Forty years in a moorland parish; reminiscences and researches in Danby in Cleveland

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m

THE GIFT OF

T. F. CRANE,

. Professor of the Romance Languages and Literatures.

A.:a^.53..l^ : ajaJTC-i-E^

n. .,„ JEHI?«" ""'™"l*y Library
DA 670.C63A87 1891

^°ffl{iiiYi?mrjS.„ P.,.^. Tioorland parish

3 1924 028 026 254

The original of tliis book is in
tine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028026254

FOETY YEARS

IN A

MOORLAND PARISH

FOETY YEARS Lit
MOORLAND PARISH

REMINISCENCES AND RESEARCHES IN
DANBY IN CLEVELAND

BY

REV. J. C. ATKINSON, D.C.L.

mOUMBESf'OP THE PAEISH

AUTHOR OF
* A HISTORY OF CLEVELAND,' ' QLOSSABT OF THE CLEVELAND DIALECT,' ETC.

EDITOR OF

'the WHITBY CHARTULARY,' 'THE RIEVAULX CHARTULARY,'

'the FURNESS COUCHER BOOK,' ETC.

WITH MAPS

HoTilron
MACMILLAN AND CO.

AND NBW YOEK
1891

TO
MT LOVING FRIEND

Q. A.U.

BUT FOR WHOM THESE PAGES WOTJLD
NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN

viii Preface

since reverently and lovingly consigned by himself to
their silent homes in the churchyard.

Personal as such reminiscences as these last must
be, the others are scarcely less so, albeit in another
sense. There might be no palpable companionship in
all those hours and leagues of daily walking ; but there
was perpetually so distinct a personality in the matters
which passed in succession through the mind, that the
effect was rather one of conversation than of solitary
reflection. Sixty miles from any coUeotion of books
worthy to be named a library, with no neighbours,
clerical or otherwise, who could offer intellectual
sympathy, the need for something to converse with in
those long hours ■ — half of them spent on the lonely
moors — was constant. And some of the " conversations "
thus held are recorded in the pages which follow.

Some of the views put forward three -and -twenty
years ago in the Cleveland Glossary, as well as previously
elsewhere, have been contested or made light of, but
seem to be generally, even if sometimes tacitly, admitted
now. Others are advanced below which may quite
possibly be questioned in their turn ; but, as before,
they are advanced only for what they are worth. Let
the thoughtful reader decide.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY
Intkodttctory ....
My Introdttction to Danby

PAGE

3

37

FOLKLORE

SUEVITALS OF "FaIEY," "DwARF," " HoB " NOTIONS

Evidences of Latent Faith in Archaic Folk-Taxes

The Hob and other Matters, and how eboeivbd in the

Folk's Mind .....
The "Witch not always or necessarily an Impostor
The "Witch : Local Legends of her Doings, and Illus

trations
"Witch Stories and "Witch Antidotes .
The "Witch and "Witch Antidotes (contirmed)
The "Wise Man .....
The "Wise Man {continued)
Bee Customs and Notions

51
58

64
74

81

91

97

103

108

126

ANTIQUARIAN
Barrows — Earthworks — British "V"illages

Bareow-Digging .
Barrow-Digging {continued)

137
145

Contents

Eakthwokks

British Villages, so called

FAQE

153

161

DESCRIPTIVE AND GEOLOGICAL

Desokiptivb and Geological ...
Dbsoeiptite and Geological {continued)

181
194

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

Weddings — Bumals — Halikelds and the Mbll-Suppek-
The Dog-Whipper

Dales "Weddings and their Accompaniments
Burials and their Accompaniments .
Burials and their Accompaniments
Holy-Wells, Mell-Supper, Harvest-Home
The Dog-Whippee

205
213
222
234
246

HISTORICAL

Historical .....

An Old Oak Chest and some of its Disclosures

253
295

MISCELLANEOUS

Notes on Natural History : chiefly Ornithology
Ornithology (continued) . . . . .

Winter in a Moorland Parish
Moorland Scenery in Winter
Lost on the Mook

311
328
348
364
376

Contents

XI

APPENDICES

Appendix A. Inclostjee without Aot of Inclosuee

Appendix B. Geological Consideeations .

Appendix C. Glances at a Mooeland Parish (as part of
A District) feom a pee-Domesdat Point of View

Appendix D. The Site of the Ancient Vill of Daney

Appendix E. Attempt to clbae vv the Difficulties in the
Domesday Enteies touching Danby

Appendix F. Touching Robert de Thweng .

Appendix G. Black Land ....

INDEX ......

PAGE

387
395

401
429

434
444
445

453

ILLUSTRATIONS

Castleton Bow Bridge .....

Danby Castle Bkidse. Built circa 1386 . . Page 291

MAPS

Danby in Cleveland
Paeish of Danby

CORRIGENDA

Page 5, line 14, after 'because' insert 'almost.'

Page 61, after 'friend,' in the note, insert 'William Robinson, and'.

Page 80, line VI, for ' class of phase ' read ' class or phase.'

Page 227, third line from the bottom, for ' Scandinavial ' read

'Scandinavian.'

Page 257, last line but one, for 'inferior ' read 'interior.'

Page 295, ninth line from the bottom, for ' twenty-four ' read

'twenty-three.'

INTRODUCTOKY

INTEODUCTORY

"Forty years in a Moorland Parish." Forty years is a
long time to have spent anywhere, and I have been nearly
forty -five years in this parish ; and during the whole of that
time it is not simply that I have been learning something more
yearly about the place or its people, or its characteristics, but
that, for long spaces together sometimes, I have been almost
(Hke Cato) quotidie addiscens.

Much that I have thus learnt may be of little or no interest
to any besides myself. Much of it might not be worth repro-
ducing under any circumstances ; and it may truly be added
that none of it would have been reproduced in any form had
it not been that strong pressure has at divers times been put
upon me.

The publication of the Cleveland Grlossary, followed as it
was by that of the major part of a History of Cleveland, made
my name known to many who otherwise would never have
heard of my existence, and of these several from time to time
paid- me visits during their stay at Whitby or Scarborough
(the former especially), or sought my acquaintance in some
other way. By a considerable proportion of these, after I
had been handing out to them from my " stores, things new
and old " — facts, theories, investigations, conclusions, or what
not — the question has been asked in some form or other, but
literally again and again, " Is that in print? " And up to two
or three years ago I could and did not only make answer,
" No," but add besides, "Nor ever likely to be."

4 Introductory

However, about that time since, I was induced to alter such
decision, and the following pages are the issue of the change.

If it had been an autobiography I had undertaken the task
would have been a comparatively easy one. There would have
been the string of time, in its ordered flow of sequence, to
connect the varied pages of the records of my life and experi-
ences. But much of what follows has been thought out or
worked out at intervals of many months, and even, in some
cases, years, and there is no possible bond of tangible connection
between one section or subject and another. Things that were
matters of speculation twenty years ago, which became matters
of conviction, or even certainty, ten years later, are here
recorded as matters of knowledge now ; and the records have
to stand with as little mutual connection or interdependence
as the articles in a magazine. They may be compared with a
score or two of old coins which were handed over to me some
ten or fifteen years ago, some Eoman, some Saxon, and the rest
more recent English, a few silver, the rest copper, the only
trace of connection between them being that they were con-
tained in the same small metal box.

But forty-five years, it may be said yet once again, is a very
long time, and surely the changes in the place, in men and in
manners, must have been considerable, and more or less note-
worthy, and there can be but little difficulty in giving details
of them in sequence, if not in actual successional order.

Yet even here the annalist is not without his difficulties ;
for the changes are less striking, and lend themselves less to
description, than the permanent stability of not a few of the
habits and usages of the Dales dwellers. It is true, the young
people have learnt to dance within the last twenty years or so,
and dance with great enjoyment and quite proportionate vigour.
It is equally true that the young women (rather remarkable
always for their prevailing comeliness) have learned, like other
young women in other places, to study the fashions of female
dress somewhat more than was customary forty years ago. It

Old Customs still unchanged $

is true also that, in the language of a leader in the Standard of
only yesterday's date (24th September 1890), "much has been
quietly and unostentatiously done by the Church in the dis-
charge of her mission to elevate the tone of society and to raise
the standard of comfort as well as of conduct among the people,"
and that it is many years indeed since I heard the remark,
once so common, made about the mother of an illegitimate
child, "Ay, poor gell, she's had a misfortin; but she's nane
the warse for't." And it is quite equally true that hereditary
leather breeches are gone out of fashion, and that drab breeches
and continuations are no longer looked upon as the de rigueur
clothing for the lower limbs of " t'priest," or, as the personage
in question is more usually termed, " our parson." Neither do
the old folks call me " bairn " any longer ; but it is because all
those who knew me forty-five years ago 'are laid in their last
beds, and I am too old myself for the application of that some-
thing more than friendly vocative case, although there were
some still who called me so years after I was turned of sixty.
But still there is a singular amount of old and unchanged
custom, habit, feeling, among us. It is not long since that I
was asked by some who proposed to gather a large party of the
Dales folks together for objects all of a social nature, "But will it
do to ask masters and mistresses and their farm-servants to meet
one another ? " My answer was an unhesitating " Certainly ";
and I went on to illustrate rather than explain my dictum by
a descriptive reference to the universal custom of the country.
The master — the farmer himself, whether he be tenant-farmer
or yeoman — and his wife, their children (whether under age or
adult), and the servants, male and female (the large propor-
tion of them engaged in the farm-work), all Hve together.
They sit down to the same table and partake of the same dish.
At least, with one exception : the mistress prepares the food —
in the local vernacular, " mak's t'meat " — sets it on the table,
and in one word "waits," getting her own meal afterwards.
When the labours of the day are over, all gather in the same

Introductory

room, kitchen, or house, or whatever other term may be used ;
and in a truer sense than as the word is customarily used, they
are all " one family."

Nay, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred the masters
and the mistresses, the male servants on the farm, and the
female workers in the house, the dairy, the fields, all went to
the same school and imbibed the same amount of the three
R's at the lips of the same teacher. I hardly think that during
all my forty-five years of residence and intimate acquaintance
with the households throughout the parish I have known any-
thing like twenty-five instances in which boys or girls be-
longing to the farmers' families have been sent to schools other
than, or over and above, the village school. True, it has been
a good one, and " under inspection " for forty-four years ; and
in the days when Blue Books were issued bearing on the char-
acter and condition of the schools of the kingdom, when one
inspector held the field now occupied by a score or two of the
said officials, it stood among the half-dozen or half-score best
country schools in the Riding. But still that does not affect
the principle I am speaking of. None of our young folks have
been what their parents express by the term " high-learnt " ;
and there has been almost no desire among the folk that they
should be. Certainly, I have myself, in several instances, given
friendly assistance, in the way of Latin or arithmetic and ac-
counts, to lads of promise who wished to " better themselves,"
and so have helped to swell the ranks of "professional men."
But that exception assuredly proves the rule I state. Forty-five
years ago it was not unusual for a farmer to be unable to read
or write, sometimes both. The then tenant of far the largest
farm in the parish was compelled to "make his mark " for this
reason, and so was my nearest neighbour, the tenant of one of
Lord Downe's largest farms j and it was a very common thing
for the parish clerk, who held the office of parish school-
master as well (and so was "qualified to know"), to say to me
when I was preparing to register the newly solemnised marriage

Farms universally small 7

that one or more of the parties — sometimes all four, or the
newly wedded pair and the witnesses — were " marksmen " ; in
other words, could not write their names. All that is altered,
it is true ; hut not the fact that the education aimed at and
possessed by the great majority is still strictly " elementary."

Again, the farms are all, as they have always been, small.
Lord Downe has taken the one that exceeded 200 acres into
his own hands, paring off a field or two on the outskirts that
could be laid with advantage to the adjoining farms. But
with the exception of that farm there is no other in the parish
with so much as 145 acres of arable land in it. In all, there
may be now six or eight farms of more than 100 acres ; all
the rest, in number hardly if at all under seventj^, and exclusive
of small holdings or cow-keepings, scarcely average seventy-
five acres each.

As compared, in the matter of such statistics, with the
Danby of two centuries and a half ago, there has been un-
doubtedly a very considerable change. When the entire
estate, comprising Glaisdale as well as Danby, changed hands
in 1656, it would appear that there was a total of not less
than 165 tenements, all, with very few exceptions, involving
some land, however little. The preponderating majority of
these tenements were farmholds, and of the sum total more
than two -thirds were in the Danby township. But this is
tantamount to saying in other words that the farms in Danby
now are less in number than they were two hundred and fifty
years ago, by something like 25 per cent. And that is
certainly so. I am quite aware, from the testimony pf the
old conveyances themselves, that in divers cases two farms of
moderate dimensions have been laid together to make one
comparatively large one ; and that, in several instances again,
a larger farm has absorbed, so to say, one small one, or more,
that lay contiguous. And even within my own time I have
known at least half a dozen small farms dealt with in this way.
Partly in order to raise his farms to an average size, and

Introductory

partly with a view to do away with the expense of maintaining
buildings which could, without any prejudice to land or tenant,
be dispensed with, the landlord has found himself more than
justified in adopting such a policy. But admitting all this,
still it is absolutely true that Danby is a district of small
holdings ; and if the greater landlords are wise, it will always
remain so. The holdings are suited to the Dales farmers, and
the Dales farmers are suited to their holdings, and alike by
their means, their experience, their hardihood, industry, and
energy, and by the simplicity of their habits and manner of
life. And what I mean by that is that they depend mainly
upon the produce of the farm, in kind, for their subsistence.
Forty years ago I hardly suppose that the average consumption
of butcher's meat per week throughout the parish amounted
to half the carcase of a beast or a couple of sheep. The
butchers killed once a week, and sold the little that was called
for by the requirements of the parish, and carried the re-
mainder, far the largest proportion of the whole, down to
the Whitby market on the Saturday. And even still, although
there are four or five resident butchers in the place, the same
statement with only a little qualification may be made. The
bacon, bread, potatoes, and milk produced by the land supply
by far the chief part of the sustenance of masters and servants
alike.

That there are changes in relation to the management of
the land may be almost assumed;^ and these changes
mostly in the line of improvement. But the general
system remains totally unaltered. The land is held from
year to year, and I hardly suppose there is an extant lease

' Notably the introduotion of "mowers "and "reapers." Improved
or modern ploughs, harrows, rollers, are more frequent than they used to
be. But the drill is comparatively rare still. The introduction of arti-
ficial manures, when concomitant, as it oftener than should be is, with a
much lessened application of lime, is hardly a step in the march of improve-
ment ; especially as viewed in connection with the nature and needs of no
small part of the Dales land.

Quasi-hereditary Descent of Farms 9

throughout the parish. Neither is there apparently any desire
to have the system altered. On the principal estate the farms
in a certain sense may be said to go by descent. I mean
that if a tenant dies leaving a son, or even a widow, capable
of conducting and managing the farm suitably and efficiently,
the preference, to say the least, always rests with such successor.
There is one farm in the parish which has descended from
father to son in this way for two centuries at least, and when
the last male " heir " died, ten or twelve years ago, the pre-
ference fell on the husband of one of his sisters, by whom it is
still held. It is not so very long since a tenant-farmer, hold-
ing of one of our freeholders, on asking me to use my interest
with the landlord of the estate in question on his behalf,
added, "Why, every one knows, sir, that being 'on the estate'
is next best to being a freeholder." And the land as held
from year to year is for the most part well and efficiently
managed, and dealt with in a husband-like way.

The system of management, or rotation of crops, remains
practically unaltered in every particular throughout the entire
period of my acquaintance with the district. Beginning with
the fallow, a large breadth of potatoes is grown, and the area
occupied by Swedes and turnips is by no means a small one.
But little wheat is raised, hardly more than enough in most
cases to supply the household with flour. Of the rest of the
land occupied by corn, a moiety (or nearly) is taken up with
the growth of a mixed crop of barley and oats, which grains
are ground as well as grown together, and the meal mixed
with the potatoes just named (when duly boiled) and served
to the pigs, a large head of which is kept, part being used at
home in the form of fat bacon, and the rest disposed of to the
bacon-factor. I have sometimes seen as many as a dozen up
to twenty large carcases of pigs going from one farm to the
purchasers in the farm waggon, and had reason to know that
not so very many fewer had been kept at the farm for con-
sumption by the family, constituted and fed as above noticed.

I o Introductory

The corn-crop which succeeds the fallow is itself succeeded
by a crop of hay springing from mixed grass-seeds and clover-
seed, sown in the spring when the young corn is two or three
inches above the ground. After the hay is secured and the
aftermath — locally called the "fog" — has grown, it is fed off
by the stock of the farm, and not infrequently the land lies in
grass a second year. But whether it be so or no, the sward
is then ploughed up and a crop of oats is taken ; after which
the fallow, and so on de novo.

As to the stock on the farms : besides the pigs already
named, our farmers have considerable flocks of sheep, a few
of them Improved Leicester, but the great bulk Blackfaced,
or so-called "moor-sheep." Connected with each farm, and I
think with hardly an exception (if indeed there be an excep-
tion), is what is called a " common right," in virtue of which
the tenant is privileged to enjoy the liberty of free sheep-stray
for a number of sheep proportionate to his acreage, besides
taking what quantity of peat and turf he requires for his own
use from the "peat-moor," or the available surface. And
besides this, he may take what ling he wants for "kindling,"
subject to the same rule.

After the sheep come the cattle and the horses. Most
farmers with a hundred acres of land keep nine or ten cows
for dairy purposes, some of them making' cheese of excellent
quality, and the rest producing butter, which is bought up by
the " badgers " who go round the parish week by week, col-
lecting the eggs and spare poultry as well, and who find ready
sale for them at Middlesbrough, Stockton, and other centres
of population.

Much of the stock kept is of a very good type, and the
proportion kept, inclusive of horses, is a very large one. On
a farm which maintains eight or nine dairy cows there will be,
inclusive of calves, yearlings, and two-year-olds, a total of
hardly less than thirty head of " cattle " ; and, inclusive of
foals, yearlings, and two-year-olds, at least nine or ten horses.

Improvement in the Stock kept . 1 1

And in speaking on this head it must be broadly stated that
there has been a great and marked change in the district
generally. Forty -four years ago, at the rent -dinner given to
Lord Downe's tenants, reference was made to the desirability
of something of the nature of a Show of live stock in the
district. I took the opportunity of offering, if the farmers
were really wishful to organise such an association, to under-
take the secretary's part ; and in no long time an Agricultural
Association was formed, of which I became secretary and
treasurer, giving whatever assistance in other directions I
could, or as far as my experience and ability permitted ; and
I remained secretary for thirty -one years. The Society still
exists, and is as flourishing as ever ; and the proofs and tokens
of its efficiency and success are everywhere apparent.

I remember at the first, or perhaps the second, Show we
held being myself in attendance on the judges, recording
their decisions and bestowing the premium tickets as they were
awarded, on having a class of bulls brought into the ring for
adjudication, hearing one of the judges, as he cast his eye
over the lot as they arrived, and noticed a strange-looking,

brindled, breedingless animal, say to the other, " I say, S ,

what breed is this % " The answer was, " Well, I don't know.
I should say a cross between a bear and a jackass ! " But our
Show soon altered all that ; especially as Colonel Duncombe,
the owner of most of the land in the adjoining parish of
Westerdale, had already interested himself in the improve-
ment of the stock kept in the district, and with an eye to it
had introduced some good blood from the Duncombe Park
herd of the day. For many years past our farmers have been
able to show really fine stock, and a good head of it; and
only half a dozen years ago one of the tenants on the Estate
exhibited a shorthorn bull which not only carried off more
than thirty premiums in local and other more important or
provincial exhibitions, but "took a second" at the All-England
Show held at York.

1 2 Introductory

But whatever the change in the way of a better class of
cattle may have been, I think the change in the same direc-
tion in the matter of horses has certainly not been less
marked. Not only has the number of horses bred in the
district been on the increase, and steadily so, but we have
now, in place of the two classes of Cart-horses and Cleveland
bays, the same two classes with the additional classes of
Hunters, Eoadsters, and Coaching-horses. At our recent
Show in August last, the horses shown in the several classes
were not only about five times as numerous as in the shows
held during the earlier years of the existence of the Associa-
tion, but such in quality as to elicit the highest commendation
from very many good judges of a horse who had come from a
distance to attend our Dales Show.

Eecognising, then, and as fully as possible, the change
that is implied in the statement that better stock, and as
much of it, is kept now than was actually kept forty-five
years ago, and the still more important change involved in
the alleged fact that there is far greater regard for moral
decency, that there is distinctly more respect among the
younger folk both for themselves and for one another, than
there used to be, still it may, perhaps it must, seem strange
that so much should remain still unaltered. It may be that,
growing old with my elder parishioners, and seeing my
younger ones grow up around me and becoming middle-aged
men and women, with their families (and no longer only
children) about them, I have been in a measure insensible to
the changes passing over men and things; and even yet,
though my attention is awakened, continue in the same con-
dition. But I do not think it is so. We have no more
class-dififerences among us than we had half a century ago.
The master lives and works with his men, and the mistress
with her maidens. We have no rich men in our midst,
nor any who live the life of idleness, save only those whose
work is done, or the few lazy ones who have not sufficient

Hard-working Farmers 1 3

self-respect to be ashamed of sponging upon others. I think,
indeed, that if a rule could be laid down in such matters,
it would rather be that the farmer, or other "master-man,"
works harder, and at things wanting more nicety or care or
skill, than any one else merely in his employ ; and his sons are
hardly exceptions to the rule as long as they remain at home
with their father. I remember, nearer forty years ago than
thirty, when just beginning a long pastoral walk into some
one of the many far parts of my parish, seeing three lads of
from thirteen up to sixteen or seventeen working away at a
bit of toilsome clearing which had been made necessary
for " mensefulness," and indeed for the plough, by the recent
erection of a new dry-stone-wall. Their father I knew was
ill, unable to leave the house, and, hard-handed son of toil as
he had always been, always laborious and "endeavouring,"
would never leave his house again save once. When I came
back, five or six hours later, they were still there, still at
work, and with goodly piles of material moved to be a record
that they, boys as they were, and with no one to set them
their task and see that they did it, had " worked with a will "
while I had been gone. Those same three are all still living
and are all that their father was before them, steadily and
enduringly industrious, and bringing up their families to tread
in the same steps they have trodden in before them. The
eldest too, poor fellow, has been sorely stricken by disabling
attacks twice, and he who was the strongest man in the parish,
or nearly so, is now but a crippled wreck ; and still he is never
idle, never negligent, the condition of his farm being such as
to show that he must farm well and work hard who would
fain be George's " master " in farming and all that belongs to
it. We may have — I suppose with our small farms and some-
what capricious seasons we can have — no scientific farmers
among us ; but we have what the scientific farmer cannot do
without, the steady, persistent industry and energy which lies
at the root of all real success in the multitudinous ways in

14 ■ Introductory

which men's heads and hands are occupied. And so our
farmers, our master-men, are as much workers now, and with
and among their men, as they have ever been.

And what is true of the men is not less true of the females.
I remember, when I first took up my abode in the place, dis-
covering after a week or two that there was a piano in the
parish, old-fashioned and jangly, but still a pianoforte ; and I
remember the young lady to whom (together with the three
farms left her by her yeoman father) it belonged, in obedience
to her mother's injunction, "Now, sit thee down, Hannah, and
mak' the minister some music," sitting down accordingly and
playing "The Battle of Prague." And beyond that I remem-
ber how this solitary Danby piano became supplemented in
less than a score of years by some fifty or sixty other pianos
and harmoniums, and how one of our old inhabitants, on my
noticing this great increase in musical instruments, gravely
shook his head, and misdoubted how it would work ; whether
or no the farm-daughters and others who were learning to play,
or had already learnt, would not become too fine -fingered,
and too much given to other new-fangled ways, to attend as
they ought to the dairy, with its cheese -press and butter-
runner ; and the household work, with its dainty cleanliness ;
and the "mak'ing the meat" and its thrifty hospitality. But
our butter is as delicate and sweet as it used to be, and
our cheeses still take the best premiums at the shows of
agricultural produce; and I am sure that no one who has
partaken of the hospitality of one of our extant farms, and
much more has sat down to a real "Yorkshire tea" as pro-
vided (for perhaps hundreds of guests) by our Dales house-
wives, can do so without being forced, and even admiringly,
to admit that the cunning has not left the hands of those who
provided such pastry, such cakes, and such and so varied other
delicacies.

But while, as it seems to me, our social relations have, in
all essential matters, submitted to but very little variation

Church and Nonconformity 1 5

during the last half -century, I cannot but think that very
much the same remains to be said as to any very apparent
change in matters pertaining to politics or religion. Shortly
after my acceptance of the incumbency the patron wrote to
me, " You will find the Wesleyans worthy of much considera-
tion. Indeed I think that if it had not been for them and
their influence, religion would practically have died altogether
out in these Dales." And I am very much inclined to think
there was more truth in the remark than a stickler for the
influence of the Church would find it pleasant to have to
admit. The days were but lately passed away when one
" minister " (or " church priest," as he was quite as often called)
found himself charged with the burden of three, in one or two
cases I knew of, even four parishes ; and where parishes are
such as this moorland district necessitates in point of area,
that is equivalent to saying that even one service in the week
and a proportionate amount of visiting was a thing to be
desired rather than statedly enjoyed. My immediate prede-
cessor had Danby (of 13,600 acres) and Westerdale (of about
9000) on his hands, and was neither strong nor good at read-
ing, let alone preaching. One of his predecessors had Danby,
Rosedale, and Farndale. Another parson in the same district,
and not a century ago, had Glaisdale, Egton, and Goathland.
And I have reason to think that even thus the pittance earned
by such men was barely up to the proverbial wealthiness of
"forty pounds a year." Thus, the Wesleyans with their
admirable organisation were an important factor in the con-
ditions of religious life in the Dale, and had more than merely
a claim to consideration. And they are still a strong and
influential body. And I think they will continue to be so
yet awhile, although they are but barely holding their own
at present. The religious fervour and earnestness of the old
days seems to have lost warmth and energy, and to have been
in part replaced by more secular feelings and objects. And
the change will be fatal in the end. Nor do I think that the

1 6 Introductory

Primitive Methodists, who constitute another strong element
in the religious life of the parish, quite reach the point of
making up what is missing. There is one defect in the
organisation of both bodies, the weakness of which is already
becoming more than apparent, and which will be but the
more evident as time rolls on and the advancing tide of
information, knowledge, and especially inquiry, more than
keeps pace with the times. They can multiply chapels, but
the local-preacher system will not supply the teachers that are,
and will increasingly be, wanted. " Men of light and leading "
do not grow up like mushrooms in remote places like these,
and will be slow of growth even where the culture can be and
is attended to.

For the days are upon us when such things are, and will
be. Forty-five years ago there were, I believe, about three
newspapers brought into the Dale. Fifty years ago, certainly
not more. I myself remember the Yorkshire Gazette passing
on from one farmer to another, and its circulation hardly
ceasing until it was three or four weeks old. But all that is
strangely altered now. Newspapers abound, and comprising
those statedly taken and others of more casual introduction,
all classes of opinion, religious, non-religious, agnostic in a
greater or lesser degree, sectarian and unsectarian, and of
many different shades of political opinion, are to be met with.
Other literature also, over and above the Parish Magazine
class, or the authorised publications of the Wesleyan body, is
freely introduced, and although the qualified readers may be
by some assumed to be few, still the fact remains that there
are some, and they not the least thoughtful or the worst
informed in the parish. Many years ago I was not a little
astonished by a call from one of my parishioners, a yeoman
(or freeholder cultivating his own farm, one of our principal
ones in point of size), who came with a book in his hand,
which he said he had lately bought, and he thought it was
hardly a book he cared much for ; maybe I might think it

Politics in the Dales 1 7

worth looking at, and I could keep it if I liked. The book
was Colenso's volume on the Pentateuch. There are difficulties
in store for the local-preacher system in such facts as these.
For my own part, I have been in the habit, now for several
years past, of touching from time to time on matters of doubt
or debate, such as are mooted perpetually by agnostic or free-
thinker writers or speakers, in my pulpit work, and I have
not found any apparent want of attention, much less evidences
of indifference, among my hearers. Perhaps, speaking gener-
ally, the very reverse.

As to changes of a political complexion, I should speak
with very considerable diffidence, even if not hesitation.
As a rule, I have abstained from any active participation in
pohtical matters, and the rule has never been broken through
but on one occasion, and that was the candidature of a man
whom I had known and loved from his childhood, one of
the noblest of a noble family, namely, the late Guy Dawnay.
Apart from this, my overt interest in politics has never been
displayed, and I have had but few opportunities of observing
any very pronounced manifestations of political feeling. But
judging by what I have seen, and from the casual facilities
affijrded me in my continued intercourse with all the sections
of my own parishioners and the people of the neighbouring
Dales district, I should say there was but little change in the
political views or feeling or bias generally. It is very seldom
that direct reference is made in my presence to the subject in
any company, or on any occasion, except when local or general
elections are pending, and there is of necessity more or less
excitement stirred in the country-side. More than forty
years ago, on occasion of the first general election which
took place after my arrival here, the then agent of the late
Lord Downe was desired to notify to the tenants at large that
their landlord wished every man among them to vote accord-
ing to his own views, and without the slightest reference to
any supposed feeling or views of his ; and I was requested

C

Introductory

privately to confirm the same on any or every occasion of
personal application to myself on the subject. But I had no
doubt whatever, either then or since, that the majority,
perhaps the large majority, of voters, whether freeholders
or tenants on the Estate, voted, and continue to vote, as
Conservatives.

I have used the word "feeling," because I think it more
descriptively suitable than any other term would have been.
Hitherto there has been but little agitation, and the works
and ways of the schoolmaster have not diffused any great
amount of the materials out of which political principles are
supposed to spring, or of the methods by which such con-
clusions as go to the formation of principles are evolved. I
have not always been able to suppress a smile at the simplicity
with which I have heard almost startlingly Radical sentiments
propounded by a staunch Conservative, or admissions made
by a pronounced Liberal which would have sounded well from
the lips of a through-and-through Tory of the old school.

But however inconsiderable, in comparison with the great
mass of unchanged usage and habit among the people at large,
such changes as I have referred to above may actually be, still
there is one particular as to which a very great and significant
change has taken place, which if not effected literally within
the last half- century, yet surely has experienced its most
marked development within that specified term. What I
mean is a matter that may be regarded as a revolution rather
than simply an alteration, and one affecting private morality
rather than decency only, and connecting itself as well with
the simplest experiences of health as of comfort. I refer to
the altered conditions characterising the dwellings of the
people. No doubt the change has been advancing for several
generations ; but it is only within a very measurable space
that it can be assumed to have attained its completion — even
if it can be positively affirmed even yet that there is nothing
left to admit of improvement.

Housing of the People 1 9

Some twenty years ago or thereabouts, on occasion of
some official inquiry as to the ways in which the working
classes were housed, I received an invitation from the then
Vicar of Egton (Ishmael Fish) to go down thither to meet
the Commissioner, and to assist in the inquiries he wished to
make. Besides myself and Mr. Fish, at least one other neigh-
bouring incumbent was present, and two or three of the
most intelligent of the Egton farmers and office-bearers. We
first went to a small farmhouse, which has since been entirely
rebuilt by the present owners of the estate, wherein the
commonest rules of decency were not, and could not be,
attended to as regarded the sleeping arrangements. We then
went to two cottage dwellings in the main street of the village
or (one of them) hardly out of it. As entering from the
street or roadside, we had to bow our heads, even although
some of the yard-thick thatch had been cut away about and
above the upper part of the door, in order to obtain an
entrance. We entered on a totally dark and unflagged
passage. On our left was an enclosure partitioned off from
the passage by a boarded screen between four and five feet
high, and which no long time before had served the purpose
originally intended, namely, that of a calves' pen. Farther
still on the same side was another dark enclosure similarly
constructed, which even yet served the purpose of a henhouse.
On the other side of the passage opposite this was a door,
which on being opened gave admission to the living room,
the only one in the dwelling. The floor was of clay and in
holes, and around on two sides were the cubicles, or sleeping-
boxes — even less desirable than the box-beds of Berwickshire
as I knew them fifty years ago — of the entire family. There
was no loft above, much less any attempt at a " chamber " ;
only odds and ends of old garments, bundles of fodder, and
things of that sort. And in this den the occupants of the
house were living ! And the other place we went into
was no better. The ' Commissioner seemed " satisfied " ;

20 Introductory

at least he did not desire to carry on his investigations
any farther.

This was at Egton. Now let me tell some of my experiences
nearer home. I made a iierce onslaught, when I first came
to the place, on the shameful immorality of the usages and
manners I found prevalent here. The resident Wesleyan
minister wished me God-speed, and hoped I would persevere,
adding that his own hands and tongue were tied by reason
of certain relations affecting his position. One of my most
respectable inhabitants, himself a leading Wesleyan, also came
to me, equally wishing me God-speed, but adding, " But you
must not stop here, Mr. Atkinson ; you must go a bit farther
yet," and when I pressed him to speak out, and explicitly, he
said, " You must go in at the landlords and put it upon them
to give us better-arranged houses to live in. I want to keep
my servants decent. But how can I when, doing all I can, I
have to let my men farm-servants go through the women-
servants' room, or else, just the other way, the girls through
the men's apartment ? "

Nay, one day, when as little expecting anything of the kind
as to be called upon to say "Nolo episcopari," on occasion
of a visit to Kilton Castle, I entered the farmhouse on the
Liverton side, to greet my old friends who lived there and
permitted the stabling of my horse, and the woman of the
house said to me (in direct reference to my "onslaught"
aforesaid), "Would you mind coming upstairs with me, and
seeing for yourself how our sleeping-place is arranged \ " Of
course I went, and what I found was one long low room,
partitioned off into four compartments nearly equal in size.
But the partitions were in their construction and character
merely such as those between the stalls in a stable, except
that no gentleman who cared for his horses would have
tolerated them in his hunting or coaching stable. These
four partitioned spaces were no more closed in the rear than
the stalls in an ordinary stable, and the partitions were not

Old Habits dying hard 2 1

seven feet, hardly six and a half in height, while the general
gangway for all the occupants was along the open back. The
poor woman said to me, as she showed me the first partition,
allotted to her husband and herself and their two youngest
children, the next to their children growing rapidly up to
puberty, the third to the farm-girls, and the fourth to the
man and farm-lad, " How can I keep even my children clean
when I can only lodge them so % "

But the hopeful thing in these cases, and in one or two
others Kke them, was that the people themselves were awake
to the shame and the indecency and the certainty of moral
degradation involved in such usages and arrangements as these.
And yet the state of feeling and sentiment so illustrated was
by no means universal thirty or forty years ago. I remember
— and the date was subsequent to 1857, though not much —
the then great lady of the place coming to me one day in
great displeasure. Much had been done to a certain house in
Danby Head with a view to the observance of the ordinary
rules of decency and classification in the sleeping department ;
and on looking to the way in which the directions given had
been complied with, she had become aware that the very
object of the alterations made had been nullified, and ignored
by the arrangements made and carried out by the tenants.
The apartment which had been practically added to the
accommodation of the house for the very purpose of reliev-
ing the plethora of sleepers in the other available chamber
(or chambers), had been converted to the use of a guest-
chamber, and the abuses themselves — many of both sexes
and divers ages having to sleep together in the same limited
area — deliberately continued. True, there was a bed in
the new room ; but it was a bed not in use, and not intended
to be used save on the very few and far -apart occasions when
they had an honoured guest to be put up for a night or two.
To all intents and purposes the new room had been made a
reception room, and the family had to huddle together as

2 2 Introductory

before. And this was no uncommon case. I knew of a
dozen or more instances in which a room with a bed in it, and
needed as well as intended for a bedroom, was in use only
when a " party " was being entertained. It was " the best
room," and never profaned by homelier use, notwithstanding
the fact that such use would have done very much indeed
towards a decent separation of the sexes, and of the married
from the single, in the rooms used as sleeping apartments.

That all this regardless commingling of the young lasses
and lads of the family, whether sons and daughters or hired
farm-servants, and of the married heads vnth children (old
enough to need to be kept apart), was simply and solely a
survival from older and strangely less refined days is a matter
that hardly needs assertion. I hinted above that the entire
completeness of what I spoke of as a "revolution" might
perhaps be a matter open to some question. What I meant
was this. There are two of the old-fashioned, as well as old,
cottages, once the rule in the district, still remaining in one
part of the parish. In one of these, when I first came, the
Dog-whipper (named elsewhere), his brother (and successor),
and their sister lived together. The hut contained one room
(with a floor sunk beneath the level of the ground), of per-
haps four yards square, and no pretence at a separate room
for the woman, there being no loft even. In the other, much
the same in point of area and arrangement, lived a married
couple with their family ; and when the Dog-whipper family
died out, their cottage was occupied by another married
couple and their offspring. The united population of these
two one-roomed, loftless dens at one time reached the trifling
total of twenty-three souls ! They are still occupied, the one
by a widow woman and two or three of her children, and the
other by the occupant of the old days, now a widower, and
one or more of his progeny.

But these cottages are but modified types of what the old
dwellings of the district used to be. Some four or five years

Construction of Primitive Houses 23

ago I was walking between my residence and the station, when
my attention was arrested by the then proceeding demolition
of a very old, and latterly unused, tenement close by the road-
side. The roof was gone, one gable-end was down, the side
next the road was a mass of fallen material and debris, and
what was left of the farther wall seemed to require but a
moderate thrust to fall over bodily too. But the striking
thing was what is here called "a pair of forks"; in other
words, one of the principal pairs of rafters of the old roof;
and I noticed that the old walls had been so built as to admit
or receive and enclose the rafters, and not the rafters so pro-
portioned and shaped as to be supported more or less directly
by the walls. I drew the attention of the elderly tenant who
was " siding up " some of the ruinous mass of material, to the
circumstance, adding the information (as I intended it to have
been) that in the old days the houses had customarily been
built with the forks resting on the ground, and not on the side
walls. "Ay," said he with a good-humoured but somewhat
meaning smile, " I wur born in just sikan a yan." And again,
but a week or so since, I was told of just such other houses as
now or lately extant more in the Kirby Moorside direction.

But the bare mention of these houses, without some ade-
quate measurements and plans as well as mere letterpress
description, hardly serves the purpose I had in view when
reference was just now made to them ; and it so happens_that
the wrecks of several of them, or rather their ramshackle,
shattered, imperfect skeletons, still remain for delineation,
measurement, and close examination, down to the present
moment. In fact I have within the last three weeks had four
photographs of one of them taken, and three of another,
besides noting all the salient features of the same. In one of
these the two original pairs of forks remain in situ, and in the
other one pair is still extant. Their ends rest still on what
was once the ground-floor, meaning the actual or natural
surface of the ground. In the one case large flat stones, as

24 Introductory

nearly flush with the level of the soil as may be, were placed
for the forks to rest on; in the other the accumulation of
fallen stones and rubble, with infinite and majestic nettles
growing thickly among them, makes it difficult to ascertain
whether the base of the rafter rests on stone, wood, or earth.
But it is obtrusively plain in either case that the side-walls
were an afterthought, and entirely foreign to the idea and the
construction of the original dwelling. When those rafters, of
scantling sufficient to furnish forth half a dozen pairs of such
as are used in the construction of modern houses of much
greater pretension than these under mention, were first set up,
the roof (a fairly high-pitched one), with the gable-end walls,
was all there was to constitute the exterior shell of the house,
and the door was in one of the ends of course. Whether
originally there was a chimney in the primitive structure, can-
not be asserted with distinctness. For myself I incline to think
there was not ; that the fire was on the hearth, and the smoke
escaped from a hole in the roof. Certainly there are no very
apparent indications in the gable-ends of the existence of a
chimney of however primitive a type, and it is scarcely possible
that some trace of smoke or fire should not be observable if
there had ever been one.-'

With respect to these pairs of forks it may be remarked
that they have evidently been carefully selected for the pur-

^ I was examining the interior of a very old house still standing at
Ainthorpe but a few days before writing this, and abutting on the inner
side of one of the ends were the remains of the fireplace and of the
chimney which had formerly suffered the escape of the smoke. Both the
cheeks or jambs of the fireplace projected from the flat surface of the wall
between two and three feet into the room, and the chimney had been con-
structed on a similar principle ; there had been no tunnelled passage in
the substance of the wall. A chimney of the same character may still be
remarked in one of the lofty chambers in Danby Castle, one of the massive
tie-beams having been cut away for some distance on either side (to allow
for the safe passage of the chimney), and supplemented by the insertion
of another between the next pair of rafters — a measure made all the more
remarkable by the fact that the roof is a fine specimen of hammer-beam
construction.

No room for Fancy 2 5

pose. They fail of being quite rectilineal throughout their
length. At about four feet from the surface on which they
stand is a curve, such as may be seen in the timber designed
to be the stem of a boat, and such also as to allow of a much
steeper slope upwards from the ground than could have been
possible if the whole had been in one and the same straight
line. From this point of curvature, however, the rafters are
straight all the way to the ridge piece, and with the old tie-
beam would form an almost exact equilateral triangle.

The deflection thus noticed would allow for more and
somewhat more available space within, than if the rafters had
reached the ground in a straight line xmbroken from the ridge.
But allowing for this, still the space within must have been
inconceivably cramped ; for the interval between the two
pairs of forks longitudinally was scarcely more than eighteen
feet, and the total width within the perpendiculars from the
point of curvature of the rafters was barely as much. In
other words, the dimensions of the one room in which the
family had to live, work, cook, sleep — fulfil all the functions
of human existence — were just about eighteen feet square ;
and, as a woman who had lived in one of these very houses
down to less than twenty years ago (enlarged as it had been
by later additions), remarked to me in connection with the
dimensions of the original dwelling, " Ay, there was not much
room for fancy there" — "fancy" in her mouth meaning the
simplest dictates of decency.

I have referred to later additions made to the original
dwellings of such contracted dimensions. The evidence of
this is apparent enough in the still extant side-walls. In one
of the two houses under notice three successive additions,
each to the end of its predecessor, are noticeable; in the other,
two.

I connect these old, old habitations with a very early and
a very interesting period in the economical history of the
parish. From the dates still remaining on most of the wrecks

26 Introductory

that are left, it is assured that the side-walls are, in each
several case, not earlier than 1656. That date still stands on
one of these old-fashioned houses, and on such a part and in
such wise as to show incontestahly that the part of the house
on which it is cut was a secondary, and by no means a primary,
alteration in the original fabric. It marked a much later
innovation on old fashions and habits. First there had
grown up the side-walls enclosing within their embrace the
" forks " of the first house ; then this side-wall had had a pro-
jecting insertion introduced, such as to give a little more width
inside and to admit of the intrusion of a window, the fashion of
which attests the age as well as does the inscribed date, 1656.
Here are thus two distinct periods of building-work both
subsequent to the epoch of the rafter-built dwelling the
remains of which are still extant.

But this throws us back into the sixteenth century, and,
beyond doubt, into an early period of the same ; and, if so,
what about the date of the original rafter-built house % And
quite possibly this inquiry may prove to be a suggestive one.
But as there is at least an equal possibility that it might be a
thought tedious if introduced here, the reader who is interested
in such matters is referred to Appendix A.

Passing on to our more general survey of dwelling-
houses as they were, I would remark that the replacement
of these ancient, incommodious, comfortless, hovel -like
dwellings by new and substantial and decently arranged
houses, or at least the substitution of such for them,'^ did not
begin, certainly was not in full progress, much, if at all,

^ In some cases at least the old house was not destroyed or entirely
removed ; but such part of it as was available and in suflBoiently good
repair was incorporated in some or other of the new farming offices. Thus,
in listening to the Stormy Hall legend [see Note, p. 293, and end of
Historical Section, infrd^, the auditor is assured that part of the old house
honoured by the king's presence may yet be seen in the stable : and surely
there are parts of the old mullioned windows, which characterise all these
old ruins, perfectly evident in the buildings referred to.

Rowdyism on the decline 27

before the last quarter of last century. There are dates
on some of the existing (or what were till lately) freehold
farmhouses which warrant such an assumption. And I should
be inclined to put the more general progress of rebuilding or
replacing later still ; and, if that be so, the change for the
better in the habits and manners and morals of the people,
which is seen to be involved in such sweeping alterations
in the mode of living as the rule is now, can scarcely be
looked upon as a full century old yet, even in its active
inception.

That there may be rowdyism among us still, it would be
absurd to dispute ; but, at least, it is limited rowdyism, and
of a mitigated character. Time was, unquestionably, when
such an assertion could not truthfully have been made.
But that time had passed before I had ever heard of
Danby. But there were men I had a personal acquaintance
with soon after I came into residence, who were the last
of an expiring class ; men whose pastime it had been, if not
whose object and desire, to provoke a row or a scuffle, and
to fight it out then and there. One of these persons, a stout-
built muscular man, even in his old age — he must have been
turned of seventy — was described to me as literally the " hero
of a hundred fights." Poor old William was quiet enough
when and after I began to know him; but those who had
known him in the elder days said he had, in the days of his
strength and vigour, been the most turbulent of a turbulent
group. Rows, scuffles, scrimmages had been the rule then,
and William, with another still then living, was never out of
them. Hardly -contested boxing-bouts, with a cruel amount
of "punishment," were of continual occurrence, and truly
William's scarcely lovely countenance looked as if it had
been sorely battered. From all I could hear, the stranger
whose devious footsteps brought him to Danby in those old
days, was likely to experience something of the " Heave 'arf
a brick at 'im " treatment recorded by George Stephenson as

2 8 Introductory

the customary welcome extended by north-country natives to
unlucky explorers of the country -wilds.

As to drinking habits and usages, I must not say they
are extinct. But the evil is not so great as it once was.
I have seen but too much of it and its unhappy influences
and results, and know too many victims (many of them
innocent victims) of intemperate habits and indulgences. Five-
and-forty years ago all the business of the parish, inclusive
of vestry and other public meetings, was transacted at the
public-house, and it was far more customary than not to find
pipes and glasses the accompaniments of the business ; and to
a great extent the same rule, barring only the pipes and the
drink, prevails even yet. The church, a mile, and indeed
much more than a mile, away from the bulk of the people,
affords no facilities for even the vestry meetings themselves,
and there is no public building that is available for such
purposes. Thus the parishioners were driven to such resorts
as were open to them. As having to attend divers of these
meetings, inclusive, of course, of those connected with the
operations of the Agricultural Association, I had to go where
the meeting was. But I took neither tobacco nor a " glass,"
merely paying my sixpence for the use of the room — an implied
charge which was supposed to be covered by the " custom " in
the case of the rest of those present. Very shortly the natural
courtesy of the farmers led them on to dispense with the pipe
and glass until all business was out of the way; and even then,
if I remained for a space, I often had to suggest the lighting of
the pipes, which had been laid aside on my account. In the
old days, on all such occasions, and on the days of the rent
audits, and also after the markets and fairs, and those very
undesirable things, the hirings, much liquor was consumed,
and many went home the worse for it. Some became uproari-
ous, and others were only able to sit their steady old galloways
in a mysterious manner. I could tell much as touching this
matter. I knew men who rarely went home sober from either

Temperance and Intemperance 29

market, fair, or meeting, or who never missed their daily
potations, and carried on so for so many years — two of them
lived to be over eighty — that many notes of admiration were
employed in speaking of their marvellous endurance. But
many, sadly too many, came to grief in either (or both) body
and substance, in consequence of their indulgences of this
kind ; and more than one I have known whom drink excited
to such a degree that the lives of their wives and children
were hardly safe on their return home drunk.

But I think that all of this is mainly, though not quite
entirely, a thing of the past. Of course there is excess, and
some of it habitual, still ; but I think that sobriety is, on the
whole, steadily advancing, and that the movement is not one of
yesterday only.^ Of course we have our Temperance Societies,

^ I do not tliink the extravagance, the absolute "intemperance" of
ideas, words, language, which too many advocates of even temperance,
and much more total abstinence, indulge in with respect to those who do
not go entirely with them, can be, or is, anything but repellent, certainly
deterrent, to many who might be influenced by gentler methods and
milder figures of speech. I remember being asked by a strong advocate of
temperance principles (who afterwards, by the way, became the vibtim of
his own excesses) for the loan of my schoolroom, and that I would add
to that favour the further one of presiding, and acting as judge of the
merits of certain essays on Temperance which were to be composed and
read (or recited) by lads or quite young men resident in the parish, and
for the best of which he had offered certain premiums. One of them,
rather a clever fellow, but odd in some of his ways during his continuance
at the school, had "committed" his composition, and hopelessly broke
down. "What he had said up to the time of his failure was sensible and
good. Most of the others delivered themselves of a series of platitudes
and stock phrases, and their essays were distinctly below mediocrity.
One or two, however, distinguished themselves by a voluble outpouring of
blatant intemperance in connection with all who were not total abstainers.
And as I sat there and heard myself and at least three-fourths of the
steady, respectable, sober members of the meeting denounced under the
designation of "little-drop-drinkers" in the most scathing terms, sent
without respite, and before our proper time, to a very warm place, and
described as the guides, if not the drivers, of all such as were not
teetotalers to the same hot residence, I admit I did not feel the least like
"taking a pledge" which committed me to the countenancing any such

30 Introductory

our total abstainers, our Bands of Hope, and what not, and I
do not doubt for a moment that their operation and influence
are beneficial. But at the same time I cannot help thinking
that there are other influences at work which, quiet and
gradual as they may be in their nature and operation (and of
which it may well be that much of the influence of the
various temperance societies, if not the societies themselves,
are but consequences), are, and have been for years, becoming
more real day by day. I am old enough to remember when
the " social gatherings," the dinner-parties of the day, met at
2 P.M., and sat with the wine before them, after the removal
of the cloth, until six or seven o'clock in the evening, and
sometimes later still, the guests being the country gentle-
men, the parsons, and other "professions"; some among
whom were pointed out to my young mind for admiration
as "three-bottle men"; when "going to the ladies" meant
more or less inability to drink any more, possibly even
to remain on their chairs; and when nobody, not even
the parson, was thought much the worse of because of such

ideas, or the language in wMot they were conveyed, on any future
occasion. In fact, I was forcibly reminded of one of my experiences at
Scarborough before I had ever heard there was a place called Danby. I
had taken the Prayers at Christ Church, a very noted ultra-Protestant
preacher having been announced as the occupant of the pulpit that even-
ing. The sermon, professedly in aid of the interests and objects of a well-
known society, was throughout one virulent, unreasoning, unreasoned
attack on the Roman Catholic Church and Roman Catholics generally.
I "sat under " him sensible of mental and moral creepiness, and was glad
indeed when the senseless, most unlovely exhibition was over. Two or
three days after I met the Roman Catholic priest then stationed there (no
unfriend of mine, by the way), and he congratulated me on the vigorous
sermon we had had the previous Sunday evening. ' ' I like such sermons
as that, " he said ; " they do us no harm, but the contrary. For they set
reasonable people thinking, and there is generally a little reaction when
it is found we have been unjustly bullied and baited." And I think it is
so too with the intemperate effusions of ultra-temperance orators and
writers. Even non-callous "little-drop-drinkers" don't seem to see them-
selves or their doings or shortcomings in quite such lurid lights or in
such highly coloured pictures ; and it " reacts."

Decay of the Yorkshire Speech 3 1

debauches (as they would be called now) as these. Less than
three-quarters of a century ago that was the state of public and
private feeling both within and touching the class of society
customarily spoken of as " the clergy and gentry." I need
not waste space in describing what it is now. All that is
altered indeed. In other words, public opinion has spoken
out on such matters, and her utterance is respected.

And, as it seems to me, precisely the same may be said of
the class to which the people I am most interested in belong. It
is growingly felt and admitted among them that intemperance
carries a stigma with it ; that it is not a fine thing to be a
drunkard, even occasionally ; that a man can be a good fellow
without being a sot ; and that it is a thing to be regretted and
apologised for if such a lapse occurs. I have had men come
to me bitterly resenting the supposed or gossip-bom statement
that they had come home from market or rent-dinner "changed,"
in other words, not quite sober ; and others hoping, if I had
heard such things about them, that I did not believe them.
But what had been, or was supposed to have been, imputed to
them, would not have been felt as tending to their discredit,
either with themselves or others, fifty years ago, and I know
that such " opinion " is of steady growth still.

But there is one change, and a great one, which I cannot
help remarking upon, and in a tone of real regret, which is not
lessened because I myself have been " art and part " in it to so
great an extent. I mean the decay of the old pure Yorkshire
speech. Time was when I heard it all round me, and from
the mouths of all my old parishioners. Time has been when I
have seen a southerner who had chanced to be by during a
colloquy between myself and one of the "old school" — literally
lucus a non liicendo — after showing more and more perplexity as
the dialogue proceeded, at last break out into a laughing inquiry,
" What language it was we were speaking 1 " Time was when,
after a talk with old George Coverdale, or his wife Esther, or
with old John Plews, or indeed half a score others I could name,

32 Introductory

I could go home and lengthen my list of old outlandish terms
and phrases, and enlarge my note-book with memoranda for
recollection or inquiry. But all that is different now. The
schoolmaster and the Inspector of Schools have been the ruin
of the so-called "dialect." During my five-and-forty years of
acquaintance with the Inspector I have of course seen and
known almost every conceivable species or variety, from the
gentleman who left his boots in his bed and his night-shirt
underneath it, to the other who crossed every t and dotted every
i religiously ; or from him whose eye twinkled with enjoyment
of a racy bit of Yorkshire in a child's answer to his question,
to the other who set his face, as well as his ear, against a northern
tone or a non-" Elementary Education " vowel or consonant
sound. I thought the latter mistaken. The vernacular, with
all its suggestiveness over and above its racy peculiarities, was
doomed, and he might have let it die with simple quietude.
But he wanted to "worry" it. One day a poor shy, slim shp
of a girl was set to read in due course, and she read the
" Standard English " of the Standard Readers fluently enough,
but with the unmistakable intonation and pronunciation of a
child who did not speak as the Dales children speak, and it
was this that drew his attention really. He made her read the
sentence over again, and she read as before ; for she knew no
other way. A second time and a third she had to repeat the
reading, and then he lost patience, and spoke a little sharply to
her, adding that she had never heard her mother speaking so.
It was the worst shot he had ever made in his life ; for, if I
had been bhndfolded, I. could have told whose child Annie

P was, the tones and accents she had employed being

just those her mother had used all the days of her life. But
as illustrative of the dictum that the dialect is doomed, I may
mention two circumstances. The first is that, as the author of
the Cleveland Glossary, I was asked a few years ago to
adjudicate on the merits of certain descriptive essays written
by the children of the upper classes of an East Riding

Education v. Dialect 33

parish school. The conditions were that, over and above
any merit they might have in the way of good speUing, toler-
able composition, and fair descriptiveness, they were to be
couched in the English of the folk-speech ; they were to be as
" good Yorkshire " as the competitors could write. Not quite
a dozen essays were sent to me, and although the writers in
one or two cases had gone a little out of their way to get a
" Yorkshire word " in, it was like an ill-assorted square in a
patchwork quilt. The essays, one and all, were not "York-
shire " in any sense. The other circumstance is more suggestive
still ; for the influences tending to conservatism in such matters
as words, phrases, idioms, are surely more operative in a com-
paratively retired place like Danby, than in the Bridlington
and Driffield district. During the past year, in the hope of
encouraging observation, thought, efforts to describe, and so
forth, I offered a series of premiums to the boys and girls of
the three higher standards in the Danby School for the three
best papers on "All about Danby," following that subject up,
and on the same principle and conditions, with "All about
Birds," and "All about the Cow." As I write these lines I
have from thirty-five to forty of these essays before me, some
very good for such children, some fair, many mediocre, and a
few disappointing. But throughout there is no " Yorkshire," let
alone " good Yorkshire," in them. One or two of them occupy
three sides of a foolscap sheet, with never a true " dialect-word "
or idiom in them. Thirty years ago I disinterred a longish
series of words which had become obsolete, and were buried in
practical forgetfulness. But now, at the end of these thirty
years, I puzzle the men and women of the day, baptized by
myself the most of them, by the use of words their grandparents
regularly employed in their everyday intercourse with their
fellows. " Ill-gotten gear has nae drith with it," is not now
understood by the very sons and daughters of the good old
friend who one day produced the saying for my behoof and
edification out on the wild moor.

D

34 Introductory

Nor is this decay of the ancient tongue the only change in
the same direction which we have to bewail. Previously to
the decadence of the dialect there were not only a great number
of quaint, forcible, pungent sayings current, — not all of them
perhaps remarkable for the absence of what was not, when
they were framed, counted free or indecent, but is so reputed
nowadays, — which for point and brevity were not easily to be
beaten ; but, besides this, there was a proclivity among not a
few of my elder parishioners forty years ago to express them-
selves, in the ordinary flow of their talk, in the same sharp,
sententious manner. I was at a largely attended parish meeting
one day, when reference was made to a man who was giving
himself over to immoderate smoking, and an octogenarian
present described his habit in the sentence, "Ay, he reeks
like a sod-heap." This man it was who was one of the
" company " taking in the Yorkshire Gazette forty -five years
ago, and who, with a canny twinkle in his eye, when the old
question as to the right pronunciation of the word " neither "
came up for comment at some small gathering of Dales folks,
with a happy reference to the only sound of the word ever
heard in the Dales, remarked, " Weel, now. Ah s'ud seea,
'twur nowther." It is very nearly forty years ago since I
buried that dear old friend, so that his saying was not a recent
plagiarism on Joe Miller.

Another impromptu saying, in the nature of a retort, struck
me much, especially taking all the circumstances into account,
as really somewhat telling. Our local medico was visiting an
old lady, an old acquaintance of mine, who always had a "gey
gude dish " of " my Lady Tongue " ready for instant produc-
tion. She was in peril of her life with hemorrhage, which
the doctor had had much difiiculty in staying, and which
might come on again at any moment, and was almost safe to
recur if she began her usual voluble chatter. However, talk
she would, and at last the doctor, out of patience with her,
addressed her sharply in her own tongue : " Ho'd thah noise,

Yorkshire Saws and Sayings 3 5

thee blethering au'd feeal, or Ah'll tie thah toongue ti thah
teeath;" the instantaneous rejoinder being, "Thee caan't,
doctor ; fur Ah ha'e na a teeath i' mah heead ! " But much of
this readiness seems a thing of the past now, and I think it
is because the stiffness of the "New English" instilled in the
Elementary School lends itself both less familiarly and less
well to the ready expression of quaint conceit or incisive
repartee.

As further illustrative in the same connection, I may
perhaps mention the following. Making inquiry one day
about a person who, I had supposed, was no longer single, I
was answered as follows: "Neea, neea, he's nane married.
He still trails a leeght harrow: his hat covers his house-
hold." And from an old note -book I extract the next:
"He's ower mickle a feeal to ken how many beans mak's
five." Of a miserly skinflint, "He wad skin tweea deevils
for yah pelt." Of an emaciated man, "He's that thin, he's
lahk a ha'porth o' soap efter a lang day's weshing." Of a
woman newly but not wisely married, " Ay, she's tied a knot
with her tongue she'll be matched to unloose wiv her teeath."
And lastly this, of a man without brains or 'gumption,'
" Ay, there's t' heead an' t' hair ; but there's nowght else."

MY INTRODUCTION TO DANBY

The way in which I came to find myself planted in Danby
was as follows. A letter, written with the intention that it
should be read by me, was shown me, in which this parish,
with its ecclesiastical income of £95 a year, was described
as one afifording a fine field for work to any one so inclined.
There was a church in it, it was true, but distant from
the overwhelming majority of the parishioners — exceeding
1500 in number — by from one and a quarter to four miles,
upwards even of that in some directions. There was a
clergyman, too, but he had not been famed for strength of
body nor energy of mind and purpose ; so that, while there
were Wesleyan Methodists and Primitive Methodists, in
numbers and organisation alike considerable, Churchmen were
not conspicuous in either the one respect or the other ; a
condition of matters which of course need occasion no surprise
under the circumstances. But even this was not all ; for
when I mentioned to a shipowning friend, who had been a
seafaring man in his earlier days, that I had thoughts of
going a-prospecting, and looking at the place, in consideration
of the ofier of the living made to me, his view of my wisdom,
and of the eligibility of the place itself, was expressed as
follows : " Going to see yon place ! Why, Danby was not found
out when they sent Bonaparte to St. Helena ; or else they never
would have taken the trouble to send him all the way there ! "
However, I had my own reasons ; and one fine afternoon.

My Introduction to Danby

six-and-forty years ago, I found myself riding along the not
too traffic -worn road to Whitby from Scarborough. Born
and reared a South -countryman, and not as yet conversant
with the wild solitary tracks and the deep pitches and steep
ravine-banks of the North Yorkshire moors, I was but little
prepared for some of the sights and sounds that greeted my
unaccustomed perceptions. One might sometimes see an
eagle in those days still ;^ and two or three large hawks
might well be seen on the wing at once; and the curlew
skirled as he crossed, far above your head, from the wild
moors of Goathland or Grlaisdale, where he bred then and
breeds still, to the sea-coast on the east. Hitherto, moreover,
I had been accustomed to regard the sheep as a quiet, un-
impulsive sort of creature, with unstartling habits, much
given to the pursuits of growing wool and developing the
masses of fat not loved by boys at school; but during the
experiences of this ride my preconceived notions were ex-
posed to a very rude shock. For I saw a sheep — there could
be no doubt that it was a sheep — deliberately, — no, I must not
use that word, for there was no deliberation about the act, — I
saw it jauntily skip up a six-foot-high bank, steep as a wall-
side, and rugged with rock and brier, which rose from the
road I was riding along to the foot of a five-foot-high rough
mortarless stone wall or dike, and proceed incontinently to

^ On one occasion, not so very long after the date of the ride mentioned
in the text, I saw, from near the eminence called Danby Beacon, an eagle
on the wing, which doubtless was the bird which was taken or shot— I
forget which— some few days after, at no great distance away, with a
rabbit-trap attached to one of its feet. This was an erne or white-tailed
eagle, from which the Arncliff of the West Arncliff woods in Egton parish,
and the Arncliff of Ingleby Arncliff in "West Cleveland, had both taken
their names in the old Anglian times. On the same day, and in the same
part of the moor, I saw a pair of hen harriers, and another large hawk,
which might have been a buzzard, but was too far off to be identified.
Once too I have seen the kite here ; and in the older days ravens used
to breed in the parish, and might be seen or heard any day, or almost
every day.

The Ride from Whitby 39

leap up part of the height and scramble the rest with cat-like
activity and hoofs that clung like claws, and disappear in the
enclosure on the other side. Other denizens of the moor too,
besides these athletes among sheep, were there, and were
noted by me as creatures to be much observed. For grouse
and golden plover — a good pack of the one, or a large flock
of the other — claimed my attention; or a series of symme-
trical mounds, dotting the moor on either side of me — the
intent and contents of which have been familiar enough to me
since — ^were like the " little star " to the child, and made me
" wonder what they were."

Three hours' riding brought me to Whitby, and the quaint,
picturesque old town — there were no lodging-houses there then ;
the Royal Hotel itself was not so much as projected — with
the setting autumn sun gilding and glorifying its red roofs
and quaint gables, impressed an image on my retina which
has never faded away, and which has stirred the eye and the
heart of many a one besides the artist with a longing for
some lasting memento of its beauty.

The following morning saw me still farther on my journey
of exploration. I was told I should find but few on the road
to make inquiry of as to the route I was bound to pursue.
After the first three or four miles, a rough moorland road
would have to be traversed, and I might not see a passenger
for miles and miles together. Nor did I. The heights of
Swart Houe once attained, with the bare moor on either side
of me, I passed on to Barton Howl without seeing a soul.
Thence to Stonegate, according to the directions obtained at the
little roadside inn just passed, and there the solitude of my way
was singularly broken. I was no longer the sole traveller on
this rugged lonely roadway ; for there was a cavalcade such as
I had never before imagined, much less realised. What I met
was a stone-waggon with a team — a " draught " we call it in
our North Yorkshire vernacular — of no less than twenty
horses and oxen attached to it, half of either kind. They

40 My Introduction to Danby

were drawing a .huge block of fine freestone up the terribly-
steep "bank," or hill-side road, which rises like a house-roof
on the eastern side of Stonegate Gill. At the foot of the
bank, on the limited level space available, there were standing
four other waggons similarly loaded. The full complement
of animals dragging each of these "carries" was a pair of
horses and a yoke of oxen ; and when they reached the foot
of one of these stupendous hills, the full force of animal power
was attached to each of the carriages in succession, and so the
ponderous loads — five tons' weight on the average — were
hauled to the top ; and then, when all were up, the cavalcade
proceeded on its slow march again. I had seen oxen used in
the plough in Suffolk, but never before had I seen such a
spectacle as this on the highroads of England.

At last I reached the Beacon, the highest point, houe-
crowned, of all that part of the North Yorkshire moors, and
the site of a beacon in Armada times, and on many subsequent
occasions when it was thought or feared that invasion might
ensue. Before me, looking westward, was moor, so that I
could see nothing else. On either side was moor, with a
valley on the left, and on the right, to the north, an
expanse of cultivated land beyond. Across, the valley just
named there was moor again ; and the valley was, it was
clear, but a narrow one ; while behind me, as I knew, lay
three good miles of moor, and nothing but moor. It was a
solitude, and a singularly lonely solitude. The only signs of
life were given by the grouse, or the half-wild moor-sheep,
whose fleeces here and there flecked the brown moor with
white spots. It was a wild as well as a lonely solitude ; and
yet not dreary, nor could one well feel altogether alone. For
there, from the south-east round by the north to Tees mouth
on the north-east, and thence on again straight out to the
north along the coast of Durham and Northumberland, was
the great wide open sea ; and no one feels alone in sight of
the sea, any more than under the clear canopy of a starry

Astray on the Moor 4 1

heaven in a bright cloudless winter's night. Nay, the stillness
of such a night, far more than the wild wailings of the rushing
blast, is instinct with the wisht, weird creatures of the
imagination ; far too much so for the superstitious or fancy-
led to be able to feel themselves alone; and more so yet to
one fairly cognisant of his inner life and its connections.
And the sea, even at a distance, is a creature — a being — full
of a great vitality, and with many voices ; and by aid of one
of them at least, whatever the mood of the listener, there is
an inner and most real communion with the unseen.

But I was at the Beacon, and with a choice of roads — at
least of tracks — ^before me ; and beyond a general idea that I
was too much to the north to be in the right way, I had
nothing to guide me. A direction-post there was, but the
arms which had once borne the names of the places the
various tracks led to were gone. There was nothing in sight
but moor, to the west, and to the north and south of the
same; while the track or rough road that appeared to lead
downwards towards the farther part, if not the termination,
of the valley on my left, was grass -grown and little used.
My suspense and uncertainty were terminated in an unfore-
seen way. A woman, riding a strong pony, had come up
unseen and unheard behind me, the hoofs of her steed giving
out no sound on the grassy sward at the edge of the road.
I asked her the way to Danby ; but whether she misunder-
stood my Southern English, or I misunderstood her York-
shire vernacular — a mighty easy thing to happen, as I knew
right weU before long — or whether she did not like the look
of me, and preferred solitariness to company — for she was
herself bound for Danby Dale -end — the direction I took
led me away from the place I wished to reach, instead of
directly towards it. A mile and a half more of nothing but
heather — or, in Yorkshire speech, "ling" — convinced me of
what I had but suspected before, namely, that I was too far to
the north, and now too far to the west, to be right for Danby

42 My Introduction to Danby

Dale. So the first road I came to bearing south was taken,
and a mile ridden along it brought me in sight of on? of
the loveliest scenes it had ever been my lot to behold. There
was the long valley, running east and west, which had seemed
so narrow when beheld from the grudging heights above, and
which was now seen to be from a mile to a mile and a half
broad, and with dale after dale, not wide but long and deep,
opening into it from its southern side. High on either
side of each of these dales towered the moorland banks, and
along each dale I could trace the course of a minor stream,
with its fringe of trees, running its descending race towards
the main stream in the longer or medial valley. There was
verdure everywhere, with plentiful signs of careful tillage,
and the luxuriant growth springing from a grateful soil. It
might be that, having had the wild wilderness of the brown
moor around me for so long, the eye was doubly grateful for
the fresh greens of the beck-side pastures and the widely-spread
green crops. But with colour, contrast, and contour, soaring hill
and deepening dale, abrupt nab-end and craggy wood, all claim-
ing notice at once, rather than in their proper turn, the scene
spread before me was something more than simply beautiful.

Ten minutes now brought me to a little country hostel, as
clean as it was plain and unpretending, kept by two sisters
kno^vn far and wide as " Martha and Mary," and wherein, some
two or three years after, I heard propounded the doughty
question, "Gin Adam had na sinned, how wad it ha' stooden
then?" — and commending my horse to the care of the
blacksmith, who officiated as ostler, I betook myself to a
hamlet half a mile distant, where I was told I should find
the "minister." The house I was told to look for was found
without difficulty, but to find the " minister " in it did not
seem quite so easy. It was a long low gray building, on
a sort of grassy terrace by the roadside, and with nothint^
between it and the roadway. At one end were a cow-house
and other like premises, and at the other a low lean-to shed

Visii to my Predecessor 43

appearing to give access to some sort of a back-kitchen or
scullery. Beyond the one window which looked out upon the
highway was a door, twin to the one opening into the cow-house,
and quite innocent of any such appendage as a knocker or a
bell, — innocent even, one would have said, of any nascent
suspicion that such things existed. But seeing no other door
and no way that seemed to lead to any other, I made up my
mind to knock at this one. I knocked once, twice, and again,
with no response. I learned in after days that I ought to
have gone to the door in the lean-to, the only one in use by
all the members of the family ; for there in the kitchen, which
was also the living-room, as it presently appeared, I should
have found father and mother, son and four daughters, who,
together with the daytal-man ^ (who was working for the
father, and with the son), were just sitting down to dinner.
Not suspecting this, I went on knocking; and at last I
heard a slow step evidently sounding from an uncarpeted
floor of stone approaching the door. Slowly the door
was unlocked and the bolts drawn, and as slowly was it
opened; but not for more than a few inches. As well
as I could see, the person who opened it was an old man,
clad in a rusty black coat, with drab breeches and continua-
tions, and with a volume of what was supposed to be white

neckcloth about his throat. I asked, "Does Mr. D- live

here?" and the answer was, "Mr. D does live here." I

rejoined, "Can I see Mr. D- ?" I was asked in return,

" What do you want with Mr. D f '— " Well," I said, naming

the patron of the living, " Lord Downe asked me to call on Mr.

D ." My interlocutor responded, " Lord Downe sent you

to call on Mr. D ! Why, last week he sent a Fowler Jones

to call on Mr. D ." My reply was, " I am not Mr. Fowler

Jones ; my name is so-and-so. And Lord Downe told me he

^ That is, a day-labourer ; a man reckoned with by the day, in contra-
distinction to one reckoned with by the term ; a man the " tale " of whose
wages, or work, is from day to day.

44 My Introduction to Danby

had written to Mr. D , mentioning my name, and not with-
out reference to helping him in the parish. Can I see Mr.

D ?"— "Why, yes, I suppose you can. I's Mr. D ."

After this the door was opened a little more widely, and I was
requested to walk in and partake of what I afterwards found
was the dinner prepared for the family at large, who were
meantime left hungry and expectant in the kitchen without.

In due time I was asked, Would I like to go and see the
church? — a proposition to which I gave a willing assent.
After a walk of a mile and a half it was reached, the door
unlocked, and we entered. There is no need to dwell on what
I saw of the condition of the said edifice. It must suffice to
say that my conductor, the "minister," entered without
removing his hat, walked through the sacred building and up
to the holy table with his hat still on. Although I had seen
many an uncared-for church, and many a shabby altar, I
thought I had reached the farthest extreme now. The altar-
table was not pnly rickety, and with one leg shorter than the
others, and besides that, mean and worm-eaten, but it was
covered with what it would have been a severe and sarcastic
libel to call a piece of green baize ; for it was in rags, and of
any or almost every colour save the original green. And
even that was not all ! It was covered thickly over with
stale crumbs. It seemed impossible not to crave some
explanation of this ; and the answer to my inquiry was as
nearly as possible in the following terms : " Why, it is the
Sunday School teachers. They must get their meat^ somewhere,
and they gets it here." It may be thought I am romancing,
drawing upon my imagination. But indeed I am not;

1 This is the term in universal use throughout the district in order to
convey the sense of food in general. What is usually termed meat,
is here spoken of as flesh, or perhaps flesh-meat. In the old days a
daytal man — day labourer in ordinary English — used to be spoken of
as "addling" (earning) half a crown a day and his meat. And there
was, and is, a verb to [correspond. So-and-so is meated in the house
is quite the customarj' manner of expression.

Reverend, but scarcely Reverent 45

I am but detailing the literal fact. And everything was in
hateful harmony with what I have thus described. There
lay the dirty shabby surplice, fiung negligently over the altar-
railing, itself paintless and broken, and the vestment with
half its length trailing on the dirty, unswept floor. The
pulpit inside was reeking with accumulated dust and scraps
of torn paper. The font was an elongated, attenuated repro-
duction of a double egg-cup, or hour-glass without the sustain-
ing framework ; and in it was a paltry slop-basin, lined with
dust, and an end or two of tallow candle beside it.^

Such was the parish church and its reverend but hardly
reverent minister. And he was but one of a pair; for his
brother was parish clerk and parish schoolmaster as well;
and the first time I had to take a funeral, on arriving at the
church a little in advance of the hour fixed, and entering the
basement of the tower (which in the days of the barbarous
re-edifying of the poor old church had been made to subserve
the purposes of a porch), I became aware of a strong perfume
of tobacco smoke ; and there inside the church I saw the
clerk sitting in the sunny embrasure of the west window,
with his hat on of course, and comfortably smoking his pipe.
A good harmless man enough, but one who might as happily
be described by the efi'ective Scottish word "feckless" as by
any more laboured attempt to convey an idea of him. He

^ The explanation of this fact lay in the circumstance that, as the rule,
haptisms were not solemnised in the church. "When, some months after
the time of the incidents mentioned above, arrangements had been made

for the transference of the incumbency to myself, Mr. D said to me one

day, "I hope you will be kind to my people ;" my reply being to the
effect that I had no thought of being anything else. But the old gentle-
man went on to explain more fully what was in his mind, and very much
in the words which follow : " I must say I have been very kind to them,
but they have not been very thoughtful or considerate about me. I mean,"
he continued, ' ' that when a child is born, they send for me to baptize the
bairn ; and I go. A fortnight afterwards, they send for me to ' church
the mother ' ; and I go ; and I think they might be content with that.
But they are not, for a fortnight later they send for me to ' christen ' the
child. And that is surely a little too much."

46 My Introduction to Danby

had begun his independent life not so ill provided for as a
Dalesman of those days. His elder brother had had a uni-
versity education, and he himself had received the patrimonial
land, subject, I daresay, to some small burden on a sister's
account. He had muddled through this in some way or other,
but nobody knew how, and he himself least of all. He had
smoked his pipe and played his 'cello, and I suppose done
nothing much besides. And then, when at the end of his
resources, mental and other, he had had the parish honours
above named almost literally " thrust upon him." For, a little
later in the course of my connection with the parish, I asked
the worthy old gentleman who was then the senior church-
warden, why this very incompetent person had been put, of
all places, into the onerous as well as responsible office of
schoolmaster; and his answer was significant, as well as
graphic. It was, "Wheea, he could dee nowght else. He
had muddled away his land, and we put him in scheealmaster
that he mou't get a bite o' bread." A sort of Free School it
was, with a small endowment furnishing the fees for about
twenty children "put in free." The rest of the scholars paid
weekly fees at the rate of threepence for reading only, four-
pence for reading and writing, and sixpence for all " the three
E's " combined. Some two years and a half after the date of
this smoke in the church, the rector of a parish some seven
miles distant from Danby, a friend of longer standing than
my residence in the parish, with another beneficed clergyman
from the same neighbourhood — now the Archdeacon — came
over to call upon me, and to see how the house, which was
then in process of building with a view to its becoming the
Parsonage house, was getting on. The rising buildings duly
inspected, the rector said he would like, as we returned to my
temporary dwelling, to call upon the aforesaid minister of the
parish ; and to this his companion added that he would like
to pay the Free School a visit of inspection. I dissuaded him
from this project as forcibly as I could, knowing but too well

A School Inspection 47

what must of necessity await him there. However, he still
continued bent upon the visit, alleging that, as he was Diocesan
Inspector, it was after all no more than his duty. Of course
there was nothing that could, with propriety, be urged against
this view, and I was silent. Well, we arrived at the school-
house, a low thatched building of some antiquity, the door of
the schoolroom being reached at the end of a narrow, long,
dark, roughly-paved passage. Here the noise, which had been
plainly audible outside, became very pronounced ; but somehow
seemed to harmonise better with the idea of a jolly good game
of romps than of severe study. I knocked at the school door.
I might as well have knocked at the door of a smithy with
half a dozen blacksmiths plying their vocation in full swing.
I knocked again, taking advantage of a partial lull within ; and
this time I was heard. Silence ensued. At least, a sort of
comparative silence ; for the shufSing of feet and the scraping
of wooden soles, strongly tipped with iron, upon the stone
floor could be heard only too plainly. I knocked a third
time ; but there was still no response, nor any that answered,
"Come in." So I opened the door, and motioned the "In-
spector " to enter. The school was still enough now ; for most
of the boys and girls were in their places. Only three or four
small figures could still be seen struggling under the desks, or
into the places that should have been occupied by them. But
meanwhile, where was the master ? Fast asleep, and again
with his tall hat on, in a large high wooden-backed chair by
the fireside. But the unwonted stillness did for him what
all the preceding hullabaloo had failed to do : — it woke him.
Eubbing his eyes with a half-comprehending consciousness, he
presently recognised the presence of strangers in his abode of
the Muses. His first action was to pull off his hat; unfor-
tunately, however, leaving a black skull-cap on, which he was
wearing under his hat. To remove this also was his next
attempt, while he staggered up to make a show of receiving
his visitors. By this time the "Inspector" had found an

48 My Introduction to Danby

opportunity to whisper to me, " Let us get away as soon as

we can;" and thus terminated the first "inspection" of the

schools of this parish of Danby.

But I find myself wandering far away from the special

matter I was describing, namely, my " prospecting " visit to

the parish of which I have so long been the incumbent. After

my interview with the "minister," and my visit to the church,

with all the concomitant circumstances, I was at no loss to

comprehend the derogatory description, given in the patron's

letter, of the state of the parish as regarded from a " church

work " point of view. I could understand the slovenly,

perfunctory service once a Sunday, sometimes relieved by

none at all, and the consequent sleepy state of church feeling

and church worship. ^ I could well understand how the only

religious life in the district should be among and due to the

exertions of the Wesleyans and Primitive Methodists. I could

easily understand too, how the spirit of a good, right-thinking,

earnest-minded man like the patron of the living, one largely

interested, moreover, in the welldoing and wellbeing of the

many tenants who held under him, as well as more generally

of the parishioners at large, would be, or rather had been,

affected by finding what he, in common with so many others

set in high places as to position, intelligence, and earnest zeal

for the true elevation of the people, held to be one of the chief

energies of improvement, so sadly in abeyance. And I hope

I thought that, while I felt no great dread of the seclusion,

any more than of the work I needed no one to tell me would

lie before me in such a field, things might be so ordered that

I might be enabled, at least in part, to become a fellow-helper

in the good work which I knew right well this good and noble

man wished to organise and see carried out.

^ One of the freeholders, a steady churchman, told me not long after-
wards, that within a given period — a little more than a year, as I remem-
ber his information — he had himself been to church four times oftener than
the minister himself. The latter, besides being a man uninterfered with
by any superfluity of energy, either bodily or intellectual, was an old and
infirm man, and did not care to face the elements in bad or stormy weather.

FOLKLOEE

SUEVIVALS OF "FAIEY," " DWAEF," " HOB "
NOTIONS

I WAS once paying a visit to one of my elderly parishioners
who was not exactly "bed-fast," for she could get up from time
to time, but being far past " doing her own tonns " (turns),
or little odds and ends of household work, was still house-fast,
or unable to leave the house, even for the sake of a gossip at
the next door. I found her, with her husband — a man who
died a couple of years since at the age of ninety-seven — just
sitting down to tea. As a rule, I carefully avoided meal- times
in all my visiting from house to house ; but on the occasion I
refer to there was some deviation from the customary hour
for the meal just mentioned, and the old couple were going to
tea at the timely hour of about half-past two in the afternoon.
On finding them so engaged, I was going to retire and call in
again later, or perhaps some other day. However, this did
not suit the old lady's views at all, and I had to sit down and
wait until their tea was satisfactorily disposed of. Naturally
we fell into talk, and as the old woman had lived in the district
all her life, and most of it in the near vicinity, I began to ask
her questions about local matters. Within a quarter of a mile
from the house we were sitting in — one of a group of three or
four — was a place commonly known by the name " Fairy Cross
Plains." I asked her, Could she tell me why the said place
was so called? "Oh yes," she replied; "just a little in front
of where the public-house at the Plains now stood, in the old

5 2 Folklore

days before the roads were made as they were now, two ways
or roads used to cross, and that gave the ' cross ' part of the
name. And as to the rest of it, or the name ' Fairy,' every-
body knew that years and years ago the fairies had ' a desper't
haunt o' thae hill-ends just ahint the Public' " I certainly had
heard as much over and over again, and so could not profess
myself to be such a nobody as to be ignorant of the circum-
stance. Among others, a man with whom I was brought into
perpetual contact, from the relative positions we occupied in
the parish — he was, and is, parish clerk — had told me that his
childhood had been spent in the immediate vicinity of "the
Plains," and that the fairy-rings just above the inn in question
were the largest and the most regular and distinct he had ever
seen anywhere. He and the other children of the hamlet used
constantly to amuse themselves by running round and round
in these rings ; but they had always been religiously careful
never to run quite nine times round any one of them. " Why
not?" I asked. "Why, sir, you see that if we had run
the full number of nine times, that would have given the
fairies power over us, and they would have come and taken
us away for good, to go and live where they lived. "^ — "But,"
said I, "you do not believe that, surely, Peter f — "Why, yes,
we did then, sir," he answered, "for the mothers used to
threaten us, if we wer'n't good, that they would turn us to
the door (out of doors) at night, and then the fairies would
get us."

But to return to the old woman with whom I was con-
versing. I admitted that I had both heard of and seen the
fairy-rings in question ; but what about the fairies themselves ?
Had anybody ever seen them? "Ay, many a tahm and
offens," said she ; " they used to come down the hill by this
deear (door), and gaed in at yon brig-steean," indicating a large
culvert which conveyed the water of a small beck underneath
the road about a stone's throw from the cottage. A further
question elicited the reply that it was a little green man, with

Fairy -Butter, audits Making 53

a queer sort of a cap on him, that had been seen in the act of
disappearing in this culvert. Just here the old woman's
husband broke in with the query, "Wheea, where do they
live, then?" — "Why, under t' grund, to be seear (sure)."
"Neea, neea," says the old man; "how can they live under t'
grund?" The prompt rejoinder was, "Why, t' moudi warps
(moles) dis, an' wheea not t' fairies ?" This shut him up, and
he collapsed forthwith. His wife, however, was now in the
full flow of communicativeness, and to my question. Had she
ever herself seen a fairy ? the unhesitating reply was, " Neea,
but Ah've beared 'em oflfens." I thought I was on the verge
of a tradition similar to that of the Claymore Well, at no great
distance from Kettleness, where, as " everybody used to ken,"
the fairies in days of yore were wont to wash their clothes and
to bleach and bpat them, and on their washing nights the
strokes of the "battledoor " — that is, the old-fashioned imple-
ment for smoothing newly-washed linen, which has been
superseded by the mangle — were heard as far as Eunswick.
But it was not so. What my interlocutor had heard were the
sounds indicative of the act of butter-making ; sounds familiar
enough to those acquainted with the old forms of making up
the butter in a good-sized Dales dairy. These sounds, she
said, she had very often heard when she lived servant at such
and such a farm. Moreover, although she had never set eyes
on the butter-makers themselves, she had frequently seen the
produce of their labour, that is to say, the "fairy -butter";
and she proceeded to give me the most precise details as to
its appearance, and the place where she found it. There was
a certain gate, on which she had good reason to be sure,
on one occasion, there was none overnight ; but she had
heard the fairies at their work "as plain as plain, and in
the morning the butter was clamed (smeared) all over main
part 0' t' gate."

But her fairy reminiscences were by no means exhausted,
even by such a revelation as this. She had known a lass quite

5 4 Folklore

well, who one day, when raking in the hayfield, had raked
over a fairy bairn. " It was liggin' in a swathe of the half-
made hay, as bonny a lahtle thing as ever yan seen. But it
was a fairy-bairn, it was quite good to tell. But it did not
stay lang wi' t' lass at fun' (found) it. It a soort o' dwinied
away, and she aimed (supposed) the fairy-mother couldn't deea
wivout it any langer." Here again I was a little disappointed.
I had expected to get hold of a genuine unsophisticated
changeling story, localised and home-bred. But the termina-
tion was as I have just recorded.

From fairies the old lady got on to recollections of what
clearly was a survival of dwarf folklore. For she told me
of certain small people who used to dwell in the houes (grave-
mounds) that years ago were to be found in the Eoxby and
Mickleby direction, but which had been dug into and after-
wards ploughed over, so that the former denizens had clearly
been evicted and forced to retire. But it was only imperfect
recollections of what she had heard in her own young days
that my informant was dealing with now ; and the lack of
feature and detail consequent on her lack of personal interest
in the subject was quite evident. But it was quite different
when I T)egan to ask her if in her youth she had had any
knowledge of the Hart Hall "Hob." On this topic she was
herself again. "Why, when she was a bit of a lass, every-
body knew about Hart Hall in Glaisdale, and t' Hob there,
and the work that he did, and how he came to leave, and all
about it." Had she ever seen him, or any of the work he had
done \ " Seen him, saidst 'ee 1 Neea, naebody had ever seen
him, leastwise, mair nor yance. And that was how he coomed
to flit,"— "How was that?" I asked. "Wheea, everybody
kenned at sikan a mak' o' creatur as yon never tholed being
spied efter." — "And did they spy upon him?" I inquired,
"Ay, marry, that did they. Yah moonleeght neeght, when
they beared his swipple (the striking part of the flail) gannan'
wiv a strange quick bat (stroke) o' t' lathe fleear (on the barn

Hart Hall Hob 5 5

floor) — ye ken he wad dee mair i' yah neeght than a' t' men
o' t' farm cou'd dee iv a deea — yan o' t' lads gat hissel' croppen
oop close anenst lathe-deear, an' leeak'd in thruff" a lahtle hole
i' t' boards, an' he seen a lahtle brown man, a' covered wi'
hair, spangin' about wiv fleeal lahk yan wud (striking around
with the flail as if he was beside himself). He'd getten a
haill dess o' shaffs (a whole layer of sheaves) doon o' t' fleear,
and my wo'd ! ommost afore ye cou'd tell ten, he had tonned
(turned) oot t' strae, an' sided away t' coorn, and was rife for
another dess. He had nae claes on to speak of, and t' lad, he
cou'd na see at he had any mak' or mander 0' duds by an au'd
ragg'd soort ov a sark." And she went on to tell how the lad
crept away as quietly as he had gone on his expedition of
espial, and on getting indoors, undiscovered by the un-
conscious Hob, had related what he had seen, and described
the marvellous energy of "t' lahtle hairy man, amaist as
nakt as when he wur boom." But the winter nights were
cold, and the Hart Hall folks thought he must get strange
and warm working " sikan a bat as yon, an' it wad be sair an'
cau'd for him, gannan' oot iv lathe wiv nobbut thae au'd rags.
Seear, they'd mak' him something to hap hissel' wiv." And
so they did. They made it as near like what the boy had
described him as wearing — a sort of a coarse sark, or shirt,
with a belt or girdle to confine it round his middle. And
when it was done, it was taken before nightfall and laid in
the barn, " gay and handy for t' lahtle chap to notish " when
next he came to resume his nocturnal labours. In due course
he came, espied the garment, turned it round and round, and —
contrary to the usual termination of such legends, which
represents the uncanny, albeit efficient, worker as displeased
at the espionage practised upon him — Hart HaU Hob, more
mercenary than punctilious as to considerations of privacy,
broke out with the following couplet —

Gin Hob miin hae nowght but a bardin' hamp,
He'll coom nae mair, nowther to berry nor stamp.

5 6 Folklore

I pause a moment in my narrative here to remark that
this old jingle or rhyme is one of no ordinary or trifling
interest. It seems almost superfluous to suggest that up to
half a century ago, and even later, there was hardly a place
in all Her Majesty's English dominions better qualified to be
conservative of the old words of the ordinary folk-speech, as
well as of the old notions, legends, usages, beliefs, such as
constitute its folklore, than this particular part of the district
of Cleveland. The simple fact that its Glossary comprises
near upon four thousand words, and that still the supply is
not fully exhausted, speaks volumes on that head. And yet
this couplet preserves three words, all of which had become
obsolete forty years ago, and two of which had no actual
meaning to the old dame who repeated the rhyme to me.
These two are "berry" and "hamp." "Stamp" was the verb
used to express the action of knocking off the awns of the
barley previously to threshing it, according to the old practice.
But "berry," meaning to thresh, I had been looking and
inquiring for, for years, and looking and inquiring in vain ;
and as to " hamp," I never had reason to suppose that it had
once been a constituent part of the current Cleveland folk-
speech. But this is not all. The meaning of the word, and
no less the description given of the vestment in question, in
the legend itself, throws back the origin, at least the form-
taking, of the story, and its accompaniments, to an indefinite,
and yet dimly definable period. There was a time when the
hamp was the English peasant's only garment ; at all events,
mainly or generally so. For it might sometimes be worn over
some underclothing. But that was not the rule. The hamp
was a smockf rock-like article of raiment, gathered in somewhat
about the middle, and coming some little way below the knee.
The mention in Pier& the Plowman of the " hatere " worn by
the labouring man in his day serves to give a fairly vivid idea
of the attire of the working-man of that time, and that attire
was the " hamp " of our northern parts. For the word seems

The Teller's implicit Faith 57

to be clearly Old Danish in form and origin. But although
the form and fashion and accessories of our old lady's stories
were of so distinctly an old-world character, it was impossible
to doubt for a moment her perfect good faith. She told all
with the most utter simplicity, and the most evident convic-
tion that what she was telling was matter of faith, and not
at all the flimsy structure of fancy or of fable.

