Shrewsbury, have an unfortunate habit of misplacing the letter _h_. It is scarcely necessary to say that the failing is by no means peculiar to that county. I am unable to vouch for the antiquity of the following lines on the subject, but they have become proverbial, and are therefore worth giving:

The petition of the letter _H_ to the inhabitants of Shrewsbury, greeting,—

Whereas I have by you been driven,
From house, from home, from hope, from heaven,
And plac'd by your most learn'd society
In exile, anguish, and anxiety,
And used, without one just pretence,
With arrogance and insolence;
I here demand full restitution,
And beg you'll mend your elocution.

To this was returned the following answer from the Shrewsburians:

Whereas we've rescued you, Ingrate,
From handcuff, horror, and from hate,
From hell, from horse-pond, and from halter,
And consecrated you in altar;
And placed you, where you ne'er should be,
In honour and in honesty;
We deem your pray'r a rude intrusion,
And will not mend our elocution.

JACK ROBINSON.

There are few proverbial expressions more common than the saying, "As soon as you can say Jack Robinson," implying excessive rapidity. I have seen the phrase with the name of _Dick Robinson_, but failed to take a memorandum of it. It has since occurred to me that it may have originated in some way or other with the actor of that name mentioned by Ben Jonson. If, however, the following quotation from an "old play," given by Carr, be genuine, this conjecture must fall to the ground:

A warke it ys as easie to be doone,
As 'tys to saye, Jack! robys on.

WRANGHAM.

Swing'em, swang'em, bells at Wrangham,
Three dogs in a string, hang'em, hang'em.

A hit at the Cheshire provincial pronunciation of the _ng_.

LEICESTERSHIRE.

Higham on the hill,
Stoke in the vale;
Wykin for buttermilk,
Hinckley for ale.

BROCKLEY-HILL.

No heart can think, nor tongue can tell,
What lies between Brockley-hill and Penny-well.

Brockley-hill lies near Elstree, in Hertfordshire, and Penny-well is the name of a parcel of closes in the neighbourhood. See Stukeley's Itin. Cur. 1776, i. 118. This distich alludes to the quantity of old coins found near those places.

STANTON DREW.

Stanton Drew,
A mile from Pensford,
Another from Chue.

A Somersetshire proverb, mentioned by Stukeley, in the work above quoted, ii. 169.

SEVERN.

Blessed is the eye,
That's between Severn and Wye.

Ray gives this proverb, but appears to misunderstand it, the first line not alluding to the prospect, but to an islet or ait in the river, though I have not met with the word _eye_ used in this sense. There can, however, be no doubt as to its meaning; probably from A.-S. eá.

SHERSTON MAGNA.

The following very curious observations on this town are extracted from an anonymous MS. in my possession, written forty or fifty years ago. I have never seen the lines in print. Aubrey, in his Natural History of Wiltshire, mentions the plant called _Danes-blood_, and derives the name from a similar circumstance. Some observations on Sherston may be seen in Camden, ed. Gough, i. 96. It is Sceor-stán, where the celebrated battle between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes was fought in the year 1016, and prodigies of valour exhibited by the combatants.

"When a schoolboy, I have often traced the intrenchments at Sherston Magna, which are still visible on the north side of the town, and particularly in a field near the brow of a hill which overlooks a branch of the river Avon, which rises a little below Didmarton; and with other boys have gone in quest of a certain plant in the field where the battle was said to have been fought, which the inhabitants pretended dropt blood when gathered, and called Danesblood, corruptly no doubt for _Danewort_, which was supposed to have sprung from the blood of the Danes slain in that battle. Among other memorials, the statue of a brave warrior, vulgarly called Rattlebone, but whose real name I could never learn, is still standing upon a pedestal on the east side of the church-porch, as I've been lately informed, where I saw it above fifty years ago: of whose bravery, almost equal to that of Withrington, many fabulous stories are told. One, in particular, like some of the Grecian fables of old, built upon the resemblance his shield bears to the shape of a tile-stone, which he is said to have placed over his stomach after it had been ripped up in battle, and by that means maintained the field; whilst the following rude verses are said to have been repeated by the king by way of encouragement:

Fight on, Rattlebone,
And thou shalt have Sherstone;
If Sherstone will not do,
Then Easton Grey and Pinkney too."

