The Denham tracts : a collection of folklore : reprinted from the original tracts and pamphlets printed by Mr. Denham between 1846 and 1859

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FOB COLLECTING AND PRINTING

RELICS OF POPULAR ANTIQUITIES, &c.

ESTABLISHED IN

THE YEAR MDCCCLXXVIII.

Alter et Idem.

PUBLICATIONS

OF

THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY.

XXXV.

[1895.]

The Folk-Lore Society.

(1895.)

tfresioent.
EDWARD, CLODD.

A. Try 30o
Vtee=8>rrsioent6.

THE HON. JOHN ABERCROMBY.

ANDREW LANG, M.A.

THE EIGHT HON. SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, BART., M.P., D.C.L.,

LL.D., F.R.S., E.S.A.
Lt.-Gen. PITT-RIVERS, D.C.L., E.R.S., F.S.A.
PROFESSOR J. RHYS, M.A., LL.D.
THE REV. PROFESSOR A. H. SAYCE, M.A.
EDWARD B. TYLOR, LL.D., F.R.S.
MISS C. S. BURNE.
G. LAURENCE GOMME, F.S.A.

C. J. BILLSON, M.A.

Dr. KARL BLIND.

E. W. BRABROOK, K.S.A.

MISS M. ROALFE COX.

LELAND L. DUNCAN, F.S.A.

J. P. EMSLIE.

ARTHUR J. EVANS, M.A., F.S A

J. G. FRAZER, M.A.

THE REV. DR. M. G ASTER.

W. B. GERISH.

MISS G. M. GODDEN.

Council.

PROF. A. C. HADDON, M.A., F.L.S.

E. SIDNEY HARTLAND, F.S.A.

T. W. E. HIGGENS.

JOSEPH JACOBS, B.A.

W. F. KIRBY, F.L.S. , F.E.S.

J. T. NAAKE.

ALFRED NUTT.

T. FAIRMAN ORDISH, F.S.A.

PROFESSOR F. YORK POWELL,

M.A., F.S.A
HENRY B. WHEATLEY, F.S.A.

Son. {Treasurer.
E. W. BRABROOK, F.S.A., 178, Bedford Hill, Balham, S.W.

Son. auditors.
G. L. APPERSON. F. G. GREEN.

Seeretarji.
F. A. MILNE, M.A., 11, Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, London, W.C.

VuMications Committee.

E. S. HARTLAND (Chairman); G. L. GOMME (Vice-Chairman): J.JAGQBS-
W. F.KIRBYi A. NUTT; MISS ROALFE COX. /

UiMiogiMyln' Committer.
G. L. GOMME (Chairman) ; L. L. DUNCAN ; J. JACOBS ; W. F. KIRBY •
J. T. NAAKE j A. NUTT.

fWuseum Committer.
G. L. GOMME j ARTHUR J. EVANS; J. P. EMSLIE; PROFESSOR
A. C HADDON ; MISS M. C. FFENNELL ; MISS LUCY GARNETT ■
G. F. BLACK; A. It. WRIGHT. warvax^x ,

jFinanrc aim fficneral $ur»osrs Committrr.
E. W. BRABROOK (Chairman); G. L. GOMME; REV. DR. GASTER •
T. W. E. H1GGKN8; A. NUTT; T. F. OUDISH; F. G. GREK\'
II. RAYNBIRD ; W. H. D. ROUSE , M. J. WALHOUSE. UKiM ^ •

The President and Treasurer are <:v-ofn-\o members of nil Committees.

THE DENHAM TRACTS.

The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.

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

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924092530496

THE DENHAM TKACTS.

A Collection of Folklore by Michael Aislabie Denltam,

AND

REPRINTED FROM THE ORIGINAL TRACTS AND PAMPHLETS
PRINTED BY MR. DENHA.M BETWEEN 1846 AND 1859.

EDITED BY

Dh. JAMES HARDY.

VOL. IT.

LONDOX :
PUBLISHED FOR THE FOLKLORE SOCIETY

BY DAVID NUTT, 270, STKAND, W.C.
1895.

■WESTMINSTER :

PRINTED BY NICHOLS AND SONS,

25, PABLIAMENT STREET.

PKEFACE.

The issue of this volume has been delayed owing to the illness
of Dr. Hardy when it was only half through the press. I took
it up at this stage, and have thus completed the task of getting
together these collections of folk-lore which were made before
folk-lore was anything more than a pastime for the curious, or
at most an antiquarian pursuit with no definite object in view,
and only a probability of any results of value being derived
from its preservation and study. I confess my sympathy goes
out to these old antiquaries who were content year after year
to record small things for the sake of recording. Of course
their method of record was not perfect, was not even good ;
but then it was a record, and without their work the-
modern student would be badly off'. The world is too
much in a hurry now to produce any more of this class of
antiquaries. The dividing line between the collector and
the student who seeks to use collections for scientific pur-
poses is not always preserved, and in consequence works are
produced which cannot always be commended. The functions
of these two classes of folk-lorists are quite distinct and should
bu kept distinct. A plain unadulterated collection of material,
the result of personal testimony and research, is a thing to pray
for. A work which handles a collection such as this in a
scientific spirit, such, for instance, as Mr. Frazer's Golden
Bough or Mr. Hartland's Perseus, is a thing to discuss and
enjoy and improve upon as our knowledge increases. But the

V1U PREFACE.

two cannot be welded. When it is attempted we get wrong
classification to begin with, and hence wrong conclusions.
Superstitions and beliefs are made to qualify the facts of
modern life instead of being studied each item by itself to see
what is the substantive of human life and history with which it
is in true agreement.

The truth is that a superstition now attached to birth,
marriage, or death, to the domestic actions of the modern
family, to the outdoor actions of the modern agriculturist, or
to any other side of modern life, has become so attached by cir-
cumstances which have affected its later observance, not its
original form. And hence when persons unqualified by any
anthropological scholarship attempt to deal with some of the
items of folk-lore for a literary purpose they fall into errors which
have caused enormous difficulties in the way of true research.

Mr. Denham was not guilty of anything like this. His
collection is haphazard to a degree. He simply jotted down
what he heard as he heard it, and he did not seek to classify it.
This, to my mind, is a distinct gain. This book represents what
folk-lore was when it first began to be collected, and it may be
profitably compared with many later collections which from
some fancied literary necessity are burdened with a classifica-
tion which begins with the routine of modern life and generally
winds up with " miscellaneous " beliefs.

Mr. Denham's work is like Aubrey's, and Aubrey's is the
foundation of English folk lore. It is a reflex of what folk-lore
actually is, the detritus of a once more or less extensive and more
or less systematized belief and ritual, found in patches here and
there, perfect in perhaps no one place and not often identical in
different places, existing as superstitious belief with some
people, practised as a custom or a child's game with others,
remembered as a saying or a proverb with others. There is no
general law for the preservation of folk-lore; it may have

PREFACE. IX

become attached to a place, an object, a season, a class of
persons, a rule of life, and have been preserved by means of
this attachment ; but because every item of folk-lore is not
attached to the same agent, wherever that particular item has
been preserved, it is so important not to stereotype an accidental
association into a permanent one. I am anxious that Mr.
Denham's work should be known as the best evidence on this
important point. If it had been written at the present day,
even if it had been edited under other auspices than that of the
Folk-lore Society, it is not too much to say that it would have
assumed a different character to that in which it now appears
To take an instance, it would no doubt have been deemed
necessary to have classified the " left leg stocking " divination
(p. 281) amongst superstitions relating to dress, whereas the
true determinant of this practice is the "left" (as opposed to
the " right ") which belongs to an important class of ancient
beliefs which have been discussed by Grimm and other
authorities in their bearings upon Indo-European history. It is
curious that the Romans believed in the luck of the left, thus
standing in opposition to the more general belief in the luck of
the right, and the luck of the left belongs to the Roman wall
district of northern Britain, whereas the luck of the right and
the unluck of the left is found further south, and in the
distinctly Teutonic parts of Britain.

If, then, I claim that the want of order and classification in
this book constitutes one of its chief elements of scientific value,
it is apparent that the only way to study folk-lore is to
treat of each recorded item separately. For this purpose
there will be found very interesting features here which
are not to be found elsewhere. The names for the different
classes of spirits (on pp. 77-78) is very full, and needs
some investigation philologically and mythologically, because,
although there are names derived from obvious misconcep-

PREFACE.

tions of the popular mind, there are others which seem
to me to contain important indications of early God-names.
Apparitions, ghosts, and spirits make up a large element in
north English folk-lore, for which the geographical and climatic
conditions are no doubt chiefly answerable. The attachment
of certain families to the district on the basis of ancient clan
customs leads to the preservation of family traditions of great
interest, and the descent of the Drummelzier from a river god
(p. 42) is noted from Sir Walter Scott. Family apparitions seem
to have been taken over by the Society for Psychical Research,
and the group found on pp. 183-188 may be referred to with
some interest. Well-worship, river-worship, and fire-worship
are distinctive features of the beliefs recorded of northern
Britain, but in the last of these groups Mr. Denham has
missed many important details which have been recorded by
later enquirers. Stones and stone circles have also an im-
portant place in these collections, but animals are not so well
represented as might have been supposed. Whether this is due
to deficient record or whether it is a characteristic feature of
northern belief might be made a matter for enquiry.

Mr. Denham was in no sense a literary man, and his peculiar
practice of issuing these tracts sometimes without date or other
means of identification makes it extremely difficult to ascertain
whether all he published on folk-lore has been recovered. There
is no complete, collection, I believe, extant The Society of
Antiquaries of London has a great many of the originals,
but the British Museum library is very deficient. Dr. Hardy,
too, has a good collection. It often happened that a tract was
issued as a simple leaflet, and that later on this would be included
in another tract without any alteration of or allusion to the original
publication. This has made it difficult to pick out and arrange
the material, and in two instances (pp. 121-124, 132-135- 258-
261, 262-5,) the same material has been unfortunately printed

PREFACE. XI

twice. I did not discover this until it was too late to cancel the
pages, and no doubt if Dr. Hardy had been well enough to see the
whole volume through the press this inadvertence would not
have happened.

This volume does not contain a reprint of the Proverhs and
Popular Sayings published by the Percy Society, but with this
exception it is believed that all the scattered tracts on folk-
lore aro comprised in the two volumes now issued by the
Society.

The Society is greatly indebted to Dr. Hardy for the work
he has done. He prepared the whole volume for the press, and
added from his own store of Denham Tracts some that the
Society had not been able to obtain. But the trying weather of
last winter stopped all his work, and left him unable to pursue
what has been the pleasure and delight of a long and busy
lifetime.

G. Lauuence Gomme.

2/ f , Dorset Square, N. IK
May, 1895.

THE DENHAM TRACTS.

VIII.

FOLKLORE, Oil MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, OP THE
NORTH OF ENGLAND.

For the want of a recording pen, innumerable are the ancient
and interesting local rhymes, customs, legends, and valuable
portions of history which have been irremediably lost and
gathered up by time into his wallet, as offerings to oblivion.

Midsummer Cushions.

This was a custom, used some seventy years ago at many
places in the North of England ; but it, like almost every other
of the innocent and pleasing customs and amusements of our
fore-elders, is fast vanishing away, if it has not altogether done
so. The young lads and lasses of the town or village having
procured a cushion or, in accordance with local phraseology, a
whishion, and covered it with calico, or silk of showy and
attractive colour, proceeded to bedeck it with every variety
of flower which they could procure out of their parents' and
more wealthy neighbours' gardens, displaying them in such a
manner so as to give it a most beautiful appearance. All this
done, they placed themselves, with their cushion of Flora's
choicest gems, in the most public place they conveniently could,
VOL. n. b

2 THE DENHAM TRACTS*

soliciting of every passer-by a trifling present of pence, which,
in numerous cases, was liberally and cheerfully bestowed. A
set form of words was made use of (in rhyme, I believe) when
soliciting those gifts, the precise version of which I have never
been able to obtain.