EVIDENCES OF LATENT FAITH IN ARCHAIC
FOLK-TALES

The subject adverted to at the close of the last section was
the simplicity, the — to all appearance — absolute personal faith,
which characterised all the deliverances or f orth-teUings which
my old parishioner favoured me with. Neither the fairies of
Fairy Cross Plains nor the Glaisdale Hob were unrealities to
her mind. They might not be now ; but they had been, as cer-
tainly as her own remote fore-elders, and much more certainly
than Oliver Cromwell or Julius Csesar. And I have noticed
the same sort of underlying implicit faith in more than one or
two of my hard-headed, shrewd, matter-of-fact Yorkshire
neighbours, dwellers in these deep, retired, and, fifty years
ago, almost out-of-the-world dales of ours, when once I had
succeeded in breaking through the outside husk of semi-
suspicion and reserve instinctively worn as a shield by the
mind of the unlearned when newly roused by the prickings of
doubt or the questionings of incredulity. I have often found
it very difficult to get them to speak with any approach to
unreserve on the topics which lie nearest to the very core of
our most interesting folklore. One old man in particular, as
simple-minded, honest, truth-loving, and, I always believed,
as good and God-fearing a man as I ever met with, who had a
great personal regard for me, and besides was drawn to me by
my connection with the place of his birth and the people of
his father's house, as well as by the official intercourse which

Sent for to ' lay a Spirit ' 59

his position as master of the Union House at Guisborough,
and mine as guardian of the poor for the parish, had involved
during a period of several years, was, with the greatest diffi-
culty, led on to speak at all, and much more to talk freely,
about such matters. I knew from many sources and circum-
stances that he was a veritable storehouse and magazine of
folklore subjects and experiences — I use the latter word
advisedly — and recollections. In the course of our business
relations there was too much on his hands and on mine to
admit of our " hoddin' pross " (holding a gossiping talk) about
such matters as "wafts" (Scottice, wraiths), or "wise men"
(Anglice, wizards, soothsayers, or conjurers) ;i but some little
while after he had ceased to wear the official dignity just

^ This is a word whicli had some few years ago, if it has not still, its
full and true sense in this part of the world. Some forty years ago, when
country-parsons, or, as we were called throughout this district, ' ' Church-
priests," were not so distinguished by their clerical attire, or clerical
pursuits, or clerical activity, either Sunday or " war-day," as they have
come to be since, and when I was seldom walking less than thirty-five or
forty miles weekly in my church and house-to-house work, an elderly
woman living about half a mile from my house, and who had been used
otherwise than well in her younger days, and in consequence was not
quite sound as to some particulars in her intellect, sent to me urgently
one day to go to her house, for she was in much trouble. I had seen her
often, both at my residence and her own, and had a shrewd suspicion as
to the nature of her trouble, and that it was spiritual, in a sense, although
perhaps not quite within the province of the parish priest. On going to
her house I found poor old Dinah was much troubled indeed. She told
me the house was fairly taken possession of by spirits, and that, turn
which way she would, she was beset by them. She told me what spirits
they were, and in some instances whose spirits, and what their objects
and efforts were ; and she had sent for me that I should " lay them." I
tried to soothe her, and talked to her in the endeavour to divert her
thoughts into a more reasonable channel. She was perfectly clear and
reasonable on every other topic ; but do what I would, and represent what
I could, her mind continually reverted to the one subject that possessed
her, namely, the actual presence of the spirits. I told her at last I could
not, did not profess to "lay spirits" ; and her reply was, "Ay, but if I
had sent for a priest o' t' au'd church, he wad a' deean it. They wnr a
vast mair powerful conjurers than you Church-priests."

6o Folklore

named, having been pensioned off in consideration of long and
faithful service, I rode over to his abode, partly to pay my
old friend a visit, and partly to try if I could in any way
induce him to talk to me freely about the matters which were
of interest to me as a folklore inquirer, and which I knew
had greatly occupied, and perhaps exercised, his mind through
years of his long life. It was long before I could get him to
enter upon the subject at alL His scruples were partly of a
religious nature — there was so much that seemed uncanny in
his recollections, so much that his unsophisticated mind could
not but refer, directly or indirectly, to the agency of something
unhallowed, if not to " t' au'd Donnot " himself — but partly
they were due to the fear of being thought credulous or
superstitious ; and partly, no doubt, to a suspicion that many
or most among his questioners and interlocutors on such topics
would most likely be trying to draw him out on purpose to
make fun of his old-world tales, and treat him as an object of
ridicule and mockery. His anterior knowledge of me, and
personal respect and regard for me, combined with my already
well-known and unquestionably sincere interest in what I
wanted him to tell me about, prevailed at last, and he began
to discourse freely. He soon warmed to his subject, and
there came a flow of reminiscences, personal experiences and
impressions, reflections, considerations, and remarks, that kept
him occupied as the chief speaker for well on to a couple of
hours. And all through, from beginning to end, there was
not a word or a look or a gesture to even suggest a doubt or
a question, I must not say as to the entire truthfulness of his
narratives, for that was transparent, but of his own implicit
but unconscious conviction that he was relating to me the
plain unvarnished tale of what had actually taken place under
his own observation, or within the scope of his own personal
knowledge. He told me much that he could not explain,
much that was quite beyond his comprehension, much that
he clearly looked upon as very questionable in its origin or

Unlooked-for Confidences 6i

inspiration, but which he had seen or heard, and no more
thought of questioning than his own being, present and future,
because no doubt either of one or the other had ever suggested
itself to his simple mind.

Another case of the same sort was that of one of the
worthiest of my many worthy parishioners, a man sensible,
clear-headed, intelligent, one of my best helpers in all good
and useful things as long as he was spared for this life's works,
a man with the instinctive feelings of the truest gentility, but
who always seemed averse to entering on any folklore talk or
inquiry, and was, even admittedly, on his guard lest he should
be led on to speak of them inadvertently. Twice, and twice
only, I got him into conference with me on the, by him,
tabooed subject-matters ; and on both occasions it was equally
a surprise both to him and to me. In either case an acci-
dental remark was like a spark by chance firing a train ready
laid, but not laid for the special purpose of firing that special
mine. And on both occasions not only did I succeed in
collecting some of the very most interesting details it has ever
become my good fortune to meet with, but I saw that my
usually recalcitrant informer was strangely impressed with
what he was telling me in the connection in which I had put
it.i One of these subjects was the careful ceremonial to be
observed in the obtaining of effectual "witch-wood" for the
incoming year; and the other, one that led on to the dis-
covery of an original act of Odin -worship in one of the
commonest, most every-day practices of all the farmers and
occupiers of the district, as they were five-and-twenty or thirty
years ago, not a few of them doing the same thing to this
day.

But perhaps the most striking illustration that can be
given of the tacit, unsuspected, but still implicit faith, in the
Dales folks' minds, in old folklore usages and customs is as

1 Some of my friend John Unthank'a stories are set forth in later
sections, as, e.g., on the Witch -wood, p. 97, and the Wise Man, p. 103.

62 Folklore

follows. This used to be, and still is to a considerable extent,
largely a dairy district. The farms are none of them large,
there not being half a dozen in the parish much over a
hundred acres in extent. Nevertheless, dairies of ten or
twelve cows each used to be the rule on these larger farms.
And it is alleged as a fact, and by no means without reason
or as contrary to experience, that if one of the cows in a dairy
unfortunately produces a calf prematurely — in local phrase,
"picks her cau'f" — the remainder of the cows in the same
building are only too likely, or too liable, to follow suit ; of
course to the serious loss of the owner. The old-world
prophylactic or folklore-prescribed preventative in such a
contingency used to be to remove the threshold of the cow-
house in which the mischance had befallen, dig a deep hole
in the place so laid bare, deep enough, indeed, to admit of
the abortive calf being buried in it, on its back, with its four
legs all stretching vertically upwards in the rigidity of death,
and then to cover all up as before.

Now, I had good reason for feeling assured that this had
been actually done on a farmstead no very great way distant
from my dwelling, and almost within the term of my own
personal acquaintance with the place ; as also I had reason to
believe that it had been done more than once, within the same
limit of time, in more than one of the adjacent dales to the
south of us. Wishing to be fully assured of the first-named
circumstance as a fact, I took the opportunity afforded by a
casual meeting with the occupant of the farm just referred to
— in point of fact a son of the alleged performer of the said
rite or observance, and a regular hard-headed, shrewd, inde-
pendent-willed Yorkshireman, now dead, poor fellow — to ask
him if he knew of the continued existence of the said usage,
adding that I had heard of it as still practised in Farndale.
"Ay," he said, "there's many as dis it yet. My au'd father
did it. But it's sae mony years syne, it must be about wore
out by now, and I shall have to dee it again." Poor George

A Living Faith 63

Nicholson's fa,ith needed no greater ' confirmation as a still
living faith than this. But the like characteristics were not
merely present, they were palpably evident in the case of each
of the other persons I have mentioned. The old woman in
Fryup, the ex-Union-House master, my much regretted old
friend, all spoke of the matters they talked to me about as
things that had been, and were real, and not as creations of
the fancy, or old-wives' tales and babble.

THE HOB AND OTHER MATTERS, AND HOW
RECEIVED IN THE FOLK'S MIND

But we left our old lady in the midst of her " Hob " remi-
niscences, which, as I have said, and emphasised in the last
chapter, she told with a sort of personal recollection of them,
rather than as what had been told her by others, or handed
down from one teller of the old, old story to another. One
of her tellings was that the people of the farm in question, or
Hart Hall in Glaisdale, had been leading — that is, carting — hay
in a " catchy " time, when every load got was a load saved, as
if by snatching from the wilfulness of the weather; and
another load had been won, and was creeping its slow way
towards the " staggarth," when, as ill-luck would have it, one
of the wheels of the wain slipped in between two of the
" coverers of a brigstone," ^ and there remained fast and

1 A brigstone is a kind of rough, conduit for water across a gate-stead, or
even a road of greater pretension, made by paving the bottom of a transverse
trench or channel, dug on purpose, with flagstones, setting up other flags
on either side as walls, and covering all in with other slabs of stone of
sufiicient solidity to upbear any loaded vehicle likely to be driven across
the said conduit. The "coverers" are the slabs just mentioned, laid
over all ; and, from wear and tear, or natural decay, it not infrequently
happens that the interspace between two coverers widens by degrees,
however closely the edges may have been laid at first, until, on some
unlucky occasion, a wheel a little narrower than usual, or grinding along
under a load heavy enough to break a bit from the attenuated edge, forces
its way down and betwixt, and remains a fixture, even if it does not
occasion an overthrow.

Hob strong and kindly, not malicious 6 5

inextricable by any easily applicable force. Extra horse-power
was fetched ; men applied their shoulders to the wheel ; gave-
locks were brought and efforts made to lever the wheel out of
its fix ; but all equally in vain ; and there seemed nothing for
it — awkward as such a place was for the purpose, for the
brigstone lay across a gate-stead — but to " teem " (empty) the
hay out of the vehicle, and liberate it when thus lightened of
its load. But it was too late in the day to do that at once,
with prudence, even had the weather been much less un-
certain than it was. And so, with whatever unwillingness,
the load was left for the night under its detainer, and all
hands were to be set to work the first thing in the morning
to effect its liberation. But there was one about the place
who thought scorn of waiting for the morrow for such a
trifling business as that, and when the wearied and worried
household had retired to bed. Hob went forth in his mysteri-
ous might, made no difficulty about extricating the locked-in
wheel, and trailing the cumbersome load up the steep, broken
road to the homestead, putting the hay in beautiful order on
the stack, and setting the wain ready for the leading that
would of course be renewed early in the morning.

This was but one of the many exploits of a like nature
achieved by this well-willed being in aid of the work on that
favoured farm. In the barn, if there was a " weight of work "
craving to be done, and time was scant or force insufficient,
Hob would come unasked, unwarned, to the rescue, and the
corn would be threshed, dressed, and sacked, nobody knew
how, except that it was done by the Hob. Unaccountable
strength seemed to be the chief attribute ascribed to him.
One did not hear of him as mowing or reaping, ploughing,
sowing, or hari-owing ; but what mortal strength was clearly
incapable of, that was the work which Hob took upon himself.
Another thing to be remarked about this Hob — at least in all
the stories about him and his doings — was that there was no
reminiscence of his mischievousness, harmless malice, or even

66 Folklore

tricksiness. He was not of those who resent, with a sort of
pettish, or even spiteful, malice, the possibly unintended in-
terference with elfish prerogative implied in stopping up an
" awfbore " or hole in deal-boarding occasioned by the dropping
out of a shrunken knot, and which displayed itself in the way
of forcibly ejecting the intended stopping, in the form of a
sharply driven pellet, into the face, or directly on to the nose,
of the offender. Neither was he like the Farndale Hob told
of by Professor Phillips (among other chroniclers), who was so
" familiar and troublesome a visitor of one of the farmers of
the dale, and caused him so much vexation and petty loss, that
he resolved to quit his house in Farndale and seek some other
home. Early in the morning, as he was on his way, with his
household goods in a cart, a neighbour meeting him said, ' Ah
sees thou's flitting.' — 'Ay,' cries Hob out of the churn, 'ay,
we'se flittin'.' On which the farmer, concluding that change
of abode would not rid him of his troublesome inmate, turned
his horse's head homeward again."

I am sorry that it has never fallen to my lot to hear this
last story from one of the people — one of the " folk " them-
selves. In that case, I am certain it would have assumed a
very diiTerent aspect. I have not given an exact copy of
Professor Phillips's version, and for this reason — that the whole
story is in reality a mere travesty. The story never was, and
never could be, told in that form, and with such " properties "
as are given by the author in question. He speaks of the
neighbour who meets the flitting farmer as " addressing him
in good Yorkshire." It would be a strange thing indeed if a
Farndale farmer even now spoke anything else except " good
Yorkshire." He makes him carry all his "household goods
and gods" on one cart. He causes him to suspend and
reverse all his flitting proceedings, quite regardless of what a
flitting is, and how subject to a set of suflSciently fixed
and stated rules, as to period or term, succession of one
tenant to another, and so forth. He seems to me entirely

The Danish Counterpart to Hob 67

unaware that a "flitting" is, like matrimony, "not to be
lightly or wantonly taken in hand " ; and, still less, abandoned
after the said fashion. And besides, he makes a " play on the
vowel" in the words, "Ay, we are flutting," which he puts
into the mouth of the Hob, and which is simply nonsensical
when all is taken into account. Such a play on the vowel is
alien to the district ; and a Farndale man would be fully as
likely to say "hutting" for "hitting," "sutting" for "sitting,"
or " mutten " for " mitten," as " flutting " for " flitting." Eefer-
ence is also made to the Scandinavian version of the story.
But that, as told by Worsaae himself, is reasonable and to the
point ; and is true as to the characteristics in which Phillips
goes astray. Certainly the Danish professor calls the being
of whom the story is told "Nisse," instead of "Hob," as he
calls the human actor in the drama by his Danish epithet
" bonde " instead of English " farmer " ; but he steers clear of
the mistake of calling the Nisse "a daemon," which is the term
applied by the English professor to poor soulless Hob. "In
England," says Worsaae, "one may hear many a tale told,
just as in Danish lands, about the tricksiness of the Nisse (Nix).
On one occasion during my stay in England, it occurred to me
to tell our northern story about a ' bonde ' (a word nearly
equivalent to our English 'yeoman') who was teased and
annoyed in aU sorts of ways by a Nisse. At last, he could
not stand it any longer, and he determined to quit his holding,
and to go to some other spot. When he had conveyed nearly
all his movables to his new farm, and was just driving the
last load of all, he happened to turn round, and what was the
sight that met his eyes ? Nothing less than Master Nisse him-
self, red cap and all, calmly perched on the top of the load.
The small chap nodded with provoking familiarity, and added
the words, 'Ay, here we are, flitting.'" But there is no play
on the vowel in Worsaae's Danish. It is just the ordinary
Danish phrase, " Nu flytte vi," which is employed.

Worsaae adds that the English counterpart — almost word

68 , Folklore

for word (ncBsten ord til andef) — was found by him localised
in Lancashire ; and it is possible Phillips's version is not really
of Yorkshire origin at all, although localised by him in Farn-
dale. For I do not doubt that, misconceived and mistakenly
coloured as the features of the story as told by him are, the
change of the vowel may have a significance. Times without
number I have heard the word " bushel " sounded "bishel";
the personal name " Eidsdale " is commonly " Eudsdale " in
Cleveland at the present day ; and I have many instances in
which the bishopric (of Durham, namely) is written "busshop-
rick " in the first James's time and later, and written so, more-
over, in the official Eecords kept by the Clerk of the Peace of
the time. It is possible, therefore, that, if the story as given
by Professor Phillips is not in reality derived from a Lanca-
shire, a County of Durham, or a Scottish Border source, the
presence of the form " flutting " in it may be of antiquarian
significance, and betoken that such form of the tale indicates
an antiquity of not less than from two to three centuries, and
quite possibly even much more than that : that, in other
words, the ' terms "hamp," "berry," and "stamp" of the
couplet given above, and the " flutting " of this Hob story, are
correlative as to the inference we are, in either case, more than
simply enabled to make as to the hoary antiquity of the Hob
legends.

And yet our communicative old lady told forth her tale as
of things that had happened under everybody's cognisance,'
and as it might be only the other day ; and of which she had
only just missed personal cognisance herself by coming a little
too late on the scene. She told her story of the doings and
disappearance of Hob, and of the fairy dancing, of their
retreat to their underground habitations, and "bittling" their
clothes, of the finding of the fairy-bairn, in precisely the same
tone and manner as I was told in after years by divers of the
folks in the same vicinity, who only had not been actual eye-
witnesses, of the marvellous escape of a child sleeping between

Overtrow v. Siiperstition 69

two adults in their bed in a cottage no great waj^ distant, and
yet coming forth scatheless, although both his companions had
been struck dead in a moment by lightning ; and she told her
story of the butter-making as of a thing the actuality of which
was so assured that it never entered her imagination to suppose
it could be questioned.

Of course such an unpremeditated, unintended assumption
of personal experience, such a spontaneous disclosure of
personal conviction, made the telling very effective ; and if it
could be appropriated and employed at will by the mia wee
story-teller, would forthwith make his fortune. But that is a
point by the way, which need not be dwelt upon. The thing
really worth notice is the deep hold these divers matters of
overtrow had gotten, and had continued to hold, not only on
the imagination, but on the uncultured mind of our dale-
dwellers of even less than a century ago. But if, in saying
this, or in anything that I have previously advanced, I have
led on to the idea that I hold these people to be, in any true
practical sense of the word, a "superstitious" people, I shall
have conveyed a wrong impression. I have met with any
number of educated, cultured people who devoutly believe
that suffering the sun to shine freely upon a fire in the ordinary
grate puts it out ; that setting a poker vertically up against
the fire grate in front of it, causes the smouldering, nearly
extinct fire to burn brightly up; that the changes of the
moon influence the changes of the weather; that even the
coincidence of certain phases of the moon with certain days
of the week exercises a disastrous influence upon the weather
of the ensuing days of the week, or month; that a great
profusion of hedge-fruit — "hips and haws" especially — be-
tokens, not a past favourable fruiting season, but the severity
of the coming winter; and so forth. Now all this is what
I would willingly call "overtrow," or believing overmuch,
not " superstition " : which word, as Professor Skeat tells us,
is due to the elder French superstition, which is derived from

70 Folklore

supersfitionem, the accusative of Latin superstiiio, and means "a
standing still over or near a thing, amazement, wonder, dread,
religious scruple." Now there was no more dread, nor even
wonder or amazement, in the simple minds of these worthy
parishioners of mine, than there is in the mind of the refined
and cultured lady who leans the poker against the top bar of
her drawing-room grate to draw the fire up, or puts down the
Venetian blind to prevent the sun extinguishing the fire that
seems to be dulled by the superior brightness of his rays.
The nearest approach to the feeling — I must not say of dread,
or even apprehension, so much as — of precaution that I have
ever met with was in the case of a farm-lass in Farndale,
who, hearing the " gabble-ratchet "^ overhead, as she was
coming in from the fold-yard to the house in the dusk of the
evening, rushed hastily indoors, slammed the door to, bolted
it, and flung her apron over her head. On being asked,
"What was the matter?" her answer was, "I beared t'
gabble-ratchet ; but I lay I've stopped it fra deeing me any
ho't (hurt)." Or I might quote another and entirely analogous
instance. In the days when there was no lime procurable
here otherwise than by sending waggons with their full teams
over the moor to Hutton le Hole, or some such place, the
journey was often one which, beginning at four o'clock in the
morning, was not concluded until eight at night. It was at the
close of just one of these tedious, wearisome expeditions that
the farm-servant on one of the farms in Fryup Head was
loosing out his weary "draught" (team), and the willing
farm-lass was lending a helping hand, when they saw in the
swampy, undrained " swang " lying some quarter or third of a
mile below the house on the border of the beck, a will-o'-the-
wisp, or in local nomenclature, a " Jenny -wi'-t'-lant'ren." The
man turned his jacket inside out and the girl turned her

1 A name for a yelping sound at night, like the cry of hounds, and
probably due to flocks of wild geese ilying by night. Taken as an omen
of approaching death. See my Glossary of Cleveland Dialect, sub voce.

Unintended Superstitious Usages 7 1

apron ; after which they proceeded placidly with their occu-
pation, troubling themselves no more about the misleading
propensities and powers of the assumed personal entity just
named.

Not that I suppose there was any real or deep-seated
dread or apprehension, or any feeling allied to either, which
led to the adoption of these precautionary measures in these
last two instances. I don't believe for a moment that the
Fryup Head man and lass supposed the Jack 0' Lanthorn
would actually come up from the swamp and try to bewilder
and mislead them where they were ; nor that the Farndale
maiden believed that the omen would have a personal applica-
tion to herself had she omitted the ceremonies named in her
case. The feeling in action in either case may be difficult to
analyse, but I do not think it is hard to comprehend. I was
walking one day, many years ago, with a very old and a very
dear friend of mine, only just out of this immediate neighbour-
hood, when a magpie flew across the line of our path. My
friend, a solicitor in large practice, and holding the position of
Deputy Clerk of the Peace, as well as that of Clerk to the
local Bench of Magistrates, a wise and a good man, with
such opportunities of insight into the workings of human
nature as such a position forced upon him, took off his hat
with the greatest ceremony, a:nd so saluted the bird in its
passage. On my remarking on the circumstance, " Oh," said
he, "I always take off my hat to a magpie." And I myself
was always in the habit of turning all the money I had in my
pocket on the first sight of the new moon, until one day
another old friend of mine completely disillusioned me by
remarking, when he saw me busy in the accustomed way,
"Why, what's the use of doing that? You always see the
moon through glass," in allusion to my invariably-worn
spectacles. And it is but a week since I saw a lady stoop
down in one of the most frequented streets in York, deliberately
pick up a horse-shoe which lay by the side of the flags of the

7 2 Folklore

foot-pavement, as deliberately deposit it in the natty lady's
light basket she was carrying, and I was quite well aware that
it would be heedfuUy borne off home, and hung, as I knew
nearly a dozen predecessors were already hung ; but fruitlessly
and in vain, as I had often told her, because they were hung
as they could be hung on a nail — and that is, with the toe
upwards ; and not, as everybody ought to know, with their
hinder ends or heel upwards — a matter which, unless it be
attended to, completely invalidates the efficiency of the
prophylactic power of the accidentally found but observantly
picked up horse-shoe.

And yet it was not " superstition," in either of its gradu-
ated senses as tabulated by Professor Skeat, which induced
any of the three actors above mentioned to do as they did.
It was not even "overtrow." For no one of the three for one
moment believed or imagined, entertained so much as the
initial germ, of a conception, that we should be advantaged in
reality, even by the mass of a mote in the sunbeam, by what
we did ; or, on the other hand, disadvantaged by its omission.
There was a sort of " use and wont " in it, which, though in
a certain sense "honoured in its observance," it was felt in
some sort of indirect, unmeditated, unvolitional sort of way,
would not be dishonoured in the breach.

And something of the same sort, as I take it, was the con-
dition or attitude of mind in these old friends of mine who,
divers of them, and on divers and manifold occasions, have told
me such stories and traditions as the above with so much
empressement and apparently evident conviction of the realily
of what they were relating. I do not say that I think it was
so always ; that there had never been a time when there was
absolutely a faith of a sort in that which furnished the basis of
all these narratives, a superstition really, and not a mere harm-
less exhibition of overtrow. Thus, for instance, I have no
doubt at all of the very real and the very deep-seated existence
of a belief in the actuality and the power of the witch. Nay,

The Witch everywhere 73

I make no doubt whatever that the witch herself, in multitudes
of instances, believed in her own power quite as firmly as any
of those who had learned to look upon her with a dread almost
reminding one of the African dread of fetish. Fifty years ago
the whole atmosphere of the folklore firmament in this district
was so surcharged with the being and the works of the witch,
that one seemed able to trace her presence and her activity in
almost every nook and corner of the neighbourhood. But this
is far too wide and deep and intricate a subject to be entered
upon at the close of a section already quite sufficiently long.

THE WITCH NOT ALWAYS OE NECESSARILY
AN IMPOSTOR

At the end of the last section I made reference to the omni-
presence of the witch and the persistency of witch-tales or
legends throughout the Dales district. It would indeed be
difficult to exaggerate the dimensions of that element of folk-
lore. I can but give an illustration or two of the position
thus laid down.

It is not yet twenty-five years since a member of the Society
of Friends, himself a very shrewd and observant man, as well
as a successful tradesman in a considerable market-town in
Cleveland, when talking to me about some of the different
matters which he knew were of interest to me, touched not
.only on the general subject of folklore, but on the specific
branch of it furnished by witchcraft, and the extensive and, in
some part, still current belief in it ; and he gave me the
following anecdote in illustration of what he was advancing.
" Not long since," he began, " a woman very well known to me
as a neighbour and more than a merely occasional customer,
came into my shop, and after making her purchases, took out
her purse for the purpose of paying for the goods bought. In
doing so she dropped something which had been in the pocket
together with the purse. A close and very diligent search for
the object that had fallen ensued immediately. But it was
apparently in vain, and it continued to be in vain for so long
that I asked her what she had lost. For a space she seemed

The Witch a Believer in her own Powe? 7 5

shy of telling me ; but at last she replied, ' I have lost my
witch-wood ; and it will never do to be without that.' — 'Why,
Mally,' I said in reply, ' surely you don't believe in witches ! '
'Not believe in witches, saidst 'ee? Wheea, Ah kens weel

there's eleven in G at this present tahm (time) ! Neea,

neea, it will na dee to be wivout my witch-wood ! ' " But not
only was there this still current and widely-spread faith in the
witch, in her influence as well as her malevolence, but not a few
of the stories current were such as to imply absolute convic-
tion on the part of the witch herself of the actual possession
of the powers she was credited with. I do not mean that
under terror of possible application of some modified sort of
"question" or torture, or the pressure of actual cruelty, they
admitted the imputation of witchcraft, nor even that for
sinister purposes they laid claim to the possession of the
powers implied ; ^ but that, whether under the influence of an
excited credulity, or possibly a condition allied to if not
identical with that spoken of as "magnetic," "hypnotic," or
"mesmeric," they might verily and really conceive themselves
to be possessed of the alleged powers,^ and adopt both the

■^ As to the matter here adverted to, note the following extract from
the preface (p. 30) to Depositions from the Castle of York (S. S.), the
immediate subject being certain depositions illustrative of the history of
this remarkable superstition, witchcraft: "And yet some of these weak
and silly women had themselves only to thank for the position they were
placed in. They made a trade of their evil reputation. They were the
wise women of the day. They professed some knowledge of medicine, and
could recover stolen property. People gave them money for their services.
Their very threats brought silver into their coffers. It was to their interest
to gain the ill name for which they suffered. They were certainly
uniformly acquitted at the Assizes, but no judge, jury, or minister could
make the people generally believe that they were innocent. The super-
stition was too deeply rooted to be easily eradicated."

2 In illustration of this point the following paragraphs translated
from Hylten Cavallius's Wdrend och Wirdarne will be found not without
their interest. Speaking on the general subject of what we call " witch-
craft," and adverting to the special subject of spells, written charms,
incantations, etc., he mentions the collection of books on the so-called
Black Art, which had been accumulated in the course of the witchcraft

76 Folklore

language and the action consonant thereto. Indeed I can
hardly conceive that it could possibly be otherwise. It is'
not long since I was reading a series of very able and, some
of them, very striking essays and addresses by Rev. J. M.
Wilson, one of which might be looked upon as, in a certain
sense, an "Apology for the Christian Miracles," or some of
them. The immediate subject of his remarks is the "inter-
pretation to be put on St. Paul's words touching the miracles
wrought by him according to his own account." This inter-
pretation is, says he, "that certain highly unusual phenomena
repeatedly took place, which the agent and the witnesses agreed
in considering as in some sense supernatural ; that these pheno-
mena consisted in an exalted spiritual condition, which de-
veloped extraordinary spiritual and intellectual gifts, such as
those of exposition, speaking with tongues, or extraordinary
physical power, such as that of healing certain unspecified
classes of disease. ... It further appears that these phenomena

investigations carried out in some parts of Sweden in the earlier half of
the eighteenth century, and which were seen by Linnaeus in 1741, and by
him described as full of jargon and gibberish, of idolatrous notions, super-
stitious prayers, devil-worship, and the like, and mainly in verse and
rhyme ; and then proceeds : ' ' The same irregular rhyming forms are also
the peculiarity of nearly all spells or incantations which are yet to be met
with. The very form itself, as the natural mode of expression for an
excited condition of the senses, carried with it also the implied certainty
that the incantations of the old times would be uttered with a deeply
perturbed spirit, just as the remarkable vagaries of the understanding
which are so characteristic of the entire category of ' trolldom, ' or witch-
craft, can only be psychologically explained or illustrated on the assump-
tion or supposition of the strongest excitement of the imagination and
inner consciousness. Take, for instance, the confession made by Ingeborg
Boge's daughter before the King's District-court in 1618, in which she set
forth how she, in order that her husband might not detect her nocturnal
expeditions to BlaakuUa (the witches' place of meeting), without using
any definite form of words or spell, employed for the purpose certain good
devices, such as that taking her sark she blew into it till it was filled out
with air, when she laid it by her husband's side, making it so completely
in her own image and form, that, if he looked at her, he could not detect
any difference from her actual self. From such a statement as this no

Mental Phenomena jj

of healing consist in the action of mind upon mind or mind on
body; and the conditions plainly include a highly exalted
spiritual condition in both agent and patient. The class to which
the phenomena alluded to by the agent himself belong, is that
obscure class of mental actions of whose existence we have now
ample evidence, but of the details of which we are still at present
very ignorant, from lack of a sufficiently wide and accurate obser-
vation of facts to serve as the basis of induction. Such phenomena
need not be regarded as in any sense miraculous, nor evidential
of anything else except of those highly wrought spiritual con-
ditions which an induction from experience may show are in-
separable from such phenomena. . . . That these powers would
in such a society " as that contemplated by the circumstances
of the case "be often misunderstood, the limits of them
unperceived, the exercise of them misreported and exaggerated,
is certain. In St. Paul's letters, however, I think it will be
admitted by any candid reader, there is no trace of their mis-
one can draw any other concltision than that in this imaginary night-trip
to Blaakulla the real state of the case was that she was in a strangely
visionary and most Ukely spontaneously magnetic condition. In the case
of other individuals, that same condition of nervous non-natural excite-
ment has been induced by the application of unguents impregnated with
strong narcotic or narcotico-soporific drugs, whence also the ointment horn
{smorje-horn) is looked upon as part of the witch's equipment ; such a horn
being preserved among other like matters in the High Court of Gothland.
In some way or other, however, whether called into play by incantations
merely, or by the use of some other means, have an unnatural and pervad-
ing straining or tension of the nerves, and psychical delirium, closely
united with an aberration of an imaginary nature, always found admission
as a fundamental condition in the original and archaic development of
the witchcraft system, whose most remarkable expression or manifestation,
together with journeys through the air, and so forth, thus find their readiest
psychological explanation. . . . Yet further, and without recourse to any,
even the simplest spell, witchcraft has provided itself, under diverse cir-
cumstances, with equally various means and resources, among which, and
in the midst of other articles of the same general nature, is preserved in
the court-house just named a little horn pipe, which was used by the
witches when they desired to exercise their art or summon their familiar
to their presence."

78 Folklore

representation ; he was himself an agent, and speaks of them
without exaggerations and without surprise. Let us repeat,
therefore, that St. Paul possessed an astonishing power over
the minds, and through the minds over the bodies, of men;
that such powers were regarded both by himself and others as
miraculous, so abnormal were they ; and that we may regard
them as exceptional powers produced by certain conditions of
mind and will, primarily highly exalted and intense spiritual
conditions, and therefore evidential of those conditions."

These powers, the lecturer goes on to say, "produced
effects of at least two kinds"; on the one hand, in really
wonderful spiritual results, both in the agents themselves and
in the masses of men to whom they addressed themselves ;
and " on the other hand, in power over men's bodies through
their minds and emotions ; in other words, gifts of healing ;
and both of these were appreciated by contemporaries."

Now, it would seem to me that, on collation of these
extracts with the translation from the Swedish inquirer and
author given in the last long note, there is really no valid
reason why whole sentences from the former, with only slight
verbal alteration, should not be transferred from the subject
of the Christian miracles (or some certain section of them) to
the question of the actual possession by the reputed witch of
two hundred years ago, and of later periods still, of some very
actual power or active influence. I am quite satisfied that,
some of those phenomena of witchcraft might and did
" consist in the action of mind upon mind or mind upon
body," and that the conditions plainly include "a highly
exalted or excited mental and nervous condition" in both
"agent and patient." Quite apart, moreover, from the
possible, or more than possible, use or application of powerful
drugs, there must have been cases, of by no means rare
occurrence, in which the witch not only produced given and
remarkable eifects upon both the minds and bodies of her
" patients," but knew that she could do it, and both intended

Animal Magnetism 79

and expected to produce them. In fact, the annals of animal
magnetism go infinitely beyond anything here postulated, in
hundreds and hundreds of facts which are of the most ordinary
and everyday occurrence. I remember being told by one of
the then leading medical men in one of the principal watering-
places in the north of England, nearly fifty years ago, that
being a mesmerist himself and having a case in which he
believed that the influence then known as " mesmeric " would
be beneficial, he applied it daily ; but finding it often incon-
venient to have to attend his patient at the precise hour at
which the inducement of the mesmeric slumber most conduced
to her benefit, he resolved to try whether he could not induce
it otherwise than by personal attendance and operation. For
this end he, as the phrase was, mesmerised a bottle of water
and also a handkerchief, and gave them to her with orders to
use them, or one of them, at the proper season. Somewhat
to his own surprise — for it was somewhat nearer the birth of
animal-magnetism than this present year of grace 1891 — the
experiment was a complete success. I myself knew the
patient, and visited her, both as a friend and as a clergyman ;
and I had the means of verifying the statements made to me,
if I had had any doubt, which I had not. Finding his initial

experiment so far successful, Dr. W tried others also, and

found that it was possible in this patient's case to bring on
the slumber without entering her presence, or even giving her
any tangible token of the influence he had established upon
her. What he did was to make the "passes," which in those
days were the recognised means employed for inducing the
slumber, as he passed along the street in which her residence
was situated, and the passes were found to be efficacious. All
this is mere everyday experience now, and indeed is very
much short of many of the experiences detailed in any
memoir or treatise on the subject of electro-biology or animal-
magnetism. What is possible in the way of action of mind
on mind or of mind upon body, the nervous and mental

8o Folklore

conditions of the patient and the agent being in fitting corre-
lation, is in point of fact almost astounding. Is it possible to
deny, or rather, is it not imperative on us to assume, that in
some quite sensible proportion of the hundreds of persons
credited with the power of the witch, there may or must
have been an exact analogy to the examples afforded in the
experience of the magnetic or biological professor %

And so, I believe that in multitudes of cases the witch
herself was a believer in the reality and the efficacy of her
own powers. No doubt, "these weak and silly women made
a trade' of their evil reputation." No doubt, fraud and
imposture were rife among them. But still there must have
been many a member of the sisterhood who was, as regards
a belief in the power or influence of the witch, to the full as
"superstitious" as the silliest and weakest of her dupes or
the victims of her craft. And it is thus that I account for
the existence of that class of phase of witch-story or legend
which was so very far from uncommon some forty years ago,
when I was gathering up the fragments that remained of a
witch-lore which must have been singularly rich, and in which
phase or class the witch herself was the principal or prominent
agent rather than simply the witch's patient, victim, or dupe.

THE WITCH: LOCAL LEGENDS OF HEE DOINGS,
AND ILLUSTRATIONS

At the time indicated at the close of the last section, or more
than forty years ago, a very noteworthy proportion of these
witch stories were not only localised, but the names, the
personality, the actual identity of the witches of greatest
repute or notoriety were precisely specified and detailed. I
have had houses in three or four of the townships of this
immediate district pointed out to me as the abodes of this or
that "noted witch." In Danby, Westerdale, Glaisdale, Fam-
dale, as well as farther afield, this place or that, and sometimes
to the number of two or three in a single one of the parishes
named, has been indicated as the scene of this or that strange
experience springing out of witchcraft, or of some stranger
exploit in the same connection. Here the witch was bafiled
by the employment of an agency more potent than her own
(of which more at a future page) ; here she was irresistible or
triumphant ; there she came to grief, perhaps through the use
of silver slugs fired at her, perhaps through some other of the
accredited means for neutralising her power or damaging her
person. In one of these stories, perhaps as graphic as any I
have met with, and which to my regret I am unable to give
in detail by reason of the nature of the means, or at least the
effect of the means, employed for the purpose of bringing the
witch to book, her name and abode as well as those of her
victim being given with all precision, she is brought on the

G

82 Folklore

scene as forced to confess her misdeeds, and constrained to
remain in a condition of sheer bodily purgatory until she had
removed the spell laid on her victim and his goods, and besides
that remedied its baneful effects. Another, in which the self-
same uncanny old lady is the principal actor, and eventually
the actual sufferer, runs thus : A party of freeholders,^ mainly

^ It is not without interest to observe that this legend accommodates
itself with accuracy to the actual sporting circumstances of the district at
the period alleged — at least assumed — hy the names of the men mentioned.
Even to the present day I sometimes meet with an old inhabitant who
recalls the time when the exclusive right of sporting over the common or
moorlands was not as yet claimed, or at least not as yet exercised, by the
lord of the manor. There was a man living here when I first knew the
district, at that time "well on in his seventies," who was described as
having possessed a singular species of skill or dexterity in the use of a
peculiar missile, such as I had never heard of before. This was a short
straight cudgel of some eighteen inches in length, which he could hurl
with such unerring aim that a grouse or partridge within the range of his
weapon — not a very wide one, it may be noted — had but small chance of

escape. John S never missed. It so happened one day that three

or four of our Danhy freeholders had taken their guns in quest of a hare,
but in vain ; every shot had been missed, and they were coming home
without the game, when they met our friend John with his cudgel.
Being told of their want of success, with the utterance of a gibe or
two, he offered to go with them to the moorside they were leaving, and
procure them the hare they wanted. A short time only elapsed before
one was found, and John's cudgel rolled her over before she had gone
half a dozen yards. Over and above this feat of marksmanship, the
matter of interest to me was that these freeholders, whose names and
histories and successors were all quite familiarly known to me, should
be sporting, apparently quite at their own will and discretion, over
what was, at the time of narration, and had been for many years, the
jealously preserved and exclusively enjoyed sporting ground of the lord
of the manor. A word or two of inquiry suiBced to convey to me the
fact that, up to the time of such and such a predecessor of the present
lord, the freeholders had exercised the right of sporting at their own
discretion over the entire moor, and even of shooting the sacred grouse
exactly as they pleased. But the lord aforesaid had instituted a suit at
law with the view of proving that such right was vested in him and his
successors only, and had won his cause. There is, therefore, in the story
in the text observance of an historical fact which serves to illustrate the
fidelity of the legend in a case where modern invention would infallibly
have gone astray.

Coursing extraordinary 83

if not exclusively belonging to Westerdale, were out coursing,
but had met with no success, not having found a single hare
in the course of their long morning's quest. Wheii thinking
of giving up their pursuit as hopeless, they fell in with old

Nanny , the most " noted witch " in all the country-side.

No long time passed before she was made aware by the dis-
appointed sportsmen — and some thought she knew it all before
— of their failure to find a hare, and much more of getting a
course. "Oh," says the wrinkled, hook-nosed, crook-backed
old dame, " I can tell you where you will find a hare ligging,
and a grand one and all. I'se ho'd ye (I will undertake to
you) she'll gi'e ye a grand course. Only, whativver ye deea,
minnd ye dinna slip a black dog at her ! That wad be a sair
matter for ye all." They gave their word to attend to this
injunction, and proceeded to the locality the old dame indi-
cated. There, sure enough, they found a noble hare, which
went away gallantly before the two dogs slipped at her. I
ought to mention that the names and abodes of all the party
were mentioned to me in detail by my informant ; the place at
which the interview with the witch took place, the place where
she told them to seek the hare and found her, and the line of
country taken by the quarry, with the places where the grey-
hounds " turned " her, and all the particulars of a most exciting
and, to sportsmen, interesting course. In short, the hare led
them a chase of several miles over parts of the Westerdale
moors, over the Ingleby boundary, circling back by Hob Hole
till she had nearly reached the spot where she was originally
met with. Here, as luck would have it, a black dog, not
belonging to any one of the party, and coming no one knew
whence, suddenly joined in the course, and just as the hitherto
unapproachable hare made a final effort to get through a
smout-hole at the foot of the wall of the garth in which the
cot of the reputed witch was situate — and the habitation in
question is a habitation still — the black dog, according to the
expression used, "threw at her," but succeeded in little more

84 Folklore

than tearing out some of the fleck of her haunch, bringing
with it, in one place, a bit of the skin. That was the end
of the course, but not of the story. It continued thus :
The party after a pause, due, as it would seem, in part to
apprehension, and, in the case of one at least, to suspicion,
went to Nanny's door, and, although it was fast, succeeded
eventually in obtaining admission. The apprehensive mem-
bers of the party, having a wholesome fear of witch-prowess
in general, and of Nanny's in^particular — especially in con-
sideration of their live stock — desired to excuse themselves
for the inadvertent violation of her injunction as to the colour
of the dogs which were to be permitted to join in the course.
One of them, however, as just intimated, more suspicious or
better informed than his comrades, wished to satisfy himself
as to the presence and the condition of old Nanny herself.
Finding admission to the dwelling, in the cots of the time,
was finding admission to the sleeping apartment and all. For
there were no chambers upstairs then. There was the living
room, with a sort of boxed- off place or two for sleeping
arrangements, and perhaps a roost for the fowls ; but nothing
beyond in the way of more modem refinements. And when
the party entered, there was old Nanny stretched on her bed,
disabled and in pain. "What was wrang wiv 'er? She had
been weel eneugh but a bit afore." — "Eh, she had happened
an accident, and lamed hersen." But the suspicions of the
suspicious one were allowed to prevail, and the old woman's
hurts were overhauled, and it was found she was rent as if
by a dog's teeth on the haunch, exactly where the hare, which
had run through the smout into Nanny's garth, had been seen
to be seized by the unlucky (and unwelcome) black dog.

There was another Nanny, of Danby celebrity, who lived
in a house of precisely the same character as the Westerdale
Nanny's, situate about half a mile to the east of the house
in which this is written. I have no doubt that she was
really an "historical" character, and that the plain English

A Witch-hunt 85

of many of the stories that have been told me about her is
that she was an object of persecution by the " young bloods "
of the day and district, — young fellows of the farming
persuasion, the sons of freeholders, or possibly freeholders
themselves. But the story I would relate came to me in much
the following form. " Au'd Nanny " used to lie j)erd,u in the
evenings in a certain whin-covered bank — a regular gorse
covert in those days, as I was made to understand. Here
these young fellows beat for her as they would for a hare, and
for the same purpose — namely, for sport's sake — and expecting
to find her in her qumi form there. "When found, she always
"took the same line of country," namely, up the hill from the
side of the basin low down in which her hut was placed, and
then along the slope from the moor-end down towards the
hamlet called Ainthorpe, and so down the steeper part of the
same descent to where a run of water used to cross the road
on its surface, but is now bridged over in a substantial, if not
a showy, manner. Down this steeper descent there was
and is a flagged path or causey — the survival of what had
once been the veritable highroad, or king's highway, up and
towards the eastern part of the parish. Down this causey
it was the witch's custom, when she was thus chivied, to run
at headlong speed, and as she wore clogs, or rough shoes
with wooden soles, fortified at the extremities with iron
tips and heels, the clatter of her footsteps could be heard long
before she arrived near the foot of the slope, and the water,
at which perforce the chase ceased. One evening one of the
customary starters and pursuers had not been present at the
"meet," nor consequently at the "find." However, he was
near the lower part of the causey when the clatter of the
wooden shoes at the highest part warned him that the hunt
was up. His first thought was to stop the quarry in her head-
long race for the running water, and see what would happen
when she was headed and forced to turn back, or away from
her refuge. So he set himself firmly right across the causey

86 Folklore

aforesaid, with his legs necessarily a little apart, in order to
stop the -gangway effectually. Onwards came the chase ; the
footsteps sounded nearer and nearer, and sharper and sharper.

But there was nothing to be seen. Thomas P began to

be in a fright, rather : it was uncanny to hear what he
heard, and as he heard it, and to know that the witch he had
so often harried and hunted was the author of it, and yet
not be able to see a hair of her. But he had no time for
deliberation ; and before he had made up his mind about the
best thing to be done, he felt something rush full force between
his legs, himself carried on unresistingly for a yard or two, and
then hurled over on one side like a sucked orange, hearing a
weird sort of chuckling laugh as the being he had expected to
baffle reached the point beyond which pursuit was impracticable.
The idea in this case, as also in the story last given, was
that of the witch becoming the object of pursuit, and under
the form of a hare. In the one case, certainly, she sponta-
neously offers herself in that capacity, while in the other it
hardly seems possible to assume entire willingness on her part ;
while, besides, there is a sort of a jumble between the silent
pads of the hare ^ and the noisily resonant clatter of the iron-

^ There is also in this story another discrepancy or inconsistency, as
collated with the ordinary witch-lore deliverances, and as regards one of
their most customary features. What I refer to is the idea that the witch
could not cross running water. Every one "kens" Tarn O'Shanter's
adventure, and the apostrophe to his gallant mare —

Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg,

An' win the key-stane of the hrig ;

There at them thou thy tail may toss,

A running stream they darena cross ;
and in one of the most graphic of the witch stories kno^vn to me as told
in this district, the convicted witch remains in acute suffering because she
is unable to cross a stream and undo the spell which is torturing her. And
yet, in this story of the hunted Nanny, her flight is always directed to
the running water at Ainthorpe, once beyond which she was no longer
the victim of her persecutors' malice or mischief. But this is nearly the
only, if not the one single, striking incongruity of the kind that I have
detected.

The Witch-hare as a Milk-stealer 87

shod wooden clogs. But it is to be observed that the witch,
under the form of a hare, is of perpetual recurrence in all the
copious witch-lore of the district : most often, perhaps, as the
sufferer, but by no means invariably so. And what is interest-
ing, especially in connection with the Scandinavian repertories
of the same kind, there is reference to the witch as taking that
form in relation with the abstraction of milk from the cows in
the field by night. One story of the kind, in which moreover
the witch did not come off second-best, may be worth recording,
especially as there was — what was not true of the general run
of these stories — a kind of anachronism, as it would seem,
introduced into the telling of it. That milk -stealing was a
common offence from two to three centuries ago there is no
manner of question ; milk-stealing, I mean, from the cows in
their pasture. The entries in the Quarter Sessions Eecords
alone would be sufficient to establish that fact. But it may
not occur to a modem reader to consider how it was that such
a practice became feasible. Our idea is naturally of the cows
belonging to any given farmer being all duly milked in the
evening, and turned out into the safe pasture to browse and
provide another " meal of milk " by the morning. But down
to the time when the Enclosure Act was obtained in any par-
ticular parish, the cows of the village community all pastured
together in one common field (or in one of them, if, as usual,
there were more than one within the vill) ■ and it is obvious
that under such circumstances, when the cows of perhaps thirty
to forty owners were all mixed up together, dishonest milking
would be much more difficult of detection than under the
modern arrangement. And, doubtless, many cases of appar-
ently mysterious failure of milk would be referred to the witch,
when the witch and her wicked works were commonly in
men's minds, and almost as currently in men's mouths. One
thing, however, is quite certain ; and that is that not only was
the witch accredited with the abstraction of the milk from the
neighbours' cows, but that she was supposed, if not believed,

Folklore

to do the deed by aid or by means of the " witch-hare." In
the Scandinavian "troUdom," or witch-lore, over and above
other means employed by the witch in this unrighteous process,
such as tying a rope to the cross-beam of the bam (or other
out-building), and manipulating it (after due employment of
the appropriate spells) as one does the paps of the cow in the
act of milking, the calling into being and despatching of the
witch-hare is constantly referred to or described. A log of
wood, a three-legged stool, a bit of hair rope, and the like,
might, either or each of them, be utilised, and, once the in-
cantation was spoken, the hare rose up and was ready to be
sent on its dairymaid errand. Here, however, in this district,
I have never been fortunate enough to come on any scrap of
tradition, or any feature in a story, leading on to the identi-
fication of the means or the mode by or in which the hare
was evoked and pressed into the witch's service. But still, the
hare was the vehicle by which the neighbour's milk was con-
veyed from his cow to the witch's dairy, and, among many
other stories, I heard the following, in which, as I said, the
" witch did not come off second-best." The scene was laid in
Commondale, part of which valley lies in this parish and part
in the parish of Guisborough. A farmer there was per-
petually finding that his cows gave very much less milk to
the milker's fingers than they ought; and the loss became
so considerable that it was deemed necessary to try and put
a stop to the cause of it. There were witches galore in the
neighbourhood, and their well-known nefarious practices in
the way of diverting the flow of milk from the right channel
were also only too well known. But how to discover if this
were the right explanation of the loss complained of, and,
if it were, how to obviate its continuance, were both matters
the solution of which was not unattended with difficulty.
In the issue it was settled that the best and most feasible
plan would be to watch the field in which the cows were
turned out to pasture during the night, and to take further

Watching for the Milk-stealer 89

means or measures according to the result of the watching
process. Accordingly the farmer set a trusty hand to keep
the necessary watch. An uneventful night, a second, a third
passed. The sentinel declared nothing had passed into the
field, the cows had never been approached by a soul, and least
of all by crone or maid with pail and stool complete. And
yet the morning meal of milk was as deficient as ever, there
being nothing in the condition of the cows, or in the circum-
stances of the pasture, or what not, to account for the vexa-
tious fact. At last one of the neighbours, "mair skeely
'an t' ithers," or perhaps, like the Westerdale yeoman, a little
more suspicious, on cross-examining the watcher, elicited the
fact that it was not quite accurate to say that nothing what-
ever had gone into the field where the cows were pasturing,
for that each night he had noticed a hare that came in through
a gapway in the dike, and that seemed to be feeding about, and
mostly right in amongst the cows where they were feeding or
standing the closest together. Asked whether the hare
always came from the same side, and entered the field through
the same broken way, he answered, "Ay, for seear (sure),
and wherefore not % Hares allays gaed the seeam gate, as a'
folks kenned." But the said gap happened to be on the side
that was handiest of access to a certain "Au'd Mally," who
had an uncanny reputation, and the "skeely" (or perhaps
suspicious) neighbour suggested that "Au'd Mally might
lik'ly ken whilk weea t' milk gaed." Hereupon followed
another deliberation, the upshot of which was that the farmer
himself should watch the next night, armed, and with his gun
loaded — not with leaden pellets, but — with silver slugs ; and
as it was not easy to come by silver slugs in an out-of-the-way
place like Commondale, — and besides that, it was highly
expedient to keep their plans as quiet as possible, which could
not be if they went to a town to buy such ammunition, — it
was resolved to cut up an old silver button or two, and charge
the gun with the pieces. Well, all was duly done according

90 Folklore

to programme; the farmer, with his "hand-gun" charged
according to rule, took up his position near the gap aforesaid,
and in such a place that, while he was well concealed himself,
he could have a good sight of the hare as she entered, and
also of the pasturing cows ; for he did not want to " ware "
(expend) his costly charge on a mere ordinary long-eared
pussy, but wished to catch " Au'd Mally " — if it were she —
flagrante delicto, and shoot at her in the very act. Midnight
passed and nothing came; but as the small hours drew on
the hare was seen approaching with stealthy step, and sitting
up on her haunches every minute or two to listen for
suspicious sounds, as natural as life. With sheer expectancy
the farmer's heart began to beat much faster than usual, and
the palpitation did not decrease when, just at the verge of
the gap, it stood up again and glowered at the very spot
where he lay concealed. Apparently reassured by the still-
ness, pussy resumed her leisurely advance, and entered the
enclosure; but instead of approaching the feeding cows, she
came deliberately on with -direct course to the farmer's ambush,
her eyes getting bigger and bigger with each lope she took,
until almost upon the startled watcher, when she reared her-
self up, growing taller and taller, and "wiv her een glooring
and widening while they war as big as saucers," and with
their glare directed full upon the terrified skulker the form
stalked straight up to him ! With a scream of utter, horrified
terror, he sprang from his hiding-place, flung his gun far from
him, and rushed headlong away, "rinning what he could," and
never halting even to draw breath until he had got himself
safely within his own door, and doubly locked and bolted it.
And so ended that attempt to bring the milk-stealing witch
to book ; and certainly hardly either to her complete dis-
comfiture, or even to her complete conviction.

WITCH STORIES AND WITCH ANTIDOTES

Our last story ended with something very like a somewhat
telling amp on the part of a grievously suspected witch.
But such incidents are decidedly rare. It was very much
otherwise with many of the "noted witches" who had the
credit of doing so much mischief that remedial measures
had to be taken, shooting at them with silver shot or
silver slugs seeming to be the only, at least the readiest,
means available. Thus, in Glaisdale Head the trees in a
young plantation were continually eaten oflF. If replaced,
still the same fate awaited their successors. It was easy to
say there was nothing new in having young sapling trees
gnawed completely off by hares and rabbits ; or, if of larger
size, barked by the latter if not by the former. But there
were circumstances in this case which showed — so it was said
— that no mere ordinary hare was the cause of the damage
complained of. " Hares might have been seen in the nursery
(plantation), leastwise, one particular hare, a bit off the common
to look at : but common hares did not cut the tops of the
young trees off, ommost as gin they had been cut wiv a
whittle, and leave 'em liggin' about just as they were cut,
as if nobbut for mischeef. Hares was reasonable creatur's
eneugh, and i' lang ho'dding- storms, when ivvery thing was
deep happed wi' snow, and they could na get a bite ov owght
else, they'd sneap t' young trees, and offens dee a canny bit
ov ill. But they did not come, storm or nae storm, and just

92 Folklore

knipe off tweea or three score o' young saplings, any soort o'
weather, as if for gam' or mischeef." So the usual consulta-
tion was held, and with the issue that watch was to be kept
by the owner concerned, with a gun loaded with silver shot —
which, by the way, was procured as in the last case — and the
moment he saw the suspicious hare beginning its nefarious
practices, he was to take steady aim and shoot. The watch
was set, and at the " witching bour of night " of course, the hare
put in an appearance — "a great, foul au'd ram-cat ov a heear
t' leuk at — and began knepping here and knepping there as
if 't wur stoodying how best t' deea maist ill i' lahtlest tahm.
Sae t' chap at wur watching, he oop wi's gun, and aiming
steady he lat drive (discharged his gun). My wo'd ! but
there was a flaysome skrike! An' t' heear, sair ho't (badly
wounded), gat hersel' a soort o' croppen out o' t' no'ssery,
and ho'ppled (hirpled, limped, hobbled) away as weel 's she
could, an' won heeam at last at Au'd Maggie's house-end, in a
bit o' scroggs at grows on t' bank theear." Inquiries, however,
were made next day, not among the brushwood on the bank
(steep slope or hillside), but at the cottage of the old woman
called "Au'd Maggie"; and unluckily for her reputation,
already more than sufficiently shaky in the witch connection,
she was found in her bed "sair ho't in many spots," she
said with splinters of a broken bottle she had fallen down
upon ; but her visitors thought " mair lik'ly wi' shot-coorns o'
some soort."

Another story, essentially of the same character, but
varying in some of the details, runs as follows : A farmer in
Farndale was terribly unlucky with his live stock. "Stirk
and heifer, yearlings and two-year-au'ds, he had lossen yan efter
anither, and naebody kenned what ailed 'em ; and now at last
t' cauves wur gannan' too. And it had coomed to be notished
that, whenivver a lahtle black bitch wur seen i' t' grip o' t'
cow-'us, or i' t' cauf-pen, then, for seear, yan iv 'em took bad
and dee'd." So the customary consultation ensued, and the

Witch Antidotes 93

accustomed advice was sought, and the prescription was :
" Charge your gun with silver shot, watch for the black bitch
— but be sure you don't shoot your neighbour's black cur-dog
(collie) — and when it gets out of your garth, let drive." All
was arranged accordingly. The black "female dog" came in
due time ; it was noted that it was black all over, off forefoot
and all — the neighbour's cur-dog had that foot white ; it was
in the grip (the groove or channel in the floor behind the
cow-stalls), but it could not win into the calves' pen ; and as
it was leaving the farmstead garth the fatal shot was fired,
followed by the " skrike " as aforesaid ; the domiciliary visit,
not of condolence but of detection, was paid next day, and
the sufi"ering witch found groaning in bed, with a terrible
series of shot-wounds in the hinder part of her person.

There were other modes, besides those recorded in these
stories, of bringing an offending witch to book ; as there were
divers offences and shades of offence alleged against the
offender; but the majority of the tales did not record such
eventual proof of the justice of the suspicion, or overwhelm-
ing testimony that the punishment had fallen on the actual
transgressor. Indeed, in a very considerable class of stories
the punishment inflicted on the particular witch proceeded
against was rather left to inference than specified, or even
indicated. Nay, there were even cases in which modes of
permanent or sustained annoyance or mortification of the
witch were resorted to ; measures calculated and intended to
defeat or frustrate her malice, and to nullify her power.
Thus, I have before me now a spell or charm the object of
which was to hamper and hinder the vdtch in her attempts
(possible or anticipated) to injure the stock of the person
employing it. And this said charm or spell was in process
of application much within the period of my personal resi-
dence here and acquaintance with the said person. He was
the largest farmer in the parish, a right good sort, and a
fair specimen of the old untutored, unschooled Yorkshire

94 Folklore

yeoman, with a large amount of natural shrewdness at the
bottom, and with any amount of credulity in some directions,
and obstinate incredulity in others, mainly on the side where
reason and knowledge lay. He could neither read nor write
— by no means an unknown thing among the Dales farmers
of fifty years ago; but he was as honest as the day — in
horse -dealing even. Perhaps I need hardly say he had a
lively sense of the actuality of the witch, of her power, of
her malice, and not least, of the ascertained direction of it
against himself and his belongings. He never assigned any
reason he had for supposing himself a special object for the
malevolence of the uncanny old crone. But why, or how,
could he doubt it % Were not his beasts continually affected
with the red- water, when his neighbours' were not? Was
there ever a year when he did not lose a yearling or two,
or may be more, with some mysterious languishing illness?
Were not his calves afflicted above other men's calves, so that
he scarcely ever was able to rear more than a part of them ?
Of course, to one like him, this reasoning was irrefutable, and
he " went the entire animal " in his appreciation of what the
witch — whether it were one or several — could and did do
day by day continually. Prejudiced people might say that
bad management, insufficient food and shelter, pasturage on
sour undrained lands, with an alternation of scraping for
bare subsistence on dry, parched, shaly banks, might have
something to do with the unluck of his stock generally;
but my old friend Jonathan knew a vast better than that.
"There was more than one witch in the Head (Fryup
Head), and there was more than him as kenned it." Well,
among other ways and means, Jonathan employed a stand-
ing charm; and when he died it was found in (as was to
be presumed) full operation, in his standing-desk or bureau,
with a white-handled penknife, half open, laid in front of it.
It consisted of a half -sheet of letter-paper, folded in the
fashion of those days when as yet the envelope was undis-

A Formidable -looking Charm 95

covered, and sealed with three black seals, inserted between
each two of which was a hackle from a red cock's neck. This,
when opened, was found to have a pentacle, inscribed within
a circle, drawn on it. It is somewhat difficult to make out
which is top and which is bottom. But from such indica-
tions as there are, I assume that the point from which the
passage from the Psalms, which surrounds the circle just
named, begins to read is the bottom. The said extract is,
" In Him shall be the strength of thy hand. He shall
keep thee in six troubles, yea, even in seven shall no harm
come to thee," — the "thee" being interlined over the
word " come." In the central hexagonal space formed by
the mutual intersection of the three triangles which form
the figure, is what is meant for a short sentence of three
words in the Hebrew character, but is really a mere rough
imitation, such as might be made by an ignorant impostor,
who knew the general characteristics of the Hebrew as
printed. There are then six triangular spaces formed by
the cutting off of the apices of the composing triangles
by the intersecting sides of the same; and beginning
with the lowest — as we are regarding the diagram — and
proceeding to the right, round the circle, in the first (or
lowest) is the word "Agla"; in the next, the letters or the
word "El"; in the third, "On"; in the fourth, and upside
down, as we are regarding it, the word "Nalgah," with a
cross above it; in the fifth, "Adonai"; and in the sixth,
"Sadai." Besides these triangular spaces, there are six
other spaces formed by the segments of the containing circle
cut off between the several apices of the constituent tri-
angles and the sides of the small vertical triangles, already
noted. Taking as the first of these that on the left of the
triangular space numbered as the first, just above, the words
inscribed are, "Caro verbum factum est;" and proceeding in
the same order as before, in the second the inscription is,
" Jesu Christi Nazarenus Eex Judaeorum ; " in the third, the

96 Folklore

word " Permumaiton " ; in the fourth, "Amati schema"; in
the fifth, "Sadai"; and in the sixth, "Adonai." Turning
the charm the other way up, nearly underneath the cross
ahove named, as it now stands, begins the sentence, " Ye are
everlasting power of God theos ; " and then, at the bottom of
all, in a straight line, the words "Hoc in vince," all run
together, as was the case also in the sentence previously
noticed. This last, doubtless, refers directly to the sign of
the cross made immediately above in the small triangle con-
taining the word "Nalgah."

Surely a formidable -looking weapon of defence is here,
and, as it is reasonable to suppose, one likely to occasion
Jonathan's unfriends among the uncanny crew of witches
more than a mere occasional miscarriage of some of their
nefarious, however craftily laid, schemes and intentions.

But there were other and less elaborate, and beyond
question less Gostly, means available for frustrating, or at
least in some measure enervating, the witch's maleficent
energy. I say "less costly," because a spell like the one
just described involved a visit to the nearest, or possibly
the most renowned, "wise man" (of whom more at a
future page) in the district ; and he, like the doctor and the
lawyer, and other learned professors, naturally expected and
took care to secure his honorarium^ quid pro quo, or fee.
But of these simpler and more inexpensive safeguards more
in the following section.

THE WITCH AND WITCH ANTIDOTES (continued)

One of the simpler and more inexpensive resources adverted
to at the close of the last section, and which, in point of fact,
has been already mentioned at a former page, is the use
of the "witch- wood," that is, of portions of the rowan or
mountain-ash tree, duly obtained and selected ; for, as I think,
all was not " witch-wood " that was of the rowan-tree. The
"witch-wood," to be effectual, was not to be lightly or uncon-
sideringly come by. It must be cut in due season, and in due
season only ; and not only that, but it must be cut in due
place, and with due observances. But by way of illustration,
it may be best to introduce here a little story told me by
one of my parishioners of the days that are gone, and
to whose normal unwillingness to talk to me on such
matters reference has been made at a previous page. The
story was on this wise : He was out and about his farm
one day, several of the fields belonging to which lay far up
towards the Head of the dale, where the surroundings,
however rugged and picturesque, were quite sufficiently
lonely. Earely indeed, when I have been — as I have been
scores of times, whether with my gun or with only my
walking-stick for my companion — in that part of my parish,
have I ever seen a human being in these wild solitudes, except
attracted by the sound of my gun, or perchance in quest of
some stray sheep. Naturally, then, my old friend was a little
surprised, not to say startled, at seeing one day a woman he

H

98 Folklore

knew, and knew as somewhat quaint in some of her ways,
coming by an unfrequented route into the loneliest part of
this lonely wilderness ; and not only that, but casting
anxious and inquiring looks all about her, as if wishing to
be assured she was neither followed nor under observation.
She was carrying some bright object in her hand, which, as
well as he could see from the distance at which he stood, might
be a " gully," or large domestic knife. His first thought, he
told me, on recognising the female in question, and connecting
her queer suspicious ways with the fact of her being in
such a peculiarly lonely and, for her, strangely out-of-the-
way place, was that she might be meditating making away
with herself. A little consideration seemed to be sufl&cient
to dispel that notion, and after watching her with some
little wonderment for a few minutes, he went about his
business. A little later in the day he met her full face,
and apparently bending her steps towards her own home.
But the way she was pursuing involved a considerable cir-
cuit, as leading from the place at which he had last seen
her, and particularly as connected with the route by which she
had entered on the scene when he had first noticed her. " Hie,
Hannah," he said to her, "what mak'st t' here?" — "Wheea,"
says she, " Ah's just gannan' yam (home) t' gainest (nearest)
way Ah can." And then he told her he thought it was a
strange sort of " gainest way home " for her to be taking, con-
sidering where he had seen her an hour or so before, and the way
he had seen her arrive there by. And then he went on to tell
her how her goings on had perplexed him, and how for a minute
or two he had thought perhaps he ought to follow her, and
prevent her doing herself a mischief. The poor woman seemed
a little taken aback by the discovery that she had been thus
under observation, when she had fondly imagined that all her
doings were unseen, at least unnoted by any mortal eye ; but
presently, recovering herself, she uttered the explanatory
sentence, " Wheea, I was nobbut lating my witch-wood " (only

How the Witch-wood was to be got 99

seeking my wood-charm against witches). Well, but why go
all the way into the Head, and that far into the Head, more-
over \ In reply to this, and a series of other questions, the old
woman gave the following mass of information : To be
effectual, the requisite pieces of rowan-tree, — for many were
wanted : one for the upper sill of the house-door, one for the
corresponding position as to stable, cow-byre, and the other
domiciles of the various stock, one for personal use, one for
the head of her bed, one for the house-place, etc. etc., — must
not only be cut on St. Helen's day, but, in order to be quite
fully efficacious, they must be cut with a household knife : they
must be cut, moreover, from a tree which not only the cutter
had never seen before, but of the very existence of which he
must have had no previous knowledge or suspicion ; and that,
on the tree having been found in this blindfold sort of way,
and the requisite bough or boughs having been severed and
secured, they must be carried home by any way save that
by which the obtainer of them had gone forth on his
quest. And so, as she had known all the rowan-trees in
the nearer neighbourhood of her cottage for years, she had
been obliged to go farther afield, and all her proceedings had
been regulated according to these various conditions.

Whether these conditions were always and punctiliously
observed by the devout believers in the power of the witch
and in the prophylactic efficacy of the witch-wood, I am not able
from positive knowledge or information to affirm ; but I am
quite well aware that the consumption of the article in question
was by no means small, and that, too, even within the period
of my personal acquaintance with the district.

But there were other means of anticipating or obviating
such harm and loss, and not a few, besides these already men-
tioned. Thus, I knew an old lady, a dear, canny old body she
was, who, before she proceeded to chum, invariably took
forcible measures to expel the witch, or any witch-emissary,
who might, in the malice of her intention, have lodged herself

100 Folklore

in the churn. And this she did by proceeding to throw one
pinch of salt into the fire and another into the churn, re-
peating the alternate sprinkling until the mystic number of
nine times for each had been completed. Another and not in-
effectual method on the like occasion was — in order, I suppose,
to make the place too hot to hold the witch — to take the
kitchen poker, heated to an unmistakable red heat, and,
inserting it at the opening or bung-hole, to turn it slowly
round, sweeping as wide a space as possible within the said
utensil, nine several times. Witch-wood too had its allotted
station in the dairy, and in connection with the various
dairy vessels.

So that, on the whole, the witches must have had a hard
time of it to get in, and it would almost seem, having some-
how or other got in, a harder time still to maintain the position
they had won. But, on conning over the old woman's recipe
for the gathering of effectually serviceable witch-wood, we see
there was a good deal to think of, and a good deal to be very
punctilious over, and that a lapse in any one of the particulars
named might easily be fatal to the virtue of the whole season's
stock of the article in question. I remember when I was a
schoolboy in Essex, with youthful ambitions stirring within
me, how the being able to do some day what the old statute
terms " shooting in a gun loaded with powder and hail-shot,"
vrith the said " tormentum " or " hand-gunne " pressed to my
own individual shoulder, seemed a consummation most devoutly
to be wished for. What a jolly life I used to think the
little village boys who were set to " keep the crows " in that
then wheat-growing county of Essex must lead. No tiresome
school, dame or boarding, no multiplication table, or, worse
still, pence-table, to learn, no work of any kind — for bird-
nesting and cutting the bark off long svntches in alternate
rings clearly was not work — but just to halloa ad libitum from
time to time when the crows might be coming, or the master
or the foreman be within hearing — and what boy does not

' Keeping the Crows ' sometimes ineffectiial i o i

like kicking up a hullabaloo of that kind when it suits him % —
but over and above all the rest, and over and above with a
towering pre-eminence, the privilege and the opportunity to
fire the real gun, and then to recharge it one's own glorified
self ! Certainly, creeping round those huge thirty- or forty-
acre fields, and duly peeping into every fork in the old thick
hedge, and scrutinising every moss-covered stub, and every
half-hidden but suggestive hollow in the bank, all took time,
and when you were doing your " work " of this kind on one
side of the wide field, the crows might perchance find their
way in at the other, and pick up a few stray grains of the
scattered seed-corn. Again, sitting down and ringing those
bonny long straight sticks required a good deal of attention
and care, and even measurement, and when one was intent on
such rightful occupation, of course a cunning, cautious, keen-
eyed crow might seize the chance afi'orded by such pre-
occupation. Besides, a boy, even a brazen-throated one,
caimot always be halloaing, especially on market-days or
sales-days, when both master and looker are safe to be away,
" minding their business " there. Lastly, too, the gunpowder
is dealt out in such graduated doses, like physic that is not
bad to take, that you cannot in the nature of things keep up
an aU- day -long fusillade, and so, some way or other, the
crows that our small friends in rough boots which smell of
stale oU, and ragged jackets that tell of past rather than future
wear, are set "to keep," find as many loopholes as a rabbit in
the fence enclosing its natural covert, or as the proverbial
coach-and-six in the proverbial Act of Parliament.

And just so, I think, it must have been with the sadly
peccant witch of the days not so very long gone. At least
this is quite certain, that, from time to time, not only our old
friend Jonathan's young stock and so forth " went wrong,"
and, of course, by reason of the malice and the uncanny might
of the witch, but many and many another besides him were
sufferers too. But were they to continue sufferers, tame.

I02 Folklore

unresisting, uncomplaining, resourceless, almost acquiescent
sufferers % Were they not to stir hand or foot in self-defence,
in defence of their hapless, witch-abused calves and yearlings
and beasts and milking-cows ? Could not they in any way
oust the witch after she had gotten possession, — at all events,
carry the war into her quarters, and make her feel and under-
stand that the motto which accompanies the heraldic thistle
may be the practical motto still of the North Yorkshire owner
of " neat stock, sheep, and pigs " ? The thought was one not
to be entertained for a moment by a canny, considering, and
devoutly believing farmer of three-quarters of a century ago.
If the witch had got in in spite of all his forethought and pre-
caution, what was to hinder her being driven out? Nay,
what was to hinder her being made to feel, and sensibly too,
that if she had the power, and used the power, to make the
farmer suffer through the suffering of his stock, even if not in
his own person, still there were means available, by the appli-
cation of which all her malicious intentions, all her mischievous
plottings and workings, might be made of none effect, and she
herself be reduced to the condition of being the personal
sufferer, in place of the unlucky stock belonging to the object
of her envy, hatred, or malice %

These means, or some of them, may well become the
subject-matter of the succeeding section.

THE WISE MAN

" Ay, the witch might have — there's not yan that kens, but
kens that she liad — a vast o' power ; but the Wise Man he had
a vast mair; he was mair 'an a maister over sike as her."

And great was the resort by our old friend Jonathan, and
many and many another of his day and school, to the said
Wise Man on the occurrence of troubles of the class and kind
indicated. And, as became a wise man, many and various
were the resources at his command ; but, being a wise man,
he did not take everything for granted, even when related
with a strange quaint fulness of detail, enforced by a heap
of stranger imaginations and more marvellous amplifications
of suspicions as to person and motive. "Ay, maybe your
beasts are ' witched.' What you tell me looks like it. And
Au'd Betty may be at the bottom of it. She's a noted witch —
we all ken that. And as like as not she has a bit of a grudge
against you. Nay, even if it bean't as bad as that, still some
folks can't keep themselves quiet, even if they'd like. They
mun be doing, or him that gies them the power might not be
weel suited. Still, ye ken, we mun be canny, and ken what
we're ef ter. I mak' no doubt that somebody has ' witched '
your stock, and maybe ' wished you ' (invoked some evil thing
upon you) as well. But that is what we have got to find out.
And if we mak' sure o' that, why then we'll see who's done
it." Some discourse of this kind, there is no doubt, passed
between the Wise Man and the seeker unto him. And one

1 04 Folklore

not uncommon recipe furnished by him — for a consideration
always ; that goes without saying — was as follows, due instruc-
tions as to time and mode of provision of the requisites named
being first of all given : " Take nine bottry (boretree, common
elder) knots, and put them on a clean platter all close together,
but without too much care about arranging them in regular
order ; only let them be all in a bunch. Then cover them —
exactly at midnight is the right time — cover them with a clean
cloth, set the whole on a table near the window, and take
tent that no one goes nigh-hand them while (until) the morn-
ing. And if, when you take the cloth off in the morning, you
find them all squandered (scattered in confusion) about the
platter, well, it's a safe thing that your stock is really witched."
Then, in some cases, especially if the symptoms were not very
urgent, came a further inquiry as to the identity of the wrong-
doing hag, who was the active cause of the trouble in hand.
But in cases of emergency, where the stock was grievously
afflicted, and perhaps death was already busy among them,
more summary measures were resorted to, and without delay.
One course, of which I heard from more informants than one,
and which I had unquestionable reasons for being assured had
been put in practice, twice if not three times, by the Jonathan
mentioned above during his occupation of the farm he held in
this parish, was much if not exactly as follows : He took the
heart of one of the animals which had died under the male-
volent witch's maleficent practices, and having provided
himself with all the various requisites, proceeded to stick it
carefully with nine new pins, nine new needles, and nine new
nails. Then a fire was to be made as the " hoU time of the night"
(the depth of the night) drew on, yet not with ordinary or
any haphazard kind of fuel ; but with bottree wood — in one
or two of the stories rowan-tree wood, or even ash-wood, was
specified^ — and such wood only was to be used. And the fire
was to be kindled and kept up so that there might be the
hottest possible bed of bright, clear-burning embers exactly

An Exciting Tale lOS

at midnight. But before lighting the fire all the doors and
windows of the house were to be made fast, very safely fast ;
and besides, the utmost care had to be taken to darken the
windows, and even cover the cracks in the door (if there were
any), so that no ray of light should by any possibility be seen
from the outside, and no curious eye from without be able to
penetrate to the mysteries within. And on no account, what-
ever happened, whatever noise or disturbance occurred without,
was any one to look out or do anything to interfere with the
precautionary barriers against external observation or inter-
ference. All this duly attended to, the prepared heart was to
be placed on the glowing bed prepared for it at just such time
that it might be dried to a coal and ready to take fire, and
blaze away and fall into ashes, at the very hour of midnight ;
at which precise moment two verses of a certain psalm were
to be read aloud by the principal operator. On one occasion
when this uncanny ceremonial was carried out to the very
letter, the concomitant circumstances outside, according to
the statement of the narrator, were more than sufficiently
startling ; and he told me with all the apparent simplicity and
sincerity of a person who believed it all himself, and had no
sort of doubt he was telling an " ower true tale." He described
the house and its situation to me, with all the circumstances
of local feature and character. It was a house with a door in
the front, there being the parlour on one side and the " house "
or living room on the other, into which, moreover, the door
opened. Between it and a roadway which ran past it lay a
bit of garden-ground separated from the roadway by railings,
through which a wicket-gate gave admission to a flagged path-
way leading directly to the door just now mentioned. As
the witching hour drew on, cries and moans as of one in pain
were heard outside. As the heart began to shrivel and
blacken, these increased in intensity. As it began to blaze,
and the reader commenced the reading prescribed, steps as of
a person shod with the wooden clogs of the district, iron-tipped

1 06 Folklore

and iron-heeled, clattered loudly down the flags, ^ — a loud
lumbering noise was heard as of heavy wheelbarrows driven
hastily over a pavement of cobble-stones, unearthly eflforts
such as might have been made by some boneless and yielding
body, against the barred and darkened doors and windows,
and then, just as the heart blazed up with a final leap of
flame and collapsed into darkening ashes, a prolonged wail,
like that of one in bitter agony, and after that only still
silence.

In another case, all the details of which were given me
with even minute exactness, embracing the names and
residences of witch and victim, the mischiefs enacted, the
mode of conviction employed, the scene of the final ordeal —
all appertaining to the neighbouring parish of Westerdale —
the new pins, new nails, new needles, nine of each again, were
to be put into a clean bottle, which was then to be very
securely corked, so that by no ordinary means could the cork
be extracted ; and then it was to be buried in a hole dug for
the purpose with much secrecy, and not without due observance
and ceremony, and, besides that, on the other side of a small
stream which ran along the foot of the steep bank on the side
of which the spell -detected witch's rudely and anciently
fashioned hut-cottage stood; and buried, moreover, with the
neck and cork downwards, the filling in of the hole being
very carefully done, and all made as like an undisturbed
bit of ground as could be. The witch — no other, in fact,
than the old carline who had changed her shape into that
of a hare, as detailed in a former narrative — soon began to
feel the effects of the spell laid upon her, then began to
be sorely uneasy, tried all her arts, all her power, to
reverse it or make it of none effect; but all in vain.
Indeed, she ascertained what the spell was, and where in
its sensible potency it was acting ; but though she was able
actually to move the bottle in its mysterious hiding-place,
she could not reverse it, or tamper with the security of

A Witch in extremis 107

the cork, or in the least degree impair the efficacy of the
charm. At last, in the extremity of her suffering, which was
becoming more than she could bear, she wandered down to
the place where the bottle was hid, regardless of the implied
confession, at least disclosure, of her guiltiness, with the
intent of doing by manual agency what she found herself
unable to do by aid of witchcraft — namely, tear the bottle
out of its hole. And then came in the power of the running
water, and the superior craft of the Wise Man, who had been
duly consulted, and under whose direction every one of the
preceding steps had been taken. She could not cross the
running stream ! There, within arm's reach of the active
instrument of her pitiful misery, she was remediless and help-
less altogether. Just then, as previously instructed by the
doughty discoverer of witches, the sufferer under her malice and
unhallowed practices enters on the scene. A short colloquy
ensues, the issue of which is that the witch, in the extremity
of personal suffering, surrenders unconditionally, reverses her
evil spells, and promises to undo all the mischief then in pro-
gress, and never to injure him and his again. The victim of her
spells then proceeds to take up the bottle out of the hole, and
finds it, of course through the potency of the spells the unlucky
witch had exercised in her desperate efforts to medicine her
pains, almost drawn up to the surface of the ground, and
thinks to himself he has had but a narrow escape after all.
The sequel of the story is that he breaks the bottle, and so
dissolves the charm, and the poor suffering, baffled hag obtains
relief and escapes with her life, which had come in sore danger
through what the Wise Man had laid upon her.

THE WISE MAN {continued)

I DO not know how it may be with others, but to me, when
thinking over such legends and narratives as those above given,
it appears that the conception of the Wise Man is not only
extraordinary, but also exceptional and anomalous — himself a
wizard, and the chief of witches, and yet the foe of witches,
the counter-plotter and confounder of the whole malignant
crew. That the conception is a very old one, as old, or nearly
as old, as that of the witch herself, it is hardly necessary to
remind ourselves. But there are other matters in the con-
ception which call for a measure of attention. The witch was
supposed to derive her power more or less directly from the
evil spirit himself. The Wise Man, however, was scarcely
credited with commerce with "T' au'd un," either personally
or indirectly. The witch again was credited with malignity
more or less pronounced. Not so the Wise Man, but rather
the reverse. The one went about not exactly like a roaring
lion seeking his prey, but still seeking victims, some to
maltreat, injure, and destroy ; others of whom an evil-
gotten gain might accrue. The other stayed at home to
be consulted, and always ready for a considei-ation to do the
good he was asked to do. And yet this jelly-fish sort of
beneficence and benevolence was scarcely assumed by the
devotees, or even too forcibly declared by the Wise Man him-
self, to be altogether celestial in its origin, any more than it
was purely unselfish in its application and utility. I look

Rather Sorcerer than Wizard 109

upon the conception of the Wise Man as a survival, and a
survival only — that is to say, as I found it still extant here
some forty odd years ago. And, like other survivals, it had
both lost and gained in divers particulars. The conception in
reality would seem to be a compound arising out of a confusion
of the characters and credentials of three or four original
creations of the imagination, aided by overtrow and supersti-
tion. In other words, I think the Wise Man part wizard or
witch, part sorcerer, magician, or enchanter, and part " conjurer"
in the true and full sense of the word. But I think there was
more of the conjurer, and of the sorcerer and enchanter, in
him than of the wizard or witch. And if any one tries, he
will find it harder than perhaps he anticipated to keep these
characters and their special attributes apart in the character
under notice. Perhaps some illustration of this position may
be obtained by collation of the two following quotations from
Brand. Grose says, "A sorcerer or magician differs from a
witch in this : a witch derives all her power from a compact
with the Devil; a sorcerer commands him and the infernal
spirits by his skill in powerful charms and invocations ; and
also soothes and entices them by fumigations." The difference
between a conjurer, a witch, and an enchanter, according to
Minshew, on the other hand, is as follows : " The conjurer
seemeth by praiers and invocations of God's powerful names to
compell the Divell to sale or doe what he commandeth him.
The witch dealeth rather by a friendly and voluntarie conference
or agreement between him (or her) and the Divell or familiar,
to have his (or her) turn served, in lieu or stead of blood or
other gift offered unto him, especially of his (or her) soule.
And both these differ from inchanters or sorcerers, because
the former two have personall conference with the Divell,
and the other meddles not with medicines and ceremonial
forms of words called charmes, without apparition." The
confusion is manifest. The character and some of the attri-
butes of the witch are fairly distinct and clear, however vague

1 1 o Folklore

and blurred, as well as imperfectly delineated, the general
character may be. But can anything like that be said as to
the ideas or conceptions of the conjurer and the sorcerer \
And surely the fundamental idea in the word conjurer — one
whose tools or implements, material instruments of operation,
are invocations, exorcisms, spells or forms of words instinct
with power — is totally different from that involved in the
word magician or enchanter ; one, that is, who works by the
exercise of occult arts, magic arts, the black art, or whatevei'
other name may be, or may have been, applied to his supposed
supernatural enginery.

But I am in danger of being led away from the Cleveland
conception of the Wise Man of less than a hundred years ago.
I have heard much of him, and, as I suppose, the ideal of him
is preserved in the hundred and one stories told of "Au'd
Wreeghtson, t' Wahse man o' Stowsley." And in all the
stories I have heard of him, and whoever chanced to be the
narrator, I never once heard him spoken of as a man of mis-
chief, or as an evil-liver, or as extortionate, or as a man who
had, it was likely or possible, made a compact with the devil ;
or even as one with whom the less people had "to do the
better. No doubt, by some he was spoken of with a kind of
involuntary or unconscious awe ; and by all he was evidently
credited with the possession of extraordinarj' insight, know-
ledge, and power.

More than one or two of the most remarkable and the most
graphic of the stories I used to listen to came from one who
had himself visited the Wise Man of Stokesley. He was the
man to whom pointed reference was made at an earlier page
(p. 58), a good, sensible, simple-minded old man, who had up to
quite recently held an office of trust and much responsibility,
when I obtained from him the details about to be given.
And I would observe that the terms employed by him in
speaking of Wrightson were simply terms of respect, not
unmingled with a sort of wondering awe. And certainly

The Wise Man of Stokesley

III

nothing that I heard either from him or any other of my
informants was such as to prepare me to read such a notice of
him as that which is conceived in the following terms. The
narrator, it should be said, is described as a Yorkshire gentle-
man, and the date given is 1819. "Impostors who feed and
live on the superstitions of the lower orders are still to be
found in Yorkshire. These are called Wise Men, and are be-
lieved to possess the most extraordinary power in remedying all
diseases incidental to the brute creation, as well as the human
race ; to discover lost or stolen property, and to foretell future
events. One of these wretches was a few years ago living at
Stokesley in the North Eiding of Yorkshire ; his name was
John Wrightson, and he called himself the seventh son of a
seventh son, and professed ostensibly the calling of a cow-
doctor (' cow-leech,' it should have been). To this fellow
people whose education, it might have been expected, would
have raised them above such weakness, flocked; many came
to ascertain the thief, when they had lost any property;
others for him to cure themselves or their cattle of some
indescribable complaint. Another class visited him to know
their future fortunes ; and some to get him to save them from
being balloted into the militia, — all of which he professed
himself able to accomplish. AU the diseases which he was
sought to remedy he invariably imputed to witchcraft, and
although he gave drugs which have been known to do good,
yet he always enjoined some incantation to be observed, with-
out which he declared they could never be cured. This was
sometimes an act of the most wanton barbarity, ^ as that of

^ In all my many inquiries and all my continued listenings I never
heard one single syllable leading me to suppose, or even to suspect, any-
thing of this kind. Had the charge been true, I must have heard of it —
at least have met with some trace or evidence, however slight. But I
never did, and I entirely doubt the accuracy of "this deponent"; and
not in respect of this particular statement only. Both the next succeeding
allegations require much more to prove that they are true than the fact
that they are thus made.

1 1 2 Folklore

roasting a game-cock alive, etc. The charges of this man
were always extravagant ; and such was the confidence in his
skill and knowledge, that he had only to name any person as
a witch, and the public indignation was sure to be directed
against the poor unoffending creature for the remainder of her
life " (Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. iii. p. 34).

My own view of this statement is that much of it is
exaggeration, and no small proportion of it gratuitous
misrepresentation. My old friend John Unthank did not
speak of Wrightson in such a way as this ; and the story
of the extravagant fees is, on the face of it, absurd. He
did not do what he was asked to do for nothing, undoubtedly ;
but anybody who knows the country and the people, and
their means, and the saving, thrifty-' life they lead, knows
that the payments actually made to professional men, parsons,
lawyers, and doctors, even down to the middle of the present

^ Perhaps I might as well mention an anecdote in illustration of this
point here as defer it to a future page. On occasion of the iirst show of
live stock held under the auspices of the Danby Agricultural Association,
two among the elders of the people, each much respected both in the
parish and out of it, were among the after-dinner speakers. Both delivered
themselves sensibly and well, and both with more than a mere touch of
native humour. One of them, by name William Hartas, was an old
Quaker, whose judgment, experience, and probity were equally well known,
and caused him frequently to be appealed to as arbiter in cases of dispute
or valuation. Among other things pithily and tersely — albeit a little
quaintly — said, he addressed some remarks to the subject of, as he con-
ceived, the apparent declension of habits of thriftiness and careful, not
to say rigid, economy. He said, and I wish I could give it in his own
inimitable Yorkshire, ' ' I aim (think, assume, believe) folks are not so
saving and careful as they used to be. You must look to it. Farmers'
daughters are not content with good calico, but want something smarter
for their dresses ; and dressing and dairying won't go together, no ways
you can frame it. And the young chaps, why, they're almost as bad as
the lasses ; they want cloth trowsers and smart waistcoats. Why, when
I was a lad there was a vast still sitting in their fathers' leather breeches,
and more than one I kenned had breeks their grandfa?thers had had for
their best, and there was a vast o' good wear in 'em yet. Mak' things
last what they will, is my advice to this meeting ; and old-fashioned
homespun and good leather breeks is baith very lasty."

Not an utter Impostor 113

century (and in some cases even still), are such as to laugh
that part of the statement to scorn. I have known men per-
sonally whose clerical stipends had not exceeded £40 a year
at the earlier date alleged, and the medical and legal fees
were in strict accordance therewith. But, quite apart from all
this, the impression I was unconsciously led on to receive of
Wrightson was — setting aside the inevitable circumstance
that, like all others of his class, he was, up to a given degree,
a charlatan and an impostor — ^that of a man of a not unkindly
nature, with a pungent flavour of rough humour about him,
shrewd and observant, and with wonderfully well-devised
and well-employed means of information at his command.
I say "a charlatan and an impostor up to a certain degree";
but by no means an impostor pm et simple. A grudging
admission that he "gave drugs which have been known
to do good" is made in the extract given above. By the
light of what I think I may say I know, I should read that
thus : he possessed, in common with many others then and
since, wide and deep acquaintance with herbs and simples,
and he used his knowledge with skill and judgment. No
doubt also he knew the properties and uses of what we more
usually speak of as " drugs," and employed them accordingly.
No doubt either that he possessed the power of influencing
men's minds and imaginations, and knew it right well, and
used it of set purpose and intention ; and heightened it, more-
over, by the mystic means he had at his command, and knew
how to render serviceable on occasion and with sufficient
impressiveness. But, grant these particulars frankljr, it must
yet be admitted that he had much and effectual machinery
available, other than what is implied when we style a
man a "rank impostor." The unjust steward's lord "com-
mended" him for the sharpness or cleverness of his trick,
detected though it was. I am sure that the attitude of my
mind when I had heard what Unthank had to tell me about
his own personal intercourse with Wrightson (after I had

I

114 Folklore

heard so much about him and his doings from others) was
something of the same sort as that with which the lord of
the steward is accredited in the parable. I said to myself,
This Wise Man must have been, no doubt, part knave ; but
all the same one of the cleverest, not to say ablest, fellows
of his craft.^ He must have known the district as if it
were a map, and the people in it as the master knows his
scholars. He must have had channels of information such
that he could depend upon what they supplied him with, and
yet such as not to be known, or even suspected. That some
of these sources or origins of information were local, I have
no doubt at all ; that some of them were simply personal I
have as little ; and that some of them depended on confederates
I regarded as established. But his confederates were they of
his own household : namely, as described to me, an elderly
housekeeper-servant and an odd man about the house. I
have been told too that an ostler at one of the inns at Stokesley
was an ally. And there was a code of signals whereby much
general information about a visitor and the cause of his
application might be and was given to the master, without
any personal passages between himself and his dependants.
But all this will possibly be better illustrated after producing
one or more of the stories to which reference has been made
at an earlier page.