NORTH ACRE.

The Lord Dacre
Was slain in North Acre.

North Acre is or was the name of the spot where Lord Dacre perished at the battle of Towton in 1461. He is said to have been shot by a boy out of an elder tree.

BELLASIS.

[Communicated by Mr. Longstaffe.]

Johnny tuth' Bellas daft was thy poll,
When thou changed Bellas for Henknoll.

This saying, as given by Surtees, is still remembered near Bellasis, and is preferable to Hutchinson's version of it from the east window of the north transept of St. Andrew's Auckland church, where he says, "are remains of an inscription painted on the glass; the date appears 1386; beneath the inscription are the arms of Bellasys, and in a belt round them the following words:

Bellysys Belysys dafe was thy sowel,
When exchanged Belysys for Henknowell."

Collins (followed by Hutchinson), who gives the proverb as—

Belasise, Belassis, daft was thy nowle,
When thou gave Bellassis for Henknowle,

connects it with a grant dated 1380, from John de Belasye to the convent of Durham, of his lands in Wolveston, in exchange for the Manor of Henknoll. But Bellasyse is not even within the Manor of Wolveston, and, in fact, the Manor of Bellasye was held by the Prior in 1361; and we can only account for the proverb by supposing that, at a former period, Bellasyse had been exchanged for lands, but not the manor of Henknoll. The legend dates the matter in crusading times, and is chivalric in the extreme. John of Bellasis, minded to take up the cross, and fight in Holy Land, found his piety sorely let and hindered by his attachment to the green pastures and deep meadows of his ancestors. With resolution strong, he exchanged them with the Church of Durham, for Henknoll, near Auckland. He went to fight, but lived it seems to return and repent his rash bargain. I descend by one step, from the sublime to the ridiculous, to mention how oddly more recent characters are wound round those of olden time, for a popular notion is that the Red-Cross Knight had enormous teeth, and was passionately addicted to "race-horses!" Children, moreover, have a dark saying when they leap off anything:

Bellasay, Bellasay, what time of day?
One o'clock, two o'clock, three and away!

Miss Bellasyse, the heiress of Brancepeth, died for love of Robert Shafto, of Whitworth, whose portrait at Whitworth represents him as very young and handsome, with _yellow_ hair. He was the favorite candidate in the election of 1791, when he was popularly called Bonny Bobby Shafto; and the old song of the older Bobby, who, it seems, was also "bright and fair, combing down his _yellow_ hair," was revived with the addition of—

Bobby Shafto's looking out,
All his ribbons flew about,
All the ladies gave a shout—
Hey, for Bobby Shafto!

The most ancient verses of the old song seem to be—

Bobby Shafto's gone to sea,
Silver buckles at his knee;
He'll come back and marry me,
Bonny Bobby Shafto.

Bobby Shafto's bright and fair,
Combing down his yellow hair;
He's my ain for evermair,
Bonny Bobby Shafto.

An apocryphal verse says,—

Bobby Shafto's getten a bairn,
For to dangle on his arm—
On his arm and on his knee;
Bobby Shafto loves me.

KELLOE.

John Lively, Vicar of Kelloe,
Had seven daughters and never a fellow.

An equivocal rhyme of the bishopric, which may either mean that the parson of the sixteenth century had no son, or that he had no equal in learning, &c. He certainly, however, mentions no son in his will, in which he leaves to his daughter Elizabeth, his best gold ring _with a death's head in it_ (Compare Love's Labour Lost, v. 2), and seventeen yards of white cloth for curtains of a bed, and to his daughter Mary his silver seal of arms, his gimald ring, and black gold ring. Another version of the proverb reads "_six_ daughters," and indeed _seven_ is often merely a conventional number.