This custom prevailed from Midsummer Day to Magdalene
Day, which latter has long been corrupted to " Maudlin Day."

The Mell Day, or Harvest Home.

In the counties of Durham and York, the last day of reaping
with each individual farmer, is honoured above all others. This
day is known throughout the north by the appellation of " Mell
Day." The reapers (or shearers as they are popularly called),
on this auspicious day, are entertained with the melodious
sounds of a fiddle. An hour or two before the last and lucky
cut the village musician is sent for to proceed with all haste to
the harvest field, where he is expected to play some of his
merriest tunes ; to the sounds of which, at intervals, the
shearers, binders, and their kind-hearted master, join in social
dance. When the last handful is bound up in the golden sheaf,
and the sheaves are all placed upright in lots of ten or twelve
each, locally called stooks, the farmer's head man, or some
other elderly male person employed during harvest, proceeds
with most stentoriaii voice to " Shout the Mell," which is
celebrated in the following rhymes :

Blest be the day that Christ was born,

We've getten 't mell of Mr. 's corn ;

Weel bound, and better shorn.

Hip ! Hip ! Hip ! Huzza ! ! Huzza ! !

The labourers on this day are plentifully regaled with as <"ood
ale or strong beer as can be procured in the neighbourhood ; to
which is often added, by way of stimulus, a pretty liberal

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 3

addition from the rum bottle. This seldom fails to send home
some of the fair maids, as well as the ancient dames of the
village, chirping merry. Some years ago the masters used to
treat the reapers with a supper, called the Mell Supper ; but
this custom, with very few exceptions, is now totally laid aside,
and in consideration of this deviation from ancient custom, their
employers give them a shilling each in addition to the regular
wages of that day. This shilling is called the Mell Shilling.
When dancing had become general after the supper, these
parties used to be attended by Mummers ; that is, men and
women disguised in each other's apparel, &c. &c. This is in the
dialect of the district termed Cruising, and the individuals them-
selves Guisers. In the years 1825 and 1826 I saw the reapers
come home from the Mell Field in the evening, dressed in high
crowned muslin caps, profusely ornamented with ribbons of
various colours, and preceded by music.

Feasts of Dedication.

u Wakes, church ales, summerings, tides, rush-bearings,
revels, gants,* hoppings, fairs, vigils, ale feasts, or Whitsun ales,
are anniversary feasts, great numbers of which are still kept in
the counties of Durham and Northumberland in all their primi-
tive glory and rude yet hearty hospitality, in commemoration of
the dedication of the parish church or parochial chapel to some
patron saint. Hopping is derived from the Anglo-Saxon
' hoppan ' to dance or leap. Dances in the country villages
of the north of England are termed hops at the present period
of time. By an act of Convocation passed in the reign of
Henry VIII., the Feast of the Dedication was ordered to be
held on the first Sunday in October, and the celebration of the

* [Gnnt, a village fair or wake. — East (HallhTell). Not in
Brockett.]

b2

THE DENHAM TRACTS.

Saint's day to be laid aside. In Somersetshire these sports are
termed plays. In the west of England rails and rowls.

In the county of Durham a series of local feasts begin the
last Sunday in July, and proceed, I think, in the following
order : Neasham, Hurworth, Aldbrough, Stapleton, Blackwell,
Cockerton, Haughton-le-Skerne, Harrowgate, Burdon, Sad-
berge, Goatham, Brafferton, and Aycliffe. Duck-hunting,
racing, drinking, banqueting, and all sorts of secular sports
are the order of the day on the Sabbath, and a day or two
afterwards. — Longstaffe's Hist. Darlington, p. 242.

Riding the Stang.

Once upon a time there resided in the village of G[ainfor]d,
in com. Dunelm (the place of the writer's nativity), a man
and his wife of the name of Lamb. Now, for the first time in
his life (and they had been married some dozen years or more),
the old gentleman had been guilty of some venial delinquency,
which his good wife considered of so flagrant a nature that her
passion could not exhaust itself simply by giving him a " reet
good setting down " (i.e. a good scolding), but to work the old
lady set herself and gave him a most severe beating, or, as we
Northerners term it, a threshing, into the bargain. Some
neighbours chancing to pass during the hubbub heard the
whole scrimmage between the old man and his better half.
Then Fame, with her thousand tongues, bruited the tale abroad,
and not without adding that much which made the little into
a mickle. A consultation was held at the smith's shop, and it
was unanimously agreed, that the stang be ridden for Mrs.
Lamb. Well, the appointed night arrived, when, in accordance
with " aunciente custome," a person, as proxy for the real
delinquent, mounted the stang (a ladder, by-the-bye, for the
comfort and convenience of the rider) and called aloud the

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 5

following doggrell rhvmes at the full extent of his voice, the
whole length and breadth of the village : —

With a ran, tan, tan, on an old tin can,
And a hey tinkle, how tinkle, hey tinkle tang ;
It isn't for your sake, nor my sake, that I ride 't stang,
But it is lor the avvde Yowe * that threshest poor Lamb.
Hip ! Hip ! Huzza ! ! Huzza ! ! !

She bang'd him, she bang'd him, she bang'd him, indeed ;
She bang'd him reet weel afore he stood need ;
She nowther take stick, staan, staff, nor stower,
But she up with her neif and she knock'd him ower, and ower,
and ower, and ower.

Hip ! Hip ! Huzza ! ! Huzza ! ! !

She next tuke up an awde three-footed stule,
And she called him a bizon, and an awde drunken fule ;
And then hit him sae hard, and cut him sae deep,
That the blude ran down his legs and into his shoes,
Like the blude of a new stuck sheep.

Hip ! Hip ! Huzza ! ! Huzza ! ! !

Now if ivver I hears tell, that she again rebels,
Or that he complains of us ridin 't stang,

Then we'll all come again,

And we'll ride't stang again,
With a ran tan, ran tan, tang,
And a hey tinkle, how tinkle, hey tinkle, tang.

Hip ! Hip I Huzza ! ! Huzza ! ! Huzza ! ! !

[In the pit villages near Gateshead Fell there is another

* Observe the pun upon the name of Lamb, to wit, " Yowe," i.e.
a female sheep which has had young. From the above incident arose
the saying, " Aye, the old Yowe is the better Tupe " ; and, though it
is now more than fifty years ago, it is still repeated when the occasion
serves by the ancients of the village.

6 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

variety of " Bidin' the Stang," not "meant as a mark of
disgrace, as it is in many others ; on the contrary, it is rather
a mark of honour." The morning after a young man is married,
he is mounted upon a " board or pole, and carried to the public
house upon the shoulders of two men, where he is expected to
give the pit's crew a ' blaw out.' The last married man is
always chosen mayor, and undergoes the same operation. Both
these events produce 'gaudy days.' "

They myed me ride the stang as suin
As aw show'd fyace at wavk agyen.
The upshot was a gaudy-day,
A grand blaw-out wi' Grundy's yell.'

Wilson's Pitman's Pay, p. 51. — J. H.]

[Gaudy Day — Cuckoo Mornin' &c.

" In the pit villages near Gateshead Fell, there are certain
times of the year when the young men and lads refuse to work,
and insist on a ' gaudy day ;' for instance, the first morning
they hear the cuckoo, and when the turnips and peas are at
maturity. They call these periods, ' a cuckoo mornin',' ' a
tormit [turnip] mornin',' and ' a pea mornin'.' At such times
they frequently adjourn to a neighbouring publichouse, where
they enjoy themselves during a great part of the day.

Charles Lamb, in his Recollections of Christ's Hospital, when
adverting to the festivities of Christmas, says ' the richest of us
would then club our stock to have a gaudy day.' " — Wilson's
Pitman's Pay, pp. 46, 47, note. — J. H.]

Barring Out.

This was a practice once very common in schools of a superior
class throughout the whole of England, but most general in the
north. It was generally practised about the period of St.

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 7

Nicholas's Day (6th December), who, it may be proper to
remark, was the chosen patron of schoolboys. On this day was
formerly celebrated the semi-impious Roman Catholic farce of
the Boy Bishop, one of whom, in the year 1229, was permitted
to say vespers before King Edward I, at the Chapel of Heton,
near Newcastle on Tyne ; and the king was so much pleased
with his youthful chaplain and choral followers that he made
them a considerable present. The Eton Mnntem is evidently a
substitution for the (ir)religious ceremony of one partaking of a
military character. Some seventy or eighty years ago, vestiges
of these medieval, at least, if not primeval, customs were retained
in several of the grammar schools of the whole of the north of
England. Brand says that he heard the custom was retained
in the Dean and Chapter's schools, in the city of Durham, and
that the same practice prevailed in the Kepicr School, of
Houghton-le-Spring, in the county of Durham. It was also
practised at the grammar schools of Bowes, in the county of
York ; and at those of Scotby, Wetheral, and Warwick, in
Cumberland ; and Kirkby Stephen, in Westmoreland. A writer
in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1791, vol. lxi., p. 1170, men-
tioning some local customs of Westmoreland and Cumberland,
says : —

" In September or October, the master is locked out of the
school by the scholars, who, previously to his admittance, give
an account of the different holidays for the ensuing year, which
he promises to observe, and signs his name to the orders, as
they are called, with two bondsmen. The return of these
signed orders is the signal of capitulation ; the doors are
immediately opened ; beef, beer, and wine, deck the festive
board, and the day is spent in mirth."

In the statutes of Witton School, near North wich, in Cheshire,
founded a.d. 1558, the observance of this practice by the
scholars is specially directed. See Carlisle, " Description of

8 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

Endowed Grammar Schools," vol. i. p. 133. It prevailed also
at Rothbury in Northumberland, ibid. vol. ii. p. 259. Hutchin-
son, in his History of Cumberland, vol. ii. p. 322, says this
custom was used by the scholars of the free school of Brom-
field or Brumfield, in that county, about the beginning of
Lent, or in the more expressive phraseology of the county, at
Fasten's Even.

An ancient schoolmaster repeated to the writer the follow-
ing stanza of a Barring-out Rhyme, used at a school in com.
Ebor nearly sixty years ago.

"Orders! Master! Orders!
Orders we do crave ;
And if you wont grant us orders,
Orders we will have.
Although we are but little boys,
We are both stiff and stout ;
And if you won't grant us orders,
We'll keep you longer out."

Although the above may form only one half or may be but
one-third or fourth of the grand total of the poetical address
issued on these privileged days — for I have cause to believe
that the whole of the holidays claimed for the ensuing twelve
months were strung up together in equally uncopth verses —
I still have thought it worth " Chronicling in a Boke," hoping
that either myself, or some kind and charitable reader, may
be able to add the remanet at a later period of time.

The Wassail or Loving Cup.

A relic of this primitive and good old Christmas custom is
still retained to a much greater extent than hitherto I was
aware of, in the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland •
and here, too, the equally good old-fashioned practice of little

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 9

family parties at this period of the year is also continued. The
Wassail or Loving Cup, is introduced long ere the visitors
separate, the contents of which are composed of a liberal
quantum of good old Jamaica rum, hot water, sugar, and lemon
prepared in a large china basin, or small punch bowl. This
is first partaken of by the master and dame, drinking to the
health of each individual of the assembled party ; it is then
handed round to each, who, also, taking the bowl in both
hands, drinks to the health and happiness of the whole assem-
bly. By the time the loving cup has passed through the
hands of all present, the mirth-inspiring beverage has roused
the spirits of one and all to trip it in the mazy dance.