One of the most telling of these narratives, and possibly
the most illustrative of them all, was that told me by old
John Unthank. At the time of the occurrence of the
incident he was living with his uncle, who held the post
of gamekeeper to the then Viscount Downe, and lived at
what was then called Dawnay, but now Danby, Lodge.
The uncle held some pasture land of his lordship, and
kept sundry cows and other stock. Among these was a

^ Except Dawson, mentioned in the popular talk as Wrightson's
nephew as well as successor, I have heard of no other local wise man hy
name. That there had been many another before him goes without saying.
But he was as the sun among stars.

The Wise Mans Previsions 115

beast (a stot or bullock) grievously afflicted with some
mysterious disorder — an "indescribable complaint," as the
above extract phrases it. The symptoms were altogether
unusual, the sufferings of the poor brute seemed to be very
great, and no local cow-leech was able to make anything of
the case, or hold out any prospect of cure. So the uncle
decided to apply to the Wise Man, and sent his nephew to
Stokesley, a ride of about eleven miles over a rough, wild,
lonely road, the greater part of it. Unthank went as directed,
and on reaching Stokesley proceeded first to stable his nag at
one of the " publics " there, and this done repaired to the
Wise Man's abode. After some little delay he was admitted.
The Wise Man was seated in his consulting room, dressed in
some sort of long robe or gown, girded round him with a
noticeable girdle, and with a strange -looking head- covering
on. There were some of the accustomed paraphernalia of
the character assumed and its pretensions — a skull, a globe,
some mysterious-looking preparations, dried herbs, etc. etc.
Unthank, who was then quite a young man, and to whom a
journey to Stokesley formed an epoch in life, and who knew
but little indeed of what went on in the world outside the
lonely, half-inaccessible dale which was his home-place, was
naturally impressed alike by the strange garb and the strange
objects, and by his preconceived ideas of the personage he
beheld. Before he had time, or perhaps presence of mind, to
open the cause of his coming and explain what he wanted,
Wrightson addressed him with the words, " Well, John, thou's
come to ask me about Tommy Frank's black beast, that is
carried on in yon strange way." Unthank told me he was
taken quite aback by this unexpected greeting, and was too
astounded to be ready with a word in reply; and without
giving him time to collect his ideas, the Wise Man went on —
"Why, it is little use your coming to me for advice, or to ask
me for something to mend the beast, if I can't tell you why
you've come, and what you want. And maybe you think I

1 1 6 Folklore

can't do that. But I'll let you see that I ken more than you
think. What was it the last thing your uncle said to you
hef ore you left to ride to Stokesley % " Unthank told me he
stopped a moment to recollect, and before he had recalled the
parting words, Wrightson continued, "Ay, I see you have
forgotten. But I'll tell you. The last thing he said to you
was, 'Now, John, you mind and see t' galloway gets her
whoats and eats 'em afore you leaves t' stable.'" "And, by
gum," said the old man to me, " them was the very words my
uncle said to me as I rode away out of the yard." Wrightson
then went on to tell his visitor divers particulars touching the
sick animal. He described the position it occupied in the
cow-byre — the door opened right on to its rump, only a much
coarser word was employed; it made a very peculiar and
unusual noise ; it was continually shifting its position ; the
spasms or fits of pain came on at such and such times, and
the manifestations were variable, and so forth. It was all
accurate and true, and Unthank seemed to think he could not
have told the Wise Man about the beast so clearly and descrip-
tively as Wrightson had told him. The end of the interview
was that Wrightson said he could do nothing that would be
of any good; that the affection under which the beast was
suffering was past his skill ; that the poor beast would die ;
and that when it was dead, they had better open it — in politer
language, hold a post-mortem examination — and then they
would find some abnormal growth which was the cause of the
illness and pain, and would be, with scarce any delay, the
cause of the death. Unthank further stated that when the
beast died it was opened accordingly, that the strange growth
inside was found, and, in fact, that everything the Wise Man
had said was verified.

Now, I have no hesitation in admitting that I believed the
story as the old man told it me from point to point. He told
it with great clearness, and as he went on with it seemed
almost to be living the scene over again. He grew quite

Previsions explained 1 1 7

animated, and told it all with readiness and fluency as if it
had been something he had witnessed but a day or two before.
And besides believing it to be an essentially true story, I
thought I could see the explanation of much which seemed
the most striking, and which at the time had, to Unthank
himself, seemed the most startling. It was, of course, a piece
of Wrightson's business, nay, of his very "wisdom," to keep
himself an courant of all such extraordinary cases as this.
His system of information, well organised, as I have already
said I think it must have been, would provide him with early
notices of all such matters ; and his code of home signals
would acquaint him with much that remained to be known.
Given that he had a canny old housekeeper and an inquiring
man about the house, and an ally at the inn stables, there
would be no great difficulty in fishing out of the comparative
novice, as Unthank was, such minor matters as the position
of the creature in the byre even, and much more the general
way in which it was "handled," or "carried on"; and even
the parting caution of old Tommy Frank, whose peculiarities,
moreover, were well known to less shrewd and observant
people than the Wise Man himself, was one which might easily
have been forecasted.

Another characteristic story which I had from Unthank,
as also an independent counterpart from my other great
informant in such matters, was given me with great precision
of detail, as well as with the names, families, and abodes of
the actors — or rather the acted upon — in the transaction as
described. Two men, both belonging to, or at least connected
with, this parish, were on their way to Stokesley on some
particular occasion, — the " Hirings " there, I think I am right
in assuming, — when it occurred to one of them, just as they
were going down the bank or steep moor-side, lying above
West House — a singularly lonely farm on the road from
Castleton to Stokesley, and within a mile or so of Kildale —
to propose to the other, as his idea of a joke — "Let's gan and

1 1 8 Folklore

have a bit o' spoort wiv Au'd Wreeghtson." They were to
go to him as if in earnest, with some imaginary case, I forget
what, even if it were mentioned in the narrative ; but his
wisdom was to be tested by asking his advice about a matter
which existed in imagination rather than in reality. In due
time they reached his house, and were before long admitted
into his presence. But there was no long robe or headgear
with mystic symbols ; no grinning skull or stuffed creatures
of strange or gruesome look. The sage was in the house-
place, with his pipe in his mouth, sitting in his own comfort-
able high -backed chair, with a cheery fire — for it was
Martinmas time, when the days are raw and cold — and with
something to drink quite handy. The Wise Man made his
visitors kindly welcome, made them draw in their chairs to
the fire, provided them with pipes and tobacco, and no doubt
the requisite moisture also, and, in short, "behaved hissel'
real menseful wiv 'em." The day was cold, and he heaped on
fuel, and kept them "weel entertained wi' pross an' talk."
Presently, as the fire began to blaze up higher and higher,
and the glow to become ruddier and hotter, the visitors began
to find they were over near the glowing coals for comfort,
and they were for setting their seats a bit back. But try as
they would, not only the said seats would not move, but they
themselves were quite fast in their seats ! The heat continued
to become more and more unbearable, and what with the
roasting they were getting, and the perturbation of spirit
which had come upon them on realising their position, they
were undergoing the experience of the inner fat of the newly-
slaughtered pig when -being "rendered" (melted down) in
the process of conversion into lard. After quietly enjoying
their discomfiture and their discomfort for a space, and when
nature could have endured no further continuance of melting
moments such as theirs, Wrightson quietly but sardonically
said to them, "Ay, ye cam' to ha'e a bit o' spoort wiv Au'd
Wreeghtson. Au'd Wreeghtson aims it's a spoort 'at differs fra

The Biter bit ; or joking no Jest 119

what ye considered (settled on, fixed) coming down West
House bank. Anither tahm, mebbe, ye'U think tweea tahms
afore making spoort wiv Au'd Wreeghtson. And noo, Gude
deea tiv ye !" and as he spoke those last words, they found
themselves freed from their previous helplessness, and losing
no time in elaborate leave-takings, they got themselves away
from the uncomfortable presence of such a joker as " t' Wahse
Man 0' Stowsley."

Here again, with all the features of a very uncanny insight
into men's thoughts and intentions, it seems to me by no
means impossible to give an intelligible account of the whole
affair. Thus, it is hardly possible to think of a couple of
young men, bent on a spree of the kind in question, keeping
their scheme religiously secret. It is far more likely that,
whether with a sort of bravado, or with an idea of the great
original wit involved in their purpose, they would talk about
their intention, and the where and when and how of its
original conception. And as to the fixing them in their chairs,
the simple supposition that he possessed certain so-called
mesmeric powers — a supposition that accredits itself as soon
as suggested — is enough to account for it, and there certainly
would be nothing marvellous in an experiment of that
description.

But stiU, there are other stories about this personage and
his doings, the explanation of which must be of an entirely
different cast — namely, that we have a good deal of embellish-
ment, addition, exaggeration, perhaps even fiction, connected
with them. Certainly these were told me by my two principal
and most trustworthy informants with the same amount of
apparent faith, often assuming the aspect of thorough convic-
tion, as any of their other recollections or experiences. But
then there were elements in them which claimed a very confid-
ing receptiveness, or a very well-grown credulity, in order to
accept them all, chapter and verse, just as they were told.
One of these was touching the recovery of some stolen

120 Folklore

weights, and another, of the same general character, as to the
recovery of a stolen shirt. Perhaps I ought to state at once
that, according to the legends I had so many occasions to
listen to, no small part, and, no doubt, the most lucrative part,
of the Wise Man's "practice" seems to have been connected
with the recovery of stolen or otherwise lost goods. Indeed,
that is one of the items in the indictment laid in the extract
from Brand. The stories I specially refer to were on this
wise. The weights belonging to one of the water-mills on
the Esk in this parish were found one fine morning to be
missing, and it was at once concluded that they had been
stolen. After vain search and inquiry, a messenger was sent
to the Wise Man. On his arrival, and after giving in his
information, and answering all the questions put to him by
the wizard, he was told to go straight home, and, it was added,
" Thee'U find the weights back again afore thou wins sae far,
and they'll be all clamed wiv (with) ass-muck," — ^in other words,
smeared over with pea1>ashes and such other refuse as is
thrown into an ordinary moorland ash-pit. And the final
direction was, " Thee'd best not ask any questions. Ah kens
all about it, and when thee gets t' weights back, thee'U be
nane the warse. Sae, just he'd yer noise (make no outcry)
about the matter."

The other story was of a like nature. A man living at
Danby End was engaged as one of the miners employed at
the Eryup Head (or Fryup Trough) coal-pits, the said pits
being more than four miles from his house. A wilder scene
can hardly be imagined ; the Trough being a ravine, and the
pits themselves in the midst of the brown, almost trackless
expanse of the moor, with no human dwelling within almost
half an hour's walk. The miners had a difiicult time of it,
as the coal is not only inferior and impure, and of but small
value compared with the coal of commerce, but it is in such
thin seams as to make the winning of it a matter of no small
labour in proportion to the mass won. A seam of fully

A Strange Tale of a Shirt 121

eighteen inches in thickness is, I should say, almost a thing
unknown. Consequently the miners have to work a great
amount of the adjacent strata to spoil, in order to obtain room
in which to work the coal itself. A man can scarcely work
in less space than four feet from floor to roof ; and thus the
labour is made additionally burdensome. Necessarily the
men undress before descending into the pits, which, however,
are none of them of any great depth. The man of whom the
present story is told had left his clothes above ground as
usual, but on coming to bank again he missed his shirt. All
inquiry proving fruitless, he made up his mind to go directly
away from the pit-mouth to Stokesley, in order to consult the
Wise Man about his loss, and the possible recovery of the
abstracted garment. He went off accordingly, was admitted
after the usual manner, detailed his loss and the circumstances
of it, answered the various interi'Ogatories put to him, and in
due course was told to go straight back home as directly as he
could, and to rest comforted with the assurance that the shirt
would be safely in his wife's hands before he got back himself.
And then" came the customary rider : " You may think it
strange I know more about this shirt than you do yourself ;
but if I didn't know that, and a vast more like it, it would be
to no use you and such as you coming to me to find how to
get back what you have lost, or maybe what folks have
thieved from you. Well, I'll tell you this about your shirt ; it
was made by a left-handed woman. And I'll tell you one
thing more. When you get home, you tell your wife not to
give salt out of the house to anybody, unless she wishes the
witches about to get sair ho'd on her."

The man went home as directed, found that the shirt had,
as the Wise Man had said it would, got home before him, and
that it was a fact that the seamstress who had made it actually
was a left-handed work-woman. This put him in mind of
the Wise Man's injunction about the salt, and the danger of
i^iving it away from the house. " Who's been here to-day % " he

1 2 2 Folklore

inquired. "Well, nobbut so-and-so, and t' strange chap as
brought the shirt, and wad say nought about it but that a
man had gi'en it him to hug (carry, bear as a parcel or
package) on to me." — "What, no one else? no one of the
neighbours?" — "Wheea, au'd Elsie Green wur in, axing me
to lend her a bit o' salt, as she said she wur out " (had none
left). We can imagine the rest, and one might venture to
conclude that the wife, on hearing the husband's story, would
not be too easy in her mind at thinking of what she had
unwittingly done, and the possible consequences of the gift so
unwisely bestowed.

But our very attempt to imagine all this very possibly goes
part of the way in illustrating the process of mind in the
thief himself in either of the cases just detailed, or indeed
in any like case whatsoever. The Wise Man's commonly
believed-in marvellous insight into hidden or obscure matters,
the country-side persuasion that there was scarce ought but
what he knew, the reputation he had, and which it is perfectly
evident, from what I have called the "riders" to these narratives,
it was his object to consolidate and keep as well as obtain,
must, in the very great proportion of cases, have affected the
thief's mind, and powerfully too, when once he knew that the
inquiry into the theft and as to the perpetrator of it had been
referred to such a detective ; and in quite as pronounced a
manner and degree as the telling of this miner's tale and
experience would affect his wife's imagination, would it
impress the many neighbours to whom the narrative, and very
likely with ever -increasing accentuation, came to be in due
course repeated ; and the thief must at once feel that detection
was inevitable, and that his best plan would be to restore
the plunder, and, if in such a way as to avoid exposure, so
much the better. And no doubt this was one reason why
the Wise Man so often enjoined a " calm sough " about the
offence and the offender upon those who went to consult him.
No doubt, too, the wizard's domestic confederates would easily

Possible Solutions 123

contrive to fish out of such people as the miller in the one case,
and the miner in the other, the main points of the matters
which had brought them over to consult the " master." It is
even quite supposable that Wrightson might have become
acquainted with the circumstance of there being a left-handed
seamstress in some sort of connection with the shirt-loser's
female belongings.

But still, when we get beyond these considerations, we are
at a standstill as to any probable or reasonable hypothesis.
The salt incident can only be explained away. Was the
incident one of real occurrence at all? Or was it a telling
addition to a tale in other respects really founded on fact %
Such suggestions will present themselves, and it is impossible
to avoid the conviction that they are quite reasonable and
fairly satisfactory. And the story of the recovered mill-
weights may perhaps be dealt with upon the same principle.

But there is yet another solution possible with a case
presenting such features as these. What I mean is that the
whole affair might have been a " put-up " concern. Wrightson
might have planned it, arranging all the details in such a way
as to lead on to the desired result — that is to say, increased
prestige accruing to himself. Such an assumption would
explain every detail given ; but I must admit that, to myself,
it is utterly and entirely unsatisfactory. And certainly I never
heard of any such insinuation being made against the man's
doings. On the contrary, the faith in their reality as well as
authenticity was a robust faith ; and it would have been but
to little purpose to suggest to either of my principal " contri-
butors " any doubt as to the honA fide nature of the things
they told about the Wise Man's exploits, however strange and
marvellous they may have been.

Before taking final leave of the Wise Man and his doings, I
will add only the following copy, made verbatim et literatim, with
the capitals and stops (or the want of them) precisely as in the
original, of a prescription or recipe to be followed or put in

124 Folklore

practice in the case of an animal affected with some mysterious
kind of malady, which formula is in my possession, and is,
as I have reason to believe, in Wrightson's own handwriting.
It is written on a half-sheet of letter-paper, such as I remember
in use nearly sixty years ago. It is folded in four, and yellow
with age, and is, moreover, somewhat soiled, as if often touched
with warm but not dirty hands. I cannot be quite positive
that it emanated from Wrightson himself ; as there is a bare
possibility that Wrightson's successor, a man said to have been
his nephew, and to have inherited his books, but not, I fear,
his native shrewdness and ability — if any other of his better
qualities — may have been applied to by the former owner of
this paper. But Dawson's — the nephew's — occupation of the
office or position of Wise Man was but a short one ; and it was
so, I was led to suppose, by reason of his utter incompetency
to fill the post ; and no long time elapsed before he died a
wretched death, that of a drunken, miserable, beggarly out-
cast, "like a dog by the roadside," as the man who told me
about him expressed it. Thus I have no doubt in my
own mind about the authorship of this noteworthy manu-
script. It reads thus : " Bleed the Sick animall and Clip in
amongst The Blood som hair Cut of the animals mane Tail
and 4 Quarters Then put in 3 spoonfuls of Salt Then have a
Sheeps heart stuck with 9 new pins 9 new needles 9 small
nails Then rool The heart well in the blood and at 12 at
night put The heart on a Good fire of Coals and ash Sticks
and as it Burns Eead Those Psalms 35—104. 109—56—77
Read Them 3 times over and let all be done by one Oclock
make doors and windows fast keep all very Secret and have a
Strong faith if this do not answer you must do it twice more
at the full and Change of the moon Just as you did the first
time with fresh Things should This fail you need go to no
one else as Thay will nor Can not Cure your Beast."

This precious formula is written in a firm, bold, unfaltering
hand, very plain and legible. The occasional misspelling may

Another Charm 125

be noticed, as also that the numeral preceding the words
"new pins" is 59, which, as I have no doubt the number
intended was 9 and not 59, 1 have altered to the former figure.
The direction as to the psalms to be read is altogether per-
plexing. I assume that what is meant is that the psalms so
numbered are to be read in the sequence indicated ; but it is
somewhat difficult to understand the principle upon which
the selection was made — assuming, that is, that there was a
principle and also a selection.

It only occurs to me further to remark that the use of
this formula appears to be very greatly variant from that,
resembling it in several particulars, described at a former
page. There the intention and the anticipated result were
both of the most pronounced anti-witch description. She, the
witch, was to be baffled, foiled, defeated, and made to suffer
for her misdeeds past. Here the entity even of the witch is
not so much as glanced at. The animal, whose illness is
supposed, is ill of a lingering disorder ; but no imputation as
to any person or party's connection with the illness is so
much as hinted at, and the formula seems intended to be used
with a curative intention only. Just as the witch-wood was
understood to be a prophylactic against witches in general,
with no personal application, so, it would seem, was it the in-
tention of the present charm to reverse or baffle the malicious
practices of some or any witch unknown.

BEE CUSTOMS AND NOTIONS

There is yet one topic among the many suggested by the
comprehensive term "Folklore," on which 1 would willingly
add a few remarks. I mean the curious and interesting sub-
ject of Bee Notions. They are very various, and some, at
least, among them are still very persistent. Such are the
ideas that bees bought by the exchange for them of the ster-
ling coin of the realm never thrive with the purchaser ; the
swarm or hive dwindles and dies out, or perhaps it takes its
departure to settle elsewhere than in the place destined for it
in the ill-omened trafficking ; that a swarm which comes to
the bee-keeper adventitiously is lucky, but if claimed by its
proper owner, no money must pass for its surrender, or, on
the other hand, in consideration of its retention; that if a
swarm settles on dead wood, such as a post or rail, or a dead
tree or shrub, it surely betokens the imminent death of some
member of the household visited ; and so forth.

But I think one of the most curious notions is that con-
nected with the manner of dealing with the bees when a
death occurs in the household they belong to, and especially
when the death in question is that of the master or head of
the household. I remember when I was a schoolboy in Essex,
my father being then curate of a country parish not far from
Colchester, the news came that the rector was dead, which of
course implied the consequent removal, after a space of weeks
or months, of the curate. But that did not affect me or fix

The Bees put into Mourning 127

itself on my attention as did the proceedings taken in connec-
tion with the bees, of which a large stock belonged to the
rectory. I cannot remember who the person acting on behalf
of the rectorial family was, or by what authority the said
person acted ; but I do remember the key of the main door
of the house being taken, together with sundry strips of
some black material, and a kind of procession organised for a
formal visit to the bee-stand. And when it was reached the
bearer of the key proceeded to bind a black strip round each
hive — this was called "putting the bees into mourning" — and
as each strip was knotted, three taps with the key were given,
and each hive severally informed that the master was dead.
There was a sort of weird solemnity about the whole proceed-
ing which produced a lasting impression on my young mind.

In after years many things conduced to the retracing and
deepening of such impression. I will not enter into details of
them, but simply say I was led to notice and collect as well
as inquire. While my interest was still fully awake I hap-
pened to receive a long letter from the then rector of Sessay,
in which, among a variety of other matters, all more or less
illustrated by classical quotations, he gave me an account of
a recent experience of his when he had been called upon to
bury one of his elder parishioners, and had accordingly been
"bidden" to the house where the deceased man was lying,
some hours before the " body was to be lifted " and taken to
the churchyard. He told me he had partaken of the accus-
tomed hospitality, and had retired to the garden to smoke his
pipe in quiet, and had seated himself accordingly in a sort of
arbour or summer-house. Presently his attention was aroused
by the passage of a woman, the wife of the eldest son of the
deceased man. She was carrying a tray, on which he saw
there were piled a variety of eatable and drinkable matters.
She went straight to the beehives, and he heard her address
the bees themselves. Naming the late owner, she said, " John
G is dead, and his son is now master. He has sent you

1 2 8 Folklore

something out of every dish and jug on the table, and we
hope you will be content to take him as the new master."

Founded on this were divers inquiries of mine prosecuted
in Danby and the Dales district generally, and from my old
and helpful friend who was my right hand in most of my
barrow-digging undertakings, I ascertained that at no less
than four recent "buryings" he had noticed some observances
more or less tallying with those recorded by the Sessay
rector. He had seen the bees put into mourning ; he had
never known the intimation of the death of the late owner
and the accession of the successor omitted ; and the oflFering
of food and liquor had been, and to some extent was even
yet, much more than simply prevalent. And he gave me
more than one illustration of the formula employed when the
offering was presented. One was, "So-and-so is dead, and
So-and-so is the new master. He has sent you a bite and a
sup of whatever there is on the tables, and he hopes you won't
be offended."

I do not think I am acquainted with any part of England
in which these bee observances have not obtained, and in the
days of my youth I met with them in a still flourishing con-
dition. Of late years they may have not unusually fallen
into a condition of decadence, but I have met with some or
other among them in different parts of Lincolnshire and in
the north in such vigorous existence, within the last ten to
fifteen years, that my interest in them has never been per-
mitted to die away. And all the less because at an earlier
period still I had been able to connect modern English notions
and usages with certain analogues undoubtedly as archaic as
they were non-English.

For years ago I had gone through a course of Folklore
reading, very copious and equally curious, mainly (though not
exclusively) Danish and Swedish, in which I had met with
quite unanticipated illustrations of a great variety of our
Yorkshire superstitions and practices founded upon them ;

Illustrations from Scandinavian Sources 129

and among others, these bee notions and usages received no
little illustration.

It would be tedious to detail the various steps and stages
by which I reached my conclusions, and it must suffice to say
that after a long course of other reading, mainly Danish, I be-
came acquainted with Hylten Cavallius's J'Fdrend och Wirdarne,
which not only enabled me to co-ordinate matters derived from
various sources, but in many instances gave me lively illustra-
tions proceeding from origins hardly a century old (and some
of them much younger still), of many things which had
hitherto seemed altogether obscure. It was in this way I was
led on to perceive what an important factor, not only in
explaining the conceptions involved in the old legends about
fights in the old grave-mounds for the possession of the buried
sword of a mighty hero, but in clearing up much of the
obscurity involving many folklore principles and practices,
both ancient and modern, the old animistic theory as pro-
pounded by Tylor and others really becomes. Why should
we hear as we do of the burial with the dead of articles of
food as well as weapons of war and the chase % There is no
answer to the question until one remembers that what may
be called the animistic entity of the man might be conceived
as being in a position to utilise and employ the animistic
principle of the food or the weapon. I think there are four
if not five constituents, according to Egyptian philosophy,
going to make up the complex idea or entity involved in the
human being, and although our far-away ancestors may not
have realised those subtle definitions and half-metaphysical
conceptions, still they were able to realise something as to the
fact, and conjecture something as to the particulars, of a state
of existence after the mortal life had ceased, and to fashion
their own beliefs and practices accordingly.

It is not a little curious as well as interesting to notice the
way in which the old popular notion of the ghost or haunting
spirit lends itself to the illustration of the matter in hand.

K

I30 Folklore

When the old lady of the " Mark's e'en watch," mentioned else-
where, threatened to " come again " if her directions touching
her burial were not faithfully attended to, or when Jonathan

F 's funeral procession was detained and delayed by reason

of the discussion of the church-road notion, and its sequel, it
was not merely because the old woman herself, or even the
witch-fearing old farmer, had held certain well-defined super-
stitious notions, but far more because all the survivors
principally concerned were themselves, however tacitly and
unsuspectingly even, under the influence of exactly analo-
gous feelings and fears. The expressed conviction of the
mourners that Jonathan would not " rest easy in his grave "
if borne otherwise than along the church-way — the "Hell-
way " of the old mythology — to his last resting-place, meant
neither more nor less than what was not only implied in
the old wraith-seer's open threat, but acknowledged by her
friends. But it is important to observe what a wide and
impassable guK lies between the crude conception of the rest-
less entity breaking through the prison-walls of the grave, or
the vindictive coming-again-being (gengangare of the Swedish
folklore tellings), and that of the "spirit" of our Christian
faith — the one as essentially non-immaterial as the other is
impalpable, like "the baseless fabric of a vision."

The step from a non-immaterial " ghost " to an " animistic
principle," a quasi-wmJra of the dead, who, in such condition
of being, might need the corresponding substitutes for his
weapons of the old life, for the food and drink by which the
old life had been sustained, is not a far or a difiicult one, and
the conception of the daily-renewed fights and slayings of the
Valhalla bit of mythology, with the nightly-renewed banquet-
ings on the as regularly revivified and re-slaughtered boar
which furnished the staple pihce de resistance, -with the equally
recurrent bowls of mead and new ale, is one which, when
considered in its concomitants and consequences, involves a
singularly effective illustration of these singular bee notions

How Bee- customs probably originated 1 3 1

and bee usages. The departed bee-owner, in his new condition
of being, would require his appropriate arrows, axe-hammer,
sword, what not. He would require his appropriate " victuals
and drink." But much of his drink had depended on the pro-
duce of his bees. All the mead that washed down the boar-
meat must depend still on the honey they produced. What
wonder then that he should be idealised as wanting the busy
makers, and, being even more and more actively non-immaterial
than the old woman's "ghost," should be likely to prefer his
claim, and make it good moreover by actually " coming again "
and taking possession, if not formally and effectually prevented ?
The suicide, the executed malefactor, down to not so very far
back even in enlightened England, was staked down in his
grave, sometimes had his legs or arms strangely hampered with
cord or by twisting, simply to prevent his "coming again,"
while in parts of Sweden the precautions taken were even of
a stranger and (to modern ideas) far more revolting character.
Nay, when the corpse was just newly taken from the dweUing-
house, scarcely a century ago, the use was to scatter live embers
just beyond the threshold, avowedly to bar the road back
thither against the gengangare ; and for the same reason, and
with equally little reticence as to the object, the bee-skeps
were visited, and a formal intimation conveyed to the occupants
that the old owner was departed, and that no summons to
wait on and serve him for the future was to be heeded.

In fact, the more one really enters into the story of the
folklore still surviving in these dales of ours, until lately so
little accessible and so little intruded upon by the people and
the opinions of the outside world, the more one finds to suggest
how hard has been the struggle between the old paganism
and the new Christianity. Survivals of this form or that of
the old nature-worship, of the old cults of hero, demigod,
traditional divine ancestor, of this or that quaint, dim, blurred,
obscure conception of man himself, and his mysterious constitu-
tion and attributes, meet one at every turn. The burial of

1 3 2 Folklore

the abortive caK suggests the propitiatory offering to the earth-
spirits almost as sensibly or strikingly as the pins cast into
the halikeld, or the votive rags tied to the adjoining bush, do
that to the spirits of the water, or of the special spring in
question. The dead lamb, or other portions or remnants of
animal matter, thrown lip into the berry-bearing tree have as
much to impart to the inquiring observer tracking the once
prevalent Odin-cult as has the strangely significative name of
the accustomed weather-presage in the clouds which we call
"Noa-ship." There are places, but not with us in "thoase
deeals," where the name has been biblicised into Noah's Ark ;
but the old dalesman still abides by the old "Noa-ship." And
in the honles of our Old Danish fore-elders the equivalent
"Noeskeppet," wherein the final et is the postfixed Scandi-
navian definite article, and the prefix is the easily traced
corruption of Odin, tells us an equally plain and (to some)
over-true story of the place held a thousand years ago (and
who can tell how much earlier or how much later ?) by the old
northern god of the seas and the weather in the thoughts and
notions of the men who went before us in Danby and near.

Truly the ghost notions and the bee notions and bee
practices are not hard to comprehend when reviewed under
such side-lights as these.

ANTIQUAEIAN

BAEROWS—EAETHWORKS— BRITISH VILLAGES

BAREOW-DIGGING

I REMEMBER, on one occasion when my father came to pay
me a visit here, making arrangements with two or three men
to be present the next morning at a large tumulus, grave-
mound or houe, known as Herdhowe, and situate at no great
distance from the top of the steep hill on the road leading to
Guisborough from Whitby, called Gerrick Bank. My object
was to show my father what sort of work barrow -digging
really was. One of the men I had sent to, a shoemaker by
trade, a strong resolute worker, by no means imaginative, but
shrewd, hard-headed, "Yorkshire" through and through in
the matter of a bargain, or a deal in horse-flesh, had been a
"pal" of mine in every houe-digging enterprise I had yet
undertaken. He it was who, in my maiden essay in
that line, when I was creeping, carefully, and with cautious
scrapings and anxious probings of the soil — for I felt sure we
were near a deposit — tiring of my tardy approaches to the
centre of expectation, reached forward over my bended back
and lowered head, and with his shovel firmly grasped in his
nervous hands, made a fell scoop into the thick of the little
mound I was delicately shaping ; and by his action disclosed
the deposit, it is true, but at the expense of shearing ofif one-
third part di a perfectly entire and uninjured cinerary vase.
His concern and regret at the consequences of his impatient
act were really rather distressing to witness ; and his shame
at having misunderstood and undervalued my careful and

136 Antiquarian

cautious approaches helped to make him one of the most
careful as well as most vigilant workers any barrow -digger
could possibly be blessed with.

He became also a diligent and effectual helper in a different
kind of grubbing or digging, namely, in the search after the
" dialect " or provincial words which it had long since become
an object to me to collect and record. No one could exceed
him in zeal in this pursuit, and not many in discretion ; and
it was " as good as a play " to mark the manner in which,
when he remembered or thought he had secured a "good
word" for me, he brought it out; often in the course of a
digging, when there was no excitement from an expected or
imminent " find," and almost always set in a very characteristic
saying ; so that frequently I had the sentence to record, and
not just the new word itself only. Such was the case, for
instance, with the fine old saying, "Ill-gotten gear has nae
drith (pronounced dreet) wi't " ; and again, with a remark
touching an old mare of his own, " She mayn't be ower good
at gannin', but she's a maister to eat." He's still alive, but
no longer the man he was. His " record " as walking post-
man would be "bad to beat"; but the unsparing use he has
made of his bodily powers has paved the way for worse than
mere gradual bodily decay. Still, however, the old interest in
our joint diggings remains ; and he listened with sympathetic
eagerness to the details I gave him a short time ago as to
the digging I had been directing in Skutterskelf Park.

On the morning referred to above, I fell in with this man
on his way towards the scene of our intended operations, but
at some little distance from it still. He was always ready for
a " bit 0' pross," or " to ho'd talk wiv a body," on any topic
of common interest ; but this morning he was even eager to
talk, for he had something to tell me. He began much as
follows : " Ah nivver could understand what pleasure folks
could finnd in fox-hunting ; men and bosses and dogs all
rinnin' like gaumerils after a nasty, stinking, lahtle beast like

A very lively Dream 1 3 7

yon ! But Ah've coomed to see different sin' Ah got to come
diggin' wi' you in thoas houes. You'll maybe hardly credit
it, but sin Ah gat word fra you yesterday at e'en, Ah framed
as if Ah could settle to nowght, only thinking it lang o' t'
moom to come. Well, I gat me to bed middling early, aiming
it wad nae be sae lang while moom, gin Ah could only get a
gay good sleep. But bless you, bairn, there wa'n't nae sike a
thing as sleeping. Ah tonned (turned) and Ah toommled,
and tahms Ah sloommered (dozed) a bit, but wakkened oop
again iv a minnit or tweea, while (till) Ah was as wakrife as
a backbearaway i' t' glooaming (a bat in the evening dusk).
Towards moom Ah gat me to sleep some mak' (make, way,
fashion) or ither, but it wa'n't for lang. Ah began to dream
all mak's and manders o' fond things. But all at yance, Ah
foonn (found) mysen digging for bare liffe in this houe we's
boon for now, and we coomed on a finnd, a soort of a lile
(httle) chamber made wi' steean. And in't there was a main
big pankin (pancheon, cinerary vase or urn), and it wur near
hand full o' bo'nt beeans (burnt bones). Some way — Ah
deean't ken how — it gat whemmled ower, and a skull rolled
out, nearlings a haill yan (a whole or entire one). And it,
looked to be splitten all across the top ; and then it oppened,
and out cam' a elephant — and a greeat foul beast it wur !
And Ah warsled (wrestled, struggled) to get out o' t' rooad,
and wiv a skrike and a loup (a shriek and a leap) Ah gat me
out iv the houe, and that minnit Ah wakkened i' truth ; and
if you'll believe me, Ah fun (foon, found) myself raxing
and striving o' t' fleear (straining and struggling on the
floor) as gin Ah had gaun clean wud (stark mad). And
Ah've considered thae foxhunters 's nae sike feeals as Ah
aimed 'em."

I do not wonder the man enjoyed those days on the moors
among the grave-hills as he did. We all enjoyed them. I
seldom had more than four men at work at once ; they were
as many as I could fairly supervise and direct. Once or

138 A ntiquarian

twice I had five or six. But, all save one, who was casually-
impressed one day (and whom I never in the course of years
saw smile, or otherwise than grumpy), made almost a gala-day
of a day's digging on the moor with the parson. But the man
just noted seemed to find no more excitement in and preceding
the finds than " a gowk in finnding its gorpins " (a cuckoo in
feeding its fledglings). To be sure, he relaxed a little over
what he called the grub ; and no wonder, for what appetites
we all had ! It was a veritable picnic, with all the abandon
and enjoyment of a picnic, and with excitement of a
very pleasurable sort superadded. My wife and a friend
or two, together with two or three of my elder lads — boys
from ten to fourteen years old — besides the working men, were
the party. And we all of us worked. The boys had their
small spades. I marked out the work, and directed it ; and
when there was no near likelihood of a find, took my place
among the working "navvies." Two of my men were so well
trained and so trusty that I could, to some considerable
extent, leave the supervision of the work done by the others
to their vigilance. But the moment any of the recognised
signs of an approach to what might prove to be a deposit were
observed, the vicar was warned ; and all the work of localising
the deposit precisely, and of carefully groping and feeling for,
and finally extracting, the precious and probably broken or
crushed, as well as frail, earthen vessel was his exclusive
province. And the eager faces grouped around as the inter-
ment began to be defined, especially if it were a "pankin" of
some dimensions ! And the theories that were broached as to
what the contents would prove to be ! And then, when it
was finally taken from the place it had occupied for perhaps
two thousand years, possibly even for many more than that,
the speculations were renewed, and the value or the interest
of the find compared with that or those of some other day.

The measure of success attending these diggings was of
course a variable quantity. Speaking generally, however, a

Houe- digging for buried Treasure 139

" blank day " was a thing we hardly knew. And this is a re-
marljable fact. For in the grave-hill researches I have per-
sonally conducted — in several cases begun and carried through
with my own unassisted labour — with about two exceptions,
the mounds we examined had been previously tampered with
and opened. Indeed, in every case but one they had been
excavated from the apex or summit, and very often terribly
mutilated and blundered.

The one exception from the rule of digging down to the
centre from above, was in the case of the largest grave-mound
in the entire district. The basin-shaped hollow at the summit,
betokening the former disturbance, was there ; but the height
of the hUl — originally not less than sixteen feet — had frustrated
the efforts of the explorers, and they had opened a drift into
the side of the houe. Another, the Herdhowe already named,
had been broken into by the menders or makers — or marrers
— of the highways for the sake of its stony constituent parts ;
and in consequence the ugliest-looking gaps and cavities had
been left. I believe that this previous work expended on our
barrows had been systematic — organised and carried out by
treasure-seekers. It is a matter of record that in different
parts of the kingdom treasure-hunts of this kind were arranged
and effected under the authority of a written permission, duly
signed and sealed, from the sheriff of the county. Such docu-
ments are stiU extant, and copies are given in more than one
book dealing with the prehistoric antiquities of such and such
a district. And although there is no record of any such
authority given in this county, so far as I have been able to
ascertain, still the idea has been proved to be quite livingly
extant down to a very recent period. Once I asked permis-
sion from a Moorsholm freeholder, a wealthy rather than
merely well-to-do man, to open a very fairly perfect-looking
barrow on a part of the moor which had lately been enclosed
in virtue of an apportionment which allotted it to him as his
own absolute property. My first request was met with a

140 Antiquarian

demur, the grounds of whicli were not stated. The second
time it was made on my behalf by a near connection of the
owner's, and permission was ultimately conceded; but with
the condition attached, that I should make over to him all the
silver and gold I might chance to meet with in the course of
my excavations. And again, to quote another instance illus-
trative of the same particular, being one day, with my party
of diggers, occupied in the examination of a houe at no great
distance from a trackway across the moors leading to Guis-
borough, one of a small party who were crossing in that direc-
tion, after watching us in silence for a few minutes, called out
to us, " What is it you are after there % Are you laiting gou'd
(seeking gold) ? "

But to return to what I was saying, namely, that it was
remarkable that, dealing with grave-mounds which all, with
scarcely an exception, had been opened before, still we were
almost invariably successful. In fact, the success was so great
that in the issue my workmen became a little demoralised by
it ; and, failing the excitement of the accustomed finds, after
digging vainly for a while they Ijcgan to lose spirit, and to
work languidly and listlessly until such time as something
happened to brighten them up a little. And indeed there was
. some justification for their excited anticipations ; for on one
occasion we carried home no less than eight sepulchral vessels
of one kind or another ; and one of them was found on exami-
nation to contain, over and above the usual complement of
burnt bones, a very beautiful and finely polished axe-hammer
of fine-grained granite. A total of two or three urns from
the same barrow was by no means unusual ; and while some
houes yielded only one interment, or at the most two, others
produced three or four. Herdhowe, indeed, yielded in
all, counting the distinct evidences of previously rifled and
ruined deposits, no less than the extraordinary number of six-
teen. There were nine entire urns — including a so-called food-
vessel and three small vases such as are usually described

Cinerary Urns 141

Tmder the general but misleading term "incense-cups" — all
added to my collection from that one single source.

And I pause here to notice one particular group of four
among the rest of this great find, which was such as to
constrain one, entirely against the dictates of his soberer
judgment, to hazard a sort of wild-goose guess of what might
have been the antecedent reason for their deposit, grouped as
they were. For two of the vases in question (small ones all
of them) contained each the calcined bones of a child of very
tender years ; another, the largest of the set, was inverted as
well as empty ; and the remaining one, besides the bones of an
adult of small stature, had in it a perforated bone-pin, or quasi-
needle, with the fragments of what had most evidently been
a fine cutting instrument of flint, which had flown to pieces in
the burning. These four, as I have said, formed a group.
The empty — was it a cenotaph ? — vessel was a little in the
rear. Advanced a few inches were the two urns with the
children's remains; and on a stone, thin and flat and some
twenty inches in length, laid over them, stood the fourth vase,
containing the needle and cutting-flint.

What theory will my readers devise for themselves touch-
ing such a group ? For I think the vessels could not have
been placed as they were without thought, intention, or object.

Again, another day I went, with only my two eldest boys,
lads of twelve and thirteen years of age respectively, and set
to work on a tumulus which I knew had been opened before
on two different occasions ; on the latter, by a party of gentle-
men from Whitby, now fifty years ago or more, who left a
precise memoir of the results of their investigation, which
memoir has since passed into my possession. In this docu-
ment they speak of the evidences of former opening from
above, and of the discovery of the fragments of two large urns
which had been found by the previous explorers, broken up
(as the manner was) and the sherds thrown carelessly on one
side. It was recorded, too, that, though they had carried their

142 A ntiquarian

trench right through from north to south, they had met with
nothing to recompense their labour and pains ; and that they
were assured there was nothing left beyond the traces of former
spoliation as described.

Knowing only too well how utterly unscientific and un-
thorough all such investigations then were, and having the
good reason of considerable experience for thinking that the
part of the houe they had left untouched was almost certain
to prove the most prolific, I began, after my usual system, on
the eastern side of their bootless cutting, at its southern end,
working inwards from about a yard within the south-eastern
rim of the mound towards the centre. About half-way
between the circumference and the centre, and within a few
inches only of the eastern edge of the abortive cutting from
north to south, my spade suddenly passed through no less than
four thicknesses of " Ancient British " pottery. To say that I
was vexed, annoyed, discomfited at such apparent proof of
reckless rather than unconsidered working, would be to con-
vey a wrong impression, for I knew I had been working as
carefully and as watchfully as usual, and that there had not
been any, the slightest, indications of proximity to a deposit
hitherto afforded. Besides, the section of material obtained
by that one application of the sharp edge of the spade was in
itself astounding to an old digger. As described above, my
energetic friend with his trenchant shovel shore off at one
.stroke one-third part of a rather large cinerary vase, but he
had only cut through one thickness of the luckless vessel,
while I had just cut through four thicknesses ! Now we have
all seen oranges peeled for the amusement of children by pass-
ing a skin-deep incision round the greatest circumference, and
proceeding carefully to raise each half of the peel by the use
of a spoon or what not, so as to get two cups or bowls (so to
speak) each of them comprising half the skin of the orange.
Treat two oranges thus, and fitting the one half of the peel of
each into the other half, bring the two double cups thus obtained

A singular Interment 143

into contact, hollow to hollow, and, more or less roughly, edge
to edge. Then press them together so as somewhat to flatten
the resulting glohe (hut without bursting the peel), and pass
some sharp cutting instrument transversely through the four
thicknesses. The section that will be obtained will be precisely
the kind of section just spoken of as effected by my spade,
two curvilinear concave edges opposed to two other concave
curvilinear edges precisely like. I need not say that curiosity
was stirred, or that close and careful investigation was
prompted. With every possible care and delicacy a space of
more than two feet square was laid bare, and then the mystery
stood revealed, — at least a certain measure of it did, not quite
all. Over the whole area exposed, portions of a large urn
were dispersed, and with them the calcined bones which it
had once contained. In that particular part cut through by
the spade the chief part of the said vase had been laid (or
thrown), one concave piece within the other, and two such
composite pieces opposed to other two like, just as with our
supposed orange peel. In the very middle of this medley of
burnt human bone and sherds of the old imperfectly baked
vessel stood a small delicately moulded and decorated vase of
the type usually called "incense-cups," with its own proper
deposit of incinerated remains and accompanying flints. I
described it as follows in the Gentleman's Magazine at the
time : " One inch in height and under one inch and a half in
greatest diameter, of red ware, and scored with lines crossing
one another diagonally, but so as to leave a space of three-
eighths of an inch all round, nearest to the bottom, untouched.
It was placed mouth upwards, in the centre between four
flints laid east, north, south, and west, and comprising a very
flat leaf-shaped arrow-point, another of the same description,
but thicker, a thumb-flint or scraper, and some other imple-
ment; but all of them coarsely or rudely fashioned and
chipped, — that is, as compared with many others found by
the writer."

144 A. ntiquarian

These were both, and quite obviously, what are called
"secondary deposits." The houe had not been originally
built or piled over them. They were later — and who shall
say how much later? — than the mound itself as originally
fashioned. Perhaps even the original mound had been
added to or enlarged on purpose to qualify it for receiving
these later interments, each in its own proper sequence. For
again it is perfectly obvious that there were two insertions in
succession, — the disturbed or desecrated one, and that which
had led to or caused the disturbance or desecration. For the
present I leave the idea suggested by the alternative terms
employed for a little consideration.-'

^ I may mention here that by very far the largest proportion of all
such objects as those mentioned in the text, that I have at any period
found in Cleveland, are preserved in the British Museum. Among them
are forty-three cinerary vases of one description or another, inclusive of
the minute cup described on the preceding page, as well as of the 16-inch,
18-inch, and even in one case 24-inch high cinerary vase proper, or "urn."
Besides, there are the few and roughly wrought jet beads found with an
inserted interment, the polished axe-hammers found in two of the larger
urns, with sundry bone pins, arrow-points, and other objects of flint. But
it seems to be a matter for a little regret that they are not all grouped
together as a collection belonging to one definite and strictly limited
Yorkshire district.

BAEROW-DIGGING (continued)

There is a good deal of speculation involved in the alter-
native terms made use of at the close of the last section. Was
what had been observed the result of disturbance, or was it
accidental only? Or had it been desecration, intended,
systematic, effectual? I remember well what I felt rather
than thought as I opened out that questionable deposit. For
the time being I entertained no doubt of the intention and
the object, namely, that desecration, reckless and purposed
interference with the remains of one departed, was the end
sought. I had been doubtful in divers other cases. I had
thought the interference with, or the displacement of, a
previous burial which had come under my notice in earlier
explorations might be best and most easily explained as
accidental and unintended. Thus there had been an examina-
tion of a large houe on the Skelton Moors, sixty-three feet in
diameter, in which, at a point twenty feet south of the centre,
I had found an inserted cairn, or conical pile of stones, of very
considerable size for only an "insertion," and which covered
incontestable evidences of disturbance of a previous burial, if
not of more than one. The pile had flat stones laid slopingly
round and over it. They were of considerable size, and when
they were removed they left the appearances of hollow spaces
within, which led one to expect the speedy discovery of
deposits. HaH an hour spent in careful work disclosed the
site of the main deposit intended to be protected or signalised

146 Antiquarian

by the cairn, and near it a small incense-cup of red clay inverted
and quite without ornament. "There were many stones of
the pile still to be removed, several of them below the exact
place where the cup had just been found ; and at a level lower
by at least a foot, numerous fragments of another red urn,
accompanied by portions of calcined bone, which had assumed
a clay colour, and were much decomposed as well as scattered
about, were met with, and under such circumstances that
there could be no reasonable doubt that they belonged to a
deposit anterior in point of date to that found just before, and
disturbed in the process of excavating the bed on which the
cairn enclosing that had been raised. This urn was completely
disintegrated, and its various mouldering portions found in
divers different parts of an area of fifteen or eighteen inches
square." And my contemporaneous commentary on all this
was as follows : " This barrow was a most interesting one,
and certainly wonderfully illustrative of the custom of burying
continuously in a barrow already formed. No less than nine
interments, clearly, and ten urns were discovered; besides
which, the distinct chronological connection of three of them
is clearly indicated. First, the tumulus was raised over the
remains of some one of note or importance. Then, and one
cannot even guess how long afterwards, a secondary deposit
was made on the southern flank. Then again, and doubtless
after many years, a third interment was made on the very site
of this last mentioned, causing the entire demolition of its
accompanying urn and the dispersion of the incinerated
remains enclosed." It is clear, then, that I did not then think
— it is now twenty-six years ago — of anything but a chance
or accidental disturbance of the previous burial. Years and
years in that dim far-away past had come and gone, and the
precise locality of this secondary interment had been forgotten,
or lost sight of. That was what was in my mind when fresh
from the contemplation of the circumstances. But how about
this other, where the entire previous deposit had been

The Grave- mounds carefully made 147

deliberately spread, or rather scattered about, in order to
make room for, and, as it were, wait in degraded subjection
upon, the latter deposit of the bones of a deceased superior —
and superior, it might be, in virtue of a stronger arm, or of a
greater and overwhelming force ?

In truth there were many things in the interior of these
old-world burying-places to set the thoughtful man thinking,
and the speculative man imagining, guessing, reconstructing.
No two of those of the larger size were built of the same
material, or planned on precisely the same principle. In one
I found a circular platform of symmetrically piled stone. It
was twenty feet in diameter, nearly six feet in vertical depth,
with a cist neatly constructed in the centre, and the entire
level surface of it covered, six inches deep, with the whitest,
snowiest sand. It was years upon years — twenty -four or
twenty-five, I should say — before I ascertained where that
sand could have been procured from. I knew of its existence,
but not in anything like sufficient purity to supply a tithe of
what I saw bestrewing that platform. And the place at
which, as I at last ascertained, it could have been obtained in
the requisite whiteness and quantity, was at least seven miles
distant in a linear direction !

Not perhaps that that would make any difference to those
devoted builders. For, in one large and still symmetrical houe
at the foot of Freeburgh Hill — the very grave-mound in which
I obtained the conditional permission to dig recorded above —
I found, on the natural surface, and concentric with the
mound itself, a cairn or conical pile of stones, many of them
as heavy as, putting forth all my strength, I could lift, ^he
base of which was sixteen feet in diameter and the height
six. And every one of those stones was so marked in charac-
ter that I had no more uncertainty about the place of their
origin than I had about the dwelling-places of the men who
were working -with me or merely looking on in wondering
curiosity.

148 A ntiquarian

Everybody has heard of the " whinstone dike " that runs
transversely across Cleveland, entering the district no great
way from Yarm and running a south-easterly course of nearly
thirty,five miles, only slightly deflected from a perfectly direct
line. It was this whinstone or basaltic dike which had
furnished every individual block in the whole of that very
considerable cairn ; and the nearest point at which it could
have been obtained in the quantities employed was at least
three miles and a half away, and across the untracked moor,
with swamp and morass to cross and recross on the route.

In the case too of another grave -hill nearer home, the
great constituent mass thereof consisted of clean water-worn
pebbles and nodules of half a dozen difierent varieties of
stone, such as could have been derived only from the bed of a
beck running its course to the sea through a moor-valley some
two miles and a half distant.

As a rule, I should say that the constituent materials of
all the largest houes — and some of them are very large, one
being ninety-five feet in diameter at the base, and even still
thirteen feet in height — were brought from a distance. There
are no signs of excavation, or even of removal of the
former surface, anywhere in their vicinity ; I have ascertained
that by direct personal examination. I am inclined to think
too that the work was done not only very carefully but very
systematically, whether merely for the due preservation of
symmetry, or (it might be) under the direction of some chief,
or the personal oversight and engineering of some skin-clad
" clerk of the works," with curiously tattooed body and limbs.

For, in divers different hills, when I had succeeded — often
at the cost of some sensible amount of personal labour —
in obtaining a good clean section of the interior of a grave-
hill, I have observed a significant regularity of stratification,
always following the outline of the mound, as that outline
must have been in the early days of its being. And this
stratification was such in its character as to show con-

The Material of the Houes in Layers 1 49

clusively that the material was not only derived from
diverse localities, involving diiferent colours and various
qualities, but also deposited, when obtained and brought to
the site of its destined application, with the steady regularity
which characterises systematised and methodical, as well as
graduated, accretion. By way of illustration of what I mean :
One often sees a railway embankment in process of construc-
tion. Coup-cart after coup-cart is tipped at the edge of the
slowly growing and lengthening mound, and the contents of
each go streaming down the sloping face in intermingling and
irremediable confusion. There is no such thing as stratification
there, even though sand and gravel, clay and peat, loam and
vegetable soil are all being brought up in unfailing supply.
In the houes, on the other hand, there is often well-defined
stratification. Not that there was not an unfailing supply
also in those days of houe-building, as long as the demand
lasted at least ; but what was brought was carefully strown and
neatly evened over the whole surface of the rising mound.

But to turn to quite another topic, and matter also for
some little attentive consideration. I hardly think that on
these wide and wild moors in this division of the district of
Cleveland the custom as to the actual placing of what
remained of the body after cremation — for no one actual
instance of inhumation simple has so far been met with —
varies at all, except in the rarest instances. The incinerated
remains were simply laid on the natural surface, whether with
the protection or accompaniment of an urn or without, and
then covered over with earth, and whether with or without
the protection of some sort of rough or rude stone-work.
Once, and once only, have I found a platform of stones, in a
cist wrought in which the body had been placed ; and once,
and once only, a platform of earth on which the accompanying
urn had been placed ; and once, and once only, a shallow ex-
cavation or grave, which had been the receptacle of the original
deposit — speaking, of course, of the " original deposit " only.

ISO A ntiquarian

As to the "secondary burials," they seem to have been
made, at least occasionally, in excavations hollowed out in the
side of an existing grave-mound. Perhaps, even, that was the
rule. But there can be no doubt that in many cases these
secondary interments led on not only to very considerable
additions to the existing grave-hill, but to additions of such
magnitude as entirely to remodel the grave-mound dealt with.
Thus, in one instance — that of the mound, about his adven-
tures in which my faithful helper dreamed his dream, and in
which I ascertained that, from first to last, no less than
sixteen cinerary vases had been deposited — what I had no
doubt had been the original work of the hill, namely, a shallow
pit of sixteen feet in length by something less in width, filled
in and piled over with a cairn of stones, had been thrown
some eight feet out of the centre by subsequent additions,
chiefly on the southern and eastern flanks.

But whatever the alteration on the original pile, or the
deviation from the original ground-plan, there was no departure
from the rule of symmetry. Wherever enough of the mound
stands as when it was left as finished by its builders, to guide
one's conclusions, the base is regularly circular, and the sides
slope up with the graceful lines of the accurately-shaped cone.
And not unseldom there are as evident signs of careful and
diligent pains expended over the exterior as in the general
and consistent construction of the whole great mass of the
barrow. In many instances the more considerable among
these remnants of antiquity are girt in at the base with large
containing stones, laid slopingly, so as not to interfere with
the even outline of the sloping sides. Sometimes even an
exterior ring of encircling stones, sunk deeply enough into the
earth to have remained firm fixtures during the long wear and
tear of five-and-twenty or thirty centuries, is found.

Truly these men of the past, whoever they were, and
whatever they were, and whencesoever they came, wrought
great and abiding memorials, leaving traces behind them that

Old Grave- mounds v. Modern Headstones i s i

but few are disposed to notice without a sort of sneer for
those who care for them, but which yet are more full of
material for thought than five -sixths of the books which
cumber the modern bookstall.

I go into a graveyard of the day that now is — into this
quiet, remote, reposeful one around my own parish church, if
you will — and I see there headstones by the hundred, all of
them, with the exception of a scant half-dozen, tasteless, ill-
shapen, ugly, meaningless, hopeless, wretched erections ; with
an occasional equally unprepossessing monument^" thruff," as
it is termed here, — and one or two plain slabs lying flush with
the turf. If I examine them with some care and attention to
date, and so forth, I find two or three that record the burial
of persons who were still living in the latter part of the seven-
teenth century. If I want anything of the sepulchral "in
memoriam " type, I have to look in the walls of the church-
yard, or in the lintel of the door out of the basement of the
tower (which does duty as the porch to the right modern
church of to-day), and there I can see bits of floriated crosses
on portions of the original coffin-covers, or perhaps a stray
entire one, just saved from utter demolition because they
admitted of being employed in the mason-work of the altera-
tion ! These once covered the remains of men of position in
the parish, perhaps of knightly rank ; but we know no more
of them than we do of the builders of the grave-mounds on the
moors. And those great imposing grave-mounds will survive,
as durable as ever, if left only to the hand of time, when the
crosses on those grave-slabs shall have mouldered away ages
before ; while, as to the headstones which disfigure as well as
crowd the churchyard, whereon the pagan " urn " contends for
supremacy as an emblem — of what? — with the Christian cross,
they are already put to self-invited shame by the enduringness
of the piles which were raised to cover the urns they feebly
mimic, the urns that enclosed the still enduring ashes of those
who had no cross to cling to !

152 Antiquarian

One thing else. I am told that it is a shameful thing, an
abuse, to violate the graves of the dead, to disinter the
remains of those committed to their "last resting-place," as is
done in barrow-digging. Many a philippic of that sort I have
had to listen to, and to read. I suppose that is a part of
the rampant cant of the day. I am sure I have seen more
desecration of churchyards, more interference of the most
shameful and shameless kind with "the last resting-places of
the dead," in one case of a "restoration" of an old parish
church, than has been occasioned by all the excavations of all
the barrow -diggers united ! I have actually seen cartload
after cartload of mingled earth and human remains — the latter
now and then predominating — taken out of the churchyard of
one watering-place in the North of England (the church of
which was undergoing restoration), and carelessly thrown down
on the cliff ! I have seen — but why pursue the loathsome and
distressing recital % We have seen and heard enough of it
from time to time in the newspapers and elsewhere.

And yet further, let us not forget that there was some-
thing to be gained, some knowledge to be acquired, in and
by and through every instance of careful and observant
barrow-digging properly carried out. The feeling that in and
through our work we were trying — and not altogether unsuc-
cessfully — to decipher a partly obliterated page of history, has
been sometimes so strong in my own individual case, that it
hardly seemed a mere stretch of erratic imagination to try and
form a mind-picture of the old dwellers among these wastes,
whose abiding memorials I was dealing with. I have long
ceased to look upon the groups of pits which have been
christened "British villages" as connected, even in the
remotest degree, with our " Ancient British " predecessors.
But it was otherwise indeed with the old and by no means
— at least when properlj^ questioned — uncommunicative grave-
mounds of the wild moors.

EAETHWOEKS

Although the last thing I said was that the connection of
the groups of pits, so-called "British villages," with our
ancient British predecessors was a matter I had long ceased
to look upon as probable or indeed reasonable, still I hardly
propose to enter into a consideration of the reasons which
have led me into such an instance of unbelief as that is, just
at present. I can only say now that I believe the object
with which they were excavated, and the epoch of the ex-
cavation, have to be inquired for in a widely different direction
from any indicated by the name they are credited with and
made to bear.

But although it may be, and is, idle to look for any traces
of habitation amidst these misnamed, or rather misdescribed
pits, and especially of such a date, or, perhaps, anywhere in this
district, it is not idle to look for traces of occupation — occupation
as distinct from habitation. They are to be seen, and seen
distinctly, in many different directions. But they are mostly
of one character, and the indications they afford are nearly
all of the same general nature and bearing.

It is true, I am told of " camps " and " British strengths,"
and even " castles " ; and I regret to see the authority of the
Ordnance Survey pledged to such statements. For, while I
know that many of them are altogether imaginary, and others
uttei-ly suspicious, in very few cases are the accepted designa-
tions or allegations to be fully depended upon.

154 A ntiquarian

But it is otherwise with the "dikes," " intrenchments,"
"trenches," etc., many of which are marked, and others left
unnamed, if not unnoticed, in the Ordnance sheets, and un-
described or misdescribed by local writers. They all have a
legend to be read, if only there be one sufficiently versed in
such lore to decipher it. Not tha,t the task is easy, or the
interpretation self-suggesting and unmistakable. I take, for
instance, the dikes or intrenchments which cross the ridges
of moorland, between which lie our dales of Glaisdale, Fryup
Dale (Great and Little), Danby Dale, Westerdale, etc. None
of these have less than two lines of defence crossing them,
and some of them have three, and even four, or at least have
had ; for the clean stone of which more than one of them
were constructed had, since the times of enclosure, and
especially of drainage, came in, proved a strong attraction to
the farming freeholders to plunder, and eventually entirely
destroy them by total removal of their material.

Moreover, all these dikes seem to have one general feature
in common, and to indicate one special intention. As
defensive works at all, they are defensive against attack
delivered from the south, and in no other direction whatever.
Wherever the works are left sufficiently undamaged by time
or depredation to admit of adequate examination, that is the
direct testimony of them. There is one, for instance — one out
of two, moreover — across what is named the Castleton Eidge
in the one-inch Ordnance map, and therein designated the
" High stone-dike," of which a small section is yet so far
intact as to permit it to be definitely asserted that the
front of it (looking south) has been faced with stone, and
had a deep ditch before it. Besides, as it would appear
from what is left still standing, stone posts have been set
thickly along the crest of it, of nearly four feet in height
above the surface, and yet almost flush with the aforesaid
stone-faced front.

Granted what is thus premised, of course the question

The Ancient Earthworks, and their Origin 1 5 5

arises, Against what attacks, directed from^the south, against
what assailants, were these defences Resigned and erected %
Were they meant for bulwarks against the onset of the men
of one tribe or tribelet, dwelling in the Famdale, Rosedale,
Wheeldale valleys, or, in other words, the people of the
valleys south of the watershed furnished by the line of the
Cleveland Hills, delivered upon the inhabitants of the general
district lying north of the said ridge line ; or had they some
totally distinct object and end from any of such a merely
local and arbitrary supposition %

For my own part, after walking over and along these
ancient earthworks, some of them so elaborate, and all
evidently forming a part of a single and individual system,
extending several miles in their dale-inteiTupted course from
east to west, I have become less and less able to entertain the
view that the tribes on the south — supposing that phraseology
can be looked upon as sufficiently admissible, if not accurate —
were likely to live in a state of chronic warfare with the
tribes to the north. Indeed, I do not in the least believe in
such distinction of tribes so sharply defined. I do not think
it even possible that there should have been a hard-and-fast
line of demarcation between two sets of people of the same
general family who could have differed, and did differ only —
so far as our means of testing the matter go — in living a few
miles north, or a few miles south, of a certain geological
" axis."

But if not war between contiguous tribes or tribelets, war-
fare between what two sets of combatants could have led up
to and occasioned the erection of the earthworks in question \

In order to try and answer this question to my own
more or less complete satisfaction, I have said to myself :
" If General Pitt Eivers's researches and investigations touching
the Danes Dyke, the Argam Lines, the Scamridge Dykes, go for
anything — and surely the patient, systematic, long-continued
inquiries of a military engineer, with all the special ad van-

156 A ntiquarian

tages in and by that designation implied, ought to go for
something — then surely the results and deductions he has
arrived at in an investigation which more than probably
presents many points of analogy with the question we have
ourselves propounded, not only ought not to be overlooked
by us, but most likely will be found to be by no means with-
out suggestiveness."

His conclusions seemed to be something of this nature :
That the Danes Dyke was a defensive work thrown up, not
by the denizens of the land, but by an invading force, com-
ing by sea necessarily; that it, the said dike, constituted a
base for their invasive operations, and that having acquired
mastery over a given area in their front, they pushed still
farther forward, protecting their advance by another work,
on the same principle, namely, the Argam Lines ; and that,
pursuing the same tactics, they advanced farther into the
interior from thence, protecting - both their front and their
flanks by other earthworks, which still remain in more or
less of their being to attest alike the strategy and the skill
with which the invasive progress was devised and conducted.

And then next came the question, "Who" — or, if that
could not be answered — " What, of what age and period, or
quality, were these said invaders % "

An answer of some sort, perhaps as satisfactory as,
under the circumstances, could have been anticipated, was
obtained by the process of cutting through the so-called
Danes Dyke in divers places, with the view of ascertain-
ing, if possible, if any, and if so what, indications as to
the people who really constructed those huge works might
possibly be found buried in those old banks of earth and
stones. And one section in particular — nearly all of them
affording something or other in the shape of indication — one
section in particular might almost be termed communicative
from the nature and amount of the information it conveyed.
For it disclosed the fact that the men who threw up the

Flint hnplements made on the Danes Dyke i s 7

fortification not only used flint implements, but made them,
and, moreover, made them on the spot.

We find flint chippings, flint flakes, flint implements even
(of the commoner sort), in the graves in our churchyards ; a
fact which just proves that the users and makers of flint
objects had once lived in the district. We find scrapers, flakes,
drills, knives, arrow-points, all of flint, in and about the barrows
so continually and systematically, that we know they were
scattered or deposited (as the case might be) of set purpose,
by those who raised the barrows as well as used the flint.
And I have myself found three places on these moors where
the chippings, spiculce, remnants of flint of divers characters,
as plainly showed that flint implements and weapons had been
manufactured there, as the matters commonly lying about a
blacksmith's shop show the vicinity (past or present) of the forge.
And just such indications of the manufacture of flint were found
in the very thick of the dike, not scattered about as in our
grave-mounds, and so much more sparingly in our church-
yards, but as thickly spread as you find the shavings
and scraps and odds and ends of wood below the joiner's
bencL The inference was obvious. While the works, mis-
named the Danes Dyke, Were yet in progress, while they
lacked still some feet of the intended or ultimate height and
massiveness, some among the host of the builders were plying
their vocation as makers and fashioners of those indispensable
flint weapons and implements. There lay the little piles and
accumulations of the chips and refuse material, ready to be
covered up and preserved by the next course in the building
of the bulwark, and for discovery and cross-questioning and
interpretation by the modern military engineer.

Yes, the devisers and builders of those massive and skil-
fully projected lines of defence were makers and users of
flint weapons and flint implements ; and yet that is not a fact
inconsistent with a knowledge, on their part, and possession of
instruments and weapons of metal. On the contrary, all that

158 Antiquarian

we know — and it is no little nowadays, thanks to the scientific,
accurate, and painstaking researches and records of such men
as Greenwell, Pitt Elvers, Eolleston, and others of the same
school — of the men who raised the round barrows that stud
the high grounds of our country, tends to the assurance that
they were possessors and users of bronze for their tools and
weapons, as well as fabricators and employers of the more
primitive flint. What then is to hinder the inference that the
Danes Dyke invaders, wielders of bronze weapons as well as
users of flint-headed arrows and javelins, prevailed over the
simply stone-weaponed denizens of the land of which they
had arrived as the invaders ; that, as prevailing, they became
occupiers ; and that, as occupiers, they left those intelligible, if
not communicative, memorials of themselves which have been
so abundantly met with in the grave-mounds and earthworks
of the district %

But, suppose all this admitted as regards the origin and
purpose of the works we know under the name of the "Danes
Dyke," the "Argam Lines," and the "Scamridge Trenches,"
can we for a moment maintain the theory that the only
landing-place available to or utilised by such invaders was
just that particular point on the Yorkshire coast which
afforded ready access to the headland which was made defen-
sible by the casting up of these great lines of defence % The
merest consideration of the circumstances in their general
significance — to say nothing of the knowledge derivable from
what is known of later invasions made from the same side
of the North Sea — leads on inevitably to the conclusion, not so
much that there may have been, as that there must have been,
divers and sundry raids from over the sea upon the old stone-
weaponed inhabitants of the land, made at diflFerent times and
at various places. And it is much more than merely possible
that these lines of defence, and of defence, moreover, against
possible or menaced attack from the south, to which attention
was drawn a little above, may all admit of the same kind of

The Ancient Earthwork at Est on Nab 159

explanation as Danes Dyke near Flamborough Head, and its
more inland accessories.

And if this be so, one of the first inquiries to be made
must of necessity be, "Where should the base to correspond
with the base identified in the Danes Dyke be looked for in
this more northerly part of the country \ Can any suggestion
of even a possible similar site be made \ " And I think the
answer may not be far to seek.

The very remarkable fortification at Eston Nab, which
has given occasion for so many wild guesses and unreason-
able hypotheses, remains as yet totally unexplained and
totally unappropriated, and might well challenge, at the hands
of some competent local antiquary, or some scientific Society
in the district, some such careful and scientifically conducted
inquiry as that which has resulted in the happy identification
of the real origin and purpose of the strong ancient lines near
Flamborough, and across the inland route from thence.

At least this much is certain, that while the Ordnance
Survey amply sufiices, even where the possibilities of personal
examination do not exist, to demonstrate that certain lines
of communication between the Cleveland seaboard and the
interior are cut across and blocked by carefully, often elabor-
ately, devised intrenchments, the only conclusion admissible
is that, at the times indicated by the construction of the said
lines, the only route or routes available for a body of men to
move along on such an expedition were just these lines of
way so blocked. For the merest and most superficial examina-
tion of the entire Dales district is sufficient to show that even
in the earlier historic period, all that was not moorland was a
series of swampy marshes, intergrown rather than overgrovni
vnth wood and forest. And one has but just to dip into
such a book as Green's Making of England in order to become
aware of what the barriers were that were presented to
hinder or forbid the further advance of better equipped as
well as better armed invaders of many centuries later, by

1 60 Antiquarian

marsh and swamp, forest and -wood, and other such natural
defences.

But while firmly believing that all the works which have
been referred to afford indications, not of small intertribal
scuffles or skirmishes, but of systematic military advances
from the seaboard into the interior, and that they can only
belong to the same date, and be attributed to the same con-
structors as the numerous and Bpiost instructive grave-mounds
of the district (so many of which have been made to yield
up their hidden testimony), I still find myself totally unable
to agree with those who have had no difiiculty in discovering
any number of " British villages " almost at command. But
this is a subject which deserves to begin a new section.

BRITISH VILLAGES, SO CALLED

I SUPPOSE there must be something very attractive in the
British Village theory akin to the delight of castle-building or
the weaving of Alnaschar's famous dreams. I have seen pil-
grimage after pilgrimage paid to the alleged British Village
on the Danby low moors. People used to come up in
carriage-loads from Whitby, to see it; and now, in the time of
trains, the number of votaries, notwithstanding the distance
from the station and the difficulty of the walk, does not fall
off; and they look at the holes in the ground, and, I suppose,
they go away happy. I remember once on a time taking a
learned Greek professor, afterwards Master of his college, to
see the said "settlement," warning him first that walking
through the ling from the Beacon — as far as which point I
had driven him in my pony-trap — and back again, might
prove no joke to his professorial legs. As we went down
the slope from the hill bearing the said Beacon he smiled
superior to the idea of a tramp through the ling proving
fatiguing. He smiled also on scanning the instructive line of
holes in the soil, with tufts of rushes growing in them. But
he smiled no longer when we took the slope the other way on,
and had to make our way through ling mid-thigh high. But
he smiled again, and benignantly too, when, some three hours
later, he was seated at my dinner-table, and felt himself
refreshing and in a fair way of reaching the perfect tense of
the operation; but this time it was his own simplicity in

M

1 62 Antiquarian

undertaking such an expedition for such a questionable object
that he smiled at. And veritably the craze is a funny one.

Because it is nothing but a craze, and a most manifest
craze, on the face of it, in the great majority of instances ;
and it is hard to deal with the way in which the theory is
delivered in any other sense. The preposterous rubbish,
for instance, written by Ord in his History of Cleveland,
touching what he calls "British habitations," might be
enough, one would think, to show any thinking person the
unstable basis on which the British village theory is made to
rest: "Large oval or circular pits, eight to twelve feet deep,
and sixty to eighty and a hundred yards (!) in circumference,"
and " many hundreds in number " — truly any one who can
swallow that as the first item in a description of the aggregated
dwellings of the scattered and scanty population of half a
dozen, perhaps half a score centuries before Csesar, with whom
bronze implements must have been about as common and as
procurable as silver dinner-plates and dishes among our
village populations now, will have no occasion to " strain at "
any " camel " that is likely to follow. Probably, if Mr. Ord
had been set to work with the best and sharpest wood-axe
and saw procurable for love or money, to roof over a pit —
not thirty yards in diameter, or even twenty, but a modest ex-
cavation — of half a dozen yards wide, with poles cut from the
forest, and rushes from the marsh, or ling from the moor, and
then to maintain his spouse and his progeny vnth. the pre-
carious supplies derivable from hunting, and the hardly
less doubtful produce of his herds, flocks, or agricultural toil,
he might have thought twice before proposing to domicile
some hundreds — not of persons, but — of families in such
dwellings and on such sites as his absurdly "tall talk"
asserts rather than assumes.

For my own part, I am exceedingly doubtful whether, in
even one single instance of all the British villages or settle-
ments alleged, the claim for such consideration can be shown

Scientific Examination never made 163

to have any reasonable, and much more any satisfactory,
ground to rest upon. There is no extant record of any really
careful and conclusive examination of any one of the pits by
competent, qualified, and intelligent investigators. There is
no satisfactory proof adduced in any of the accounts or so-
called records of such attempts that the true and actual
bottom of the excavation operated upon had really been
reached, or, indeed, nearly approached.

I remember a great archaeological authority telling me one
day of the way in which he had had shown to him a series of
pits, with a striking local name, some of which had been
" opened " under the auspices of a local Scientific and Literary
society ; and how he was assured that the bottom had been
reached in this pit and in that ; and with all the particulars
or accompaniments of charcoal, stones afiected by fire, etc.
etc. ; and how, in his inexcusable (though latent) incredulity
he had craved, and not without some persistence obtained, his
desire for further excavation in one of the already (perfectly !)
explored cavities. Two feet below the previously " ascer-
tained" bottom unquestionable proofs were obtained that,
as old Edie Ochiltree expressed it on a somewhat similar
occasion, "the ground had been travelled before," and the
assembled science and literature began to feel surprised, and
look perplexed. To make a long story short, my archaeo-
logical friend afterwards instituted investigation on his own
account ; and the upshot was that he had to go down, with
patient, persevering excavation, to the depth of thirty-three
feet before he reached the real bottom of the pit, which had
been regarded as fully and satisfactorily explored by the
local philosophers.

But even that was but a beginning of what knowledge and
experience, or, in one word, science, enabled the new investi-
gator to achieve, in the way of ascertained knowledge of facts,
as regards the great group of hitherto mysterious pits he was
working among. He discovered that all the pits, scattered about

1 64 Antiquarian

in rude quincunx form, just like the great majority of our so-
called British villages, communicated with one another by a
series of low-roofed galleries at the real level of the ascertained
bottom. He discovered the tools with which the ancient ex-
cavators had worked, and the object for which they had
worked. For just where the sinking ceased there had been
a six-inch layer or vein of flint, such as to be available for
manufacture of flint implements and weapons. This had been
won, not only over the area of the actual bottom of the shaft,
but as far under the encircling sides of it as it was safe to
excavate; and then the sinking of another shaft from the
surface had been commenced, and the same process again
pursued at its bottom as in the previous one, so as to lead
on necessarily to what has been mentioned above as a galleried
system of communication of shaft with shaft.

Now, rejecting altogether Mr. Ord's " hundreds of habita-
tions of from sixty to eighty and a hundred yards in cir-
cumference," I do not think that any one pit in all the
hundreds of pits which are ticketed with the name of British
village, has ever been subjected to such an examination as
were these old flint-mines in Norfolk by Canon Greenwell.
Indeed, I do not think that, if there had been a whole
Committee of such inquirers and historians as Ord so abund-
antly proves himself to have been, the merest notion of what
to look for, or how to look for it, would have so much as
risen in the brain of any one of them. They would have looked
for the charcoal of a foregone conclusion, and found it ; they
would have looked for a preconceived bottom, and found it.
But as to ascertaining, actually ascertaining beyond the
possibility of a dispute or doubt, that it really was the veri-
table bottom, or, being the bottom, why it was so, and how far
all round the circumference it extended, or did not extend, —
why, neither the mode of examination required, nor yet the
grounds on which it was required, would so much as have pre-
sented themselves to their imaginations. They would simply

Systematic Examination imperative 165

have looked for a. preconceived bottom to a preconceived
habitation, they would have dubbed the search with the grand
names of examination and investigation, but they would have
ended as they began, with their own preconceived notions —
nothing else.

But what might not have been the results of a systematic
and scientific investigation, on the other hand, properly and
exhaustively carried on by competent and trustworthy in-
quirers? It would at least have been ascertained what the
noteworthy groups of pits were not, even if nothing very
definite in the way of actually deciding their real character
had been met with. But my own conviction is that the origin
and object of the pits grouped together as they are would, in
the majority of cases, if not in all, have been actually and
fully ascertained; and that it would have proved identical
with the conclusion which is suggested by observation of the
geological character of the vicinities wherein they are found,
illustrated by a little experimental as well as local knowledge.

What I mean by " the geological character of the vicinity "
wiU be better shadowed forth, perhaps, if I say that I believe
that wherever a group of the pits in question in eastern Cleve-
land and the vicinity of Whitby Strand is met with, a fairly
accurate geological map shows also the presence, at or near the
surface, of some seam or other of ironstone ; and what I think
and mean by " local and experimental knowledge and observa-
tion " will be best illustrated by the following relation. It
was an object vnth me some six or seven years ago to collect
whatever local information I could, bearing in any way on the
somewhat obtrusive fact that, at a long-ago time, the reduction,
although not the actual smelting, of iron had gone on largely
in this immediate district. Quite forty years ago I had be-
come aware from a variety of historical sources, that iron
had been worked in various parts of this and the adjoining
North Kiding divisions ; and even before that, I had noted the
fact that the traces of the said working still existed in nearly

1 66 A ntiquarian

a score of different places, almost all situate in my own parish
and in what once had been a part of it, and all as striking as
they were numerous.

What I especially refer to were the hills or mounds, many of
them of very considerable, and some of them of very large
dimensions, composed of nothing else than the slag which had
resulted from the obviously very incomplete reduction of the
iron ore. These hills had the common name of " cinder-hills."
But all tradition, all trace indeed, of any survival of recollec-
tion as to the time when, or the way in which, they had been
accumulated had ceased to be, and to all appearance had so
ceased for a long time past. Still they were unmistakable
indications of what once, in the far-away past, had certainly
been.

As inquiry went on, and I slowly succeeded in gathering
together a series of facts of one kind or another, all bearing
upon the subject of investigation, I became aware that in
one part of the parish, and within the memory of living
men, Structural remains had existed, the former object of
which my informant could not explain, but which, from his
description of them, I could only infer had been built and
used in the production of the iron the manufacture of which
had led to the accretion of those huge mounds of slag. The
size, shape, mode of construction of these remains all tallied
with what I had got to know about the simplest sort of fur-
naces used in the early epochs of the process of reducing iron-
ore. And what was almost more, there lay in the close
vicinity a cinder-hill, a large mound, in fact, which had been
much drawn upon by the road-makers of no very distant date
in order to be employed in the making and mending of the
cross-roads in the near neighbourhood of the Fairy Cross
Plains already more than once mentioned above.

Naturally, having satisfied myself that the ancient furnace,
or rather group of furnaces, was here in juxtaposition with the
slag which had resulted from their operation, the next question

Co-ordination of Evidence 167

■was, " Where did the ironstone, which it was apparent had
been abundantly used, actually come from % "

No one knew. No one could even hazard a guess.

Eventually, however, I referred the question to one of the
gentlemen employed on the Ordnance Geological Survey, who
had been occupied in that part of the district, and with whom
I had frequently spoken on such topics. His reply was
remarkable, for it was to this effect : " You have asked me a
question which is, in a sort, a little puzzling ; for all I can say
in answer is that the ironstone available for a furnace in the
position indicated by you ought to show itself at this point
and at that point," indicating two recognisable places on the
six-inch map, one of them only separated by the modern high-
way from the site of the furnace and slag-heap which were the
subjects of my inquiry; "but," he continued, "it certainly
does not show itself at either of these two points."

This was, as I said, remarkable. The geological surveyor
knew exactly where to look for the mineral ; only the mineral
was not there. Only a day or two later a purely fortuitous
circumstance enabled me to explain its absence. And this
circumstance befell as follows.

I wished to test the accuracy of my recollection of what
had been told me about these assumed furnaces by the man
who, as a boy, had been, as he had told me, in the habit of
playing "hide-and-seek" in them. The narrative, as he
proceeded to give it, ran almost verbatim as my memoranda
recorded it. But as he concluded, he added this : " You
remember, sir, my old father-in-law held the farm on which
this particular spot is, for some little time after you first came
into this country r' Of course I remembered the circum-
stance and poor old Jonathan equally well. In fact, the spell
or charm described on another page was his, and his were the
anti-witch proceedings also noticed above. "Well," continued
my interlocutor, " when he died, all his papers and such like
came into my possession; and among the rest there was a

Antiqtiarian

farm-plan of the holding he occupied, and in it every field
marked with its own name ; and among them, of course, the
field just across the road that runs past these old furnaces
and the cinder-hill : and the name it was called by was
'Mine-pit Field.'"

Here was an explanation indeed. No wonder my geo-
logical friend could not find the ironstone where it ought to
have been, seeing it had all been mined away from the
immediate vicinity in the manner indicated by the name of
the field in question ; that is to say, by a series of pits or
shallow shafts worked down to the level of the seam, so as
to eAable the sinkers to win all the ore at the bottom of each
shaft, and as much besides as they could reach all round, by
the process of undermining the walls of the circular shaft as
far as it was safe to do so — a system thoroughly well known
in difi'erent parts of the kingdom under the name of the
"Bell-pit system."

But my purpose in mentioning this incident is not merely
to illustrate the connection of furnace, slag-heap, and ironstone
seam, but is of quite another nature. I had known that field
for near forty years, walked over it, shot over it, speculated
even from how great a distance the ironstone which had been
reduced just across the road had been brought for the purpose.
But there was nothing in or about the field to indicate the
former existence of mines or pits, or depressions even, any-
where near. No one remembered anything of the kind. No
tradition, however dim, existed. And yet the pits had been
there. The old field-name left no doubt of that.

But most likely, if they had remained till our own day
we should have had a "British village" the more in the
parish.

As a matter of fact, one day when I was prosecuting my
inquiries touching the slag-heaps or cinder-hills in Glaisdale,
which, in a certain sense, I knew where to look for, because I
knew more or less about the limits within which they had

A Roman Village ! 169

been formed during the thirteenth and two following centuries
by the canons of Guisborough — -these holy men having been
empowered by certain definite grants from the great lords of
the district, namely, the De Brus barons, to dig mines, build
furnaces, and make charcoal to reduce the iron with — I hunted
up a certain old friend of mine, whom I had long known as
one of the shrewdest dalesmen in the district, and asked him
to tell me what his local knowledge enabled him to tell me
about the precise locality of any, or as many, cinder-hills as
he was acquainted with. He pointed out the sites of five or
six; and then he asked me if I was aware of the "Roman
village " just on the edge of the moor, about half a mile to a
mile from where we were talking at the time. I said " No "
in the most natural way I could, and asked him to show me
the place. He was delighted to be able to instruct the chief
archaeological authority of the district, and took me " up the
bank," and a pretty steep one it was. On the road thither
he showed me one of the cinder-hills he had only indicated by
word and gesture previously, and a very nice untampered-
^vith specimen of a slag-heap it was, containing I do not know
how many hundred tons of slag.

After examining this and making a few local notes, we
resumed our climb, and presently came to a large group of
pits dotted about in due quincunx order, and in point of
numbers such that they might be counted by scores. " Here
they are, sir," said he, " and a biggish village it must have
been." I agreed with him. " But," I added, " what makes
you call it a Eoman village?" — "Why, sir," said William,
"there is the 'Julius Csesar' band of ironstone there," point-
ing to a line easy to be traced in the upper part of the face of
the sweeping curve of the bank of the dale-head we had
in sight ; " there's the ' Julius Caesar ' band ; and that shows
the Romans must have known of it, and named it too."
True, there was the band — more indisputable than the logic
perhaps — and the local geologists have named it the " Julian

17° A ntiquarian

band"; and tracing the line, it was "good enough to see," as
my friend would have expressed it, that its level was some
dozen feet or thereabouts below the surface we were stand-
ing on, all pock-marked with ra-y informant's special set of
assumed hut-pits.

I am afraid I became chargeable with the crime of per-
verting my friend William's faith alike in the Eomans and
their village. My remark was, "Why, it's a bleakish spot,
William. It must be a deal snugger and more sheltered down
yonder," pointing to his own home in the valley beneath, —
" especially when it snows and blows in the winter-time ; or any
time, indeed." — " Ay, you may say that," he replied. " Well," I
continued, " but don't you think the Romans were canny enough
to have found that out for themselves % " William pondered,
perplexed for a while, and then queried with the tone of one
"convinced," but somewhat "against his will," "But what
do you say them pits is, then, Mr. Atki'son 1 " The briefest
reference to the " Julius Csesar " band and to the requisite
supply of ironstone necessary for the production of the huge
mound of slag we had inspected as we came up the hill, lying
quite handy, seemed to be enough to convert his lingering
doubts into a state of quite satisfactory conviction.

Now had Mr. Ord been taken to this place in Glaisdale
Head, and been duly " insensed," as I was, there can be little
or no doubt, judging from the way in which he deals with
similar "discoveries," that he would at once have discovered
another beautiful example of at least a British village ; even
if the Roman camel was a little in excess of his capacity for
absorption. And it is on such foundation, and on no other,
that — to mention but two or three of the better-known so-
called British settlements — the group of pits above Glaisdale
Station, locally known as Holey Intack, the Killing Pits on
the verge of the Goathland moors, and the Eefholes (as they
were called nearly seven hundred years ago) at Westerdale,
have been so denominated, or rather nicknamed. So far as I

Geological Testimony 171

am aware, no particle of actual evidence has ever been offered
such as to justify the name in question. The very idea that
"evidence" might be wanted seems never to have entered
the mind of the godfathers. Like Caesar, they came, they
saw, they conquered ; but the conquest they won was localised
only in the dreamland of their own fancy. There were the
pits ; and the pits were of course the sites of ancient British
habitation. The process was equally short, summary, decisive,
and convincing, so long as no questioning or inquiry was
allowed or desired.

Certainly, there are the pits; and if the fiat of the dis-
coverers of British habitations in them be neither like the
law of the Medes and Persians, nor yet absolutely final, the
question, "What, after all, were they'!" may be ventured.
And this is what a very cautious geological writer has to say
about the group last named, — that, namely, at Westerdale,
and situate at no great distance from the village : "On the
northern front of the height called Top End is a consider-
able plateau constituted of the ironstone and the harder beds
of the upper part of the Middle Lias. On this plateau are
the 'pits' conjectured by some to be ancient British settle-
ments. These are excavated in the ironstone." And again,
a few pages farther on, he resumes : " The earliest discoverers
of the local stores of ironstone are considered by some to have
been the Eomans, by others the monks ; but we are agreed
in thinking that these early operations were carried on in the
so-called top seams. With respect to the supposed ancient
British settlements in Westerdale, which are pits sunk in the
main seam of the ironstone, a difiference of opinion exists as
to the use they may have served." The writer then proceeds
as follows : " Charcoal is said to have been found at the
bottom of some of them, which seems to indicate dwelling-
places, yet their great depth seems to militate against the
idea."

Undoubtedly it does ; for they are said to be eleven feet

172 A ntiquarian

deep before the ironstone is reached, and the ironstone itself
is two feet thick at the place indicated. And the objection
thus raised to the habitation theory — for, however easy it may
be to get into a hole eleven or twelve feet deep by as many
wide, it might be much less easy to get out of it ; to say
nothing of the advantages (?) attending the presence of a fire
at that depth below the surface — would be quite sufficient to
demolish it, even if the finding of charcoal in them — the only
item of proof alleged of their occupation as dwellings — were
of some little force, instead of being in reality of none at all.

Let me try and illustrate what I mean. I have, I suppose,
at one time or another, made intimate acquaintance with the
interiors of from one hiuidred to a hundred and twenty of the
grave-hills, little and large, which dot our Cleveland moors all
over. But I have never opened one, or seen one opened, in
which — although in the larger half of them there were no
signs whatever of an interment present — there was not char-
coal in noticeable quantities, and in some of the larger houes
in such abundance — sometimes in layers covering four or five
square feet — as to force attention rather than merely to invite
it. And yet I never heard of any one who argued that, simply
because of the presence of charcoal, the houes aforesaid were
old habitations.

But again, there is another consideration by no means
irrelevant to the charcoal incident — and an established fact in
the Norfolk flint-pits — and that is this : that at such a depth,
even on a not very dark day, especially when the workers
had to win the mineral that underlay the circular sides ; and
still more, when they had occasion to work out what I have
called "the galleries" from the bottom of one shaft to the
bottom of its newest or nearest neighbour, artificial light not
only may, but must, have been wanted; and it is certainly
conceivable that a resinous pine-branch, for instance, may
have occasionally done duty in that capacity. And is not this
enough to account for the charcoal in the Westerdale and

Careful Inquiry v. Hasty Assumption 1 7 3

other pits of the same class? The artificial light theory,
moreover, does not depend on mere imagination, or even
deduction; the flint -pits referred to gave up among other
things small-sized lamps rudely fashioned out of the chalk —
one or more of them, if I remember, with traces of the wick
still in its place.

But indeed the argument from the presence of charcoal to
the not-to-be-questioned fact of human residence in the place
or places wherein it occurs, is too utterly unreasonable to call
for detailed refutation.

To return then to our geological writer (Mr. Blake, in
The, Yorkshire Lias) : " On the other hand," he continues,
and that is as militating against the habitation theory, " there
is the remarkable fact of their being excavated on the most
considerable outcrop of the ironstone in the dales ; and as
most other excavations are known to be made for some
economical purpose, it would seem probable that these were
too. Though the workers would have been very foolish to
make such isolated vertical diggings, and not carry their
operations horizontally as others have done."

Yes ; but that is the very point to be ascertained, and not
gratuitously assumed. So too the isolation is a matter to be
ascertained, and not merely assumed. This is what a writer,
who in dealing with matters of fact was thoroughly careful,
observant, and accurate — I mean Dr. Young, the historian of
Whitby — had to say about these pits, in a book published
just over seventy years ago: "The Hole-pits commence
about 500 yards south-west of the church, and extend in
that direction about 1000 feet, and in breadth about 300
feet. They are partly on the common, but chiefly in an
enclosure. The pits are in many places much defaced by
the cattle. The most entire are chiefly towards the south
end, where some of them owe their preservation to bushes
growing on their sides."

And if some owed their preservation simply to the fortui-

174 Antiquarian

tous protection afforded by growth of bushes, what about those
which had no such protection'! And what about the defacing
by cattle, and the ploughing, harrowing, scruffling, tillage
generally, within the enclosure % Let us recall the fact that
our own Danby Mine-pit Field has not had a pit to show within
the memory of man, nay, within the date of tradition even.
And while the Westerdale Hole-pits or Refholes are of seven
centuries of ascertained age, it would require a vast deal more
proof than could be adduced that the Mine-pits had not been
in process of working as late as the reign of Henry VH, and
possibly even later than that.