ROSEBERRY-TOPPING.

"Not far from Gisborough is Ounsberry-hill, or Roseberry-topping, which mounts aloft and makes a great shew at a distance, serving unto sailors for a mark of direction, and to the neighbour inhabitants for a prognostication; for as often as the head of it hath its cloudy cap on, there commonly follows rain, whereupon they have a proverbial rhyme,

When Roseberry-topping wears a cap,
Let Cleveland then beware a clap.

Near to the top of it, out of a huge rock, there flows a spring of water, medicinable for diseased eyes; and from thence there is a most delightful prospect upon the valleys below to the hills above."—Brome's Travels, 8vo. Lond. 1700.

LINCOLN.

"As for the town, though it flourished mightily for some years together after the Norman Conquest, by reason of a staple for wooll and other commodities, setled here by King Edward the Third; yet it met still with some calamities or other, which hindred its growth and eclipsed its grandeur, for it had its share of sufferings, both by fire and water, in King Stephen's days, about which time, it seems, though the king had at first been conquered and taken prisoner, yet he afterward entred into the city in triumph, with his crown upon his head, to break the citizens of a superstitious opinion they held, that no king could possibly enter into that city after such a manner, but some great disaster or other would befal him; but neither did it then, or by the barons' wars afterwards, sustain half the damages which of late years it hath received from the devouring hands of time, who hath wrought its downfal, and from a rich and populous city hath reduced it almost to the lowest ebb of fortune; and of fifty churches, which were all standing within one or two centuries, hath scarce left fifteen; so that the old proverbial rhymes (which go current amongst them) seem so far to have something of verity in them:

Lincoln was, and London is,
And York shall be
The fairest city of the three."—Ibid.

SKIDDAW.

"After we had passed these borders we arrived again safe in our own native soil, within the precincts of Cumberland, which, like the rest of the northern counties, hath a sharp piercing air; the soil is fertile for the most part both with corn and cattle, and in some parts hereof with fish and fowl; here are likewise several minerals, which of late have been discovered; not only mines of copper, but some veins of gold and silver, as we were informed, have been found; and of all the shires we have, it is accounted the best furnished with the Roman antiquities. Nor is it less renowned for its exceeding high mountains; for, beside the mountain called Wrye-nose, on the top of which, near the highway side, are to be seen three shire-stones within a foot of each other, one in this county, another in Westmoreland, and a third in Lancashire. There are three other hills, Skiddaw, Lanvalin, and Casticand, very remarkable. Skiddaw riseth up with two mighty high heads, like Parnassus, and beholds Scruffel Hill, which is in Annandale, in Scotland; and accordingly as mists arise or fall upon these heads, the people thereby prognosticate of the change of weather, singing this rhime:

If Skiddaw have a cap,
Scruffel wotts full of that.

And there goes also this usual by-word concerning the height, as well of this hill as of the other two:

Skiddaw, Lanvellin, and Casticand,
Are the highest hills in all England."—Ibid.

INGLEBOROUGH.

"Here are three great hills, not far distant asunder, seeming to be as high as the clouds, which are Ingleborow, Penigent, and Pendle, on the top of which grows a peculiar plant called cloudsberry, as though it came out of the clouds. This hill formerly did the country much harm, by reason of an extraordinary deal of water gushing out of it, and is now famous for an infallible sign of rain whensoever the top of it is covered with a mist; and by reason of the excessive height for which they are all three celebrated, there is this proverbial rhime goes current amongst them:

Ingleborow, Pendle, and Penigent,
Are the highest hills betwixt Scotland and Trent."—Ibid.

THE KIRBY FEIGHT.

Eighty-eight wor Kirby feight,
When nivver a man was slain;
They yatt ther meaat, an drank ther drink,
An sae com merrily heaam agayn.