Fig-Sue. Good Friday.

The customary dish of Fig Sue is still prepared, and alone
partaken of for dinner on this day, by many families through-
out the whole of the North of England. The dish is a com-
position of figs, ale, white bread, sugar, and nutmeg. I
never tasted the mess, but those who have, tell me that it is
most excellent.

Fairings.

The children in many districts in the North of England thus
address any male person, whom they see returning from fair
or market : —

" Cowper, Cowper, a nag or a knowt,
If you please will ye give me a fairing ? "

Charm for the Toothache.

The following really curious traditional rhyme I took down
from the narration of a gentleman still living, and caused the
same to be given in the Literary Gazette, and Mr. Halliwell's

J THE DENHAM TRACTS.

really valuable and interesting little book, Popular Rhymes and
Nursery Tales of England. London, 1849.

Peter was sitting on a marble stone,

And Jesus passed by ;
Peter said, " My Lord ! My God !

How my tooth doth ache ! "
Jesus said, " Peter art whole !

And whoever keeps these words for my sake,
Shall never have the toothache ! " — Amen.

Mr. Halliwell records in his book the following various
version of the above rhymes, as used in one of the Yorkshire
dales ; and in conclusion, says that he has " been informed on
credible authority, that the trade of selling efficacies of this kind
is far from obsolete in the remote rural districts " :

"As Sant Petter sat at the Geats of Jerusalem our Blessed
Lord and Sevour Jesus Crist pased by and sead, What Eleth
thee hee sead Lord My Teeth Ecketh he sead arise and folow
Mee and thy Teeth shall Never Eake Eney More, fiat X
fiat X fiat X-" [The Virgin Mary is the sufferer in a similar
charm for toothache in the Physicians of Myddvai, p. 453.]
Another charm is given in Aubrey's Miscellanies, p. 141.

A Saturday's Moon.

A Saturday's change, and a Sunday's prime,
Was nivver a good mune in nea man's time.

Dr. Forster, of Bruges, well known as a meteorologist,
declares that by the journal kept by his grandfather, father,
self, ever since 1767, to the present time, whenever the new
moon has fallen on a Saturday, the following twenty days have
been wet and windy, in nineteen cases out of twenty.

folklore of the north of england. 11

Charm Prayers.

The following charm prayer is used at this day in Westmore-
land and is taught by mothers as well as nurses to young
children, and is repeated by them on retiring to rest:

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,

God bless this bed that I lie on ;

If anything appear to me,

Sweet Christ arise and comfort me.

Four corners to this bed,

Four angels round my head,*

One to pray, one to wake,

Two to guard mo till day -break.

And blessed guardian-angels keep

Me safe from dangers while I sleep.

I lay me down upon my side.

I pray the Lord to be my guide ;

And if I die before 1 wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.

The following prayer is, I understand, used in the county of
Norfolk :

I lay me down to rest me,
I pray to God to bless me ;
And if I sleep and never wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take,
This night for evermore. Amen.

Two articles on ancient Paternosters have already appeared
in the Folk-Lore Record, vols, i and ii, the first by W. J.
Thorns, Esq., the second by Miss Evelyn Carrington ; of these

* Varia. — Six angels round me spread,
Two to sing, and two to pray,
And two to carry my soul away.

12 THE DENHAM TKACTS.

Mr. Denham's examples present other varieties. In Sinclair's
Satan's Invisible World Discovered, ed. 1815, thsre are some
out-of-the-way Scotch specimens, which may be placed along-
side of these last. Agnes Simpson, condemned for witchcraft
in the time of James VI. of Scotland, was a sort of white witch.
She taught ignorant people, two prayers, " The Black and
White Pater Noster in Metre, in set forms, to be used morning
and evening, and at other times when occasion offereth."

White Pater Noster.

" God was my foster,
He fostered me
Under the book of palm tree
Saint Michael was my dame.
He was born at Bethlehem,
He was made of flesh and blood.
God send me my right food ;
My right food, and dyne too,
That I may to yon kirk go,
To read upon yon sweet book,
Which the mighty God of heaven shook.
Open, open, heaven's yaits;
Steik, steik, hell's yaits.
All saints be the better,
That hear the White Prayer, Pater Noster."

The Black Pater Noster runs thus :

" Four neuks in this house for haly angels,
A post in the midst, that's Christ Jesus,'
Lucas, Marcus, Matthew, Joannes,
God be into this house, and all that belans? us." *

pp. 19, 20.

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 13

"At night, in the time of Popery, when folks went to bed they
believed the repetition of the following prayer was effectual to
preserve them from danger, and the house too.

" Who sains the house the night ?
They that sains it ilka night.
Saint Bryde and her brat,
Saint Colme and his hat,
Saint Michael and his spear,
Keep this house from the weir ;
From running thief ;
And burning thief ;
And from a' ill Rea,
That be the gate can gae ;
And from an ill wight,
That be the gate can light.
Nine reeds about the house ;
Keep it all the night.
What is that what I see,
So red, so bright, beyond the sea ?
'Tis he was pierced through the hands,
Through the feet, through the throat,
Through the tongue ;
Through the liver, through the lung.
Well is them that well may
Fast on Good-Friday."*

"A country man in East Lothian used this grace always before
and after meat.

Lord be blessed for all his gifts,
Defy the devil and all his shifts ;
God sond me mair siller. — Amen." f

148. f P- 149.

14 the denham tkacts.

Bhymes on Mountains in the Noete op England which indicate
the Weather.

1. When Eoseberry Topping wears a cap,
Let Cleayeland then beware of a rap.

2. When Eoseberrye Toppingc wears a cappe,
Let Cleveland then beware a clappe. — Camden.

3. When Eston-Knab puts on a cloake,

And Eoseberrye a cappe,
Then all the folks on Cleaveland's clay,
Ken there will be a clappe.

4. When Eoseberry Topping wears a hat,
Morden Cam will suffer for that.

Roseberry Topping is the name of a lofty conical- shaped hill
in the North Riding of the county of York. The rap and clappe
alluded to in the rhymes is, in plain language, a thunder storm.
Camden observes, that when the top of this hill " begins to be
darkened with clouds, rain generally follows " ; hence the
ancient distich. Morden Carrs is in the county of Durham,
near Sedgfield.

If Eiving-pike do wear a hood,

Be sure that day will ne'er be good. — Lancashire.

When Gelt puts on his night-cap 'tis sure to rain.

— Cumberland.
When Skiddaw hath a cap,
Scruffell wots full well of that.

— Cumberland, and Annandale in Scotland.

When Hood-hill has on his cap,

Hamilton's sure to come down with a clap. — Yorkshire.

When Knipe-scar gets a hood,

Sackworth may expect a flood.— Westmoreland.

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 15

Guy Fawkes ; or, Fifth of November Ehymes.

A doggrel hominy roared (not sung) at the full extent of the
voices of two or three dozen lads at Kirkby Stephen in West-
moreland, on the eve of the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot,
when making progresses in order to collect money for the pur-
chase of gunpowder and tar-barrels. I took it down from the
oral recitation of a lad who had, on many occasions, acted his
part therein, like a true stentor :

Hollo boys, hollo boys,

Let the bells ring !
Hollo boys, hollo boys,

God save the King !
Pray to remember
The fifth of November,

Gunpowder, treason, and plot,
When the King and his train,
Had nearly been slain,

Therefore it shall not be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkee,

And his companions,

Strove to blow all England up ;

But God's mercy did prevent,

And saved our King and his parliament.

Happy was the man,

And happy was the day,
That God caught Guy,

Going to his play,
With a dark lanthorn,
And a brimstone match,
Ready for the prime to touch.

16 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

As I was going through the dark entry,

I spied the devil,

Stand back ! Stand back !
Queen Mary's daughter,
Put your hand in your pocket,
And give us some money
To kindle our bon-fire !

Huzza ! Huzza ! Huzza !

I can give no explanation of this, further than that I take it to
be intended as a compliment to the mistress of the mansion :
" Queen Mary's daughter " — I cannot tell what it means ! I
put the question as to its meaning to the reciter when I com-
mitted it to paper, but he could throw no light on it. His
answer was, "Aw larnt it sae, and aw knaw na mair."

Singular Will.

The following singular will was proved at York in the year
of our Lord 1771 : —

This is my last will,
I insist on it still,
So sneer on and welcome,
And e'en laugh your fill :
I, William Hickington,
Poet of Pocklington,
Do give and bequeath,
As free as I breathe,
To thee, Mary Jarem,
The queen of my harem,
My cash and my cattle,
With every chattel,
To have and to hold,
Come heat or come cold,
Sans hindrance or strife,
Tho' thou'rt not my wife.

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND 17

As witness my hand
Just here as I stand,
This twelfth day of July,
In the year seventy.

William Hickington.

Schoolboy Bhymes.
A rhyme for the twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity :

Stir up, we beseech thee,

The puddings in the pot ;
And when we get home,

We'll eat them all hot.

The following, as also the still more popular saying "All my
eye and Betty Martin," had its origin during the period in
which the Church of Rome was in its " downward progress " in
the British Isles. It formed one of the many Protestant flings
at Popery, and though not the most dignified, was perhaps not
the least effectual among the many instruments of the Reforma-
tion. It, too, like Betty Martin, is a parody on what the
members of the Romish Church held sacred : —

Hail Mary ! full of grace,
I'opu-lariy, curtail face ;
Egg shells, goose quills,
Knobsticks, sparrow bills.

Shrove-Tide Rhyme.

Shrove Sunday,

Collop Monday, Pancake Tuesday,
Ash Wednesday, Bloody Thursday,
Friday's lang, but will be dune,
Then hey for Setterday efternune.

VOL. II.

18 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

Good Friday Rhyme.

One a penny buns, two a penny buns,

One a penny, two a penny, hot X buns,

Butter them and sugar them, and put them in your minis.

Rhymes on Bathing.

He who bathes in May,
Will soon be laid in clay ;
He who bathes in June,
Will sing a merry tune' ;
He who bathes in July,
Will dance like a fly.

Book Rhymes.
In the library of the Dean and Chapter of Durham is an
ancient Missale Romanorum, once the property of the church of
Hutton Kudby, Yorkshire, as we learn from the following
quaint rhymes contained in the bowke itself : —

Whoso owne me dothe loke,

I am ye Chourche of Rudby's bowke ;

Whoso dothe saye ye contrary,

I reporte me to awll ye parysshyngby.

This book was given by Samuel Davidson, Esq., to the Rev.
George Davenport, Rector of Houghton-le- Spring, and was by
him, in 1662, given to the library left by Bishop Cosin to the
clergy of the Diocese of Durham.

Rhyme on Bulmeu Stone, Daklington.

In Darnton towne ther is a stane,

And most strange is yt to tell,
That yt turnes nine times round aboute

When yt hears ye clock strike twell.

This truly wonderful revolving stone, though ny-the-by it is

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 19

not singular in this property, stands in the front of some low
cottages constituting Northgate House, in the street bearing the
same name (See Longstaffe's Hist. Darlington, p. 164). It is a
water-worn boulder-stone of Shap (Westmorland) granite.

Shrove Tuesday Rhymes.

When the pancake bell begins to knell,
The frying-pan begins to smell.

Pancakes were anciently an universal dish on this festival ;
I myself have often partaken of them. Shrove Tuesday in the
North of England is generally called Pancake Tuesday. A dish
of fritters is usual in France on this day and the following
Thursday. See Hone's Year Book, 146, 7, 8, 9. In Lanca-
shire hot pancakes arc to this day introduced at the tea table on
Shrove Tuesday.

"Fit as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday," is a very old popular
saying.