Mr. Blake winds up his notice of these Westerdale pits in
the following cautious terms : " Though, therefore, we incline
to the opinion that these may have been early mining excava-
tions, we cannot consider the fact conclusively proved." But,
at all events, from personal talk with the writer during the
course of his investigations in Westerdale and other parts of
the Danby neighbourhood, I had not the slightest doubt what
his own personal convictions were. And if, on the last day
he was at my house, I could have gone on with him only half
a mile farther than the point to which I had guided him in
connection with his ironstone quest in Fryup, and have told
him all I knew only two or three years later, about Mine-pit
Field; or if I could have gone still fa,rther with him, and
showed him what I so soon came to know about as the
" Roman village " and its accompaniments, I dare venture to
say that the sentences quoted above from TIm, Yorkshire lAas
would have been very materially altered both in tone and
deiiniteness of assertion.

For my own part, if only the opportunity could be achieved,
I should go in for an examination of any of these so-called
British villages with very definitely preconceived opinions as
to what should be looked for, and the way in which the look-
ing for it should be conducted ; and, for one thing, I should
have no more doubt about finding "horizontal operations"

The British Village Theory in extremis 1 7 5

>

than about the fact that the pits were there. If I did not find
the ironstone, it would be for precisely the same reason that
my geological friend did not find it where " it ought to have
been" just across the road dividing the old furnaces and
slag-heap from the — for our purpose — happily named "Mine-
pit Field."

With the Geological Ordnance Survey maps before one's
eyes, it is impossible not to be struck with the fact that
there is either a distinctly marked outcrop of some iron-
stone seam or band, or else that it is present at no great
depth in the strata marked as those of the surface, in the
immediate vicinity of, if not at the precise spot occupied
by, every one of the alleged "villages." Even at the
British village on our Danby north moors, between the
Beacon and Waupley — perhaps honoured with more pil-
grimages than any other in the list — the tale-telling map
places a seam of "impure ironstone" inconveniently close
by. And yet this is the one of all others, the circumstances
and surroundings of which admit of most doubt as to their
original intention or raison d'Ure. For they are not only not
arranged in more or less quincunx order as the rest are (or
have been), but they are in two parallel rows, and apparently
with an intended outside bank or protection. They have
never been properly examined, or indeed subjected to any
process of exploration that would satisfy the merest tyro in
such inquiries ; for the recorded examination already referred
to was, as a scientific examination, altogether delusive. True,
the inevitable " bottom " and the inevitable " charcoal " were
found, and the burnt stones, and so forth. But the full and
convincing investigation remains to be made ; and from my
own personal experience on the spot, I am disposed to think
that when the true bottom is found the British village theory
will be disposed of for good.

Certainly the extravagant absurdity of Mr. Ord's account
{Cleveland, p. Ill) might be supposed to have done that

I "J 6 Antiquarian

already with all thinking readers. If his own words were not
reproduced, it might be imagined that I was romancing, not
misrepresenting merely ; so I give them : " Our exploration
was amply rewarded by the discovery of the remains of a
complete BRITISH TOWN of vast magnitude . . . stretching
upwards of two miles to the base of Rosebury Topping. The
remains of these British dwellings are in the form of large
oval or circular pits, varying considerably in size, viz. eight to
twelve feet deep, and sixty to eighty and a hundred yards in
circumference. These pits commence near Highcliff, stretch
across Bold Venture Gill and the Kildale road,. nearly on a
line with Haswell's Hut, run along the lower edge of Hutton
Moor, below the Haggs, Hanging-stone, and White Hills, and
terminate in a deep line of circumvallation round the upper
part of Rosebury Topping. Of the pits here mentioned there
are many hundreds in single or double lines, of a zigzag
irregular form. . . . On one level spot, right of the Kildale
road, these habitations are extremely numerous ; indeed the
hill is completely scooped out like a honeycomb, sufficient to
afford room for a whole tribe of Brigantes." Then come the
charcoal, and the burnt stones, and the fortifying, and all the
rest of the marvellous tale ; but not a thought or a suspicion
even of all the strange inconsistencies involved. A "vast
town," "two miles in length," and^what the adventurous
author does not state — following a tortuous course to which
the erratic vagaries of a frolicsome letter S, with a curlicue at
each termination, would form no unsuggestive parallel, and
yet, "with the comfort of a town," uniting "the security and
protection of a fortified camp " !

But however little our author thought of consistency or
possibility, he thought still less of what the geological map,
with its perverse system of colouring following all those
sinuosities and contortions just noted with a pertinacious
fidelity, would have to reveal to an inquirer after the real
rather than the fanciful. Even the obliging nomenclators

' Like the baseless fabric of a vision ' 1 77

of the Ordnance maps could not quite digest this marvel
among discoveries, and they are unkind enough to prefix the
word "supposed" to "British settlement," and to insert in
the very thick of the indications of pits the still unkinder cut
involved in the two words "jet holes." The simple explana-
tion of course is, that the pits follow the course of the strata
containing minerals capable of being applied to economic uses,
inclusive of jet as well as ironstone.

Alas for the ruined glory of the " vast British settlement " !

DESCEIPTIVE AND GEOLOGICAL

DESCRIPTIVE AND GEOLOGICAL

In one of the introductory sections of the present book I tried
to give some sort of an idea of the way in which I first came
to hear of Danby, and under what circumstances I first beheld
the place, as well as of some of the impressions produced upon
my mind by what I saw and experienced. In few words, I
wanted others to see it in some sort or degree as I saw it, and
with something of the same preparation of mind and thought
as in my own case. And I gave the several details. Now, how-
ever, I want rather to proceed with a more descriptive notice
of the place, and, perhaps, in part, of the district it belongs
to, and so to try and delineate some of the Danby features as
they display themselves to the observant eye whether of native
or visitor.

I remember, among other " fond " ^ things I have been
guilty of, once telling my children a story of "The Last of
the Giants," whose habitation I placed in a great cave in our
local " Crag Wood," and to whom, jointly with his walking-
staff (with a huge knob at the upper end of it), I assigned but
one eye with certain remarkable properties, giving him, in

' This word here means " foolish, " " silly. " A " fond trick " is what
only a foolish or silly person would be guilty of. A "fondy" means a
natural, a horn fool. Like so many of our so-called "dialect words," it
is only a survival of the older English. In Palsgrave, or about 1530,
"the word /ojmZ changes from stuUus to amans (cynics say that that is no
great step) : Iwaxe fond upon a womam is translated hy je m'enamoure "
The New English, vol. i. p. 456).

IS2

Descriptive and Geological

part-compensation, a hand with five fingers besides the thumb,
the fifth of the right hand having two tips to it, the middle
one being short instead of the longest, and all of them gnarled
and swollen-] ointed from such rheumatics as a giant, dwelling
in a vefy damp cave, would be likely to suffer from. I do not
remember giving this great personage a princess for his house-
keeper — princesses having been, I think, scarce hereabouts in
those days — but a regular old crone, of the old-fashioned
sort. Now, had he chanced one day, when the old woman in
question was making bread-cakes for his consumption, and the
solitary eye was in the head of the stick (where it used to
spend a good half of the four-and-twenty hours) instead of in
his own, to stumble as he moved from his place, and in the
attempt to steady himself, put his hand by accident upon the
cake she was moulding, with the rolling-pin lying across it, the
dough would have been impressed with one longitudinal
valley, due to the rolling-pin, and five smaller ones, roughly
at right angles with the long one, and presenting divers
irregularities of form and length, due to the eccentric shape
and make of the impressed fingers, and, most likely, with
some roughnesses and steepnesses here and there, due to the
sticking of the paste to the fingers that had not been duly
floured before the contact with the dough, and so had broken
the smoothness of the edges of the impressions. Now the
mould that would thus have been left might serve to give a
reasonable idea of the configuration of the district of which
Danby forms by far the most considerable part. It must,
however, be remembered that the main or rolling-pin valley
has a general direction of east and west, and that, conse-
quently, the subsidiary or finger-valleys are roughly north and
south. The fifth finger, with its twin tips, will represent
Westerdale; the next, Danby-dale; the third, or short
middle-finger. Little Fryup; the next, longest of all. Great
Fryup; and the remaining one, with its nail rather crushed
out of shape, and bulging on the side towards the left hand,

Geological Configuration 183

Glaisdale. The ridges between the impressions, especially if
you bear in mind that the plastic mass of dough, from the
nature and manner of pressure put upon it, as supposed, would
of necessity thicken towards and beyond the extent of the
finger-tips, would represent the moorland ridges which lie
between the dales, and which unite beyond the terminations
— locally "the Heads" — of them, forming one huge area of
moorland, which grows higher each furlong of its progress
towards the south, until, where Danby marches with Eosedale,
it reaches at one point the not inconsiderable height of 1420
feet above the sea. But while the impressions of the fingers,
such as we have supposed them, with knotty joints and
partially distorted configuration, serve fairly well to convey
an idea of what these dales are as to fashion and form, we
must not suffer ourselves to be entirely misled by the rolling-
pin notion. The vaUey which cuts across the mouths or ends
of the dales is no more straight like the pin itself, or regular
like its impression, in reality, than the dales themselves are,
in proportion as they justify the idea of the impressions made
by gouty fingers. It varies in width as it varies in regularity
of outline. Some of the outstanding moorland ridges project
themselves farther into its area than others do. True, the
northern boundary, a bank which rises with decision from the
general level of the central valley until it reaches the moor
again, and then still goes on ascending until it reaches to
nearly 1000 feet above the sea, is much more regular in the
directness of its outline than the other side, and is but a little
broken in upon by the passage of small streams or "becks,"
none of which are of sufficient dimensions to need or pro-
duce a dale to convey their waters to the main stream —
that, namely, which rolls and rattles, winds and twists its
devious course along the slow slope of the central valley.
Still, with aU these deviations from directness — and in
places they are so pronounced that the stream, running
past a given point for three-quarters of a mile or so, returns

1 84 Descriptive and Geological

to within a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards of the said
point, only to continue the same vagaries at a somewhat lower
level — still, with all this, the direction of its course, on the
whole, is always to the east, and though it trebles the necessary
distance for reaching the place at which it receives the waters
of the Glaisdale stream, it receives them at last. And from
the vagrant line of this lesser rivulet, called the Glaisdale beck,
to the watershed of the ridge between Danby-dale and Wester-
dale, with a wide deep cantle of moor to the south of the
dales, reaching across to Westerdale Head, and with a corre-
sponding sweep of moorland on the north side of the principal
valley (claiming a crow-line length of six miles and a half for
the extent of its northern boundary), all lies within the meres
and limits of the ancient demesne or district known as Danby.
The entire area of this great expanse is nearly 23,000 acres of
land, of which 11,600 consist of "undivided moor" belonging
to the two townships of Danby and Glaisdale, and 6290 acres
represent the enclosed or cultivated land in Danby alone.
The following description is given of the parish in GUvt-
land, Ancient and Modern : " The shape of this tract is that of
an irregular five-sided trapezoid, having the least side for the
southern boundary. The greatest length is from north to
south, and is not less than seven miles; while the medium
breadth is scarcely under six, the diagonals being respectively
eight miles and a half, and seven and a half. Throughout the
entire district thus embraced it is difiicult, except, perhaps,
for a small space on either side of the main stream, and that
with many interruptions, to find a plot which for a hundred
yards together lies on a real level. The lowest level in the
entire area, as marked on the Ordnance contours, is 250 feet,
and the area lying under 300 feet is probably less than a score
of acres ; while between this practical minimum and the
maximum of 1420 feet, which is attained at Loosehow on the
south, there is a continual and a continually renewed series of
fluctuations and variations. This reiterated sliding scale may

AtAift^cns JlvcrUuul I'oLt L6,li

A MAP OF THE PARISH OF DANBY.

Loi>tk~l., StnJ*sCf'l ht'-'j' S-tt/ib*

The Views come to be looked at 185

be the better imagined, perhaps, if we keep in mind that in
the district under notice we have the dales — giving its full
meaning to the word, so descriptive in its local use and
application^of Glaisdale, Great and Little Fryup, Danby, and
Commondale, besides a portion, six miles and a half long, of
the Esk valley ; and besides, also, several " gills " or rocky
picturesque ravines, the most important of which are Stone-
gate and Crunkley Gill. For it is impossible to think or con-
ceive adequately of what is meant by a " dale " without having
brought before the mind's eye the steep or abrupt slopes or
"banks" which on either side must aid in its constitution or
formation. And the realisation of what is thus implied in the
enumeration of so many "dales" and "gills" as combining to
constitute the district under notice, necessarily prepares the
way for accepting the idea of an endless succession of changing
levels and altitudes."

But no amount of letterpress description can give any
adequate idea of what the district really is in its physical
aspects and conditions. I once heard a very taking and com-
prehensively descriptive remark made by a man who had seen
much in foreign travel as well as in home rambles, in regard
to the diversified sections and aspects of these dales of ours
and their characteristic scenery. He said : " They differ from
all other I have ever seen, and in this particular especially,
that elsewhere you have to go in search of the beautiful views ;
here they come and offer themselves to be looked at." That
is true ; and necessarily true when the contours and configura-
tion of the district are borne in mind. For the advance or
retrocession of a hundred yards or so will remove the obstacle
to vision intruded rather than merely presented by some steep
nab-end or projecting spur of a hillside outlier, and permit one
to gaze at will on some varied or romantic scene alike unex-
pected and unforeseen.

But even this is but one item in the many which, when
united, have the effect of making the Dales scenery what it is.

1 86 Descriptive and Geological

In the way of illustration of what I have just written, I will
mention one noteworthy matter. Fryup Head (that is, the
upper or higher end of the dale, where it is newest and
narrowest, where it has just begun to be scooped out from
between its steep containing banks) is one of the most pictur-
esque of all the picturesque dale-heads in the district. At the
point at which that division of the dale called "the head"
begins (that is, as you ascend or go up the dale in a southerly
direction) the width of the valley from moor edge to moor
edge is fully a mile and a quarter. On the west side the upper
half of the bank is steep and rocky, and clothed with wood,
mainly pines, extending nearly a mile in length. Where
the wood ends the last rise or upper hundred feet of the
bank becomes more rugged and precipitous, turning round
abruptly about the third of a mile farther on, and taking an
easterly direction instead of the original one towards the south.
And soon after the turn the place or part of the "head"
called "the hills" is come upon, and "the hills" in Fryup
Head are a very singular feature indeed. Of course the
authentic story of the Eildon Hills and the manner of their
formation is in everybody's recollection, as are also their
general aspect and appearance. Remembering all this, one
would be fully justified in assuming that some apprentice of
the great manufacturer implicated there had been at work in
the head, and that his " 'prentice hand " had wanted a very
great deal of "trying" indeed. For all along the last half of
the rugged, broken, precipitous bank (as it has now become),
spoken of as running towards the east, and yet onwards still,
when it makes a turn and goes for the south, lie tumbled, in
infinite and most confused confusion, a series of short banklets,
hillocks, mounds, and peaks, with intertwining gullies, slacks,
and hollows — these last with the lush growth of damp or
watery places in them, and the banks with scattered rather
than scanty growth of bracken, jumper, and whin all about
them. Many a question has been asked me by the people,

' What a lovely Undercliff '/ 187

craving an explanation of this wilderness of confused and
tumbled piles of earth and rock. "Had there been mining,
perhaps mining for iron, there, and on a large scale, in old
times?" "Had there been an earthquake, and had it thrown
'the hills' up in that strange way?" "Had they been made
and left so by the Flood?" Such questions have been
put forth once and again, and I remember wishing the
querists could have been present one day as I was walking
with an enthusiastic and much-travelled geologist over the lofty
ridge of moorland commanding a full view of a great part of
these "hills." As he came suddenly and unexpectingly in
sight of the strange waste of broken ground, down dropped
his stick and up went both arms in his surprise and admi-
ration, a rapid exclamation following, " Oh, what a lovely
undercUff!" There was the explanation in one word — an
undercliff — and opening up what a vista into the far past ! A
great body of water filling up these depths that are now dales,
in its milder moods gently laving the foot of the cliffs which
now supply the moor-topped banks of the dale, and in its
rougher tempers sapping their stability as surely as rudely.
And then when the process had gone forward to the requisite
extent, there ensued the falling forward of the upper and
undermined portion — veins of rock and deeper solid beds, and
thick strata of unconsolidated earth and stones — and the issue
of the fall was "the hills."

Strange to say, I once saw these dales — the illusion was so
utter, so complete, so perfect, that I can use no other words
competent to convey what I want to communicate — I once
saw these dales just as they must have appeared in the times
— how many tens of thousands of ages ago who shall say ? —
when this great water-flood filled them. I had been travelling
all night in order to get back, after a pressing call from home,
to my duty on Sunday. I had left York by the early train,
as the trains ran in those days, and there was a trap waiting
for me at Grosmont. In this I began my drive, — over moor-

Descriptive and Geological

land almost the whole way when once I had climbed the long
wearisome hill from Grosmont Station to the village of Egton.
When we reached the heights from which we could see well
into Eskdale, it was — so far as the testimony of actual vision
went — full of water as far as the eye could see, and full to
such a height that only 100 feet or so of the upper banks
was not submerged. No amount of rubbing one's eyes pre-
vailed to corroborate the testimony of my recent conviction
that there was no water, save the usual fine-weather supply,
in the bed of the Esk when I had crossed Grosmont Bridge a
short half-hour before. As the scene expanded itself more
and more before me, Eskdale and all its tributary dales were
inundated, drowned, submerged, and there was the level of
the mighty flood just marking its horizontal line at the foot
of what ought to have been the higher banks rising from the
dales, but which were in all reality, so far as ocular demon-
stration went, absolute cliffs on the margin of a mighty sheet
of water — inlet from the sea or lengthening inland lake. As
I mounted higher and higher towards the Beacon, and looked
into what ought to have been, and had been, Danby-dale when
last I had seen it, there was nothing but the calm glistening
surface in sight as far as the eye could discern, and the point
I had attained was high enough to enable me to look into the
very head of Danby, a good six miles distant. There was
a great sheet of water with deep, narrow, far-reaching gulfs
or inlets, and only the moorland heights standing out of it.
No stranger to the country and to the actual everyday scene
could for a moment have suspected that it was not a sheet of
water over which his eye roamed.

By this time the sun was getting well up, and there was
no cloud to obscure his rising brightness. Truly it was a
wonderfully and mysteriously beautiful scene. But just as
Nature had spread before our eyes this mimic representation
of one of her ancient phases, so Nature presently supplied the
disillusionment. As the sun rose to a greater altitude, and

A real Vision of the Past 189

his rays began to fall on the seeming water -sheet with
incidence at a greater angle, I saw little threads and streaks
of the dissembling surface detach themselves from its face,
rise up and disappear, like the steam from the locomotive in a
fine sunny day. Soon they were followed by larger films.
But still the general surface was not visibly affected ; until
at last, as the process of dissolution continued, a sort of dim
translucency seemed to supervene, and the higher range of
objects and points, hitherto concealed, began to show them-
selves, much as if the flood was settling away rapidly, and
beginning to leave the trees and higher grounds uncovered.
The first object to be seen distinctly was the small group of
Scotch pines near the old parish church ; the emergence of
which was speedily followed by that of the church itself ; and
then the whole west bank of the dale came into sight ; and
finally, and almost as if by a species of legerdemain, so rapid
and effectual was the process, the whole remaining cumulus
of white vapour was caught up, torn to shreds and films, and
completely dissipated.

But still, illusive and fleeting as the scene had been, it had
efiectively served to aid the mind and the imagination in
forming and retaining the conception not only that water had
once filled what are now the main valley and its ofishoots, the
dales, but that its part in fashioning and finishing the said
valley and its dales, as we now see them, had by no means
been an insignificant, even if in reality only a subsidiary one.
Every new section of the bank of the Esk itself, or of one of its
many feeders draining the dales as well as the moors above ;
every cutting or other excavation carried through in railway
construction, or other considerable work ; every drain sunk a
couple of feet or so lower than the average three feet ; every
digging for a foundation, or sinking of a well, — all serve to
show, and often with a singular power of illustration, what
the agency of water has been, in the dawn of the hoariest eld,
in making and leaving our country what it is. "What do

1 90 Descriptive and Geological

you think of this dales country ?" I said one day to the then
engineer of the North-Eastern Railway Company, who, as I
knew well, had been put to no ordinary trouble by the wanton
behaviour of the " batters" or slopes of the sides of the cuttings,
which had to be made below Danby End for our railway, then
in process of construction. The answer was emphatic, in force
as well as in form : — " It is a devil of a country." The said
batters had been laid at the usual angle ; and why not ? The
soil, as every one could see, was a fine, firm clay, and with no
apparent weak or watery places in it ; and the slopes when
finished were as neat-looking and seemingly as likely to be
stable as any in any district whatsoever. But the incidence
of a wet season soon altered all that, Before the wet time
had lasted a week, these fair-seeming batters had begun to
move, to give way, to slide down bodily in many places, and
in none had they stood firm. Large lumps had come away,
leaving ugly-looking cavities in the bank, and cumbering, per-
haps filling up, the space destined to receive the sleepers ; or
else there were treacherous, lazy flowings of soft mud, spread-
ing themselves, in places two feet deep, along the level bottom
of the cutting. " The batters were too steep " was the view
taken; and accordingly, when the navvies were able to get
to work again, two or three yards, or more where the cut-
tings were deepest, were taken off the higher parts of the
slopes, and lessened out by degrees as the level of the in-
tended permanent way was reached. It was a slow process ;
but at last all was made good, and the neat slopes — only
much less steep than before — were left in their naked regu-
larity. But again the wet time came ; and again the unlucky
batters began to slip and slide, and discharge massive lumps,
and form great mud-puddles. And yet again had the weary
work of repairing damages and clearing away debris, of lower-
ing the inclination of the slopes, and digging great trenches
up and down the sides, filling them up with blocks of clean
broken freestone, to be gone through; and, to mention but

A ' Devil of a Country ' 191

one place in which the result of all this work may plainly be
seen, there is a longish slope, just below the Danby End
Station, the angle of which cannot be much more than twenty
or twenty-five degrees, having been originally, I suppose,
hardly less than forty-five.

The quantity of earth that was dug out and " run to spoil "
in the process of making good what had been damaged and
ruined by the untrustworthy nature of the soU of this " devil
of a country " was something enormous. I forget how many
hundreds, or even thousands, of truck-loads had to be removed,
but there was a huge mound of the useless material deposited
on a space between the beck and the line, some half-mile or
so on the Whitby side of the Danby Station. And besides
that, wherever a few loads could be vented nearer the place
it was taken from, in the way of filling up a hollow, or raising
the access to one of the new gateways which had to be formed
in divers places, giving passage across the line from one part
of a severed enclosure to another, or what not, there a suffi-
ciency was sure to be deposited. It so happened that I was
passing along one day by the beck-side over a hollow that had
been thus filled up, and with a gateway approach leading
across it ; and there lay the material that had been removed,
under my feet and on either side, as I stopped to take note
of the fact. And, inasmuch as it was no long time since the
work had been completed, numbers of the symmetrical pieces
of clay raised by employment of the navvy's " hollow-tool " —
seven or eight inches in the blade by about six wide, and with
convex back and concave front — were lying almost as perfect
in shape as when newly freed from the tool which had dug
them. "Almost as perfect," but not quite. For I noticed a
sort of blui- about the edges of several, which edges I knew
must have been cut quite sharp. These blurred edges, I also
noticed, were frequent, and not due to impact or forcible
action of any sort. Looking more closely at the objects in
question, I saw that the circumstance noted depended on

192 Descriptive and Geological

what almost might be called spontaneous exfoliation, or action
peculiar to the shaped segments themselves. The edges were
opening under the influence of natural causes. A few seconds
of aroused attention and observation sufficed to demonstrate
the fact that the structure of the clay was not homogeneous,
but finely laminated, and that as the process of desiccation
consequent on exposure to the air went on, the several laminae
of which the mass was composite began to separate, exactly
as the leaves of a book that has become damp and is exposed
to the influence of the sun or a fire always do. The thickness
of each lamina was about that of ordinary stifl' brown paper,
and between each two of them was an almost imperceptible
film of almost impalpable siliceous matter or sand. The
explanation of the treacherous slippery nature of the apparently
stable clay slopes, and of the tendency of the constituent parts
to run into pools and streamlets of liquid mud, was given at
once, and with a cheerful clearness. When the wet time
came, water worked in through some of the countless fissures
or cracks met with in all clay formations in times of drought,
and finding its way along the sandy partings, induced motion
of one lamina over another, motion led on to abrasion,
and abrasion, in the case of such thin laminae in a wet time,
meant the abundant and still increasing formation of a totally
disintegrated accumulation of semi-liquid clay with an inter-
mixture of finely comminuted sand. ' No wonder the batters

^ The thickness of the lamina! varied, as, on a moment's reflection, is
seen to be inevitable. But the comparison with a block of sheets of thick
brown paper, with the reservation that they shall not all he of one thick-
ness, and that some of them may be thick enough to be of the very
thickest material of that description, will be by no means misleading.
In some of the pieces examined there was no difficulty in counting five-
and-twenty or thirty "leaves," the thickness of each of the said pieces
being well on towards four inches ; and when the intercalation of the
films of sand is remembered, a tolerable idea of the constitution of the
clay as a mass is obtained. It may further be mentioned that a good
many truck-loads of the material in question were employed as backing
to the piers of two large girder-bridges thrown across the Esk, opposite

Relieving the ' Batter' 193

would not stand, and that the only effectual remedy lay in
reducing the slope to such a degree that the superincumbent
weight should be thrown as far back as possible, and in pro-
viding the readiest possible discharge for the water that must
of necessity fall upon them or percolate through them from
the adjoining strata.

But to avoid being tedious I relegate to the Appendix
certain further observations on the nature of this deposit, and
the deductions one has to make in connection with them.
See Appendix B.

and a little below Danby Lodge, and to add to the height of the embank-
ment at either end of the same, and that precisely the same difficulty
ensued in these cases also : the packing and the added material simply
melted away, and the work supposed to be done had to be done over
again.

DESOEIPTIVE AND GEOLOGICAL (continued)

But before finally leaving that part of my subject which
occupied the last chapter, it may be expedient to add a few
words more, both as introductory to other like reminiscences
and as illustrative of the significance, value, and importance
of time as a factor, in any effort to estimate geological changes.
And I do not think that the circumstances to be adduced are
by any means the least interesting of those which have
attracted my observation during my sojourn here.

There is a locality in the parish (indeed there are two)
called by the name " Coums." The name has been variously
spelt, and it is met with, similarly applied, in other dales
besides Danby, Eosedale being one of them. But the sound
is the same in either case, being that represented by the
spelling coombs, the b being nearly silent as in comb. The
name is probably coeval with the Celtic occupation of the
district. The Coumfe I advert to is a roughly semicircular
gap or hollow, with rather steeply-sloping sides, something
like half a basin, scooped out of the side of the moor-bank.
It is nearly half a mile wide from one end of the moor-brae
semicircle to the other, and somewhere about the same from
front to back, or from mid-diameter by the perpendicular
radius to the circumference. On the western slope of this
hollow or half-basin is a long narrow chasm, in all extending
to about 150 yards in length. This in the six-inch Ordnance
map is marked "gravel-pit," on the Incus a nan lucendo

Remarkable local Subsidence 195

principle clearly, for there is no gravel there nor anywhere
near. But there chanced to be an uncouth-looking gap in the
moor-side there, long and narrow, and so it had to be noticed
and designated ; and the surveyor being, as it would seem, a
man of imagination, it was named a gravel-pit. But the said
surveyor's imagination was far from reaching forth to the fact
that in that queer-shaped gully (which might have marked
the site of a slip if only there had been a bank high enough
for a slipping section to slide from) he had the key to the
whole formation of the locality designated by the local name
"Coums." For this magnified trench or gully is due to
vertical subsidence, and it has been a part of my experience
to note the process in full course. The high road into Fryup,
past Danby Castle, lies directly across the lower part of the
said trench or gully, and it chanced to me one day some seven
or eight years since to observe, as I descended the hill-side
above, two dark lines drawn (a little obliquely) across the
roadway just where it traversed this strange gully — strange
enough in the eyes of the country-folk to have led to the
imposition by them of the name "Hell-kettle." On coming
to the lines in question, it was apparent that they were
due to slight fissures, vertical in direction, and apparently
springing from some depth. When I returned some three or
four hours later the lines were more marked, and it was
already quite evident that there was a discernible difi'erence
of height in the two edges of the several rifts. The next day
was Sunday, and as I drove over the place the jolt as the
wheel crossed the first or higher edge to the lower level of the
second was quite perceptible ; and a close examination made
on the return journey showed a distinct settlement of three
inches in the case of the higher split, and about two-thirds of
that in the case of the other. Close and almost daily
observation showed the process, whatever it was, to be in
steady progress. It revealed also that the cracks or rifts
were not confined to the roadway, but extended on either side

198 Descriptive and Geological

weapon than a walking-stick, I should not . exaggerate ; and
what I have seen during the whole of that period, and seen
illustrated in divers manners, has been movement, essentially
lateral movement, in- the banks of the beck themselves, and in
the fields lying, with more or less of a slope always, above,
and at no great distance above them. I have seen, too, great
changes in the bed of the stream itself, all more or less evi-
dently connected with what I have spoken of as lateral motion.
Thus, there is no perceptible extension of the width of the
bed of the stream ; the average distance from the brae of one
bank to the brae of the other remains relatively the same.
And yet, the waste of the steep earthy faces of these banks —
many of them from seven to nine feet from the average level
of the water to their uppermost edge — after times of long-
continued drought, or other times of sharp and continued
frost, suggests a total amount of abrasion which is not easily
calculable, alike from its magnitude and from its indefinite
factors. Say that a frost of from fifteen to twenty degrees
lasts over three or four nights — and there are few winters in
which that does not befall from half a dozen to half a score
times — and that such frost affects or causes the exposed part
of the bank to, so to speak, exfoliate to the depth of only
an inch and a half ; or that a drought of a third or a half
the duration of that of the summer of 1889 pulverises the
said surface to no more than the same extent ; and that so,
in either case, there is so much material, easy to be removed,
placed at the disposal of the first " fresh " that ensues ; of
course the absolute linear space between bank-face and bank-
face cannot escape being affected in the same proportion.
Carry this process on over a year, — or much more, over a series
of years, — and it is self-evident that the banks, considering
only this absolute waste of either of them, must be receding
from each other indefinitely; unless indeed there be some
compensating energy at work. And that compensating energy
is what I am intending by the phrase " lateral movement."

Evidences of Lateral Movement 1 99

The action of this movement is seen, moreover, in other
ways. Thus, for instance, there is not in all the extent of the
beck with which we are concerned a "stream" or a "pool"
remaining as it was, and exactly where it was, when I first
threw a fly over its waters. Some of them have receded or
otherwise altered from a hundred feet to a hundred yards in
the positions occupied by them. In other words, there are
now, and higher up in the river, beds of water-worn stones
with a sharp run of the stream over them, where forty years
ago there was only smoothly flowing water, with the bottom
from a foot to two or three feet lower than it is now. Now
these stones did not work their way up the stream, neither
were they brought down from the rockier banks nearer the
head-waters, for there are heavy mill-dams at Danby End
and at Castleton ; and as a matter of fact masses of rock or
large blocks of stone are not driven over them. But these
stones in the beck may be and are dug out by the stream
itself from the banks which restrain it on either side. And
these high banks, as I have described them, as pushed forward
on either side by a slow progressive movement, would supply
an adequate quantity of stony blocks and cobbles for the
result alleged.

But this is by no means all. There is in the close vicinity
of one of the " streams " referred to as having undergone great
alteration, and also near a place where the southern bank of
the stream shows very open tokens of slow but continued
movement towards the water, a bed of yellow clay, of several
feet in width, exposed to the continual action of a quickly
running stream, and to all the attrition thereby involved, and
which yet never seems to waste in the slightest degree. There
it is still, within some eight or ten inches of the surface — that
is, at what may be called the average level of the river — and
there it has been these twelve or fifteen years, for I do not
remember it during the earlier twenty-five years or so of my
acquaintance with the beck-side, so far as ordinary observation

200 Descriptive and Geological

can discern. And yet such a material, under such circumstances,
must have undergone a process of degradation calculated to
wear away many feet of its thickness. Of course then it must
be rising towards the surface under an adequate amount of
pressure. And that pressure can only be exerted by lateral
superincumbent weight, alike local in character and in applica-
tion. And yet in the close vicinity there are, as already
noticed, more symptoms of relief of local pressure by the
yielding of the bank in the immediate background than almost
anywhere else. But whatever the bank may lose in this way —
and the loss is evidently great — is fully con^pensated from
behind, so that even after the lapse of forty years the said
bank is practically unaffected and undiminished in volume,
height, or general aspect and conditions. The inference seems
plain : not only that what is worn away and lost in front is
made good by what is supplied from behind, but that also
there is a downward pressure somewhere in the rear, of great
energy, and maintained in lasting vigour, the operation of
which levers up the plastic clay-bed in the stream, and con-
tinually causes to be presented a renewed surface in compensa-
tion of that which is being continually abraded. And it is
further, and thoughtfully, to be observed that, whatever is,
as supposed, " made good from behind " is supplied, not by a
series of slips perpetually falling forward and filling up the
vacuities as they are created, but in some other way ; for in
the first place, no such slips occur or have occurred, and in
the second place, the slope from the foot of the Coums
depression is so gradual and of such considerable linear width
that mere slips within the higher area could in no way affect
the condition of matters involved. But then there are these
subsidences ; and the. semicircular area over which they are in
operation is a very considerable one, and the operation seems
never to be subjected to either suspension or intermission. ^

' Thus, at the foot of the moor-bank proper, about a quarter of a mile
from the pseudo-gravel-pit, on the way to the Castle, is a wall of the

Temptcs edax reruni 201

But if we are not merely permitted but compelled by
circumstances to assume that this is so, what follows \ Surely
this : that, given the factor of time, there is presented a
forcible as well as intelligible explanation of the way in which
this remarkable -looking semicircular hollow or half-basin —
sufficiently marked to have been named "combe," or rather
"cwm," perhaps two thousand, perhaps three thousand, years
ago — -first began to be and has gone on "being," and growing
and widening and deepening from the era of that said first
beginning in the far-away lost cycles of the infinite past down
to the fleeting times of the present measurable now. Yes,
only given the factor of time, this misnamed gravel-pit in our
well-named little local division of Coums supplies the clue to,
at least intimates the nature of, the explanation of the way in
which these sinking masses of material are disposed of in the
process of backing up the ever-worn but continually renewed
banks of that tireless little carrier, "the river of Esk."

ordinary mortarless description so common in this district, but well and
carefully built, and of a character to stand for a century with only casual
attention and repair. This wall has not been built twenty years yet,
and still it is perpetually in need, not of repairs merely, but of rebuilding,
iu some part or other ; sometimes even in two or three places at the same
time. It is seen to bulge and begin to overhang on the roadside, for
no apparent reason ; and then, on some slight provocation of wind or
impact, over it comes for a rood together. Previously to the winter of 1888
three or four of these bulgings were patent to the most unobservant eye,
and it required no prophet to foretell the rebuilding which would become
necessary when once winter's winds and melting snows were past. And
the explanation is simply this : that the wall is built mainly along one
of the old lines of subsidence, and as the line of hard consolidated road
tends, in some degree, to influence the axis of subsidence by directing
it towards the more yielding material of the pasture-field on the slope
below, the support is gradually withdrawn from one part or another of
the foot of the wall, and naturally and necessarily it falls over on the
other side. Now the length of this wall is not less than the third of
a mile, and it terminates very nearly where the semicircular area called
Coums reaches, as to its highest part, its eastern limit. So wide and
extensive is the surface, over all, of which some signs or other of vertical
displacement are perpetually to be traced.

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

WEDDINGS— BURIALS— HALIKELDS AND THE
MELL-SUPPEE^THE DOG-WHIPPER

DALES WEDDINGS AND THEIR ACCOMPANIMENTS

The most typical Dales wedding I ever remember having
witnessed was nearly forty years ago and on Martinmas day.
But I should not have spoken of the event in the singular
number ; for there were, in point of fact, four weddings all to
be solemnised coincidently. And, whether by arrangement
or by chance, all four of the couples, with their attendants,
came up to the church in one cavalcade. First, there were
no less than seven horsemen, each with a pillion-borne female
behind him. Three of these were brides ; the others attend-
ants. Of other attendants, male and female, there must have
been at least as many more ; and then came those who had
gathered to see the weddings, and so forth. But besides,
there were from a dozen to a score men, mostly young,
who carried guns, and who, as the weddingers passed down
the little slope leading to the churchyard gate, fired a salvo.
As may be supposed, more than one or two of the horses,
being neither sobered by age and hard work, nor yet trained
to stand fire, were startled and began to plunge or rear. I
fully expected a disaster. However, with the exception of
one of the pillion ladies, who slid gently — though not with-
out raising her voice — backwards down over the crupper of
her steed, no casualty occurred. After the ceremony was
over, great was the scramble among the small boys for the
coppers, which it was and is customary for the newly married
man, or his best man, to scatter the moment the chancel door

2o6 Manners and Customs

is left. And then an adjournment to the field adjoining the
churchyard was made; and there were a series of races, all on
foot, to be run for the ribbons which were the gift of the
several brides ; and as some of them gave more than one, the
races were multiplied accordingly.

Time was, and not so very long before the commencement
of my incumbency here, when these races were ridden on
horseback; and at an earlier period still, the race was a
"steeple-chase" across country — the goal being the house
whence the bride had come, and to which the wedding caval-
cade was to return for the usual festivities. More than once,
too, I have known, when the bride in some way incurred the
suspicion of niggardliness, through not complying with the
recognised usage of supplying one ribbon at least to be run
for, the " stithy was fired upon her," i.e. a charge of powder
was rammed into a hole in the anvil (much after the fashion
of a " shot " in a mine) and fired in derision ; well pronounced,
if the loudness of the report counted for anything; as the
wedding party passed on the journey home from the church.
The direct converse of this, was the firing of guns as the party
passed the residences of friends or well-wishers.

The almost invariable practice on the part of the newly
married man has been, and still is, after the registration in
the vestry has been duly attended to, and when the party
are just on the point of leaving the church, to hand to the
officiating minister, nominally in payment of the fees, a
handful, sometimes a very large handful, of money, taken
without the slightest pretence of counting it from his trousers
pocket, from which the said minister is expected to take the
usual fees for parson and clerk ; and, that done, to hand over
the surplus to the bride. Twice within my incumbency a
deviation from this ritual— and a very pretty deviation — has
occurred. The bridegroom, together with the ring, at the
proper point in the service, has laid upon the book the afore-
said handful of money, so that, besides the direct pertinency

Running for the Ribbon 207

of the next following part of the service, viz. " With this ring
I thee wed," ensued a typification of the further sentence,
" With all my worldly goods I thee endow."

The races still linger on, and only a week or two since
the bride gave two "ribbons to be run for" ; and a few years
ago one young chap, fleet of foot, and with as much inclination
for "laiking " (playing) as for sticking to work — some folk said
more — was quoted as the fortunate winner of almost enough to
start an itinerant haberdasher in trade. But still, even so,
" what a falling off was there ! " For nearly the whole, if not
the whole, of the usages under notice are, in the strictest sense,
survivals. To what an extent the original customs obtained in
the district may be as largely, as well as safely, inferred, perhaps,
from the memorials engraved on the tablets of the folk-speech,
as from any other source or authority. There are three terms,
of which it is almost incorrect to say that, however much
fallen into disuse, they are quite obsolete. These are, Bride-
ale, Bride-door, Bride-wain ; and they are defined, the first, as
" the warmed, sweetened, and spiced ale yet presented in some
villages to a wedding party on its return from church " ; the
second, as " the door of the house from which the bride pro-
ceeds to church, and at which the wedding festivities are to be
held afterwards : used in the phrase ' to run for the bride-
door ' " ; and the third, as " a waggon, loaded with household
goods, to be conveyed from the bride's father's house to the
bridegroom's." The late F. K. Eobinson, the careful compiler
of the Whitby Glossary, and collector of unconsidered trifles
in the way of tradition, local legend, and the like, says, " To
'run for the bride-door' is to join in the race for the bride's
gift, run by divers of the young men of the neighbourhood,
who wait near the church-door till the marriage ceremony is
over. The prize is usually a ribbon, which is worn for the
day in the hat of the winner." That other great collector of
archaic words and phrases, usually quoted as Mr. Halliwell,
after giving a precisely similar statement, adds that " the race

2o8 Manners and Customs

is run to the bride-door." But in Cumberland, according to
Brockett, it is customary for the bridegroom, "attended by
his friends on horseback, to proceed at a gallop to the house
of the bride's father. . . . After breakfast the whole party
ride to church together, and at the conclusion of the ceremony
they all proceed to some neighbouring alehouse, where many
a flowing bumper is drunk to the health of the happy pair.
Then they set off at full speed towards the future residence of
the bride, where a handkerchief is presented to the first who
arrives." In Craven, according to the same authority, after
the service is over, " a ribbon is offered as the winner's prize,
either in a foot or a horse race. Whoever first reaches the
bride's habitation is ushered into the bridal chamber, and after
having performed the ceremony of turning down the bedclothes,
he returns, carrying in his hands a tankard of warm ale, to
meet the bride, to whom he triumphantly offers the cup he
bears, and by whom he is presented with the ribbon as the
trophy of his victory." When making inquiries on the general
subject some twenty-five years ago, I found that much of
what is thus detailed was still carried on at St. Helen's,
Auckland, and other villages in the county of Durham ; only
the handkerchief was supposed to be a delicate substitute for
the bride's garter, which used to 'be taken off as she knelt at
the altar ; and, the practice being anticipated, the garter was
generally found to do credit to her taste and her skill in
needlework, and was made the chief prize in the ensuing sports.
In Cleveland, however, and the neighbouring district the hot
ale, duly sweetened and spiced, was presented by the friends of
the bridal party at some point or points of the return journey
from church. Mr. Robinson's testimony is to the effect that,
within the present half-century, the custom has been upheld
in full force at Robin Hood's Bay, as many as twelve hot-pots
having been brought forth and partaken of in the one-mile
distance between the church and the town.

Hardly more than half a century since these races

The Bridal Race 209

were hotly contested in Danby by mounted men, two or
three of whom, together with their steeds, were well known
for their exploits on such occasions of racing. One of these
men, a member of an old and "yabble" (well-to-do) Danby
family, was, if my memory serves me rightly, the retailer of
a tradition, mentioned for my instruction, that in days gone
by the race was always from the churchyard gate to the bride-
door, and that the prize was not barely the bride's garter, but
the added privilege of taking it himself from her leg as she
crossed the threshold of her home. The hot-pots of the Cleve-
land dales, the liberal ale-drinking in Cumberland and Craven
mentioned by Brockett, the rapid riding as well as the fact of
the mounted cavalcade, all point to Northern customs, where
the very word for a wedding — hrullaup, or bride-rush or speed —
is itself a standing testimony to what the marriage ride was in
the old days ; and as to that, let the following sentence bear
its own witness: "The most ancient mode of wooing had at
least the merit of simplicity ; it consisted in carrying off the
desired object by physical force. There are traces of the
custom in a ceremony still occasionally practised on the
marriage of a Welsh peasant. After the wedding the bride-
groom mounts on horseback and takes his bride behind him.
A certain amount of ' law ' is given them, and then the guests
mount and pursue them. It is a matter of course that they
are not overtaken ; but, whether overtaken or not, they return
with their pursuers to the wedding feast." The old old usage
in vogue when the matter in hand was the obtaining of a
helpmeet amid the burdens and labours of life, which lives
as a survival in the old classical myth of the Rape of the
Sabines, — the usage which prescribed or compelled ihe
securing of a spouse by an absolute abduction of her by
force from another tribe or another district, — is more than
faintly figured forth in the Welsh custom just named, while
the horse-races of two or three generations back, explained by
all we now know concerning the marriage customs of the

P

2 1 o Manners and Customs

remote past, contain much more than an indication merely of
what their real origin and meaning unquestionably must be.
And, little as the fleet-footed young dalesmen think of it when
"running for the ribbon," they are doing their little best to
keep up the remembrance that, in the old days of their fore-
elders' and predecessors' living experience, if a man wanted a
wife, he had to go and seek her where it was known there was
an eligible young lady, who might be won literally w et armis,
or by dint of the strong hand and fleet enduring horse.

As to the bride-wain the thing may be obsolete, but neither
the feeling nor the practice connected with the name is so.
The long lists of " wedding presents " we see paraded in the
newspapers on occasion of some "high-up" bridal, and the
array of less gorgeous but equally well-intended presents one
may see in even our humble Dales habitations, alike testify to
the survival of the idea which found its expression in the older
days in the bride-wain and its accessories.

As to what the bride-wain really was. When I first came
into residence here, there were few farmhouses in which
there was not one of those fine old black oak cabinets or
"wardrobes," with carved panels, folding-doors, and knobby
feet, that have gladdened so many collectors' hearts ; in not
a few cases I have seen them in old cottages also. And
not once or twice only, but many times I have heard the
name "bride- wain" attributed to them. The word itself
was sufficient to suggest if not to provoke inquiry. For
the " wain " was a vehicle that went upon wheels, and
upon two wheels rather than four; because the wain upon
four wheels speedily became a waggon, and ceased to be a
wain. But a press or wardrobe certainly is not a vehicle,
however much it may be a repository.

But the wardrobe might be, and often was in the olden
times, a constituent portion of the "wedding presents,"
which always partook of the homely and useful character,
almost to the exclusion of the merely graceful or pretty,

Wedding Presents in the Olden Time 2 1 1

and much more the sentimental. And the closets above,
with their carven doors, and the drawers below with their
antique brass handles and lock -plates, so far from being
empty, were uncomfortably full with articles of household gar-
nishing or personal wear, made from home-grown, home-spun,
home-woven, home-made material, linen or woollen. Much
thereof might be the work of the bride's own deft, if toil-
hardened fingers; but much, too, came of the many and
heartily offered gifts of the neighbours and friends of the
young couple. And it was once a thing of occasional occur-
rence rather than a custom that could be said to prevail, to
place this wardrobe, so stored, on a wain — itself a gift like
the rest, as well as the oxen which drew it — and convey it
to the church at which the marriage ceremony was to be
solemnised ; making it a part of the wedding procession, in
fact, and letting it stand by the church-door, or in the very
porch, while the priest was fulfilling his function ; and after
the service to drag it thence to the future abode of the
couple just made one. So by an easy transition of idea
the wardrobe itself came to be called a bride-wain. "One
such bride-wain," I have said in my Glossary, "which took its
departure for the church from Danby Castle, was specially
mentioned by my informant as having had no less than six-
teen oxen yoked to it." Many of the oxen so employed
having actually been gifts (as noticed above), as well as the
wardrobe itself, and no small part of its contents.

I see, too, that I have remarked at the place cited — what
should hardly be passed over without note or comment — "that
it was essential that the wain should travel along the ordinary
or recognised ' church-road,' and not make short cuts or other
deviations from the time- and tradition-hallowed as well as
established route."

But all these things are altered now, and I am not alto-
gether sure that all of them are altered for the better. I am
no indiscriminate laudator temporis adi, but I cannot help

2 1 2 Manners and Customs

seeing that more modem usages have shut out much that
was simple, homely, and touching, without introducing any
improvement upon the old downright, homespun code of
manner and action.

I remember having an old man of nearly seventy pointed
out to me in my father's Lincolnshire parish, who was said
to own land and property to the value of a thousand pounds
or so, and of whom it was told that, on coming away from
the church on his wedding-day, he said to his newly-made
wife, "I have the price of a pint still left in my pocket.
Shall we go to the public-house and drink it, or shall we go
and work ? " And the lady was said to have answered, " WeU,
if it is left to me, I say, let us work," and work they did ;
and they worked on from his twopence halfpenny to his thou-
sand. I think there was the same downright and honest
thrift and perseverance and industry throughout these dales
in the old days; and I think, too, it was better than the
aping of the " wedding-tour " which is now getting the upper
hand.

Not that there may not be some compensation. There is
certainly less of the exuberant festivity on the occasion of a
wedding than there used to be, — festivity which so continually
degenerated into downright drunkenness and debauchery, — and
the people generally have learnt to respect decency of expres-
sion and conduct. In the old days a spade was a spade,
and there was no affectation of reticence about naming it.

BURIALS AND THEIR ACCOMPANIMENTS

I THINK I have had, first and last, within the last five-and-
twenty years, either shown me or brought to me, something
like a large wheelbarrow-load of fragments of pottery taken
out of the earth thrown up in the process of digging the
necessary graves in the Danby churchyard. It is mainly of
one character — coarse, rough, and red ; red, however, of differ-
ent shades. Most of the vessels of which these sherds are
fragments seem to have been of the jug or pitcher description,
having handles, plain or lined or twisted, with mouths, not
of large size in proportion to the other dimensions, flanging
outwards a little, and glazed inside for some little depth, and
with the glaze in some instances straying a little over the
outside of the neck.

That these vessels are of mediaeval date there can be no
doubt. Precisely similar vessels — similar, that is, as to ware,
colour, shape or average form, handles, glaze, etc. — may be
seen in any collection of such pottery, notably in the York
Museum.

I have, in some cases, seen portions of five or six different
specimens taken out of the earth thrown up from one grave ;
and in very few instances indeed is a grave dug without
the occurrence of some of these reminiscences of a past and
forgotten usage.

But besides these old sherds, there is disclosed in almost
every case more or less charcoal, sometimes in quantities such

2 1 4 Manners and Customs

as to attract the trained eye at once, and always in particles
the size of a small bean, or in small sections, admitting of easy
identification when looked for. I have occasionally seen half
a spade-graft of mould brought to the surface, nearly one-half
or one-third of which was composed mainly of charcoal. In
fact my sexton — who was trained to the watchful part of the
barrow -work, so that he became one of my two best men
— still lives in hope of finding such a mass of charcoal in
connection with the pottery as to enable us to come to a
satisfactory conclusion touching the presence of the substances
throughout the churchyard.

For connection there must have been, and, as necessarily,
an explanation dependent on that connection. And, for my
own part, I think there is a connection between finds of this
and finds of yet another sort, made in the same place and
under the same circumstances, which deserves some attention.
At least half a dozen small silver coins have been noticed
among the mould thrown up in the course of grave-diggings,
picked up and put into my hands. One may have been a
coin of the time of Henry III ; the others were of the reigns
of the Edwards. When one looks at these small objects, and
considers their tenuity and their lustreless, tarnished, almost
decomposed condition — one or two among them are as frail
as chippings from the shell of a boiled egg — one cannot hel{»
thinking, " Well, for one that is seen and rescued, the chances
must be that many others are never detected, and remain
where they were placed — at least, 'beneath the sod' — never
coming within the range of a speculative antiquary's eye, nor
able to attract even passing observation." It was but the
other day that, in the course of my casual reading, I met with
the record of a silver coin being found still between the jaws
of the skull of a man who had been buried three centuries
or more ago, and it reminded me of what had happened at
one of the churches in this neighbourhood not twenty years
since, as far as my recollection serves me. On the disturbance

Money buried with the Dead Body 2 1 5

and removal of the remains of a former interment, when the
skull came to be moved something was heard to rattle in
among the bones of it, which, on examination, proved to
be a silver coin about the size of a Commonwealth half-crown
(or rather florin, I suppose). And it was evident that its
original place of deposit must have been between the teeth, or
at least just inside the mouth.

"While I was closely occupied over the final sheets of my
Cleveland Glossary, a correspondent (Mr. Baring Gould) wrote
to me as follows : " I heard some rustics talking about an
odd old man who had been buried somewhere up your way
a few years ago with a candle, a penny, and a bottle of port ;
and, as they explained it, the candle was to light the way to
Jerusalem, the penny to pay the ferry, and the port to sustain
him on the journey." And Professor George Stephens of
Copenhagen about the same time gave me the following quota-
tion : " Within the coffin, along with herself, she got a pair
of new brogues, a penny candle, and a hammer, with an Irish
sixpenny-piece to pay her passage at the gate."

And these old, old coins found in my churchyard, and, to
my knowledge, in several others in the district as well, have
the same story to tell to quickened ears as these two
instances of so much later a date, and the multitudes of others
that may be found by looking for them; and that story, I
conceive, is not so very widely different in its essential char-
acteristics from the story to be told by the pottery and the
charcoal obtruding themselves on the notice of the observant
in the old, but not as yet compulsorily disused, graveyards of
our country churches.

One of my earliest recollections as a boy is of places —
houses, always old and mostly old-fashioned, barns, lanes,
the moated sites of old manor-houses, " four-want-ways " or
the place of intersection of two cross-roads, churchyards,
suicides' graves — which were spoken of, dreaded, avoided
after nightfall, as being " haunted." There were two barns,

2 1 6 Manners and Customs

one local "hall," one moated site of an old mansion, one road-
side grave, all within half an hour's walk of one of my homes
in the days of my boyhood, besides a long-disused old house
of considerable size and pretension, a grove, and an old
ruinous building, which once, I suppose, had been the parish
pest-house, close to the place of my schooldays — to say
nothing of a long, dark passage behind two of the dormitories
at the school itself — all of which were "haunted." And there
was a large section of an old moated mansion in another of
my father's curacies, with a tapestried chamber in it, the subject
illustrated thereon being the beheading of John the Baptist,
with his bleeding head in the charger, wrought in right grisly
fashion ; as to which I heard a man, mainly employed in my
father's garden, tell a right gruesome story of his own experi-
ences there one night when storm-stayed.

I found no difficulty in entering into the feelings of the
narrator, and understanding the impression produced upon
him. And perhaps I was enabled to trace the mental process
throughout ; for the district he lived in was full of common-
place, unimaginative superstition. But there is no need to
give a catalogue of the apparitions, ghosts, spirits, which were
said to beset the district, or to enter into exhaustive details.
A sample or two will suffice. There was the lady who, at a
certain hour on a certain night, depending on the moon's age,
walked abroad in her bloodstained night-gear, but without
her head. There was another of the same sex, and habited
also in her white night-gown, who " walked " with her hands
chained and her lower limbs fettered, sobbing and crying, and
jangling her chains. There was the great dog miinm his head,
who ran to his destination — where he vanished suddenly — as
well as if he had had his eyes in the usual place to guide him.
There was the black wide-horned creature wth great glaring
saucer-eyes, at the old moat. There was the shape of the
smcide, with his self-murdering knife, his gibbering features,
trembling limbs, and pitiful moans, — all of these, and many

Confining the Dead to their Graves 2 1 7

more. And the story was, this man had cut his own throat,
and by " crowner's-quest law" had been buried by the road-
side with a stake driven through his body. I make no doubt
all that was true to the letter. And then there had been a
jumbling together of the old tradition and of older folklore
ideas, which had got mixed in the process, and the issue of
the process was the ghost.

There is no doubt that the self-murderer, or the doer of
some atrocious deed of violence, murder, or lust, was buried
by some lonely roadside, in a road-crossing, or by the wild
woodside, and that the oak or, oftener, thorn stake was
driven through his breast ; but not because of any intended
scorn, or horror, or abhorrence. These were the characters
who — to use an expression common enough among us to this
day, though perhaps we do not trouble to think of its origin
or meaning — could not "rest in their graves." They /wif to
wander, nay, often they were self-constrained to wander about
the scenes of their crimes, or the places where their un-
hallowed carcases were deposited, unless, that is to say, they
were prevented ; and as they wanted the semblance, the
simulacrum, the- shadow -substance of their bodies for that
purpose — otherwise there could have been no appearance — the
body it was which was made secure by pinning it to the
bottom of the grave by aid of the driven stake. Here is an
explanation which has long been lost sight of, and replaced by
notions involving the ideas of ignominy, abhorrence, execration,
or what not ; and it is just the explanation that was wanted.
The corpse of the fearful malefactor, cast out of hallowed
ground, as belonging to the devil and not to the saints, must
be disabled, as well as the guilty spirit itself, for further
mischief or ill-doing.

And there were other means adopted with the same end
in view. The head was severed from the body and laid
between the legs, or placed under the arm — between the arm
and the side, that is. Or the feet and legs were bound to-

2 1 8 Manners and Customs

gether with a strong rope. Or the corpse might be cut up
into some hollow vessel capable of containing the pieces, and
carried away quite beyond the precincts of the village and
deposited in some bog or morass, so as never to come within
the precincts of the hallowed ground.

Now these things are not the creation of fancy. The
records of such sentences and of their execution exist in the
Dooms-books or other judicial records of this country and
other lands in the north of Europe, and there is a sort of
uncanny recognition in them of the apparitions of headless
ladies and chain-rattling ghosts, ghastly bearers of cruel knives,
and the like.

I remember when, some twenty-five years or more ago, I
became acquainted with Hylten Cavallius's admirable book on
the ethnology of a certain district in the south of Sweden, I
was greatly struck with the passage of which the following is
a translation : "For the purpose of preventing restless, unruly,
sinful, and intensely worldly men from 'going again after
death ' " — the Cleveland idiom is " coming again " — " our
Warend folk have been in the habit from a very remote time
of employing various characteristic measures. • The very oldest
among these takes its origin from the ancient fire-cult, and the
still older sun-worship. It is to this that we must refer the
presence, for the protection of the dwelling against ghosts
{gengangare), of a red cock, the solar bird, on his perch over
the house-entrance. To the same again must be referred the
custom of consuming with fire the mattress on which a man
has breathed his last ; of casting live coals (charcoal, notably)
after a corpse on its removal from the dwelling, and of strew-
ing ashes, salt, linseed, or the seed of the water-hemlock,
around the homestead, or across the approach to the house,
beyond which limit the ghost may not pass. On the same
principle, subsequently to the time at which men became
acquainted with the use of steel, the custom has been to drive
in an axe or some other sharp-edged tool above the door of

The ' Company ' of the Ghost not desired 2 1 9

the house-place. ' And at a later period still it became usual
to tie the feet of the' corpse together, to stick pins into the
shroud in such wise that the points were opposed to the feet ;
as also to place hooks and eyes in the coflSn, or else a stake
wrenched out of the fence round the homestead. Moreover,
when a corpse is carried out of the house of death, it is in-
variably borne forth feet first, in order to prevent the dead
person from ' coming again.' Nay, even in the days of hoary
eld, it was a custom to whisper in the ear of the corpse that
he was not to ' come again ' ; while, finally, there was the old
practice of laying earth on the body, which was a heathen
practice long before it was adopted in the Christian grave-
service. And even yet the accustomed Warend name for the
burial ceremony is to 'earth-fasten a corpse,' or to 'earth-
fasten the dead person.' "

Turning all this over in one's mind, and remembering
at the same time that the idea represented by the word
" haunted " is as yet by no means an extinct idea, there is no
great difiiculty in suggesting an explanation of the presence of
charcoal in these old graves in the churchyards.

But it is possible to illustrate the living reality of this
superstition by a reference to what took place here not so
very long before my personal acquaintance with the place
commenced. An old woman who lived in Fryup, and whose
chief celebrity depended upon the allegation that she kept
the " Mark's e'en watch," and was able in consequence to fore-
show the deaths of the coming year, one St. Mark's day, when
she was questioned on the subject after her vigil, announced
her own death as among the foredoomed ones, and assigned
her reason for saying so. " And," she added, " when I dee, for
dee I s'all, mind ye carry me to my grave by t' church-road,
and not all the way round by t' au'd Castle and Ainthrop.
And mind ye, if ye de'ant, I'll come again."

Now the church-road lay straight past her house to the
foot of a very steep moor-bank, up which it went — and goes

2 20 Maimers and Customs

yet — with two zigzags. It is a stiff climb at any time, even
when one has only himself and his coat to carry ; but with a
burden such as a coffin, with the grisly occupant inside, it is
"bosses' wark, not men's." Well, the old lady died as she
had predicted, and she died in a snowy time. And the
difficulties of the church-road in a snowy time are almost in-
tensely enhanced. I have gone both up and down the bank at
such seasons, and speak with feeling. But the bearers faced
the difficulties — perils, in a sense, they almost amounted to, —
and waist-deep sometimes ; still they persevered, and eventu-
ally -got through with their undertaking and their burden.
In plain words, they were ready to face anything ; and many
among them must have had such a day of toil and effort and
fatigue as never before nor after fell to their lot; but they
could not, dared not, face the chance of the old woman's
" coming again."

My own idea, entertained now for a very long time past,
relatively to the presence of charcoal and broken pottery in
our graves, is that they were placed at the first in the original
graves in conjunction ; that is to say, the charcoal, in the
form of live coals, was placed inside the earthen vessels.
And while it is possible that the purificatory energy of
fire may not have been lost sight of in the observance,
all the probabilities suggested by such collateral items of
evidence as those I have quoted go to show that the deposit
was of the nature of the casting of live embers after the
departing corpse, burning the straw mattress on which the
departed had given up the ghost, strewing ashes, salt, or what
not, or striking some sharp-edged instrument above the house-
door, vrith the avowed object of keeping ghosts, or the special
ghost, in abeyance. And at this point there is another fact
which it will be by no means irrelevant to advert to. And
that is, that in all the burial mounds I have myself opened or
seen opened, or the opening of which as described by competent
observers, taking special notes of all incidental and collateral

Charcoal always present in archaic Interments 221

particulars I am acquainted with, I do not remember an
instance in which the absence of charcoal is recorded.
I do not mean that there were always such evidences
of burning as are attested by the presence of charcoal
in mass, or sensible quantities, but that the unvarying
rule appears to be that charcoal occurs in all these mounds,
scattered up and down throughout the greater part of
the hill. Even in the small houes, fifteen to twenty feet
across, and a foot and a half, or little more, in height (of
which literally hundreds have existed on' these moors, and
many scores of which are still in being, and none of which
ever covered a burnt body), there are small fragments of
charcoal in every individual mound, varying in size from a
bean to a nutmeg, far more than enough to convey the in-
evitable conclusion that it was not there accidentally.

The speculation, the corroborative considerations, and the
conclusion as to the why and because of the occurrence of
charcoal and potsherds in our Danby graves, are all, whether
entertained or no, matters of no slight or merely local
interest.

BURIALS AND THEIR ACCOMPANIMENTS
(continued)

I HARDLY cared to enter upon my recollections or experiences
in relation to the peculiarities which, have characterised Danby
funerals — or, to use the older Cleveland word, " burials " — some
of which even yet are hardly things of the. past, without
first adverting to the occurrence of both charcoal and broken
pottery, in marked quantity, in the oft-stirred earth thrown
up in the process of digging our modern graves. That occur-
rences of this kind are not exceptional, that they are not
confined to Danby alone, I am well aware. I have never
examined the earth thrown out of a new-made grave in any
one of the churchyards of the near district without finding
samples of the pottery ; and I will specify the churchyards of
Great Ayton, Westerdale, and Sneaton as among those most
prominent in my recollections. I have also heard the same of
one or two other churchyards wherein I have had no oppor-
tunity of personal examination. One other remarkable case,
however, is almost worth special notice.

Many years ago I had undertaken a week-day service in
the schoolroom at Dunsley. In some way or other, after the
service, the subject of graveyard potsherds was referred to, and
the schoolmaster remarked that he had collected a number of
such fragments, which appeared to answer the description I
had been giving. He produced a quantity of them, and with-
out exception they were similar to those vnth which I was so

Potsherds in other Graveyards 223

familiar^ except only that they were all portions of broken
pot- or pitcher-handles. But on inquiry, it proved that these
only had been preserved, because they were not mere sherds
from the broken sides of the vessels. I further learned that
all came from a place in the close vicinity of the school, namely,
the site of the ancient Dunsley chapel. I went with the master
to ,the place, and he showed me where the greater part had
been met with, and although he did not seem very hopeful that
renewed search would be successful, still certain small pieces
were found. I will only add that my informant made no doubt
about the sherds coming from the old graves ; and old graves
they certainly were. Young's memorandum concerning the old
chapel is as follows : " It was older than the Hermitage of
Mulgrif, and it subsisted longer ; for it continued until the
Dissolution ; " and in a note he adds : " An imperfect inscription
shows that it had been used as a cemetery prior to the Reform-
ation. . . . The foundation of the north wall has been under-
mined by people digging up materials for repairing roads, and
the bones of the dead have been exposed to view."

This is a valuable testimony as bearing upon the dates to
which I have assigned the original deposits of pottery and
chaocoal in our own churchyard.

But to come to more recent times and later "reminiscences."
It is a well-known circumstance that — to use the formal term
employed in the old county records — the "people called
Friends " were once both numerous and influential in these
dales, and nowhere more so than in Danby. I should be
more than justified if I extended the remark to a very much
wider North Riding area than this parish only, as a list of
North Riding places licensed for the Quakers' worship about
the time of the Toleration Act, which I compiled for pub-
lication in the North Riding Records Volume for the year 1889,
abundantly demonstrates. Indeed they were so numerous here
that no less than three of their burial-places exist on the west
side of Danby-dale only.

2 24 Manners and Customs

There were still five or six Quaker families in the Dale
when I first came to it. Of course I knew them all, and had
a great respect for more than one of them, as well as simple
regard. Indeed, one of them — he died, turned of eighty years
old, many years ago — was a man much looked up to beyond
the limits of the Dale ; and was often called upon to act as
arbiter and peacemaker in cases which might otherwise have
led on to litigation. He was a man of shrewd, sound sense
and judgment ; and it was with the feeling of having lost
a personal friend and a helper in all efforts for the good of
the parish and the district, that I heard of the death of old
William Hartas.

The days of his lifetime were the days in which church
rates were collected. Dear old William and his co-religionists
never paid a penny of the " cess " they were liable for. But
somehow or other, when the churchwardens went their col-
lecting rounds, a sheaf or two of corn, of an approximate value
to the sum set down against their names, stood handy to the
said churchwardens' hands, and no inquiry was ever made as
to the person who had " conveyed " the Quakers' corn.

There is a story told of old William which I have every
reason to believe is a true one. It is, I suppose, well known
that there is no grave-service in use among the Friends. The
ceremony of depositing the body in the grave is a silent one,
unless some one or more among the attendants on the funeral
feels called on to address the bystanders. My friend William
was often in the habit of speaking on more or less public occa-
sions, both in the parish and out of it ; and when he attended
a funeral of a Friend it was by no means unusual for him to
"speak a few words."

On one such occasion no one spoke after the coffin was
lowered to its resting-place, but there seemed to be a sort
of expectation that William would " say a few words " before
the party separated. And so he did. After looking long and
fixedly into the grave in still silence, he gave utterance at

Hats worn in Church during Burial Service 225

length to the following speech : " Our fri'nd seems vara com-
fortable. Thou mun hap him oop," — these last words being
addressed to the sexton.

Many a time have I seen this worthy old man, and others
of the sect, in attendance at the funeral of some old and re-
spected parishioner. Sometimes I have seen them, as I went
out in advance of the coffin into the graveyard, the first part
of the burial service over, sitting in the church porch. But
not once or twice only I have seen them come inside the church
and sit the service through — hatted, as a matter of course ; and
I had more reasons than one for not being intolerant enough
to insist on the removal of themselves, if so be their hats were
unremovable. I was glad to see them among the throng of
other parishioners who came to pay their last tribute of regard
to the person who had long lived among them, a neighbour
among neighbours and a friend among friends. And I was
not going to take any step which might have the tendency to
lessen good feeling, either general or particular.

Besides, I could not, with anything like consistency ; for
the rule was the country-side throughout, as it had been even
in Scarboi'ough up to less than ten years before I took up my
abode there, for all the male relatives of the deceased person
present among the mourners to sit close round the coffin during
the reading of the burial-service psalm and lesson with their
hats on. I had for divers reasons, and with the full concur-
rence of the patron and others concerned, resolved to let the
practice wear out, instead of suppressing it with the high hand,
as the Vicar of Scarborough had done ; for I did think that
people who had had the good example of the parson and his
brother the parish-clerk, to say nothing of the churchwardens,
customarily wearing their hats in church, and never doffing
them even on Sundays until they had got to their several
places in the church, had a very fair claim to be treated with
some sort of tolerance, and be shown the better way, instead
of being driven into it at the cost of much heart-burning.

Q

2 26 Manners and Customs

And so I let tte hats alone, and did not interfere with my good
old friends the Quakers.

But truly the " burials " were rather a thorn in my side for
long. It is almost " a tale that is told " now, but it is perhaps
worth recalling and recording. As soon after the breath had
left the body as was possible, the next day at the latest — often
the same day, if the person had died early — the person whose
professional name was " the bidder," went round from house
to house among those who were to be "bidden to t' burial," to
" warn " them that the burial was fixed for such and such a
day, and to add, " and so and so " — naming the principal friend
or friends of the deceased — "expect you at ten o'clock in the
morning." The " minister " was always among the first to be
bidden. Sometimes when the dead person had been long in
the place, had borne parochial office, and had won the goodwill
and respect of all the neighbours, or if he was a man with
numerous relations and connections (a very common case), or for
whom general sympathy had been aroused, these invitations
might be numbered, not merely by the score, but by the hundred.
I have myself counted more than three hundred seated in the
church on at least four, if not five, different occasions. And the
rule is, and, still more, was, that the preponderating majority of
these " went to the burial " at the house where the corpse lay,
beginning at ten o'clock and continuing to drop in, according to
convenience or distance to be traversed, throughout the morn-
ing and afternoon till it became time to " lift the body " and
make a start for the church.

And all these were fed — entertained, rather — at the house
of mouriiing, if it chanced to be that of one of the principal
inhabitants. All day long, in relays of from a dozen up
to a score, according to the dimensions of the reception-
room, the hungry host came streaming in, until all had been
" served." Those who had been the first to enter went and
sat about wherever they could find seats, whether in the house
or outside, or in the farm premises, or at some neighbour's.

Funeral Biscuits 227

smoking (not without the necessary "wet," it might be) and
chatting, as on any other occasion when friends and acquaint-
ances were wont to meet. The last part of the entertainment,
at least in the later days of the old practice, was to hand round
on salvers or trays glasses of wine and small round cakes of the
crisp sponge description, of which most of the guests partook.

I do not know if these cakes are still in vogue, — " funeral
biscuits," I have heard them called, — but I was greatly inter-
ested one day some twenty years ago or more, on going into a
confectioner's shop in Whitby, to see some of these cakes in a
dish, but not, as it were, exposed for sale. I forget how the
talk began ; but the shopkeeper — an old, gray-headed, tottering
man, as I saw him a short time ago — had somehow come to
tell me what they were, and for what funeral they had been
ordered ; and by the merest chance he gave me an, if not the,
old name for them. He called them, not funeral biscuits, but,
as it sounded from his lips, " averil breead," or, as it should
be written, avril bread.

As will be readily conceived by any one who knows of my
eighteen or twenty years of persevering " dialect - word "
hunting, and, more especially, by any one who has ever occu-
pied himself personally in that engaging (if not exciting)
pursuit, I pricked up my ears on hearing this word; for I
recognised it at once, and it was as good as half-a-dozen shots
in the turnips, and never a miss among them. I had had
years before many a struggle over the origin (rather than the
derivation merely) of such words as dozz or duzz, wossle or
vnursel, and so forth ; and it was not without trouble and diffi-
culty that I had got these forms, rather than words, which, as
it were, had been turned inside out like a stocking, turned
back again to the right side outwards. Dozz or duzz was the
country pronunciation of dmse or dirze, as dorse or durze was of
drose (from an original Scandinavial drosa, cognate with our
English drizzle), and vmsle or wursel was the same sort of dis-
solving-view word from English wrestle, and so forth. On

228 Manners and Customs

the same rule — that of the transposition of the letter r and its
following vowel — avril was simply arvil or and, and that was
neither more nor less than arval, or succession-ale, where al or
ah has just the same weight and substance as in bridal, still
current, and the leet-ales, scotales, church-ales, clerk-ales, bid-
ales (all quoted by Skeat), and toll-ales, and another or two,
all obsolete. And as to the word itself, entire, that is, arvel
or arval, "At arvel — heir-ale — feasts," says Sir G-. W. Dasent,
"when heirs drank themselves into their fathers' land and
goods, there was great mirth and jollity, and much eating and
hard drinking of mead and fresh-brewed ale " {Burnt Njal, i.
p. cxv.) ; this among the old Icelanders and their compatriots.

So much for the "arval bread" which, in the form of the
cakes and biscuits aforesaid, was handed round with the wine
by two young women who, from the discharge of this function,
were — are yet — termed "servers," and whose place it is, as the
funeral procession marshals itself at the churchyard gate, to
walk immediately in front of the coffin.

As to the preparation made for supplying the bodily wants
of such great concourses, I have again and again heard state-
ments made as to the number of " stones of beef and ham "
provided and consumed. Notably this was so in the case of
one of the worthiest of the many worthy Dales yeomen —
"freeholders," they call themselves — it has been my privilege
as well as my pleasure to know, who was one of the church-
wardens when I came here, and who died at the age of eighty-
eight, never having paid a doctor's fee up to his death-illness,
which was rather cessation of life than sickness. When he
was buried, between two and three hundredweight of meat,
mainly beef and bacon, was put on the tables ; and when the
keeper and owner of one of the inns at Castleton died — a man
universally popular as well as known to all— the amount pro-
vided was said to have been even greater still.

These great assemblages and colossal providings are now
mainly things of the past, although even within the past

Burial Fixtures not punctually kept 229

year I have twice seen upwards of one hundred and fifty to
two hundred persons assembhng or assembled in the church
and churchyard to be present at a funeral.

Necessarily when there were such numbers of friends and
relations to be fed, and such scant accommodation as cramped
space in the kitchen, as well as at the board, entailed, there was
great loss of time, and often exceeding unpunctuality in the
starting, and, much more, the arrival at the chiu-chyard of the
funeral cortege. Once in my predecessor's time the arrival did
not take place until after dark, and the service in the church
— which is near no house at all save one, and that is a third
of a mUe distant — had to be read by the light of a taUow dip,
procured after some delay, and the grave-side service by
the wavering, flickering Hght of the same held in the sexton's
hand.

Delay too would naturally in such a district as ours be
caused by distance and bad roads ; and other causes also led
to unpunctuality. For in one case, when the funeral was fully
two hours late, the procession had started in ample time, and
the detention had arisen from a totally unforeseen and, in
practice, unaccustomed cause. It was a long way that had to
be traversed, undoubtedly — nearer twelve than ten miles, I
should say — and much more than half of it over highways
that crossed the moors. Yet there was a short cut that might
have been taken, but was not taken, contrary to the intentions
and expectations of the organiser of the journey. For on
reaching the point of divergence from the accustomed way, or
the " highway," the proposed deviation was at once demurred
to, and in the issue a sort of parliament was held on the high-
road, and the decision to proceed by the high-road was
dehberately come to.

And why % Nobody doubted that to take the longer way
round would add still more to the delay occasioned by the
debate ; but there was a graver consideration than that, and
one with which the weightier part of the mourners could

230 Manners and Customs

not and ■would not deal lightly. The person to be buried was
no other than the man previously mentioned more than once in
these pages, namely, our friend Jonathan, who had fought the
witches so strenuously with the best weapons at his command.
"Take Jonathan to his last home otherwise than by the
' church-road ' ! Why, it wasn't to be thought of ! He would
never rest in his grave. He would come again. Didn't every
one know that such as were carried to the church otherwise
than by the ' church-road ' were provoked, and got the power
to come again ? "

We remember the old woman in Little Fryup, who
threatened her friends with what she would do if they did not
carry her to her burial by the chureh-road, and how the dread
of her menace forced her bearers to that terrible snow-
hindered march up the steep bank and across the moorland
ridge. And here was another case of the same kind, accentu-
ated in a somewhat different manner, but quite as strongly and
decisively marked.

I have been interested in finding repeated references made
in the old County Eecords it has been my lot to deal with
during the last eight or nine years, to the "church-way" or the
" church-road," in divers parts of the North Eiding, and the
observance evidently attached to it in every individual in-
stance. How old the notion is, how long ago it came to be
held that a way over which a body was borne to its burial
became thereby a recognised high-road, and obtained a certain
sacred sanction therefrom, there is probably no one to tell us,
and there may be no means of finding out. Probably also it
might prove very hard to decide whether, in the case of this
bit of folklore, the survival is in the idea of the consecration
of the way by the carrying of the dead over it, or in the idea
that any not carried along the dedicated way are sentenced to,
or become qualified for, a restless unconfined sojourn in the
grave. But at least we know that, among our Scandinavian
ancestors at least, the hell -way and the hell -shoes and the

Rules as to ' the Bearers ' 231

difficult and perilous passage to be essayed by the dead were
as constantly thought of and provided for as the occurrence of
death itself. The matter is a curious and interesting one, and
well deserves careful investigation.

But there are yet other matters to be remarked, or our
notice of the observances at a Dales " burying " would be left
imperfect. Thus the coffin is never borne on the shoulders
of the bearers, as is most customary elsewhere. So far as it
is " carried by hand " at all — which, from the distance of the
church from all the constituents of the population, is very
little, usually only from a few yards outside the churchyard-
gate to the trestles set to support it in the western part of the
nave of the church — ^it is carried by the aid of towels knotted
together and passed under the coffin, the ends on either side
being held by the bearers, six in number (or three pairs).
And as regards the bearers, the usage was so consistent and
so steadfast that there would be no impropriety in speaking
of it as "the rule." Thus a single young woman was borne
by six single young women, a single young man by six of his
compeers, a married woman by married women, and so on
all through. Nay, it is no unusual sight even yet to see the
child carried by six children, var3ring according to the sex of
the dead child. In the case of the young unmarried woman,
moreover, some peculiarities of costume were always to be
observed about the bearers. Their dress was not all un-
relieved black. White sashes or scarfs were customarily
worn, and white gloves always. Much of this remains still,
but the observance in such matters is hardly so religious as
it used to be.

Another usage struck me very forcibly, when I was as
yet a stranger in the district, and to its ways and customs.
This was the practice of singing at divers places and times
during the proceedings. The custom used to be to sing a
hymn, or part of one of the old version of the psalms, when
the body was brought forth from the death-room, and set on

232 Manners and Customs

the chairs arranged for its reception in front of the house.
Singing was continued or repeated on "lifting the body,"
and again once or oftener on the road to the church — that is,
in the days preceding the acquisition and use of the hearse,
which, I believe, was a sort of joint-stock property at first.
There were, indeed, in some places regular stations at which
the body was rested and a hymn or psalm sung. Invariably,
too, in the old days, and even in some instances in later days,
when the funeral procession began to move down the grassy
slope by which the churchyard is approached, a hymn was
raised, and the singing was continued until the churchyard
gate was reached. In point of fact, in the days immediately
preceding my incumbency, the practice was such that the
rubric prescribing the meeting of the corpse by the priest
and clerks at the churchyard entrance, and their singing or
saying the prescribed sentences as they preceded the body
into the church, was not only practically but completely
ignored. The singing was persevered in to the very entrance
of the church. The singers were supreme, and " the priest and
clerks " nowhere. This I stopped by remaining steadfast in
the entrance to the churchyard until the loudest and longest-
winded of the singing men had sung themselves out. And
yet again, within the church, the strains were upraised on
the conclusion of the reading of the lesson by the officiating
minister. And as the old clerk drawled the words to be sung
out, two lines at a time, and the voices, though many and
strong, were restrained neither by training nor any niceties
of pronunciation, modulation, or time, the effect was not
usually either harmonious or such as to conduce to solemn
or sober feelings.

Before long I was requested to give the hymn out myself,
and the men who sang were members of the church choir.
Previously the Wesleyan hymn-book was freely used, and
the man who acted as reader of the two lines at a time outside
the churchyard, and leader of the band, seldom darkened the

Burials not as they once were 233

church doors save when oflBciating as chief songman at a
burying.

Some of the singing scenes I was privileged to witness,
when I was still a stranger more or less, were, considering
the occasion, painfully ludicrous. But it is all past now.

HOLY-WELLS, MELL-SUPPER, HARVEST-HOME ,

So far as I am aware, we have no well or spring in Danby
of reputed old-world sanctity; no wishing-well, rag-well, or
pin-well. A later name — in one sense later, if not in another
— is hMikeld, holy-well ; and, perhaps, the latest of all, St.
John's well, St. Hilda's well, or some other prefix embodying
a saintly name. What I mean to imply by speaking of these
terms or names as the one of them later than the other, accord-
ing to sequence of time, is that almost certainly such names
as pin-well or wishing-well are distinct indications that, in the
remote times of our remote antecessors, some sort of religious
cult, some offering of adoration more or less pronounced, of
vows, gifts, wishes, uttered or conceived, found its expression
and its ritual at that place ; that a well-preserved survival of
both sentiment and practice or observance continued, in the
early days of a brighter faith, to attach the idea of sanctity
and severance from the merely natural to the springing
waters, and to the place from which they gushed; and that
next, in the sequence of such succession, the name of some
saint, some great one in the annals of the new faith, should
either arbitrarily or for some special reason of force in the
vicinity, be attached to the hallowed keld, spring, or well.

Probably few persons except such as are in the habit of
poring over not only the six-inch Ordnance sheets, but old
plans or maps of parishes, estates, and farms, old charters and
other like documents dealing with grants of land and the

Hdlikelds and Folklore Connections 235

boundaries involved, — and last, but not least, old legends, old
folk-notions and feelings, old folk-practices and sayings, or
what not, — have any idea of the number of pin-wells and wish-
ing-wells, of what used to be rag-wells, of h&likelds or holy-
wells, and saints' wells, there still are, whether with or without
their old prestige, reputed sanctity, or Pool-of-Siloam virtue,
still duly accredited to them, scattered up and down through-
out our Cleveland district. And a further remark that may
be safely ventured is, that the neighbourhood of the church
is not at all infrequently a clue to the vicinity of some such
spring or well. Such instances as those of St. Hilda's well
in Hinderwell churchyard, St. John's well at Mount Grace —
to which large and fully-organised pilgrimages were wont to
be made, even after the Dissolution — of the hilikeld just
through the churchyard at Liverton, of the holy -well at
Crathorne, just outside the churchyard, of course occur to any
one moderately acquainted with the legends and local ideology
of the district. But besides these there are divers less
obtrusive instances of the same kind. And that there must
have been one of these now unsuspected and undreamt-of
wishing-wells or hS,likelds in Danby one can doubt but little,
land of fountains, wells, and springing waters as it is ; only
there is no local name, no sort of folk-saying even, to indicate
which or where it was.

It may be supposed by some that much of this is merely
fancy ; that, admitting there may have been the practice of
well-worship, of the offering of vows or wishes, or gifts, to the
spirit of the springing water or the running water, in the old
days that are gone, still there can be no survival of what is
essentially paganism in the nineteenth century ; that ignorance
and superstition cannot extend to such a length as that, even
in far-away or out-of-the-way places, in this enlightened day
of ours. But there is no doubt possible on the subject. I
have seen pins enough in some of these pin-wells — many of
them as bright as when just taken out of the paper, and not

236 Manners and Customs

so very many years ago — to have furnished the votive pin-
cushion presented at a baby's birth ; and although many of
them now may be put in in the way of frolic, and by the
sportive members of pleasure parties — as may be seen to one's
discontent at such wells as that at Mount Grace — yet there
is no doubt as to the hona fides with which the greater portion
of these votive offerings are dropped within the circle of
the mystic well. There is something very suggestive even
yet to the mind of one accustomed to look into the reason
of things in J. E. Green's notice of the struggle between
Christianity and heathenism in England, and the tenacious
survival of the latter in divers matters and various directions
even after the apparent victory of the former. " But if the
old faith was beaten by the new," he says, "it was long in
being killed. A hundred years after the conversion of Kent,
King Wihtred had still to forbid Kentishmen 'offering to
devils.' At the very close of the eighth century synods in
Mercia and Northumbria were struggling against the heathen
practice of eating horse-flesh at the feast to Woden. In spite
of this resistance, however, Wodenism was so completely
vanquished that even the coming of the Danes failed to revive
it. But the far older nature-worship, the rude fetichism which
dated back to ages long before history, had tougher and deeper
roots. The new religion could turn the nature-deities of this
primseval superstition into devils, its spells into magic, its spae-
wives into witches, but it could never banish them from the
imagination of men ; it had in the end even to capitulate to
the nature-worship, to adopt its stones and its wells, to turn
its spells into exorcisms and benedictions, its charms into
prayers. How persistent was the strength of the old belief
we see even at a later time than we have reached : ' We
earnestly forbid all heathendo^n,' says a canon of Gnut's time.
'Heathendom is that men worship idols; that is, that they
worship heathen gods, and the sun or the moon, fire or rivers,
water-wells or stones, or great trees of any kind ; or that they

The true Meaning of Folklore Usages 237

love witchcraft, or promote morth-worh in any wise, or by blot,
or hjfyrht, or do anything of like illusions.'" But although
the secular arm was stretched out to stop the continued practice
of heathen usage, either backing or being backed by authority
of spiritual men, so that a witch- wife — the first in the grisly
host — was drowned at London Bridge in the course of the
tenth century, still there were many heathen usages against
which " even councils did not struggle. Easter fires. May-day
fires, midsummer fires, with their numerous ceremonies, the
rubbing the sacred flame, the running through the glowing
embers, the throwing flowers on the fire, the baking in it and
distributing large loaves and cakes, with the round dance
about it, remained village customs. At Christmas the entry
of the boar's head, decked with laurel and rosemary, recalled
the sacrifice of the boar to Frigga at the midwinter feast of
the old heathendom. The autumn feast lingered on unchal-
lenged in the village harvesthome with the sheaf, in old times
the symbol of the god, nodding gay with flowers and ribbons
on the last waggon. As the ploughman took to his plough he
still chanted the prayer that, though christened as it were by
the new faith, remained in substance a cry to the Earth-goddess
of the old, — 'Earth, Earth, Earth, Mother Earth, grant thee
the Almighty one, grant thee the Lord, acres waxing, and
sprouts wantoning, ... and the broad crops of barley, and
the white wheat-crop, and all crops of eartk' So, as he drove
the first furrow he sang again, ' Hail, Mother Earth, thou feeder
of folk, be thou growing by goodness of God, filled with fodder,
the folk to feed ' " (Conquest of Englamd, p. 11).

Mr. Green's references are to Kemble's Saxons in Eng-
land and to Saxon Leechdoms, published in the Rolls Series,
and the incantation to Mother Earth and on the occasion of
driving the first furrow are from the Cottonian MSS., headed
by the editor "A Charm for bewitched Land," and commencing,
as translated literally from the original Anglo-Saxon, " Here
is the remedy how thou mayest amend thine acres, if they

238 Manners and Customs

will not wax well, or if therein anything uncanny have been
done by sorcery or witchcraft," and of which it is safe to say
that the ceremonies and observances prescribed and the in-
cantations enjoined could not be outdone for sheer pagan
superstition, reliance on occult nature-craft, and manufacture
of spells, by half a dozen arch -impostors of the school of the
noted "Wise Man o' Stowsley." And the mass-priest is to
have his share — by no means an insignificant one, the very
altar of the parish church being the scene of some part of the
" ritual " — in the mummeries ordained ! And what is more
to the point, some of the directions given are such that in
them are involved the principles lying at the root of more than
one of the very most superstitious of the many superstitious
practices it has fallen to my lot to note in this district of old
sayings, old usages, and unforgotten traditions.

Two or three pages before that on which the "charm"
thus noted is found, but eighteen pages from the commence-
ment of a series of like or analogous charms, as they are
collectively termed, stands one which is not a little curious
and no less interesting, by reason of its more than possible
suggestiveness. It is again in Anglo-Saxon, and derived
from the same source as the last, namely, the Cottonian MSS.,
and the translation is, " This is St. Columcille's (Columbkill)
circle. Write this circle with the point of thy knife upon a
meal-stone, and cut a stake in the midst of the enclosing
hedge, and lay the stone upon the stake, so that it be all
underground except the written -upon part." There is
nothing to specify the particular purpose or object of the
circle, a diagram of which is given, except certain inscribed
words, from the character of which some surmise as to the
intent of the charm may be risked. The saint's circle consists
of -two concentric circles, the inner one of which is divided
into four equal sections by two lines passing through the
centre at right angles with one another. In the upper left-
hand segment are a series of Roman numerals arranged in five

Parallelism of Meal-stone and Quern 239

horizontal lines ; in the lower segment on the same side, three
rows of the same; in the upper right-hand section, "cont".
apes ut salvi sint, & in corda eorum .s'.a.h."; and in the
remaining section simply the numeral xxx. That it is a spell
or charm to ensure the wellbeing of the bees belonging to the
man making use of it seems then to be apparent ; and one
might venture the expansion which would afford the translation,
"Compass the bees about, that they may be kept safe, and
that human intelligence may possess their hearts." But this
is comparatively immaterial from the point of view from
which I would fain regard it. The peculiar use of the peculiar
article mentioned, namely the meal-stone, is what arrests my
attention. The translator, than whom no more competent
Anglo-Saxon scholar existed, gives the explanatory rather
than alternative meaning of quern for meal-stone. Admitting
this rendering, the use of the meal-stone or quern in the
manner indicated, or in the practice of rites which can only
be spoken of as connected with pagan observances or acts of
heathen worship, is certainly one to be noticed under any
circumstances. And it is not impossible that it may suggest
an explanation where an explanation is admittedly very
much wanted.

Let us recall Mr. Green's remark that the " autumn feast,"
characterised by him a few sentences before as a "heathen
usage," " lingered on unchallenged in the village harvest-home
with the sheaf, in old times a symbol of the god, nodding gay
with flowers and ribbons on the last waggon." But we cannot
use the past tense even yet in speaking of this accompaniment of
the harvesl^home, albeit the " harvestrhome," in the historian's
sense, is no longer the village festival, but one that is celebrated
on divers farms all comprised in the same parochial district.
And that is true over very wide districts of our country.
Here in our own Yorkshire, and especially in our own dales,
notwithstanding the modem "harvest -home," which is
essentially a resurrection rather than a survival only, of the

240 Manners and Customs

old "village festival," we know well what the " mell-sheaf,"-
the " mell-supper," or " kern-supper," truly is ; and scarcely a
generation back the sheaf and the festival so called were of
as regular occurrence as the harvest itself on many and many
a primitive farm-hold or hilly dale-side occupation throughout
our northern districts.