After the abdication of James the Second, in the year 1688, a rumour was spread in the North of England that he was lying off the Yorkshire coast, ready to make a descent with a numerous army from France, in hopes of regaining his lost throne. This report gave the Lord Lieutenant of Westmoreland an opportunity of showing his own and the people's attachment to the new order of things; he accordingly called out the _posse comitatus_, comprising all able-bodied men from sixteen to sixty. The order was obeyed with alacrity; and the inhabitants met armed in a field called Miller's-close, near Kendal, from whence they marched to Kirby Lonsdale. This historical fact explains the above popular rhyme, the meaning of which is, at this day, perhaps not generally understood.—West. and Cumb. Dial. 89.

THORNTON.

At the Westgate came Thornton in
With a hap, a halfpenny, and a lambskin.

A Newcastle distich relating to Roger Thornton, a wealthy merchant, and a great benefactor to that town. A _hap_ is a coarse coverlet of any kind.

ISLE OF MAN.

All the bairns unborn will rue the day
That the Isle of Man was sold away;
And there's ne'er a wife that loves a dram,
But what will lament for the Isle of Man.

EARSDON.

Hartley and Hallowell, a' ya' bonnie lassie,
Fair Seaton-Delaval, a' ya';
Earsdon stands on a hill, a' ya',
Near to the Billy-mill, a' ya'.

IX.—SUPERSTITION-RHYMES.

Although the spread of education has doubtlessly weakened in an extraordinary degree the hold which superstition formerly maintained on the mind of the public, yet vestiges of the more innocent portions of superstitious belief are still in considerable repute amongst the lower orders, and may be found in all their force in many of the rural districts. It may be a question how far a complete eradication of these would benefit the cause of religion and morality, treason though it be in these times to doubt the efficacy of argumentative education. But all of us cannot be philosophers; and need we reprove a pretty village maiden for plucking the even-ash or four-leaved clover? The selfish tendencies of the age, in their opposition to every action which partakes of poetry or romantic belief, will effect their mission without the aid of the cynic.

CHARM-RHYMES.

The subject of rural charms, many of which are lineal descendants from those used by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, is one of great interest and curiosity; and it were much to be wished that a complete collection of them were formed. The following one is taken from a manuscript of the time of Queen Elizabeth; the others are for the most part still in use.

_This charme shall be said at night, or against
night, about the place or feild, or about beasts
without feild, and whosoever cometh in, he goeth
not out for certaine._

On three crosses of a tree,
Three dead bodyes did hang;
Two were theeves,
The third was Christ,
On whom our beleife is.
Dismas and Gesmas;
Christ amidst them was;
Dismas to heaven went,
Gesmas to heaven was sent.
Christ that died on the roode,
For Marie's love that by him stood,
And through the vertue of his blood,
Jesus save us and our good,
Within and without,
And all this place about!
And through the vertue of his might,
Lett noe theefe enter in this night
Noe foote further in this place
That I upon goe,
But at my bidding there be bound
To do all things that I bid them do!
Starke be their sinewes therewith,
And their lives mightles,
And their eyes sightles!
Dread and doubt
Them enclose about,
As a wall wrought of stone;
So be the crampe in the ton (_toes_):
Crampe and crookeing,
And tault in their tooting,
The might of the Trinity
Save these goods and me,
In the name of Jesus, holy benedicité,
All about our goods bee,
Within and without,
And all place about!

_Warts._—Whoever will charm away a wart must take a pin and go to an ash-tree. He then _crosses_ the wart with the pin three times, and, after each crossing, repeats:

Ash-tree, ashen-tree,
Pray buy this wart of me!

After which he sticks the pin in the tree, and the wart soon disappears, and grows on the tree instead. This must be done secretly. I need scarcely observe that the ash is sacred amongst all the Teutonic and Scandinavian nations.

_Another._—Take a bean-shell, and rub the wart with it; then bring the bean-shell under an ash-tree, and repeat:

As this bean-shell rots away,
So my wart shall soon decay!

This also must be done secretly.

_The Hiccup._

Hickup, hickup, go away,
Come again another day:
Hickup, hickup, when I bake,
I'll give to you a butter-cake.