The Calgaiith Skull.

There is an extraordinary skull preserved with great care at
Calgarth Park, near Applethwaite in Westmoreland, of which
tradition says, that if brayed to powder at night it is regularly
found in its perfect state placed on the hall table next morning.
I understand there is a very curious legend in connection with
this skull, which I have in vain endeavoured to obtain.

Magpie Rhymes.

According to the number of magpies you sec at one and the
same time when going on a journey, etc. &c. you may calculate
your good or ill luck, as follows : —

( >ne for sorrow,
Two for luck (vavia mirth) ;
C 2

20 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

Three for a wedding,

Four for death (yaria a birth) ;

Five for silver (yaria rich) ;

Six for gold (varia poor) ;

Seven for a secret

Not to be told ;

Eight for heaven,

Nine for h ,

And ten for the deevil's awn sell !

Sir Humphrey Davy in his Salmonida has a note on those
verses. The following are a few of the local names for tins
Devil's bird : nanpie, chatter-pie, maggy ; in Kent it is called
a haggister ; in Lancashire, a pyanot ; Cotgrave in his Dic-
tionary gives " magatapie." In Northumberland it is called
pyanot, and I have somewhere seen it spelt maggot-pie. At
the sight of one magpie, the good folks in Westmoreland make
use of the following charm to avert the ill omen :

Magpie, magpie, chatter and flee,
Turn up thy tail and good luck fall me.

But I have been credibly told that the act of making the sign
of the cross on the ground is a much more effectual charm !

A North Cocntrie Farmer's Soliloquy on the Prospects of
his Hay Harvest.

Wilt thou be hay ?

Nay !

Wilt thou be fother (fodder) ?

I'll be nowther !

Wilt thou be muck ?

That's my luck !

Animal Sacrifice at Christian- Burials (?).
In the month of August, 1849, in excavating the earth within

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 21

Staindrop Collegiate Church in order to build the flues for
warming the sacred edifice, the skeleton of a human body was
exhumed, which was generally supposed to be one of the Lordly
Nevilles of Eaby Castle in the Bishopric, at whose feet were
found the bones of a dog of the greyhound breed. It would be
worth the trouble of inquiry could we ascertain the fact whether
this primitive custom of slaying and interring a favourite animal
with the body of its owner was occasionally retained in the
Christian Church down to the period of the thirteenth or
fourteenth centuries. We read of one of " The Noble Nevilles,"
whose war-horse, armed in battle array, preceded the body of
its master at his interment in Durham Priory Church. The
horse, however, in this case was not slain, but given to the said
church as a portion of its owner's mortuary payment. — See
Journal of Archceological Institute, vol. vi. p. 436.

Weather Proverbs.

Easterly winds and rain,
Bring cockles here from Spain.

As the season in which cockles are in the greatest supply is
generally the most stormy in the year, the sailors' wives at the
seaport towns in Durham and Northumberland consider the cry of
the cocklo-man as the harbinger of bad weather ; and the sailor,

The following pages (21-80) are from another tract entitled
" Folklore ; or Manners, Customs, "Weather Proverbs, Popular
Charms, Juvenile Ilhymcs, Ballads, &c. &c. in the north of
England."

22 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

when he hears the cry of " cockles alive " on a dark, wintry
night, concludes that a storm is at hand, and breathes a prayer
backwards for the soul of bad- weather Greordy !

[Chatto's Rambles in Northumberland and on the Scottish
Border, p. 207.]

Rain Rhymes.

There are several infantile rhymes used as charms for or
against rain, viz. : —

1. Rain, rain, go away,
Come again another day.

2. Rain, rain, gang to Spain,
And never come here again.

3. Rain, rain, pour down,

And come na' mair to our towne.

4. Rain, rain, gang away,

And come again on Midsummer day.

5. Rain, rain, go away,

Come again to-morrow day ;
When I brew and when I bake,
I'll give you a little Rake.

C. Rain, rain, go to Spain,
Fair weather come again.

7. Rain, rain, go away,

And come again on Saturday.

8. Rain, rain, faster,
Bull's in the pasture,

Cow's in the meadow (varia clover),
Sheep's in the corn.

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 2'i

Khymes on the Winds, &c.

When 't wind's in 't east,
Cauld and snaw comes 't neist ;
When 't wind's in 't west,
It suits 't farmer best ;
When 't wind's in 't north,
Wc ha' to sup het scalding broth ;
When 't wind's in 't south,
It's muck up to 't mouth,

A dry August and warm
Doth the harvest no harm ;
But a rainy August,
Makes a hard-bread crust.

At St. Barthol'mew,

Then comes cold dew. (24 August.)

Vulgar Errors.

1. It is an article in the vulgar creed that if a female appeal's
abroad, and receives either insults or blows from any of her
neighbours, previous to the ceremony of churching, after giving
birth to a child, she has no remedy at law. Neither must a
mother enter the house of either friend, relative, or neighbour,
till she has been churched. If she is so uncanny, it betokens ill
luck to the parties so visited.

2. The popular belief of the earth no more growing grass
where a foul and bloody murder has been committed is very
common, and singularly supported by the Field of the Forty
Footsteps, near London, where two brothers fought a duel, and
took each other's life, about a love affair. See Southpy's
Common Place Book, second series, p. 21 ; Miss Porter's novel,

24 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

Forty Footsteps. There is also a dramatic piece which bears
this name. This spot of ground was built upon about tlie year
1800. The exact spot whereon tradition says " poor old Willy
Eobinson " was murdered on Holwick Fell, in Teesdale, 1794,
is positively asserted by a living eye witness to have remained a
barren waste ever since.

3. If the finger or toe nails of an infant are cut previous to
its attaining the age of twelve months, it will prove a thief in
mature age. Mothers and nurses beware ; and mind you con-
tinue the good old fashioned custom of " nibbling."

4. I once saw an aged matron turn her apron to the new
moon to ensure good luck for the ensuing month.

5. There is a tradition that Judas Iscariot had a head of black
hair and a red beard ; this belief may have given rise to the
proverb, " He is false by nature that hath a black head and a
red beard."

6. Never allow any one to take a light out of your house on
New Year's Day ; a death in the household before the expira-
tion of the year is sure to occur if it be allowed. Never throw
any ashes, dirty water, or anything, however worthless, out of
your house on this day ; to do so betokens ill luck ; but you
may bring in as much honestly gotten goods as your means
allow, and a blessing will attend their spending. If a female is
your first visitant, and be permitted to enter your house on the
morning of New Year's Day, it portendeth ill luck for the
whole year.

7. The forefinger of the right hand is considered by the
common people as venomous, and consequently is never used in
applying anything to a wound or sore.

8. If a child tooths first in its upper jaw it is considered
ominous of its dying in its infancy.

9. Good Friday and Easter Sunday are both considered as
lucky days on which to cast the caps of young children.

FOLKLOKE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 25

Tdddening Infants.

The ancient offering of an egg, a handful of salt, and a bunch
of matches, to a young child on its first visit to the house of a
neighbour is still very prevalent in many parts of the North of
England at the present period. In the neighbourhood of Leeds
the ceremony is called " puddening," and the child is said to be
"puddened." There is no doubt but that these three offer-
ings are typical of the resurrection of the dead, the immor-
tality of the soul, and of the lake that burnetii, &c.— See
Brockett's Glossary of Nor lit Country Words, vol. i. p. 90, art.
" Child's First Visit."

Christmas Observances.

To send a " Vessle-cup Singer " away from your doors unre-
quited (at least the first that comes) is to forfeit the good luck
of all the approaching year. Every family that can possibly
afford it at least have a Yule cheese and Yule cake provided
against Christmas eve, and it is considered very unlucky to cut
either of them before that festival of all festivals. A tall mould
candle, called a Yule candle, is lighted in the evening and set
upon the table, these candles are presented by the chandlers
and grocers to their customers. The Yule Log is either bought
of the carpenter's apprentice or found in some neighbour's field.
It would be unlucky to light either the log or candle till the proper
period; so also it is considered unlucky to stir the fire or move
the candlestick during the supper, neither must the candle be
snuffed, nor any one stir from the table till supper is ended. In
these suppers it is considered unlucky to have an odd number
at table, especially so if thirteen. This latter piece of supersti-

26 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

tion is evidently taken from the last supper partaken of by our
blessed Saviour and his twelve apostles. A fragment of the log
is occasionally saved and put under a bed to remain till next
Christmas, it secures the house from fire, and a small piece of it
thrown into a fire (occurring at the house of a neighbour) will
quell the raging element. A piece of the candle should be kept
to ensure good luck. No person, except boys, must presume to
go out of doors till the threshold has been consecrated by the
footsteps of a male. The entrance of a woman on the morning
of this day, as well as on that of the .New Tear, is considered as
the height of ill-luck. St. Stephen's day in the north is devoted
pretty generally to hunting and shooting, the game laws being
considered as not in force on that day.

All Souls' Day.

A few thrifty, elderly housewives still practice the old custom
of keeping a soul mass-cake (2nd November) for good luck.
The Rev. George Young, in his History of Wliiiby (Yorkshire),
says : " A lady in Whitby has a soul mass-loaf nearly a hun-
dred years old."

MONTFERRAND, NEAR BeVEKLEY.

The fairest lady in this land,
Was drown'd at Mont Ferrand.

This dark saying of antiquity was quoted by one of the
members of tho Archaeological Institute, at their meetino-
holden at York, in July, 1846. At Montferant, or Montferand
are the foundations of an ancient castle. Of the origin of the
rhyme I am totally ignorant ; mayhap some " honest Yorkshire"

FOLKLORE OF THE NOKTH OF ENGLAND. 27

fellow traveller in the same mazy paths of antiquity can throw-
some light upon it.

A Nuesery Song.

The following beautiful little nursery song, which I took
down from the recitation of a female relative, now no more, is
unquestionably the gem of baby literature. It was communi-
cated by me to J. 0. Halliwell, Esq., F.R.S., and by him given
in the fourth edition of the Nursery Rhymes of England, and
again in his Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales, 1849, p. 163,
in both cases without acknowledgment : —

The Babes in the Wood.

My dear do you know,
How a long time ago,

Two poor little children
Whose names I don't know,
Were stolen away,
On a fine summer's day,

And left in a wood,
As I've heard people say.

And when it was night,
So sad was their plight ;

The sun it went down,
And the moon gave no light !
And they sobbed and they sigh'd,
And they bitterly cried ;

And, poor little things,
They laid down and died !

And when they were dead,
The robin so red

Brought strawberry leaves,
And over them spread ;

28 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

And all the day long
He sang them this song —
Poor babes in the wood,
Poor babes in the wood !

And don't you remember
The babes in the wood ?

The superstitious belief that the Eobin performs the office of
covering 1 the dead bodies of the human species with leaves,
&c, is noticed by Shakespeare, Drayton, and Webster. In
the ballad of The Soldier's Repentance, the robin is invoked
by the dying soldier to bury him when dead. Again, in the
West Country DamoseVs Complaint, " mourning birds with
leafy boughs " are said to have given a burial to her and her
youthful lover.

Ceetaine Dyshes for oeetaine Tymes.

A turkey and mince-pie at Christmas ; a gammon of bacon on
Easter Day; a goose on Michaelmas Day; oysters on St.
James's Day ; a roast pig on St. Bartlemy's Day ; a fat hen at
Shrovetide ; ham or bacon collops on Shrove Monday ; pancakes
on Shrove Tuesday ; a male pullet and bacon on Fastens Day ;
hot-cross buns on Good Friday ; bull beef at Candlemas ;
pullets are in season during the whole of January, hence the
proverb : —

If you but knew how good it were
To eat a pullet in Janivere,
If you had but twenty in your flock,
You'd leave but one to go with the cock.