All the same, there long has been, and there still is, no
little uncertainty about the meaning and the origin of both
the names " kern-supper " and "mell-supper." In the Cleve-
land Glossary the definition of the former is, " A supper given
to the work-people by the farmer on the completion of
'shearing,' or severing the corn, on a farm;" of the latter,
"The harvest-supper, or supper given by the farmer to his
work-people on the conclusion of the harvest; that is, as
regards reaping or cutting the corn, not the leading or
carrying." The "kern-baby" is described as "an image, or
possibly only a sheaf of the newly-cut corn, gaily dressed up
and decorated with clothes, ribbons, and flowers, and borne
home rejoicingly after severing the last portions of the
harvest;" while "mell-sheaf" is called "the last sheaf of the
harvest, which used to be formed on finishing the reaping with
much observance and care." Perhaps the most character-
istic, certainly the most suggestive, and it may be the most
instructive account of the matters under mention is that
which is given by Mr. Henderson in his Folklore of North
Englarid, p. 7. What he says is as follows : " Our most
characteristic festive rejoicings accompany the harvest, namely
the mell-supper and the kern-baby. In the northern part of
Northumberland the festival takes place at the close of the
reaping, not the ingathering. When the sickle is laid down
and the last sheaf of corn set on end, it is said that they have
'got the kern'; the reapers announce the fact by loud shout-
ing, and an image crowned with wheat-ears and dressed in a
white frock and coloured ribbons is hoisted on a pole and
carried by the tallest and strongest man of the party. All

'Kern-feast'' probably one with 'Mell-supper 241

circle round this 'kern-baby' or harvest-queen, and proceed
to the barn, where they set the image up on high, and proceed
to do justice to the harvest-supper." This harvest-supper is
called the "kern-feast" a little farther on, and it is added
that "the mell-supper in the county of Durham is closely
akin to the Northumbrian kern -feast." It is more than
possible that a distinction may have been made at some
period and in some districts between the " kern-supper " and
the " meU-supper " ; and indeed there is ample reason, alike
from what I have myself collected among my elder parishioners
in the old days and from what has been recorded by Eugene
Aram, as well as others less notorious, that in various parts of
North Yorkshire both the one and the other were celebrated,
but the one on the completion of the severing of the corn,
the other on finishing the ingathering. Originally, however,
there can have been but one festival of the nature indicated,
and the distinct probability is that the one name of the said
festival being from the beginning interchangeable with the
other, in order to suit the fact to the word, as has been done
in such multitudes of instances, two separate suppers have
been arbitrarily distinguished by these synonyms. This
seems to be the conclusion that is pointed to by every
consideration. And perhaps even the perplexity and un-
certainty about the very form, as well as the origin and
meaning of either of these names, is neither the least nor the
least significant of these considerations.

The prefix in kern-supper, kern-feast, kern-baby, is variously
referred to "kern," our Yorkshire word for churn, and to the
word " corn " ; while the " mell " in mell-supper, mell-sheaf,
etc., has been diversely attributed to French mder, to mingle,
and also mMie, a contest; to Teutonic rmhl, meal; to Old
Norse mdr, wild corn ; to mell, a mallet or wooden hammer ;
to English meal, a service of food ; and even to Norse amilli,
between, intermediate ! Possibly nothing could show forth
more conspicuously the utter uncertainty as to the actual

R

242 Manners and Customs

source of the word in question than such a preposterous
array of impossible and, many of them, nonsensical deriva-
tions. Indeed if one were not only too well acquainted
with the extravagances of the amateur derivationists of place-
names and personal names, he vi'ould be surprised at the
fertility of folly displayed by such as have attempted to
account for the words or names under comment. But just
as it has begun to dawn on the minds of a few among the
great host of derivers of place-names that the only safe
method is the historic method, that the name or word under
inquiry must be hunted out, as far as may be, to its original
forms, and connected, if it be possible, vrith fact, to the passing-
by of fancy, so it is a thought that should have presented
itself to the minds of the imaginative people who have helped
in supplying that plentiful crop of absurd connections for mell
and for hern, and that must be entertained by any one bent on
the same quest still, that historical considerations not only
cannot be out of place, but must of necessity be entertained.
It is not, however, certain, a priori, that such considerations
will lead on to discovery at all, and much less to a complete
elucidation of the doubts and difficulties which beset all such
inquiries.

Now the first fact in this connection that presents itself for
recognition is that which is stated so simply and plainly by
Mr. Green, namely, that it is the autumn feast of the old
paganism which lingers on in the village harvest -home,
including the minor but most pregnant facts that the sheaf
borne in rejoicing was in old times the symbol of the god,
and that still, as the kern-baby or the mell-sheaf, it is borne
nodding gay with flowers and ribbons on the last waggon.
Surely what is thus faithfully preserved, alike in fact and
in usage, may be reasonably expected to have retained,
together with such marked attendant recollections, some
survival, however faint and indistinct, of the old terminology
connected with it. In other words, "the nodding sheaf the

Quern, Corn, Meal or MeH, if not all connected? 243

symbol of the god," and the effigy— surely a more pronounced
symbol of the god — as they must have had distinctive names
in the time of their early survival, may be not unreasonably
questioned as to vrhether or no they have been utterly
divested of any or all trace of the names by which they used
to be called. It is strange if a sheaf vtrhich lives on to this
day, and is a special sheaf in such various parts of the country,
— here appearing as a mighty burden of corn, heavy and
large enough to task a strong man's strength in the bearing
of it ; ftiere small but made with fastidious neatness, and
plaited about the parts below the ears with a remarkable and
most taking cunning, — the sheaf comprising the very last of
the severed crop, should have nothing at all in the names it is
known by to serve as a reminder, a reminiscence even, of what
it was wont to be called in the elder days of its survival. .

Is it then altogether impossible that the meala-stan of the
old Anglo-Saxon charm or incantation, with its alternative
of " quern," as given by Mr. Cockayne, should furnish some
sort of a suggestive hint as to what may have been the early
expression of the early idea, crystallised alike in the fact and
in the name of the mell- or kern-sheaf or -feast 1 The meala-
stan is that which grinds ; and, says Professor Skeat, under
. Quern (A,-S. cwemn, cwijrn, Icel. qvern) " originally, that which
grinds." But this is not all. Under Churn the same great
authority says, speaking of the root-words he quotes as
connected, "All these words are closely related to E. corn,
with all its Teutonic cognates. The root of these latter is
GAR, to grind, pulverise. . . . From the same root, and from
the same notion of grinding, comes the remarkably similar
M. E. quern, a handmill, with its numerous Teutonic cognates,
including the Gothic kwairnus, a millstone."

Thus we have the fact that the meal-stone or quern was
actually employed in what we speak of as the superstitious
acts of the ritual of the old days; the further fact that, in
attempting to account for the origin of the familiar old terms

244 Manners and Customs

mell-sheaf, kern-baby, mell- or kern-feast, etc, men have
fallen upon the words churn, corn, meal, etc., as furnishing
possible suggestions of derivation ; and the philological facts
that quern, corn, churn are all cognate, and that uieal-stone
and quern are synonymous, even in the far past of the Gothic
day. Is it altogether too far-fetched a notion that the ideas
connected with meal, meal-stone, quern are intimately con-
nected not only with the old pagan harvest festival, but with
the perplexiiig terms associated with the survival of the said
old, old autumn feast? Let us take an illustration of the
possibility accompanying this hypothesis from an authority
which will hardly be questioned even by the agnostic in such
a matter as this : " Speak unto the children of Israel, and
say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give
unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall
bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest ;
and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted
for you. . . . Also, in the day of the first-fruits, when ye
bring a new meat-offering unto the Lord, ... ye shall have a
holy convocation," etc. And this "meat-offering," what of it?
This : "And when any will offer a meat-offering, his offering
shall be of fine flour." Flour, otherwise " meal," in some form,
or ears of corn, or corn out of the ears first and specially
gathered, this was the "meat-offering" ; and one whose atten-
tion has not previously been drawn to the circumstance might
well be a little surprised at the incessant mention in the
directions for ritual given in Leviticus and elsewhere in the
same part of the Old Testament, of the meat-offering and its
concomitant observances. The baking of great loaves and
cakes in the embers of the great fire lighted at one of the
great seasonal festivals of pagan times, and the distributing of
them after, is referred to by the historian, and it is surely idle to
suppose that there was no eating and drinking at the autumn
feast ; and what more natural than the supposition that at the
said autumn feast of the ingathering there should have been

Survival of the Autumn Feast 245

not only the equivalent of the harvest-sheaf we have just been
reminded of, or of the " meat-offering " in its most usual form,
but also an imperative requirement that new corn should be
forthcoming, fresh meal procured therefrom, kneaded into
cakes or loaves, and baked and consumed, and that the meal-
stone or quern should have had a sufficiently important part
to play in the function to be made to bequeath its name and
that of its produce aUke to what even yet is admittedly the
representative rather than the survival merely of the old
autumn feast of our pagan ancestors ?

THE DOG-WHIPPEE

Forty years ago the " Dog-whipper " was still an institution
in this dale. Auld Willy Richardson was then the hereditary
holder of the office, his father having been dog-whipper
before him ; and when Willy himself died, the office, the
honour, and the insignia passed to his brother John.
For the office was by no means one without outward signs
and tokens of its existence. The office-holder held also
a whip, and whenever he was on duty the whip was en
Evidence.

Poor old Willy, the first dog-whipper of my acquaintance,
was a little man of about five feet four, with legs that were
hardly a pair, and which it would have been slander to call
straight or well shapen ; and, as was natural perhaps, he
shambled in his gait. His usual garb on the Sunday was an
ancient drab coat, cut — if a tailor had ever been concerned in
the making of it — after the fashion described as that of
Dominie Sampson's, with broad skirts falling quite below the
knee. There were side-pockets in it, opening just upon the
hip ; capacious and with a sort of suggestiveness about them
that they were not simply meant to contain sundries, but were
put to such a use by wont and custom. On Sundays, and days-
when a " burying " was to be — for Willy was sexton also, and
kept the depth of his graves religiously to under three feet —
the short handle of the whip he bore reposed in the right-
hand pocket, but the lainder and lash hung outside ; the latter.

The Dog in collision with the Dog-whipper 247

inasmucli as the bearer's stature was not great, trailing on the
ground.

Willy was valorous in the execution of his duty, although
he may sometimes have seen occasion for the exercise of a
wise discretion. I knew of two such instances. In one the
intrusive dog was made slowly to recede before the duly-
armed official, who was fairly well able to command the whole
interspace between the pews which runs the length of the
church ; but when it came to turning round the corner and
backing towards the door, the dog did not see the expediency
of the desired course quite so clearly as Willy did ; and so,
having more room in the crossing in which to attain the neces-
sary impetus, he made a bolt for it, aiming at the archway
presented by the dog-whipper's bow-legs. But the archway
proved to be less than the dog had assumed it to be ; and, in
consequence, after riding backwards for a pace or two,. poor
old Willy came backwards to the pavement, and to grief
besides. The dog on the other occasion was more resolute, or
else less accommodating ; for he met all Willy's advances with
a steady refusal to budge an inch in a backward direction.
Willy persevered ; the dog growled. Willy showed his whip ;
the dog showed his teeth ; and the teeth having a more per-
suasive look about them than the whip, the man gave way
and the dog did not.

Willy Dog-whipper's successor, as I have said, both as to
the office and its badge, was his brother John. Him I induced,
by the addition of sixpence from the parson's magnificent burial-
fee of eighteenpence, to his own pittance of one shilling and
threepence for digging the grave, attendance at the funeral,
and filling up the grave at the close, to dig the graves an
extra foot in depth. But it was an innovation to which,
despite the — by comparison — easily earned sixpence extra, he
never completely grew reconciled. He thought a coffin with
twenty or twenty-two inches of soil upon it was " weel eneugh
happed oop for owght." John wore a ring, made out of the

248 Manners and Customs

old coffin-tyre he met with in digging the graves in the well-
worked churchyard the Danby "kirk- garth" was, until I
got an additional half acre laid to it. This ring was good
against "falling fits." His predecessor's particular wear had
been earrings of the same material.

These two worthies held other offices, either by favour or
by inheritance or descent. Willy was the "bidder to the
burials," while John was in extensive request on occasions of
pig-killing ; and, having a considerable number of patrons and
friends among the farmers, and others who had pigs to kill in
the course of the winter, he had very many engagements of
that kind. It was said that, in addition to his food and a
small money fee on these occasions, he had the pigs' ears as
his perquisite ; and that he always kept count of how many
pig executions he had attended in the course of the season,
by aid of small reserved and preserved pieces of the said ears.

But there was a matter to be noted in connection with
this family which may be more worth recording than any yet
mentioned. Besides the aforesaid "Willy and John, there was
a sister, Nanny, who would assuredly have been credited with
the character of a witch had she lived two or three genera-
tions earlier, and have met with the observance usual in such
cases. In fact, there were some whose opinions on that sub-
ject were not quite settled, as it was. Not three months since
I was asked, " Had she not had that reputation?" This woman,
a good match in symmetry and size to her brother Willy,
was, during the greater part of her life, after my acquaintance
with her began, practically voiceless. She could not even so
much as whisper audibly ; and it did wear an uncanny look to
see her, so to speak, trying to talk — lips, mouth, tongue in
rapid motion, and with a sort of emphatic action — and yet
not be able to hear a sound. Some even of my own children
thought her alarming, and were shy of being accosted by her.
But the noteworthy matter remaining to be chronicled in con-
nection with her, and certainly one of her brothers, if not

Non-' withdrawal of Charitie ' 249

both, was that practically they lived by begging. But that
expression must not be misunderstood. They were not pro-
fessional mendicants ; but they were the survivals, and the
last survivals, of an outworn system. Thus Nanny, to the
last day of her life and ability to go her accustomed rounds,
had her dinner one day in the week at one particular farm-
house, and another dinner another day at another house ; and
besides this she had "a piece" here and "a piece" there
given her, to carry away in her bag for home consumption.
The system is, of course, utterly obsolete now, and in England
generally it has been so for long. But it was an accredited
system once ; and I think accredited by at least unwritten
law as well as custom. What I mean will appear from the
following extract from the Orders made at Quarter Sessions
held at Thirsk, 4th April 1654: "In regard the parishioners
of Osmotherley withdraw their charitie, which formerly they
gave at their doores to Alexander Swailes, a poor man, it is
therefore Ordered that the parish officers there shall, for the
future, pay the said poor man 12d. weekly." Our parish-
ioners here did not "withdraw their charitie" from poor,
voiceless old Nanny up to something more than twenty years
ago. I buried her in 1867, and as long as she was able to
walk about I used to meet her with her accustomed bag, and
knew she had a place reserved for her once a week at Howe
End.

HISTOEICAL

HISTOEICAL

The history of the parish divides itself naturally into the
prehistoric, the ancient, and the more recent.

As to the prehistoric, no one can walk over our moors
without having his attention drawn to the numerous grave-
mounds scattered over all the higher and drier portions of the
wide expanse. Some of these are of large size, many of moder-
ate dimensions, and a vast number so small as to be compara-
tively insignificant. Not a few too have been removed bodily,
and only spaces of wiry grass with a few brackens, and surfaces
bare of any growth of ling, remain to testify to their former
sites. Of these larger or more conspicuous houes there may
be (or have been) perhaps thirty to thirty-five within the
limits of the manor ; while of the smaller ones it is not easy
to estimate how many there have been. They have been
removed in great numbers simply for the sake of the stones
which had been rudely piled together in the making of them.
One man told me he had himself destroyed not less than thirty
in the course of building one single enclosure wall.

That these smaller hills — they are from ten or twelve feet
to sixteen or eighteen in diameter, and about two feet or less
in height — are grave-mounds, rests rather upon assumption
than proof. I have opened many of them with my own
hands, and, save in one instance, I have met with no distinct
trace of any interment, and Mr. Kendall of Pickering told me
that his experience was of the same character as my own. In

2 54 Historical

one I found a very fine scraper of red flint ; but in all without
any exception I have found chippings of flint and fragments
of charcoal — but only very rarely sherds of pottery — which
are such invariable adjuncts to houe-burial and houe-building
in general, that it is, I think, safe to infer from them alone
the sepulchral character of these minor mounds also.

The contents of the larger houes are such as to leave no
uncertainty on this point, or as to the approximate date of
their construction. They belong unquestionably to what is
now universally styled the Bronze Period, and to all appear-
ance to the later division of* the same. It is indeed remark-
able how very few bronze articles, implements or weapons,
have been found in Cleveland in all ; and the whole of these,
without any exception, so far as my information extends, have
been of the less archaic style of form and manufacture. My
own individual findings have been limited to a few mouldering
fragments of very thin plate, found with the unprotected bones
of a cremated body, and not sufficient to fill a very small pill-
box half an inch in diameter. And yet I have thoroughly
examined no fewer than eighty to one hundred houes in
Cleveland alone.

The last and most interesting, because most local, find of
the sort that has come to my knowledge was a rather fine
socketed celt which was found a few years ago near the stone
quarry on Glaisdale side. This is now in Canon Greenwell's
collection.

These grave-mounds or houes then serve the historical
purpose of giving irrefragable testimony to the fact of the
former existence in the district of a people who were not un-
acquainted with the use of metal, in the form of bronze, but
who seem to have become so acquainted later on in the bronze
epoch, and to have possessed but a very scanty supply of what
must have been in those days, at all events in this district, a
very costly material. But, it may be said, they are memorials
which connect themselves only with the cessation of life among

The ' Sentiment ' of the Houe-builders 255

these early inhabitants, and not with their actual life. That
is certainly true, but only in a limited sense.

We hear of Christian burial, and the decencies and privi-
leges of it ; we hear of cremation, and the recommendations
and alleged advantages of it; we hear of funerals that, cost
hundreds or thousands of pounds, of others less costly but
made historical by the numbers of mourners, relatives, friends,
dependants, clients, connected with the deceased and brought
together by a community of strong and powerful feeling.
But all these things, however much they may have to do with
the dead, have more still — much inore, in the historical sense
— to do with the living.

So too with the builders and makers of these lonely, ex-
posed, and, in the older days, doubtless, gruesome receptacles
of the dead. Cannot one see the toiling tribesmen, labouring
for days and weeks, maybe, raising that mighty mound we call
Robin Hood's Butt, ninety-five feet in diameter and seventeen
or eighteen high, basketful by basketful, almost handful by
handful, brought together with infinite pains and care, and
strewed symmetrically with accurate adjustment? Or that
lesser mound, near to the foot of the great Freeburgh Hill,
with its enclosed cairn of whinstone blocks, each of them
brought three or four miles over the trackless moor, and
despite of swamp and morass, from the only source from
which they could be quarried or obtained? And these
instances, remarkable as they are for such a district as ours,
are a mere nothing as compared with corresponding memorials
in other districts with a fuller population jnd fewer physical
obstacles.

One cannot but allow for the presence of very potent con-
siderations and very strong and sustained feelings in the
breasts of the people who acted thus. Whatever their belief
or their superstition (if we are " sectarian " enough to allow
for nothing better), yet they were capable of acting in
concert, of a great respect for the dead, of a conviction that

2 s 6 Historical

life was not yet totally at an end, even for their cremated or
inhumed fore-elders, relatives, friends, leaders. There might
be, there probably was, fear as well as respect or reverence
mixed up with the funeral rites and observances. There
migUt be, there probably was, a desire to restrain the " umbra,"
the "ghost" of the departed to his own department and
interests. There might be, almost certainly there was, an
idea of purification in the fire wherein the body was burned,
without application of which, in some form, it is probable no
body was consigned to the houe or the ringed-in grave ; and
a dozen other analogous or co-ordinate suggestions might be
made. But in every one of them a feature of the life of the
men of the time strives for recognition, and we are not so
much enabled as compelled to recognise the kinship in con-
viction, emotion, purpose, and action, between the constructors
of those impressive mounds and the throng who took part
in the great military funeral of last year, or the consign-
ment to her last resting-place of all that remained below of
a beloved and respected Yorkshire lady but a day or two
after.

No mean workmen either were these dwellers in the wilds
of the old times. The more we think of them in the con-
nections just noted, the less able are we to think of them as
half-clothed or skin-clothed savages ; and as we watch them
in a sort of mind-picture surrounding the funeral pyre, sedu-
lously collecting the calcined remains, consigning them to the
cinerary vase prepared for their reception, that very vase
itself tells us of no mean advance in the fictile art. The
modern potter himself, with all his appliances and all the aid
of nicely constructed and adjusted machinery, is not quite
secure from the risk of collapse of some weak place in the
walls of the large-sized vessel he is fashioning ; while these
people, without so much as a rough " wheel " to help them, made
their sepulchral vases eighteen, twenty, twenty-five inches
high, and ten, twelve, fifteen to eighteen in diameter, sym-

Era of the Houe-building indefinite 257

metrical, well, even gracefully, shaped, firm enough to bear
the pressure of the decorator's simple tools, and of a con-
sistency to bide the effects of moisture and the natural
reagents of the soil for a period of twenty, twenty-five, or
even perhaps thirty centuries. However imperfect or, in a
sense, inartistic the ware on the whole, still this is an
achievement, and a great one.

But there are other things which connect themselves with
the doings of the life of these early dwellers in the Danby
district; although of these there is no occasion to speak at
length in this place, because they have already been discussed
elsewhere : I mean the ancient earth and stone works, de-
fensive in their nature, which are met with in so many places
on our moors. Whatever their intention and raiion d'Mre,
there can be no question as to the testimony they bear to the
existence among them of military skill and experience, as well
as of social or tribal co-operation.

The question of date; the inquiry, "When did all this
houe -piling and shaping, all this intrenching and walling,
take place 1 " is one to which there are a hundred things to
hinder if not to baffle, and scarcely one to suggest a reasonable
answer. The "when" may have begun six, eight, ten centuries
before the Christian era, may have lasted on, in part or degree,
until after the Gospel era had been inaugurated. It is a fact
as certain as that the houes themselves exist and are sepulchral
in their origin and design, that many of them give the most
explicit and unhesitating testimony to the lapse of considerable
epochs of time between their earliest inception, or the piling
of the mound over the original interment, and what are called
"secondary" interments, of which sometimes as many as four
or five took place successively.

It is equally true — and any conclusions arrived at as to
comparative scantiness of the prehistoric population tend in
the same direction— that the contents and inferior fashion of
not a few of the houes of the district are such as to suggest

s

2 s 8 Historical

wide intervals of time between the relative periods of their
erection. But still, all that we arrive at, in the way even of
inference, is of the vaguest, shadowiest description. Professor
Ehys, while adverting to the questions archaeology has not yet
attempted to solve, perhaps even to formulate, admits that it
undertakes, and in the main correctly, "to distinguish the
burial-places of the Celts from those of the pre-Celtic peoples
of Britain, the former having the round barrows assigned to
them, and the latter the long ones ; and that, maj^ be, the
archaeologist has no data to help him to more exact results."
But, proceeds the writer, "he should remember that his study
of the tombs falls short of the historian's wish so long as he
cannot tell the resting-place of a Brython from that of a Goidel "
(that is, a Celt of the later or second invasion from a Gael or
one of the former invasion), " and both from those of the
neolithic native." ^ And then the Professor surmises that
both the neolithic native and the first Celtic immigrant
may, according to the latest archeeological investigations, have
buried — as the former of the two unquestionably did — in long
barrows ; while, as for the later or Brythonic branch, " there
is no difficulty in supposing them to have continued in
Christian times their use of the barrows."

But while the somewhat diffident suggestion or surmise just
adverted to — namely, that the " Goidel " as well as the " neo-
lithic native " may possibly both of them have buried their dead
in long barrows — may be safely left as a problem for the
archffiologist to solve, there is no doubt that the later Celts,
or " Brythons " (as Mr. Ehys calls them, in the wish to escape
the confusion which results from the use of the more indefinite
term Briton), used the. fashion of round barrows for the inter-

^ " The two last, the Goidel and the neolithic native, would seem to
have buried in long barrows ; but some of those barrows contain the dead
placed with care to sit grimly in their subterranean houses, while others
disclose only the huddled bones of men and beasts, as though they were
the remains of cannibal feastings. Can they be ascribed to the same race ?
We doubt it." (Celtic Britain, p. 246.).

Earthworks possibly earlier than Houes 259

ment of their dead, and as little that our Cleveland barrows,
or houes, without any exception, belong to that class, and
that the class itself belongs to a period of very considerable,
although indefinite, duration. And if we were able to speak
vrith less uncertainty on this head, we might also be able to
give some sort of an estimate of the age of the earthworks.
For while from one point of view it might be possible to speak
of them correctly as coeval with the epoch of the barrows, from
another it would be safer to say that they were conterminous
with it.

For, being both systematic and found to extend laterally
over so wide a space, it is not possible to look upon these
earthworks as thrown up with the view of repelling mere petty
border aggressions. The attack which, if made, was intended
to be warded off by their aid, was emphatically an attack from
the south, and attacks from the south on the scale indicated —
that is, with a front of at least seven to eight miles — by tribesr
men or clansmen against their fellows can hardly be looked
upon as probable. In other words, the struggle, whether
actual or anticipated only, could scarcely have been a struggle
between Brython and Brython. It must have been between
Brython and a foe to the Brython. And if so, the earthworks
in question must have been either of an aggressive or a de-
fensive nature. If aggressive, they must have been designed
to cover an advance from the north towards the south by the
Brythons themselves ; if defensive, their object could only have
been to impede, if possible to frustrate, an inroad made on the
Brythons from the south ; and such inroad could, it is obvious,
have been made by no Celtic people or tribal section. This
subject is dealt with elsewhere,^ and it is only referred to here
as belonging to the ancient history of Danby, and showing
why the defensive barriers across the ridges between Danby
and Westerdale, across the Ainthorpe ridge, across the ridge
between Fryup and Glaisdale, and that across the Glaisdale
' "Earthworks," p. 163 d seq.

26o Historical

End ridge, must be attributed rather to the beginning of the
later Celtic occupation than to the approaching close of the
same.

From the close of the houe- raising epoch, of whatever
duration it may have been, and from whatever cause it came
to an end, the history of Danby is a blank ; and if we accept
the conclusion that there is too little in the way of evidence to
assure us that the Anglian colonist ever set his foot in the
district, while it cannot be alleged that there are no reasons
for thinking he did not, the blank in question becomes wider
and vaguer than ever. We have to wait until well on into the
ninth century before we can descry the approach of the settler,
or listen to the strokes of his axe commencing the needful
"riddings," and making way for his cumbrous plough and its
unwieldy team. And even then our inquiry is not fully closed ;
for we have to ask the question, "In which direction are we
to look with the view of descrying the approaching settler %
From what quarter, or from what centre, does he come % "

The ready answer to this question as to many — not to say
most — parts of England would be, "From the sea, and along
the course of this or that river." But that answer is one that
cannot be given offhand in the present case. The first non-
Celtic settler or colonist in Danby did not come up the river
from the sea, because for one thing it is an absolute certainty
that two hundred years before Domesday, access to Danby along
the course of the Esk was impossible by boat and impracticable
along its banks. Our pre-Domesday survey of the Dales
country, and its condition as to water and weed, assures us of
that.^ The immigrant must have come from the south or the
west, for the north and the east were closed against him.

From the immediate west, with the forests and wild woods

of Westerdale, Kildale, Greenhow to traverse, the access may

not have proved too easy, although we must not overlook the

Thorkell-sty to Broughton and Stokesley, or the wild, rough

^ Appendix C.

Access to Cleveland 261

way yet farther west, in which Norman William had to face
the dour, merciless intensity of a northern moorland winter's
storm. These may have been, probably were, tracks two
centuries earlier. But besides these there was a grand route
open from the soxith in the Roman Road from Malton through
Goathland to Goldsburgh, which would be easily available as
far as to Hazlehead.

And here let us recall the leading conditions of the Danish
occupation of the north of England so far as they bear on the
matter we are considering. A brief sketch of the history reads
somewhat in this way. " While the Ostmen," says Mr. Green,
"gathered in a fleet of 200 vessels under Olaf the Fair, and
threw themselves on the Scot-kingdom across the Firth of
Forth, a Danish host from Scandinavia itself, under Ivar the
Boneless, landed in 866 on the shores of East Anglia, wherein
they were enabled or permitted to winter ; and it was only in
the spring of 867 that they horsed themselves and rode for the
north. Their aim was Northumbria ; and as they struck over
Mid-Britain for York they found the country torn by the
wonted anarchy, and two rivals contending, as of old, for the
throne. Though the claimants united in presence of the com-
mon danger, their union came too late. The Danes had seized
York at their first arrival, and now fell back before the North-
umbrian host to shelter within its defences, which seem still to
have consisted of a wooden stockade crowning the mound
raised by the last Roman burghers round their widened city.
The flight and seeming panic of their foes roused the temper
of the Northumbrians; they succeeded in breaking through
the stockade, and pouring in with its flying defenders, were
already masters of the bulk of the town when the Danes turned
in a rally of despair. From that moment the day was lost.
Not only were the two kings slain, but their men were hunted
and cut down over all the country-side, till it seemed as if the
whole host of Northumbria lay on the fatal field. So over-
whelming was the blow that a general terror hindered all

262 Historical

further resistance ; those who survived the fight ' made peace
with the pagans,' and Northumbria sank without further
struggle into a tributary kingdom of the Dane." It was after,
and consequent upon, this that " the doom which had long ago
fallen on Jarrow and Wearmouth fell now on all the religious
houses of the coast," and that among the rest " Streonshealh,
the house of Hild and Caedmon, vanished so utterly that its
very name disappeared, and the township which took its place
in later days bore the Danish name of Whitby " (Green, p. 93).

Now Whitby would be reached by the sea, of course ; but
besides the difficulty of doing more than merely reconnoitre
the country west of Whitby from Whitby itself, it must be
borne in mind that the central point from which the Danish
movements as a whole in the north of England were directed
and carried out was and continued to be York. It was from
York that the plundering raids upon divers parts of the dis-
trict at large were organised. It was from York that the
systematic attack upon Mercia was designed and executed. It
was from York that the ravages in Lincolnshire were entered
upon and effected, and other expeditions emanated as from a
general centre.

With the struggle in Wessex and the conquest of Mercia
we have nothing to do here, but we may remark that the
general issue of these operations " gave the Danes a firmer base
from which to complete their conquest of the island, both in
north and south" (Green, p. 106); so that "in the spring of
875 Halfdene marched northward to the Tyne to complete the
reduction of Bernicia." And one thing more is to be noted,
that " although their victory at York had left the district occu-
pied by the present Yorkshire in their hands as early as the
spring of 868, they contented themselves for the next seven
years with the exaction of tribute from an under king whom
they had set over it " (iW. p. 117). "But in 875 Halfdene, with
a portion of the Danish army at Eepton, marched northward
into Northumbria, and proceeded unopposed to the Tyne.

Dealing out of the Cleveland Lands 263

From his winter camp there ' he subdued the land, and oft-
times spoiled the Picts and the Strathclyde Wealhs.' With
the spring of 876, however, he fell back from Bernicia to the
south, and ' parted or dealt among his men the lands of North-
umbria; so that thenceforth they went on ploughing and
tilling them.'" And then the historian adds, "The names of
the towns and villages of Deira show us in how systematic a
way southern Northumbria was parted amongst its conquerors.
The change seems to have been much the same as that which
followed the conquest of the Normans. The English popula-
tion was not displaced, but the lordship of the soil was trans-
ferred to the conqueror. The settlers formed a new aristocracy,
while the older nobles fell to a lower position ; for throughout
Deira the life of an English thegn was priced at but half the
value of a northern 'hold'" (Green, p. 116).

But while in a large proportion of the immediate Dales
district of which Danby forms part there is a presumption,
almost if not quite amounting to proof, that there was
ho "English population" to be displaced,^ there remain
the same features of approximate inaccessibility character-
ising the said portion of the country. Halfdejie marches
from the north — the Tyne — to the south, but he could surely
come no farther to the east on such a march, with his whole
force, than the Conqueror on a like march two hundred years
after ; and the " dealing " or parting of the country could only
have been carried into practical effect in detail, and by the hand
of men who were virtually, if not by express distinction, com-
missioners.

And then comes the allotment of what was eventually to
be Danby, and the settlement or actual colonisation, and the
naming of the name. Such names as Ormsby, Normanby,
Ugleberdesby, Thormodby, Thoraldby, Elwordeby, Bergelby,
Barnby, Asulfsby, and the host like them, give us no trouble,
for we are familiar with the names Orm, Norman, Ugleberd,
' See Appendix C.

264 Historical

Thormod, Thorald, Elward or Ailward, Bergulf, Asolf, as
with "household words." But as surely as Norman was a
personal name, so surely was Dane also, and the names Dane,
Norman, Ugleberd, not to mention others, survive as the
names of Domesday tenentes two hundred years later than
the earliest period to which we can relegate the effectual
settling of Danby. The place was allotted to a man called
Dane, and of course almost certainly because he was a Dane,
as Norman wag a Norwegian — and there were two Normans
wanted to stand as godfathers to places in Cleveland — and
he, as was the practice with fully one-half of his co-allottees,
named the allotment after his own name, and it still remains
to hand down his designation, if not his memory, to future
generations.

But while we thus unhesitatingly and unerringly indicate
the force and application of the first element of the name,
or Dan, what about the second, or hy 1 Much too generally
this question is answered in a half-flippant, careless, inexact
way, with the explanation "a house, a dwelling." Canon
Taylor himself writes, " The word originally meant a dwelling,
or a single farm, and hence it afterwards came to denote a
village," and he relegates to a note what is not merely the
most significant part of the requisite explanation of the
syllable in all such names, but the altogether essential idea
that ought to be conveyed ; for in that note he says that the
Jy at the end of place-names "denotes Danish colonisation.
In places visited only for purposes of trade or plunder no
dwellings would be required." Just so; "it denotes Danish
colonisation," and colonisation, in all cases of possession and
occupation for cultural purposes, meant a good deal more
than merely a dwelling to cover the head of the colonist
himself against the assaults of the elements or the winter's
cold. True, there must be the settler's " shanty," but there
must be also shanties meaner than the master's for the men
who came with him for the colonist's work in the forest and

What 'by' in Place-names meant 265

on the land ; there must be stables for the horses, byres for
the cows, sheds for the oxen, refuges for the sheep, the swine,
and the other live stock necessary to make the settlement
efficient from all the requisite points of view. So that a hj
from the first, instead of being an isolated dwelling, was a
farmstead in the old full sense, when the men who worked the
land were all thought of and provided with adequate dwelling-
places, however rough, as well as the live and dead stock of
the agriculturist. It was in this way that, when the clearings
and the cultivable area became enlarged, and the population
increased and went on increasing accordingly, the hj afterwards
came to denote a village.

Well, Danby was simply a hy first — simply a Danish
colonist's settlement, and he called it after his own name —
Daneby, a word of three syllables (the second being due to
inflection, or marking the possessival case), which afterwards
became shortened into two, just as Normanneby became
shortened into Normanby, Witeby into Whitby, Asulfesby
into Aislaby, and so forth, without stint. A little land was
cleared, and then a little more, and so on, until by the time
of King Edward the Confessor it had become a hamlet of
some size ; and the original farm -settlement of Dane, with
its grouped shanties and sheds, stables, byres, etc., had
expanded into a vill '^ of thirty or forty cabins, with here
and there a dwelling of slightly more pretension than
the rest, and possibly an outlying station or two belonging
to such as had thriven and expanded into something like
the bonder of the old Danish fatherland. That there were
serfs — slaves captured in foray or fray — tilling the lord's, the
chief man's, holding or demesne, I do not doubt; but that
the men who had in all likelihood served under Dane in the
wars preceding the parting or " dealing " of the country were
mainly or exclusively free men is, I should suppose, a con-
clusion that will be gainsaid by none conversant with the
' See Appendix D.

266 Historical

general subject ; least of all by such as have remarked the
manorial and cognate peculiarities observable in what are
now called the "Danish counties."

Time passes on, and the Conquest comes, and is ultimately
the means by which we are made' acquainted with the scanty
scraps of information of which we have availed ourselves
in the inquiry into the pre-Domesday condition of Danby and
its sister districts,-^ and through which we are enabled to
gather a few other scraps as to its condition in the Confessor's
time, and as to the lord of the fee — if we may so express
ourselves — in the years preceding the Conquest. For we
learn that in 1086 not only was Hugh FitzBaldric lord of
Crumbeclive, Lelum, and Danby, but that he had been pre-
ceded in that possession by Orm ; and on looking over the
other parts of his fee we see that Orm had been his predecessor
in so large a part of it as at once to indicate that he had
been by no means an unimportant personage.

Besides, there was a Gam el who was a predecessor of
Hugh FitzBaldric in many of the manors which in 1086
were of his fee. Whether this Gamel were related to Orm,
either as father or son, must be a matter of surmise only.
For it would appear there was a Gamel son of Orm and an
Orm son of Gamel ; but there is no question that both Orm
and Gamel had held parts of the fee which is entered as the
fee of Hugh FitzBaldric. Young {History of Whithy, p. 744)
says that " Orm before the Conquest was lord of Kirkdale,
then called Chircheby or Kirkby, and had ample possessions
in that neighbourhood, and in the vale of the Esk." He is
wrong in identifying Kirkby with Kirkdale, the place meant
by Chircheby being quite certainly Kirkby Moorside, but
there can be little uncertainty attaching to the identification
of the Orm named with Orm the son of Gamel, who was
murdered by Earl Tostig in 1164, under circumstances of
great treachery ; and as little in assuming that he was the
' See Appendix C.

Danby andits pre-Conquest Lord 267

Orm son of Gamel who rebuilt the church at Kirkdale, and
commemorated the fact by the celebrated Anglo-Saxon in-
scription on the stone over the south door.^

But this being so it is sufficiently evident that in the days
preceding the Conquest Danby was a part of the possessions
of a lord who was no mean man ; he ranked among those whom
the historian of Whitby terms the nobles of Northumbria, and
the historian of the Conquest terms thegns. And it would
seem that, through whatever change of fortune or chance of
personal or political preference the fee had ceased to be Orm's,
on passing into other hands it passed into the possession of
no mean man again. Hugh FitzBaldric was of sufficient im-
portance to be Sheriff of Yorkshire, and so to sustain a dignity
and a charge which amply bespoke the consideration he was
held in by his clear-sighted and practical royal master. And
possibly there may be more implied in saying this than we are

' This inscription is said to run thus, being translated : ' ' Orm
Gamalson bought S. Gregorius minster when it was all to-broken and to-
fallen : he it let make new from the ground, to Christ and S. Gregorius
in Edward's days the King and Tosti's days the Earl." And as Tostig
was Earl from 1055 to 1065, we have the limits of date within which the
church was rebuilt. This clearly brings to our minds the conTiction that
the Gamel who was murdered by Tostig and the Orm who rebuilt Kirk-
dale Church were the Gamel and Orm mentioned in the Domesday entry
as to Hugh FitzBaldric's fee, as holding adjoining lands under the
previous disposition of the said fee, were nearly connected ; and that,
allowing for the historical connection, they were connected as father and
son. And this justifies Young's assumption that Orra's father Gamel
"ranked among the Northumbrian nobles." Dr. Freeman's notice is,
"Two Thegns, Gamel the son of Orm and Ulf the son of Dolfin . . . had
been treacherously slain by Tostig's order," and in a note he adds,
" Dolfin and Orm both appear in Domesday, seemingly as holders under
William of small parts of great estates held under Eadward," in other
words, they had been great men in the Confessor'^ days. "Orm married
.ffithelthryth, a daughter of Earl Ealdred and sister-in-law of Earl Siward,
though Gamel was not her son." It is apparent, then, that the Orm who
had formerly held Danby — there being many reasons for identifying him
with the Orm who held the Kirkby and Kirkdale lands, and none what-
ever against it — was originally, or in the pre -Norman times, a man of
name and note.

268 Historical

prepared to recognise, unless we bear in mind the circumstances
of the time. We have no definite information, it is true, as to
how long Hugh FitzBaldric had been sherifi'; but at least we
do not hear of any other occupant of the place of responsibility-
he now held (for under all the circumstances the responsibility
far outweighed both the honour and the profit) between
"William Malet and himself. And William Malet had been
not simply an unlucky sheriff but an ill-judged one. He had
told his master that he and his fellow-captains of the York
garrison could hold out against the enemy from Daneland
(who were known to be on the coast), and of course their allies
from the country-side, for a year if necessary ; with the result
that all was lost at nearly the first assault. But this was not
all. Among those who delivered the assault were two who
had held high office under the king in this very Northumbrian
province, one of them a previous sheriff, namely Mserleswegen,
with Grospatrick, formerly earl, and Archill, one of the most
potent thegns of the Northumbrians, all of whom had proved
utterly faithless to William. And to William Malet the un-
lucky, who was next in order after Mserleswegen the traitor,
Hugh FitzBaldric seems to have been the immediate successor.
Nor is it only this that leads us on to the inference that he
was greatly trusted by the royal Norman; for we find that
when it was deemed expedient to bring the ^theling Eadgar
to William's court, it was Hugh the son of Baldric who was
deputed to " meet him at Durham as he journeyed south from
the Scottish court," and by whom he was "attended through
the whole length of England, and across the sea into Nor-
mandy." But the most interesting mention that is made of
him is in the pages of Simeon of Durham, who when detailing
the circumstances connected with the foundation of the abbey
of Selby states that the "cross on the founder's cell was seen
by the sheriff of the shire, Hugh the son of Baldric, who was
sailing along the river (Ouse), accompanied by a large body of
soldiers, a way of travelling which was necessary in those

The Lord of Danby probably the Sheriff 269

times on account of the attacks to which all Frenchmen were
liable at the hands of the revolted English. The sheriff has an
interview with the hermit Benedict, he leaves him his own tent
as a temporary dwelling-place, and directs the building of a
chapel for his use" (Freeman's Conquest, vol. iv. p. 795). The
historian, however, does not seem to be quite confident that
Hugh FitzBaldric was certainly sheriff of Yorkshire, his words
being, " Hugh appears in the Nottingham Domesday as Hugo
filius Baldrici Vicecomes. He was therefore sheriff some-
where, and it is very possible that he may have been appointed
sheriff of Yorkshire late in 1069, after the capture of William
Slalet." Still, in the previous reference the words employed
are, "There he (Waltheof) was met by Hugh the son of
Baldric, who had succeeded William Malet in the sheriffdom
of Yorkshire ;" so that I think we may assume with perfect
safety that the Domesday owner of Danby was no one less than
William's trusted sheriff of the district.

During the considerable interval between 1069 to 1071
and 1086 we are left to infer that there may have been no
change in ownership affecting the Danby possessions, although
it is impossible to affirm so much. All that is clear is that,
whether by the death or forfeiture of Hugh FitzBaldric, or
Hugh FitzBaldric's successor, at some date later than 1086,
Danby, with CrumbecHve and Lealholm, was again in the
hands of the king to bestow. And the man on whom he
bestowed it was Robert de Brus, the Eotbertus de Bruis of
the late entry in Domesday.^

The old story about this baron is that " he came in with
the Conqueror." It is like a good many other old stories rest-
in'' rather on a guess at what might have been, than on any
reasonable consideration of the circumstances. No doubt he
o-ot a good grant when he did get one ; but we are not even
able to say that the grant was actually made by the Conqueror
at all ; and if made by him, it could not have been made before
^ See Appendix E.

270 ' Historical

the year 1086-87. It is surely the very reverse of likely that
a man who had served the king since 1066 with such zeal
and fidelity as to have a claim upon him which could be
acknowledged only by such a princely gift as the " feudum
Rotberti de Bruis" proclaims, could have been overlooked
so long. And if perchance the gift came not from the first,
but from the second William, of course the old fable falls to
the ground. Beyond all reasonable doubt Robert de Brus
came late into the field of action ; and when he did come,
rendered such good and acceptable service as to call for rather
than simply warrant such a munificent acknowledgment.

There seems to be little doubt that Brus lived to a great
age. His death is believed to have taken place about the year
1145. But between thirty-five and forty years before that he
had merited so well of the first Henry that he received from
him further grants, so large and important as almost to outvie
. the greatness of the first royal gifts. And this led to import-
ant changes which affected Danby, and may therefore be
fittingly mentioned here. For the grant in Henry's reign
involved the ownership of Skelton, and the possession of
Skelton involved the transference of the head of the lordship
from Danby to Skelton. For there can be no doubt that
during the first quarter of a century and onwards, for perhaps
a decade or so longer — or until the great and strong pile which
Skelton Castle unquestionably became had been erected —
Danby Castle occupied the position of the head of the Brus
barony. On no other ground can be explained the transfer-
ence of the manorial seat from Crumbeclive to Danby, the
building of the enormously strong castle at Danby, and the
exceeding great regard and interest felt by the Brus family
for the Castle and Manor of Danby.

The castle — the site of which is declared by the name
" Castle Hill " at Castleton — occupied a very considerable area,
much more considerable than is allowed for, in all proba-
bility, by nineteen out of twenty of those even who know

Site and Dimensions of the Castle of Danby 2 7 1

or speculate as to the possible former existence of a castle
there. As it is laid down in the six-inch Ordnance map, the
measures over all from east to west are 110 yards, and from
north to south 130 yards. But the former of these two
measures is deficient, inasmuch as the surveyor was not aware
of the fact that the moat on the west side had been dug
through fully twenty-five yards farther in that direction than
it was competent to him to allow for, dealing as he necessarily
had to do with only the contours left by modern innovations.
The existing road to the station is in reality cut through the
castle precincts, and the mound on the castle side is actually
in no small part due to the accumulations of soil accruing
from the cutting and removed thither. The foundations of
the adjacent Primitive Methodist Chapel were dug for through
the puddled bottom and side of the original moat on that side.
But if we allow for 130 yards in the one direction and 135
to 140 in the other, it is at once seen that, for a very early
Norman castle, the dimensions are such as to indicate that it
was no mere insignificant fortalice ; and if, besides, we take
into account that the moats were more than ordinarily elabo-
rate, inasmuch as while the one on the north was at a consider-
ably lower level than that (or those) on the south-east and
south, and that over and above the carefully arranged and
constructed water-defences, the mason-work bulwarks were
enormously strong — the walls on the east side and round the
north-east angle having been eleven feet thick at the ground
level — it is impossible to come to any other conclusion than
that the founder had special reasons for holding it, and dealing
■with it as of importance and probably of personal as well as
military moment. Certainly if Danby were not the head of
the wide and valuable Cleveland lordship, comprising over forty
vills, there was no such head in any other part of the district.^

' The list given at p. Ixx of the Yorkshire Facsimile runs tlius :
Appleton, Hornby (not in Cleveland but in Allertonshire), Worsall, Yarm,
Otrington, Harlsey, Welbury, Levington (both Church and Castle Leving-

2 72 Historical

Twenty-five or thirty years later it 'was a different thing, for
Skelton was then in existence.

There is one historical matter connected with Danby Castle
to which no adequate measure of justice has hitherto been
done ; and, in order to arrive at it in due sequence, it may be
well to remark at once that there is no uncertainty now as to
the Cleveland Brus's genealogy. In all probability, in order
to obviate the difficulty created by making the first baron, the
Rotbert de Bruis of the Domesday entry, " come in with the
Conqueror " (a coming which would have made him, supposing
him no more than twenty-five at Senlac, a mere youth of
ninety-seven at the Battle of the Standard), another Robert
de Brus was raised up unto him as a son ! It need hardly be
said that there is no historical authority whatever for such an
assumption as this. There was but one Robert, and he died
at a good but vigorous old age, as has been mentioned already.
He was succeeded by his son Adam, his second son Robert
having become enfeoffed in the county of Durham and in
Scotland, and so becoming the progenitor of Scottish kings.
To Adam the first succeeded Adam the second, and to him in
succession came three Peters, the last of whom, or Peter the
third (his only brother John having predeceased him), dying
childless, the male line became extinct. But this again calls
for a word or two of comment. Dugdale and others make a
fourth Peter de Brus. But there is in reality no uncertainty
about it; " Petrus de Brus tertius et ultimus " died in 1271,
and his vast possessions were divided between his four sisters,
married respectively to Walter de Fawconberg, Robert de Ros,
Marmadake de Thweng, and John de Bellew. Two other
sisters, probably three, were nuns ; and so ended the name of
the great English Bruces.

ton), Morton, Bordelby, Arncliff, Ingleby, Busby, Cratliorn, Foston, Hilton,
Thornaby, Marton, Newhani, Tolesby, Aclam, Faceby, Tanton, Goulton,
Borrowby, Nunthorp, Morton, Newton, Upsal, Pincbingtliorpe, Kildale,
Ormsby, Lnzenby, Guisborough, Stanghow, Moorsom, Crumbeclive,
Danby, besides the two Hanktous and Lealholm.

Danby Castle taken from the Bruces 273

But to return : Dugdale states that King Henry II " took
the Castle of Danby, with the Lordship and Forest thereto
appertaining, and gave him instead thereof the Grange of
Micklethwait, with the whole fee of Collingham and Berdesey,"
from Adam de Brus, son of Robert, the founder of the family
and of the priory of Guisborough. To the statement as made
by Dugdale, Ord {Hid. Cleveland, p. 248) adds that Adam by
" adhering faithfully to Stephen throughout his stormy and
disastrous career, had incurred the displeasure of Henry II,"
who thereupon acted in the way just named. It would be
interesting to know Mr. Ord's authority for this statement ;
for the ordinary historian, under the impression that there was
" no love lost " between Stephen and his successor, would be
slow to discover the likelihood of the feeling attributed to the
latter as so originating. The probability surely rather is that
the motive for the deprivation was of a political nature. We
cannot read the account that is given of the part played by
Robert de Brus when the Battle of the Standard was imminent,
or of the motives which animated him to take it, without
becoming sensible of the strong feeling towards Scotland and
her monarch which reigned in Brus's breast ; and as his second
son, besides his patrimonial lands in the north, soon acquired
vride domains in Scotland, it is not to be supposed that the
feeling of the Brus barons would become less warm towards
the Scottish kingdom and its wielder. And, perhaps, even the
being suspected of such leaning might almost amount to a
direct charge of disaffection in times of such critical relations
between the two kingdoms as those were. It is at this point
that it becomes of interest to remember the great strength
of the Brus stronghold at Danby, and its importance from a
military point of view, as commanding one route from Yarm
and the north through Kirkby Moorside to York. And surely
on such grounds as these we can most easily account for an
exchange of his Danby Castle and manor for other and
even more valuable lands in the Leeds district being forced

T

274 Historical

upon Adam de Brus, the then occupant and owner of the
same.

For it is indisputable that the exchange was most reluc-
tantly made, and was never acquiesced in peacefully by either
of the barons who continued to be affected by it.

Nor indeed is that a matter to be wondered at. When we
call to mind the long list of North Eiding lands and lordships
enumerated as forming part of the possessions of the great
Brus family, there seems to be something more than merely
invidious, something almost insultingly marked and pointed,
in the deprivation enforced by the compulsory surrender of
the seat of the barony and the residential castle alone out of
all the rest.

In support and illustration of the foregoing, or some parts
of it, I append the following translation of a document which
I do not think has ever been much noticed before, and certainly
at no great length by either of the former historians of Cleve-
land. It is from the Botuli de Ohlatis, p. 109, and under date
1200: "Peter de Brus has restored and quit-claimed to our
Lord the King and his heirs for ever, the vills of Berdsey and
Colingham and Rington, with all their appurtenances, as well
in advowsons of churches, as in demesne lands, fees, homages,
services, reliefs, and in all other matters to the said vills per-
taining, without anyreserve, in exchange for the vill of Daneby,
with all its appurtenances, and the forest of Daneby, which the
King has restored to the said Peter and his heirs,- to be held
of him and his royal heirs by the service of one knight, in lieu
of the aforesaid vills which King Henry, the father of the now
king, had formerly given to Adam de Brus, the father of the
said Peter, in exchange for the said vill and forest of Daneby.
And the said Peter is to deliver over to our lord the King the
aforesaid vills free and quit from all those who have been
enfeoffed in them by himself or his said father during the time
they had been held by them or either of them. And in con-
sideration of the eager desire entertained by the said Peter

Restoration of the Castle to Brus 275

for the compassing of this exchange, and at his instant prayer
for the same, he has induced our lord the King to receive from
him one thousand pounds sterling, two hundred and fifty marks
whereof is to be paid into the Treasury at Easter now instant,
and thereafter two hundred and fifty from Treasury-term to
term, until the whole shall have been paid up. As Pledges
for the fulfilment hereof, William de Stuteville stands bound
in 100 marks ; Henry de Neville in 60 marks ; Hugo Bard in
40 marks ; Eobert de Eos in 200 marks; Eustace de Vesci in
200 marks; Robert FitzRoger in 100 marks. And the said
Peter's bond is delivered to William de Stuteville, who, together
with Robert de Ros and Eustace de Vesci, undertakes that the
said Peter, at the first ensuing Court of the County of York,
shall find sufficient pledges for the remainder of his obligation,
and such that our lord the King shall obtain full satisfaction
for the same."

In the Botuli Ghartarum also there are two other docu-
ments, the one by the king formally restoring Danby to Brus,
and the other from Brus as formally surrendering the West
Riding manors, specified above, the former dated 7th February
in the same year, and the other doubtless of the same date, so
as to make the exchange in due form. The witnesses to
either are the same, beginning with "R. Andeg. Episcopus,"
who is followed by Hugo Bard, Eustace de Vesci, Robert
de Ros, William de Stuteville, Robert FitzRoger, William
Briwerre, Robert de Turnham, Symon de PateshuUe, and
the usual cum multis aliis.

But there is yet another historical incident affecting this
same Peter de Brus, and through him the Castle and Lordship
of Danby, which should not be passed over in entire silence.
The contest of the baronage with King John, and its issue in
the concession of Magna Charta, is a matter of such famili-
arity in our minds that there is no occasion to do more than
advert to it in the briefest terms, merely bearing in mind that
the revolt of the barons practically took form when they were

276 Historical

called upon to follow the king over sea for the campaign
which ended with the battle of Bouvines in July 1214;
and it is in distinct relation to this that J. E. Green writes •}
"From this point indeed the northern barons begin to play
their part in our constitutional history. Lacies, Vescies,
Percies, Stutevilles, Braces, houses such as those of de Eos or
de Vaux . . . had done service to the Crown in its strife
with the older feudatories. But, loyal as was their tradition,
they were English to the core ; they had neither lands nor
interest over sea, and they now declared themselves bound by
no tenure to follow the king in foreign wars. Furious at this
check to his plans, John marched in arms northwards to bring
these barons to submission." Langton's intervention, when
the king had already reached Northampton on his way to
attack the nobles of the north, combined with political con-
siderations, "induced the king, after a demonstration at
Durham, to march to the south again. But the defeat of
Bouvines gave strength to the king's opponents, and the open
resistance of the northern barons nerved the rest of their
order to action," and early in January of 1215 they appeared
in arms to lay, as they had planned, their demands before the
king ; and Magna Charta was extorted as we know.

Here we pause for a moment to notice that Danby (castle,
manor, and forest) had been grudgingly and of necessity, as
is evident, restored after urgent and pressing insistency on
the part of de Brus, and with the accompanying exaction of
an unconscionable fine; that de Brus is one of the most
powerful of the northern barons named by Green as taking a
decisive part against the king as early as 1213; and that the
king was proportionally enraged — "furious" is the historian's
word ; and next we go on to observe that the last thing that
John either wished or intended was to abide by the terms of
the Great Charter extorted from him in the time of his weak-
ness. And in the issue, when he knew the mercenaries he
^ History, vol. i. p. 287.

The Ki-ng Master of Skelton Castle in 1216 277

had hired were near enough to make such a procedure safe,
he positively refused to abide by what he had bound himself
by oath not to attempt to revoke. And then the briefest
fisumi of the subject that can be given is : " The mercenaries
arrive in September (1215), and John immediately begins to
ravage the barons' estates, and takes Rochester Castle ; after
which, accompanied by 'that detestable troop of foreigners'
whose leader was Falkes de Breaut6, and carried away by his
fury, he began to lay waste the northern parts of England, to
destroy the castles of. the barons, or compel them to submit
to his order, burning without mercy all their towns, and
oppressing the inhabitants with tortures to extort money."
That is the testimony of Matthew of Paris. Very early in
1216 John advances into Scotland ravaging the country, but
soon turns southward, and thence and thus the following
extracts from pubhc documents become intelligible, and with
a hitherto unnoticed connection. They are from the Botuli
Litt. Pat., and I append the several dates : — 6th February
1216, "Peter de Brus has Letters of safe-conduct from King
John, to last from the Sunday next after the Purification of
the B. Virgin for the eight following days, issued from
Gyseburn (Guisborough)." On the 8th, 9th, and 10th the
king was at Skelton Castle, Bruce's Cleveland stronghold.
On the 15th, at Kirkham, the king engages to receive, imder
safe -conduct from himself, "Eobert de Eos and Peter de
Bruis, with all such as they should bring with them unarmed,
to a conference, to treat with him about making their peace
with him ; and the said safe-conduct shall hold good for one
month from St. Valentine's day. And for greater security
our lord the King wills that . . . . , Archdeacon of Durham,
Wydo de Fontibus, Frater Walter, Preceptor of the Templars
in the district of Yorkshire, with one of Hugh de Bailloel's
retinue, shall go with them in person to the Lord King, and
escort them ; and they have Letters Patent from the King to
that effect ; and the said letters are the same day handed to

278 Historical

the aforesaid parties, Thomas, Canon of Gyseburn, being
further added to their numbers." On the 26th of the same
month, John, being then at Lincoln, issues the following
mandate : " The King to Philip Marc' etc. We command
you that you receive and see to the safe keeping of the pris-
oners whose names are underwritten, taken at Skelton Castle,
who will be sent to you by Dame Nicholas de Haya — that is
to say, Godfrey de Hoga, Berard de Fontibus, Anketil de
Torenton (Thornton), Eobert de Molteby, Stephen Guher,
William de Lohereng, Eobert de Normanby, Eoger le Hoste,
Eobert de Gilling, John de Brethereswysel, Thomas Berard's-
man, and Ealph de Hoga." With scarcely an exception, if
indeed there be an exception, these are the names of men
holding of Brus in different parts of Cleveland, and the fact
that they had been captured at Skelton Castle, coupled with
the fact of John's personal presence at Skelton for three days,
leads on to a self-evident inference. The castle had fallen,
whether taken by assault or surrendered because untenable
in face of the king's force.^

But the castle at Skelton having fallen, in whatever way,
what were the chances that the castle at Danby, in the matter
of which a good deal of unpleasantness as between the baron
and the king had already occurred, would be suffered to go
scot-free % There is no manner of doubt that at the date of
the death of the last Peter de Brus, in the year 1271 (or
some fifty-five years subsequently to the events now under
notice), the castle and immediate precincts were in a state of
ruinous decay; for the first entry under the head of.Daneby

1 It may be noticed here that in connection with the prisoners taken
at Skelton Castle on the 8th July the king commands Brian de Insula
that he should arrange, as much to the king's advantage as possible,
about the redemption or ransom of two knights taken at Skelton Castle,
and then in his (Brian's) custody ; and, their ransom having been paid,
let them go free. And then, 13th August, at Shrewsbury, a further
order is given that all the sermcntes taken at Skelton Castle should be at
once put to ransom.

X^astle of Danby probably dismantled in 121 6 279

in the " Partitio inter Hseredes Petri de Brus " is " Capitale
mesuagium, cum parvo parco, valet vis. viiid.," a valuation
so absurdly small when contrasted with those that immediately
follow, where the acre of arable or pasture land is set at a
shilling for either, that no conclusion save one as to the con-
dition of castle and park is in the least degree admissible.
And the question then becomes, not as to the condition of
ruin and decay, but at what time and under what circum-
stances ruin befell the castle and its precincts.

And the question seems to be one of no material intricacy.
The castle was but a generation or so old when seized into the
king's hands in the time of Adam de Brus. The king might
of course have dismantled it during the half -century it
remained in the royal power ; although I can see no sufficient
reason for thinking it was so, and all tangible reasons lead to
the conclusion that he would be much more likely to preserve
it in its integrity, if on no other account than that it was im-
portant as a singularly strong border fortress, which, however
dangerous in the hand of an unfriendly or a suspected ally of
the more than possible Scottish foe, could not but add to the
defensive strength of the district it commanded. And that it
had remained in the king's hands during its alienation is
apparent from the terms of the documents of restoration.
There had been no enfeoffment of the castle and manor to
any one who needed to be dispossessed when once the
restitution was resolved upon.

There would seem then to be not only no reason for
supposing that the castle was rendered ruinous before its
restoration to de Brus at the outset of John's reign, but
good reason to conclude it had been carefully kept in its
pristine strength ; and if that is conceded, the only explana-
tion that can be given of its pitiful condition in 1271 is that
it had been taken and dismantled, or rendered untenable, in
the progress of John's vengeful expedition against the northern
barons, which took place in the early part of the year 1216.

28o Historical

Only a few lines more to note the further progress of
events connected with the relations of the lord of Skelton
and Danby castles with his royal master. On the 12th April
of the same year John issued from Reading the following
mandate to John, Constable of Chester, Gerard de Furnivall,
and Geoffrey de Neville : " We do you to wit that we do not
so much wish to take money from the barons of England who
have been on our contrary part, as we long for their good and
faithful service. And we therefore charge you that if Robert
de Ros, Eustace de Vesci, and Peter de Brus shall be willing
to give full assurance in the matter of good and faithful
service to be, for the time to come, rendered by them, for-
going on our part the exaction of any money from them, it is
our good pleasure that they come to our presence, and that
you bring them in all security and safety to the said presence.
And if it happen that all of you be not able to conduct them
as aforesaid, it shall suffice if they come with two of you, and
if that cannot be, one shall suffice. And we send herewith
our Letters Patent concerning the safe-conduct for the said
Robert, Eustace, and Peter." And there is yet one further
entry on the Rolls dealing with the same negotiation, which is
unhappily imperfect (or rather illegible) in places, the part of
it which can be made out being as follows : " The King, etc.,
to Robert de Ros, William de Mulbray, Eustace de Vescy,
Peter de Brus, . . . Richard de Percy, . . . Roger de Mer-
lay. . . . Your messengers, bearers of your presents, have
come to us at Dover on Wednesday next after the Feast of
the Invention of the Holy Cross (11th May), who had been
despatched to us on your behalf. . . . (Understanding) that
it is your desire to be reconciled to us, we send back to you
the same messengers, and with them Robert de Kerneford,
our knight, that he our will and pleasure may ..."

Here the legible part unfortunately ends, and we are

unable to follow the record any further. ^ But perhaps for

^ From other sources we know that the barons had offered the crown

An old Danby Tradition 281

our special object there is no necessity to proceed with the
history of the time, either local or general, beyond the point
we have reached. Assuming, as it would appear we safely
may, that the ruin of Danby Castle, in spite of its enormous
massiveness, was deliberate and intended, the old tradition
which was still freely current less than half a century ago,
namely, " that the castle had been destroyed by fire, and that
the stony materials had been employed in building the church,"
takes on such an aspect that, with the single substitution of
the word " rebuilding " for " building," it is seen to involve
much more than merely the elements of probability. It is a
fact that the materials of the ancient castle are not to be found
in the walls or houses of Castleton. In reality the village of
Castleton did not exist until almost down to the present
century, and walls were not wanted where there were neither
houses nor enclosures. But there were enormous stores of
wrought stones embedded in the construction of such a build-
ing as the castle unquestionably was, and the inquiry, " What
became of them % " is one that will suggest itself. It is equally

to Lewis, son of the King of France, about the end of March ; that John,
on the approach of Lewis, is said to have withdrawn westward ; that
Lewis sends aid to the barons, and lands himself at Sandwich 21st May ;
that he takes Rochester, and receives the homage of the barons at Loudon
ou 2d June ; that Lewis besieges Dover ineflfectually, and loses his fleet,
captured by the English fleet. From the above document it would appear
that John was at Dover in person on 7th May, probably in order to put
the place in a good state of defence against the coming storm. Green
sums up the whole position at the time in the following graphic sentences :
"In the April of 1216 Lewis accepted the crown in spite of Innocent's ex-
communications, and landed some time after in Kent with a considerable
force. As the barons had foreseen, the French mercenaries who con-
stituted John's host refused to fight against the French sovereign, and the
whole aspect of affairs was suddenly reversed. Deserted by the bulk of
his troops, the king was forced to fall rapidly back on the Welsh Marches,
while his rival entered London and received the submission of the larger
part of England. Only Dover held out obstinately against Lewis. By a
series of rapid inarches John succeeded in distracting the plans of the
barons, and in relieving Lincoln ; then, after a short stay at Lynn, he
crossed the Wash in a fresh movement to the north." The rest we know.

2 82 Historical

a fact that the oldest existing part of Danby Church when I
first saw it, nearly forty-six years ago, was distinctly Early
English, and not of late date in that period; while all the
fragments of the church which was destroyed in 1789, to be
replaced by the existing barnlike edifice, that I have been
able either to note or to recover, agree in point of age. In
other words, the tale they have to tell concerning the time at
which they were made to replace the preceding Norman
fabric is such as to connect itself with a period not much over
a score of years later than the ruination of the castle by John
or his emissaries. If we couple the singular scarcity of stones
bearing the impress of the Norman axe and chisel at Castleton
with the abundance of squared stone we know was employed
in the old Danby Church with its nave, aisles, and chancel,
it may serve to remind us that the old, old traditions of
a place or district not infrequently embody an historical
truth which may be disclosed by aid of patient analysis
and inquiry.

But there is yet another consideration which must be
taken into account, and such that we should do unwisely to
ignore it altogether. It is true the patronage of the parish
was in the hands of the Prior and Convent of Guisborough,
and it may seem unlikely that the church would be destroyed
as well as the castle by the troops of the king. But whether
or no that be so, the fact remains that the church was practi-
cally (and I think entirely) rebuilt about the time assumed
above, or drca 1240-45; and the materials of the castle were
de Brus's to give. Under what influence or actuated by what
considerations we are ignorant, but Peter de Brus, Eustace de
Vesci, Hugh Wake, and other nobles, presumably northern,
went to the Holy Land in 1241, from whence Brus never
returned to England alive. At the least, it is not improbable
that the influence of the same motives or considerations which
sent him on that long crusading expatriation of his, may have
also led him on to give such aid in rebuilding the church —

Descent of Danby to de Thweng 283

from whatever cause such rebuilding became either expedient
or indispensable — as would be afforded by the supposed grant
of material. That it was so may be a surmise merely, but, at
the least, it is a surmise which is neither inconsistent with
probability nor irreconcilable with the facts.

Peter dis Brus the second, who has been the baron so fre-
quently referred to in the preceding paragraphs, was de fado
succeeded (although not actually, but only legally or morally
dead) by his son, Peter the third, in 1240 ; at least the latter
paid the accustomed rehef, as on succession to his father in
that year. He was, as already noted, one of a large family —
eleven in all — one brother, John, who predeceased him, and
nine sisters. Two if not three of these sisters were nuns, and
four others were married and surviving when their brother
died without issue in 1271. These four ladies were his heirs,
and his great estates were divided among them. One of
them, Lucia, had, at least thirty years before, married
Marmaduke de Thweng, baron of Kilton, and owner of other
possessions in Kirkleatham and the vicinity. Her share com-
prised Danby (castle, manor, and forest), besides Lealholm,
Wolvedale, Brotton, Skinningrove, lands and tenements in
Yarm, Great Moorsham, with other valuable matters in Cleve-
land, and some manors elsewhere. But Thweng's baronial seat
was at Kilton, as has been said, and so the dilapidated condi-
tion of Danby Castle would, it would seem, have made no
material diflference to him, and Kilton, as a matter of fact,
would continue to be the baronial residence of the Thwengs
after the intermarriage with so great a personage as a sister of
the great Baron of Skelton. These are facts hardly to be
extracted from the current local histories; but they are
certainly facts, and attested as such by a coram rege plea
dated in 1242, the gist of which is that Robert de Thweng,
father of Marmaduke, affirms his gift to the latter of the manors
of Kilton and Kirkleatham for the endowing of Lucia de Brus
his wife; and as we proceed further with the document it

284 Historical

becomes apparent that both Marmaduke and Lucia were under
age, inasmuch as it is provided that the wardship of themselves
and their lands should remain with Robert the father, to-
gether with that of the lands accruing in virtue of Lucia's
marriage settlement, and that this arrangement should hold
good until Marmaduke should attain his twentieth year.

The Thwengs, it is hardly necessary to say (for the name
itself reveals the fact), were East Riding people; but it is not
easy to say who the first that took the territorial name was,
nor where he came from, nor at what exact date he lived.
But certainly they held lands of value and importance besides
Thweng (nowadays Thwing) itself. There may be suspicions,
arising partly in their heraldic bearing (the three popinjays),
and partly from the fact that they were subinfeudatories of
the great Percy family, that in some way they were originally
connected with Henry de Pudsey (Puteaco), himself a son of
Bishop Pudsey by Alicia de Percy (one of the sisters and co-
heiresses of the last male of the original family of Percy).
The first of the family of whom I have any note is a Marma-
duke, who in 1205 gave three marks to recover seisin of certain
lands in the manor of Lund, of which Henry de Pudsey had
possessed himself on the occasion of de Thweng's imprison-
ment — for homicide, if I remember. The next is Robert de
Thweng, who, with his wife Matilda, is heard of in 1229 as
defending a suit brought against them by the Prior of Guis-
borough in re the Advowson of Kirkleatham. And here
naturally the question arises, " How could Thweng, an East
Riding man, have any interest in, or anything to do with, a
North Riding benefice % " and the attempt to answer the
question brings in a rather pretty historical induction.

To revert, then, to Robert de Thweng and his wife Matilda.
In the year 1221 Richard de Alta-ripa and his wife Matilda
claim the advowson of the church just named against the Prior
of the said convent, who asserts that the advowson belongs to
the convent in virtue of the gift of the said Matilda's uncle,

How de Thweng became Lord of Kilt on 285

William de Kilton (Matilda being his next teir). The
rejoinder is that William de Kilton made the gift when he was
not only on his deathbed, but non compos sui, or not competent
to make a will or demise a grant. But it is clear that de
Alta-ripa's right to appear at all depended on the fact that his
wife was de Kilton's heir ; and it is at least equally clear that
de Thweng's like right could only depend on the same fact :
his wife too at that date must have been the right heir of
the last male de Kilton. Put that into other words, and what
it amounts to is, that the widow of de Alta-ripa had remarried,
Robert de Thweng being actually, in point of fact, her second
husband.

But there is a yet further consequence depending upon
this conclusion, and that is that the inferred marriage of de
Thweng with the right heir of the last male de Kilton explains
at once how Robert de Thweng became Thweng of Kilton and
lord of Kirkleatham, Coatham (or rather of certain portions
of either), and other possessions in the same vicinity.^

At whatever date Marmaduke succeeded his deceased father,
we find that in 1257 he obtained a charter of free-warren in
all the demesne lands of his manors of Thwenge, Kirkleatham,
Kilton, Moorsom, and Kilton Thorp, besides weekly markets
at his manors of Lund, Thweng, and Coatham, with fairs at
either place as weU.

Marmaduke and Lucia had issue (besides other children)
an eldest son Robert, and a second son Marmaduke. Robert's
marriage is assumed rather than declared by Dugdale. From
other sources, however, we know that his wife was Matilda,
daughter of Gilbert (son of John) Haunsard ; but as to the
date of his marriage nothing perfectly definite seems to have
been ascertained. His daughter Lucia, however, was born at
Kilton Castle in the year 1279, and baptized (two days after)
on Palm Sunday, at the chapel of that vill. The said daughter
appears to have been the only offspring of the union ; for on
1 See Appendix ¥.

2 86 Historical

Robert's death the headship of the family and the inheritance
of the family manors came to his brother Marmaduke, except-
ing, of course, such as had been settled on Eobert himself, his
wife, and their heirs.

Our interest centres in Robert's daughter Lucia, and her
only as connected with Danby. For to her fell her grand-
mother's share and interest in the Brus inheritance, and as
married in 1296 (at the age of seventeen) to William le
Latimer the younger (for his father was still living), she
carried the same to her husband, and their heirs, should
there be any.

And there was such issue, namely, another William le
Latimer, who was returned at his father's death in 1327-28 as
being then of the age of twenty-six. Thus he would not be
born until some four or five years after the marriage of his
parents in 1296.

In Dugdale's Baronage there is an entry which, as at
least apparently connected with just this time, looks more than
ordinarily perplexing. The matter stands thus : William
le Latimer, Lucia de Thweng's father-in-law, is mentioned as
being in 1300-1 "in the garrison of Berwick," and as having
"obtained the king's charter" in the following year "for a
market and certain fairs" in divers manors of his in Kent,
Surrey, and Yorkshire ; and- intermediate between the state-
ments of circumstances thus dated stands the following : "To
this William King Edward granted the manor of Danby in
Com. Ebor. for Hfe, with free chase there, the remainder to
William his son and Lucia his wife, and to the right heirs of
Lucia." The difficulty at first sight is evidently perplexing,
and as such sure to lead to suspicion of misconception or mis-
construction of the charter in question, and to surmises as to
the motive of the grant, and even of the grantee, all of which,
when examined into, appear to be impossible or fallacious.
For instance, one such supposition is that " William le Latimer
senior, having his misgivings about the marriage of Lucia de

Lucia de Thweng a Ward of the King s 287

Thweng with his son, insisted on a life estate " ! Rather
late in the day, surely, for such insisting, the marriage having
taken place some five years before ; and besides that, upon
whom was his insisting to become imperative \ Scarcely upon
the king himself. And yet there was no one else to be influ-
enced in such a matter.

The real explanation vnll be found, I think, or at the least
suggested, in certain entries in Kirkby's Inquest, the date of
which we must remember was 1284-85. On p. 125 it is stated
that a change in the secular status of the vills of Kilton,
Brotton, Kirkleatham, Moorsom, and Danby — or the joint
estate of Marmaduke de Thweng and Lucia de Brus — had
been effected, now for ten years past, by the late Marmaduke
de Thweng himself. The thing for us to note, however, is
that Lucia de Brus's husband is dead before the inquest is
taken,^ or about 1284. The next entry for us to notice is
that headed "Yarom," on p. 127, of the first (and pertinent)
part of which the following is a translation: "The heir of
Marmaduke de Thweng, who is in the wardship (custodia, as a
minor, namely) of our lord the King, holds eight Knights'
fees and a half ; he holds also Danby as one fee of our lord
the King in capite, and the vill of Yarm as a free burgh."
But at this date (1284-85) the heir of Marmaduke de Thweng,
an infant under age and in the custody of the king as the
feudal lord, could be none other than Lucia de Thweng, born,
as we remember, just before Easter 1279, and consequently
at this period a little girl of about five years of age. Of
course this is "another way of saying" that her father
Robert is dead, which again throws hght on the perplexing
circumstance that so very little is heard of him in history,

1 This does not tally with Dugilale's statements, nor consequently
with the pedigrees given by Graves, Ord, and Co., which are founded
upon Dugdale. Our Inquest entries, however, are such as to show beyond
question that Dugdale was wrong. The fact is, that with both the de
Thweng and the Latimer families Dugdale's mistakes and confusions are
as numerous as they are perplexing.

2 88 Historical

either private or public. Married in 1 279 or thereabouts, he
was dead some years before his grandfather paid the debt of
naturb, and his little daughter, with her inheritance, was a
ward of the king, and her lands and eventual marriage at his
disposition.

And thus we arrive at a dispersion of the mystery hitherto
attached to, and an explanation of, the true nature of the
king's Danby grant to the elder William le Latimer. Under
the circumstances named, it was competent to him, as to any
or every other guardian of a young lady and her inheritance,
to "give (or sell) her marriage," as it was termed, to any one
he wished to favour or who offered a suflSciently high price,
and the favoured recipient acted at his discretion in the
matter. In the present case William le Latimer was the
fortunate applicant, and it was no new thing in his career.
For Dugdale tells us that in 1260-61 he " gave the king (Henry
III) twelve hundred marks for the wardship and lands of the
heirs of Hugh de Morewick, and benefit of their marriages ;"
as also that in 1296-97 he " obtained a grant of the marriage
of Isabell, the daughter and heir of Simon de Sherstede, to
be a wife for John de Latimer his son and heir." And
indeed, if ever a man deserved consideration at the hands of
his sovereign, William le Latimer was such a man. As early
as 1253 we find him in sufficient repute to be made Sheriff of
Yorkshire, and Governor of the castles of York and of
Pickering, and as late as 1302-3 "again in the wars of
Scotland " ; while the list of services with which the interval
between those two dates is absolutely filled, is very greatly
too long to be reproduced here. He served in Wales, in
Gascony, in half a dozen campaigns in Scotland, went with
Prince Edward to the Holy Land, was Sheriff of the county
again, and Governor of other important castles as well as of
those named before, and in fact died in the service of his king
and his country, being summoned to Parliament the very year
of his death.

William le Latimer the third 289

With such claims 011 the royal consideration there is little
wonder that he should have obtained "the wardshii^ and
marriage" of the heiress of Marmaduke de Thweng, and as
little that he should have arranged the marriage of his second
son with the young lady ; and one wonders whether (hoping
almost against hope that he did not) he lived long enough to
see the disastrous issue of the said marriage. He died in
1304-5, and Lucia, his son's young wife, left her husband's
mansion at Brunne (Kirkburn, not far from Driffield) to go
and live in adultery with de Meinill, the Baron of Whorlton
Castle, by whom she became the mother of an illegitimate son.
After Nicholas de Meinill's death she married, first, Eobert de
Everingham, and next, Bartholomew de Fanacourt. There is
no reason to think that, although after many delays she was
divorced from William le Latimer in or about 1312, she was
ever married to her seducer, de Meinill.

The lordship, castle, and manor of Danby passed of course
to her son by her first husband, William le Latimer, the third
of the name in succession. He was, as has been already noticed,
twenty-six years of age when his father died in 1327-8, and
had livery in due time of the manor of Danby and the other
lands of his inheritance. He lived about ten years after, and
by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of John de Botetourt, had a
son, also named William, who was a child of six years old
when his father died. This baron is said by Dugdale to have
been resident at Danby, and to have been made Governor of
the fortress of Becherel in Brittany in 1360, and the year
after "Lieutenant and Captain -General to John Duke of
Brittany " ; and after this again he seems to have seen much
and honourable service in the same province. But in his case
also, " it is not all gold that glitters," and towards the close
of the now weak and licentious king's reign grave charges
of peculation, malversation, and even worse, were brought
against him (Latimer) which were held to be proved, and the
removal of the offenders was effected. The previous situation

u

290 Historical

is thus summed up by one annalist of England : " Much
discontent is occasioned by the extortionate and illegal
proceedings of the Lords Latimer and Neville, the king's
counsellors, and of Alice Ferrers, his mistress ;" while Green,
in his History of the English People, expresses himself thus :
" Edward was now wholly swayed by Alice Ferrers, and the
duke (of Lancaster, John of Gaunt) shared his power with
the royal mistress. But if we gather its tenor from the
complaints of the succeeding Farliament, his administration
was as weak as it was corrupt. The new lay ministers lent
themselves to gigantic frauds. The chamberlain. Lord
Latimer, bought up the royal debts and embezzled the public
revenue. With Eichard Lyons, a merchant through whom
the king negotiated with the gild of the staple, he reaped
enormous profits by raising the price of imports and by
lending to the Crown at usurious rates of interest. When the
empty treasury forced them to call a parliament, the ministers
tampered with the elections through the sheriffs. But the
temper of the Farliament which met in 1376, and which
gained from after times the name of the Good Parliament,
shows that these precautions had utterly failed. . . . The
presentation of a hundred and sixty petitions of grievances
preluded a bold attack on the royal Council. 'Trusting in
God, and standing with his followers before the nobles whereof
the chief was John Duke of Lancaster, whose doings were ever
contrary,' their speaker. Sir Feter de la Mare, denounced the
mismanagement of the war, the oppressive taxation, and
demanded an account of the expenditure." John of Gaunt
made a scornful retort, "but the movement was too strong
to be stayed. Even the duke was silenced by the charges
brought against the ministers. After a strict inquiry Latimer
and Lyons were alike thrown into prison, Alice Ferrers was
banished, and several of the royal servants were driven from
the Court."

It is true that this proceeding was reversed shortly after ;

Danby passes to the Family of Neville 291

but only through the imperious will of the duke. For the
old king died, and the young king, a boy of thirteen years
old, was set upon the throne, and Gaunt was again master of
the situation — for a time at least — and we hear of Latimer's
employment and action in divers matters of some importance.
But his race was nearly run, and we read of his death in the

DASET CASTLE BBIDOE. BUILT circft 1386.

fourth year of the boy-king's reign. Statesmen and warriors,
good men and true, a diligent judge learned in the law (the
last Peter de Brus), had been among the lords of Danby. In
this William le Latimer we seem to have had a man of
a different stamp.

By his wife Elizabeth, daughter of the Earl of Arundel,
he had issue a daughter, also named Elizabeth, who was the

292 Historical

second wife of John, Lord Neville of Eaby ; ^ and by his will,

dated 14th April 1381, he (William Latimer) directs that all

the manors of his paternal inheritance should pass to the said

" Seigneur de Nevill " and his heirs, who (the heirs) should

thenceforward bear his (the Latimer) arms ; and he was

accordingly summoned to Parliament as Lord Latimer (in

right of his wife). The issue of this marriage was a son,

John, who died without offspring, and a daughter, Elizabeth,

who married into the Willoughby family, and is erroneously

spoken of by Ord {Cleveland, p. 330, " Pedigree of the Lords of

Danby ") as " sole heiress to her brother and the barony of

Latimer." For many of the lands and lordships in question

were affected by the dispositions of the last William le

Latimer's will just named, and the " Seigneur de Nevill," to

whom they were devised, had a son and heir by his first wife,

Matilda, namely, Ealph Earl of Westmoreland. And this is

Dugdale's account of what ensued : " Divers of these lordships

whereof he (the John who died childless) died seized, being,

for want of issue of his body, entailed on Ealph his elder

brother (half-brother, more correctly), he, the said Ealph,

settled them by feoffment upon George Nevill, one of his sons

by his second [first, it ought to be] wife. Which George was

thereupon summoned to Parliament as Lord Latimer the next

ensuing year" (1431-32). The claim to the barony, how-

^ The arms of this nobleman are conspicuous both on the Castle of
Danby and the old bridge below the castle. And perhaps the fact is the
more noteworthy because of the direction in Latimer's will that his heirs
should hear the Latimer arms. In my History of OUvelaTid I have
remarked upon the shield, or rather the escutcheon, on the south front of
the castle that it is "peculiar"; for that "the Nevilles, Lords Latimer,
whose arms they are, usually had two griffins, and not a griffin and a lion,
as supporters ; and either a black roundel or a black annulet as the
difference. Moreover the sal tire does not reach the edge of the shield."
It is possible that this so-called saltire — for it is an even-armed Latin cross
set obliquely rather than a saltire — may be intended as a sort of acknow-
ledgment of the matter of the father-in-law's injunction or permission
(whichever it was intended to be) as to the eventual bearing of the
Latimer arms.

Henry VIII never at Danby 293

ever, was not entirely uncontested; for in George Neville's
grandson's time a counter-claim was urged by Willoughby,
Lord Brooke (Graws, pp. 274, 275), the issue of which was in
favour of Eichard Neville, Lord Latimer, the grandson just
named.

Richard was succeeded by his son John, Lord Latimer,
who ought not to be passed by in entire silence, as one of the
lords of Danby, seeing that he was the former husband of the
lady who afterwards became Henry the Eighth's last queen ; ^
and it was his son John who was the last lord, and who left
four daughters, the eldest of whom, Elizabeth, as the wife of
Sir John Danvers of Dauntse}^, carried the manor, castle, and
lands of Danby into another family. The issue of this
marriage, as far as we are concerned, were two sons and a
daughter. The elder of the two sons was Henry, described
as "Lord Danvers of Daventree," and as created "Earl of
Danby" in 1626; and as having grant in the following year
" of the goods, chattels, and debts of all felons in the manor
and forest of Danby." The second was John Danvers who,
on the death of his brother without heirs of his body, suc-
ceeded to the Danby property (among others), and was the
person who alienated the said property to others under the
circumstances detailed in another place. [See next section. On
the Contents of an old Oak Chest.] The sister was Eleanor,
who married Thomas Walmsley, and by him had a daughter

^ This is the only grain of historical fact in the legend which tells
of a personal visit of Henry VIII to Danby. The legend is to the
effect that Henry riding from York (necessarily over the moors) to visit
Lady Latimer at Danby Castle, was caught in a storm and forced to
take refuge in the farmhouse in Danby Dale, which still bears the
name of Stormy Hall. As a matter of fact Henry's fifth c[ueen was, when
he was at York, still living, and he never came north of York, either
then or later. The name of the farm is in reality due to the fact that
the land had been held from the thirteenth century by members of the
family (well known in Cleveland) of Esturmi or Sturmy. And in the first
written occurrence of the name of the farm with which I am acquainted
it stands as Sturmy Hall.

294 Historical

Anne, who became the wife of Sir Edward Osborne of Kiveton,
the father of the well-known Sir Thomas Osborne, High
Treasurer of England in 1673; created Baron of Kiveton and
Viscount Latimer by Charles I. ; soon after made Earl of
Danby, and, in the issue, Duke of Leeds.

AN OLD OAK CHEST AND SOME OF ITS
DISCLOSURES

The oak chest stands in " the Jury room," and the Jury room
is an oak-panelled room in the castle, with a grandly moulded
late mediaeval fireplace in it — only hidden away from view by
modern "Gothic" innovation. The chest itself is about three feet
and a half long, by twenty inches high and twenty-four in width.
The oak of the sides and ends is more than an inch thick, and
it is barred and cross -barred with iron bands, so that the
parallelograms of oak left uncovered are not of imposing
size. And the documents it contains have been in it for
nearly two centuries and a half, and the chest was not new, but
was probably venerable, when they were first entrusted to its
keeping ; for it has a till in it, and a secret compartment below
the till, its present purpose being to hold secure the counter-
parts of a long series of conveyances afi'ecting the division and
distribution of an estate that comprised, in one form or another,
nearly twenty-four thousand acres of land.

I have been engaged for more than eight years in the most
careful and prosaic examination of the vnritten Eecords of the
Quarter Sessions' proceedings in the North Riding. In this
process I have either copied out myself, or most heedfully per-
used the copies made by another of, the lists of the men serving
on the Grand Juries from 1604 to 1680. The rule for these
lists is that with one, two, or three — rarely more — " gentle-
men " at the head of the catalogue, the rest of the names, to

296 Historical

the average number of three or four and twenty, were those of
men described as "yomen." The total number of names thus
recorded in the space of time indicated is certainly not under
five thousand. And the men whose names are found in this
lengthy roll-call come, as they are summoned, from every nook
and corner of the whole Riding. At least, that was as the
matter appeared to the writer for many months after his work
had become as systematic as it was possible to make it. One
day, however, he happened to notice that his own parish was
an exception to the general rule. No jurymen were supplied
by that parish, save it were an occasional "gentleman"; and
this happened so very seldom that it could with diflBculty be
tortured into the proverbial "exception." And even at last,
when it was actually noticed, it was rather with a vague sort
of surprise than with any thought of seeking an explanation.
Still, there was the fact. Small places not one-fifth the size
of this parish, and of much less mark in other particulars, sent
their half-dozen or half-score representatives of the yeoman
class ; but this great and, by its connections, important parish
did not supply a single one. The writer might speculate, and
he did speculate ; but the speculation was as unprofitable as
speculations very often are ; and it was not until years of the
examination of minutes and orders had run their course that
explanation of the mystery suggested itself. But one day a
bit of the popular history of the parish flashed across his recol-
lection, and it solved the whole difficulty. For he recollected
that up to the time of Charles I, though not for long after,
the entire parish was still in the hands of one sole and single
owner. There could therefore be no room for yeomen, in the
sense of freeholders, under such conditions. And on this fact
depends a series of transactions, which are not without their
interest from the " local history " point of view, and all the
more so from the fact that the whole series of circumstances has
hitherto been misconceived and misdescribed alike by the local
historians, such as Graves and Ord, in their several histories

How Danby came to be sold out in Lots 297

of Cleveland, and, as a matter of course, by the whole corps of
copyists at large. In the latter class the most astounding
muddle is found in Murray's Handbook for Yorkshire. There
we are told that a " certain branch of the Nevilles," owners of
the estate in question, " ended in females, the eldest of whom
retaining the estate was ^^-ife of Sir John Danvers. Their
son was Charles I.'s Earl of Danby — a title which died with
him. ... Sir John Danvers, father of the earl, sold the
greater part of the estate to five Danby freeholders ; and the
residue, about 2500 acres, with the manor and its rights, was
sold to Mr. — afterwards Sir John — Dawnay.". It is difficult to
characterise this statement otherwise than as I have just now-
designated it — an astounding muddle. The father of the earl
did not sell the estate ; on the contrary, the earl, who died in
1643, died possessed of it. He was succeeded in the possession
of the said estate by his brother John, Sir John Danvers of
Chelsea, his grandfather having been Sir John Ddnvers of
Dauntsey. In the year 1647 Sir John Danvers of Chelsea,
being involved in very serious pecuniary difiiculties, was com-
pelled to make arrangements to meet at least a part of them.
These difficulties, as it seems to me, may best be described in
the old document itself, dated 1st May 1647, from which the
information given is derived. It recites that " Sii* Thomas
Sawley, Bart., now deceased, in his lifetime, at the request of
Sir John Danvers, and together with him as his surety, and
for his only and proper debt, became bound in the following
obligations, viz. to Isaac Jones, Esq., in an obligation of £3000,
dated Feb. 12, 1641, conditioned for the payment of £1500,
principal debt and interest : to Sir Gerwas Ellwes and Jeremy
EUwes, in an obligation of £800, dated Oct. 22, 1640, condi-
tioned for the payment of £500 : to Anne Rewes, widow, of
£800, dated Oct. 25, 1640, for £500: to Angelo Grey, in
£6000, dated April 16, 1638, for £3000: to Sir William
Acton, Knt. and Bart., in two several obligations, one of
£2000, dated Nov. 30, 1645, for £1000, and the other of

298 Historical

£1000, dated April 25, 1646, for £600 : And that Sir Peter
Osborne, Knt., became bound with the said Sir John Danvers,
as his sui'ety, to Thomas Crompton, Gentleman, in an obliga-
tion of £2000, dated Dec. 18, 1639, for £1000 : And that John
Mountford, D.D., became bound with Sir John Danvers to
Francis Lucye, Esq., in £2000, dated May 24, 1638, for £1000 :
And that the said Sir John Danvers became bound to divers
other persons in divers other great summes of money, for all or
the greatest parte whereof some other of his ffreindes, or some
of his serwants, stand ingaged with him as his suertyes in
severall other obligations : And that the said Sir John Danvers,
out of his greate care to have all such debtes as are his owne
proper and just debtes, and not any other, for which he stands
bound or ingaged as suerty with or for any other person or
persons, to bee paid, and to have his flfriendes, servants, and
suerties, and their estates, kept harmelesse and without any
damage dr losse by reason of any of their ingagementes for him,
for which, if the times had not bene soe troublesome, and his
losses by reason of those troubles soe greate as they have of
late byn, hee intended to have done before this tyme. But
finding those his owne debtes to bee since these troubles soe
much encreased by the greatnes of his losses, as that for the
present hee hath noe other meanes to satisfie them, hee is now
desirous and resolved to make some provision for raysing of
moneys for that purpose by the leasinge and selling either
absolutely or by way of mortgage of some of his landes of in-
heritance. And conceavinge his property hereafter mentioned
in the County of Yorke, in respect of their remoteness from
the rest of his landes, which, for the most partes, lye in the
County of Wiltes, may be fittest for that purpose : and that
the same is intailed, and that he hath issue heritable to that
estate-entail, and at present he only designs to pay Sir Tho.
Sawley, Sir Peter Osborne, and Dr. Mountford," he therefore
covenants with Rowland Jewkes senior to levy a fine at West-
minster, before the end of Trinity term next, of the Manor

Danvers, first. Baron, then Earl of Danby 2 gg

and Castle of Danby, and the Forest and Chase of Danby, and
the Rectory of Danby, and all tithes in Danby, Leleholmes,
and Glacedale, together with Bennington and Flixton in the
same county, and all Leetes, Lawdayes, Viewes of Frank
pledge, etc. ; and the fine is to enure to the uses declared in
the deed to the parties of the third part, viz. Thomas Yates of
Chelsey, Clerk, Nathaniel Bostock of Heston, Clerk, Edward
Thorne of Twickenham, Gentleman, and Rowland Jewkes, the
younger of London, Gentleman, upon trust to sell, etc., and
pay his debts.