_The Ague._—Said on St. Agnes's eve, sometimes up the chimney, by the oldest female in the family:

Tremble and go!
First day shiver and burn:
Tremble and quake!
Second day shiver and learn:
Tremble and die!
Third day never return.

_Cattle._—Reginald Scot relates that an old woman who cured the diseases of cattle, and who always required a penny and a loaf for her services, used these lines for the purpose:

My loaf in my lap,
My penny in my purse;
Thou art never the better,
And I am never the worse.

The same writer gives a curious anecdote of a priest who, on one occasion, went out a-nights with his companions, and stole all the eels from a miller's weir. The poor miller made his complaint to the same priest, who desired him to be quiet, for he would so denounce the thief and his confederates by bell, book, and candle, they should have small joy of their fish. Accordingly, on the following Sunday, during the service, he pronounced the following sentences to the congregation:

All you that have stol'n the miller's eels,
Laudate Dominum de cælis;
And all they that have consented thereto,
Benedicamus Domino.

"So," says he, "there is sauce for your eels, my masters!"

"An old woman came into an house at a time whenas the maid was churning of butter, and having laboured long, and could not make her butter come, the old woman told the maid what was wont to be done when she was a maid, and also in her mother's young time, that if it happened their butter would not come readily, they used a charm to be said over it whilst yet it was in beating, and it would come straightways, and that was this:

Come, butter, come,
Come, butter, come;
Peter stands at the gate,
Waiting for a buttered cake;
Come, butter, come!

This, said the old woman, being said three times, will make your butter come, for it was taught my mother by a learned churchman in Queen Marie's days; whenas churchmen had more cunning, and could teach people many a trick that our ministers now-a-days know not."—Ady's Candle in the Dark, 1656, p. 59.

"There be twenty several ways," says Scot, 1584, "to make your butter come, which for brevity I omit, as to bind your churn with a rope, to thrust therein a red-hot spit, &c.; but your best remedy and surest way is to look well to your dairy-maid or wife, that she neither eat up the cream, nor sell away your butter."

_Effusion of Blood._—From Worcestershire.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem,
Baptized in the river Jordan;
The water was wild and wood,
But he was just and good;
God spake, and the water stood,
And so shall now thy blood.

Charms were formerly always used when wounds were attempted to be cured. So in the old ballad of Tommy Potts:

Tom Potts was but a serving-man,
But yet he was a doctor good;
He bound his handkerchief on the wound,
And with some words he staunched the blood.

_Bed-charm._—The following is one of the most common rural charms that are in vogue. Boys are taught to repeat it instead of a prayer:

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless the bed that I lay on;
Four corners to my bed,
Four angels round my head,
One at head and one at feet,
And two to keep my soul asleep!

There are many variations of it. Ady, in his Candle in the Dark, 1656, p. 58, gives the first two lines as having been used by an old woman in the time of Queen Mary.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on!
All the four corners round about,
When I get in, when I get out!

The two following distiches were obtained from Lancashire, but I cannot profess to explain them, unless indeed they were written by the Puritans to ridicule the above:

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Hold the horse that I leap on!

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Take a stick and lay upon!

_Burn._—The following charm, repeated three times, was used by an old woman in Sussex, within the last forty years:

Two angels from the North,
One brought fire, the other brought frost:
Out fire!
In frost!
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Pepys has recorded this, with a slight variation, in his Diary, vol. ii. p. 416.

_Thorn._—This rural charm for a thorn was obtained from Yorkshire:

Unto the Virgin Mary our Saviour was born,
And on his head he wore a crown of thorn;
If you believe this true and mind it well,
This hurt will never fester nor swell!

The following one is given by Lord Northampton in his Defensative against the Poyson of supposed Prophecies, 1583, as having been used by Mother Joane of Stowe:

Our Lord was the fyrst man
That ever thorne prickt upon;
It never blysted, nor it never belted,
And I pray God nor this not may.