Eggs on the Saturday before Shrove Sunday ; a soul cake on
All Souls' Day ; salmon and all kinds of fish in Lent, &c. &e.

l j

FOLKLOKE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 29

The Giant Cob.

In the museum at Keswick is preserved an immensely large
bone, said to be a rib of the Northumbrian giant Cor. A bone
of Giant Wade's cow is, or was, shown at Mul grave Castle,
Yorks. [The brother giants Cor, Ben, and Con are celebrated
in Dr. John Carr's Ode to the Derwent. Bichardson's Table
Book, Sfc, Leg. Div. i., p. 285. They resided at Corbridge
in Northumberland, and Conset and Benfieldside in Durham.]

Markets.

Brough in Westmorland, and Reeth in the North Biding of
Yorkshire sire two instances of towns enjoying the privilege of
a market, but not having a church therein. St. David's, in
Wales, is a city without a market.

Vuloae Errors.

1 . A long black hair from the mane or tail of a horse thrown
into a running stream instantly becomes a living eel. When a
school boy I perfectly recollect trying this experiment in the
river Greata.

2. If a fruit tree is topped with a saw it will die, and not
spring afresh as intended.

3. It was quite common when I was a lad, some forty years
ago, to hear one's neighbour observe during a hurricane of
wind, " There's been somebody at 't wise man this morning,
and he's raised t' wind," and the saying is, even still, occa-
sionally heard.

4. I also recollect, on occasion of the death of a certain
very wicked female neighbour of mine, now many years ago,
one truly dreadful night of wind and rain, thunder and
lightning, hearing that this awful tempest was caused by a
visit of the devil to bear away the soul of to the infernal

30 THE DENHAJI TRACTS.

regions. And this portion of the popular creed is very widely
diffused throughout the length and breadth of the north of
England. Numerous are the chronicled instances which might
be quoted in support of this ancient national dogma. The
saying, " As busy as the devil in a gale of wind " is still used
in the North.

5. The common people, universally almost, connect subter-
raneous passages with buildings of antiquity, especially if they
are in a ruinous state. Communications of this sort are said to
exist between the highly interesting but desecrated chapel of
Old Richmond (on the Yorkshire banks, opposite Gainford),
and Cliffe Hall, some three miles further down the Tees; also
from St. Nicholas's to Easby Abbey, both in the vicinage of
Richmond ; so likewise between Penrith Castle and Dockwray
Hall, a distance of 307 yards ; also from Guisborough Priory to
a parcel of land called the Tocketts. A secret passage was also
connected with Anderson Place, Newcastle-on-Tyne. In con-
nection with Guisborough passage a curious legend is told.
Many other places might also be enumerated.

6. The not yet exploded belief in Fairies connects itself with
Fairy Slippers, Fairy Stones, Fairy Butter, Fairy Pipes (on
which, by-the-bye, a curious article might be written), Fairy
Cups, Fairy Cauldrons, Fairy "Wells, Fairy Hills, Fairy Rings,
Fairy Money, Elf Locks, Elf Shots, Fairy Cakes, Fairy Javelins,
Fairy Kettles, Fairy Loaves, Fairy Mushrooms, Elf Arrows,
Puck Fists, Fairy Flax, Fairy Bells {i.e. the flower of the Fox-
glove), Fairy Fingers, Fairy or Colpixy Heads, Elf Fire, Elf
Knots, Fairy Saddles, etc., etc. [See pp. 110-111.]

7. A bunch of ash keys carried in the hand preserves the
bearer from witchcraft ; as also does the twig of the rowan or
roan-tree.

8. It is commonly believed that if a female has a boy and
girl at ono birth she will never become pregnant again.

folklore of the nokth of england. 3 1

Pancakes.

At Sheffield, pancakes are said to be thrown from the leads
of the churches on Shrove Tuesday ; and it is there held as a
sort of minor All Fools' Day ; for many are the children whom
more foolish adults are guilty of sending on the bootless errand
of catching them in their descent, the moment the church clock
strikes twelve.

In some farm houses it is still customary for the servants,
male as well as female, according to seniority, to fry, and toss
their pancakes ; but if they did not get it ate before the next
one was enough, they were dragged out of the house, put into
a wheelbarrow and whemmeled over upon the muck-midden.

Lifting.

The ancient, but not very becoming, custom of lifting or
stanging as it is called in Westmoreland, is still preserved in
many of the towns and villages on New Year's Day. On this
day the men lift the women upon a ladder or pole, and
occasionally in a chair or swill, carried by two or more men,
followed by a few dozens of youngsters, and hoist fliem away to
the nearest public-house ; where they are required, by the law
of prescriptive right, to call for a quart of ale, at tlic expense of
the female equestrian. If this payment, or promise thereof, is
not complied with, one of the lady's feet is denuded of its shoe,
which is left in pledge with the ale-wife. It is, as may be
supposed, always redeemed.

Goodman.

'' The good man of the house." This term signifies head of
the household, or chief of the clan. The word is still in popular
use.

32 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

Candle-Bark.

This domestic utensil, now nearly out of use, yet still to be
met with in the possession of old housekeepers, is a cylindrical
box, formed originally of the bark of a certain tree, though
now of wood, but more generally of tin. It was the case
wherein candles were wont to be kept till wanted for use.

Herb-puddixg.

In the north it is still customary in some districts to have a
herb -pudding on day [a pudding of bitter herbs eaten

in Passion Week] ; in the composition of which the Passion or
Patience Dock, otherwise Eastern Giants* and young nettles,
hold the chief place.

The Quern Mill.

Of the primitive household mills, many hundreds if not
thousands, are still in existence, and many in the keeping of
those who ken nothing either of their history or use. Dr.
Johnson notices them as being still used in the Highlands at
the period of his visit.

Ball Playixg.

This game commences on Pancake Tuesday, and continues
without intermission till Easter.

[* Rumex Patientia ; a native of Itaty, introduced into English
cultivation in 1573. — Aiton's Hortua Kewensts, ii., p. 318. Patience
Dock is also given in Glossaries as a name of Polygonum Bistorta in
the North.]

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 33

Old Shoe.

When a young person is leaving his family and friends or
going to bo married, it is still usual to throw an old shoe after
him for luck. Many try to hit the party on the back.

Virgin Garlands.

This truly elegant custom has, I much fear, fallen into entire
desuetude. May I, however, live to see its restoration. Ono
of these votive garlands was solemnly borne before the coffin
by two girls, who placed it on the coffin in the church during
the reading of the church service for the burial of the dead.
Thence it was conveyed in the same manner to the grave, and
after the interment of the corpse was again taken to the church
and carefully deposited on the skreen dividing the quire from
the nave of the church, as an emblem of virgin purity, and of
the frailty and uncertainty of human life.

In Corydon's Doleful Knell, we read : —

" A garland shall be framed
By art and nature's skill,
Of sundry coloured flowers,
la token of good will.*

New Year's Gifts.
At Kirkby Stephen, Westmoreland, it is the custom for

* Mr. Denham in his correspondence mentions having recently
(22nd February, 1857) received a reduced facsimile of the virgin's
funeral garland, from Westmoreland. " It is really beautiful. I have
also an elegant specimen of a rush-bearer's garland from the same
county. Also a curiously formed palm cross, in which the ornamen-
tal parts are in various coloured silks ; but it falls far short of the
other articles in beauty."

VOL. It. D

34 THE DBNHAM TRACTS.

children to beg their New Year's Gifts on the eve of this day.
Query. — Is this peculiar to the above county ?

Holy "Wells.

At Bowes, North Riding of Yorkshire, is one of those ancient '
springs or fountains which our ancestors looked upon as sacred.
This spring of beautiful water is popularly known as Saint
Farmin's Well. Who Saint Farmin was I wot not, but there
was Firmin, a bishop of Usez in Languedoc, and to him no
doubt this spring was dedicated by the Norman clergy, who
would be settled at Bowes as chaplains at the castle, shortly after
the Conquest, in honour of their saintly countryman. At
Kirkby Stephen is a wonderfully copious spring, on the brink of
the Eden, known by the name of Ladywell, which has within
these few late years been appropriated to private uses. This
semi-sacrilegious act was committed by Francis Birkbeck of
Kirkby Stephen, who diverted the current of its waters down to
his brewery to convert into ale, and that, too, without the
slightest opposition on the part of the inhabitants of that wonder-
fully improving little country town. The well has ever been
looked upon as public property. Let justice be done.

Wooden Trenchers.

These primeval utensils were universally used in the servants'

hall at till a very recent period ; and in fact were

the usual platter for the tenants at the rent-day dinners, till
about the year 1830, or later. They were not superseded by
the fictile plate till after numerous objections had been raised by
the more independent and higher class of tenantry durino- many
previous years. Fruit puddings and roast beef (or rather
perhaps contrariwise) sweetened rum sauce, and beef and

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OP ENGLAND. 35

mutton gravies, were all eaten off the same trencher. They now
(1851) eat off pottery, and have their plates changed like other
Christian folks. Salt and mustard spoons are, however, still
unknown Note, in 1512, pewter plates and dishes were con-
sidered a luxury only to be indulged in by the higher order of
nobles. Of pewter dishes a noble specimen still exists at Streat-
lam Castle, sufficiently large to contain the whole carcase of a
sheep. In fact, it was used for that purpose on the occasion of
the late Earl of Strathmore attaining his majority, and, as I
have been told, has never been used since.

A Taule of the Divisions of Land and Qualifications
of Nobility.

Ten families make a tything,
Fourteen carucatos were one tything,
Ten tythings make a hundred or wapentake,
Ten plough lands make a fee,
A twenty pound land make3 a knight's fee,
Twenty acres make an ox-gang,
Thirty acres make one yard of land,
One hundred acres make one hide of hind,
Five hides make one knight's foe,
Forty hides make a barony,
&c., &c.

Dykiss.

Tho objects or use of these works is unknown. In Berwick-
shire there was said to have been a rampart and trench called
lien-it's Dyke, running from east to west, now reduced to a
fragment. To descend to modern days, the entrenchment which
formerly surrounded the town of Newcastle-on-Tyne was called
the King's Dyke.

D2

36 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

Game, Nursery, etc., Ehymes.

1 . Draw buckets of water,
For my lady's daughter ;
My father's a king,

And my mother's a queen,
And I've got a little sister
All dressed in green :

One by bush,

Two by bush.
Pray little sister, creep under my bush.

2. My left cheek, my right cheek [varia ear],
My left cheek burns :

If it be my enemy, ^

Turn cheek turn ;

But if it be my true love,

Burn cheek burn.

Note. — Always begin the rhyme with the ear, or cheek that
burns; i.e., if it be the right cheek or ear, begin the rhyme
with it, or vice versa.

3. Bound about, round about, applety pie,
My daddy loves ale, and so do I.
Up, mammy, up, and bring us a cup,
And daddy and I will sup it all up.

4. I had a grandmother, but now she's dead,
And she learnt me to make cocklety-bread ;
She up with her heels and down with her head,
And this is the way to make cocklety bread.

5. My grandy's seeke
And like to dee,
And I'll away make her
Some cocklety-bread,

Cocklety-bread ;
And I'll away make her
Some cocklety-brend.

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 37

6. A man may care, and a man may spare,
And be always bare

If his wife be nought !
But a man may spend, and a man may lend,
And always have a friend,

If his wife be ought.

Four Alls.

1. Soldier . . I fight for all !

2 Parson ... I pray for all ! !

3. Countryman . I work for all ! ! !

4. Farmer . . I pay for all ! ! ! !

A Christmas Rhyme.