The covenanted fine was accordingly levied before Justices
Peter Phesant and John Cobbold on the 28th of May follow-
ing ; and there the matter seems, in the absence of any
evidence to the contrary, to have hung fire for a period of
seven years. Whether or no the " times soe troublesome " had
anything to do with this delay, is a matter of speculation only ;
but at least such a supposition is by no means inconsistent
with the history of the times and what we infer (if we do not
absolutely know) of Sir John Danvers himself, and the almost
certain explanation of the fact of his difiiculties and their origin.

For we remember that Sir Henry Danvers of Dauntsey,
brother to Sir John of Chelsea — our Sir John that is — had
been created Lord Danvers of Daventry by James I., and was
afterwards created Earl of Danby by Charles I. in the first
year of his reign (5th February 1626) j"^ and in June of the
following year he had grant from the same monarch of the
goods, chattels, and debts of all felons in the manor and
forest of Danby. There is enough in these facts to indicate

■^ I am aware thi3 is not as the story is customarily told. Ord, for
instance {Hist, of Clevelaiid, p. 330) writes, "Henry, created Earl of
Danby, James I.," and quotes Defoe in support of the allegation as
follows : ' ' Henry Danvers, created baron of this place (Danby ) by James I. ,
though by Charles I. made Earl of Danby. He hrfd distinguished him-
self in Queen Elizabeth's Irish wars, was good as he was great, and died
with glory," in 1643. From which it is clear that Ord has blundered his
authority.

300 Historical

that Sir Henry Danvers stood well with James I., and certainly
not less well with King Charles. And it would be anything
but a random supposition if we assumed that there were good
reasons, such as attachment and devotion to the House of
Stuart and its interests, for the circumstance so ascertained.
Assuming, then, the existence in the breasts of the Earl of
Danby and his brother Sir John Danvers of such a feeling, is
it a mere coincidence that the period at which these money
obligations are seen in their inchoative and most urgent stages
corresponds with the period at and through which " a voluntary
war-tax was levied in every county for the purpose of equip-
ping forces " to fight for the king, and when " gifts of money
and plate " for the king's service became the order of the day
among the royalist adherents, whether public bodies or private
gentlemen and nobles? The year 1638 was the year of the
said "voluntary tax," and 1643 that of the "gifts of plate
and money"; and it was in the year 1638 that Sir John
Danvers incurred the obligations of £6000 to one party and
£2000 to another, adding £3500 more the following year,
and increasing the burden still further in 1641. But whether
or no the contemporaneousness of the incipient and augment-
ing indebtedness of Sir John Danvers and the necessities of
Charles I. be taken to afford a very strong presumption that
Sir John was one of the goodly band of noble and faithful
gentlemen who impoverished themselves and risked all they
held most dear in the effort to support a doubtful cause,
certain it is that all practical diflBculties appear to have been
cleared out of the way of the proposed alienation of Danvers's
Yorkshire property, for the purpose of liquidating at least
some of his liabilities, by the earlier part of the year 1655.
For it was on 21st February of that year Sir John Danvers,
Tho. Coppin, Esq., Tho. Gunter, Gent., with Nath. Bostocke
and Will. Baxter, Clerks, with the consent and approbation of
Rich. Sallwey, Tho. Estcourt, Eob. Atkins, Rowland Jewkes
sen., Will. Yorke, Esquires, and Tho. Yates, Clerk, engage

Agreement to convey to two persons 301

and agree " that the Manner and Lordshippe of Danby with
the demeasne lands, messuages, farmes, tenements, Royaltyes,
priviledges, and hereditaments thereunto belonginge, late
the landes and possessions of the E.t. Honble. Henry, late
Earle of Danbye, together with the Eectorye and tythes of
Danby, shall be sold and conveyed unto Samuell Levingstoune,
Clerk, and John Agari', yeoman, or to such other persons as
they shall appointe, uppon this special Trust and Confidence :
That all and every the tenanntes and farmors within the said
Mannor and Lordshippe shall have full freedome and power
to purchase all and singuler their severall and respective
farmes and landes as are now held by them respectively, att
such reasonable rates and values as they are now agreed to be
sold att, the purchase and value of the said Manor and Lord-
ship, together with all necessary charges and expences about
purchaseinge and dividinge the same duely considered :
Provided always that the said Sam. Levingstoune and John
Agar, and all and singuler the said tenants and farmors,
shall pay and satisfye unto us, the aforesaid Coppin, Gunter,
Bostocke, and Baxter, for the purchase of the said Manor, etc.,
the full sum of £17000, in three instalments, to be severally
due and payable on the 24th June next after date, the 28th
November next following, and 28th May next after that :
with a proviso, however, that all rents, etc., due on the said
lands be all paid up by or before the Feast of Penticoste next
ensueinge the date of the deed to the four persons already
specified.".

And after this date affairs were not suffered to drag their
slow length along as in the years after 1647. No doubt there
were reasons quite sufficiently forcible to account for the delay
in the one case and for the promptitude in the other, and
which suggest themselves the moment we recall the con-
temporary history of the country. In 1647 everything was
in confusion or worse than confusion. In matters political,
ecclesiastical, civil, nothing was assured, nothing save the

302 Historical

present certain. The king had newly fallen into the hands of
the Parliament, the army and the Parliament were not at one,
an accommodation between the army and the king seemed
possible, was negotiated for ; a second civil war was imminent,
nay, speedily ensued ; and it was but an unpropitious time for
such dealings as that under notice, or indeed for any dealings
at all that would possibly admit of postponement. In 1654-55,
on the contrary, whatever view we take of the Protector's
action, peace had been ensured, a strong government existed,
the prosperity of the country was returning with rapid strides,
and there were no threatening clouds looming up from abroad.
Men might prudently and safely and wisely invest their money
now, and find every necessary facility as well as encouragement
to do so. And thus, tripartite indentures of agreement or of
conveyance, bearing the several dates of 7th July 1655, 11th
July immediately following, and 25th June of the following
year, are drawn up and duly executed, each of them being of
interest in its own way.

It will be remembered that in the deed of which the sub-
stance was given a little above, two trustees only were nomi-
nated (Samuel Levingstoune, the non-episcopal "minister" of
the day, and John Agar, a yeoman of the place, occupying
a farm then and now called Didderhow), but with the alter-
native proviso, " or to such other persons as they shall
appoint, upon this special Trust and Confidence " always ; and
accordingly, as will be seen from what immediately follows,
these two trustees had effected the addition of three others to
the original number of two. For in the "Indenture Tripar-
tite," dated 7th July 1655, Tho. Yates of Chelsey, Clerk, Nath.
Bostock of Heston, Clerk, Edward Thorne of Twickenham,
Gentn., and Eowland Jewkes junr. of London, Gentn., of the
first part, with the consent and approbation of Sir Francis
Lawley of Spoonehill, Shropshire, Eichard Salway of Short-
hampton, Oxon., Tho. Estcourt and Eob. Atkins, both of
Lincolns Inn, with Eowland Jewkes senr. and Will. Yorke,

Conveyance to five Trustees 303

of the Inner Temple, all designated Esquires, of the second
part, agree and covenant to convey to Sam. Levingstoune, Clerk,
John Agar, Eob. Prodam, Geo. Harrison, and Tho. Watson,
yeomen, of the third part, in consideration of £6200 already
paid, and £11,114 further to be paid to the first party, "the
Mannor and Castle of Danby, with the Forest and Chace of
the same, the Rectory of Danby, with all tythes, etc., and all
the rights and appurtenances whatsoever." And herein we
notice that, besides the addition of three others, yeomen, to
the original two trustees, we have the four gentlemen who are
named as of the third part in the deed of 1st May 1647, now
as the parties actually covenanting to convey the aforesaid
manor, lordship, etc., of Danby to the said trustees, but as in
co-operation with two gentlemen (one of them directly con-
cerned in the matter as bondsman for and \^'ith Sir John
Danvers to a heavy amount), and four other gentlemen, all
learned in the law, who may be regarded as engaged on behalf
of the baronet aforesaid, and the other creditors whose names
have been above specified.

Quite possibly, it will have been noticed that although in
the instrument of 1st May 1647 Sir John Danvers covenants
to convey to Yates, Bostock, Thome, and the younger Jewkes,
and again in that of 21st February 1664-55 the same Sir John
personally, with four other gentlemen named, engages and
agrees that the said manor, castle, and so forth, shall be con-
veyed, in trust, to Levingstoune and Agar, still in this last
deed of 7th July in the same year the name of Danvers does
not appear at all. The explanation is that Sir John Danvers
had deceased in the interim, and the receipts for the payment
of the first instalment of the purchase money are signed by
Tho. Badcocke -pro Thomas Coppin and others, trustees for
Sir John Danvers, Knight, deceased. The earliest of these is
dated 13th June 1655.

The deed that follows next in sequence in connection with
this transaction may safely be described as one of singular local

304 Historical

interest ; for it is entitled " Articles of Agreement Tripartite
concluded and agreed upon by and between " the five trustees
of the first part, John Dawnay of Cowicke, Esq., Rich.
Etherington of York, Esq., and Rich. Alline of Danby, Gentn.,
of the second part, and 168 intending and covenanting pur-
chasers (of either sex) of " such their severall and respective
farmes and lands as are now held and enjoyed by them
respectively." There are in all seven different clauses in the
said agreement, placing the whole transaction on the most
carefully considered business footing, and drawn up with a
legal knowledge, skill, and precision such as to elicit high
commendation from the conveyancing practitioner of the
present day ; while to the whole is prefixed " A Schedule of
the severall purchasours of the Manner, Castle, Lordshippe,
Royaltyes, Lands and Tythes in Danby, Leleholmes, and
Glacedale in the Countye of Yorke, with the severall valewes
thereof, freed and discharged of all mannor of Tythes and
Fee-farme rentes."

Of this schedule it is quite safe to say that it abounds with
varied interest. There is matter in it for the student of local
history, both personal and topographical ; for the student who
confines himself to the observation of manners rather than
men ; and for the student who pursues the intricate subject of
the decadence of the old Common -field system, and the
building up upon its ruins of a system of land-management of
a singularly different nature.

But there is one revelation in especial made by it, which is
of a nature such as alike to discredit popular tradition and to
confute the most trusted deliverances of the accepted historian,
and still more his unquestioning copyists. The mistakes made
in Murray's Handhooh have already been noticed. Ord's
account is more than equally incorrect, both as to person and
circumstance. And even the sober and diligent Graves can
give no better account of so important a transaction than the
following: "Sir Henry Dan vers. Earl of Danby, having in

Sir John Dawnays share in the transaction 305

his lifetime sold this lordship to five freeholders, inhabitants
of the place ; of whom the castle, manor, and greatest part of
the estate were purchased by Sir John Dawney, of Cowick,
knight." The popular notion or tradition, however, does not
go quite so far astray as either of the authorities last named ;
for, instead of making Mr. (not Sir John) Dawnay purchaser
of the whole estate, manor, etc., as Ord does, or of the greater
part, as Graves does, it attributes to the gentleman named
quite another share in the bargain ; and the view that is thus
represented is, that whatever the freeholders at large did not
buy of the five was bought by Mr. Dawnay, as well as the
manor, castle, lordship, etc. — in other words, that he was a
sort of residuary purchaser.

As has been seen already, all these representations are
essentially erroneous, and this in several particulars ; and
the schedule we are noticing sets all the mistakes about Mr.
Dawnay and his share in the transaction in a painfully clear
light. It will have been noticed that in the agreement by
the five freeholders of the first part to the 168 intending
purchasers of the third part, the names of three gentlemen
are mentioned as of the second part; and they were the
Mr. Dawnay in question, Mr. Etherington of York, and Mr.
Eichard AUine of Danby, described as " gentleman," the other
two being esquires. From this alone we see that Mr. Dawnay
was much more than a residuary purchaser, or even the most
considerable purchaser — which, indeed, he by no means was,
except in comparison with individual purchasers. And on
coming to look into the details of the schedule we find
him named among the intending and, indeed, covenanting
purchasers in connection with four out of the 158 lots into
which the estate was parcelled out. And these four lots were
as follows : In the first, Mr. Dawnay, with four others named,
agrees to give £258 for the west end of Oakley side ; in the
second, he covenants to buy three -fourths of a certain en-
closure, a water-mill, and twenty-three several farms, giving

3 o 6 Historical

£3050:18:8 for the lot; in the third, he engages to give
£148 : 16 : 6 for several intakes, certain free rents, and also
free rents and tithes issuing out of certain freehold lands ;
and in the fourth the covenanted purchase is of the castle and
its farm, the park, a tenement in Whitby, with the manor
and manorial privileges thereto appertaining, the sum to be
given being £550, the total purchase money amounting to
about £4000, out of a grand total of between £18,000 and
£19,000 to be paid by the collective purchasers.

But it is when we come to study the conveyances which
made the aforesaid agreement effective that the mines of
information, local, economical, customary, archaic, illustrative
of divers matters of interest, begin to be developed ; and they
are of such a nature that it is impossible to do more than
glance at the fact of their existence here. But what ought
not to be omitted is the fact, or the series of facts, that there
is much variation between the list of actual or eventual
purchasers, as compiled from the conveyances themselves,
and that given in the schedule; that the total number of
conveyances — strictly speaking, they are the counterparts of
the original conveyances — contained in the chest is but 138,
as against more than 150 specified in the schedule; that
three out of the four conveyances made to Mr. Dawnay do
not appear, only the conveyance of the castle and manor
lot being present; that more than one of the conveyances
extant deal not with single holdings, but with a group of
farms (six or seven, or even nine in one case), and without
precise details of any kind connected with them, except
as regards the names of the persons who were in present
occupation; and, lastly, that the whole series of trans-
actions connected with the sale, purchase, conveyance, and
delivery of all these several allotments, comprising the entire
extent of the parish and manor of Danby (Glaisdale, as of
necessity, included), was carried through and completed within
the course of the year 1656. Not one of all the 138 convey-

The Conveyances full of curious Information 307

ances referred to is dated Otherwise than in that year. And
this prompt execution and completion of the business is
covenanted and provided for in the second and third of the
seven articles which the agreement comprises. The latter of
these two articles specially provides that there shall be no
further addition at any time to the existing number of free-
hold farms, each with its own especial common right — a rule
which is most strictly insisted and acted upon down to the
present day.

All of these articles contain some curious reading, and
their preciseness in a variety of particulars is of a nature to
arouse general local interest. But of all, perhaps the fourth
is the most marked in this particular ; for it defines alike the
rights and privileges accruing in virtue of his purchase to the
lord of the manor and his successors, and also his (and their)
obligations and duties as towards the rest of the purchasers,
or, in other words, the resulting body of freeholders.

As a case in point it not only authorises, but requires
him, in case of any encroachment on the peculiar rights of
the freeholders, such as the removal of turf, ling, brackens,
etc., by non-freeholders, or such as do not possess a common
right, to take proceedings against the offender. And this has
actually been done within the past year. A man living in
the parish, but not the holder of a common right, cut and
carried away a certain amount of brackens, and, when fined by
the jury for the encroachment, made difficulties about the
payment of the fine, and eventually altogether declined to
pay it, and strove, under bad advice, to resist the infliction
of it. The case was referred to the proper court, and then,
under better advice, the defaulter gave in and paid the fine.

There is, indeed, far too much calling for notice in this
mass of documents to be dealt with at the close of one of
these sections, or indeed, it may be, in such a book as this.

MISCELLANEOUS

NOTES ON NATUEAL HISTORY: CHIEFLY
ORNITHOLOGY

One of my old parishioners, for whom I entertained lively
feelings of regard and attachment — a stalwart-looking mason,
who died, however, of consumption some twelve or fifteen
years ago — told me one day, while detailing certain facts
which he had verified touching the moats which had originally
encompassed the original Castrum de Daneby, from which
the hamlet of Castleton derives its name, that one portion
of the system of moats had been dug through by himself
when excavating for the foundation of a chapel, the construc-
tion of which had been entrusted to him ; and that he had
helped to fill up another portion situate in a field in his own
occupation. These details were of great interest to me for
many reasons, and I listened with great attention. I was
myself tolerably weU acquainted with the said system of
moat-defences, part of which is still extant, and part has been
filled in to help find space for a garden, since I have been
here ; and what he told me cleared up a great diflSculty in the
way of a satisfactory conception of what the water defences of
this castle had been. I had seen the basement of the walls
on the northern side laid bare by this same man and his work-
men, and had found the width of them in excess of eleven
feet; and it had seemed that there might have been some
reason for this enormous strength in the fact that from the
position of the castle the moat could not be carried round it

312 Miscellaneous

on that side, because the ground fell away abruptly from
almost the very foot of the wall as I saw it had been built.
Still my friend's positive and matter-of-fact, as well as detailed,
statement left me in no doubt that this considerable, and
certainly important, early Norman fortress had had water-
defences also on the north side ; although, and of necessity, at
a lower level than on the eastern and southern sides and, most
likely, on the western side as well.

But this is not going to be an antiquarian chapter, and I
only mention these details to lead on to another statement made
by my poor friend Frank when he told me he had done so
much in the way of filling in the moat on the north side. He
described the condition of the place filled. It had been a place
for the habitation and breeding of toads as long as he could
remember, and much ill-usage the poor toads had experienced
at the hands of the Castleton boys ; and " a vast of filling
in " it had taken. But he and the mason he had been appren-
ticed to had " a great vast of masons' rubbish " which they
were glad to be able "to vent" anywhere, and it had gone to
fill up this place, and make a good firm road into the field, a
purpose it serves still.

Well, one day when I was talking to Frank about many
things, one of us adverted to some notice or other which had
recently been going the round of the papers about a toad
found enclosed in the boll of an old tree, which was being
split up (or cut up) for firewood, or something of that sort ;
and Frank asked me what my opinion was as to the rights
in that much -vexed question. I expressed my unqualified
incredulity, both as to the alleged fact itself and as to the
authenticity of the statements in regard to it. But Frank
did not take my view, that was clear. He did not see why
it could not be. "Why, pricky-back otchins (urchins, hedge-
hogs) slept all the winter thruff (through), and he himself
had offens seen the backbearaways (bats) hinging up in the
church-tower, and au'd garrets i' different spots, and a few

Toads alleged to be enclosed in stones, etc. 3 1 3

weeks more or less of winter seemed to make no diifer to
thae ; and besides folks did say that swallows had been fished
up out of the bottoms of ponds and such like, all hinging to-
gether like bees iv a swarm, and all as wick (aUve) as gam'-
some kitlins (frolicsome kittens)." But I saw there was more
in my companion's mind than even these natural history recol-
lections, and after a little trouble I got him to tell me what
it was. He believed toads could live, and did live, " a weight
of years even," if they happened to be covered up, ay, and
blocked up so they couldn't stir and much more get out.
"Why, he had heared thae teeads (toads) that had been
covered up years and years ago, with loads on loads of broken
stone, rubble, earth, old mortar — all sike-like minglements as
came in mason-work, from pulling down old buildings and
putting up new — five foot deep in some places ; and yet he
had heared them croaking, not once or twice only, but scores
of times ; and that ^howed they could live in such spots." And
nothing could shake this good man's faith that the toads he
had heard were the toads whose dwelling-place he had helped
to fill up so many years before.

I do not for a moment doubt that my poor friend had heard
the croakings in question, nor even that they had come from
the place he aflBrmed them to have come from. I no more
disbelieved his statement than I disbelieved the evidence of
my own eyes one day when, amid a little scene of excitement
among my fellow-workers, I saw a living viper disclosed from
a pile of stonework in the heart of a barrow on the moor,
which stonework lay below a superincumbent covering of
earth at least two feet in thickness. But then I could account
for the presence of the toads where Frank said he had heard
them just in the same way as I could account for the presence
of the hagworm three or four feet below the surface of the
houe. Some means of entrance and access to the interstices
between the piled stones existed in either case, although it
escaped notice, and even suspicion, in the case of all the

3 1 4 Miscellaneous

observers, myself only excepted. It is the habit of the toad,
equally with the viper, to " choose for its winter retreat some
retired and sheltered hole, a hollow tree, or a space amongst
large stones, or some such place," as Mr. Bell writes, and so
the old habitat below the castle would still be occupied dur-
ing the winter, and when the spring came again, and the toads
awaked from their long slumber, they would be likely to
croak as naturally as a man yawns under the like circum-
stance every morning.

I do not like to misuse the words fancy and imagination.
The latter is a grand thing, and the other a pleasant thing.
And so I do not care to say, "What a lot of imagination or
what an amount of fancy is expended upon very everyday
topics connected with natural history !" but I would rather
say, " What an awful lot of unthinking, unstable supposings or
assumings, based upon no real or genuine observation, is
continually put forward in almost every vehicle of natural
history 'Notes and Queries'!" and my dearly -beloved star-
lings are among the sufferers thereby.

A few years ago there was a craze among some fancy
ornithologists to make the cock starling a bigamist. Posi-
tively the theory was started that he customarily had a couple
of hens attached to him, and that this accounted for the
groups of three one perpetually saw in the breeding time !
For one thing, although I have been on very intimate terms
with starlings for some sixty years, I did not even know that
" groups of three " were to be recognised at all. Certainly I
have often seen three together, but the same observation
holds good of most other species of birds, I think; but as
to a male starling mating with two female starlings at one
and the same time, the idea is simply absurd to any one
who has the opportunity, continued for dozens of years,
of watching all the domestic proceedings of some ten or
twelve pairs of the bird in question during the entire breeding
season ; five to seven of their nests, moreover, being placed

Queer notions touching the Starling 3 1 s

within three yards of his seat by his own dining-room
window.

Starlings "pair," Hterally and simply ; and if I were asked
to give the impressions produced in my own mind by what I
have observed in connection with my own private colony here
especially, I should say that I am by no means sure they do
not remain paired all the year round — at least in some cases.
Thus, they always come back to their haunts in the ivy sur-
rounding their nesting-boxes, and they always come in even
numbers. To avoid begging the question, I say — not that
there are three pairs, but — six birds here now, and for the
■ last six weeks there have been always either two or four or
six. I have seen two of these roosting for the night in a large
sweeping thom-tree night after night, two in a spruce fir
near, and two in the ivy. The last two weeks, or since the
weather became very cold, they have quartered themselves for
the night mainly in the ivy. They sit on the chimneys or the
pinnacles of the house for half an hour or more before bedtime,
and converse, cheerfully and musically always, and sometimes
mocking-bird-like. But that is the more usual practice of the
springtime of the year. But they are always separable into
twos, only greatly more then than now.

Another craze of the fancy ornithologist, with the starling
for its object, is occupying some pages of the Naturalist at the
time of writing, the question being, "Is the starling double-
brooded?" or, in other words, "Does the starling bring off
two broods in the same season ? " The question, on the face
of it, is nonsensical ; for it does not appear that any one of
those who write on the affirmative side is willing to display so
much of a crack, rather than a craze merely, as to advance
that the rule with the starling is to produce two broods
annually unless exceptionally prevented : and as certainly no
one of those writing on the negative side disputes the fact
that in divers instances they have been known to multiply
to that extent.

3 1 6 Miscellaneous

To be sure, one gentleman on the affirmative side writes,
" My reply to the question. Are starlings double-brooded % must
be distinctly in the affirmative." But there is the most artless
innocence of any attempt to produce evidence to support, and
much more establish the soundness of, the verdict given. The
"united experience of himself, the members of his family, and
the school-children" — it is absolutely so written — "is that,
with hardly any exception, these birds" — the occupants of
nine nests within a radius (sic) of little over one hundred
yards — "reared two broods every season." As the good
gentleman winds up by making " Turdidse " of the nine pairs
of starlings in question, besides adducing such a mass of well-
digested facts in evidence, it may perhaps be assumed that the
affirmative side might have been none the weaker had his re-
markable contribution been withheld.

Of course the starling, like other birds, is double-brooded
on occasion. And I suspect that qualifying "on occasion"
goes to the root of the matter. Thus, I am aware that
the much larger proportion among my own home favourites
were double - brooded during the breeding season of the
year 1889, and that for a special cause. Owing to unusually
mild and indeed warm weather in the early part of the year,
the starlings — one pair of them at least, and I think another —
and some other birds, including a pair of blackbirds and a
pair of chaffinches, began nesting operations at a most un-
usually early period, and I had reason to be assured that the
starlings had eggs as early as the first week in March. Then
came three nights during which severally my thermometer
registered 18°, 21°, and 22° of frost, after which for a week
there was, as a rule, more or less snow falling ; and it was not
till the end of that week that I heard or saw the first pewit of
the hundreds that annually breed about our fields. During
all this time — nine days in all — the starlings had disappeared ;
and when they returned, the nesting work, which had so
far prospered before, had to be done over again. It was

Birds not infrequently hatch two Broods 317

two days after the pewits came that the starlings resumed
their operations; but only two, or at most three, pairs of
them.

Now for a parallel case. Some thirty years ago, or nearly,
Whitmonday here signalised itself not only by the blowing of
a great wind (which levelled the section that was left of my
haystack), but by the falling of about three inches of snow,
and two nights — those preceding and succeedir^ it — of very
hard frost. One of the consequences was the bursting, under
the tender mercies of the frosty temperature, of hosts of the
grouse eggs on Westerdale moors and the equally exposed
parts of our Danby high moors. The birds, however (in the
majority, as I was led to think), nested again ; and the con-
sequence was that the proportion of " cheepers " upon the
moor was so great, that the practical effect was the postponing
of "The Twelfth" for a fortnight or three weeks. My im-
pression was that perhaps one -third, or nearly so, of the
broods on our high moors that year were hatched from a
second laying of eggs. Yet surely no one would think, from
any number of such instances of this — and they are by no
means few — of styling the grouse, in the language of the
Natit/ralist, double-brooded.

But even imder more ordinary circumstances I could
adduce similar instances from observation of the "ways and
the tricks" of the partridge, the ringdove, the water-
hen, the dabchick, and divers other birds. Eob them, by
whatever means, of their first laying of eggs sufficiently early,
or let them get off their first brood unusually soon, and they
are likely to lay again and hatch the second cletch of eggs.
And with the blackbird, the thrush, the robin, the chaflSnch,
and a score or two more of our most familiar birds, this
happens in numberless instances almost every year ; actually
every year, I do not doubt. As to the robin, I positively knew
one case in which the same pair of birds built three nests in
contact with each other — like three tenements under one roof

3 1 8 Miscellaneous

— and brought off three broods, one from each nest, in quick
succession.

Here is another statement made 'by one of the writers of
notes in these Naturalist papers which reads very strangely
to me : "It may interest , readers of the Naturalist to
know that in dry times the starlings will leave the meadows
to make descents upon strawberry beds, and that when
they do this they take all before them, whether they
be green or ripe." Now on this point my experience
is not small. • I should say my average annual crop of
young starlings for the last five -and -twenty years has been
somewhere about five -and -thirty. I have had as many as
twelve broods, averaging four each, brought ofi" in one year.
The year 1868, in young starling time, was so dry that I had
not a green blade left on my fairly large grass-plots. This
past summer (1889) was something the same, only the fields were
not quite so parched, although the grass in many fields about
was half hay before it was cut. And the year 1887 in straw-
berry time was like. Now I grow a good breadth of straw-
berries. During the past summer we gathered an average of
fifteen pounds a day for thirty-five to forty days. And for
the last forty years the average yield has not been less than
that ; indeed, more rather than less. During these said forty
years the blackbirds, ring-ousels, thrushes, and, occasionally
only, the missel-thrushes have fairly worried me as well as
the garden. I have shot scores on scores year after year. I
remember once being in the lower part of the garden, under
cover from the adjoining field where my men were then
cutting the wheat in a field that had only come into my
possession two or three years before, and which I had culti-
vated with a view to laying it down in grass. "Why, here's
a black ussel," I heard one say to another. " And here's a
moor blackbird," cries a second; and a minute after, "Why,
here's another and another. Wheea, t' land 's wholly
mannered (manured) wiv blackbirds ! " One day actually

Starlings not free of blame in the garden 319

one of my lads, getting his younger brothers and sisters to
" drive the garden " for him, shot fifteen of these depredators
from one stance, having three different drives.

But all these years, and with such potential array of bad
example before their eyes, I have never once seen a starling
on the strawberry beds, or been led to imagine, and much
more suspect, that they had even tasted so much as one. Let
the fact stand. Vdmi quantum.

All the same, the starlings are not entirely blameless
as visitors in the flower-garden. One day, years upon
years ago, I was visiting an old man, living in one of
the old-fashioned houses that are hardly believed in as
having ever been in use as human dwellings, and I was
talking to his wife, a woman still young enough to take an
interest in her garden — younger than her old husband by
thirty years, I should say ; and she was speaking of the
starlings' misconduct in her limited little bit of flower space.
I asked, " Was she sure it was the starlings ? " She had no
doubt about it ; and, as luck would have it, a couple of the
alleged criminals flew down into the Uttle plot just under the
window of the room we were sitting in, and began deliberately
to pluck off the crocus flowers under our very eyes. And the
flowers did not come easily ; they took a good deal of tugging,
and mending the bird's hold, and tugging again, before the
decapitation was fully effected. I had not another word to
say for my clients. Their ostentatious indulgence in the
crime imputed to them shut me up for good.

And in this garden they take great liberties of the same
sort with our early primroses, polyanthuses, and so forth.
Not often with the crocuses; though, with the many thou-
sands blooming within a score or two of yards of the nesting
and roosting place, the temptation cannot be said to be want-
ing. But my experience is that one peacock will do more
mischief in the ways alleged in one short spring morning
than all my colony of starlings in the year.

3 2 o Miscellaneous

I mentioned the missel-thrushes as occasional plunderers.
One year, why or wherefore I never could understand, they
were very troublesome. They came in a flock of thirty and
upwards, and always settled among the raspberry canes. If I
shot at them — though I hardly succeeded in stopping more
than about two in all, they were so very wary — they were back
again in half an hour, and circling once or twice high up in
the air, as if to see whether the coast were clear, down they
swooped upon the unlucky raspberries. This was the only
instance of their coming in a flight. Odd birds, or two or
three at a time, I see not infrequently.

But the moor blackbird or ring-ousel is the bird of all
birds to " walk into " your fruit of the berry sort. I do not
know for certain that birds do blush, or else I should say he
is the most unblushing, the most unabashed of all possible
delinquents in the fruit -stealing and wasting line. His
effrontery exceeds that of the Irish member of fiction, of
caricature even. The blackbird flies away when caught in
the act with a startled cackle ; the thrush retires with an
apologetic cheep. But the moor blackbird — always a past
master in birds' Billingsgate — swears at you, calls you all the
choicest names in his repertory, blackguards you for inter-
fering with his meal, and if forced to make himself scarce,
does so with the assurance emphatically delivered and repeated
that " you are no gentleman." I have sometimes ventured to
represent to them that I thought I had a little right in my
own garden, even if it was only to see what sort of a feed
they were getting. They flatly and insultingly declined to
see it. I suppose it must have been the rankling of their
contumelious treatment of me which always made me gloat
with a fine sense of compensation obtained, whenever one of
them fell a victim to my avenging gun.

Some years large numbers of these birds are produced on
our moors. Sometimes I have seen them, when out with my
gun, well on into September, in flocks of some hundreds

The ways of the Ring-ousel 3 2 1

together. This would be of course at the commencing stage
of their making ready to "flit" at the accustomed "term."
If it so happens that there is a plentiful harvest of bilberries,
it is very- seldom we see them in the gardens very early.
Nay, even our common blackbirds go up on to the moors to
share in the feast, when it so befalls. During this past
autumn I have seen the plainest evidences that foraging
parties of blackbirds had gone from the very centre of the dale,
and had not come away empty. If any one suggests that
there is no reason why blackbirds, and thrushes too, should not
have an occasional picnic on the moors as well as what the
Suffolk people used to call "humans," I have nothing to say
against it, except that I think they must picnic every day of
the week, for ten or fifteen days together.

When the bilberries are exhausted, then down come ,the
moor blackbirds; and if they are let alone, they show that
bilberries are better appetisers than sherry-bitters, or even
than the boasted solan. I have literally seen them fifty at a
time in this garden, on occasions when they had been left
undisturbed for two or three days. It is then that they resent
so bitterly and so abusively your intrusion upon their refresh-
ment-room. After the somewhat precarious time in the
gardens is over, and that much-grudged supply is exhausted,
they fall back upon the berries of the mountain-ash or rowan-
tree, and as these trees are fairly abundant throughout the
district, there is usually a fair board spread for their enjoy-
ment during the greater part of the period they have yet to
spend in the haunts of their callow-hood. And after that
comes departure.

Certainly I should be quite willing to have my mountain-
ash berries spared, and it is a little trial to me to see their
beauty destroyed in the shamelessly wasteful, extravagant
manner in which these marauders deal with them. They
begin before they are quite red-ripe, and for one they eat out
of the gorgeous clusters, they seem to squander three, and drop

Y

3 2 2 Miscellaneous

them recklessly to cumber the paths and beds beneath. But
that is the character of all the plundering perpetrated by these
members of the Thrush family. They run their bill through
the ripened or ripening side of a big strawberry — big enough to
furnish such a bird a full meal for the time — and then pass on
and do the same by another and another, wasting at least twice
as many as they consume. It is only among the smaller varieties
of the strawberry that I ever find a hull from which all the
berry has been cleanly cleared away. It is the same with the
currants, the gooseberries, the raspberries. Your red currants
and your black currants spot the ground beneath the bushes
with brilliantly translucent coral and lustrous beads of jet;
but they are beads that will never be strung or gladden a
creature's eye. The poor gooseberries too, their skins hang
half empty on the bushes and rot ; and the raspberries droop
in raggedly granulated halves, or stick in dismembered grains
on the leaves or ground below.

And yet it is not so with them in respect of other matters
of food. I have seen the thrush who had caught a big earth-
worm incautiously looking out of its bore upon the morning,
tug, tug, tug at its prey, leaning back with its effort till its
tail touches the ground, and you think if the worm was spiteful
enough or wide-awake enough to break, or otherwise give way,
what a head-over-heels tumble there would be, and a tail all
rumpled and broken. It would be so easy for the bird to
secure a good big bite of the worm, and end at once the meal
and the struggle too. But no ; he sticks to his capture, tugs
and tugs on, gains a little bit, almost imperceptibly, or loses a
hairbreadth or two by reason of the slipperiness of the victim.
And then you see him mend his hold with a lightning-like
dart ; and the struggle rarely ends without success attending
the thrush, usually in the form of the whole worm ; if not,
always with the bigger half of it. It is the same in the winter
time, when the blackbirds come and eat of the crumbs which
fall from the parson's breakfast-room window. They get hold

How the strong Birds plunder the weak 323

of a big piece, a corner of half-softened crust, a shred of the
tougher part from the side of the loaf, and away they go to
the covert of the shrubs and worry every fragment of the
edible morsel. Nay, more ; even at this time of the year they
are plunderers. The robin or the shufflewings — I like that
name ; it is as descriptive as a mediaeval nickname — the
sparrow or the chaffinch, get a bit too large to be disposed
of easily, and make for the bushes with it. But they very
seldom enjoy theif " gettings " themselves ; they are not
" havings " to them, poor little weaklings. There is a black-
bird under each of the most frequented little bird haunts
among the shrubs, and the pelf passes to the strongest pilferer.
It is a lesson after the morning's meal, and when there has
been a fall of fresh snow, retaining every impress of foot and
claw, to see whose footmarks betray the actual eaters, and how
the robins and sparrows and caddies (hedge-sparrows) have
been forced to act as the blackbirds' providers.

The poor rooks certainly do the same, but in a very small
degree, and with a sadly abashed and apologetic demeanour.
In a long hard time they come and sit on one of the larches
or spruces growing a score or two of yards from the house ;
but it is rarely indeed they venture to come to the terrace
below the window, where the crumbs and so forth are scattered,
and act as if they knew they were invited guests. I have,
however, sometimes induced even these distressful vagrants —
I can hardly call them mendicants — to look about as if thinking
food might be found that had actually been laid for them.
Pieces of boiled potato spared from the yesterday's dinner, or
a lump of parsnip, or a tenacious bit of dumpling, would
always serve the purpose when once the poor starving "crows,"
as our Clevelanders call them, had got into the way of taking
a flight of inspection, — a sort of "circular tour" about the
precincts of the lawn.

But the birds that have distressed me most by their con-
tinued endurance of any amount of privation, rather than come

324 Miscellaneous

to our window soon enough to save themselves from absolute
death by starvation, have been the fieldfares. I remember
once, nine or ten years ago, one morning when I was on my
way to Fryup Church in a bitter frost, by then of many
days' duration, and with some inches of snow all over,
seeing eight or nine of these birds in the last extremity of
privation struggling to make a scanty meal off a few
scattering^ holly berries growing on a stunted holly -tree
which used to stand in front of the bar window of the Hare
and Hounds " public " at Ainthorpe, and even although this
took them almost into contact with the window itself. I am
afraid every individual in the scattered flocks there were in
this district — caught by a sudden storm of snow and frost — that
year perished miserably. And I know nothing sadder than the
sight of a wild wary bird, always on the alert and careful to
give a wide berth to everything and everybody capable of
looking suspicious, so dazed and benumbed and demoralised
by hunger and cold as to become dulled, muffled, unvigilant,
uncaring, and even tottering wisps of feathers.^ I had gone
down the beck with my gun one day, three or four winters
ago, and I found myself in a field with some three or four score
of these birds hopping slowly, desultorily about, and so numbed
in all their perceptions that they let me come within a few
yards of them. One poor bird was so weak and so hopeless
that its wings drooped from its back as if injured, and it
permitted me to come within the length of my gun of it.
And even then it only faintly fluttered a few yards away. I

1 This is good Yorkshire if not good English. I once asked one of our
farmers if he had a fair crop of apples. "Ay," said he, "there's a canny
scattering few. " He meant that, although the boughs were nowhere laden
with fruit, still few or none of them were without a sprinkling. The
idiom for " very few " would have been "amaist nane," while for a more
abundant crop than the "canny scattering few," the expression might
have been "a good few," and for an abundant, or very abundant produce,
"a vast," or "a strange vast."

2 Compare the Winter's Tale in W. Warde Fowler's Tales of the Birds.

'Starved with cold and hungered to death ' 325

looked back over sixty years and remembered myself a school-
boy gunner, and what a triumph it had been when I had
managed to stalk an actual fieldfare, and carry home the
game to my admiring sisters and mother.

But perhaps the most pitiful case was that of one of
the two or three whose faltering pinions have borne them
to my window. It was on a Sunday. Our early dinner
was over, and I was giving the poor bird -pensioners their
midday dole, when I noticed a stranger feather-ball amongst
the expectant lot, sitting below the window at the very
foot of the wall. It scarcely troubled to stir on the open-
ing of the window — always a welcome sound to half a score
robins, cuddies, and house-sparrows, who flew down at once with
ready expectancy. But this poor fluflF of fieldfare feathers only
moved a yard or two, and when it saw the other birds pecking
away for dear life, it seemed too stupefied to understand that
they were finding food, and that there was food for it too, if
it would. Presently it came to itg old place under the window,
and I dropped food upon its very head and back ; but all in
vain. It was growing time for me to make ready for after-
noon church, and the snow-enforced struggle to get to it on
foot ; but I found time to go and take the bird up and bring
it into the warm room and try and get a little food down its
throat. But it was all in vain ; and though I left it in charge
of a sympathetic member of my household, it was as good as
dead when I got back again.

The strangest bird visitants that ever presented themselves
at this dining-room window were a couple of snipes, which came
regularly, twice always, and sometimes three times a day, to
the meal provided for distressed birds ; and for their especial
benefit bread soaked in milk, enough to soften it, was put out.
This went on, if I remember, for eight or nine days continu-
ously. Once a grayback crow came, and the same winter with
the snipes a single water-hen ; and regularly, moreover.

But the queerest bird visitors — the queerest, I mean, in their

326 Miscellaneous

ways and gestures — I ever had on this bird-trodden terrace
were a pair of landrails or corncrakes, which came into my
garden as their place of temporary residence, while they took
a look round to see where they might advisedly — not exactly
pitch their tent, because that is not their habit — but " squat "
or settle for the season. I had a patch of lucerne growing in
the north side of my garden ground then ; and it afforded the
landrails beautiful shelter and abundant food. But they
made divers excursions from the place of their shelter, and
invariably on foot. More than once or twice their vagrant
humour led them on to the lawn, and from the lawn to the
foot of the terrace, and twice on to the terrace itself.

One memorable morning, breakfast was just over, and I
had risen from my chair and as usual drawn nigh to the
window. The corncrakes were just coming under the hedge of
rhododendrons which skirted the lucerne and cut it off from
the lawn. I called my wife and two or three elder children to
come very cautiously and quietly to watch these quaint-looking,
quaintly-moving fowl. The birds drew on, approached the
slope of the terrace, mounted it, advanced, came right up to
and under the window, to within half a dozen feet of the four
or five pairs of watchful eyes which were eagerly surveying every
movement, every feather of their bodies almost. All at once
they seemed to become conscious that they were not so much in
private as they had assumed. They stopped suddenly from
their somewhat gliding manner of advance and fixed their view
intently upon us. We hardly breathed. The boys had enough
of their father in them to be as quiet and as motionless as
the birds themselves. The gaze from without continued for
many seconds, the gazers continuing to draw themselves up in
the most surprising way till they stood more like small posts
driven into the ground than anything else. This continued
for nearly two minutes, and then in a flash they were gone !
And they ran ; they never stirred a wing — a feather, I was
going to say; but the incredible rapidity with which they

Casual visit of Quails 327

disappeared has always rested in my mind as about the most
marvellous bird -achievement in all my sixty-five years of
observation.

A pair of quails once came into the same part of the garden,
but they never offered themselves to view. I hoped they
were going to nest somewhere near, as they stayed for four or
five days in the fields a little east, and later a little north-west
of the house. I saw them one day in the field last named,
after much trying ; but I never saw nor heard them again.

ORNITHOLOGY {continued)

It is hard when on with my birds, which in some way or
other have been the objects of great interest to me for more
than threescore out of man's allotted threescore and ten
years, and in many individual cases my pets and my friends
too, to turn away for any other attraction whatever ; and
I daresay if what I am writing in these reminiscences is ever
read- by any one out of my own family, I shall be held ex-
cused for one little gentle canter farther on one of my stud
of especial hobbies.

One thing, however, which I do not propose to do is to
give a formal catalogue of the "birds I have known" in
Danby, although there have been some interesting occurrences
among my experiences. Thus, one Sunday afternoon I had
a White's thrush on the grass under my study window
for perhaps ten to fifteen minutes, examining him at my
leisure with the aid of a pair of excellent field-glasses, so that
every feather and feature was as clear and well defined to
me as if I had held him in my hand. My eldest son was
with me at the time, and drew my attention to him as being
different from any bird he had before seen. I was getting
things ready to go to church, and did not want to be bothered.
However, the lad's urgency constrained me to give it a look,
and then I wished it had not been almost church-time. My
boy wished it had not been Sunday, that he might have taken
his gun. I think I was glad, in that connection, that it was

Reckless Bird-murdering 329

Sunday, for I hate the slaughterous propensities of collecting,
and still more, of only curious, ornithologists.

Not so very many years ago three kingfishers were seen
in the beck ; and positively one afternoon I saw five fellows
with guns, all bent on the destruction of these poor harmless,
but unluckily gorgeously plumaged birds. Another day I
heard the note of the great spotted woodpecker. The day
after he obligingly flew across the road in front of me, and
settled in a stunted oak-tree within a score or so of yards,
and as I walked quietly on he let me come within five or six
paces. I thought to myself, "You are much too tame," and
it was but a day or two after I heard he had been Shot by
one of those wretched gunners who persecuted and slaughtered
the kingfishers. One of these same beautiful birds — I mean
the spotted woodpecker — made his appearance in the parish
just about the year I came into residence, and was shot by
the gamekeeper, who showed his prize with great pride to
"my lord." But he got such a wigging from "my lord"
for the slaughter that I do not think he showed his next " rare
bird " victim.^

Woodpeckers were anything but uncommon here till lately,
but what with cutting the wood down and what with shoot-
ing the occasional visitors, the visits of these harmless, inter-
esting, beautiful birds are strangely like those of angels. I
wish our bird-murderers had as much sense as Balaam's ass,
and could recognise the angel of kindness to living creatures
when she steps in between them and their intended victim.

The raven has been extirpated within my time. The
bam owl — they used to breed in the church-tower — had gone

^ The gamekeeper mentioned here was my old friend Robert Raw.
Although a gamekeeper, he was still in many particulars a bird-lover,
and he is mentioned later on in these notes as being such. I was, how-
ever, unable to convert him to my view touching the harmlessness (in the
game connection) of the kestrel. It was a "hawk," and the name was
as fatal to the poor birds that bore it as the proverbial "bad name" to
a dog.

330 Miscellaneous

a few years before. The brown owl, wood owl, or screech
owl, if it exists still, is represented by one pair only ; and I
used to know of two nests in the Park ^ alone, and there were
other two or three pairs about the woods near the lodge, and
again others in the Crag Wood; and any still evening one
could hear their note in two or three different directions. But
now it is seldom indeed that I hear the — to me, as well as
to Gilbert White — musical hoot of the owl of the woods.

The beautiful merlins, too, are comparatively little seerij^and
their place almost knoweth them no more. For they had a
place since I have been here. There was a moorland point no
great way from the so-called British village on Danby Low
Moors where they bred regularly — at least, nested ; for their
eggs seldom escaped the gamekeeper or his watchers. Indeed,
there were often two pairs on that part of the moors ; and
in days yet older they were not infrequently found haunting
the high moors. And I have not seen a harrier or a buzzard
these thirty years. Last year a sparrowhawk dashed into a
spreading thorn-tree which shelters part of my lawn, sweeping
very near me as he did so ; and he took his sparrow from a
chattering, squabbling group, who, if they had not been so
loud and spiteful in their mutual recriminations, might not
have attracted the hawk, or been so unluckily blind to his
proximity. But the hawk of all others I miss the most is
that bird of graceful flight, and almost gracefuUer poising
and balancing, the kestrel or windhover. The "little red

^ The Park is the name of one of the two bits of old woodland till
recently left in the parish ; but the wood in it now is no longer old wood.
All the old trees have been cut down within the last twenty-five years,
and the ground replanted with spruce, larch, and Scotch pine. The
imposing-looking name is due to the circumstance that it was a part of
the " park and warren " granted by the king to the old Brus barons. It
was of great extent ; for, beginning at a point westward of the site of the
Brus stronghold, it extended to below Lealholm Bridge, as is abundantly
testified (if need were) by the many local names along its length still
embodying the element "park," as Park-end, Park-nook, Park-house,
Underpark, etc.

Give a Kestrel a bad name and shoot him 3 3 1

hawk," they used to call him here, as they called the merlin
the "little blue hawk." But alas for the poor kestrel!
Among the most useful and quite the least harmful of pre-
daceous birds, the beings whose " eyes have not been opened "
either by angels or otherwise, have given him a bad name,
and plundered and shot him and his too nearly to the verge
of extermination.

One of the watchers here told me one day, in the manner
of one who had accomplished a feat, that he had been help-
ing in a raid on the little red hawks in Crunkley Gill, that
they had killed — little and big — seventeen, and that there
were stiU another or two left, which they meant to have yet.
I am afraid I made some uncomplimentary reply ; at all events
I put my friend William on his mettle. " Dee nae ho't amang
t' gam', saidst 'ee ?" he began ; " Ah aims Ah kens better 'an
that ! " And then he thought to cover my face with con-
fusion as well as shut me up ; for he told me he had shot
a kestrel going into its nest (containing young ones) with the
hind quarters of a young moor-bird in its claws. Perhaps it
was wrong of me to smile, and not to look confounded and
abashed ; but I did not, and I asked William if he had seen
many birds, game birds or other, which had been struck down
by hawks, and furnished the aggressors with a meal. "Ay,
he had, a good few. They were gey and good to tell." So
I thought, I said, when they were big enough not to be made
one mouthful of, so to speak. "But what had that to do
with the hover-hawk not doing any hurt among the game ?"
Well, I said, when you have found, say a partridge or a young
moor-bird that has been killed and eaten by a hawk, which
part has the hawk eaten ? " Wheea, breeast and wings, for
seear." Yes, said I, and how much, and what part was left %
" Wheea, back and hind legs, in coorse." Exactly, I rejoined,
and yet you make the poor hover-hawk just leave the breast
behind him, and bring the back and hind legs to feed his
young with. \\Tiat a precious fool a hover-hawk must be !

332 Miscellaneous

I think William smelt a sarcasm, and felt a little conscious
that " parson might not be altogether in the wrong," or the
kestrel the only wiseacre. But I went on to ask him about
the hover-hawk, and his balancing over a pasture-field, or a
fallow, it might be, as free of herbage fit to cover a game-bird
or even a lark, as his own fustian jacket ; and by continuing
the catechism I got him to admit that " mice and such small
deer " must form a great part of the kestrel's ordinary captures.
All the same the kestrels are ridded out of the country ; and
so are the weasels, as well as the owls. And what is the
conseqtience, or one of the consequences ?

An inordinate increase of field mice, long tails and short
tails, and all sorts of tails together. It is a fact that my
gardener killed down the mice in and about this garden last
year to such an extent that he thought there was not another
left anywhere near. It is a further fact that, our first snow
falling on 27th November, the ofiicial just named saw that he
must set his traps, and sunken pankins of water, and other
mouse -catching enginery at work, and within the eighteen
days which have passed since then he has caught thirty-five
mice — mostly long tails — in the garden. And only yesterday
our principal farmer said to me, " The mole-catcher keeps down
the moudiewarps all right ; but we shall have to have some-
body to look after thae mice. They're getting to be over bad
for owght with the holes they mak's in the fields, and the
heaps of earth they brings out." And this was apropos to my
complaint that they had got into the church — not a house
near it anywhere — and had injured our valuable American
organ to such an extent that it would cost several pounds to
make the damage good. They have actually eaten some of.
the wooden stop-couplers quite through.

But to return to our birds. I have twice seen the great
gray shrike ; once a fine mandarin drake has appeared in the
beck — an escaped bird from some aviary, of course. Once
during a walk by the beck-side I saw a goosander — either a

Occasional Bird- visitors 333

hen or a young bird of the year ; for it was in the so-called
" dundiver " plumage — and an interchange of attention passed
between us. It came up from a fishing-dive close to the bank
on which I was walking — so close to me that barely four feet
of space intervened between me and it. Luckily I saw it
before it saw me ; and there might be a reason for that ; for
it had something else to attract, and, indeed, occupy its
attention. I said it had come up from a fishing-dive, and it
had the prey it had captured all alive and kicking between its
serrated mandibles, and as the said prey — a nice little trout
of about six inches long — lay crosswise of the bill, the
wagglings and quiverings of the fish affected the bird in some
degree. But whether the fact that I saw the bird before the
bird saw me might thus be accounted for or not, the result
was that I had time to pull up short and stiffen myself as
rigidly as I could. And there we remained for, I should say,
a hundred seconds, the bird watching me and I watching the
bird. I knew it would dive like a flash if I moved a finger,
and I constrained myself to be still. At the end of the said
seconds the diving-duck brought his trout adroitly and
quickly round — too quickly for me to see how it was done —
so that its head was in the gape and the tail outside ready to
follow. And follow it did. In a moment where there had
been a trout there was a straight vacuum, and the next
instant the dundiver was in flight.

On similar walks I have seen a golden -eye, not in full
plumage ; and a good specimen of the tufted duck ; and my
eldest boy one day got an immature red-necked grebe. This
was a rare bird indeed ; and Graham, the bird-stuffer at York,
told me it was but the fourth he had seen in forty years'
experience.

Once, and only once, I have seen a little grebe or dabchick
in our stream ; but two or three times I have come upon the
water-rail. One I shot as it ran along the nearly dry bottom
of a deep ditch with suflSciently steep banks, thinking it

334 Miscellaneoiis

was a rat; for the movements of this bird, as well as of
its congener the landrail, are of an even, non- undulating,
gliding character, not what we usually understand by the
word "running." See the awkward, grotesque action of the
Cochin-China fowl, with its long ungainly legs, or of a full-
grown turkey, and compare them with the rapid, even running
of the partridge or grouse, and you have the very sublimity
of absurdly awkward action and movement suggested and
illustrated. But even the partridge, as compared with the rails,
runs much as the old cow does as contrasted with the graceful
tripping of the milkmaid the poet's eye is able to behold.

Another day I was sitting on the bank of the beck at a
point where the current widens out into a good sheet, after
having come rollicking down a series of sharp streams, and as
if pausing to take breath before going a header over a sharper
descent still, with a narrower course, and a bottom rockily
uneven enough to insist upon a good deal of acrobatic motion
on the part of the stream. As I sat, perfectly still, with a
high bank opposite to me sloping up to the grass field above,
and more or less overgrown with whins (many of which,
however, had been burnt and stubbed not so long before), all
at once a water-rail came in view, perfectly at home and
entirely unconcerned, and gave me a glimpse of the ways
and manners and tricks of the bird in its private life. It
glided in and out among the coarse and somewhat sparse
herbage, never pecking, as other birds do, on or about the
ground, but evidently on the look-out for its own peculiar class
of "grub," and finding it where such classes of food are to
be found, viz. sticking to the stems of grasses or other coarse
vegetation capable of supporting the weight of a small snail
shell with its occupant inside. It flirted its tail now and then,
when it made a rather longer glide or twist than usual, much
after the fashion of the water-hen ; and it was curious indeed
to note how it steered itself among the intricacies and obstacles
besetting its path. I was able to observe all its actions.

An Artful Dodger among Birds 335

gestures, movements, captures (as it appeared), for a space of
ten to fifteen minutes, when something or other disturbed it,
and in a moment it was gone.

Indeed, the ease and rapidity with which these birds — both
the landrail and the water-rail — move amid the obstacles
apparently presented by the thick growth of herbage, whether
in a corn-field, or in a clover-field or meadow, is a matter I
have seen adverted to in many diff'erent notices of the habits
or peculiarities of the genus by divers writers on natural
history topics. Yarrell, I think it is, who suggests that the
bird is specially framed for such a purpose, having what he
calls "a compressed form of body." It is perfectly true; and
equally true that both birds trust, and with good reason, to
the expedient of flight on foot in preference to that of flight
on the wing. It is almost impossible to flush a rail a second
time, even if the dog be put on the track almost immediately
after the bird has reached the covert.

Another habit characteristic of both birds — which, how-
ever, I have only seen illustrated in the case of the water-rail,
but flnd described at some length by Jesse, whose account is
quoted at length by Mr. Yarrell — is that the bird, as school-
boys express it, " shams dead " in the presence of inevitable
danger. The account is amusing, and in brief is as follows.
A gentleman's dog catches a landrail and brings it to his
master, unhurt of course, as is the well-trained dog's way, but
to aU appearance perfectly dead. The dog lays the bird down
at his master's feet, and he Uxras it over with his toe. It
simply moves as it is moved, all its limbs limp. Continuing
to regard it, however, the man sees an eye opened, and he
takes it up. The "artful dodger" is quite dead again in a
moment, head hanging and dangling, limbs loose, and no sign
of life anywhere. It is put in its captor's pocket, and not
liking the confinement, begins to struggle. When taken out
it is just as lifeless as before ; but being put down upon the
ground and left undisturbed — the gentleman having stepped

336 Miscellaneous

to one side, but continuing to watch — it lifts its head in a
minute or two, and seeing all apparently serene, it starts up
on a sudden and " cuts its lucky " with singular speed.

In the case of the water-rail, which came under my own
observation, it was picked up on a snowy day by the most
intimate of the friends of my youth and early manhood. He
assumed that it was dazed with cold and perhaps what we
Yorkshire folks call "hungered" as well. So he brought it
home with him, and laid it on a footstool in front of the
dining-room fife. Five minutes passed, ten were gone, and
still the lifeless bird lay as it was put down, dead to all seeming ;
only not stiff, as it ought to have been if dead of cold as well
as hunger. A few minutes later my friend, who was very
still, but yet with an eye to the bird, saw it — not lift its head,
like the landrail, and take a view, but — start off in a moment
with no previous intimation of its purpose, and begin to career
about the room with incredible rapidity. It never attempted
to fly. Any other captive bird in its position would have made
for the window at once, and beaten itself half to pieces against
the glass. Not so the rail. With it, in its helter-skelter and
most erratic course, it was anywhere rather than the window
or the fire. Round the room, across the room, under the sofa,
under the table, from corner to corner and from side to side,
steering itself perfectly notwithstanding legs of chairs, legs of
tables, the sofa-feet, footstools, or what not, on and on it
careered ; and it was not without some patience and many
attempts that it was eventually secured. Within an hour or two
of its capture, moreover, it took quite kindly to some raw beef
cut in thin long strips, and did not appear to find captivity
too irksome. It was frequently let out for a run in after-days,
and always started on the same random course, never once
taking wing or making for the window. It was not very
difficult to catch it at the close of one of these excursions after
the first day or two, and it soon became tame enough to go
and take food out of its master's hand.

Young Lapwing and Baby Snipe 337

It was but three or four years ago that a young pewit,
which I had been told by its parents was somewhere very near
me, and which, after two or three minutes spent in the search,
I succeeded in detecting, and had taken up from its skulking-
place, had the consummate " cheek " to try the same dodge upon
me. It struggled hard for some seconds after its capture, and
I had to be very careful to hold it securely, and yet so as not
to injure it. Finding struggling did not pay, it tried the other
plan and grew limp. I knew it was not hurt, and I did not
believe it was all exhaustion. I opened my hand and let it
lie on my palm. It lay quite still, and equally limp. I put it
down on the ground, and except that I could see it heard its
parents and quite understood what they meant — for there were
little tremors or jerkings not due to the action of the heart
when they came very close and gave us both (there was no
doubt about that) a bit of their mind — there it remained quite
quiescent. It was no use for it, poor pinionless birdie, with
its as yet ramshackle, lanky apparatus of legs, to jump up and
cut off — the slang is so expressive, and must be forgiven — like
the full-grown, well-practised, fleet- of -foot water-rail ; so it was
more cautious. It looked up, got up, tottered a step or two,
but stopped in a second if I moved to recapture it. When the
old birds saw it on the ground, they receded to a greater
distance. If I took it up again they were at once "as before."
I did not wish to prolong their anxiety, and after putting it
down again I let it totter along in its half imbecile way for
ten or a dozen yards. Something made me take my eye off it
for a few seconds, and when I looked again it was lost. I
think I spent ten minutes looking for it in the close vicinity of
where I had seen it last ; but I saw no more of it. It had
skulked out of my sight altogether and effectually.

A young snipe was caught one day by two of my boys,
who must needs bring it home to show it to me, a mile and a
half away from the place of its capture. It was already two-
thirds the weight of its mother or father, with a bill, however,

z

338 Miscellaneotts

not longer than the pewit's, and with such a preposterous set
of what it would have called legs, I suppose, if it could have
spoken our vernacular; if not, shanks would have been the
word. Those loose-jointed toys which are made to execute
certain antics called dancing by the pulling of a string between
their legs, would supply almost as good a pair of understandings
as our young snipe ; arid for proportion of body to legs see the
pictorial representations of " Ally Sloper." The poor little bird
was taken back to the place whence he came, and when set
down on the ground again tottered feebly away.

When I looked into Yarrell's account of the rails just now,
and noted his remarks on the subject of the imitation of the
landrail's note, and the way in which it was effected, I was
reminded of two or three other circumstances of the same
kind. I have been able myself to produce a very good imitation
of the method described by Yarrell, as also a very fairly success-
ful one of the call of the partridge. At least it sounded very
good to me and another who knew the call in question and its
intonations as well as I did myself. But how it sounded in
the ears of the partridge, distant by the space of a field or two,
might be, and no doubt was, quite a different thing. All the
same, I used to be well aware that such calls were made
and were used not unsuccessfully. The materials were a
glover's thimble, a piece of parchment or vellum, and a longish
round and strong horsehair. I had no difficulty either in imi-
tating the cry of the little grebe or dabchick.

But besides these empirical attempts on my own part, I
have known one man or more who could call the hare by imi-
tation of the note or cry used in the breeding season ; and one
man in particular, who had retired from the honourable and
lucrative profession of poacher as it used to be carried on
in this moorland district — which he did on becoming tenant of
a cottage belonging to the lord of the manor, and with the
fullest understanding, couched in no kid-glove terms, that if
ever he was caught indulging in the old tricks, however little,

The Poachers ' Trade Secrets ' 339

out he would go, custom and term alike notwithstanding — he
it was who told me that he had often shot from four or five to
six or seven grouse at one standing, having called them thither
by his own vocal imitation of their note or call. That his
story was true I had no doubt I once had a reclaimed poacher
in my stated service, and my formal engagement — or his with
me — was in these few and pithy words, " Now, John, if ever
I know you either poach or drink, your engagement with me
terminates thereby and therewith." John neither drank nor
poached, and a capital man he proved himself. It was his
cleverness and adaptability when working for me at some deep
drains I was putting in, in very diflS^cult ground, that first
attracted my attention to him. I had known for long enough
that it took no fool to make a good all-round poacher, and I
wanted a man who was not a fool ; for in taking the glebe
lands (which I was draining) into my own hands, I was aware
I was doing rather a venturesome thing. And so I engaged
John. After a while we became very good friends ; and John,
besides doing his various work as groom, gardener, hind, in-
creasingly well, was quite willing to be communicative as to
what I may call "trade secrets." As to making a wire and
setting it, and two or three other matters of the same kind, I
was already a pretty fair proficient ; but there were niceties
about both I had never dreamed of. I did not know till he
told me that even partridges could be wired, and how it was
possible to get from three to half a dozen hares — ^of course
where hares were numerous, as in the days when I have seen
five at once in my own garden, discussing the flavour of my
winter greens by moonlight — from one selected standing only.
From him, too, I learnt other (and corroborative) matters
touching the calling of grouse and other birds, either by the
voice only, or by the voice assisted by art (as in some of the
Canadian hunter's experiences), or by artificial means only.

One day, some twenty or twenty-five years ago, I had
arranged with one of the principal yeomen here to go with

340 Miscellaneous

him to Glaisdale Swangs — a wet, morassy division of the
Danby and Glaisdale high moors — our object being to get, if
we could, a few couples of golden plover. I had for long prac-
tised the imitation of the cry uttered by the golden plover,
especially when they are on the ground ; and I flattered my-
self I could do it rather well — as, indeed, I think I could.
Our plan was to walk towards and over the likely haunts, and
get a shot or two before the birds became restless, as they do
when disturbed by intrusion into the haunts which are usually,
after the height of the grouse-shooting, but little interfered
with either by shepherd or dog. The moor thereabouts is too
wet to be so much affected by the moor-sheep as other parts
are. "We got two or three shots in this way, and then we
separated to take our own private chances of a passing flight
or a few stray birds still about the ground, and either stalking
or calling any of whose comparative vicinity we might become
aware. I do not think either of us was remarkably successful
for a full hour after we had separated, and I was beginning to
think our bag would be light. Suddenly I heard the call of a
plover, and under what seemed to be the most favourable cir-
cumstances., The moor rose from where I was standing with
a gradual slope, but little broken for the third part of a mile or
more, and the call came from the upper part of the ridge, but
quite evidently from some little distance on the other side of
it. I replied to the call, and to my delight there was an almost
immediate answer. A minute or so elapsed, during which I
was cautiously approaching the point from over which the cry
seemed to come, and I called again. Another response, and
evidently the bird had been drawing nearer to me as I had
been drawing nearer to it. The same interchange of call and
reply -continued at the intervals of a half -minute or so, and for
a sufficiently long space to allow me to have got to within
forty or fifty yards of the ridge. I was crouching as low as
possible all the latter part of the ascent, and I made sure that,
on rising from my stooping attitude and making a quick rush

Identification of Birds Eggs often difficult 341

to the ridge, I should have a shot within very easy distance.
The call from the other side came just then, and my reply was
the best spurt I could make with my gun at the ready. I had
not covered two yards when I saw my companion's hat, and a
second later his gun, at the ready also. He had been answer-
ing my calls as regularly as I addressed them to the supposed
plover. I hardly need say that the only explosion which took
place was a united one of rather shamefaced but very hearty
laughter at our mutual discomfiture.

To pass to a different subject. Every lover, nay, every
friend and acquaintance, of birds knows that there are diffi-
culties, and very serious difficulties, in the way of identifica-
tion of eggs, occurring from time to time. I have had eggs
sent to me by young folks who happened to have fallen in
with my book on British Birds' Eggs and Nests, asking me to
identify such and such eggs which had puzzled them ; and my
correspondents have hailed from all points of the compass and
all parts of the kingdom. In many instances, not having the
nest to refer to, and no adequate description of it, all attempts
at assurance were defeated. But I have met with instances in
my own experience which were such that, unless all the cir-
cumstances were known, no satisfactory decision could have
been arrived at by any one save the finder, and by him only if
he were both accurate and observant. Thus, I took an egg
one day from a nest I assumed to be a chaffinch's. I was quite
certain as to the identity of the nest, and had no doubt that
the bird I had seen leave the nest was actually a chaffinch. But
the egg was of such a character that I went to the nest on two
successive days on purpose to ascertain the absolute identity
of the bird, and further, that my egg was not exceptional as
compared with the other eggs in the laying, as well as co-ordi-
nated with, the average chaffinch's egg. " Pale purplish buff,
sparingly streaked and spotted with dark reddish brown," is
Mr. Yarrell's description ; and Hewitson, giving the average
egg — and a very good representation, moreover — adds, " They

342 Miscellaneous

rarely differ much from the type given," although he has
"taken some of a light blue, blotched with reddish colouring,
and much like those of the bullfinch." But the eggs in my
nest had no "pale purple," or, as I have elsewhere called it,
"a vinous tinge," no "streaks or spots of dark reddish
brown," only the buff, but more than pale, and just the
slightest suspicion of a tinge as if it had been " shot " with
a woof of correspondingly pale "vinous." Delicately beauti-
ful they were ; but, besides the general shape and make
of them, there was nothing about them to remind one of
the chaffinch. But the bird I saw on the nest, as well as
leave it three several times, was just an ordinary, everyday
chaffinch.

Another day, in my garden and within twenty-five yards
of my study window, in some ivy growing thickly on the
wall running along the road-side of the garden, I found a
nest ; and I never saw a nest with all the characters of the
thrush's nest if that were not one. But the egg already
laid in it was a blackbird's egg. Mistake or doubt about
either the egg or the nest was impossible ; nay, inadmissible.
The next day another blackbird's egg was deposited in what
was to all intents and purposes, according to unvarying
experience, the nest of a thrush. Then I made it my business
to see the mother bird, and saw it ; and it was as veritable a
blackbird as ever flew. The next day, however, the mystery —
for mystery there was — began to be solved ; for coincidently
with the laying of the fourth egg the lining of the nest,
after the fashion of the blackbird, had been commenced, and
before the close of the following day had been completed.
There was now as perfect a blackbird's nest as had ever been
looked into by my well-accustomed eyes, and with five as
typical blackbird's eggs in it as could be desired.

But what a grand opportunity for a paragraph on a
wonderful instance in which a blackbird had been discovered
laying in a song thrush's nest was lost by the habit —

Cases of doubtful Nidification 343

uncomfortable to so many in such circumstances — of "looking
before you leaped " to a conclusion in the matter.

Another day, not very far removed from the date of the
incident just recorded, I was coming up from the beck with
my fishing-rod in my hand, when I noticed a bird, which I
never thought of doubting was a hen blackbird, fly out of a
bush in the hedge overhanging the ditch I vt^as walking beside.
It being the time of year, I looked for a nest and saw it
directly. There were two eggs in it, and they were not
blackbird's eggs, but thrush's ! I took them out and looked
at them closely, scrutinisingly. There they were — blue eggs,
and spotted, but with none of the streaking and spotting and
speckling which are characteristic in the colouring of the
blackbird's egg. YaiTell does say they are "occasionally
found of a uniform blue, without any spots whatever " ; but
these were spotted, and the only difference between the spots,
on them and those on the average thrush's egg was that the
spots were quite as decided about the smaller end as, with the
latter, about the larger end. Of course I watched that nest,
and saw the whole complement of eggs laid, and the hen
bird well on with her task of sitting, before I discontinued
my visits of observation. I may add, however, that they were
duly hatched, and produced blackbirds.

Thirty or forty years ago I could see three or four pairs of
the dipper any day I walked by the beck-side, or rambled up
the course of one of our brattling moor streams on their
downward run to help the volume of what we call, by way
of distinction, " the big beck." But now, where I used to see
six or eight or perhaps ten pairs, I barely see one. I wish I
had a fairy godmother, and that fairy godmothers were
as potent as in Cinderella times ! The favour I would try
my most ingratiating ways to obtain should be — nothing
truculent or bloodthirsty, although I do not love the reckless
shooters of rock - birds, rare birds, swallows .for practice,
pigeons at blackguard pot-shop matches, et hoc genus omne —

344 Miscellaneous

but that every gun-carrying lout who wantonly shot a poor
harmless bird of any kind whatever without a cause, should
be sentenced — not to judicial or other blindness, but — to
inability to hit his mark again for ever and a day. What
earthly good or satisfaction there can be in shooting a dipper
I cannot conceive ; and yet they have been thinned in the
way I have mentioned. In the loneliest walk they are always
companions, and always cheerful besides. To see him come
out of the water as if on purpose to say, " Good morning to
you ! Isn't it a nice cheery morning % Oh, it's so jolly," and
then to hear him sing his cheery little song, standing on a
stone just awash in the bed of the stream ; and then to see
him, with something very like a nod and a wink with his
bright eye, just trip into the water and go tumbling and
toddling along the bottom for half a score yards — why, it is as
good as killing a couple of snipe, right and left, to an embryo
sportsman.

I have come across their nests now and again in the
district around. One of the small tributary becks running
down this dale proceeds by way of Ainthorpe, passing through
a spacious garden by aid of a capacious culvert ; then comes
into the oj)en air again in a wild little griff; then is culverted
over again ; and when it emerges it is just bursting into the
road to the Station, but after a leap of a yard or so, is caught
in the open mouth of another culvert, down which it slips
abashed right underneath the roadway. Just within the rude
arch of this culvert a pair of dippers bred for some years.
But one unlucky day some of the boys from the school, intent
on getting their feet wet, or some like piece of schoolboy self-
indulgence, found it; and the haunt once known, there was
no future peace for the poor dippers. Another nest I knew
was in a hole in one of the piers of a bridge guiltless of arches,
lying on the road from Danby End to Castleton. A couple
of young fellows then living in my house were fishing one
day close to this bridge, when a very heavy thunder shower

A Fountain-gush of Holly-berries 34 S

came on ; and for shelter, their feet and legs being already
wet with wading, they resorted to the landward aroh-space
(as it should have been), and so were in a position to see the
ingress of a dark bird which flew straight to a put-log hole ;
just above their reach as they stood, but which they managed
to explore nevertheless ; finding therein a dipper's nest, and
in it well on to half a dozen white eggs. Another I knew of
just under the slightly overhanging brae of a ditch or drain
which served to convey a stream of water on its way to the
larger stream just below. Also among some old masonry that
had once served as a pier to an old forgotten bridge, and
so on.

But I am warned by the number at the head of the page
that I shall do well to bring these bird reminiscences to an
end. Yet, at the risk of being a little prolix, I should like to
add a few lines more, and on a matter that has from time to
time interested me greatly. I was coming through the upper
part of our Crag Wood one evening several years ago, after a
day's shooting in Fryup, when, seeing a wild pigeon flying
over my head and rather high up, I fired, in the belief that it
was within range. It fell to the shot, evidently killed on the
instant. Falling from a considerable height, which was added
to by the fact that it fell some little way below me on the
very steep hill-side I was standing on, it dropped with great
velocity, and the force with which it struck the ground — for
the wood-pigeon is a weighty bird — was very considerable. I
have written "struck the ground"; but in reality it struck
a bare rock -fragment, and to my surprise I saw a sort of
springing jet of brilliant scarlet objects sparkling upwards
from the place of its fall. It lasted but a moment, of course ;
but it was striking enough for that moment. On going to
pick the bird up, I found more than half a pint of holly -berries
strewed all round it. The fact was, it had been getting its
evening meal from among the many and large holly-trees
which abound in the wood in question, and having filled its

346 Miscellaneous

crop to repletion — you may see these birds' crops actually
protrude from fulness as they fly past or over you on their
way to their night's roosting-place — naturally it burst when
the bird fell with such force against the hard rock.

Another evening, on a similar occasion, I was passing
through the higher part of a considerable plantation of larches
growing on the upper part of the slope of one of our steep
moor-banks, and a small flight of wild pigeons happening to
cross within easy shot, I fired both barrels, getting a bird
with each shot. On picking them up I was a little interested,
as well as surprised, at finding my first bird was a wood-
jjigeon or ring-dove, and my second a stock-dove. But the
difference of species was not all. They were flying in to roost
in company, but the places in which they had been feeding
were as different as the constituents of their repast. The
ring-dove's crop protruded (as noticed in the last para-
graph), and was quite turgid. It felt like a thick bag of
marbles tightly tied, for the hard objects contained were
separable as well as hard. The stock-dove's crop, on the other
hand, was quite flaccid, and apparently not more than half
full, and its contents moved when manipulated with a sort of
liquid motion, just as small shot loosely held in a bag might.
On opening the two birds, so as to ascertain what the contents
of the craw of each might be, I found a large double handful
of acorns in the one, and about two tablespoonfuls of " runch "
seed (that being our name for that pestilent weed on care-
lessly farmed holdings, the field-mustard or charlock) in the
other. I knew very well where the runch seed had come
from, for I had seen the gamekeeper fire the two barrels
of his gun only a week or two before into a great flock,
principally consisting of greenfinches, and pick up some thirty-
five of the slain — to be used for ferret-meat, as he said. And
as I helped him pick up the victims I saw the seed lying on
the ground in such quantities that it might have been taken
up in spoonfuls. That was on the farm of our witch-fending

One single occurrence of Black Game 347

friend previously named. But I never heard that he
"faulted" the witches for the luxuriant growth of the runch.

The interest, or even surprise, I felt at noting the two
varieties of wild pigeon I had shot in the way mentioned
originated thus. The old gamekeeper — or rather the game-
keeper of those old days — had (as I daresay has already been
remarked) some sort of interest in the birds of the district.
In fact, when he died he left quite a nice little collection of
birds a little out of the common way, which he had shot and
had stuffed. He was not slow in finding out my interest also,
and that I was not altogether an ignoramus in the matter of
ornithology. Perhaps I had been here a year or thereabouts,
when he came into the house I was then living in, bringing
with him a bird which he had newly shot, and as to which he
was in utter perplexity and doubt. He knew it was "a doo,"
and that was all. Could I tell what it was % " He had nivver
seen owght lahk't afore." On taking it from him I saw at
once he had got a stock-dove. The interest to me was, and is,
that in and about the year 1846-47 the stock-dove was rather a
"rare bird" in Danby. My good old friend Eobert never
willingly shot another, as he wished they might increase and
multiply about the manor. And so they have ; and I know
that as many as half a dozen or half a score pairs now breed
annually. And, to mention only one fact more, I have this
year twice found one of the pair which has nested for many,
many years past in Little Fryup Head, feeding among the
moor blackbirds on the bilberry beds growing on the moor
brae overlooking Little Fryup Dale.

One other bird Robert tried hard — and under the strict
orders of his master, moreover — to "preserve," if possible;
and that was the black grouse. There was a brood of nine on
the low moor in the year 1846, including the two old birds.
But although no one was killed on this moor, and single ones
were seen on the adjacent moors, yet after a year or two no
more was seen or heard of them.

WINTER IN A MOORLAND PARISH

Yes, I have seen some winter weather in this out-of-the-way
place. I have seen the snow gathered in drifts of fifteen,
eighteen, twenty feet in thickness ; I have seen it gathering,
piling itself up in fantastic wreaths,, sometimes busy only in
accumulating substance and solidity, like a yeoman of the
elder days, and gathering at the rate of six feet or seven feet
in thickness in from twelve hours to twenty-four. And once
I saw it gathering — and gathering a foot deep in the hour,
moreover — before ever a flake of new snow had fallen, and
when the old snow was caked over with a crisp crust, the
result of diurnal or sun-thaws and nocturnal freezings again.
And the manner of it was on this wise.

It had been a fine day till past twelve o'clock, and it seemed
good for walking. There was a young farmer in the parish,
at the very eastern boundary of it, distant four miles and a
half of good walking the way I had to take, whom I wanted
to see. Besides being the son of one of the oldest and
stanchest friends I had in the parish — the old gamekeeper, in
point of fact — he was in great trouble. He had been engaged
to a young woman, also belonging to the parish, for a number
of years ; the banns had been asked out, and the wedding-day
was fixed. On that very day I had to bury her. She had
been seized with illness while ordering some of the wedding
gear, and died in two or three hours. And I wanted to go
and see him, and talk to him a little. My walk to his place

How Snow 'drifts' in the Dales 349

was accomplished ■without difficulty ; pleasantly indeed, as far
as roads and weather were concerned. But I had noticed
before I had reached my limit in that direction that the day,
and the weather most likely, were going to change ; and so I
was not surprised on setting my face southwards, instead of
westwards and homewards, to find that the wind was rising,
and rising sharply, not to say fiercely. But I wanted to see
another parishioner, the widow of another old and stanch
parochial friend, who had been ailing lately, and so I perse-
vered with the extension of my walk. This led me into Fryup
Head, the house I sought being well on to three miles from
the house I left. It was still perfectly fair overhead, the sun
shining brightly at times ; and the snow — no great thickness
of it anywhere ; perhaps two to three inches where it was
thickest — was crusted over, as I said. But the wind grew
colder and colder as it increased momentarily in force ; and
long before I got to my widowed parishioner's house the
crusted snow had begun to be broken up by the force of the
wind, and to drive along in most incisive fragments. There
were already, when I got to within a field or two of the house,
drifts formed in parts of the road approaching it such that
the wheels of a recently-passing vehicle had cut through some
of them to the depth of eighteen inches. Almost my first
remark on entering the house was to the daughter, of whom I
asked if the wheel-tracks I had noted were made by any trap
driven by a member of the family, hoping that, if so, he would
not be long away, or else he " would be matched to get home
again ; for it was safe there was going to be a ' hap.' " I did
not prolong my visit, for things were looking badly for my
walk home — a more than four miles' walk the nearest way I
could go, and that way from corner to corner of fields, over the
loose stone- walls ; and real rough walking.

It was quite time I was afoot. Some idea may be formed
of the fury of the wind from the fact that, as I paused at
the comer of the second field, up which the drift of the

3 5 o . Miscellaneous

snow -crust had pursued me with cutting sharpness — the
pause being due to the strong necessity of making my way
safely over a broken wall with a deep drop on the other side
— the sharp-edged particles driven with the full force of the
wind against the nape of my neck and the more exposed ear
and cheek, inflicted such acute pain that it required some
nerve to bear it and keep busy with getting over the nasty,
dangerous place. Once over, the worst was also over. There
were still two more walls to surmount, but then downhill,
across a sloping field, and into the road again. My way lay,
for the most part, for a mile under the lee of a five-foot wall,
and I got along well. But when I came to the gateways
through the wall there were snow-banks across the road and
a thick stifling drift of sharp snow-powder to work through,
as well as the loose snow about my feet and legs. I met one
of our farmers on horseback, who could scarcely speak so as
to be heard for the blast and the powdery snow. But I
managed to hear part of his greeting as we met and passed.
"It's a savage day, mister," was all I heard, and I echoed his
sentiment. On reaching the castle the direction of my march
altered, and I had the wind behind me. But there was a diffi-
culty at the first gate across the road I came to. There was
a drift just through it, nearly four feet thick, and it reached
several yards along the road. And I have known things
easier of doing than plunging through three or four feet of
utterly loose snow.

All this time not a flake of fresh or soft snow had fallen.
It was perfectly fair overhead, though thickening up from
half -hour to half -hour with a prophetic intimation of what
was yet to come. And come it did, though not for two or
three hours after I reached home, and had at last got the
snow out of my hair and beard.

All that night it snowed, and the next day. I wanted
to go to the station and the post on the first of the two days,
and the roads were known to be so full, and the drift was so

The way in which Drifts are formed 351

very bad, that my people would not let me go alone ; so my
gardener and eldest lad at home — the latter for the fun of it
— went with me. Within a quarter of a mile of the parsonage
I found snow in the road over seven feet thick in one place ;
and, for scores of yards together, my track lay along a snow-
covered fence — above it, not by the side of it. The next day
the seven feet of snow in the road had become fourteen, and
there was not a place in the entire road for the distance of
six or seven hundred yards where the snow lay less deep than
five feet, and in places it was from eight to ten. To get
along at all, we broke the fences and plunged along the fields
parallel with the line of road.

These accumulations in the roads, however, are all in the
way of business, and we are used to them. But the pranks
played by the snow at times would be amusing, even interest-
ing, if they were not so baffling and tiresome. A great wind,
with snow dry enough to drift, either already on the ground
or still falling, or, as likely as not, both together, catches hold
of the snow as it sweeps over these lofty moorland ridges and
drives it irresistibly before it until it loses its grip ; and that is
when the force of gravity becomes greater than the force of
propulsion ; and this happens on the lee side of a wall, and a
fortiori, on the lee side of one of these mountainous moorland
ridges. But the snow has this curious circumstance attend-
ing it, that it does not fall perpendicularly on reaching the
sheltered part ; on the contrary, it seems to become slightly
cohesive, and begins to form a projecting ledge from the edge
of the sheltering object. I have watched the process on the
sheltered side of a seven-foot wall, the top of which was almost
level with the face of the land on the other side of it. First
the level was attained by the lodgment of snow above the
wall. Then the ledge began to form, slightly curvilinear in
section ; the ledge itself being, so to speak, undercut like a
volute in sculpture. Belo^, on the sheltered side, there is
always a sort of gentle undercurrent of air, the action of which

3 5 2 Miscellaneous

is to keep the foot of the wall — if it be a wall we are watching
— free from any accumulation of snow for a foot or two away
from it, according to height; but also to blow the falling
particles upwards against the under side of the growing ledge,
which is thus thickened both from above and below, as well
as helped to grow in the direction of its projection. One
Sunday morning as I was going to my service at Fryup I
noted all this going on at one particular place, almost devised
on purpose to permit observation of the process, and I took my
notes with some nicety. I returned the same way something
under two hours later, and found that the ledge had advanced
about six inches, and grown in proportional thickness as well ;
as, perhaps, goes without saying.

This was on the road -side of a stone wall nearly seven
feet high. As I stood face to face with it and watched it, on
my left, sloping upwards from my very feet, for upwards of
one hundred and twenty yards of actual altitude — and the
last twenty yards very steeply — was the flank of one of our
moory ridges, and I have once and again seen the ledge
of snow I have been trying to describe project from the edge
or brae of the ridge from sixteen or twenty feet to sixteen
or twenty yards. Once, in going to my afternoon service
on foot — I could not have gone half a mile either on wheels
or horseback, as the roads were all full — on reaching the brae
at the point where my ordinary track begins to descend, I
found a snow precipice of sixteen feet deep, apparently cut-
ting off all further progress. ■ But there was a projecting
ledge of snow about a foot in width some ten feet below the
upper edge, and I thought I could let myself drop or slide
down to that, and bring myself up there. The plan was
successful. But on considering my landmarks on reaching
the foot of this wall of snow, I found the edge I had dropped
from was at least eighteen to twenty yards in advance of the
edge of the brae.

There were thirteen of my Fryup parishioners gathered for

Snow-climbs and Snow-wadings 353

the service at the foot of the slope, watching my proceedings.
The greater part of these inclined to think I would not
attempt the descent. Those who had known me longest
said, "T' priest wadn't be bett." And the event justified
their confidence. But the service over, there arose the
question of how I was to get back again ; and when I said,
" The same way -as I came," one oldish man besought me not
to attempt it; "it was over parlous for owght." Nay, he
was so urgent that he actually shed tears over my foolhardi-
ness, as he considered it. However I was not to be dis-
suaded, and though it was a "parlous " thing in a way, it was
safely accomplished. One of my boys, a lad of about sixteen,
was with me, and one of us had a strong stick and the other
an equally strong umbrella. These I stuck firmly into the
snow wall, the one a foot higher than the other, and then
working holes in with my feet until I succeeded in getting
foothold, I was able to move one of my two handholds
a foot higher, and to get a higher foothold ; and so on alter-
nately, until at last, after great labour and much delay, I suc-
ceeded in reaching the top. But had it not been for the sort
of channel worked into the snow by our downward slide I
do not think it could have been done.

But the most laborious, and perhaps the most venturesome,
snow walk I ever had was from Easington to Danby. I had
exchanged duties with my oldest clerical friend and neighbour,
George Morehead, Eector of Easington, with the understand-
ing that, while he returned to Easington, the three duties
done, I, after my three at Easington and Liverton, should
stay all night at the rectory, and have my trap sent over for
me in the morning. There had been a slight shower of snow
while the Liverton service was going on, but hardly enough
to do more than whiten the ground ; and when I had finished
the evening duty at Easington, it was a beautiful starlight
night, and no one had thought of, much less expected, a fall of
snow. But on looking out at eight in the morning, to my

2 A

3 54 Miscellaneous

intense surprise, there was a dense covering of white over all.
It soon became apparent from the reports brought in that the
passage of wheels along the level would be intensely difficult,
and over such hills and moor-roads as lay between Easington
and Danby simply impossible. I was most anxious to get
home for different reasons ; and, resisting the more than urgent
entreaties of my dear old friend and his wife, I determined to
set forth on foot. For the first three to four miles the walk-
ing, though very fatiguing — for there was not an inch of the
way with less than a foot deep of the yielding snow, which
permitted no firm foothold among it — was practicable enough.
As I passed Sir Charles (then Mr.) Palmer's lodge-gates at
Grinkle I ascertained that, there being somewhat urgent need
to send a carnage to Danby Station, the road had been ex-
plored to see if by dint of sending on the snow-plough a
passage could be effected ; but the attempt had been given up
"«,s hopeless. However, I determined to persevere, and reached
the purely moor part of the trudge at Waupley. Here the
difficulties began in good earnest. Though there had been
no drifting in the sheltered road, yet on reaching the open
moor it proved to be very different; for every few yards
drifts of from two to four feet deep intervened, and continued
to intervene. However, I struggled on until I reached the
highest level I had to cross over, and it was a dreary scene
before me indeed !

I had already been a little impressed with the utter isola-
tion of my walk. All life, even bird life, seemed to have dis-
appeared. I knew the moors had hundreds of grouse on them.
I never saw one nor heard one. I had seen two blackbirds
when making my way along a part of the road which was
also for two or three score yards the course of a small
stream ; and, strange to say, I had seen a goldfinch — the only
one I have ever seen in this district — just after reaching the
moor at Waupley. Besides these " feathered fowl " I saw only
two or three moor pipits, usually numerous enough on the

A 'parlous ' Moor-walk in the Snow 355

moors at all times of the year. I hardly wondered at this
scarcity of bird life, for it was a cruel day. The intensity of
the cold may be estimated by this — that as I walked and
labonringly perspired (I was in fact so wet that I literally had
not a " dry thread " about me) — the perspiration settled and
froze on my eyebrows and hair, and freezing into little balls
tinkled against the steel of my spectacles more musically than
pleasantly ; and naturally the birds and all other creatures
dwelling on or about the moors would be seeking such shelter
as could be found or made available. I did not even see or
hear a single moor sheep.

On reaching a given point on the level aforesaid, where
a cross -track deflected from the course of the high road
in such a way as to cut off an angle and save a distance of
nearly half a mile, feeling the temptation to try and save so
much of the trying fag I was experiencing, I attempted to take
the said short cut. The snow looked level enough, but I had
not allowed for the unevennesses and hollows of the moor
concealed beneath the fair-seeming surface, and before I had
waded five-and-twenty yards from the line of the road I found
myself struggling to get out of a dish-like hollow in which the
snow was deep enough to reach above my waist, and deepen-
ing every foot I advanced. Clearly the " short cut " would
be no saving, and I struggled back as well as I could to regain
the line of the road. I had almost begun to despair of getting
through with my walk, when I saw a moving object coming
over the top of the ridge next to that on which my path lay ;
and I presently saw that it was a cart with two horses in it,
and two men in attendance on them. This gave me renewed
hope, not to say confidence, for they were coming the very
way I had to go, and of course they must have tracked the
road for me. At the rate of our relative progress it took a
long time to cross the intervening space, but at last we met.
They were Liverton men who had been under the extremest
necessity for want of fuel, and they had been literally forced

3 S 6 Miscellaneous

to make the effort to get to Danby Station for a load of coal.
The snow was now drifting freely, and the travelling was
momentarily becoming worse ; but even when they had started
they had provided against the emergencies they foresaw by
putting two horses to their cart, doubling also the ordinary
force of men — two instead of one only — and providing them-
selves with shovels to clear their way if necessary, or dig
their "draught" out, if need arose. All the load they had
ventured to lay on with all their appliances had been six
hundredweight, and only yesterday (4th December 1889) I
met a man who had travelled the same road with a load of
coal in a waggon drawn by three horses, who had then, as he
told me, well on to two tons weight, easily drawn by his team.
And the two men I met that day had to walk, partly because
their horses were barely able to drag the cart with its light
load without their weight added, and partly because the fore-
most had to guide the leader over the trackless white waste
(with only a bit of ling growing on the braes on either side of
the moor road to show here and there where it actually was),
as well as help it in its plunging efforts to get through the
deeper places ; and the other with the shaft horse to keep it
steady to its work. They both of them knew me, and were
simply astounded to see me there on foot alone, and under
such circumstances and surroundings.