And Pepys, ii. 415, gives another:

Christ was of a virgin born,
And he was pricked with a thorn;
And it did neither bell nor swell,
And I trust in Jesus this never will.

_Toothache._—A very common one in the North of England, but I do not remember to have seen it in print.

Peter was sitting on a marble-stone,
And Jesus passed by;
Peter said, "my Lord, my God,
How my tooth doth ache!"
Jesus said, "Peter art whole!
And whoever keeps these words for my sake
Shall never have the tooth-ache!"[46]

[Footnote 46: It is a fact that within the last
few years the following ignorant copy of this
charm was used by a native of Craven, recorded by
Carr, ii. 264, and I have been informed on
credible authority that the trade of selling
efficacies of this kind is far from obsolete in
the remote rural districts:

"Ass Sant Petter Sat at the Geats of Jerusalem
our blesed Lord and Sevour Jesus Crist Pased
by and Sead, What Eleth thee hee Sead Lord My
Teeth Ecketh he Sead arise and folow Mee and
Thy Teeth shall Never Eake Eney Moor. fiat
+ fiat + fiat +."]

Aubrey gives another charm for this complaint, copied out of one of Ashmole's manuscripts:

Mars, hurs, abursa, aburse;
Jesu Christ, for Mary's sake,
Take away this tooth-ache!

_Against an evil tongue._ From Aubrey, 1696, p. 111.—"Take _unguentum populeum_ and vervain, and hypericon, and put a red-hot iron into it. You must anoint the backbone, or wear it on your breast. This is printed in Mr. W. Lilly's Astrology. Mr. H. C. hath try'd this receipt with good success.

"Vervain and dill
Hinders witches from their will."

_Cramp._—From Pepys' Diary, ii. 415:

Cramp, be thou faintless,
As our Lady was sinless,
When she bare Jesus.

_Sciatica._—The patient must lie on his back on the bank of a river or brook of water, with a straight staff by his side between him and the water, and must have the following words repeated over him—

Bone-shave right,
Bone-shave straight;
As the water runs by the stave,
Good for bone-shave.

The _bone-shave_ is a Devonshire term for the sciatica. See the Exmoor Scolding, ed. 1839, p. 2.

_Night-mare._—The following charm is taken from Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, p. 87:

S. George, S. George, our ladies knight,
He walkt by daie, so did he by night.
Untill such time as he her found,
He hir beat and he hir bound,
Untill hir troth she to him plight,
She would not come to hir that night.

_Sore eyes._—From the same work, p. 246:

The diuell pull out both thine eies,
And etish in the holes likewise.

_For rest._—From the same work, p. 260:

In nomine Patris, up and downe,
Et Filii et Spiritus Sancti upon my crowne,
Crux Christi upon my brest;
Sweete ladie, send me eternall rest.

_Stopping of Blood._—From the same work, p. 273:

In the bloud of Adam death was taken +
In the bloud of Christ it was all to-shaken +
And by the same bloud I doo thee charge
That thou doo runne no longer at large.

This charm continued in use long after the publication of Scot's work. A version of it, slightly altered, is given in the Athenian Oracle, 1728, i. 158, as having been used by a country empyryc.

_Evil Spirits._—"When I was a boy," says Aubrey, MS. Lansd. 231, "a charme was used for (I thinke) keeping away evill spirits, which was to say thrice in a breath—

"Three blew beanes in a blew bladder,
Rattle, bladder, rattle."

These lines are quoted by Zantippa in Peele's Old Wives Tale, 1595.

BUCKEE BENE.

Buckee, Buckee, biddy Bene,
Is the way now fair and clean?
Is the goose ygone to nest,
And the fox ygone to rest?
Shall I come away?

These curious lines are said by Devonshire children when they go through any passages in the dark, and are said to be addressed to Puck or Robin Goodfellow as a method of asking permission to trace them. Biddy bene, A.-S. _biddan_, to ask or pray, _bén_, a supplication or entreaty. Buckee, possibly a corruption of Puck.