At Woodhouse, near Sheffield, the children when they go
about amongst their neighbours to beg their Christmas box,
make use of tho following rhyming invocation : —

I wish you a merry Christmas

And a happy new year,
A pocket full of money

And a barrel full of beer,
A horse and a gig

And a good fat ]>ig
To serve you all the year.
If you please, will you give me a Christmas box ?

Beans at Funerals.

It was a custom with the heathens to distribute beans as a
funeral dole, and hence its adoption by the Roman Catholic
Church. The practice if not followed by some of the present
generation was till a comparatively recent period, and remains
chronicled in the following rhyme, which is still common : —

God save your siul.
Beans and all.

38 the denham teacts.

North Side op Churches.

Still-born and unbaptised children, persons executed in
accordance with the law, felo-de-se, and in fact all persons who
laid violent hands on their own persons and brought themselves
to an unnatural death, persons excommunicated either by eccle-
siastical or civil law, and a variety of other offences deprived
those so transgressing of the benefit of Christian interment —
that is, there was neither service nor tolling of bell. They were
also buried " within the night on the backside of the church."
This antipathy to interment on the north also in a minor degree
extended itself to the west end of the church. Witness the west
end of the cemetery-garth at High Coniscliffe, near Darlington,
where till almost within the period of living memory no inter-
ments had taken place, the south and east portions alone being
used.

Such also, strange to say, was the case in the crowded grave-
yard attached to All Saints in Newcastle, up to the year 1826,
and probably may even still be the case. This circumstance I
gather from a mass of curious and valuable notes on a speech of
John Fenwick, Esq., of Newcastle, touching the propriety of
obtaining " a new place of sepulture.'' Newcastle on-Tyne
(2nd ed.), 1826, p. 22. Th? custom also prevails in Scotland.

Popular Names for ce

Ace of diamonds

Nine of diamonds

Six of hearts

Knave

Queen of clubs .

Four of spades .

Knave of clubs .

ktais Playing Cards.

The Earl of Cork.

The curse of Scotland.

The grace card.

A Bosworth mau.

Queen Bess.

Ned Stokes.

A Sunderland fitter.

The same card is called in Westmoreland " Curwen's card."

Four of hearts . . Hob Collingwood.

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 39

Seventh Son.

On the birth of a seventh son, it is still observed that he
must be a doctor. In the olden time a seventh son was
believed to be able to cure the king's evil, as well as the kings
themselves. The seventh son of a seventh son was blessed
with divine attributes of a still more unlimited power.

Honouring the Dead.

The custom . still remains, though only to a very limited
extent, of a person halting, although riding, for a moment,
when in the act of passing a funeral procession, and taking off
his hat. I admire this ancient usage, and would that it were
universally practised by all professing Christians. [This is
customary in the south of Scotland.]

Arvel Dinners.

Anciently it was only customary to have an arvel dinner
(i.e., funeral feast) on the decease of persons who were possessed
of valuable effects, when the friends and neighbours of the
family of the deceased were invited to dine on the clay of
interment. The custom is no doubt of great antiquity. At
this solemn festival the corpse was publicly exposed. The dead
are still so exposed in many eastern nations, and 'tis very pro-
bable that we derive the custom from our Roman conquerors.

A dinner of this class is expressly ordered under the will of
Will'me Aslackbye, of Richmonde, gentlema', 3rd March,
1573.

Others, again, in their wills order to the contrary, as did
Phil. Hagthorpe, of Nettleworth, in this county, in his will,
1610, charging his son as ho will answer him befoi'e God for
it, esteeming it " a grete vanity to bestow a grete dinner and

40 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

other charges vainly on men when they are gone." Surtees,
ii. 204. On the contrary John Lively (vicar) of Kelloe, orders
£30 to be expended on his funeral. He died 165 1.

" At Bowes, Yorks., where ye Arvel Dinner still prevails,
the chief and chosen dish at the well spread board is a rich veal
pie, well stored with currants and raisins, and of sweet spices.
The funeral pie was ate at an early period, and is described as
being made of ' shrid meates.' These dinners were whiles
set forth in the middest of the chancell of the church after
the interment." * In some districts of England formerly no
women went to men's funerals, nor men to the funerals of
women, f

" In northern customs duty was exprest
To friends departed by their funeral feast."J

The Cradle.

In all sales, either under distraint for rent or common debt,
it is an ancient and invariable custom to leave the cradle unsold,
and the original owner is at liberty to repossess it.

Leaping the Well.

The singular and filthy custom of leaping the well on St.
Mark's Day, at Alnwick, fell into almost total disuse this year,
and it is almost more than probable that the year 1852 will see
the usage entirely abandoned. Peace to its ashes !

An Irish Stone.

A stone bearing the above name is still preserved by my
respected friend Mr. Thomas Hedlcj*, of New Eoad, New-
castle-upon-Tyne, son of Mr. Thomas Hedley, of Woolaw, in

* Sharpe's Survey of London, bk. i. p. 259.
f Misson's Travels in England, p. 91.
\ King's Art of Cookery, p. 65.

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 41

Redcsdale. These stones were at one time common in the
dales of Northumberland, and were used as a charm to deter
frogs, toads, and the whole of the serpent tribe from entering
the dwelling-house of their possessor. In size the stone is
three-and-a-quarter inches in diameter, of a cake form, is of
a pale brown or dark drab colour, and about three-quarters of
an inch thick in the middle where it is the thickest. It is
imperforated, and therefore of a genus quite distinct from the
Holy Stones, which are still so common, in the north especially.*

God speed them weel.

John Bowser, a quondam parish clerk of Coniscliffe, used on
the first publication of a Banns of marriage to pronounce the
pretty little benison of " God speed them weel ! " on the happy
couple, who the moment before were " thrown over the church
balks ; " which use, in conjunction with his broad local dialect,
invariably caused a smile and a blush, not only on the glowing
visage of the clerk himself, but also that of the whole adult
portion of his hearers.

Bowing towards the East.

Many straggling instances remain, not only of ancient people,
but also their offspring, bending the body towards the cast in
adoration, ere they enter their pew or stall , and no doubt in
very many instances without knowing either the meaning or
origin of the custom.

* Recently this stone was sent to me to examine. It is a flattish,
smooth, honey-coloureil quartzose sub-circular stone, apparently from
river gravel. It had been oiled to keep it shining. It has now been
presented to the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries, Newcastle-
upon-Tyne. Mr. Thomas Hcdlcy, the original holder, was usually
known as " The Liltle King of Woolaw." — Beminiscences of Samuel
Donkin, pp. 13, 78-9— J. H.

42 THE DBNHAM TRACTS.

KlVER-GODS.

The belief of our credulous ancestry in a female river demon
is still early implanted in the mind of childhood on the banks of
the Tees. Peg-Powler is the evil goddess of the Tees ; and
many are the tales still told at Piersebridge, of her dragging
naughty children into its deep waters when playing, despite the
orders and threats of their parents, on its banks — especially on
the Sabbath-day. And the writer still perfectly recollects being
dreadfully alarmed in the days of his childhood lest, more
particularly when he chanced to be alone on the margin of
those waters, she should issue from the stream and snatch him
into her watery chambers.

Sir Walter Scott in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, relates a
story of the spirit of the Tweed compelling the lady of the
Baron of Drummelzier to submit to his embraces ; so that on
the return of her lawful lord from the Holy Land he found his
fair lady nursing a healthy boy, whose age did not correspond
to the period of his departure. The lady, however, was
believed, and the child, to whom the name of Tweedie was
given, afterwards became Baron of Drummelzier and the chief
of a powerful clan.*

The foam or froth which is occasionally seen floating on this
river in large masses is called Peg Powler's Suds, and the finer
and less sponge- like froth is known by that of Peg Powler's
Cream.

* "According to a favourite mythic story, the first of theTweedies
was the child of a species of water-spirit or genius of the Tweed, and
hence the name. Records show that the earlier members of the family
were designated from their lands on the Tweed ; as, for example,
'John of Tuedie.'" — History of Peeblesshire, by William Chambers, p.
422, note.— J. H.

FOLKLORE OF THE NOKTH OF ENGLAND. 43

Mr. Keigbtley (a high authority on these matters), says that
the Thames, Avon, and a few other English rivers which he does
not name, seem never to have been the abode of a neck or kelpy.

Wedding Custom.

The custom of giving a ribbon to be run for is still extensively
practised at weddings in the rural districts of the southern
portion of the Bishopric.

Christening Custom.

A few families still adopt the practice of taking a slice of the
Christening cake along with them, when taking the child to be
received and engrafted into the congregation and body of Christ's
Church, and making an offering of it to the first person they
meet. Should this bo a man they say the next child born in the
village will be a male, if a woman, it will be a female !

Holy or Lucky Stores.

These stones, also called hag, (? witch), adder or snake-
stones, and by the Scots fairy-cups, are occasionally seen
suspended to the tester of a bedhead to prevent the nightmare.
They are also placed over the backs of cows or other beasts as
an efficacious remedy and preventive of the malady called hoose
or huse ; that is, difficulty of breathing. These stones may be
considered holy or sacred in a twofold sense ; first, because they
have a hole through them ; and secondly, because like holy-
water, they are equally beneficial in keeping all sort?, kinds
and descriptions of evil spirits at a safe distance.

Note. — These stones to be at all efficacious must be holed
naturally. One hung over the head of a horse will prevent
its sweating in tho stable. (See the oewn anguinum of the

44 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

Gauls described by Pliny, iVafc Hist 1. xxix., ciii.) The name
is also applied to "celts" (i.e., stone-weapons).

Tansy Pudding.

This piece of olden cookery is yet to be occasionally met with
in Northumberland and the County Palatine. The late Mr.
Church, the house surgeon of Newcastle Infirmary, was parti-
cularly fond of tansy puddings, and his cook was, I understand,
an excellent hand at preparing them.

Old Rothbuky.

In the four northern counties we meet with the following
names and places to which the word old is attached. In Nor-
thumberland we have Old Town, Old Hepple, Old Learmouth,
Old Bewick, Old Yeavering, Old Middleton, Old Heaton, Old
Lyham, Old Felton, Old Helscy, Old Ridley, Old Rothbury.
In Cumberland, Old Malbray, Old Scales, Old Carlisle, Old
Park, Old Town, Old Wall, Old Penrith. In Westmoreland,
Old Hutton, Old Town, Old Appleby. In Durhamshire, Old
Hall, Old Park, Old Acres, Old Durham.

Fish and Ring.

The town of Pickering is said to have been built by King Peri-
durus, about 270 years before the birth of Christ, and to have
derived its name from the circumstance of that prince losing a
ring when washing himself in ye River Costa, which ring was
afterwards found in the belly of a pike. Hence Pike-ring,
now Pickering.

A fish and ring story is also attached to the ancient and
knightly family of Anderson, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which is.
said to have happened about the year 1559. This ring, I believe
is still preserved by tho family. There is also a singular York-
shire legend of this class, in which a knight of the name of

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 45

Tempest acts his part most cruelly. This latter story has not
only given origin to a penny Chap Book, still highly popular,
but also to a very excellent ballad, entitled, " The Yorkshire
Garland, or the Cruel Knight and the Fortunate Farmer's
Daughter. In three Parts, &c. &c." 8pp., containing 60
verses, a printed copy of which is in the writer's possession.

Thunder Stone.

The quartz pebble, which is so common in the beds of rivers
and also in tillage fields, is popularly known by the name of
" thunder," or rather " thunner staane," and is believed to have
dropped from the clouds during a thunder storm.

Crossing the Witches Out.