For the first half-mile after meeting them I found the track
they had made of the greatest service to me ; although every
step I took was through snow that reached above my knees ;
and, even before I reached the top of the ridge on which I had
first caught sight of them, the said track was being rapidly
obscured by the drifting in upon it of fresh snow. On the
other side of the ridge the track was gone in places ; but it
was practically downhill now, the most part of the way, and
my worst difficulties things of the past ; and I reached home
safe, wretchedly wet, and more exhausted than I knew, or had
allowed for.

What Moorland Snow-drifts may be ! 357

The snow came on again before long, and before the week
was out enough had fallen to make an even covering all over
the face of the country of about twenty -seven inches thick.
The Sunday following was vrithout any further fall, and it was
possible to get to my more distant chapel ; but the man who
drove me, and who had driven me, as he expressed it, thousands
of miles — he was the Daniel of my houe-digging experiences
— declared (and still declares) he had never had such a journey
before. It was indeed, from the difficulties of the roadway
alone, an awful drive. I think the fatigue in another way was
as bad as that of the plunging, struggling tramp from Easington
to Danby. And the next day I was in bed, very seriously ilL
My medical attendant shook his head over me, and said he
must see me again the next day — he had ten miles to ride to
get here — and when he came shook his head more gravely still.
" He would come again as early the foUowiag day as he could ! "
But he did not come. Another fall of snow made the journey
from Guisborough here impracticable alike by road and by
rail ; and for six days I lay hovering between life and death,
and the doctor not able to get near me !

That is one of my reminiscences of a moorland parish in
the winter-time. I think it was the worst winter I have known
here. The cross-road which runs east and west past the school,
about a quarter of a mile north of the parsonage, was so full
up with hardened, beaten-down snow, that one of my sons as
he walked along it was able to pluck twigs off the road-side
trees, which were high enough to admit of the passage beneath
them of the mighty loads of com or hay as they are piled up
in order to be taken out of the fields into the stack-garth.

The earliest reminiscence I have of what the snows of
vrinter might be in north-east Yorkshire refers to the winter
preceding the May which saw my arrival here as a resident.
I was living at Scarborough at the time, and saw the snow five
to six feet deep in St. Nicholas Street, before that from the
house-tops began to be thrown down into the streets. At this

358 Miscellaneous

time I was taking one duty per Sunday at Hackness Church,
riding the intermediate distance of five or six miles. The first
Sunday after the fall of snow specified, the journey was utterly
impossible. On the Sunday after, having ascertained that "the
roads had been cut," I took my journey as usual, and on
coming to Suffield Heights I found a somewhat narrow gang-
way cut, but wide enough to let a mounted man pass. In the
deepest part of the cutting the depth of the snow-wall on either
side, allowing for the addition made by what had been thrown
up by the digging, was such that as I rode through with a tall
hat on, the top of my hat and the tops of the snow-banks were
as nearly as possible on a level.

Probably it will be anticipated by those who have read
the preceding pages that on our wide, wild, shelterless moors
here, even the Suffield Heights accumulation might be, or would
be, outdone. And indeed it was. A little below the top of
Gerrick Bank, on the highroad from Whitby to Guisborough,
and on the side nearer to the last-named place, the snow was deep
enough and compact enough to admit of being tunnelled through,
so as to admit of the passage of the coach working between the
two places ; and the tunnel stood for more than a week.

On our Danby moors, at a place about two miles distant
from the point named as Gerrick Bank-top, there is a narrow
gully or rift, with steeply sloping sides, ling-covered, ascend-
ing to a height of about a hundred feet perpendicularly above
the level of the trickling moor -stream running through the
gully below. This was filled from bottom to top, so that there
was an even slope from the slightly higher brae on the west to
the lower one on the other side. And the old gamekeeper,
who was the first to tell me of the incident, added that a very
dry spring and early summer succeeded, and the moors be-
came so dry that the moor-birds had to travel considerable
distances to get to water, and that he had seen them come in
scores to drink of the water which trickled from the melting
snow as late as Midsummer day.

Putting the Shovel handy at bed-time 359

But the most extraordinary feat I have ever known as
achieved in the way of the making of snowdrifts by our
moorland blasts, took place during the winter of 1886-87, and
the account of it was given me by the "gaffer" of the small
band of road-minders and menders employed by the township.
The wind had blown from the north and east when the snow
began to be drivable, and he had had some difficulty in keep-
ing the door of his own dwelling — a house on the very edge of
the moor, three-quarters of a mile from the site of my own —
and one night he had taken the precaution to carry his shovel
indoors, with the almost certainty that he would have to dig
his way out in the morning ; inasmuch as the passage he had
cut and kept clear from day to day was filling fast at the
darkening, and there was every appearance of a terrible night
of snow and drifting. Armed with his well-brightened tool — •
for he had been snow-cutting for days whenever there seemed
a chance of doing it to any effect — he opened his door in the
early Ught, and strange, incredible as it seemed, there was no
big wreath of snow there — no wreath at all worth thinking of.
But at the other end of the house there was a gigantic
accumulation piled up, and reaching almost to the gable point
of the roof. The wind had shifted during the night and had
transported the results of its action during the previous days
from the one end to the other ! And exactly the same thing
had happened at the farmhouse some 200 yards more to the
north, and similarly situated. My friend, the road-surveyor,
was not the only one among us who went to bed with a shovel
— not exactly under his pillow, but — laid quite handy for use
the first thing in the morning ; and who had to use it too. At
the public-house on the hill opposite my house,, and about half
a mile distant, the oldish man who lived there and, in a sort,
served the landlady, told me his first work in the morning for
more than a week, after making on the fire and so forth, was
to dig a way out, and both in front of the house and in its
rear; and that "mostlings it teuk a lot o' deeing."

360 Miscellaneous

Late in the winter of the year before last there were five
Sundays in succession during which access to the parish church
was like matrimony — not to be " lightly enterprised or taken
in hand." The first of these Sundays I had with some
diflSculty made my advance about half-way to the church
when I met the parish-clerk, who had come forward to tell me
there was but one lad at the church, and he thought it a
chance if any one else either would or could come. It was a
wild day indeed, the snow stouring in blinding clouds ; and I
thought Peter might be right, and so I turned back, meeting
the wind now. It seems absurd to say so, but it was all I
could do to keep myself straight with the aid of the low hedges
on either side. But for the hedges I was only too well aware
I must have gone hopelessly wrong in the third of a mile
between the place where Peter met me and my home.

As it happened, two men turned up at the church after
Peter met me. On the next Sunday the same two men and
the boy were there to meet me. On the third Sunday
the same trio and a young woman. One of the men
had chivalrously essayed to carry the girl over the worst of
the snowdrifts, and the treacherous crust had given way
beneath the united weights, and a comforting and edifying
roll in the snow had been the result. I saw the parties
"laughing consumedly " as they came round the corner of the
chancel, and I am afraid I laughed myself when I was told,
in answer to my query, what had taken place. The fourth
and fifth Sundays saw my two male friends already named,
the boy, and two other men, present at the service. But all
this time I could not get to my distant church in Fryup.

It seems absurd, as I said just now, to talk of being so
easily lost, and within so limited a distance. It seemed infi-
nitely so indeed to me until I had made personal and ludicrous
acquaintance with it as a fact. Many years ago now, I had
been at church on one of these bitterly stormy days which
occur from time to time ; and I had already been told of a

A Burial under difficulties 361

funeral fixed for just after the service. The congregation had
barely numbered half a dozen persons all told ; and the snow
and sleet were driving about on the wings of a fierce wind, so
as to make even breathing difficult when one was forced to
face it. One of my sons had gone to church with me, a stal-
wart lad of seventeen or eighteen, and on the conclusion of
the service, seeing no signs of the funeral near, he decided not
to wait for me but to go home at once. I waited half an hour,
and still no signs of the approach of the procession. Another
quarter of an hour, and the storm still growing worse every
minute. Once and again both I and the clerk had gone out
to see, as well as we could, if there was any sign, but without
result. At last I began to think something must have inter-
fered with the arrangements, and that we were waiting to no
purpose, and I went out to look, for what was to be the last
time. It was almost impossible to look out steadily in the
direction the funeral was to come, by reason of the stouring
snow which blew directly into one's face and eyes ; but still
I had satisfied myself that there was nothing in sight;
and I had but just decided with the clerk that it was un-
necessary to wait any longer. While I was still speaking the
chancel (or priest's) door was opened and the figures of two or
three men appeared. But they were men in white garments,
men of snow in reality. I never saw such figures before.
All of them, as usual at a funeral, in black clothes, and yet
nothing that was not white with snow about them. They
must have been within a hundred yards or so of the church-
yard when I had gone for my last look, and yet, from their
whitened covering, and the difficulty of looking steadfastly
forth against such a storm, I had not been able to descry
them. And their story was that they had left Castleton in
good time, with the little girl's coffin in the hearse ; that the
difficulty of getting along the road had been considerable almost
from the outset ; that after the first half-mile it increased with
every step, and at last when they had made their way to

362 Miscellaneous

within three fields of the church, further progress had become
impossible for horse or hearse, and they had taken the coffin
out to bear it by hand. Then six able-bodied men had taken
it — the body was that of a girl under thirteen years of age —
and had left the road, and began to struggle across the fields.
Before they had made much progress they were of necessity
relieved, and other six strong men took up the burden ; and
alternating in this way, they had at length, and with extreme
difficulty and the greatest exertion, achieved the passage of
the three fields, or the total distance of less than half a mile.

The service at the grave was a continued physically pain-
ful experience. I was compelled to stand with my back to
the blast, or it would have been alike impossible to see or to
read in such a fierce, savage stour ; and the sharp, hard sleet
and roughened snow were driven against the unprotected parts
of my neck and face with such vehemence and impinged with
such force upon the parts already aching with the bitter cold,
that no flogging I ever got was in the least to be compared
with the smarting experience of those ten minutes.

But at last all was duly done and I started on my home-
ward way, having the stormy wind and drift directly in my
teeth. I could not see ten yards ahead of me distinctly, but
it was only a small field of half a dozen acres I had to cross
diagonally, to get into the road. But before I had got half
the distance, as I reckoned, I saw the boughs of a tree on my
left hand which I recognised as growingnn the left-hand fence
of the field, whereas my road lay along the right-hand fence ;
and at the same moment a voice hailed me with the words,
"You've getten wrang, Mr. Atki'son." I laughed over my
error and tried again, making for the corner of the field at the
end of the right-hand fence. But instead of reaching it, I
was brought up by the fence running transversely from that
on the left to that on the right — which I followed to the place
where I would be. I had thus gone astray twice within an
area of less than 300 yards square.

Winter amenities of a Moorland Parish 363

Smiling with myself at the absurdity of the misadventure,
still I was preparing myself for the laughter which, I was sure,
would greet the recital of my erring and straying when I got
home. Somewhat to my surprise, no one laughed ; my wife
eiven looked grave. But the explanation soon came. My
strong, stout son, unbothered with spectacles as I was^and
they are a bother in a thick mist or a roke ; and worse still, in
heavily driving snow — he too had gone astray on his walk
home ; and even worse than I had, and from the same cause.
The snow lay very deep upon the road which runs along the
hedge of the fifth field from the church, and he had gone a
little way ofi" the road on to the land, with the purpose of
finding easier walking, and the intention of walking parallel
with the said road ; which indeed he had no idea he was not
doing until he found himself face to face with the angle formed
by the meeting of two fences. The truth was he had insen-
sibly, under the influence of the pitiless storm and drift, borne
to the left as I had done in the much smaller field by the
church ; and it had not been without difficulty, owing to
the impediments offered by the accumulated drifts, and the
manner or disposition of them, that he had succeeded in
recovering his right road. After this, I never needed any
explanation how easy it was for storm-caught travellers over
unenclosed spaces to lose themselves, and with the issue of
having to be found by others. One poor feUow lost his way
thus some eight or ten years ago, and lay fifty-nine days under
the snow before his body was found. And the actual place
at which it was found proved that he had been so bafiied and
dazed as to be unaware that he was going in exactly the
opposite direction to that which would have led him home.

Such are some of the amenities of a moorland parish in
the winter-time.

MOOELAND SCENERY IN WINTER

It would be easy enough to multiply experiences as to the
difficulty, and at times the absolute impracticability, of any
locomotion, either by parson or people, in respect of going to
or from church, during what are in the vernacular called
" ho'ding storms." I will but give an illustration or two, and
then pass on to another topic. This house is, I suppose, some
1600 yards distant from the charch — not quite a mile, but
approaching to it. Two winters ago, and as late as the month
of March, the drifting of the snow, under the violence of a
wind blowing more from the east than from the north, had
been so great that, of the said distance of nearly a mile, there
were about fifty yards just near my garden, and fifty yards
about half-way between this house and the church, not so
snow-blocked as to permit me to walk along the road. All the
rest — say 1500 yards and more — was covered with snow to
the depth of three or four feet and upwards — in most parts,
six feet — and for the whole width of one field from eight up
to twelve feet. Fifty yards away from my garden gate I
had to break through the fence on my right hand, and
make my way parallel with the road along the strips of the
fields which had been swept more or less bare by the wind.
To accomplish this I had to make my way through two fences
running at right angles to the direction of the road, then over
two loose stone walls, then through (or over) another quickset
hedge, the line of which I could barely distinguish for the

Snow-wading somewhat exhausting 365

snow piled on and over it ; and so into the field adjoining the
churchyard. For three weeks there was no traffic along the
road. The farmers " up the dale," who were forced to obtain
access (on account of their live stock) to Danby End, the mill
there, and so forth, made a track for themselves along the
land in the fields alongside the road, making gaps in the stone
walls named above, and some sort of a difficult passage into
and along the lane past my house. All this traffic was done
on horseback. Sacks of grain to be ground, sacks of meal to
be carried home, were all conveyed on horseback.

Another time, I remember, more than twenty years ago, I
had myself made my way to the church by dint of breaking
the fences and eschewing the roadway, and when I got to the
church I had not the "legal congregation." I waited till ten
minutes past church-time, and seeing no prospect of any
addition to " Dearly Beloved " the parish-clerk and another
official, I set off homewards. Half-way between the church
-and the parsonage I saw some one leaning against the stone
waU by the side of one part of the lane or road. Coming
nearer, I saw it was the schoolmaster, a tall, strong, stout man
in the prime of his age and strength. I stopped to speak to
him, and added it would be no use his going on ; there was no

congregation, and I was on my way home. Mr. G , in a

voice that was not cheerful, said it made but little difierence ;
he was spent, and could neither go forward nor get back home
again. And indeed he did look exhausted — as well he might.
For he had toiled through and through the deep snow cumber-
ing the road for more than half a mile. I had tried it, and
after the experience of the first hundred yards, had given it
up as hopeless, and had broken the fence as above described.

This expedient had not occurred to Mr. Gr , and indeed it

was the first time I had adopted it so fully myself ; but when I
mentioned it to him, he cheered up greatly, and readily followed
my lead in clambering over the wall I had found him leaning
against, and after a struggle with the deep snow for a few

366 Miscellaneous

yards we found ourselves getting along without very heavy
toil.

As may be assumed without previous searching inquiry,
when a big stalwart master and a wdl-hardened and fairly
resolute parson encountered such difficulties in the way of
getting to and from church, it was fairly certain that children
due at school might not find it very easy to get there. One
week, when the snow covered the road to the church as above
described, the attendances at the school (excluding the master's
two sons) ranged thus : the first day of the week, two boys
out of the average eighty ; the second day, three ; the third
day, two ; the fourth day, three ; and the fifth day, four. It
was almost amusing to look in, as I did every day, and see the
master and his select scholars hugging the school stove in such
an affectionate manner. But another time, about six years ago,
one incident of this sort almost verged on the comic. I was
making my way down, not without effort or difficulty, to the
station and post. Between the school and the first dwelling
on the road in question lay a section of highway quite sure to
be filled up speedily, given adequate snow to be driven, and a
wind from the north equal to doing the driving. Neither of
these elements was wanting on the day in question, and within
threescore yards of the school it became necessary to take to
the fields, and through the stackyard of the house aforesaid.
It was a fearful day, and drifting so fast that newly-made tracks
were obliterated with strange speed in places. And there were
such tracks before me. Passing the stacks just named, the
road was less encumbered, and when I had nearly got to the
viaduct over the railway by the station, I saw a figure before
me struggling through a drift six feet thick on one side of the
road, and about three on the other. Through this shallower
part a horse had been made to force its way, and it was in the
sort of squandering, sputtering track thereby made that I saw
the little object in front of me. I came up with it just before
the passage was accomplished, and found it was a small boy of

' White as no Fuller on earth can whiten ' 367

about eight or nine years old. "What are you doing here, such
a day as thisl" I asked him. "Please, Ah's gannan yam."
"Why, where doyou live ? " said I. " Please, sir, anenst t' black-
smith's." — "Well, but what are you out here forf — "Please, sir,
Ah've been te scheeal." — " Been to school ! " I rejoined, " why,
there'd be no one there ! " — "Please, sir, yes, sir, there was me
and t' tweea teachers." The sturdy little chap had got through
all his difficulties, and was within a hundred yards or so of his
parents' house ; so I gave him what coppers I had in my pocket
and sent him home wishing for another and like snowy day's
adventure.

But it is by no means only in such ways as the foregoing
that winter signalises itself in our moorland district. Some of
the optical eiFects produced in times of copious snow, while it
is as yet unsullied, and alike unaffected by wind or sun, are of
almost incredible beauty. Almost forty years ago, at such a
time, a great electrical disturbance took place in the atmosphere.
I avoid the use of the term thunderstorm, because it might be
misleading. The thunder was very loud, and repeated in long
bellowing rolls, and the lightning was,- 1 think, as startlingly
brilliant as I have ever seen it — two occasions only excepted.
But there was no downfall : neither snow nor hail nor sleet
accompanied the disturbance. My children were then very
young, and there was some trouble among them by reason of
the alarming loudness of the thunder, and my wife was with
them. I was a little startled at hearing her cry to me from
the nursery door to come quickly upstairs ; but the explanation
was that she wished me to see the lightning and note the
marvellous beauty of the scene, as flash after flash lit the whole
snow-covered dale before us, and its steep retaining moor-
banks on either side, with an effulgence that defies description.
But the dazzling, almost intolerable brightness of the lightning-
lit snow — white indeed, and with a whiteness such as "no
fuller on earth can whiten " — that forced exclaiming rapture
rather thah quiet admiration ; while it was the most marvellous

368 Miscellaneous

succession of most marvellous tints and tones of colour which
dwelt on the retina many seconds after the flash ceased its
splendid being, that dwelt in the mind and imagination.
The total duration of this after-vision could not have been
less than sixty seconds ; and as the heavenly whiteness faded
it began to be replaced by the most delicate tinge of rose,
deepening by distinct gradations through darker tones into
steel-blue, which in its turn gave place to the customary
showing of snow by night, the night being unlit by a moon.

I have witnessed this wonderful display of nature's lights
and colouring three several times now, but in no case have I
seen the unimaginable glory of the first display outshone.
And the remembrance of it I think is indelible.

But this strangely beautiful succession of delicate rose
tints and steel-blue tones of deepening intensity has been
witnessed by me once and again since the night of that mar-
vellous display ; only with this difference, that the succession
of shades and colours was not a succession of time, or sequence
in order of progression, but simply of distance and altitude.
Or to put it another way ; At your feet and in the foreground
your eye rested on the unsullied snow; in the mid-distance,
or on the steep slopes of the ascending moor-banks, you saw
the tinges and tints of the rose ; and in the far distance, or
above the braes of the walls of the dales, you gazed out upon
the matchless blues. The colours might be fainter than as
they glowed forth after the magic operation of the lightning's
blaze, but they were all there ; and waited there to be gazed
on with a sort of reverent admiration, until the sun had sunk
too low behind the western moor-bank for it to be called day
any longer. The first time I saw this exhibition of nature's
colouring was on Christmas eve in the year when my walk
home from a fruitless visit to the church, in company with
the schoolmaster, took place. It was freezing with intense
sharpness, and the night was one more intensely cold than
usually befalls, even high up among the moors. As it was.

Gorgeous if evanescent Beauty 369

at this sunset my beard and moustache were frozen into one
icy mass while I stood and gazed on the gorgeous panorama ;
and it has only been on similar occasions of very sharp frosts,
■ivith a perfectly quiescent atmosphere, that I have ever wit-
nessed any repetition of it.

There is still, however, one phase of winter scenery which
has engraved itself as deeply as any other on my recollection,
and it is one I have observed under various aspects, and on
divers different occasions. What I refer to are the singularly
lovely creations of a rime or white frost, on the occasions on
which there is so large an amount of moisture in the atmo-
sphere as to lead to a heavy deposit.

I remember one occasion on which the deposit was so
heavy that ordinary rushes became rods of more than half an
inch in diameter, the merest dry bents — windlestraws, or
winn'lstraes as we call them here — the thickness of a big
cedar pencil, and every small twig in the hedges a bar of
glittering jewellery. It was a glorious winter's day, with
some three to four inches of snow on the level in the fields,
and with a temperature so frosty in the morning that the
moisture of my breath congealed with every expiration on the
hair about my mouth and chin. On looking at any of the
objects I have named with a little attention it was seen that
the incrustation depended on what may — for the purposes of
illustration — be described as a coating of fur, every constituent
filament in which was as compound as the upper shoot and
branches of a fir-tree. There was the spire on an infinitesimal
scale, with the whorl of radiating spurs at its foot, and the
same repeated at the foot of the second shoot of the leader,
and so on. Anything more strangely, mysteriously, ethereally
beautiful I never beheld. Each twig, each grassy seed-stem,
each blade of grass, and especially each longer and thicker
shoot or rush, was a miracle of symmetry, beauty, perfection,
composite of myriads of marvels on a lessened and lessening
scale.

2b

370 Miscellaneous

But these wonderful creations by nature's jeweller were
not limited only to the vesture of such objects as those I have
named. When I went forth on my afternoon's expedition to
Fryup Church — for it was on a Sunday that this fairy world
of ornamentation greeted my eyes — and had made my way
into a large smooth field, on pausing to look back towards the
north-west and north sides of the snow-scape, having the
brightly shining sun on my side as I did so, my eye was
caught by the myriads of glittering points that gemmed the
whole surface of the snow. The whole area for hundreds and
hundreds of square yards was lit up in this way ; and there
was not a hue or a lustre displayed by the diamond that was
not repeated by thousands of resplendent facets bestrewing
the field. There were simply acres of lustrous diamonds !

Naturally I turned to a closer examination of the circum-
stances and conditions leading on to the marvellous scene
which gladdened my eyes ; it was indeed the " joy " of a " thing
of beauty." And I then observed, what my somewhat im-
paired sight had not suggested to me before, that the entire
surface of the snow was covered with — to use the word once
already applied in the same connection — a thick fur of sprays
of frost-work like that on the twigs and grass, only three-
quarters of an inch in the pile. Every step I had taken had
crushed and destroyed myriads of frost-gems, all symmetrically
perfect and beautiful, and set as no jeweller on earth could
set them. Still, though these glimmered with a sort of pearly
lustre in the sunbeams, the sources of the flashing, lustrously-
hued diamond rays were not in them ; but set among them in
infinite numbers were facets of such reflecting and refracting
power as only Nature herself can produce, and set at every
conceivable angle, as well as endlessly diversified in size. I
no longer wondered that the brightness and the splendour
were so dazzlingly glorious to behold, when I came to regard
the enginery from which they resulted.

One other instance of filigree work of a like nature may

The Jewellery of a Hoar-frost 371

also be mentioned. I have seen it only during two winters,
in tlje course of which we had not only much snow on the
ground, and very heavy drifts of the same, but also after the
drifting wind had subsided a series of intense frosts — the
thermometer down to zero, and one or two nights three to
five degrees below. If any one can imagine the filaments of
a spider's web encrusted as I have tried to describe the twigs
and grass as being, and can further try and realise them, not
as in the radiations and concentric circumferences of the great
field-spider's geometrical work, but erring and straying in all
sorts of graceful and unstudied confusion from one fold of
the wreathed snow to another, some of them six or seven
inches long, and many less than half that, and all being more
or less vertical, he will have a faint idea of the decorative
energies of hoar-frost where there would seem to be no sub-
stratum of fibres for it to work upon. This kind of work,
however, was always on the wall-like drifts on the north side
of the roads, or where the sun during the short period of his
winter's warmth had been exercising such softening influences
as were permitted to him under such circumstances.

Once or twice also I have seen the snow in such places
and with such aspect look as if, so to speak, honeycombed,
but in the most delicate fashion, by the agency of the sun's
rays ; and then the aggregate group of tiny borings and in-
dentations all furred at the edge and in the cavities with a
cognate garniture of minute crystallisations, — again one of the
most beautiful vagaries of the frost-artist.

Again, the sun may " come forth as a bridegroom out of
his chamber, and rejoice as a giant to run his course," but, of
a surety, this Dales country of ours with its mighty moor-
banks, when draped and veiled in the marvellous garments
of pure, undriven snow, may be the image of the bride ready
to respond to his first smiles in the coming morning.

But similes apart, the dales are so deep, and the moor-
banks are so up-sweeping when mantled with fresh and deep

372 Miscellaneous

snow, and the ■ snow itself is so white, that while the accus-
tomed eye revels in the return of unforgotten beauty, and
recalls with gratified recognition this or that well-known
feature, the unaccustomed eye is fairly bewildered with the
Strange, pale beauty of the snow-scape, and for a time at least
seems to be incapable of fixing on any idea save that of an
immensity of whiteness. The recognition of beauty and
grandeur comes later.

But, indeed, it is not only in the winter time, or when
the hills are snow-draped and the dales snow-clad, that the
marvels of beautiful colouring are displayed for the delight
of the watching eye. A hundred times, and again a hundred,
I have seen in the early autumn evenings, when the sun was
sinking behind the western banks, all the moorland heights
towards the east and north, as they rose in their receding order,
take on the most lovely and delicate hues of violet and purple,
glorified with the bloom of the plum and the sheen of infinite
velvet.

Once, too, in the late autumn, in the afternoon of a rayless
day, I was coming from Westerdale over the end of the ridge
traversed by the road from thence to Castleton, when the
most amazing, unimaginable study in colour was spread out
before my astonished gaze. For I had seen the moor-scape a
thousand times before, and enjoyed its varied beauty, here
rough and rugged and there softened and swelling with
graceful undulations ; but I had never dreamed of the glory
it might wear when gorgeously apparelled in array of Nature's
own garnishing. At my feet and in the near foreground was
what, on ordinary days, we looked upon as the ling dulled
and browned by lapse and wear of the past season; in the
middle distance, and rising just beyond it, were the valleys
of the youthful Esk and the Baysdale beck, still green and
fringed with green, and backed by the strong slopes of the
Grown End and other moorland banks, all swept and charac-
tered by broad fields and patches of russet bracken ; and in

A Study in Colours, by Nature 373

the remoter distance, just bank behind bank rising in dim
solemnity, and all clad in the dulled uniform brown of the
ling of autumn. But to-day, although the contours remained,
and with them the material features of the scenery throughout,
all else was changed. All that was everyday, commonplace,
dull, was refined, all that was worn and faded was renewed
and glorified ; and not a thing left to remind us of the old,
the worn, the faded, or the unbeautiful. At my feet and
before me was, as it were, a carpet, hundred -piled, of the
richest brown, such shades as I had never seen nor imagined ;
the greens of the valleys were become the greens — and only
there seen — of the sky in a gorgeous simset ; the fields and
sheets of bracken were spaces of "old gold" and burnished
gold, and all the great space behind was in vast expanses of
richest purple gorgeous with heaven's own perfect bloom.

If one were to characterise the district as " a District of
Surprises," I think it would not be very difficult to justify the
description. To any one who may have studied the country
in what may be termed the physical geography way, but little
in the way of justification would be required. I remember a
visit from one of the most accomplished men I ever knew.
He covered my dining-room table with the six-inch Ordnance
maps of this part of the country. He spent the greater part
of two mornings in the diligent study of them, mastering all
the details. And at the end of the second morning he
remarked, " I have got it all in my head now. To-morrow I
shall go here and here and here" — indicating three or four
high points from which, it was clear from the maps, he could
get a very wide out-look — " and survey the whole fashioning
and contour of all, and bring away a complete impression of
the whole as a mind-picture."

I knew well enough what his thought and feeling and idea
were, for I had gone through the same process myself,
only with worlds less of geological knowledge; and, besides
that, the mind-picture or plan of this immediate portion of

3 74 Miscellaneous

the district which he had thus worked out for himself was
but a part of the mind-picture or plan which I had once on a
time been aided to form with respect to the entire district of
Cleveland. For I had seen, and been able to give some
amount of attention to, a most carefully and accurately con-
structed model of the whole area named, planned and carried
out on the scale and according to the lines of the Ordnance
Survey. All wks in proportion, the lengths and the breadths,
the depths of the depressions, the elevations of the heights,
the windings of the becks, the broader but hardly less tortuous
wanderings of the rivers, every physical feature of the district
lay there before me — on a small scale, it is true, but such and
so true as to enable me easily to piece together such portions
as I had been enabled to mark, study, and learn, according to
the scale of Nature's own works.

And this helped me to realise how truly the district is one
of surprises, and not only from the geographical point of view.
To illustrate this. You toil up from the depths and gullies of
Danby Head, and you find yourself with a wide sweep of moor
in front, mounting still, on the whole. You trudge or toil, as
the case may be, according as the ling is short or knee-deep
and the walking easy or beset with damp and not wholly
untreacherous places, and almost before you know or think
about it, you find an enormous area for your eye to wander
over. It is a clear day, and you see miles upon miles over the
widening, lengthening prospect. You are ready to rub your
eyes, and think they are playing you tricks. But it is York
Minster you see, separated from you by only the small linear
space of thirty-three miles or so. Wondering, you look on,
and realise that the great pile lies there before you, like a
huge ship at anchor on the surface, but not the extreme limit
of the surface, of a great, smooth, still ocean. It is central on
the sea, and not on the horizon. And the interpretation of
that is, that you are looking over and beyond York and far
into the more southerly distance.

One peculiar Charm of the Dales Scenery 375

Or you are a pilgrim and have been visiting the unsatis-
factory shrine of the reputed British village, and have
approached it from the Waupley side ; and now you are
breasting the ling -covered ascent between you and the
Beacon — stopping for a moment, maybe, to note the stone
which tells in simple words that there a man, lost and
bewildered in a snowstorm, had been found dead, and
shuddering a little perhaps at the thought of finding yourself
in such case amid such a scene. And you climb up the last
and steepest part of the hill, and mounting to the summit of
the Beacon Hill — which has shut everything else out from
your sight for the last twenty or twenty-five minutes — you
pause and look round. And what a panorama it is that greets
your eyes ! Bold mountain ridge and coy shrinking dale from
left to right as you face the south, and spreading round so as
to overlap on the right side ; and then turning seaward, the
sea from Redcar Sands to almost Whitby, and right away out
to the north the coast of Durham, beyond Sunderland and
northward still, with an outline that seems to lose itself in the
dim distance beyond. And a moment since you saw but a
barren ling-covered moor-bank !

But to meet with surprises of the same class, it may be,
but on a more limited and more appreciable, inasmuch as
more familiar, scale, one should prowl about on the rough
braes of the broken moor-banks, and within the romantic
fastnesses of the Dales Heads. Every twenty yards almost, as
you wind in and out, climb up or climb down, some new
feature, some new object, some new scene, something you
would give much to be able to photograph on the instant, and
carry away with you indelible for ever, simply comes to be
looked at ; and, as you turn aside, or press farther on in your
course, gives way to another, equally beautiful and equally
desirable in its beauty. In one word, our moorland scenery
needs to be lived among.

LOST ON THE MOOR

"Lost on the moor!" It has an unpleasant sound at any
time, and under any circumstances. But lost on the moor
with a dense wet fog — what the Dales folks call a " roke " —
when you cannot see the grouse that spring into flight almost
at your very feet ; when your companion (if you have one), if
he goes ten feet away from you, is a dim object looming in
a mysterious way at an indeterminate distance, — that is a
more uninviting experience still ; but to be lost on the moor,
with deep snow on the ground, snow still falling in fitful
squalls, and an oppressive fog over and round and all about you,
— that is of all others the worst way of being lost on the moor !
And this was the experience it once fell to my lot actually
to realise.

The incident was thus. It was the end of the season, and
I wanted a few brace of grouse, which, if not shot that day,
could be shot on no day at all. Certainly the moor was
covered with snow ; and getting near the birds under such
circumstances was a matter of difficulty, and only to be thought
of by one who did not mind walking in deep snow, and walk-
ing far and fast, — one well acquainted, moreover, not only with
the moor itself, but with the haunts of the grouse at such
times and under such circumstances. Well, I knew every
inch of the moor, and I did not mind walking it in snow ; nor
did I know what it was to get tired with even a long day's
shooting. Besides, I had one of the under-keepers with me,

Caught in a dense Fog 377

who knew as well as I did the haunts of the birds, and all
the bearings of the moor, and the different beats which might
be taken with the especial object of circumventing the game ^
and getting a few shots from time to time within reasonable
distance. Certainly the birds not only saw us as soon as we
ascended to the moor-level, but flew off with more decisive
promptitude than under ordinary circumstances at that time
of year. But then we had this advantage too, that we could
see them half a mile off, and even more than that when the
packs were considerable ; and we could see too whether there
was any chance of a successful stalk of any of the packs within
range of our eyesight. Suffice it to say that, sometimes by
coming down upon them from above, and sometimes by
surprising them from below, I got several shots, and very
nearly the same number of grouse.

We had followed a lot which had sped their way from the
higher part of the moor to a rather narrow tongue of moorland
which stretched itself downwards in the direction of the part
of the dale in which my house stands ; and after another suc-
cessful shot, we were about turning our steps in the direction
of the higher moor, when all at once, for we seemed to have
had no previous warning, we found ourselves in the midst of
one of the thickest snowstorms I had ever experienced, even
in these northern parts of the kingdom. Luckily it was not a
" hoddin' (holding or lasting) storm," for the snow ceased in
less than half an hour ; but it was succeeded, and as suddenly
as it had burst upon us, by a fog so dense that we could not
see ten yards in any direction — at times not ten feet. After
a pause of a few minutes to see if the fog would lift in the
same unforeseen and unaccountable way as the snow had come,
had ceased, and been succeeded by the fog, I said to my
companion, "Well, William, I think we shall do no more

' This was many years before the modem system of driving had been
.so much as heard of. There is no difficulty now in getting birds if
wanted ; but thirty or forty years ago the case was veiy different.

378 Miscellaneous

good to-day;" his reply being, "Neea, Ah aims it's overed for
to-day." And so we determined to set our faces homewards.

When this decision was taken we were on the eastern
verge of a lofty but narrow ridge of moorland, the utmost
transverse width of which at the point we stood on did not
greatly exceed half a mile. Our object and intention was
simply to cross it from east to west, and then to descend
slopingly, so as to reach my home by the readiest way. Even
if we had not been practised moorsmen, both of us, with a
personal knowledge of every inch of the moor for miles away,
we should have had no misgiving about the result. We had
but to set our faces with our backs to the brae we stood upon,
and keep on straight ahead, and fifteen minutes would take
us to the point we meant to reach.

But we walked thirty minutes, and still no sign of the
moor-edge we wanted to get to ! At last the fog seemed to
lift a little ; and in a minute or two we saw it was because
we were near the western edge of the ridge. But instead of
being where we had intended to be, we were at least a mile
farther up the ridge, and a good mile and a half from my
house, instead, of only three or four fields above it.

Laughing a little at our discomfiture, we proceeded to
retrace our steps, having to go more out on to the moor in
order to obtain a better trackway ; for we thought that, where
we were, it would be easy to skirt the moor-edge ; and we had
no idea but that we were skirting it as we continued our
trudge. But when we next came to a point at which it was
possible to recognise our landmarks, we found we had been
traversing the ridge in a north-easterly direction, and had
reached its verge a little above the hollow we call Coums !

Yet once more we addressed ourselves to what was proving
to be rather a difiicult task ; and this time, when we came to
the brae again, it was at a place not more than half a mile south
of the intended point, and about less than a mile distant
from the parsonage.

What being ' Lost on the Moor' means 379

Now in the course of our vagaries we had crossed the
Church-way twice, and another moor-road called the Mill-way
four times, both of them tracks which had been worn down
by weather and traffic to the depth of from a foot and a half
to nearly three feet (in places) below the level of the moor,
and along the side of each of which are set divers tall posts of
unhewn stone to act as indications of the line of the said ways ;
but we had crossed them without knowing we were crossing,
although, of course, we had to plunge through the snow with
which they were filled ; and as to the guide-stones, unless we
had almost run against them we could not have seen them for
the fog. So that to all intents and purposes we experienced
all the sensations of being lost, short only of the anxiety and
the sense of peril from absolute ignorance alike of which way
we ought to go and of the path we ought to select ; and the
experience was by no means a pleasant one.

Another case of "Lost on the Moor," very much more
real and actual than this, took place in the instance of two
lads very well known to me. They were boys of twelve or
thirteen years of age, and, as the custom was, and more then
than now, they had gone out "St. Thomasing," that is, visit-
ing the farmhouses on St. Thomas's Day (20th December)
and asking "Thomas's gifts." These were usually pieces of
" pepper-cake " (or the customary thick Christmas ginger-
bread), with perhaps a modicum of cheese, or a bite of cake,
or maybe a few halfpence. The day was dull and raw, but
not bitterly cold. They had reached the farm called Stormy
Hall, and then, finding the afternoon growing dark, and more
thickness setting in, they made up their minds to give up for
the day, and to turn their steps homewards the "soonest
way " they could go ; and this was to leave the fringe of
farmhouses that lie all along the dale just about the level of
the highest enclosure, and the rough road that gives the
means of going from one to the other all along, and making
up the hill slopingly in order to reach the main road running

380 Miscellaneous

along the top of the ridge from Kirkby Moorside to Castleton,
where their parents lived. All this, however, was not made
out until the next day, for the poor boys had never reached
home. The anxiety of the parents — the boys were cousins —
need not be dwelt upon.

It so happened the next morning that I had to take an
early walk into the outlying part of the parish which Fryup
is, and it was near mid-day when I returned to the Parsonage.
Just before entering the garden from the Fryup side I heard
a number of voices in the lane, and presently saw the speakers
coming down the lane from the school. This was so unusual
at the time named, for twelve o'clock is invariably called
"dinner-time," that I knew there must be some greatly
exciting cause to account for this neglect of the mid-day
meal ; and instead of going into the house I went into the
road to meet the men I had seen. Nearly the first person I
met was a stalwart mason, then and always a great friend of
mine, who told me that the two boys I have mentioned had
never reached home, and to judge by the answers to inquiries
made along the line they had taken the previous afternoon,
they must have spent the night totally unsheltered on the
open moor. My friend Frank's voice shook as he told me
this. He was no ways related to the missing lads, but he
was himself the father of lads of about the same age, and there
was no lack of natural feeling about him. In fact he was a
good fellow all round.

We organised our plan of search at once, and passing in
loose order along the fields on the west side of the dale, we
made towards the moor above Stormy Hall as directly as we
could. We had not proceeded far before a shout came down
the dale, and was passed on to us in the rear with a speed
that seemed almost marvellous, to the effect that "one of the
lads had been found, and though very stiff and lame from the
exposure, still not materially the worse."

We soon met with further and fuller intelligence ; and it

How the lost Boys spent the night 3 8 1

appeared that the boys, bewildered by the fog, which they
had found very dense as they ascended the moor-bank from
the farm, and indeed increasing in thickness the higher they
reached, had almost immediately, and in a way which they
could not explain, gone astray from the right direction ; and
the deviation once made, although in the clear light it might
seem to have been an unimportant one, yet, as always in a
thick fog, it had the inevitable consequence of leading step by
step to bewilderment. Our poor luckless little lads soon found
they were out of the track, and effort after effort to recover
it only ended in disappointment and hopeless discomfiture.
And then the darkness of coming night began to intensify
the heavy gloom of the fog. But the brave, hardy little chaps
did not give up or lose either heart or head in their trouble.
They were lost, and they must spend the night on the open
moor. Well then, they must make the best of it, and do what
they could towards making the inevitable as bearable as they
could. And so they looked out a hollow way worn by the
feet of the sheep, and dry, and sheltered by a growth of tall
ling ; and then they pulled some more ling to hap themselves
withal, and munching some of the gifts of food they had got
at the difi"erent farms they had visited, they prepared to spend
the night as comfortably as wet boots and stockings and damp
clothes would permit.

When the morning broke at last — and the nights are long
indeed towards the end of December, and even sometimes to
those who have more luxurious appointments than a down-
pressing canopy of dull grayish-white fog, with damp ling for
coverlet, and moist shoes and stockings, and clothes in general
far from dry, for sheet and blanket — only one of the two was
capable of movement, and he stiffly and with difiiculty. But
with an effort he "got hissel' scratted oop," and began to
think what was best to be done. As he sat and thought as
well as he cotdd, poor little chap, he fancied he heard the
tinkle of a bell, and if so, it would mean deliverance ! It was

382 Miscellaneous

no sheep-bell that, if a bell at all ; but it would be the bell of
the leading horse of a "draught" (team), and it would lead
him to the high road, if only he had strength and feet to
struggle so far.

A minute or two, and he is assured it is a bell ; and then
he hears the driver speaking to his horses. Away he goes,
hobbling as well as he can ; but the passage of the draught
along the beaten road is faster than his with his numbed feet
over the hindering ling, and the sounds of the rescue that
might be are getting a little ahead of him. With a choking
sense of something nearer like despair than any yet, he musters
all his strength for a last yell, and luckily he is heard.
It was time ; for his strength was spent, brave little fellow
that he was ! The driver, who was making his early way to
the Rosedale Head coal-pits, stopped his draught, shouted in
response, and presently had the poor, chilled, footnumb, aching
little waif safe in his arms, hoisted him into the waggon,
covered him with the hay the horses were to have eaten while
taking in the intended load of coal, weighing it, paying for it,
and so forth, turned away straight back for Castleton, and
dropped the rescued youngster at his father's door.

But the boy had not forgotten his fellow in the night's
bivouac, who, moreover, as being less hardy than himself, was
really and sadly disabled, but had given such an account of
his own position when he first heard the sound of the bell, and
of the way he had taken in trying to intercept the draught,
that there was no difficulty for William Eobinson, the rescuer,
to give minute directions to such as he fell in with on the
road how to look for the lost and helpless sojourner still left
in his comfortless night's lodgings. And thus, before the
party I had joined had had more than time to spread them-
selves out in a long hne, each individual within hailing-distance,
if not sight, of his right- and left-hand neighbours, and to begin
our systematic search of every yard of the moor before us, the
news came up from behind that the boy had been found, had

'■All's well that ends well ' 383

been taken down to Stormy Hall, and was there quite "safe,"
though by no means " sound."

In half an hour's time the poor boy had more visitors than
ever before or since in his life. We found him near a cheery
farmhouse fire, were told he had enjoyed some warm milk,
and, except that he had for the time lost the use of his legs
and feet, did not seem to be materially the worse. The
doctor too had seen him ; for he had come riding up to join
the army of seekers, and was on the spot almost as soon as
wanted ; and had said that he must stay where he was for a
day or two, and then might be taken home without hurt ; and
that after a few days he would be as well again as ever.

But, thick as the fog was, there was more mist than could
be accounted for on that ground in the eyes of more than one
or two of the hardy rugged men who had joined in that search,
when we realised what exposure on a North Yorkshire moor-
land in a December night must be, and did not as yet even fancy
to ourselves that these strayed boys might have had coolness
enough, and bravery besides, to try, hopeless as their case
seemed, to do the best they could for themselves.

The brother of one of these boys paid me a visit only a
few months ago. He had come home from one of the most
distant of the English colonies to see the old place again, and
he came to see his old friend the parson, and our talk fell on
this episode among his early recollections; and we both of
us seemed, at even such a long time after " all had ended so
well," to feel what a "parlous" chance it was that his brother
had passed through that night he was "lost on the moor."

APPENDICES

2c

APPENDIX A

INCLOSUEE "WITHOUT ACT OF INOLOSURE

Certain pages are elsewhere devoted to an effort to identify the
site of the ancient vill of Danby.^ I am myself satisfied that the
identification is incontestable. But wherever the ancient vill of
Danby was situate, there is no shadow of doubt that, at the demise
of the last Brus Baron, the said vill was still extant ; and there
is like testimony in later Inquisitiones p. m., and correlated docu-
ments dealing with different parts of the Brus inheritance, that the
vill of Danby sustained no immediate or material alteration as to
site or otherwise. In short, I think there is presumptive evidence
that the viU. of Danby remained much as it had been, and where
it had been, all through the fourteenth century, and most likely
some way on into the fifteenth. And then came a great and final
change. And in strict connection with this I ask attention to the
following extracts from a very valuable book, namely, Scrutton's
Gom/mons and Common Fields : " The evils of enclosures were first
brought to the attention of Parliament early in the reign of Henry
VII, or about 1485. ... In the year 1487 the Parliament passed
two Acts, the one local, the other general. The local Act refers
to the fact that ' many towns and villages have been let down and
the fields ditched and made pastures for cattle.' . . . The general
Act — ' an Act against the pulling down of towns ' (and the word
' town ' is used here in the sense of ' village ' or ' township ') — an
Act sometimes referred to as the Statute of Enclosures, is directed
against the pulling down of houses and ' the laying to pasture lands
which customably have been used in tilth,' and it provides that all

' See Appendix D.

388 Appendices

houses let within three years past with twenty acres of land for
tillage are to be maintained. This Act is confirmed and extended
by two Acts in 1514 and 1515. Both Acts complain of the pull-
ing down of towns, . . . and they require the towns decayed to he
re-edified within a year."

But it wiU be observed that previously to the first date men-
tioned, or 1485, "many towns and villages had been let down";
yet it is not in every place we are enabled to see how such a state
of the case not so much was led on to as actually became an
accomplished fact. In Danby I think we can. But possibly the
best way for obtaining a clear view of the group of circumstances
involved may be by taking into consideration the historical condi-
tions embodied in the further extract from Mr. Scrutton's book,
which I proceed now to give :—

" The causes which led in the sixteenth century to the inclos-
ures which with the resulting discontent and rebellion play so
large a part in the history and literature of the time, have their
origin in the great plagues of the middle of the fourteenth century,
the Black Death, in which nearly half the population perished.
Prior to that date the progress of agriculture had been in the con-
version of waste and wood into arable land. The lord had no
difficulty in cultivating his demesne lands, at first by the services
due from his customary tenants, and when those services gradually
became commuted for money payments, by labourers hired with
his customary revenue thus accruing. But the great scarcity of
labourers caused by the ravages of the Black Death, and the con-
sequent rise in wages, averaging fifty per cent in all employments,
made this method of cultivation both difficult and expensive, and
the lords endeavoured to revert to the old customary services of
their tenants, now far more valuable than their money commutation.
This attempt to set aside the customary payments led to great dis-
content, and was one of the chief causes of the Peasant Eevolt of
1381. The Statute of Labourers, intended to compel the labourers
to work at the old rates, also proved unsuccessful, and the lords
were compelled to abandon the old lines of agriculture. After a
transition in which a system of leases somewhat similar to the
metayer tenure of the south of France was in vogue, the lord find-
ing stock as well as land, and the tenant returning the stock at the

Progress of Inclosure 389

expiration of liis lease, a new departure was taken. Tlie lords
ceased to cultivate the great bulk of their demesne lands, and let
them out to small cultivators, at first for short terms and in small
plots, afterwards frequently by leases for three lives, or for twenty-
one years. By the middle of the fifteenth century the bulk of the
demesne lands both of lay owners and ecclesiastical corporations
were under this system of tenure."

The author then goes on to say that "after the "Wars of the
Roses a new element entered into English agriculture. ... A spirit
of trade breathed through England ; the merchants of the towns
turned their attention to farming, and especially to the growth and
export of wool. But sheep could not be reared with advantage
either on the open commons or on the small and scattered plots in
■*hich a tenant's or a lord's land then lay, and the desire to carry
out sheep-farming as a commercial success led to the consolidation
of holdings, the conversion of arable land into pasture, and,
wherever it was possible by law or by violence, to the enclosure
of commons. With the demand for land and the almost universal
rise in prices came a great rise of rents ; the small freeholders and
they that lived by the plough found it harder and harder to gain
a living ; the poor men who had relied on the common for the
grazing of their one cow saw it surcharged by the sheep of wealthy
graziers, enclosed by rich nobles for their sheep-farms, or converted
into a park for their deer."

All this may have been, no doubt it was, true, for many if not
most other parts of England ; but it is eminently without founda-
tion for that district of England of which Danby forms a part.
The " common " was not " enclosed," is not now. The " small
freeholders and those who lived by the plough " did not " find it
harder and harder to gain a living " ; on the contrary, they made
and saved money to such an extent that when the land on which
they had lived came into the market in the first half of the seven-
teenth century, more than one hundred and twenty of them
covenanted to buy the plots they had farmed. And the great lord
did not "convert the common into a park for his deer," and for
the best of all possible reasons — he had his wide, far-spreading
park and warren already, and was as strongly desirous to convert
the available portions of it into small or medium-sized farms as

390 Appendices

the would-be tenants themselves could be. And indeed I am very
doubtful about the conclusive applicability of much of the former
quotation — exclusive of the historical data — to the individual case
of Danby. For instance, I feel no assurance that there was any
lord's demesne at Danby at all, and if there were none, then there
could be no endeavour to "revert to the old customary services of
the tenants." It is quite true there were in the last quarter of the
thirteenth century fifty-six bovates of land held in villenage in the
township. But if we may trust the document from which this
information is obtained (the " Partitio inter hseredes Petri de Brus"),i
the commuted value of each to the lord was 5s. And there were
also no less than twenty-two liheri tenentes or freeholders, such as
freeholders were at that date ; for it is expressly said of them,
" Omnes isti liberi prKsoripti tenent per cartam." But there is no
mention made of demesne land ; ^ and naturally, for the Capitale
Mesuagium itself was a ruin, and the residence of the baron was,
and had been for almost a century and a half, at Skelton.

But the incongruities between the Danby facts and the writer's
theory and assumptions are alike interesting and instructive.
Granted that the lord did not here " cease to cultivate the great
bulk of his demesne lands," nor " let them out to small cultivators,"
for the good and sufficient reason that there were none (or next to
none) to let in that way, still the fact remains that a large propor-
tion of the land in the township was, if not exactly " let for short
terms or by lease " for any specified number of years, yet held of
the lord per cartam, or in virtue of a written grant or charter.

^ The document is injured by time, if not wear, and tliere are many blanlss
in it ; and I am inclined to think that in some, if not several cases, the
blanks are large enough to suggest the supposition that divers names are lost.
Still, there are twenty-two yet legible.

'- In writing thus I wish to limit the meaning of the terms "in demesne"
simply to what is implied in Mr. Scrutton's words quoted above, namely,
"The lord found no difficulty in cultivating his demesne lands," qualified as
that is by the subsequent sentence, "on the small and scattered plots in
which a tenant's or a lord's lands then lay." Of course I am aware that at
the date referred to mainly, or 1271, among the fees of the late Peter de Brus,
in the Inquisitio thereanent taken, Danby, viewed as the equivalent of ' ' one
fee," is returned as held in doniinico. But the meaning there is one thing
and that of "held in demesne," as in Mr. Scrutton's words, is another.

Progress of Inclosure 391

And it is wortli noting that while the acknowledgments rendered
— not the rents paid — by these Vtheri varied in the most extraor-
dinary manner, or from 4s. for one carucate, 4s. 2d. for another
carucate, 3s., 4s., or 5s. for a bovate, to 30s. for twenty-five acres,
23s. for thirty acres, or a bovate or half a score acres for two barbed
arrow-heads (or, it might be, up to half a dozen), still the total
amount so held was already, taking all into consideration, very
considerable.^ For, taking the carucate as roughly representing the
area of 100 acres, the record quoted from, imperfect as it is, yet
gives a total of 625 acres as in the hands of the M6e«, a fact to be
collated with the further fact that there were fifty-six bovates in
villenage ; for it means that, while all the old carucatage, and indeed
distinctly more than that, remains, nearly as much more has been
added to the arable total, every acre of which has been added as
the result of essarting or clearing, inclosing and cultivating, what
had previously been forest, thwaite, or waste.

I do not think that, allowing only for the considerations, historic
and other, which have so far been adduced, this is an arbitrary or
unailthorised deduction. On the contrary, I hold it to be inevit-
able rather than only simply warranted. But there are other
considerations yet which tend to exactly the same conclusion.

There were in all, as elsewhere stated, certainly not less than
165 several farmholds, messuages, or tenements in the general
parish of Danby (inclusive, that is, of Lealholm and Glaisdale)
when the estate was sold out in allotments in 1656 ; indeed, I
am quite certain there were many more than the number stated,
for there are many counterparts of conveyances which are, the
moment attention is given to the inquiry, conspicuous only by their
absence. Why or how is a matter of speculation, perhaps of sus-

^ The circumstance here noted Is one that ought not to be passed by totally
unnoted. In the earlier part of the document it is stated that there are fifty-
si.x bovates held in villenage, or, in other words, seven carucates. Over an4
above this area of cultivated land we have to reckon nearly or quite six
carucates niore as held by the free men, making a total of thirteen carucates
at the least. This is a result to be collated with the Domesday Record, which
gives six carucates as the total amount of cultivable land in the township of
Danby in and for some indefinite time after the year 1087. The progress of
reclamation and improvement which had been made iu the two centuries
between 1087 and 1271 had indeed been a marked as well as a real one.

39^ Appendices

picion, but it is unquestionably a fact. And from my local know-
ledge and examination I should be inclined to say that, allowing
for cottages with their garths, and small holdings such as would be
called cow-keepings now, the total number of messuages or tene-
ments would certainly fall very little (if at all) short of two hundred,
of which at least three-fifths would be in Danby proper.

But while the greater part of these conveyances show the traces
of general, as well as of internal or divisional inclosure, and much
of the latter as more or less recent, several of them attest the fact
that some specified act of inclosure was not as yet complete ; that,
in fact, it was still proceeding, and proceeding, moreover, not in
the way of an underhand or illicit act, stUL less as an encroachment,
but as an overt and publicly recognised act. And one of them for-
tunately preserves for us a delineation of the process and means
employed, for it not only directs the " fencing in " of a certain close
called the "Moore Close," but adds that the said "fencing in" is
to be done "as it was formerly sett forth by the Bailiff'e and Officers
for Sir John Danvers, late lord of Danby aforesaid."

This is a singularly significant clause. As long ago as 1886 I
drew attention to the facts that inclosures from the waste were
familiar things in quite the early part of the seventeenth century
in the pariah of Egton, and that such inclosures or " encroach-
ments" were made by and with the consent of the lord {North
Biding Records, vol. i. pp. 154, 155), but through the action of
what machinery, or how the assent and consent of the lord were
given, I did not know, and only surmised. " As it was sett forth
by the Bailiffe and Ofiicers for the lord " revealed the whole pro-
cedure, for the bailiff and the officers exist to this day, and their
functions are as real and living as in the seventeenth century.
Encroachments on the common and settings forth by the bailiff and
officers for the lord have been made and done twice within the last
quarter of a century, in the case of the North Yorkshire and Cleve-
land Railway, and of its projected " extension." In both cases
strips of the waste were required for the construction of the lines
named, and in both cases the bailiff and the officers for the lord
marked out or set forth the portion to be taken.

For there is no reason to doubt that the "bailiff and the jury"
of the present day are the surviving representatives of the " bailiff

Progress of Inclosure 393

and the officers " of two centuries and a half ago, or that the last-
named body were the descendants and successors of a like body,
dating not only from the reconstitution of the manor under de
Brus, but in all probability from an earlier date still, ante-dating
even the manerium or predial domicile, with its appurtenances,
which preceded the day of Edward the Confessor.

But if we set ourselves to look steadily through the vista thus
opened up to us, what we look upon is' a series of grants, each
protected per cartam, or — if not rather, and — of concessions, each
formally set forth and approved by the bailiff and the officers for
and on behalf of the lord, and each eventuating in — not delimita-
tion merely, but — actual fencing or inclosing ; and "dry-stone walls"
had become the means of definition and protection long before the
year of grace 1656 ; nay, some of the tenements of these liberi
homines of 1271 not simply remain — for they all doubtless do that —
to this day, but admit of recognition and identification. Such, for
instance, is eminently the case with the carucate held by the " heir
of Robert Stormy," while Matthew of Glaphoue's carucate and
Robert Forester's "xxv. acres" admit at least of shrewd guesses
as to their locality.

But admitting and correlating the facts that up to 1271 fifty-
six bovates continued to be held in villenage ; that besides some
six hundred acres were held per cartam by some five-and-twenty
free men, all the result of grant and concession by the lord ; that
the process of grant and concession, beyond all possibility of ques-
tion, continued to prevail, and in the systematised and regulated
form in which we recognise it nearly three hundred years ago ;
that the vill of Danby did cease to be, and so long ago and so
efi'ectually that no scrap of tradition even remains, or has remained
for many generations, tending to so much as suggest that there had
ever been a former vill of Danby ; that a scanty fringing line of
houses, all detached and all farmhouses (in some sense and as to
their original intention), sprang up aU round the sides of our dales,
just at or just below the line of inclosure, or where the farm-lands
cease and the moor-bank begins ; that these, up to the commence-
ment of the present century, have been the exclusive abodes of the
population of Danby, there having been up to that date neither
" villa " nor hamlet properly so called in the parish, — reviewing all

394 Appendices

these considerations, and collating them the one with the other, it
is not too much to conclude that it is a very safe procedure to connect
the "letting down" of the vill of Danby (or the "pulling down"
of the " town " so called) with the allotment of these daleside farms
and the construction of new homesteads upon them ; and to localise —
nay, rather, to identify — some of the sites of those old-world home-
steads with the sites of these quaint old wrecks and ruinous
skeletons which still maintain a precarious being ; if not, indeed,
to claim some of the most venerable of them as tottering survivals
of human habitations four, or maybe nearer five, centuries old.

APPENDIX B

GEOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

From whatever point of view considered, the bed of laminated
clay, with intercalated seamlets of very fine sand, is a most remark-
able feature in the general aspect of the district.^ It is, moreover,
of considerable thickness. The principal cutting in one place could
not be less than thirty to thirty-five feet in vertical depth on its
northern side, and a very considerable proportion of the whole
gave iTp this kind of clay to the digger's spade. But what a
revelation this involves of the manner and the duration of the act
of its deposit ! In the first place, the sediment which, by its falling
from the water holding it in suspension, had formed those enormous
deposits must have fallen from water which was practically quite
undisturbed over a wide area, and for considerable periods of time
together ; succeeded, however, in every instance by other periods,

' A very little reflection or a small amount of observation is sufficient to
convince the inquirer that these alternate laminations of fine sand and
impalpable clay must have been deposited, so to speak, in pairs. First the
sand would be dropped, inasmuch as, however fine its particles, they were still
larger than the impalpable argillaceous matters on which the clayey part of
the deposit depended. In the next place, the lapse of a certain amount of
time must be postulated before the commencement of another pair of lamina ;
because otherwise — that is, if the last thin layer of clay had not had time to
become definitely consolidated — it would have been liable to disturbance
destructive of its regularity, if not of its being, by the irruption of another
volume of water like to that to which it owed its own being. As a matter
of fact, we seem to be required to assume the existence of a large body of
water, and of considerable depth, free from disturbance by currents or streams
for considerable periods together, but liable to periodical invasions of verj'
large volumes of water holding in suspension proportionably large amounts
of argillaceous and arenaceous matters.

39^ Appendices

whether more or fewer, more or less frequent or infrequent, during
which fresh matter for like suspension was worn fine by attrition,
and gathered up by water in turbulent motion, ready to be
deposited at the iirst ensuing and convenient season. And when
that convenient season, a season of stagnancy, caipe, the sand would
fall first, and then, more leisurely, the clayey particles. And as
such consecutive deposits must have alternated in thousands of
successions, with intervals of quietness, the mind is led on to the
contemplation of a period of time which bafiies calculation, during '
which the state of things I saw in that mimic valley-and-dale-fiUing
flood must have been the standing rule. And this is a conclusion
which provokes rather than suggests the inquiry. Was there or was
there not a great collection of water, a fresh-water lake, of several
miles in length but only narrow in width — a couple of miles or so,
or not much more — filling the vale which is now the valley of the
Esk, and the outlying dales and gills and slacks on either side of
it ; and if so, how far down did the lake in question extend %

Now it is not a little noteworthy that the Esk in leaving what
might have been just snch a lake-bed five or six miles in length,
does so by breaking through a very narrow and rugged ravine,
cleft out between closely approximating heights on either side at
least 175 feet above the level of its bed. Taking the contours of
the six-inch Ordnance Survey as our authority, the river-bed at
this point is between 300 and 315 feet above the sea-level. The
heights on either side, and scarcely more than two hundred yards
apart, are 500. The inference is almost inevitable. Time was
when these closely adjacent heights were united, forming an adequate
dam for the support of the great body of still water required for
the depositing of all that vast mass of finely laminated clay that is
met with some three or four miles higher up the valley in deep
beds, and that shows itself from time to time, where not swept
away by subsequent degradation, at many intermediate points.

But the pursuit of this inquiry, interesting as it is, should by
no means make the inquirer oblivious of yet another — " How came
about this marked configuration of the district, these narrow ridges
of lofty moorland and constricted depressions of deep ^ dales for

' Some idea of the comparative depth of the dales may be collected from
the old nomenclature of certain portions or divisions of more than

Local Geology ig-j

the water to collect and remain, in with lengthened periods of
freedom from disturbance?" Certainly a giant's hand with ii
sufficient number of abnormal fingers might impress itself on the
soft paste of a big bread-cake in its state of preparation for the
oven ; and a sufficiently big and misshapen giant-hand might be
squeezed into a mountain mass of plastic clay. But the material
indicated in our inquiry was not plastic clay. It contained or con-
sisted of materials too intractable to submit to pressure, even if
applied with Titanic force : such materials as freestone rock in
beds of forty, fifty, sixty feet in depth, jet-shale rock as thick or
thicker still, bands of ironstone, seams of dogger, besides many a
series of thinner strata of sandstone, indurated earth, and such like.
No amount of pressure would have sufficed in such a case, and
Titanic fingers, pointed with nails of the diamond-borer description,
would have wanted renewing an inconvenient number of times
before their wearer could have grubbed out even one of the shorter
dales, to say nothing of all of them, and the big central valley to
boot. But still, there must have been some grubbing or eroding
agency at work ; and there are certain conclusions as to its nature
which are not far to seek or hard to arrive at. For the indications
of glacial action are sufficiently plentiful in this district. It is
one thing, however, to speak of glacial action, and quite another to
show how it may be made to account for the facts before our
attention. Now there are the evidences of the presence of ice and

one of them. Thus, in Ingleby Greenhow there is a local division or
sub-district called Greenhow Botton, of which Graves in his History of
Cleveland says : " It is significantly called Greenhowe Bottom, it being
a narrow secluded vale, so deeply intrenched with mountains that (like some
parts of Borrowdale in Cumberland) in the depth of winter the sun never
shines." Graves writes "Bottom"; but the word really is "Botton," and
has been written with the n (not m) from a very early period, there being
two or three documents in the Cartularium of Gysburne Priory, dating early
in the thirteenth century, preserving the form Bothine. For there is a
Botton in Danby also, named in the charters just referred to ; and in this
case, while the beck runs along fields 500 to 525 feet above the sea, the moor-
bank on the west rises to 1200 feet, and that on the other side to nearly
1300. The original word is Icelandic hotn, and it is applied to the head of a
bay, lake, dale, or the like, the compound word dals-botn being a word of
actual oocun-ence. Moreover, Vigfnssen remarks that "Botn" is a local
name still in Iceland.

398 Appendices

the action of ice in powerful moving masses, in many a place
throughout the district, and just out of it — to deal only with one
set of evidences at present — on the broad unfurrowed surface of
the moors ; unfurrowed, I mean, by such plough-marks as these
valleys and dales of ours in reality constitute. The big ioe-borne
blocks or boulders — there are some of Shapfell granite even on the
Plyingdales moors not far from the Peak, to say nothing of multi-
tudes of others of a different nature, and much less travelled — these
big ice-borne rocks testify with forcible evidence to the presence
and the carrying power of the ice, but also, by their mere presence
where they are, to the fact that the ice passed over their present
sites without grubbing everything up in its passage. Why, then,
should it have grubbed and eroded or dug out just where it did,
and there only — I mean, in our dales and valleys ? I take it that
the answer is the same in the case of that slow-moving stream, the
ice-stream or glacier, as in the more quickly moving one of running
water, whether it be the trickling of a gentle brook or the furious
rushing of a mighty torrent ; namely,' that it moves along in a
track already marked out for it, if not actually prepared, by
previous processes, natural or other. And here let the modern
scientific geologist step in to help us. with the solution of our
inquiry. " The initial origin of these valleys," he says, " seems to
be referable to lines of fracture produced by the elevating force i

^ It may be "better to make what is here quoted a little plainer by repro-
ducing what had been previously advanced : " The liassio strata in Cleveland
have a general dip south-east at a low angle. , . . This dip becomes changed,
south of the Guisborough Hills, by the influence of the master anticlinal that
stretches in an easterly direction by Botton Head in Ingleby Greenhow,
Blakey Topping, etc., along which the liassic rooks attain their greatest
elevation, and which form the watershed between the Humber and the Tees.
Parallel to this on the north and south are synclinal axes — the northern one
allowing the liassic rocks to appear on the coast, and the southern, more
remote, forming the basin of the vale of Pickering — the one drained by the
Esk, the other by the Derweut. Along the western escarpment the Lias has
also a slight diji to the east, and in the south this is lost, and the beds have
a north-westerly dip. They would thus form half a basin were it not lor
the above-mentioned anticlinal. This is also crossed by another at right
angles to it, and of less consequence, as it scarcely affects the northern
synclinal, and has its axis in Danby Ridge. The bases of the dales thus fornr
a 'saddle.' These dales form a very interesting feature in the geology of

Local Geology 399

along the anticlinal axis. . . . The denudation has taken place
along the lines of fracture. The heads of many of the dales are
but lines of fracture still, notably that of Baysdale, as also of
Bransdale and Bilsdale East ; farther down their course the
general denudation has widened them ; but in some cases, as they
encounter the oolite again, they are narrowed into gorges, as in
Glaisdale, East Arncliff, Baysdale, Bransdale, and Rosedale. With
regard to the epoch of their excavation, we must remark that the
boulder-clay scarcely reaches higher than 350 feet in the North
Riding, and thus that those dales which do not descend so low are
free from \\. At the bases of them, however, are great mounds of
sandy clay, with various-sized rather water-worn stones of local
origin, as at Ainthorpe, Fryup End, and Glaisdale End, which,
from their unstratified appearance, seem best accounted for by
glacial action. And as we descend lower in the same Esk valley
the blocks become larger, and we reach, near Grosmont, true
boulder-clay with foreign blocks. It would seem, then, that these
valleys were excavated before the glacial epoch, but that they were
scoured out during it by the ice, which left its accumulations in
mounds at the ends."

Yes, no doubt one must conclude that there must have been a
period, or periods, of upheaval, lasting perhaps through seon after
aeon, accompanied and followed by great tumults of waters. That
seems to be what our imagination has to make effort to picture in
conceiving the origin of our dales ; the upheaval forming long
ridges and blunt mountain-tops here, rupturing the struggling
crust there with rendings and fissures and cracks ; and the startled
waters fleeing before the rising hills, and forcing their way of
escape along the chasms which afi'orded them the readiest passage ;
and the process was renewed from period to period, as the throes

Yorkshire. They are true liassic inliers of the general form of an elongated
ellipse, with the axis nearly N.N.E. in the northern, and N.N.W. in
the southern. They have picturesque precipitous sides formed by the
massive oolites which cap tlie Lias. None of them are connected by liassic
surface rocks, except Glaisdale and Eskdale. The streams that draiu them
have, of course, a greater fall than the dip of the rocks from the anticlinal
at the head of the dales ; but both in the southern and northern series the
fall becomes afterwards less than the dip, and they flow over the edges of
higher rocks " {The Yorkshire Lias, by Tate and Blake).

400 Appendices

of the great movement were renewed ; and, in the intervals the
slower but not less sure workings of what we speak of as the
drainage, the natural drainage, of a district. Only time is
demanded, and the power of water to erode, to eat away by slow
degrees — why, it is a proverb in many languages. And of time in
the cycles of the past Infinite there was no lack.

Then again, other epochs or seons, or fractions of the same
mysterious Infinite, and another flood is upon the oppressed surface,
the great ice-flood of the Glacial Period ; and its slow streams
leisurely drifting down the chasms already fashioned by the water-
floods complete the excavating process, and leave the rough model
of our dales system to be worked into final finish by the finer finger-
work of time and the elements, vegetation and decay, until, in the
end, we see the romantic acclivities, the beautiful contours, the
strangely harmonising hues, that go to' make the great charm of
the scenery of the " Dales District."

APPENDIX C

GLANCES AT A MOORLAND PARISH (AS PART OF A
DISTRICT) FROM A PRE -DOMESDAY POINT OF VIEW

In the absence of any historical writing earlier than Domesday-
dealing ever so slightly with the parish in question, such a heading
as this may seem at first sight rather fanciful ; and yet it may
prove possible to elicit from the very brief and apparently inex-
plicit Domesday statements touching the parish, and the district it
belongs to, some gleams of light and information as to its earlier
condition. And these faint indications may possibly admit of
weighty corroboration from a certain series of facts and observations
which may be alleged in support of them.

I have styled the Domesday entry as "brief and inexplicit";
perhaps " meagre " might have been a better, because a more
descriptive, term. And this is true, although there are in point
of fact two entries. The first of them, which is met with in its
proper place, appears to have been blundered in the making, and
is therefore repeated at the close of the special section it belongs to,
and so is out of its proper place. I give the first exactly so far as
it is obviously correct, and then I append the second. They are
both found in that part of the book which deals with " Terra
Hugonis filii Baldrici," on ff. lix.-lxi. of the Yorkshire Facsimile : —
" MANERIUM. In Crumbeclive habuit Orm v carucatas terrse
ad geldum : terra ad duas carucas. Ibi habet Hugo [filius Baldrici]
nunc i villanum et v bordarios cum i caruca. Berewicse hae per-
tinent ad hoc Manerium : — Danebi, Lelun. . . . Silva pastilis iii
leugas longa, et iii leugas lata. Totum Manerium vii leugas

2d

402 Appendices

longum, et iii leugas et iv quarantenas latum. T. R. E. valebat
Ix solidos : modo iii solidos."

" MANERIUM & BEREWICiE. In Crumbeolive & Lelun &
Danebi habuit Orm xii carucataa terrse ad geldum. Terra est ad
iv carucas. Hugo habet, et waata est. Silva paatilis iii leiigas
longa, et iii lata. Totum Manerium vii leugas longum, et iii
latum."

There is, as we perceive, no essential difference between the two
entries as regards the material statement made. Crumbeclive (now
Crunkley) was the manerium, and Danby and Lelun (now Lealholm)
held the subordinate position of berewics to the same. Orm had
held it previously to the Conquest, but it was now in the tenure of
Hugh PitzBaldric.i In the entire territory, including the two
dependencies as well as the capital manor, there were twelve caru-
cates of land liable to geld ; of these, five were at Crumbeclive, six
at Danby, and one at Lealholm, these figures being obtained from
the close of the entry touching the fee of Robert de Brus. But it
is specially to be remarked that, although the land liable to geld
amounts to five carucates at Crumbeclive, it is such, or in such a
condition, as to furnish work for but two full plough-teams, and
that is for twice eight animals, mainly oxen, if not exclusively so.

It is true the whole manor, with its appendages, is described as
" waste " ; but still there must be something more than that implied
in the statement of fact just noted. Under ordinary circumstances
arable land, the crops upon which have been wasted, still remains

1 "Hugh the son of Baldric succeeded "William Malet in the sheriffdom of
Yorkshire, and his name figures in the legend of the foundation of Selby
Abbey " (see Freeman's Norman Conquest, vol. iv. p. 571). It does not seem
to be absolutely certain that he was Vicecomes of Yorkshire, but ' ' inasmuch
as he is mentioned in the Lincolnshire Domesday as ' Hugo filius Baldrici
Vicecomes,' he was certainly sheriff somewhere, and it is very possible that
he may have been appointed Sheriff of Yorkshire late in 1069, after the
capture of William Malet " {ibid. p. 787). That he was a man of importance
as well as of large possessions is amply apparent. His Yorkshire fee is a
considerable one, and he seems to have had one hardly less in Lincoln-
shire ; besides which, he held lands in Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, and
Nottinghamshire. His son-in-law Wido is mentioned in the details given
touching the Lincolnshire fee, but nothing seems to be known of the circum-
stances under which his fees reverted to the king, as it is evident they did in,
Yorkshire, probably by death without male heir.

Pre-Domesday Glances 403

in such state that the plough may be reinserted from the moment
the cultivator finds himself in the position to resume agricultural
operations. It was otherwise here. There were five carucates, or,
in other words, tillage-land adequate in quantity to occupy five
plough-teams in its cultivation ; but, as things were, there was but
work for two-fifths of that number of beasts of draught. Whatever
the explanation, which, however, is not, I think, far to seek, three
out of the five carucates were practically no longer " arable " ; they
did not submit to the insertion of the plough. The land had been
wasted seventeen or eighteen years before, and Nature had reasserted
her sway ; thorns and whins, bushes and briers, were now growing,
and growing rankly, in places where, previously to the wasting, the
toils of the husbandman had met with no undue resistance and no
ungrateful return.

But this circumstance comes out in stiU jdarker relief when we
direct our attention to the corresponding figures regarding the
whole extent of geldable land comprised within the specified limits.
There were twelve carucates in all, and only work for four full
plough-teams. Two of these, as we have seen, were at the head
manor ; the other two must be spread over the area involving the
other seven carucates — one in Lealholm, six in Danby.

Still, it is brought to our notice that, at Crumbeclive at least,
there Wcis not a totally desolate and depopulated district. Hugh, the
lord, had there one villan and five bordars, who between them
owned a plough-team. But for them, the labours of the husband-
man had ceased out of the land.

But this, although a sufSciently noteworthy circumstance in itself,
is not the circumstance on account of which the preceding extracts
from Domesday were brought forward. There are two others yet
to be noticed, and, as matters involving certain contemporary statis-
tics, to be collated with certain other statistics of the same nature,
only belonging to the present time. What I mean is the alleged
extent of the syhia pastilis or pasturalis, and its relative amount in
comparison with the total alleged area of the totum mamerium^ or
entire manorial domain. The former is stated to have been three
leugce long by as many broad, while the latter is described as seven
leugx in length by three (or three and a half, in the other entry)
in breadth.

404 Appendices

It is certainly requisite in the outset to try and obtain as
clear an understanding as possible of the significance attaching to
the terms employed in the quotation under notice ; and this is
eminently the case with the terms i-ijlva pastilis and leuga.

As to the former, there can be little, if any, doubt, even if the
conditions implied by the very words employed had not continued
to exist down to the very close of the last century, and in a much
less modified form than might have been supposed inevitable.
Thus, while a fine between John, Prior of Guisboroiigh, and Peter
de Brus (probably the third of the name i), made in Easter term
1242, testifies to the fact that there was then silva pasturalis in
"the Park beneath the Castle of Danby" — that is, the original
Brus stronghold at Castleton — and in four launds or lawns in the
Forest of Danby besides, the fact of the inclosure and partition of
these launds, effected mainly during the last century, and not very
early in it, remains to prove the enormous proportion of the area
of the said launds,^ and the enduringness of the silva pasturalis
condition.

As to the second term noted, or leuga, it is difficult to conceive
a measure admitting of such an extremely vague and uncertain
value ; perhaps, indeed, it would be more correct to say embodying
such a very indefinite estimate ; because in these Cleveland entries
it is obvious not only that the assumed dimensions of a manor —
the totum manerium — -.depended on an estimate, but that that

^ It has not been positively ascertained when Peter de Brus the second
actually died. There seems to be little doubt, however, that he went to the
Holy Laud in 1241, and none, I believe, that his son Peter the third paid
relief on succeeding to his father's lands in 1240. The probable explanation of
this fact is that, in view of his projected expatriation, arrangements were made
in virtue of which Peter the third became de facto regnant baron, notwithstand-
ing his father's actual continued existence. Indeed, simply as embracing a
religious life, Peter the second would have placed his son in precisely the same
position, It is probable, therefore, on this wise, that it was the third and
last Peter de Brus who made the fine quoted iu the text.

'^ The continued existence of such local names as Danby Lawns, Lealholm
Lawns, Glaisdale Lawns, Lawns Gate, Lawns House, over and above the
Low Wood, is sufficient to attest the importance and the extent alike of
the lawns element in the former Forest of Danby. The Low Wood alone,
inclosed and partitioned barely a century ago, contained ni arly three hundred
acres.

Pre-Domesday Glances 405

estimate depended, in too many instances, on the merest, most
informationless guess. To illustrate this point, I take the entry
touching the manor adjoining Danby on the east side — that of
Egton, namely. It is as follows : " In Egetune ad geldum iii
carucatee, et tot carucse possunt esse. Ibi habuit Suuen i manerium.
Nunc habet Nigellus de Comite (Moretoniensi). Silva pastilis iii
leugas longa et ii lata. Totum manerium iii leugas longum et ii
latum. T.R.E. valebat xx solidos : modo wastum est."

For purposes of my own — publication, in fact, in the History of
Cleveland which I was then preparing — I made the most careful
and accurate estimate I possibly could of the superficial area of the
various parishes in the district, availing myself in the process of
the careful measurements and delineations given in the six-inch
Ordnance Survey ; and in the case of Egton I wrote : " From
north to south — the shape of the parish being something that of
an irregular four-sided figure — the medium length is about six
miles, with an average breadth exceeding three miles and a half."
Now, if we assume the leuga to represent a measure of a mile and
a half, the estimate thus given coincides with the Domesday estimate
with rather a singular correspondence. The four leugoe of length
are exactly six miles, and the two of breadth three miles. But
then, as regards the Danby district, my like estimate made on the
same occasion, and with the same punctilious effort for approximate
accuracy, was stated as follows : " The shape of this large tract is
that of an irregular five-sided trapezoid, having the least side for
its southern boundary. The greatest length from north to south
is not less than seven miles, while the medium breadth can scarcely
be stated as very much less than six, the diagonals from north-west
to south-east and north-east to south-west being respectively eight
miles and a half and seven and a half."

But taking the Domesday figures, seven leugce long by three in
width, and assuming the same dimensions of the leuga as at
Egton — that is, a mile and a half — the result we arrive at is ten
miles and a half long by four and a half wide ; the discrepancy
between which and the reality is only too striking. Nor does the
discrepancy become less when we ignore the striking difference
between the shape of the district as presented in the Domesday
estimate and as marked out in my description. In the former it

4o6 Appendices

is almost twice as long as it is broad ; in tlie other, five-sided and
not much greater in length than in breadth.

Moreover, if we proceed to test the accuracy of the two estimates
in the most practical way possible, namely, by ascertaining the
exact number of square miles contained, as shown by the ascer-
tained acreage, the discrepancy noted becomes more noteworthy
still. The actual acreage as given in the Ordnance maps is
22,853 acres ; which represents a total of thirty-five square miles
and seven -tenths within a very small fraction. This shows my
estimate, or seven miles by about five and a half, giving a total of
thirty-eight square miles and a half, to be excessive to the extent
of nearly three square miles, while the Domesday estimate, or
forty-seven square miles and a quarter, is excessive by no less than
nearly twelve.

So that, even if the length of the measure called the huga
or Uiica, admitted of actual delimitation, still the vagueness
with which it is applied in this part of Domesday would deprive
it of any statistical value. But then it seems not to admit of any
hard-and-fast delimitation, as will be seen from the following
extract from Bawdwen's Domesday Glossary (which might be other-
wise supplemented) : " Leuga or leuca is a measure of land con-
sisting of 1500 paces. Ingulphus tells us it is 2000 paces. In
the Monasticon it is 480 perches, which is a mile. . . . Leuca
autem Anglica 12 quarantenis conficitur, according to Spelman."
Skeat notices the word as follows : " Latin leuca (sometimes leuga),
a Gallic mile of 1500 Roman paces : a word of Celtic derivation."
The Roman pace, however, was about, or perhaps precisely, five
feet, which gives us 7500 feet or 2500 yards as the linear measure
of a leuga ; and in connection with the assumed mile and half
as the estimated length of a leuga, taken above as admitting of
tentative use, it is to be remarked that, the number of yards in
a mile and half being precisely 2640, the specific difi'erence between
it and the 2500 yards just named is but inconsiderable. And in
all probability this is, approximately, as near the Domesday
measure intended to be indicated by the word leuga as we shall
be likely to attain.

There is yet another term employed in all these Domesday
returns, as touching geldable extent, which calls for at least passing ■

Pre -Domesday Glances 407

attention ; and that is " carucate." This term is universally taken
as signifying the quantity of land which could be adequately tilled
— in the usual agricultural year, of course — by the labour of a full
team of draught beasts — oxen mainly, or oxen and horses, eight in
number.

But any one the least conversant with the most elementary
agricultural details at once recognises the fact that, if this is a
trustworthy definition, it involves elements of almost endless
variation. An acre of land of one particular description — that is,
light or free-working land, sandy in its composition rather than
clayey — may be ploughed with two horses much more easily than
an acre of land, the soil of which is "stiff" or "heavy," which has
much clay in its composition, can with three horses. And the
fact is even so. The carucate varies in different districts, and even
in different parts of the same district, to the extent of a ratio of
two to three. 1

For the carucate in all this district is made up, without any
exception, of eight oxgangs or bovatm. And the extent of a bovate
in Cleveland varies between a minimum of eight acres and a maxi-
mum of twenty. The following notes, illustrative of the area of
the bovate in three adjoining townships, are from the Black Book
of Hexham : In Little Broughton the extent in some instances
was eight acres, in others nine ; in Ingleby Greenhow the bovate
contained fifteen acres ; in Great Broughton the number rose as
high as eighteen.

Now, in Danby, while I have one note of eight acres to a
bovate, I have others of twelve ; and I have reason to conclude
that that number is almost certainly the approximate average value
of the area embraced by the oxgang or bovate. And if so, the
total number of acres comprised in the carucate will be under

1 In a long Roll, dating in 1299, in which are given the details of the
various landed properties of the Priory of Guisborough, so far as not retained
in the farming occupation of the Convent itself, we have a variety of very
valuable information of various kinds ; and in one place, dealing with the not
very large estate held by the Priory in the not very large township of
Ingleby Loringe, there is a very singular illustration of the statement thus
made. In one part of the estate the bovate contained twelve acres, in the
other eighteen, the variation depending, as I have ascertained, on the char-
acter of the land.

40 8 Appendices

rather than in excess of one hundred. And this conclusion leads
to a consideration of rather noteworthy bearing and importance.
It is this : within the manor of Danby there were about 600
acres liable to geld, or, in other words, susceptible of systematic
cultivation — "under the plough," as we say. Within the manor
of Crumbeclive there were five hundred more, and in the berewic
of Lealholm a yet further hundred; or 1200 acres in all, out of
the great total of 22,853 — not much more than one- twentieth part
of the entire territory !

Such a deduction must surely be tested before we fully and
finally admit it. And it may be tested in this way. There
are in all 11,597 acres of moorland in the district under notice,
which amount to eighteen square miles and a very small fraction.
The land under the plough amoimted in 1087 to less than two
square miles more ; and the sylva pastilis, estimated at three
leugcs square, came to twenty square miles and a quarter, or
forty and a quarter altogether. Now, we observed that the
Domesday estimate on the whole, on the ratio of a mile and a
half to the leuga, was excessive to the extent of nearly twelve
square miles. Allow for the like excess in the estimate of
the sylva pasturalis — that is, deduct three-sevenths of the said
excess — and the result obtained is as nearly as possible the precise
thirty-five and a quarter square miles of actual measurement.

On the whole, then, there is no way of declining the conclusion
that, according to the Domesday returns, out of the (in round
numbers) 23,000 acres comprised within the parish of Danby
(inclusive, be it remembered, of Glaisdale), barely 1200 were in
any sense brought under cultivation. All the rest was bare moor
to the extent of more than one-half ; or else what the great Return
terms " pasturable woods " — in other words, forest, marsh, swamp,
or morass, with rough pasturage places interspersed. These two
relative areas may be clearly brought before the mind by taking an
ordinary half-sheet of notepaper, seven inches long by four and a
half wide, and cutting out of it a piece of the exact size of one
postage stamp and a half. The part removed would represent the
cultivable land of eight hundred years ago ; the great surface of the
whole remaining half-sheet, the non-cultivable.

"When one tries to realise what this amounts to, it is not simply

Pre-Domesday Glances 409

that we find it easier to put the full meaning into Leland's descrip-
tive Banheiwm nemns, or into the sixteenth and seventeenth century
name for the place, that is, " Danby on the Forest " ; hut we begin
to admit a livelier and more vivid conception not simply of what
life in such a district must have been, but of what attempted
passage through it must have meant. " In our own country," I
read the other day, " the wealds of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex are
remnants of the great forest of Anderida, which once clothed the
whole of the south-eastern portion of the island. Westward it seems
to have stretched till it joined another forest that extended from
Hampshire to Devon. In the reign of Henry II the citizens
of London stUl hunted the wild bull and the boar in the forest of
Hampstead. Even under the later Plantagenets the royal forests
were sixty-eight in number. In the forest of Arden it was said that
down to modern times a squirrel might leap from tree to tree for
nearly the whole length of Warwickshire" {Golden Bough, vol. i. p. 57).
But this last statement is precisely that which I heard myself one
day about thirty years ago from the lips of an old Danby man, who
had received it from the lips of his uncle : "Ah beared my au'd uncle
offens say 'at he kenned t' tahm when a cat-swirrel could gan a' t'
way [all the way] down fra Commondale End to Beggar's Bridge
wivoot yance tooching t' grund." And there is an old plan (rather
than map) of the manor still extant, bearing date in 1751 — it
belongs to the Viscount Downe, lord of the manor — which is such
as to show most conclusively that the legend was absolutely and
literally true True, moreover, for both sides of the Esk, with
very small allowance, possibly, on one side. " Laund " and
" thwaite " succeed one another from above Castleton Bridge down
to the very limits of the manor on the east ; and in place after
place they diverge from the line of the stream to the north or to
the south for wide distances.

I think that perhaps of the two phrases employed just now,
"What life in such a country must have been," and "What
attempted passage through it must have meant," the latter may be
the more suggestive.

Any one who has seen the Esk in flood, and even the modern
raised approaches to the bridges under water for two or three score
yards on either side ; or who from the moorland heights on either

4 1 o Appendices

side of the main valley has seen the sheets of water along its whole
length, expanding here, contracting there, according to the nearer
or more distant approach of the slopes of the higher ground ; or
who from some higher vantage-post has noticed the contributory
floods, supplied by the lesser becks running through each dale,
often thrown back upon themselves by some obstacle, such as a
bridge with too scanty passage-way for the sweeping waters, or an
accumulation of branches of trees, dead rubbish, rails, sometimes
masses of hay or sheaves of corn, all the debris a great volume of
careering water can carry on its surface or propel before it ; and
who remembers that all this takes place notwithstanding all the
facilities afforded in these modern days for the escape of the flood-
waters, all the care and pains expended on the effort to keep
them to their proper course, to afford sufficient water-way under
the bridges, to clear away potential obstructions, will not have
much difficulty in picturing to himself what the condition of the
Esk valley must have been in the old, old days when the hand of
Nature was the only hand dealing with the drainage, superficial or
other, of the whole of Esk-dale, from its actual commencement all
the way down to Whitby.

For it is not simply the difficulties which clogged the transit of
the flood waters, considerable, almost insurmountable in a sense, as
they must have been, which have to be taken into account ; other
considerations and of a significant nature must needs be added.
Nowadays, owing to the prevalence of drainage, with its hundreds
of miles of underground water-way, and with its scores of miles of
superficial channels of greater or less calibre besides, the waters of
even the heaviest downfall, or of the most rapid thaw of the masses
of snow which get piled together on these wide, wind-swept moors,
experience no great obstruction or delay in finding their way to the
main water-carriers of the district But then that volume of waters
which now leads to a great flood, widespreading for six-and-thirty
hours or a couple of days, and a "bank-full" state of the river for
two or three or four more, was still only collecting when now
nearly all has run off ; was justifying the nomenclature of a much
later day wherein the field name " holm " occurs perhaps twenty
to twenty-five times as descriptive of the character of the field
named ; was leading to a perpetuity of swamp, " mires," or

Pre -Domesday Glances 411

treacherous marsh-ground, thickets of " saughs " or sallows, willows,
alders, and other water-loving saplings, shrubs, and trees, as well
as, in other and minor ways, tending to make passage through or
across the country more and more difficult, often impossible for all
but the /eroB sylvestres, the natural denizens of such a wild and
water-beset surface.

It is but a short time since that I succeeded in identifying the
Karlethwaite mentioned in a document dating in the year 1242,
and referred to above as a fine made between the Prior of
Guisborough and the de facto Baron of Skelton. The latter
reserves to himself the tithes of the hay from the park below the
Castle of Daneby, and in four " launds " in the forest of Daneby —
that is to say, in the launds of Souresby, Eskebriggethwoyte,
Karlethwoyte, and that below Threllkelde. The name Carlewaite
was still extant in 1751, and the old plan or map of the manor of
that date shows that the " laund " in question had Little Fryup
Beck on the west. Great Fryup Beck on the east, the Esk on the
north, and the height clothed by the Crag Wood on the south.
The area enclosed is nearly a mile long by an average of one-third
of a nule in width, or somewhere about 200 acres, more rather
than less. But the character of the greater part of this area is
sufficiently marked. Nearly half of it is to this day " good snipe
ground," and that not the part which is nearest to the river.
Another part of it, higher up the slope still, is " black land," ' full
of the blackened debris of ancient wood-growth, and drained within
recent times ; while yet a third part of it, lying within the
inclosure of the Crag Wood, is soft, boggy, and treacherous, not-
withstanding the drainage of the inclosures below, and the open
dikes or trenches cut to let off the water contained in the spongy,
miry soil of the surface. But if we come to the line of the Little
Fryup Beck, and strike up south from its junction with the Esk,
the stUl-existing testimony of the same kind is even more striking.
We come to the closes called Pundermires, and on every hand one
sees that the name Pundermires was not lightly given — that there
was a miry spot there indeed — and in what is really the most
elevated part of the extensive inclosures so named I have been
more than once (and in spite of much " circumspection " as to my
1 See Appendix G.