THE OX.

In Herefordshire, on the eve of Twelfth-day, the best ox, white or spotted, has a cake placed on his left horn; the men and girls of the farm-house being present, drink out of a silver tankard to him, repeating this verse—

We drink to thee and thy white horn,
Pray God send master a good crop of corn,
Wheat, rye, and barley, and all sorts of grain:
If alive at the next time, I'll hail thee again!

The animal is then sprinkled with the libation. This makes him toss his head up and down, and if, in so doing, the cake be thrown forwards, it is a good omen; if backwards, the contrary. Sir S. Meyrick, Trans. Brit. Arch. Assoc. Glouc. 1848, p. 128, appears to consider this custom a relic of the ancient Pagan religion.

LOVE DIVINATIONS.

_Butter-dock._—The seeds of butterdock must be sowed by a young unmarried woman half an hour before sunrise on a Friday morning, in a lonesome place. She must strew the seeds gradually on the grass, saying these words—

I sow, I sow!
Then, my own dear,
Come here, come here,
And mow and mow!

The seed being scattered, she will see her future husband mowing with a scythe at a short distance from her. She must not be frightened, for, if she says "Have mercy on me," he will immediately vanish. This method is said to be infallible, but it is looked upon as a bold, desperate, and presumptuous undertaking.

_True-love._—Two young unmarried girls must sit together in a room by themselves, from twelve o'clock at night till one o'clock the next morning, without speaking a word. During this time each of them must take as many hairs from her head as she is years old, and, having put them into a linen cloth with some of the herb true-love, as soon as the clock strikes one, she must burn every hair separately, saying—

I offer this my sacrifice
To him most precious in my eyes;
I charge thee now come forth to me,
That I this minute may thee see.

Upon which her first husband will appear, and walk round the room, and then vanish. The same event happens to both the girls, but neither see the other's lover.

Gerard says of the herb true-love or moonwort, p. 328, that "witches do wonders withall, who say that it will loose locks, and make them to fall from the feete of horses that grase where it doth growe."

A charm-divination on the 6th of October, St. Faith's day, is still in use in the North of England. A cake of flour, spring water, salt and sugar, is made by three girls, each having an equal hand in the composition. It is then baked in a Dutch oven, silence being strictly preserved, and turned thrice by each person. When it is well baked, it must be divided into three equal parts, and each girl must cut her share into nine pieces, drawing every piece through a wedding-ring which had been borrowed from a woman who has been married seven years. Each girl must eat her pieces of cake while she is undressing, and repeat the following verses:

O good St. Faith, be kind to-night,
And bring to me my heart's delight;
Let me my future husband view,
And be my visions chaste and true.

All three must then get into one bed, with the ring suspended by a string to the head of the couch. They will then dream of their future husbands, or if perchance one of them is destined to lead apes, she will dream of wandering by herself over crags and mountains.

On the 28th of the same month, another divination is practised by the paring of an apple, which is taken by a girl in the right hand, who recites the following lines, standing in the middle of a room—

St. Simon and Jude, on you I intrude,
By this paring I hold to discover,
Without any delay, to tell me this day
The first letter of my own true lover.

She must then turn round three times, casting the paring over her left shoulder, and it will form the first letter of her husband's name; but if the paring breaks into many pieces so that no letter is discernible, she will never marry. The pips of the apple must then be placed in cold spring water, and eaten by the girl; but for what further object my deponent sayeth not.

A very singular divination practised at the period of the harvest-moon is thus described in an old chap-book. When you go to bed, place under your pillow a prayer-book open at the part of the matrimonial service, "With this ring I thee wed;" place on it a key, a ring, a flower, and a sprig of willow, a small heart-cake, a crust of bread, and the following cards:—the ten of clubs, nine of hearts, ace of spades, and the ace of diamonds. Wrap all these in a thin handkerchief of gauze or muslin, and on getting into bed, cross your hands, and say—

Luna, every woman's friend,
To me thy goodness condescend;
Let me this night in visions see
Emblems of my destiny.