This useful and necessary ceremony is performed by all good
housekeepers the moment they lay the leaven-trough, contain-
ing the batch of dough, down upon the hearthstone to rise
previous to baking. The process is simple, and is performed by
making the sign of the cross thereon with the forefinger of the
right hand ; and this act not only prevents' the dough from
sticking to the pasteboard, but also from falling, as it is termed,
both before and after putting into the oven. It also prevents
witches exercising any of their devilish arts in connection
therewith. My housekeeper performs this duty as regularly as
the baking day comes.

Bachelors and Old Maids.

A man may not legally be termed an old bachelor until he
hath attained the age of fifty years, three months, and three
days ; but as regards the precise period at which a lady becomes
an old maid it is undecided, both by ancients and moderns.
Youth of heart miiy exist for a hundred years, and even

46 the denham tracts.

John "Wycltffe.

At Lutterworth, Leicestershire, they have a tradition that
since the bones of Wycliffe were burnt, and thrown into the
Swift, the river has never overflowed its banks.

Button Rhyme. Westmoreland.

A tinkler, a tailor,
A soldier, or a sailor,
A rich man, a poor man,
A priest, or a parson,
A ploughman, or a thief.

Bows and Arrows.

In a survey of Carlisle Castle, in the reign of Queen Eliza-
beth, there was found in one of the rooms twelve bows of yew,
and seventy of elm, all unfit for service. Pretty strong proof of
their not being much needed. The customary number of arrows
contained in a quiver to the battlefield was twenty-four, " trussed
in a thrumme." The best arrows were made of asp ; but ash,
oak, and birch were also used. The arrow for warfare was
thirty-two inches in length, with a sharp unbarbed iron head of
four inches or thereabouts. The length of the English border
bow was generally five feet eight inches, with a bend of about
nine inches. The bowstring was of plaited or twisted silk or
hemp, but where the notches for the arrow were placed, they
were made round. Bows were made of elm, witch hazel or
ash, but yew was the favourite wood. The planting of yew in
ground appropriated to interments, doubtless arose from the fact
of its nature being so prejudicial and poisonous to horned cattle.
In the reign of Edward III., bows of laburnum * were in use.

Also called nwburne and awbume saugh.

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 47

These, however, were probably imported, as I don't find that
tree was then introduced into England. Ascham saith the
Scots hath a proverb that " Every English archer carried under
his belt twenty-four Scots," which evidently alludes to the
above number of unerring shafts. The range of a good bow was
from three to four hundred yards, and, at a moderate distance
an arrow would pass through an inch board. Six arrows might
bo shot in the time required for the loading of a musket.

About the year 1417, the king, Henry IV., ordered his
<l sherives " of many counties to pluck from every goose six
wing feathers for the purpose of improving arrows. Hall and
Lloyd's Cyclopcedia, " Archery." Those of a bird of three years
old were to be preferred, and that the feathers may drop off
themselves when ripe. One of the three feathers in each arrow
was grey to regulate the placing.

To rain Swords and Pistols.

The above, and also to rain sticks and stones, dogs and cats,
awd wives and pipe stoppers, grey meears and fiddlers,*&c.,&c,
are common similes when speaking of an extremely heavy fall
of rain in the north of England. I have somewhere an account
of a shower of flesh and blood, but cannot at this moment lay
my hands on it.

During a heavy rain in India the natives say : — " It pours
down monkeys with their mouths open."

* It rains dogs and cats, and little pitchforks.
It rains helter skelter.
It rains dogs and awde wives by dozens.
It rains dogs and cats, and aw'll lap myscll int' skins.

Westmoreland.

48 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

VULGAR ErKOES.

There is a superstition in the north of England, that blankets
or petticoats formed of a material made from fallen wool, are
very apt to have lice,* and by my fay I do think there may be
truth in the observation, especially if worn by dirty folks, and
seldom or never washed.

It is a pretty generally diffused article of belief that the dust
of a fuzzy ball cast in the eyes will cause blindness (hence in
Scotland called " blind man's bellowses.")

Soon teeth soon toes. This means that if your baby's teeth
begin to sprout early, you will soon have toes, i.e., another
baby.

4. The ceasing to flow of the celebrated Yorkshire springs,
known by the name of the Nipseys or Gripseys, for an unusual
length of time, is said to foretell dearth of corn, and scarcity of
provisions.

5. The egg given on a child's first visit should be preserved ;
it betokeneth good fortune to the future man.

6. Red garters are considered by certain ladies an effectual
charm against the " rheumatiz." But I believe to act properly,
i.e., effectually, they should be stolen.

7. Fill the cavities of extracted teeth with salt, and burn
in the fire saying the while : —

Fire, fire, burn baan,

God send me my tuthe agaan.

8. A child should not be suffered to look in a glass before it
is twelve months old.

* ["A lupis occisarum ovinm polios pediculos procreunt." —
Aristotle, cited in Joli. Johnstcmi Thaumatographia NaturaUs, p. 319,
Amsterdam, 1661 ; Pliny, Hist. Xat., lxi. c. 33.— J. H.]

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 49

9. To rock an empty cradle is considered ominous of a
coming occupant.

10. Many look upon it as a wicked piece of presumption on
the part of parents to endeavour to perpetuate a favourite
baptismal name, when death has snatched away its first bearer,
and should the second, third, or fourth of the name survive (and
it is a common observation that such is rarely the case) he is
sure to prove a " graceless prodigal." Apropos, I have a not
far distant relative who is the third representative of his name
in his parent's family whose opportunities of doing well have
been many, yet being " a bit of a graceless" the fellow never
would try. He is still living, and a truthful monument of the
impropriety, folly, and impiety of his parent's wickedness in
thus tempting God ! ! ! [Himself?].

11. If the first person a funeral procession meets on taking a
corpse to the church for interment is a male, a female is sure to
be the next who dies in the village or district ; if a female, then
it will be a male.

12. The vulgar superstition which is common to all the people
of a Germanic origin, of the corpse of a murdered person bleeding
on being touched by the murderer is still maintained.

13. If the flesh and joints of a corpse retain their softness and
pliability, it portends, it is said, another death, if not in the
household at least in the same family, in quick time.

Brimstone Pan.

In the days of flint, steel, and brimstone matches, it was the
invariable custom, and no doubt an ancient one, to enfold the
bowl portion of the brimstone pan after using in paper, and so
hang it away till next wanted. Whence the origin of this
i! sago ?

VOL. II. E

50 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

Charm for Foul in the Foot.

Horned cattle are subject to a filthy disease in their feet,
called tbul ; the popular remedy for which is a sort of charm,
to wit, notice upon what portion of turf the beast treads with
its diseased foot, and scoop it up with a spade or large knife,
around which tie a piece of cord and suspend it in the open air ;
and as the said turf wastes away by exposure to the weather,
the animal's foot will recover from the effects of the foul.
Many still use no other remedy, looking upon it as an infallible
cure.

Church Use.

The old though now, 1856, superannuated clerk of Manfield
Church, Yorks, at the conclusion of the Gospel used to respond,
Thanks be to God for His Holy Word.

Need Fire.

The father of the writer, who died 1843, in his 79th year,
had a perfect remembrance of a great number of persons, be-
longing to the upper and middle classes of his native parish of
Bowes, assembling on the banks of the river Greta to work for
need fire. A disease among cattle, called the murrain, then
prevailed to a very great extent through that district of York-
shire. The cattle were made to pass through the smoke raised
by this miraculous fire, and their cure was looked upon as
certain, and to neglect doing so was looked upon as wicked.

This fire was produced by the violent and continued friction
of two dry pieces of wood until such time as it was thereby
obtained.

"To work as though one was working for need fire" is a
common proverb in the North of England.

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 51

River Ouse.

It is said that the River Ouse has on two occasions divided
and opened a dry passage of three miles in extent, first in the
year 1399, before the Civil Wars, and again in the year 1648,
before the reign of King Charles.

Wedding Omen.

It is looked upon as decidedly unlucky for a bridal party to
be making their vows before the altar of Hymen during the
striking of the church clock. It portends the death of the bride
or bridegroom before the expiration of the year.

Taylors.

The primitive use of employing taylors in the making of
ladies' wearing apparel has only fallen into entire desuetude
within the last sixty j'ears.

Nobody Coming to Marry Me. — (Printed Set.)

Last night the dogs did bark,

I went to the gate to see,
When ev'ry lassie had her spark,

But nobody comes to me.
And it's oh, dear ! what will become of me !

Oh, dear ! what shall I do ?
Nobody coming to marry me,

Nobody coming to woo.

My father's a hedger and ditcher,

My mother docs nothing but spin,
And 1 n pretty young girl,

Hut the money comes slowly in.

And it's oh, dear ! &c.
E2

•'»2 THE 0ENHAM TRACTS.

They say I am beauteous and fair.
They say I am scornful and proud ;

Alas ! I must now despair,
For ah ! I am grown very old.

And it's oh, dear ! &c.

And now I must die an old maid,

Oh, dear ! how shocking the thought !

And all my beauty must fade,
But I'm sure it's not my fault.

And it's oh, dear ! &c.

From The Lyre, published at Edinburgh, about 1825.

Anon.

A Lamentable Dittie ; or, Juvenile Funeral Hymn.

What say you to the following Lament for the Dead ? I
heard it sung (3rd Aug., 1849) in not very doleful measure by
more than half a dozen bairns ; and was so much taken with
the beauty of the composition that I was induced to implant it
on the tablet of my memory till I found time to write it down
in a book. I must premise that the children were playing the
ceremonies attendant on a funeral, and the eldest of the little
group, who could not be more than eight years of age, gave it
in right clerk-like style, time by time, as follows :

Poor Johnny's deed that nice young man,

That nice young man,

That nice young man,

"We'se nivver see him more ;
He used to wear a fustian coat,

A fustian coat,

A fustian coat,

That buttoned up before !

It is scarcely necessary to give the name of the tune, as the

FOLKLOBE OF THE NOKTH OF ENGLAND. 53

rhymes of this somewhat curious threnodie, intuitively set them-
selves to their own right proper tune.

Nursery Kiiymes.

1. Brenky my nutty-cock,*
Brenk him away ;
My nutty-cock's nivver
Been brenk'd to-day :
What wi' carding and spinning on t' wheel,
We've nivver had time to brenk nutty-cock weel :
But let to-morrow come ivver so snne,
My nutty-cock it sail be brenk'd by mine.

Com. to J. 0. Halliwell, Esq.

2. Bonny lass, canny lass, will ta be mine ?

Thou'se neither wesh dishes, nor sarra the swine ;
Tlum sail sit on a cushion, and sew up a seam,
And thou sail cat strawberries, sugar, and cream.

Com. to J. 0. Halliwell, Esq.

3. Black and white i3 my delight,
And green and yellow's bonny,
I woud'nt part with mi' sweetheart,
For all my father's money.

4. I'll away yhame.
And tell my dyame,

That all my geese,
Are ghane, but yhan ;

And its a steg,

And its lost a leg,
And it'll be ghane,
By I get yhame.

Nuttv-cock is an olden term of endearment.

M THE DENHAM TRACTS.

5. Rosemary green and lavender blue,

Thyme and sweet marjoram, hyssop and run.

6. If! If! If!

If I had gold in goupins,

If I had money in store/
If I had gold in goupins,

My laddie should work no more.
He should have a maid to wait upon him,

Another to curl his hair ;
He should have a man to buckle his shoe,

And then he should work na mair.

7. On Royal Oak Day.

The twenty-ninth of May
Is Royal Oak Day ;
If you winnot give us a holiday,
We'll all run away.

A rather superior rhyme of the school-boy class.

Burying Cakes, Westmoreland.