4 1 2 Appendices

" walk "), when looking for a woodcock or two, in considerable
danger of getting myself " bogged."

But on all sides evidence of tlie same general bearing and
character is in reality inexhaustible. And perhaps, while dealing
with this special vicinity or the old thwaite called Karlethwoyte in
1242 and Carlewaite in 1751, we might as well notice the character
of the lands opening out into it on either hand ; the lands, in other
words, constituting no small portion of the lower parts or " ends "
of Great and Little Pryup. On the west side of Little Fryujj
Beck, beginning from its mouth, we have the lands that were called
Butterwaites, the character of which in 1656 was that of all the
other "th waits" which lay in all directions in the old parish of
Danby ; that is to say, lands with sparse timber-growth upon them,
but with abounding thickets of thorn, hazel, alder, holly, bramble,
and brier, with glades of pasturage- ground in between, here and
there expanding into wider spaces, and possessing such an approxi-
mately level surface as to admit of being apportioned and applied
as meadow-land, and used for haymaking purposes in the summer
season. 1

^ I may as well adduce liere what I have written elsewhere as touching
the "thwaite." "The thwaites in the parish of Danby are Armethwaite or
Armetthwaite ; Butter-thwait, -twait, or -whate ; Mill-waite or -thwaite ; Stubhe-
thwaite or Stubble-wait ; Thwaite or Thwaites-hank ; Thwaites or Whates ;
Thwate-bank or Wheat-bauk ; Thwait- or Waith-dike ; Upper or High Waiths
or Whaits ; Nether, Lower, or Low Whaiths ; besides Carlethwait and Eske-
briggethwayte. The two names last quoted are in a document dated in 1242,
and it is rather worthy of remark that we should find what is usually held
to be a Norse word employed in a name derived from a medieval structure,"
— for that Bskebrigge assuredly was. " But not to dwell on this, let us direct
our attention to Buttertwait or Butterthwaite. The place — it is a farmstead
— used to be called by almost every one Butterwicks ; by the few excep-
tions, Butterwits. Naturally, perhaps, the latter was regarded as simply a
folks-corruption of the former ; for why should not the name range with the
two places named Butterwick in Yorkshire, and with the other two in Lincoln-
shire ? Besides, when Canon Taylor writes, ' "We find the (Icelandic or
ancient Norse) name of Buthar in Buttermere, Butterhill, and Buttergill,'
why should we not fancy we could trace another of the same name in our
own Danby Butterwicks ? But unfortunately for such a theory the Butter-
thwaits are mentioned in no less than four of the conveyances, all dating in
1656, preserved in the Freeholders' Chest, and in such a way as to prove that
recent inclosures had been made there for agricultural purposes, and that

Pre- Domesday Glances 413

Proceeding up the dale in a southerly direction, on the Butter-
wait side, we have a succession of black-land fields, only matched
by those on the other side of the beck as regards the unmistak-
able testimony they bear to their own origin and the continued
influence of the circumstances which had given them their being.
Their very soil, for some feet in depth, is clear evidence of the
wood-growth which had prevailed there from time immemorial.
Perhaps a mile and a half to the south of Pundermires the black-
land area contracts itself, and only a narrow slip of it remains on
the western verge of the beck. This whole space, with the space
occupied by Pundermires itself, must in Domesday times have
presented an impassable swamp in any and every direction. Only
systematic drainage could have effected the changes evidenced by
its present superficial and subsoil condition.

And if we turn to the other or eastern end of the ancient
Karlethwoyte or modern Carlewaite, or the part into which the
extensive dale of Great Tryup debouches, the case is still the same.
The two farmsteads. Furnace, on the border of the Great Fryvip
Beck, and Wheat Bank (which is but the corruption of the 1656
name, Waite Bank, Thwaite Bank, Thwaites Bank), have each of
them their testimony to give. The cinder-hill or piled mass of

these inclosures had been apportioned between farms severally called Arme-
thwaite. Lower Armethwalte, and Crossley-side House ; while, as to what
thwaites, whates, or whaithes meant, such extracts as the following — one of
a dozen or so — sufficiently show : ' A parcell of meadow-ground called by
the name of " an acre " in the Low Whaites in Glasedale Lawnes, and also
four averLsh gates throughout the Lower Whates and the Upper Whaites, in
Glasedale Lawnes aforesaid, as it is now devided.' There were meadow-
lands then in the thwaites, apportioned in acres (if not in strips, as it would
seem from other entries), over which, after the hay had been severed and
carried, there were also apportioned so many 'averish, average, or fog-gates,'
or right of stray and pasturage for such and such a number of animals of the
ox-kind, and these thwaits were in lawnes, launds, or spaces within the
woodlands, open enough to admit of meadow - lands in places, summer-
pasturage over perhaps wider spaces (the sylva pasturaKs or pastilis of
Domesday), but yet still woodland enough — as appears in manifold places — ■
to allow of numerous rights of taking ' garsell, garthsel, hedge-boot or hedg-
ing ' (all these synonymous terms being employed in the various documents),
for use by the privileged on their own lands as occasion arose." And thus we
have explained the presence of so many " thwaits " in the one parochial area
concerned.

4 1 4 Appendices

mediaeval iron -slag at the former rather impressively enforces
attention upon the consumption of charcoal which had taken place
there between the years 1200 and 1500, according to extant
written evidence ; and the consumption of such huge quantities of
charcoal postulates adjacent forest-growth, springing, waxing, and
cut down times and again. The other name announces that down
to the date given the " thwaite " character was still the character
of that part of Great Fryup. And while on the Furnace or western
side of Fryup Beck rough and jaggy surfaced black lands scarcely
affect to conceal the dusky dibris of the old, old wood-growth which
had prevailed there from time immemorial, on the other or
eastern aide the present names, Finkle House and Finkle Bottoms
(which are but corruptions of the 1656 Fringall, FrinkaU, Frinkell
House and Bottom, as Frinkell or Frinkeld is but a corruption of
the old 1242 Threllkelde), do but remind us of the launda there
extant, in which the last of the Brus barons reserved the tithes of
hay, as well as of that growing on the launds of Sowerby, Eske-
briggethwoyte and Karlethwoyte. If we leave the neighbourhood
of the Frinkell House lands, proceeding southwards or what is
called " up the dale," the conveyances of 1656 make it known that
from the limit just named, or the Frinkell inclosures, up past the
Beanley farm and the lower Wood Head, and back by Hawks Carr,
and so to the southern and eastern foot of the isolated eminence
called "The Heads," there was a great tract of pasture lands,
known then by the name of Fryupp or Fryupp Agistment ;
and what a great tract of pasture then meant we know by co-
ordinating it with the launds and the th waits we have just been
taking note of.

Nor is this all. There is the tale-telling black earth in the
whole area or portion of the lower part of the dale marked out by
the boundaries of this great pasture-ground so described. Scores
upon scores, nay, hundreds upon hundreds of acres are seen, on even
passing inspection, by one who has eyes to see and experience or
intelligence to .comprehend, to have alternated in the older centuries
between the condition of sturdy forest-growth with plentiful under-
wood of many sorts, and that of swamp, marsh, and bog, each to
be renewed or relieved by the other, once and again, as the slow-
moving ages rolled on. Wherever the valleys which we speak of

Pre-Domesday Glances 415

as " our dales " widen out sufficiently, and at an elevation a little
above the alluvium at their bottoms, through which the several
becks gnaw their way, there the water and the woodland-growth
struggled for the mastery, sometimes the one prevailing and
sometimes the other ; while the slopes ending in the steeper banks
were unresistingly occupied by the forest with its lordly sylvan
monarchs, its thickets, launds, and glades, dense and untracked as
jungle, and equally with the jungle, the dwelling-place of the
ordinary sylvan fauna, the wolf and the boar and the stag living
on in great numbers until late in the period we speak of as " The
Middle Ages."

And the becks themselves tell the same story. No longer ago
than the day on which this is written I have been walking along
one of these dale becks, and at a place scarcely a couple of hundred
yards from the spot where an old parishioner of mine told me he
had cut through three forests in digging a deep drain to relieve a
waterlogged bit of his freehold, I saw a new section exposed, cut
by the action of the beck during the somewhat heavy floods we
had had since the late autumn. This section was about six feet in
perpendicular height, and is worked through the beds of alluvium
deposited by the beck itself in the past ages. Above is the soil of
the fields on either side ; beneath it succeed beds of gravelly matter,
mixed layers of rounded sandstone, from the size of marbles to
that of a good-sized apple or a cricket-ball, strata of sand ; other
strata of mixed material coloured dark with ferruginous matter ; a
bed in which lay boughs and small trunks of trees, of the colour
and consistency of bogwood ; another bed of iron-coloured rough
gravel and sand ; and then below all, and washed by the running
stream, a bed of peaty matter, of which I could see six inches in
thickness above the level of the stream. And yet the place at
which I noted all this is but a mile and three-quarters below the
rift in the moor down which the baby Danby Beck wears its
way, of dunenaions such that an old man can without difficulty
jump across. Within that short course mainly, it and its still
smaller tributaries on either side have found the materials for all
those beds enumerated above, and each of those beds, but especially
the peat and the bogwood, has its own story to tell ; and the story
that is told is of woodland growth alternating with the action of

4 1 6 Appendices

water, in motion and at rest ; in either case suoli as to make
transit througli or along inconceivably difficult, if not altogether
impracticable.

Now this I conceive to have been the character of the whole
of this Danby district of the Dales country, as it was eight hundred
years ago, when the carefully, strictly conducted and enforced
requirements of the Conqueror led to the Eetum that, out of a
total of 23,000 acres of land in the capital manor of Crumbeclive,
and its two berewics of Danby and Lelum, at the very utmost
1200 acres were susceptible of the processes of agriculture ; and of
them barely one-half could have been actually subjected to the
plough and the harrow.

This conclusion and the considerations which have led on to
it may most likely help in supplying some illustration of what we
have noticed as the vague and unsatisfactory nature of the Domes-
day measurements. They were spoken of above as " estimates "
merely, and estimates that did not seem to have been very
accurately or even carefully made. But as we have seen, under
the actual circumstances of the district, this could not have been
otherwise. An actual survey and anything approaching to local
measurement were alike impossible. One might traverse the moor,
and from such points as the Beacon Hill on the north side of the
district, or the heights above Danby Head and Fryup Head on
the south, contemplate the greater portion of the home dales with
their verdurous fillings-in ; but as to any actual survey, in the
modern sense of the word, there was no scope for it. And there
were, on the other hand, insuperable obstacles to hinder the simple
passage, on foot or otherwise, through the entire district of the
would-be surveyor.

But suppose the validity of the Domesday statements touching
the then condition of Danby from the cultivable-area point of view,
with all the corroborative considerations which have been alleged
in the foregoing pages, be admitted — and I see no loophole open
affording any probability of their being evaded — are there not
other conclusions, and possibly of an unforeseen and unexpected
nature, which are forced upon us by the very admission itself 1
For we are asked to believe that no impression whatever had been
made upon nearly eleven-twelfths of the cultivable area by the

Pre -Domesday Glances 417

possessors or the occupiers of the area in question during the
generations which had preceded the Norman Conquest. The current
theory is that the Angles, at least a colony supplied from that
source, had possessed themselves of this among other portions or
sub-districts of the Cleveland division of the North Riding, in the
sixth century or thereabouts ; and that in due time they had
been dispossessed and ousted by the Danish irruption in the ninth
century ; and yet the united efforts of Angle and Dane, spread over
a period of five centuries or more, had not proved equal to the
reclamation of more than the very small proportion just
specified of the available soil of the bit of country in question.

I confess that this is a conclusion which, stated in this crude,
hard, unqualified way, I find it very hard to admit, and, much
more, to reconcile myself to. I cannot but accept the Domesday
.statistics ; but this outcome from them seems to me alike irrecon-
cilable with probability and with ascertained historical facts. I
cannot bring myself to believe that a colony of Angles, with well
on to three centuries to work in, could have succeeded in doing
such a strangely small proportion of the work which lay before
them in improving the sparse bits of open land, and clearing and
cultivating the least densely clothed among the woodlands, as it
must be assumed they did, if we assume too that a Danish colony,
much more energetic in the way of felling the trees and taking
and tilling the grounds so recovered than the Angles were, were
only able, in more than a century and a half, to bring the
total of reclaimed land up to the proportion disclosed to us by the
Domesday returns. Nay, it is hard to conceive that the tree-felling
Northman, with all his resolute energy, backed, as it was by
generations of like struggling with the arduous experiences of
reclaiming the rugged spaces amid the Scandinavian forests, could
have effected so little, could have been content with effecting so
little, in so long a time, of what was so vitally important to him.
On every hand it is evident there must be some explanation for
facts that seem so altogether anomalous.

But if we cease to look upon Danby as a substantive whole, and
begin to regard it as rather a sectional unit in a much larger area,
I think the necessity of such explanation will be but the more
apparent. Reference was made above to the township adjoining

2e

4 1 8 Appendices

on Dauby to the east, and to the Domesday estimate regarding its
dimensions, but no attention was drawn to the revelations afforded
as to its physical condition and circumstances. ^ Briefly, the state-
ment stands thus : there were three carucates to be taxed, and
there might be as many ploughs ; but it was then all waste. The
entire manorial district was four ZeMgce long by two broad, and of
that space pasturable wood occupied a full three-quarters ; in other
words, out of a total area of 15,600 acres, 300 acres or thereabouts
admitted of cultivation — the rest was moor, forest, laund, thwaite,
and swampy expanse. Or to recur to the sheet of notepaper illus-
tration — remove a section, of the size of half a postage stamp, from
the half- sheet for the cultivable land, and take the balance to
represent the unreclaimed land ! This may well seem an almost
inconceivable state of things, at least to such of us as know Egton
chiefly by a passing view from road or rail of the fields and
meadows and pastures of the modern township. Of course any
one conversant with the wide extent of moorland on the north
side of tlie main valley, and with the wider sweep of the same on
the southern side, will be aware of the extensive prevalence of
moorland country still. But for all that, it is very hard to realise
that eight hundred years ago there was probably not a single inch
of reclaimed land within the township of Egton south of the Esk,
while to the north, in the near vicinity of the poor, desecrated old
church, only the extent of about three of the modest moorland
farms, as they used to be a few years ago, was in such condition
as to submit to the imperfect appliances of the contemporary
farmer.

But suppose now we put the two imaginary half- sheets of
notepaper together, so as to make a connected whole, and then
make a blot something less than a florin just above the medial

1 It is obviously unnecessary for the purposes of the argument to subject
the Domesday return as to Egton to minute analysis or criticism. I have
made such analysis and comparative examination, and find the general result
to be that the Domesday area falls short of the reality by six square miles and
a half, in contrast with Danby, where the same area is in excess by no less
than well on to twelve square miles. And further, that whereas the leuga
in the estimate regarding the latter place is found on calculation to be less
than a mile and a third, in the Egton estimate it must measure very nearly
a mUe and three-quarters.

Pre-Domesday Glances 419

line of the left-hand leaf, another a little less than a halfpenny
about the middle of the line made by the folding, a third not
nearly so big as a threepenny piece higher up and a little to the
left, on the same part of the sheet ; and yet a fourth higher up
still, and more to the right, nearer a threepence than a sixpence
in size, — those four attenuated blots would give us the relative
sizes and position of the comparatively tiny patches whereupon the
farmer of the day, since the era of the settlement of the district,
had succeeded in making his effectual mark.

I do not think that this representation of the country or district
embracing Danby, Glaisdale, and Egton — a district implying an
area, in round numbers, of 38,600 acres — is in the slightest degree
overdrawn. Perhaps even the sin, if sin there be, is in the
contrary direction. The only source of error exists in relation to
the estimated contents of the caruoate ; and my impression, derived,
as I have said, from a large number of notes- specifying the extent
of the bovate or oxgang in the district concerned, backed by per-
sonal knowledge of the lands in question, is that 100 acres to the
carucate is in reality distinctly above the average. But assuming
that measurement to hold good, the sum of six carucates at Danby,
five at Crumbeclive, one at Lealholm, and three at Egton, amounts
to just fifteen ; the estimated number of cultivable acres to a
maximum of 1500 ; and the balance of moor and woodland of some
sort or other, with swamp and morass liberally interspersed, to no
less than 37,000 acres.

For reasons that are obvious we have confined ourselves in the
preceding notice to the district of Danby (inclusive, of course, of
Lealholm and Glaisdale) and the contiguous township (or parish)
of Egton. But it would be wrong to assume that this large area
was, as compared with the great stretch of eastern Cleveland
skirting it alike on the east and west, altogether exceptional in its
character and condition. On the contrary, so far as we can judge
from the somewhat meagre information given in the brief Domes-
day notices of the minor or sub-manors north and east of Egton,
the physical and superficial characteristics of the country in that
direction seem to have been to a great degree analogous to those
of Danby and Egton. Thus, Lythe, with a totwm maneriwm of one
hiiga and a half long by half a leuga broad, had eylva pasturaUs to

420 Appendices

the extent of a lenijga long by two quarentens broad, with but two
carucates of cultivable land. At Hutton Mulgrave the measures
were four Uwgce by one, and three carucates of arable land, three-
quarters of the whole area being forest, swamp, and pasture. At
Aislaby the proportions were a leuga, and a half long, by one /eitga,
with a leuga, square of wood pasture. At Seaton, all but about 300
acres would seem to have been under wood. In Goldsborough,
Ellerby, and Miokleby, embracing a space three liugx long by two
and a half broad, there was a limited extent of wood pasture and
a proportionably large one of bare moor, for the whole contained
but twelve carucates of land capable of the plough. In Skelton,
again, there was a very large area in wood pasture, besides a great
space indeed of moor and swamp ; and Kildale was nearly all
covered with forest-growth and its adjuncts. Lofthouse, Liverton,
Boulby, and Easington are not recorded as having been in the
same category, except that a terribly wide acreage is left, after the
cultivable portion is withdrawn, for barren waste, inhospitable
moor and fen.

Kildale has just been mentioned as being nearly all "covered
with forest." The relative proportions given are : the entire manor
two foMfl'CB long by one broad, and the sylva pasturalis of the same
length by two quarentens broad, there being about 600 acres
cultivable. But it is remarkable that no mention whatever is made
of Westerdale, although the explanation of this omission may not
be very far to seek.

The earliest mention of the place with which I am acquainted
is in a charter of grant by Bernard de Baliol to Eievaulx Abbey,
dating several years before the close of the twelfth century, and
the terms employed in the said grant are so remarkable that excuse
may readily be found for their reproduction here. After naming
certain important gifts in Teesdale, the donor proceeds thus :
"Moreover, I bestow two bovates of land, with all appendages,
in my vill of Westerdale, and common pasture in the said vill,
with all liberties and easements appertaining to the said bovates.
I also give them [the monks] common pasture for six score
beasts, throughout my territory and the whole forest of Westerdale,
except the cornfields and meadows, in which also, however, after
the severance of the crops, they shall have the same rights of eatage

Pre -Domesday Glances 421

as the men of the said vjll. . . : They shall also have pasture for
twelve cows and two hulls, with their young, towards the support
of their shepherds, the calves to he removed when two years old.
They shall also have liberty to make enclosures, sheds, stables, etc.,
at Wolfdalebeck, below Howthwait, as well as a dwelling for the
brother in charge and his assistants at Esklits ; and especially of
setting traps for wolves," on condition that everything caught
therein was to be Baliol's, with the sole exception of any cattle of
their own ; besides which, their shepherds were to have full license
" to carry horns, because of the wild beasts (of prey necessarily)
and bandits."

Thus, then, a place which is unmentioned in Domesday, and
which, as unnoticed by the Domesday Commissioners, could only,
one must conclude, have been so passed by because there was
literally no terra ad geldum within its limits, a hundred years later
was still in such a condition that while very large and important
rights of pasturage were conceded to a growing religious house ^
(there being, besides the six score amimalia, the twelve cows — each
with an average of two calves — and two bulls, ail vmspeciiied number
of horses at pasture), the grant of arable land only amounted to
two ox^ngs. And if we also take account of the provision as to
the setting of traps for the wolves, and the significant concession
in re prowling wild beasts and marauding outlaws, as these latrones
must have been, we shall have before our mind's eye a fair idea,
not only of what Westerdale must have been about 1185, biit also
of what it actually was in 1086, before any enterprising and fear-
less colonist or settler had ventured to penetrate its wilds and take
up a precarious existence there.

' There was another grant made, it is believed, by the same noble donor
to the Templars, as to which the same terms as those employed in the text
would necessarily have to be applied. No doubt before the Templars were
suppressed the state of things indicated by the nature of these grants had passed
away, and a large breadth of land had been cleared and improved, and, for
the times, a thriving agricultural condition superinduced, as is most abundantly
proved by the " extent " and inventories made by royal mandate on occasion
of the suppression of the Order. But it must be remembered that the
brethren of the Temple had been in possession for upwards of two hundred
years, and consequently had had time to work the most radical change in the
condition of the lands bestowed upon them.

42 2 Appendices

But, to try and obtain a more coijipreliensive view of East
Cleveland and its condition relatively to the facts of clearances
made and the possibilities of agriculture eight centuries ago, I
would observe that, beginning with Whitby Strand (exclusive of
Hackness), and following the coast as far as Saltburn, striking south-
ward thence by the borders of Skelton, so as to include Kildale
and all that lies to the east, up to the southern hill-line limits of the
district named, we enclose an area of nearly 121,000 acres of land.
Within this area, eight hundred years ago, as we follow the details
given by the Survey Commissioners closely and carefully, there
were not quite 170 carucates ad geldum. Assume that they em-
braced a total of 17,000 acres, still 104,000 acres remained entirely
unreclaimed ; and if we increase the estimate of acres to the carucate,
and assume that there may have been 20,000 acres cultivable, still
the balance of land as yet utterly wild and in nature's condition
as to wood, water, marsh, and moor, reaches the great sum of 101,000
acres ; or five acres and upwards of waste land for every acre that
had been made to submit, however imperfectly, to the forces within
the reach of the cultivator.

Nor is this quite all ; for we are bound to remember that
this geldabie land, while lying patchwise even in the places where
the industry of man had done most in the way of thrusting back
the limits of nature's hitherto undisputed sway, did but represent
a few small blotches on an otherwise clean sheet of paper. Kildale,
Westerdale, Danby, Glaisdale, Egton, a very large proportion of
Lythe and by no means a small one of Whitby, were aU forest,
thicket, or moor, swamp, marsh or mire — practically a trackless
wilderness for miles and miles together as to the moor, and a
pathless and all but impervious jungle as to the wilder and thicker
woodlands. Nay, Glaisdale had no name in the Domesday Sur-
veyors' note-book, and I think we have seen the reason why.
Westerdale had no name either, and again we have seen the reason
why. And yet a third place, which a century later, as in the cases
of Glaisdale and Westerdale, had newly acquired a name for itself,
namely Greenhow, had no name in Domesday, and whatever evi-
dence remains goes to show that it was for just the same reason as
with its two other nameless consorts.

For myself, after years of thought and consideration, I am

Pre-Dome'sday Glances 423

unable to accommodate to this series of facts and conclusions any
theory save one — namely, that the forces of nature, supplemented
by its almost more forceful ms inertioe, were too great for the
forces of human will and muscle brought to bear upon them. I
am totally unable to reconcile myself to the theory that a consider-
able body of colonising Angles, displaced rather than succeeded by
an equally strong body of colomsing Danes, could have been, dur-
ing a period of three or four centuries, not simply dwelling as
settlers in this or any like district, but actually dependent for their
subsistence on what they could force from the soil (untrained
rather than unwilling), and yet have made no more impression upon
the material source of such subsistence than is betrayed by 'the
facts and figures we have been led into contemplating. And as
the facts and figures, and the inevitable inferences dependent upon
them, cannot be gainsaid, nor, as I think, materially modified, the
conclusion which seems to be forced upon us is that the " body of
colonising occupants" or "settlers" cannot have been so consider-
able or so strong — whatever the cause or explanation of the default
may have been — as is usually assumed.

Now, I find myself writing, nearly twenty years ago, " We may
adopt the conclusion that, very possibly, the Anglian population of
Cleveland in the times of the Danish appropriations may not have
been a very dense one ; may not even have been located in nearly
the same number of home-centres as were to be found after a few
decades of Danish occupation ; although we certainly cannot suppose
that there were no Anglian occupants, or next to none, in the
times of greatest throng of incoming Danish colonists, and still less
that the said thronging immigrants utterly extirpated the occupants
of Teutonic origin whom they found in possession, whether such
possession were more or less partial. . . . The opinion that the
country was not fuUy settled or thickly peopled antecedently to
the times of the most active Danish irruptions seems to be one
which may not only be reasonably entertained and even resolutely
defended, but which commends itself to our sense of probability.
But still, ... it is impossible not to recognise some, and pre-
suppose other, and certainly important, Anglian colonies." Had I,
with the knowledge now at my command, to rewrite those sentences,
I should, I think, use much more definite and decided terms. I

424 Appendices

should not certainly deny or dispute the fact of " the various and
important Anglian colonies," but instead of writing that "very
possibly the Anglian population in the days of the Danish inroads
may not have been a very dense one or localised in so many home-
centres " as a few score years later, or that we could not assume
that there might actually be no Anglian settlements here and there
to be seized upon by Danish intruders, I should most certainly
affirm my conviction that, in many cases, what are now large
parochial districts had never been apportioned among Anglian
settlers, perhaps even trodden by Anglian feet, except possibly the
feet had been those of an Anglian outlaw or runagate. And the
reasons which have led to the building up of that conviction are
not only based upon the extreme improbability of the supposition
that occupation by a band of Anglians, succeeded by a band of
Danes, and spreading over nearly five centuries, could have issued
in nothing better or more marked than, e.g. the clearing and culti-
vation of barely 1500 acres out of a total area of well on to
40,000 (as in the case of Egton and Danby united), but on other
considerations also, of a nature altogether different.

Among the several and " important Anglian colonies " in Cleve-
land which may most unhesitatingly be " recognised " is the town
and district of Stokesley. The name is Anglian in both its
elements, and is as English as the pre-Domesday church at Seaton
and holy Hilda's well close by ; or Easington with a like church
and pre-Christian burials, which were neither British nor Danish ;
or Crathorn with its corresponding church and easily recognised
name. Every one who knows Stokesley well, and condescends to
matters of such small note as field-names, or casts his eye over the
six-inch Ordnance map of the district embracing the town and the
fields to the north of it, will notice a set of parallel fields with a
very commonplace name attached to them. Before mentioning
that name I will give an extract from what I printed in Thi
Antiquary two or three years ago : " Everybody remembers the
episode of our Lord's going through the cornfields, and His disciples
plucking the ripe ears of corn as they followed Him. St. Matthew's
expression, as given in the Anglo-Saxon Gospels, is — ' He for ofyr
eeceras ; ' St. Mark's, ' He thurh eeceras eode ; ' and St. Luke's,
' He fserde thurh da seceras ; ' that is. He yode (went) or fared

Pre -Domesday Glances 425

through, the acres." And then I quote from Mr. Seebohm : " Ob-
viously the English translator's notion of the cornfields round a
village was that of the open fields of his own country. They were
divided into ' acres,' and he who walked across them walked across
the ' acres.' " The field-name in the map just a little north of
Stokesley is "The Acres." Let us collate the name with the word
in the three extracts from the Synoptic Gospels given above, only
bearing in mind that the English of to-day is but the English of
the days when the Anglo-Saxon Gospels were penned, with the
wear and tear of a great many centuries upon it, and many subse-
quent accretions.

But if we go to what were the first " acres " known in Danby
(and some other places in Cleveland like circumstanced nine or ten
centuries ago), we find a series of fields, greater in area perhaps
than " The Acres " at Stokeslfey, and the name we find applied
there is one which may not be found in any English dictionary,
although it may be in that or those of a Scandinavian tongue. The
name in question is Wandales. And the meaning given to vawg in
Rietz's Sioedish Dialect Dictionary is, " tlie enclosed lands of a town-
ship or hamlet as contrasted with the common or hill-sides." As
to the final syllable of the word, it simply denotes the allotted
share or division, or " deal," " dole," or " part dealt." For the
" wandales," like the " acres," were simply divided or dealt out in
parallel slips of an approximate acre or half-acre.

Nor is the word " botton," applied as a divisional name, a whit
less exclusively or less significantly Scandinavian than " wandale."
As it exists in writings six centuries old under the forms bothine,
bottne, we need not pay much heed to the modern corruption which
has sought to replace it by the by no means really equivalent
" bottom." The Icelandic application of the term to the deepest
part of a dale, or dalsbotn, is the precise application in our Danby
case. And the men who cleared the plateau north of the church
sufficiently for the purposes of habitation and tillage, as they gazed
southward, from its brow and looked on the deep gulf of forest
filling the hollow between the high banks on either side, might well
be prompted to use the word of their fatherland, and dub it the
" botn."

But while manifold illixstration of the same character is con-

426 Appendices

tinually presenting itself in local names, names of conspicuous
objects, and the like, it is on the name Wandales that the greatest
interest and most pregnant suggestion is seen to depend. Even if
it were a solitary Scandinavian term surviving among a company
of Anglian ones, it would have its own testimony to deliver, its own
statement to make ; for it would show that, while the Danish
allottee had seen good to impress his own name on the place, his
followers or dependants had been Danish enough and iniluential
enough to discard the older and alien name for tlie ager communis,
and aflBx their own northern name, unintelligible to all save them-
selves, in its place. But standing, as it does, one of a company of
others all as national and as northern as itself — the Botton, the
Howe, Clither-beck (Icelandic, ar-kliSr ; English, the clatter or mur-
muring sound of a stream), and the like — it does distinctly convey
the information that such names were not usurpers displacing older
synonyms, but in reality the original distinctive appellations applied
to the several features in question.

And thus, while we seem constrained by the Domesday revela-
tions touching the very limited proportion of the district in any
sense actually brought under cultivation previously to the Conquest,
to be doubtful about both the duration of the period during which
reclamation had been proceeding and the actual amount of human
energy applied, we And also considerations of a totally different
character, forcibly impelling us to the very same conclusions.
Practically, while there is no evidence to show that, over very
extensive areas in East Cleveland, Anglian colonists had ever plied
the axe or swept the soil of its encumbering wild growth, almost
every detail arrived at through historical inquiry or inference tends
to enforce the conclusion that, within these specified limits at least,
the Danish occupants were not only the actual pioneers of cultiva-
tion, but the only people who had had the right to " call the lands
after their own names."

Danby, then, I look upon as exclusively Danish throughout.
And the " How and the Why," the manner and the mode in which
this had come to pass, may perhaps be alike explained and illus-
trated by the following passages from Green's wonderfully sug-
gestive as well as instructive Conquest of England : "It was not
till the middle of the eighth century that dim news of heathen

Pre -Domesday Glances 427

nations across the Baltic came from English missionaries who were
toiling among the Saxons of the Elbe ; and an English poet, it may
be an English mission-priest in the older home of his race, wove
fragments of northern sagas into his Christianised version of the
song of Beowulf. But to the bulk of Englishmen, as to the rest of
Christendom, these peoples remained almost unknown. Their life
had indeed till now been necessarily a home life ; for instead of
fighting and mingling with the world about them, they had had to
battle for sheer existence with the stern winter, the barren soil,
the stormy seas of the north. While Britain was passing through
the ages of her conquest, her settlement, her religious and political
reorganisation, the Swede was hewing his way into the dense pine-
forests that stretched like a sea of woodland between the bleak
moorlands and wide lakes of his fatherland ; the Dane was finding
a home in the reaches of beechwood and birchwood that covered
the flat isles of the Baltic, and the Norwegian was winning field
and farm from the steep slopes of his narrow fiords." Or this
again : " In all the northern lands society was as yet but a thin
fringe of life edging closely the sea-brim. In Sweden or the
Danish isles rough forest-edge or dark moor-slope pressed the
village fields closely to the water's edge. In Norway the bulk of
the country was a vast and desolate upland of barren moor, broken
only by narrow dales that widened as they neared the coasts into
inlets of sea ; and it was in these inlets, in the dale at the fiord's
head, or by the fiord's side, where the cliff-wall now softened into
slopes to which his cattle clung, now drew back to make room for
thin slips of meadow-land and corn-land, that the Norwegian found
his home. Inland, where the bare mountain flats then rose like
islands out of a sea of wood, the country was strange to them." In
Danby, too, we had " dark nioor-slopes pressing the village fields,"
" vast and desolate uplands of barren moor, broken only by narrow
dales," and " bare mountain flats rising like islands out of a sea of
wood." Here, too, men might " set themselves down, turn to, and
clear the woods, burn, and settle " ; be told of, like Olaf of Sweden,
" that they were clearing the forest," and, like him again, get called
the " tree-fellers " ; for here, too, was a " great forest-land, with
great uninhabited forests in it such that it was a journey of days
to cross them," and that " pains and cost might be spent in clear-

42 8 Appendices

ing the woods and tilling the cleared land," besides "making
trackways over morasses and mountains." ^ And to this actual
district came, and settled there, the strenuous Dane and Norwegian,
and did as they had done at home.

' See Conquest of England, pp. 53 and note, 56, etc.

APPENDIX D

THE SITE OP THE ANCIENT VILL OP DANBY

I HAVE been asked times without number, fey friends and other
visitors not resident in the neighbourhood, " But where is Danby
— the village of Danby, I mean 1" and the question is a very
reasonable one. No one ever asks, and for the best of all possible
reasons, "Where is Easington or Lofthouse, or Kildale, Harlsey,
Staithes, Hinderwell, Lythe or Runswick?" Por there are the
villages so named to put the questioner to silence.

But it is different with Danby. There is no " village of Danby."
And as far as any one can tell, after even careful searching and
inquiry of the ordinary sort, there never has been such a village.

And yet that is such an anomaly that one scarcely feels dis-
posed to admit it as a fact without some previous inquiry of some
kind. That a man called Dane — and after precisely the same rule
and for precisely the same reason that hundreds of people are now-
adays, and have been for generations, called Scott, English, Prench,
Welsh, Norman, and so forth — had the possession now called Danby
allotted to him — say, one thousand years ago ; and proceeded in
due course to construct his by, make his clearings — riddings, he
would call them — begin farming operations ; and that thus the
wooden dwelling, with stables, beasthouse and cow-byre, lathes,
bake-house and brew-house, and all necessary shanties for his free-
men and serfs (all of the same material), would grow up with more
or less rapidity, forming the sort of circumscribed hamlet the hy
actually was, is a matter which admits of no dispute. The simple
existence of the place-name Danby is amply sufficient to prove it.

But this conclusion in reality only accentuates the question,

43 o Appendices

"Where is, or rather, where was, the vill or hamlet originally
distinguished by that name % "

There are groups of houses nowadays at Oastleton, Ainthorpe,
Danby End (or, as it is more correctly called. Dale End), aU in the
parish of Danby. , But both Castleton and Dale End have grown
up to what they are within the present century ; and Ainthorpe
is more modern stiU. I know that the number of habitations at
Oastleton a hundred years ago was not more than six ; while at
Dale End there were but two. So that we cannot look for the
original Danby at either of those places.

Now, here let me remark that another question to which I have
had to reply times without number, has been, " But where is your
church ?" Once the question was put to me after the close of a
Oonfirmation held in the chapel of ease at Oastleton, and by
archiepiscopal lips : " But where," said his Grace, " where is the
parish church ?" And I pointed it out, as well as I could, distant
a mile and a half from the chapel near which we were standing ;
and I daresay I added, "And there are not forty souls living
within the limit of a mile from it."

But one of the things that I have never learned in the course
of my manifold inquiries has been that churches and chapels were
built, any more in the old days than now, far away from the dwell-
ings of those by whom they were designed to be attended. If
Egton old church and Danby parish church — to advert to no
others here — be far away from the mass of the presumptive
worshippers, we are not at liberty to assume that, it was planned
so from the first ; but rather that, for reasons good in the economy
of things, the worshippers generally have shifted the site of their
habitations from the vicinity of the ancient church. There can be
no hesitation about accepting that as an axiom.

It will easily be understood, then, that when I have been asked
for the village of Danby or its site, I have usually answered in the
somewhat general form, " Probably somewhere in the fields to the
north, but not far to the north, of the church."

Now my study of all available sources of information touching
the parish — of the Domesday record, the Ordnance maps, the local
names occurring in it, their meaning and general bearing, aided
not a little by what could be learned from those multitudinous old

The Site of ancient Danby, the Vill 4 3 1

conveyances in the Freeholders' Chest — has led me on to a conclusion
which goes far towards an exacter localisation still.

No one the least cognisant of the contents of old documents
dealing with local matters, and even so low down in point of time
as 1550 to 1580 — and indeed later yet — can but be aware that, at
and through the period so connoted, wherever there was a dwell-
ing — castellated mansions and so forth excepted — there was also a
"toft" for it to stand in. Toftum adificatum and toftum non-
mdificatwm, or, in the English of the Armada period, " builded
fronts " and " unbuilded fronts," are the phrases which denote the
site, or the possible or intended site, of an ordinary dwelling-house.

Now, with this maxim, that the " toft " implies the dwelling-
house, let us couple the fact that one field to the north of the
church lies a group of fields, six or eight in number, which are
to this day distinguished by the general name of " Tofts." They
are not all in one farm, but they are all in one compact group ;
and, besides that, of adequate area or extent. Because it is not a
very limited area that is required; for in the year 1272 there
were fifty-six oxgangs or bovates in vUlenage in the township of
Danby ; and striking the fairest average we can for the number
of villans among whom they were held, we cannot allow for less
than thirty-five. Or, in other words, we want sites for at least
thirty-five dwellings — probably more — in these tofts, each of which
dwellings must have had its own proper and peculiar toft or
inclosed yard, of from a quarter of an acre in extent up to a whole
acre, to stand in.

Here, then, in this particular area marked out for observation
by its significant name, deducing what are seen to be perfectly safe
and warrantable inferences from perfectly well-ascertained premises,
we probably find the site of the original vill of Danby. And in
such vicinity and correlation with this site as strongly to confirm
the inference so drawn, are the series of fields known by the very
marked name " The Wandales." There are the traces, it is likely,
of a somewhat later system of husbandry in the series of separate
inclosures (as they are now) called the Long-lands, the Mill-thwaits,
and so forth, which lie near hand ; but the name " The "Wandales "
belongs to a much earlier period of agricultural procedure than
any indicated by such names as those last mentioned. For

432 Appendices

Wandales, like Danby itself, like Clitherbeok, like Botton, like
Howe as thie name of two marked conical but natural hilla in
the parish, goes back to the time that Dane and his family of
dependants, or their immediate successors, made their mark on the
physical aspects of the country, and left their abiding impress on
its habits, language, and local nomenclature. And it is a term
such as to preclude the possibility of mistaking either its origin or
its application. As noted above, the explanation of the primary
element in the name Wandale was made on purpose to suit and
illustrate the connection I have sought to trace between the original
vill of Danby, its church, its site as marked by its tofts, and the
closely adjacent Wandales : " the enclosed lands of a hy or hamlet,
in contradistinction to the common or waste belonging to it."
And our Wandales are separated from our tofts now simply by
the lane called Wandales Lane, exactly as the tofts themselves are
divided into two parts by a lane parallel to the former, which ran
through the centre of the old settlement, as its street runs through
a modern village.

What revelations Danby Church may have had to make in the
past bearing on this topic, or what disclosures it may have to make
in the future, it is idle to speculate about. The Kildale Church
of twenty years ago, with the weaponed skeletons of its old Danish
lords — the trenchant swords and the scarcely less terrible battle-axe
— had facts to detail that were read with avid interest in Sweden
as well as in Denmark. Worsaae, Stephens, and others wrote to
me for further and fuller details, and the acknowledgments of the
writer first named — whose visit to North England and researches
and inquiries there, touching on the same and correlated matters,
were then comparatively recent — were very pleasant to read. That
poor old Danby Church once had similar records entrusted to her,
possibly keeps them still, there can be little or no doubt. The
medifeval pottery found in hundreds of instances in the graves
throughout the churchyard, with the accompanying charcoal — almost
certainly committed to the ground in the form of live embers — has
its own tale to tell ; but I, for one, should be very sorry to say
that all the pottery I have seen taken from the graves there was
no earlier than mediaeval ; or that the old consecrated churchyard
comprised all the ground originally devoted to sepulchral purposes.

The Site of ancient Danby, the Vill 433

That pagan Danes were laid to their rest there I make no doubt ;
and that they were the fore-elders of a Christianised generation or
series of generations is equally certain. And while the great men
among these might well be buried, as at Kildale, within the pre-
cincts of the (since) sacred building, or, at least, so close to it as to
be included within it at the rebuilding of a future day, the meaner
dwellers in the 61/ itself, as it expanded and grew to be a more
populous place, would find their earthy beds to the south and east
of the dedicated building. And the journey thither from the
homes they had dwelt in would be, if our deductions are right,
neither a distant nor a difficult one, and preceded by just such
gatherings of friends and neighbours as are very far indeed, even
yet, from being merely things of the past.

2f

APPENDIX E

ATTEMPT TO CLEAR UP THE DIFFICULTIES IN THE
DOMESDAY ENTRIES TOUCHING DANBY

Under the heading " XXIIII. TERRA HUGONIS FILII BALD-
RICI " are the two following entries, the first on f. lx.a and the
other on f. lxi.6.

" M. In Crumheclive habuit Orm v. car. terree ad geldum.
Terra ad ii carucas. Ibi habet Hugo (F. B.) nunc i uillanum & v
bordarios, cum i oaruca.

" B. hse pertinent ad hoc M. Danebi, Lelun, Bro . . . Camise-
dale. In his sunt ad geldum xi car. terrse. Terra ad v carucas.
Silva pastilis iii leug. long, and iii leug. lat. Totum M. vii leug.
long. & iii leug. & iiii quar. lat. T.R.E. valebat Ix sol. modo
iii sol.

" M. & B. In Crumbeclive & Lelun & Danebi habuit Orm xii
car. terrss ad geldum. Terra est ad iii carucas. Hugo habet et
wasta est. Silva past, iii leug. long. & iii lat. Totum M. vii leug.
long. & iii lat.

" M. In Camisedale habuit Orm i car. terrge ad geld. Terra est
ad dim. carucam. Hugo habet ibi i uillanum cum i caruca."

This second entry is placed at the end of the notice of Hugh
FitzBaldric's teura, saving only the following : —

"M. In Hevvarde habuit Orm iii car. terrse ad geld. Terra
ad i carucam. Hugo habet ibi i hominem cum i caruca. T.R.E.
valebat x sol. modo v sol."

Over these three entries stands the heading " NORT REDING."

In several particulars, indeed in almost all, these two entries
tally so precisely that, as regards those particulars, the one may
be spoken of as the duplicate of the other. Crumbeclive is the

Attempt to clear tip a Danby diffimlty 435

manerium, Danebi and Lelun the berewicce. The extent of diva
pasturalis mentioned in either case is the same, and so is the extent
of the totum maneriwm. The total number of carucates involved in
the first entry is sixteen, and that, again, is the number involved
in the second.

The occurrence of a second entry, involving so much of what
is contained in a former entry, is in itself not only totally anom-
alous, but such as at once to suggest that an explanation is
wanted, and also that it would be well to look for it and, if
possible, supply it.

One explanation which, in a sense, suggests itself, is that the
earlier entry might possibly involve a mistake made by the scribe,
and detected either when just made or, it might be, on revision,
and that the second entry was made as containing the rectifica-
tion of the mistake ; and for myself, I am inclined to believe
that this explanation will be found to cover all the diificulties
involved.

But I would further remark that there is yet a difficulty
involved, diverse in kind from any glanced at so far ; and that is,
that the reading in the first entry, or rather at a certain part of it,
is by no means ascertained, and I even think, by no means ascer-
tainable. The word which begins Broc — I think it is safe to
assume so much as ascertained — ^is not easily continued. In the
Yorkshire Facsimile the doubtfulness is so great that I wrote to
Sir Henry James on the subject, and the following reply was most
courteously given by him : " The entry on page Ix. of the York-
shire Domesday Book is, I think, BROCTUN Camisedale ; but thei e
is a blotch of scattered ink over the writing Broc . . . Garni, which
makes the reading a little doubtful ; and so with the words t'ra ad
in the next line. But this is undoubtedly (ra ad. I cannot find
where Broctun is ; it is probably near Denby, Barnsley."

We need not pause over the manifestly erroneous character of
this surmise ; our business is rather with the fact of the blotched
word. Is it quite certain that the said blotch was made inadver-
tently? In the Recapitulation, Camisedale and Broctun come in
immediate sequence the one to the other. It is surely not impos-
sible that a slip of the pen should have, through the local facts
involving this circumstance, been facilitated, and on being detected

436 Appendices

have been thus marked purposely. For it is manifestly a slip of the
pen. Hugh FitzBaldric had no Urra, and could have had no Urra,
in either of the Broctuns — Parva Broctun, that is, Magna or Alia
BroGtun (Little Broughton and Great Broughton), or Broctun near
Skelton (now Brotton). There is no uncertainty as to the holders
of lands in either or all of those places, and Hugh FitzBaldric is
not one of them.

It was otherwise, however, at Heworth ; for on f. i., where the
locality dealt with is York and the immediate vicinity (much of
what is now the suburbs of York), Hugh FitzBaldric is not only
mentioned as holding four mansions — those, namely, of Aldulf,
Hedned, Turchil, and Gospatric, with twenty-nine small dwellings
arid St. Andrew's Church (acquired by purchase) — but also as holding
largely in Heworth. The entry is as follows : " In Heuuarde
habuit Orm i manerium de vi carucatis terrse quas iii carucse
possunt arare, Modo habet Hugo Filius Baldri i hominem & i
carucam. T.E.E. valebat x sol., modo v solidos." In immediate
sequence to this is the further entry, " In eadem villa habuit
"Waltef i manerium de iii car. terrae. Modo habet Ricardus de
Comite de Moritonio. T.E.E. valebat x sol., modo x sol. & viii
den. Hsec villa i leug. long. & dim. latum."

Now, there is a degree of inconsistency between the statement
touching Heworth in the Eecapitulation and the several entries in
the body of the record, there being another short one on f. Ixv. as
follows: "TERRA GOSPATRIC. M. In Hevvorde i car. terra;
ad geld. Terra ad dim. carucam," and the notice of Heworth in
the Recapitulation, which is, " In Heuuorde iii car. : Ibid, iii car.,"
the latter specified as holden by Earl Alan, and the former (at
least presumably) by the Archbishop ; which is such in its nature
and extent as to arrest attention arid claim some measure of in-
vestigation.

It does not follow necessarily that because in the first entry
Orm is mentioned as having held six carucates in Heworth and
Waltef three, these tenancies were synchronous, and that the
united total, or nine carucates, is to be held the measure of the
actual area of Heworth. Nor can it possibly be assumed that
because Orm had held six carucates, therefore Hugh FitzBaldric
held the same, for what he is represented as holding directly

Attempt to clear up a Danby difficulty 437

militates against any such assumption. What he is stated to have
had there was " i homo & i caruca," his predecessor having had
" iii carncas." It is evident on the face of it that there had been
displacement and rearrangement.

Waltef, otherwise Earl Waltheof, had been arrested in the year
1175, the second half of it, and he had been tried at the mid-
winter following, and beheaded 31st May ensuing. Gospatric also
had been under the Conqueror's displeasure, and consequent
forfeiture, and had fled for the second time near the end of 1072.
The duration of his absence from England seems to be uncertain,
but it must have lasted some little time, and it was not until its
expiry that he received what Dr. Freeman speaks of as "the
partial restoration of his lands." Here we have elements of dis-
placement and rearrangement provided ready to our hand, and it
is quite possible that between the giving in of the returns forming
the bulk of the Domesday Book, and the labour of summarising
which found its issue in the Recapitulation at the end of the book,
the said process of rearrangement had been proceeding, and most
likely received its completion.

It is more than possible that the entry in the Summary or
Recapitulation gives us the total carucatal area of the township,
viz. two inaneria (or, at least, fees) of three carucates each ; and
besides that represents the final settlement of the tenures. And
with this agrees the precise statement in Kirkby's Inquest to the
effect that "in He worth sunt vi car. terrse, quarum iii sunt de
feodo Briani filii Alani, . . . et iii car. sunt de feodo Abbatis et
Conventus B. Marise Ebor."i The former of these two fees is

' There are certain details given after the mention of Brian FitzAlan's fee
wliich are inconsistent -with the primary statement unless they are understood
as a somewhat muddled account of the subdivision of the said fee. Tlie
editor, in a final note, remarks that "this account of the wapentake of
Bulmer is very incomplete," and refers the reader to certain documents
printed in the Appendix, from one of which we learn that Brian FitzAlan's
fee was actually so divided, and that one division thereof, consisting of one
carucate, was held by Andrew de Bolingbroke and Hamo de Grusey jointly.
And this subdivision tallies with what we are led to infer from other sources,
viz. the one carucate of the Gospatric fee, and the one-third of the entire fee
of six carucates apparently held by Hugh FitzBaldric, according to the earliest
entry of all (f. i.) And this, again, tallies with the three carucates of his
tenure in Heworth as specified in the amended or corrected entry on lxi.6.

43 8 Appendices

probably that held for a time only by Hugh FitzBaldric, aud
eventually by Earl Alan of Richmond.

There are yet other considerations to be adduced in connection
with this suggested explanation of the duplicated and connected
entry of f. Ix., which, moreover, may be found more or less corro-
borative of the said suggestion. And one of these is, that no
herewica in Camisedale either did or could appertain to the
manerium of Crumbeclive. In the amended entry the herewicos
of Danby and Lelum are, and correctly, described as so appertain-
ing, but Camisedale was in another district and another connection
altogether. Besides the one carucate there in Hugh FitzBaldric'a
fee, the king still retained five carucates, and the Earl of Mortain
three, and its local position is indicated as being both more in the
Stokesley direction, and in near juxtaposition with Ingleby Green-
how and Little Broughton. But excluding the Camisedale carucate
and the three carucates in Heworth, which, we have had suggested,
were in the mind of the scribe when he began the blundered name
of Broc . . ., we have the exact number of carucates required for
Crumbeclive, Danby, and Lelum, and that is twelve — five in
Crumbeclive, and (as we shall see later) six in Danby, and one in
Lelum.

And here I would call special attention to the fact that it is
Crumbeclive that takes the rank of manerium, Danby and Lelum
both being merely berewicce to it. Both the fact and the remark
will probably be found in the sequel to be not without their
importance.

For we have yet another entry bearing upon the three places
thus mentioned and their relative connection. And that entry is
found in the document which is headed, " Hie est feudum Eotberti
de Bruis quod fuit datum postquam Liber de Wintonia scriptum
fuit," the very last passage in it being, " Et in Eschedala xii car.
& ii bov. : scilicet in Danebia vi car., et in Crumbecliva iii car.,
& in duabus Hanechetonis ii car., et in Laolum x bovatse."

It will be at once observed that, save only the additional two
bovates (or a quarter of a carucate) the area mentioned is precisely
what it had been more than twenty years previously, or twelve
carucates. The additional two bovates most likely represent some
small accretion (whether by a correcter estimate or a process of

Attetnpt to clear up a Danby difficulty 439

assarting, cannot be alleged) made at Lelum, or near. But the
relative connection and importance, and even distribution in a
degree, have been altered. Crumbeclive is no longer the manorial
head or superior ; and, besides that, it has been dismembered. Its
original five cariicates have been divided, and while but three
remain as the dwindled portion now known as Crumbeclive, the
other two are divided again between the " two Hanktons."

I am quite aware that this entry has never been read, or rather
interpreted, in this way hitherto. Young reads "and in duabus
Hanechetonis, the two Egtons, probably Egton and Egton Bridge,"
with " perhaps duabus ham Echetonis, the two hamlets, the Egtons,"
appended as a nute. But anything more hopelessly astray than
either of these solutions it is difiicult to conceive. Egton was not
only not in the fee of Brus, it w£is already in the fee of the Earl
of Mortain, and Nigel Fossard was his sub-feudatory there ; and
there were not two Egtons, or even two hamlets, Egton Bridge,
so called, being a growth of much later date. Indeed it is a matter
of question whether the name Egton Bridge had begun to be applied
as early as the year 1500.

And again in my own incomplete History of Cleveland, although
I advert to " the difficulty which besets the record," and offer a
suggestion towards its solution, still the suggestion is insufficient,
and the difficulty remains as clearly evident as before.

Of couree, however plausible it may appear to assume that the
original Crumbeclive manerium of five carucates may have been
divided into the Crumbeclive three carucates of the Brus feudum,
and the two carucate lot comprising the two Hanktons, something
more than a mere surmise that it may have been so is required
before such surmise becomes of any value except to its originator ;
and I would suggest that what is advanced below may supply at
least a part of the something more required.

In the first place, the name Hankton is a surviving place-name,
and in the exact locality required. And, besides that, there is to
this day a marked — nay, even a twofold — natural division between
the Crumbeclive part and the Hanktons part. For the Crumbe-
clive part is simply but indisputably marked by the vicinity of the
old Crumbeclive itself. The name has been shortened into Crunkley,
where the kley represents the ancient dive (or clift), just as in the

440 Appendices

Guisborough place-name Kemplali there is the survival of the older
form Kempclive, the element cliff itself being retained in the name
Cliflf Wood, the alternative of Kemplah Wood. And between
Crumbeclive and the part indicated hy the still extant name
Hankton there intervenes, besides a portion of common (along the
length of which runs the roadway called Lealholm. Lane), the
stream now called Buskey Beck, the bed of the latter being more
than 125 feet lower than the site of the existing farmstead and
probable mansio of Domesday date. And, beyond even this, it is
to be observed that close to Hankton Hill or Farm or House (for
all three names are applied) is a farm now called — and for the last
three centuries also^Wind Hill, the lands of which mainly face
north, while those of Hankton face south. These two tenements
then may well supply the diKB Hanechetonm.

But besides this there would appear to be evidence still avail-
able adequate to show that the five carucates in question must of
necessity be found in the localities indicated, for the good and
sufficient reason that, if we admit the identity of Crunkley with
Crumbeclive, there was no space for them elsewhere. Because the
lands in question were in reality environed on all sides save the
north — where there is the precipitous clifF, of over 200 feet in
height^by lands that were not only uncultivated then, but
remained as undivided, rough woody pasture down to less than a
century and a half since. These rough woody pastures were
severally called the Low Wood and Glaisdale Lawns.

I think then that the case for the assumed subdivision of the
original Crumbeclive manerium into the later Crumbeclive section
and the two Hanktons section is a fairly strong one ; especially as
it is an ascertained fact that Hankton is a name of very old stand-
ing. It was extant, and as the established name, in 1656 ; and
how much earlier we may not venture to guess except by referring
to the old Hanechton of 1087-88.

But there is another matter to which a brief reference may be
here made. I mean the transference of the manorial dignity or
status from Crumbeclive to Danby.

It is to be observed that there is, in respect of the notice
touching the Brus fee at the end of the Yorkshire Domesday, an
indefiniteness as to the date thereof in reference as to all but the

Attempt to clear up a Dandy difficulty 44 1

past. The fee had not been given when the Book of Winchester
was written. It is, however, generally assumed that it was given by
the Conqueror : an assumption which is perhaps probable, although
it seems to be open to question whether it can be absolutely main-
tained. If it could be, the date of the grant would of course be
ascertained within a few months, inasmuch as William's death in
1088 decides the question.

But still the date of the writing under mention would not be
settled even then and so ; and there axe reasons, palseographic and
other, for assuming that the writing is sensibly later in date than
that of the writing in the actual Liber de Wintonia itself. And
for my own part I am inclined to think that, in the matter specially
under notice, or the transference of the manorial status from
Crumbeclive to Danby, there may be found internal evidence that
the date in question is distinctly later than the date of the grant.
Because not only is Robert de Brus spoken of as de facto tenens in
the case of the lands and lordships mentioned, but it is self-evident
that some little time must have elapsed before such changes in our
Danby manorial lands could have been effectually brought about.
Less than this indeed, on any adequate consideration of the circum-
stances involved, could scarcely be conceded by even a grudging
questioner.

For there is no question that Robert de Brus placed the then
head of his Cleveland barony at Danby. The castle and manor
there might be overshadowed some twenty or twenty-five years
later by the superior importance of the castle and manor of
Skeltou ; but the importance of Danby in the first Bruce's eyes is
attested by the strong as well as massive ^ castle he built there ;
and the estimate formed by his successors in the barony of its value
and importance may be realised by aid of the recollection that
when it had been forcibly abstracted — although with the substitu-
tion of more valuable lands and manors elsewhere — by the king,

1 The walls on the north side of it were fully eleven feet thick, and water-
defences outside the strong mason-work bulwarks thus supplied were of a
singularly elaborate nature. Strong as the site was by nature— it occupied
the end of a ridge with a decisive slope to the north and east, on which sides
also there were moats as well as on the landward side — it was elaborately
defended on the other sides also.

442 Appendices

and doubtless under the strong influence of political motives and
considerations, still the succeeding barons never rested until they
succeeded in re-acquiring both castle and manor, and that too not-
withstanding the enormous amount of the fine levied by the
monarch in consideration of such concession on his part.

But as still tending towards the same general conclusion as
touching the superior claims of Danby and the transference to it
of the previous manorial importance of Orumbeclive, there are
other considerations yet remaining to claim a measure of our
attention.

Brus, as a man of war from his youth, mu.st have been fully
competent to the selection of the fittest site for the strong fortress
he intended to erect, whether at once or after some inevitable
delay. A moment's thought about the relative fitness of the site
supplied at Danby and that available at Orumbeclive for such a
purpose cannot but suggest to us that, while one of these sites was
absolutely worthless from a strategical point of view, the other was
characterised by the presence of singular advantages. Danby com-
manded the route from Tees Mouth to Kirkby Moorside, and
beyond doubt controlled all similar passage along the line of the
Esk on its eastern flank. Orumbeclive had no such command or
control. In fact a stronghold like Danby made its occupant the
arbiter of all ingress or egress from the north and west as regards
the whole Dales district, and was a position to be valued ac-
cordingly.

No wonder then Orumbeclive had to yield the precedence, and
to become subsidiary where once she had been paramount.

Perhaps even it might be possible to enhance some of the con-
siderations involved in what has been last advanced, and especially
as regards the control to be exercised over any traffic across the
valley of the Esk for several miles to the east of the then Danby
Castle. There are reasons for thinking the whole of the Esk
valley from some point not a great way below Castleton, at one
time formed the bed of what was a long narrow sheet of water with
such a current through it as might be supplied by the volume and
force of the Esk as it was then. And there is, if not equal, at least
sufficient, reason for assuming that in the earlier days preceding
Domesday, and quite down to the period of Domesday itself, a great

Attempt to clear up a Danby difficulty 443

proportion of the lower part of that which had once been the
bottom of the said long sheet of water, consisted mainly of swamp,
thicket, scroggy brush, and sparse timber-growth ; that, in fact, it
was a district such as was not calculated either to invite or to
facilitate transit. And yet, the simple facts that the quasi-table-
land between Danby Beck on the west and the Ainthorpe ridge on
the east, starting from the line of the Howe to Ainthorpe as the
northern boundary, and going no farther south than the church —
on which plateau the ancient vill of Danby unquestionably was
placed — actually furnishes very much more than the carucatal area
specified by Domesday, and that the swampy overgrown bottoms
just referred to remained ■wild pasture-grounds, and nothing better,
down to the end of the sixteenth century, are quite sufficient to
establish all that is advanced above.

It would seem then, on the whole, that there are adequate
reasons for considering the displacement of Crumbeclive by Danby
explained, and for thiixking that the former was thereupon dis-
membered, and for considering the Au<z Hanechetonm fairly ac-
counted for as one of the results of such dismemberment.

One other remark touching this assumed displacement of Crum-
beclive by Danby may be ventured here. With the old or original
Castle of Danby, situated where it was, to accentuate the said dis-
placement, one necessary inference is that the earliest solid bridge
thrown across the Esk would be built on a site equally dominated
and protected by the fortress. And it is thoroughly worth more
than passing notice that the ancient bridge, locally known as
Castle ton Bow Bridge, not only occupied just such a site, but was
such in its architectural features and details as to postulate a date
not later than the last quarter of the 12th century. The bridge in
question, of which a faithful representation is given in the frontis-
piece, was as needlessly as unhappily destroyed only a few years
aco. I am glad to be able to preserve this memento of it.

APPENDIX F
TOUCHING ROBERT DE THWENG

As connected with this personage there is note of a mandate from
the king to the sheriff, dated in 1244, which by no means explains
itself. The injunction given is to "make an extent of aU lands
belonging to Robert de Thweng within his jvirisdiction, and to cause
a valuation of all his chattels (all of which are in the king's hands)
to be made." But de Thweng is not spoken of as deceased,
although it is more than probable that he was, because at that date
his son Marmaduke was almost certainly still a minor. Eor, if we
recall the circumstances, Matilda de Kilton was still the wife of
de Alta-ripa in 1221. Eight years later, it is true, she had become
Robert de Thweng's wife ; but some portion of that interval of
eight years must be allowed for Alta-ripa's demise and Matilda's
widowhood, and if we suppose Robert and Matilda married as early
as 1225, it is perhaps all that can reasonably be assumed. But if
this is conceded, the 1242 deed of endowment of the young bride
of Marmaduke de Thweng receives a remarkable illustration.
Supposing his parents married in or about 1225, and himself bom
a year later, we have him a lad of sixteen at the utmost in the
latter part of 1241 or early in 1242, and so wanting four years of
his stipulated majority ; and it is very possible that he may have
been younger still. But what makes the first surmise even more
reasonable is, that in certain deeds preserved in the Harleian MSS.,
and assigned by Mr. Loiigstaffe to circa 1245, we find Marmaduke
making grants of lands at Kilton Thorpe, or, in other words, acting
as having attained his legal majority, and, in any wise, having
succeeded to his father's lordships.

APPENDIX G

BLACK LAND

I ASKED one of our farmers the other day if he could give me any"
sort of an estimate of what the amount of " black land " in the
parish might possibly sum up to. " Black land," said he musingly ;
" why, there's a vast. So-and-so has two fields, all black land ;
So-and-so else has three ; why, I have three myself, and — there's
amaist nane but has some, more or less."

But I could not get any estimate of the total amount, all through
the parish, out of him. He had not been accustomed to consider
the matter in that way.

Let me try and give an idea of what " black land " really is,
and how it comes to be black land.

Near upon forty years £^o, soon after I came into the occupa-
tion of this house, at the request of the patron of the living I
bought seven or eight acres of land, some of which lay close up to
the immediate precincts of the house itself, and might chance, in
the hands of an unfriend, to become a very sore nuisance to the
inmate or inmates of the house, and, that is, to any parson of the
pariah and his family. I had a good deal of trouble over the
bargain, and had to pay a heavy price for the land, as regarded
only from the " agricultural value " point of view.

When the bargain was an accomplished fact, and the land
turned over to the patron, I became the tenant of it ; and one
of the first things to be done was to drain it. This was, for
the most part, a straight-on-end piece of work ; but when we
got to the far side of the farther field matters did not arrange
themselves quite so readily. For there was about an acre there
that never had been ploughed, and did not promise to yield

446 Appendices

too readily to the processes of tlie ordinary drainer. For if you
walked over it the whole surface quaked under the impulses of
your moving weight. Indeed, in seasons of long-continued wet
the very cattle seemed to be chary of trusting themselves too con-
fidingly to its undulating level. But I had led my main drain as
near to the superficially-covered quagmire as I dared, and then the
process adopted had been to drive outside — or skirting — drains in
either direction, as close as it was possible to go to the treacherous
swamp. In this way a considerable amount of water was per-
mitted to ooze and " sipe " out and away. At last we thought it
was safe, as it had certainly become necessary, to carry the work
into the morass itself ; and we approached as warily as we could,
carrying drains as far as was possible wherever there seemed to
be most promise of solidity. In this way we found it feasible,
with the adoption of the ordinary precautions available to careful
drainers, to carry the work continuously forward and to approach
its completion.

One day as I was with the men, and talking to the one who was
charged with the nicer or more critical part of the work, and who
at that moment was engaged in taking out the third "graft"
below the surface, and was congratulating himself on the freedom
from disaster which might quite possibly have befallen, all at once,
without a moment's warning, he sank down bodily to a depth of
at least three feet below that at which he had been working a
moment before. As he sank a quantity of thick, black, puddly
liquid gushed up all round him, with the effect of giving him
a most uninviting-looking bath far above his hips. The dis-
mayed look of the man, and the utter mystery of the mishap which
had befallen him, and the uncertainty as to how far it might pro-
ceed even yet, presented a mixture of the ludicrous with the
startling which miay be imagined but can hardly be described. It
was a relief, however, to find that the man — Ditchburn was his
name — after the first rapid subsidence, sank no lower. But he
could do little or nothing towards extricating himself without
assistance. From his feet to half-way up his thigh he was confined
in a narrow cylinder ; while above that was the narrow trench of
the commenced drain, about two feet six inches deep, and present-
ing nothing at all in the way of what Archimedes modestly asked

Black Land 4^7

for, by availing himself of which he could, as his fellow-worker
phrased it, "mak' hissel' a lahtle help." However, we soon
extricated him, each of ua giving him a hand ; but giving him also
at the same time as wide a berth as we very weU could ; for up
to his armpits nearly, he was as black and as capable of blacking
any person or thing he came into contact with as if he had been
carefully and liberally painted down with the dregs of a few score
blacking bottles.

The explanation of his sudden descent, and of the foully-
besmirched plight in which he revisited the surface, was that a
large tree-stump, still standing where the tree had originally grown,
had been situate immediately beneath his feet at the instant he
began to sink, and that more than two feet of its original roofing
having been removed by the previous processes of the drain-cutting,
the thin stratum left above the hollow stump had proved unequal
to supporting th« weight of the man, augmented as it was by the
vigorous impulses of his digging exertions, and so had given way,
and quietly let him through into the equally unexpected and
undesirable bath of the black blood of the morass it stood in.

For this morass was the site of what once had been a section
of primsBval forest ; the tree, whose stump remained there firmly
rooted five or six feet below the present surface, was one of many
such trees. The piece of land on which my men were at work
was the southernmost and lowest or last section of a considerable
area of land of the same quality and consistency with itself — the
skirting piece, indeed, to and through which all the semi-stagnant
drainage of the whole area naturally worked its sluggish way, and
the whole of it was, and is, full of the d/bris of former forest growth.
The deeper the men drove their tools the more obtrusively evident
all this became — hazel-nuts, the leaves of divers kinds of trees and
shrubs, as easily identifiable as on the day they finally sank to the
stagnant depths of what was then a vast pool (but not long before
had been one of Nature's loveliest play -places) ; twigs, sprays,
branches, limbs, trunks, all lay strewed about there in the veriest
profusion. " As the tree falls, so must it lie " is true in a fuller
sense than perhaps the writer of that pathetic hymn actually
realised. The trees here had fallen, but not as uprooted by the
irresistible hurricane, or as yielding to the slower but equally

44 8 Appendices

irresistible influence of natural decay, but they had fallen under
the insidious action of stagnant water. One season in the far-away
ages of the past had seen these monarchs of the woodland standing
in all their pride and beauty side by side with clumps of hazel,
thorn, holly, brier, bramble, and what not (all attested by the re-
mains left at our feet) ; and the next, by reason of the formation
by natural means — and who shall say how or by what agencies
employed ? — of a natural dam sufficient to head back the waters
which threaded their way through the glades and along the natural
slope, had beheld a sheet of water, of some thirty or five-and-thirty
acres in extent, laving the trunks of the trees for some three or
four feet of their height, and, while drowning all the lower growths,
holding the bases of all the higher clumps in its watery embrace.
And the death of all the sturdy timber-trees, tangled thicket,
upthrusting sapling, branching bracken, frondy male -fern and
shield-fern, had resulted almost as soon as the flopd had succeeded
in establishing its permanence. And after death came decay, as
always ; only, as regards the timber-trees under such circumstances,
the decay commenced not at the bottom nor at the top, but just
where the water-line of the destroying flood ringed the' trunk. It
was there that fungus and rot and insect were most busily and
most effectively at work, and it was there that the consequent
weakness of the great strong trunk first showed itself ;i and when

^ TMs is a well-ascertained fact ; the instances in which it has heen illus-
trated are literally innumerable. Some of the cases recorded as occurring in
the coal-measures are of singular interest, as tending to prove not only the
general fact stated in the text, but as proving also that, although all the wood
proper from the interior of the stumps left in the ground had decayed away,
yet the bark itself had remained standing and firm, and with sufficient con-
sistency to reveal its nature to the observant eyes which were noting it. And
it had been the same in this swampy piece I was draining, when poor Ditch-
burn began his unlooked-for and unwelcome descent towards the lower world.
It was the bark which was left in its consistency, and had formed the tub
in which he had taken his entirely undesired bath. Indeed, I saw the life-
destroying energies of water on living trees, under the circumstances noted,
well illustrated in the course of the formation of the North Yorkshire and
Cleveland line of railway. A little short of the Lealholm Bridge Station, on
its west side, is a very heavy embankment, underneath which runs a small
stream called Park Head Beck. To permit the proper passage of this stream
a culvert was built, but the masonrwork put in had not been strong enough to

Black Land 449

the pressure of storm and tempest bore heavily upon them, it was
there that the resisting strength first gave way. The tree broke oflE
short, and as it fell, there it lay, anchored by its branches, until at
last, in the course of time, all fashion as of a tree had fleeted
away, and the woody constituents of its ancient substance had
gone to form indistinguishable ingredients in the soil of the
" black land."

That is the history of the black land as it is read in the unfal-
tering, undeceiving, and as yet indelible records of God's earth ;
and the black land lies all over the dales, and even in many places
where one would not have thought of looking for it, for here and
there it creeps up the slopes at the foot of the moor, up steeply-
ascending moor-banks, or rather hill-sides. And wherever one finds
the black land, there may usually be found too ample evidence
to testify to the fact of primaeval woody growth there. No doubt
there are variations in the application of this general rule, and one
of these variations is, that the lower the level, or, in other words,
the nearer the level of the main system of the drainage of the
dales themselves, the more numerous and the more impressive
become the black-land-covered forest growths. One of my oldest
acquaintances in the parish — dead a few months ago only — told me
that, having occasion to drive a very deep drain through a part of his
property not very far distant from the banks of the stream running
along the length of Danby Dale, he had to "cut through three
forests." There they lay, one above the other, at three different
and distinct, but severally, perfectly continuous and weU-defined
levels. Three slow and gradual growings of the trees, three cata-
clysms, three periods of decay and falling, and mouldering and
becoming "bogwood"; and then time for the conversion of the
stagnant pool enveloping the still standing butts into bog first,

bear the superincumbent pressure, and the culvert failed ; consequently the
waters of the stream were headed back, and a pool of some dimensions on the
higher side of the embankment formed. The work of reconstructing the cur-
vert, and allowing the pent-back waters to run off, was one of diffioulty and
time ; and consequently several ash and other trees growing on the verge of
the little stream interfered with had from two to four feet of their trunks
(nearest the ground) under water for the time — a period of three or four
months or more. Every such tree was killed, and has long since been
removed.

2g

45° Appendices

into swamp next, into oarr-land last, witli a consistency which was
that of the " earth above " rather than that of the " waters beneath
the earth."

For all this peaty soil that constitutes the upper two to three,
or from that to five or six, feet of the black-land fields has taken
its origin ia this way. Water-plants of various sorts and water-
mosses have grown up and died down year by year, forming thin,
layers, as each successive season rolled on its way ; and these layers
were permeated by the roots of other plants and mosses, and the
slow process of growth and accretion narrowed the skirting margins
first, and raised the shallower portions of the bottom nearer the
surface, and so what was in a sense dry land began to appear, but
land that almost all the way through, from margin to margin and
from bottom to surface, was of vegetable growth that had blackened
with decay, and had had its hues further intensified by chemical
action. The " Moss-litter Companies " may bring us brown peats
of superficial and comparatively recent formation, but our black
earth took longer to form, and the hue is distinctly black, and not
brown, not even a dark brown.

The fact is, there are trunks of trees lying about at from just
level with the surface to eight, ten, or twelve feet below it in all
directions, and to an extent that is hardly suspected by not a few
among those who are supposed to know something about such
matters ; and the dimensions of these trees are such as to open
the eyes of those who see the present growths of timber in the
dales, and have come to have their notions modified by what they
have thus observed. For instance, some fifteen or eighteen years ago
I was far up in Danby Head one day on some parish errand, and I
chanced to hear the sound of hard and continued chopping in a
direction which I could only associate with an area of ploughed
fields, separated each from the other by stone walls in lieu of
hedges, and totally innocent of bushes and much more of timber.
I went a little out of my way to see what it could be that was
being chopped. It turned out that the woodman was one of my
old friends, the small farmers living in the Dale-head ; and as soon
as I entered the field in which he was at work — it was one of the
blackest of black-land fields, even in that black-land part of my
parish — I saw him, with his plough-team and bright-breasted

Black Land 451

plough, all idle and vacuous, close by, hacking away with mighty
strokes at something not rising up from the ground but laid within
it ; for there was nothing whatever visible to strike at, as I saw
him, on the palpable surface. On going up to him I saw it
was a bit . of a great black tree he was hacking at. The fact was
that by reason of the gradual settlement of the soil through drain-
age and other agricultural causes, the tree had come to be in the
way of the plough, and he was chopping the intrusive part away.
" You see, sir," was his explanation to me, " thoase au'd tree-trunks
vMl work oop." And so he had bared about ten or twelve feet of
its length — for it lay slopingly in the ground, and as it grew
thicker it was seen to lie deeper — and was hacking with might
and main to remove so much of it as was actually within scraping
distance of his plough-sole. Now that tree, where the farmer was
cutting it through towards its upper part, was stiU eighteen inches
in diameter, and allowing only six inches for the waste occasioned
by decay, what a tree it must have been, with such a diameter at,
probably, at least flve-and-twenty feet above the point at which it
had first decayed and then broken short off.

Another specimen I saw taken out of the ground in a field in
Fryup Head. This was little more than the six-inch-thick shell
of less than the longitudinal half of a tree which, in its decayed
condition, attested a diameter of at least four feet. It was more
than twenty feet in length, and, shell as it was, it took two horses
to " snig " it — that is, to trail or drag it along the ground by aid
of a "chain and other tackle. The diameter of that tree where it
broke across must have been nearly or quite six feet, and the
length — who shall even estimate it ?

Another, and of hardly inferior dimensions, was partly bared
by the action of a smaU black stream on the moors, about a mile
north of Danby or Dale End. More and more of it was disclosed
from year to year during the first decade of my residence in the
parish ; and, first and last, I saw fully forty feet of it laid bare.
What the total dimensions were I failed to ascertain ; for one fine
day some enterprising person cleared it out, or, at least, as much
of it as he could get ; but from what I saw of it, it must have been
originally some sixty or seventy feet from the ground before it
ceased to be timber that might be squared.

452 Appendices

All three of the trees thus mentioned were firs of some sort —
I believe, Scotch pines.

As to the oaks I have seen taken out of these repertories of great
trees, not a few of them showed signs of having formed portions of
fine, well-grown, even if not magnificent, specimens of forest growth ;
but they were, almost invariably, very much more decayed than
the pines, and it was difficult to meet with blocks of such size and
quality as to admit of being put to any practical use.

But the noble trunk I mentioned as occurring in the course of a
small moorland stream was far from being an isolated instance of
the former growth of trees on what is now, and long has been,
bare and treeless moor. To mention but one case : in the peat-
moor used by the Lealholm community there used to be, and
probably are still, large quantities of the stumps of fir-trees, afford-
ing a close analogy to that one which gave the black bath to my
luckless drainer, except that they were so much more recent that
the woody character had by no means entirely forsaken them ; on
the contrary, they were hacked up for fuel by such as went to the
pits to cut peat.

It is indeed entirely impossible to define exactly the proportion
of what has long been treeless moor, which in remote times has
been demonstrably under wood at some period ; but I believe the
space is enormously larger than is usually allowed for or even
suspected. And if so, what with the testimony of the black land in
the bosoms of the dales ; what with the forest-clothed slopes of every
moor-bank in the district down to less than a century and a half ago ;
and what with the hundreds and hundreds of acres of the " thwaits,"
" launds," " lawns," or scrubby wood pastures, of the seventeenth
century, — what is the reasonable conclusion as to the extent of forest
and swamp throughout the whole district called Danby now that
must have presented itself on all sides in even slightly prehistoric
times ?

INDEX

Bakkow, near Freeturgh Hill, 147
called Herdhowe, 135
on Skelton moors, 145
Barrow-digging, 135

a zealous helper in, 135-137
compared to fox-hunting, 136
interest of, 136, 138
Barrows, construction of, 146-150
contents of, 253, 257
date of, 257
great numbers of, 258
opened in search of treasure, 139
successive deposits in, 146, 150
Bees, customs connected with, 126, 127
put into mourning at their owner's

death, 127
unlucky to huy, 126
Begging, a system of, 249
Belief in fairies, 53, 57, 58, 68

witches, 73, 75
Birds, destruction of rare, 329, 332
double-brooded, 317
eggs, occasional peculiarities in,

342, 343
fed in the winter, the various ways

of, 323-326
formerly seen here —

bam owl, 329

black grouse, 347

dabchick, 333

dipper, 343

eagle, 38

golden eye, 333

goosander, 332

grebe, red-necked, 333

harrier and buzzard, 38 n., 330

kestrel, 330

kingfisher, 329

kite, 38 n.

mandarin drake, 332

Birds, formerly seen here —
merlins, 330
quails, 327
raven, 38 »., 329
screech owl or barn owl, 330
shrike, 330

spotted woodpecker, 329
tufted duck, 333
water-rail, 333, 334
White's thrush, 328
imitations of their calls, 338
shamming dead, 335-337
stockdoves, increased numbers of,
347
Boxing-matches, 27
Bride-ale, 207, 208
Bride-wain, 207, 210

contents of, 21 1
Bridges, old — Castleton Bow Bridge,
443 ; Duck or Castle Bridge,
291, 292 n.
British village, the, at Danby, 161
or Roman village iu Glaisdale, 169,

170
village at Goathland, 170
at Westerdale, 171
British villages, so called, 163, 161,
169-171, 176
investigations of, 163, 164, 175
Ord's descriptions of, 162, 176
real purpose of, 168-177
Brus, last male of the family of, 272

Eobert de, grants to, 269, 270
Burial customs —

avril or arvel bread, 227
bearing of the cofEn, 231
bidding to a burial, 226
entertaining at a burial, 226, 228
hats worn in church by relatives at
a burial, 225

2g2

454

Index

Burial customs —

necessity of passing o¥er church
road, 130, 220, 230

singing at a "burial, 232
Burial places, Quakers', 223

speech at a Quaker's, 225
By, its meaning, 264

Calf, burial of an abortive, 62, 132
Caruoate, variations in the, 407
Celt (bronze) found in Glaisdale, 254
Odtic Britain quoted, 258 n.
Charm against a witch, 95, 104, 106
Charm for bewitched land, 238
Church, baptisms not solemnised in
the, 45 n.

hats worn in, by mourners, 225

want of reverence in, 44, 45
Church rates, payment of, by Quakers,

224
Churchway, cof^ns conveyed only by

the, 130, 220, 230
Churchyard, charcoal found in, 214 ;
its purpose, 219, 221, 432

flint found in, 157

pottery found in, 213, 221
Class differences, absence of, 5, 12
Clay beds, structure of, 190, 193, 395
Cleveland, Danish names in, 263, 265

whinstone dike in, 148
Climb, a toilsome, 220
Common rights, 10, 307

encroachment on, 307
Congregations in winter, 362, 360, 365
Conveyances of Danby lands, 306,

391
Coums, Danby, description of, 194,
196

subsidence at, 195
" Country, a devil of a," 190, 191
Coursing witches, 83, 85
Crag wood at Danby, 181
Crops, rotation of, 9
Crunkley or Crximbeclive, 185, 439

Dales, configuration of the, 185,
396, 399
scenery, 42, 185, 372, 400

the, apparently submerged, 188
wedding, a typical, 205
Dalesmen, thrift of the, 112
Danby, area of district of, 184, 405
changes at, 4, 5
political, 17

Danby, condition of, at the Conquest,
266, 391, 402, 408
configuration of the district around,

182, 185
Danes, marks left by the, at, 263,

425, 429, 432
earls of, 293, 294, 299
early settlers at, 260, 425
first piano in, 14
how I came to, 37
my first ride to, 38
site of the ancient vill of, 387, 429
the name, 264, 265
Agricultural Show, origin of the, 11

speech at the first, 112 n.
Beacon, 38 »., 40, 161, 375
Botton, 397

Castle, destruction of the old, 279
jury-room at the present, 295
old materials of, possibly used

for the church, 281
old, strength of, 270, 271, 311,
441
Church, condition of, 44, 45
Forest, extent of, 404, 409
Lords of — •

Brus, Adam de, deprived of part
of his lands, 273-275
Peter de, 274, 390 n.

lands restored to, 275
Robert de, 269
Danvers, Sir Henry, 293
Sir John (Dauntsey), 293
Sir John (Chelsea), 297-300
sale of estate by, 298, 301-
303
PitzBaldric, Hugh, 266-269, 402
Latimer, William le, 286

jun., 289
Nevill, John, Lord, 292
jun., 293
Richard, 293
Orm, 266, 434

Thweng, Marmaduke de, 283
Robert de, 285, 444
Dawnay, John, purchase of lands at

Danby by, 304-306
Daytal-man or day-labourer, 43 n.
Decency, increase of the sense of, 5,

12, 27, 212
Defensive works, ancient, 154, 257
probable date of, 260
their purpose, 156, 160, 259
at Eston Nab, 159

Index

455

Dialect, decay of the, 31-34
District of surprises, a, 373-375
Dog-whipper, the, discomfited, 247

his attire, 246
Domesday, entries touching Danby in,

401, 434
Double broods, occasions among birds

of, 317
Draining, discoveries of forest-growth

In, 415, 447, 449
Drunkenness, decrease of, 28, 29, 31
Dunsley, ancient chapel at, 223

Fairies, faith in, 53, 57, 58, 68

stories of, 52-55
Fairy butter, 53

Cross Plains, 51

dwellings, 52, 53

rings, 52
Farmers, industry of the, 12-14
Farms occupied by the same family
for generations, 9

size of the, 7, 62
Fieldfares in severe winters, 32-35
Fighting, 27

FitzBaldric, Hugh, Sherifif of York-
shire, 267
Flint implements discovered, 157
Fog, lost in a, 376, 380
Folklore, 51

customs, faith in, 61-63

topics, unwillingness to enter on, 58,
61
Forest-growth, evidences of former,

159, 412-416, 443, 447, 450
Fox-hunters not such fools, 138
Free school at Danby, 46-48
Friends, the Society of, 223

burial-places of, 223

in church, 225

their manner of paying church
rates, 224
Fryup Head undercliff, 186, 187

Gakden, mischief done by birds in,

318-322
Ghosts, fear of, 130
Gill, Stonegate, 39, 40, 185
Glacial action, evidences of, 397-399
Golden plover, stalking, 340
Graves, desecration of, 130

Hartas, William, 112 n., 224

Hartas, William, his speech at
Agricultural Show, 112 m.
his speech at a funeral, 225
Hart Hall Hob, 54, 64, 65
might of, 65
not mischievous, 65
Haunting, precautions against, 130,

217-221, 230
Hawks, consequence of destruction of,

332
Heathen usages, persistency of, 237
Henry VIII, his legendary visit to

Danby, 293 n.
Herdhowe tumulus, 135, 139

finds at, 140, 141
High Stone-dike, 154
Hoar-frost, beautiful effects of, 370,

371
Hob, Danish story of a, 67
legends, antiquity of, 68
Houes, see Bairows
Houses, some old, 23-26
Housing of the working classes, 18-25

Immorality of manners half a century

since, 20
Inclosure, causes of, 388

progress of, 387-394
Iron furnaces at Fryup, 167

in Glaisdale, 169, 170

at Goathland, 170

at Westerdale, 171

mine-pits below Danby Beacon, 162
Ironstone, " Julius Csesar " band of,
169

Juries at the Quarter Sessions, non-
appearance of Danby men on, 296
Jury, functions of the, 392
room at the Castle, 295

Kern or Mell, derivation of the words,

243
Kern-baby, 240, 242
sheaf, 240

probable origin of, 245
supper, 239
Kestrel, alleged delinquencies of, 331
Killing pits on Goathland moors, 170
King John, contests of the barons

with, 275-280

Land, improvements in management
of, 8, 8 n.

456

Index

Landrails at the window, 326
Latimer, William le, his services, 288
William, Lord, malpractices of, 290
Leather breeches, 25, 112 n.

Malet, William, Sheriff of York-
shire, 268
Mark's-e'en vigil, 219
Meat, small consumption of, 8
Mell-supper, see Kern
Milk-stealing, 87
Mine-pit field in Fryup, 168, 174
Minister, residence of. the, 43
Moor sheep, clambering powers of, 39
Moors, ancient right of the freeholders
to sport over the, 82 m.
lost on the, 376, 380
Morality, advance in, 5, 12, 18, 27
Musical instruments, increased num-
bers of, 14

Neither, pronunciation of, 34
New-fangled ways, anticipated

of, 14, 112 n.
Newspapers, circulation of, 16
Noa-ship, 132

Odin worship, traces of, 61, 62, 132
Overtrow, 69

Paganism, survivals of, 61, 62, 132
Parish, state of the, on my arrival, 48

charges, extent of, in old days, 15
Park, original extent of the, 330
Poacher, a reclaimed, 339
Political views, 17, 18
Pottery found in the churchyard, 213

found at Dunsley, 222
Predecessor, visit to my, 43
Prophylactic ceremonies, 63, 69, 70,
98, 100, 218

performed without real belief in
their efficacy, 71, 72

Quakers, see Friends

Races for the ribbon at a wedding,

206, 209
Railway, difficulty of making the,

190-193
Repartee, an apt, 35
Richardson, John, 247 ; Nanny, 248 ;

Willy, 246
Ride over Yorkshire moors, 38

Ring- ousel or moor blackbird, effront-
ery of, 320
wasteful manner of eating fruit by,
321

St. Columbkill's Cieole, 238
Salt, danger of giving away, 121
Scenery, 42, 185, 372
in winter, 367-372
School attendance in winter, difScul-
ties of, 366
a resolute attender at, 367
first inspection of, in Danby, 47
Schoolmaster, reason for appointing a,

46
Skelton Castle, reduction of, by King

John, 278
Sleeping arrangements, 19-21
Snow, accumulations of, 348, 351,
357, 359
lights on the, 367, 368
on the moor at midsummer, 358
tunnel on the Guisborough and

Whitby road, 358
walks through, 348, 352, 353, 362,
365, 370
Snowstorm, going astray in a, 362,

363
Spirits, asked to "lay," 59 n.
Starling, the, an alleged bigamist, 314
double-brooded, 315
mischief in gardens done by, 318,
319
Stock kept by Dales farmers, 10

improvement in, 11, 12
Stormy Hall legend, 293 n.
Streams, change in position of, 199,

201
Subsidence at Coums, 195, 201
Superstitious observances, 69, 71

Temperance orations, intemperate, 30

societies, 29, 30
Thrift of the dalesmen, 112, 112 n.,

212
Thwaites, 412 n.
Thweng, Lucia de, 285, 287, 289

Marmaduke de, 283

Robert de, 285
Toads in hollow trees, 313
Treasure, barrows opened in search
of, 139

Undeeoliff, a beautiful, 187

Index

457

Unthank, John, 58, 61 m., 110, 112,

114
Urns, discovery of, 135, 140, 141, 146

Watbb, action of, 187, 198, 395-400,

448, 448 n.
Wedding parties on horsetaok, 205
Weddings, disuse of old customs at,
212
firing guns at, 205, 206
handful of money laid on the

priest's book at, 206
races at, 206, 207 ; origin of, 210
Wells, holy, 234
Wesleyans, influence of, 15, 48
WMnstone dike running through

Cleveland, 148
Whitby, historian of, 173

old town of, 39
Wise man, character of the, 108, 109,
113
a prescription by the, 124
failure of a trick played on the, 118
misrepresented, 111, 112
not a thoroughgoing impostor, 112j

113
sources of information of the, 114,

117, 123
stories of, 104, 106, 114, 117, 120
Witch antidotes, 97

belief in powers of, 73, 75, 80, 102
charm against, description of a, 95
charms against the, 99, 104, 106
coursing a, 83, 85
discomfiture of a, 92, 93, 107
milk abstracted by, 88-90
power of, due to action of mind on

mind, 78
shot with silver bullets, 81, 89, 91,

93
triumph of a, 86, 90
Witchcraft and animal magnetism,

75-80
Witch-wood, ceremony of procuring,
61, 97, 98
indispensable, 75, 99
Working classes, housing of the, 18-25

YoKKSHiRB dialect, decay of the, 33
TorksMre Gazette taken in by a com-
pany, 16, 84
Yorkshire sayings, 33, 34, 136
words explained —

addle, 44

aim, 112 n.

arvel or avril, 228

backbearaway, 137, 312

bank, 40

bat, 54

berry, 55, 56

brig-stone, 64

conjure, 59 ».

daytal, 43

drauglit, 39

drith, 33

fog, 10

fond, 181 n.

gabble-ratchet, 70

gam'some, 313

gill, 185

gorpins, 138

hamp, 55, 56

kitlins, 213

laiking, 207

lating, 98, 140

leading, 64

ling, 41

meat, 44

moudiwarps, 53

pankin, 137

raxing, 137

roke, 376

scattering, 324 n.

skrike, 137

squandered, 104

stamp, 55, 56

swippie, 54

teem, 65

urchins, pricky-backed, 312

warsle, 137

while, 137

wick, 313

wud, 55, 137

yabble, 209
words, search for, 136, 228

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