If you dream of storms, trouble will betide you; if the storm ends in a fine calm, so will your fate; if of a ring or the ace of diamonds, marriage; bread, an industrious life; cake, a prosperous life; flowers, joy; willow, treachery in love; spades, death; diamonds, money; clubs, a foreign land; hearts, illegitimate children; keys, that you will rise to great trust and power, and never know want; birds, that you will have many children; and geese, that you will marry more than once.

In Dorsetshire, the girls have a method of divination with their shoes for obtaining dreams of their future husbands. At night, on going to bed, a girl places her shoes at right angles to one another, in the form of a T, saying—

Hoping this night my true love to see,
I place my shoes in the form of a T.

On St. Luke's day, says Mother Bunch, take marigold flowers, a sprig of marjoram, thyme, and a little wormwood; dry them before a fire, rub them to powder; then sift it through a fine piece of lawn, and simmer it over a slow fire, adding a small quantity of virgin honey, and vinegar. Anoint yourself with this when you go to bed, saying the following lines three times, and you will dream of your partner "that is to be:"

St. Luke, St. Luke, be kind to me,
In dreams let me my true love see.

If a girl desires to obtain this information, let her seek for a green peascod in which there are full nine peas, and write on a piece of paper—

Come in, my dear,
And do not fear;

which paper she must inclose in the peascod, and lay it under the door. The first person who comes into the room will be her husband. Does Shakespeare allude to some notion of this kind by the wooing of a peascod in As You Like It, ii. 4?

ST. AGNES' NIGHT.

"The women have several magical secrets handed down to them by tradition, as on St. Agnes' night, 21st January. Take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another, saying a Pater Noster, sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream of him or her you shall marry. You must lie in another county, and knit the left garter about the right-legg'd stockin (let the other garter and stockin alone), and as you rehearse these following verses, at every comma knit a knot:

This knot I knit
To know the thing I know not yet:
That I may see
The man that shall my husband be,
How he goes and what he wears,
And what he does all the days.

Accordingly in your dream you will see him, if a musician with a lute or other instrument, if a scholar, with a book, &c. A gentlewoman that I knew confessed in my hearing, that she used this method, and dreamt of her husband whom she had never seen. About two or three years after, as she was on Sunday at church, up pops a young Oxonian in the pulpit. She cries out presently to her sister, 'This is the very face of the man that I saw in my dream.'"—Aubrey's Miscellanies, ed. 1696, p. 105.

On St. Agnes' day, take a sprig of rosemary, and another of thyme, and sprinkle them thrice with water. In the evening put one in each shoe, placing a shoe on each side of the bed, and when you retire to rest, say the following lines, and your future husband will appear "visible to sight:"

St. Agnes, that's to lovers kind,
Come ease the trouble of my mind.

KALE.

The young women of some districts in the North of England have a method of divination by _kale_ or broth, which is used for the purpose of learning who are to be their future husbands. The plan followed is this. The maiden at bedtime stands _on something on which she never stood before_, holding a pot of cold kale in her hand, and repeating the following lines. She then drinks nine times, goes to bed backwards, and of course dreams of her partner:

Hot kale or cold kale, I drink thee;
If ever I marry a man, or a man marry me,
I wish this night I may him see,
To-morrow may him ken
In church, fair, or market,
Above all other men.

On Valentine's day take two bay leaves, sprinkle them with rose-water, and lay them across your pillow in the evening. When you go to bed, put on a clean nightgown turned wrong side outwards, and, lying down, say these words softly to yourself:

Good Valentine, be kind to me,
In dreams let me my true love see.

After this go to sleep as soon as you can, and you will see in a dream your future husband.

Schoolboys have several kinds of divination-verses on going to bed, now repeated "more in mock than mark," but no doubt originating in serious belief—

Go to bed first,
A golden purse;
Go to bed second,
A golden pheasant;
Go to bed third,
A golden bird.