The primeval custom of presenting each relative and friend of
the deceased when they attend the corpse-house on the day of
interment with an arvel cake, still, everything but universally,
prevails in many towns and villages in Westmoreland. At
Kirkby Stephen these offerings are of no trifling number at one
individual funeral, nor yet of trifling individual dimensions.
These cakes, which should always be pocketed [this word must
be received figuratively ; the fact is they are too large for the
modern pocket of either sex, and the cake has in general to be
tied up in the pocket napkin of its possessor] and taken home,
are, I can assure your readers, of that magnitude that one of

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 55

them would be considered quite enough to serve three or four
" maydenly laydies " at a tea-drinking. I have on various
occasions seen these cakes but never tasted them ; but those who
have inform me that the popular colloquial name of burying
cake is a very correct one ; for that, owing to some peculiar
spice which is commixt with the flour, fruit, &c, they always,
both in smell and taste, remind them of a clay-cold corpse and
an oaken coffln. Occasionally as many as 100 are given at a
funeral, and the cost varies from 3d. to 4d. each cake.

' May Kittens.

" Never keep a May kitten." Old saying.

Kittens born in May are even still proverbially spoken of and
looked upon as bad mousers. I only within the present year
heard a female say that "she wad nivver mair keep a May
kitten as lang as she lived, for they were just good for naught at
all ! " [They are unlucky to keep ; and besides, they suck the
breath of very young infants : From Long Benton, Newcastle.]

Death Omen. Howling of Doas.

The howling of dogs, cither by night or day, is siill con-
sidered to portend death, either in the house nearest to which
they howl, or to some of their kith or kindred.

Man is the Moon.

Our ancestors believed that this imaginary personage was
a veritable man, of flesh, blood, and bones, such as we are,
who, by way of example to all succeeding generations, was
taken up into the air donned in his working clothes, along with
his fork of tree, on the prongs of which he carried a bundle of
sticks (thorns), which he had stolen, across his right shoulder,

56 THE DJSNHAM TRACTS.

a horn Ian thorn in his left hand, and also his little dog (whose
name I forget), and the whole of them stuck against the face
of the moon, and all for transgressing the fourth command in
the Decalogue. The following stanza (the third) of an old
" three man's song," adds a valuable item to the traditions in
connection with this relic of olden mythology. The name of
the song is " Martin said to his Man " : —

1 see a man in the moone,

Fie ! man, Fie !
I see a man in the moone,

Who's the Foole now ?
I see a man in the moone,
Clouting of St. Peter's shoone ;
Thou hast well drunken man ;

Who's the Foole now ?

Deuteromelia, or the second part of
Mustek's Melodies, 4to, 1609.

" As for the forme of those spots, some of the vulgar fhinke
they represent a man, and the poets guesse 'tis the boy
Endymion, whose company shee loves so well that she carries
him with her. Others will have it onely to be the face of a
man as the moone is usually pictured ; but Albertus thinkes
rather that it represents a lyon, with his taile towards the east
and his head to the west, and some others (Eusebius Nieremb.
Hist. Nat., lib. viii. cxv.) have thought it to be very much
like a fox, and certainly 'tis as much like a lyon as that in the
Zodiacke, or as Ursa Major is like a beare." — Bishop Wilkin's
Discovery of a New World, 3rd edit. Lond. 1640, p. 100.

This myth is thought to be the most ancient of all our still
popular superstitions. Many, very many, there are who can
see all these figures in the moon ; but, truth to tell, I never
could. All that my weak vision has been able to discover in
the moon amounts to no more than two eyes, a nose, and a

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 57

mouth, just as we see " ye ould laydie " depictured in the
almanacks of Francis Moore, physician, astrologer, and school-
master. Others who are totally lacking of faith look upon both
matters as mere moonshine. Be it as it may, we have, how-
ever, an old, very old, proverb, which holds out timely warning
to the present generation of unbelievers, to wit : c> Have a care
lest the churl fall out o' the moon."

The origin of this myth will be found in Numbers c. xv., 32,
et set]. Alexander Necham, a writer of the twelfth century,
notices the popular belief in this fable. See Iialliwcll's Popular
IUiym.es and Nursery Tales, p. 229.

Palm Crosses.

These beautiful and interesting relics of ancient days and
forgotten ceremonies are still often to be seen in the hands of
children in the North of England on Palm Sunday. The
remaining portion of the year they hang upon a nail against
the whitewashed wall of mayhap the poor man's only room ;
and being formed of gay colours artistically arranged in one,
two, and occasionally three crosses, are no mean or despicable
appendage. In the triumphant days of popery they were
considered indispensable in the hands of old and young, rich
and poor. Hence the proverb, " He that hath not a palm in
his hands on Palm Sunday must have his hand cut off."

Urchins, varia Hedgehogs.

Another relic of the old world times in the Bishopric is that
hedgehogs or urchins, as we call them, have still imputed to
them the offence of sucking the milk of cows as they sleep. I
have endeavoursd to dislodge the fable from the minds of several
of the unlearned, but my endeavour to do so only tended to
increase their olden faith.

58 the denham teacts.

Cbqbsing out the Rainbow.

When a schoolboy I recollect that we were wont, on the

appearance of a rainbow, to place a couple of straws or twigs

on the ground in the form of a + , in order to dispel the sign

in the heavens, or, as we termed it, to " cross out the rainbow."

Lucky Bohe.

This relic of another olden superstition is now seldom seen,
and still more seldom used, at least in the Xorth. This bone,
which was worn as an amulet round the neck to ensure good
luck, and protect the wearer from fairies, witches, " and all
sike like uncanny folk," was taken from the head of a sheep.
Its form was that of T [Tau or cross], a sacred symbol not only
in Christian, but also in Druidical monuments, and ancient and
modern heraldry.

Lyke Wake.

The custom of waking the corpse still exists in a few families,
but the use is now far from general. Every ancient usage in
connection therewith has vanished in my resident locality ; and
I am glad to observe that I have never heard of a single instance
of intoxication where practised.

Excessive Grief for the Dead.

An old woman still- living (1854) in Piersebridge. who
mourned with inordinate grief for a length of time the loss of
a favourite daughter, assorts that she was visited by the spirit
of her departed child, and earnestly exhorted not to disturb
her peaceful repose by unnecessary lamentations and repinings
at the will of God ; and from that time she never grieved more.

FOLKLORE OF THE NOKTH OF ENGLAND. 59

Events of this kind were common a century ago. So the "Wife
of Usher's Well."

[This popular belief receives an illustration from Proudlock's
poems (a local Northumbrian writer, who died in early life, in
1826). In a tragic poem, entitled " Leah's Daughter," Dinah
so grieves for the loss of Sb.ecb.em, that his ghost appears to
warn her that her lamentations disturbed him in the grave.

" Glutsi. Dinali ! am I thus rewarded

For the love unfeigned I bore ?

Is thy lover's shade regarded ?

Dinali, then, lament no more ;

With thy oft-repeated ' woes '

Thou hast broken my repose.

Dry thy tears then ; cease thy wailing —

Woful wander not from home,

Seeing all are unavailing —

They have brought me from the tomb ;

But 'tis to bid thee cease :

Be at peace — and I'm at peace." — p. 112.]

" Leetening afore Death."

A dying person will occasionally not only be restored to all
sense of memory and speech, show great vigour and alacrity,
but will also arise from his bed and hold conversation with his
family as if in perfect health. Ibis is termed " a lightening
before death."

" How oft when men are at the point of death,
Have they been merry ? whirl i their keepers call
A lightning before death."

Eomso and Juliet, act v., so. 3.

Touching the Dead.
Doubtless this custom is of corresponding quality with one

60 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

previously noted on touching the body of a murdered person,
and is equally to prove (though without the resting suspicion)
that you are entirely guiltless of the death of the deceased, not
in act alone, but also in prayer. This public exposure of the
corpse was also to exculpate the heir and those entitled to the
possessions of the deceased from fines and mulcts to the lord of
the manor, and from all accusations of violence ; so that the
whole company might avouch that the person died fairly and
without suffering any personal injury. Formerly, too, it was
done to prevent the unhouseled spirit troubling you either by
night or day. But we moderns, having, in part at least,
renounced our belief in ghosts, say that it is to prevent our
dreaming of seeing the dead body.

Bloody Stones.

Of these stones tradition still points out several with blood-
stained tales of robbery and murder of benighted pedlar,
traveller, or neighbour connected with them throughout the
North of England. These stones are believed to have absorbed
a portion of the blood of the murdered one, and it said that
nothing can possibly remove it hence. In many cases the
ghost of the departed is said to keep mournful watch by night
upon them, to the great annoyance of the innocent and best
disposed portion of the folks living near it. This I have
always considered a very bad trait indeed in the character of
English hobgoblins. Geologists, however, account for the marks
in stones of this class in a more natural waj% by asserting that
they are natural ones, and in good sooth I give not only fall
credit to the assertion, but beg leave to confirm it.

Subterranean Passages.
Traditionary passages, of which so many legendary stories are

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 61

told, are obviously nothing more than the extensive sewers or
vennels extending from the kitchens of the castle, mansions, and
religious houses of olden time.

The swineherd of Will. Peverell, an English baron, having
lost a brood-sow, descended through a deep abyss in the middle of
an ancient and ruinous castle, situated on the top of a hill called
Bech, in search of it. Though a violent wind commonly issued
from this pit, he found it calm within, and pursued his way till
he arrived at a subterranean region, pleasant and cultivated, with
reapers cutting down the corn, though the snow remained on
the surface of the ground above. Among the corn he discovered
his sow, and was permitted to ascend with her and the pigs
which she had farrowed. Genase of Tilbury, p. 975.

By one of these passages the English repossessed themselves
of the castle of Wark after the surprise and butchery of its
garrison by Will. Halliburton of Fast Castle, 1319, when, in
return for the death of Robert Ogle* and his troops, the English
butchered the whole of the Scots.

A passage of this sort formerly extended from Anderson
Place, Newcastle, in the direction of the Manors ; and coins of
Edward III. were found in it. By this underground com-
munication King Charles is said to have attempted to escape.

An instance is also on record of an ancient fairyman making
his complaint to Sir Godfrey MacCulloch, a Gallovidian knight,
of a certain drain or common sewer, beneath Sir Godfrey's
castle, which emptied itself directly into his chamber of dais.
With courtesy the knight assured him of the speedy alteration
of tho drain, which was done accordingly. For this act, the
old man, many years after, preserved Sir Godfrey from the
scaffold when the executioner was ready to strike the fatal blow.

Ogle was not killed at all, see Forduu.

62 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

Tradition and real fact place this event in the year 1697. See
Brockett's Gloss, vol. ii. p. 166, 3rd ed.

The earliest instance we have of an underground drain in
connection with civil or military buildings occurs in the reign
of Henry III., 1216.— Turner's Domestic Architecture.

There are old wives' tales of subterranean passages which
connect the totally destroyed village of old Richmond, not only
with Cradock Hall, at Gainford, on the opposite bank of the
Tees, but also with ClifFe Hall, fully three miles down the
river.

Money Digging.
King John was so impressed with the idea that Corbridge
had been a large and populous city destroyed by an earthquake
or some sudden and terrible invasion, when the inhabitants
would bo unable to remove their wealth, that he ordered his
officers to make a diligent search for treasures which he
supposed were buried beneath the ruins. Simonburn Castle
" was pulled down to satisfy a violent curiosity the country
people had for searching, like King John at Corbridge, and Nero
at Carthage, for hidden treasure, where they succeeded no better
th\n those two royal money hunters, who got nothing but
rubbish for their pains." — Wallis, ii., 15. A singular dungeon
tower, in Richmond Castle, Yorks, was cleaned out to a very
great depth only a few years ago, with the same object in view
and the same success.

Old Horse Shoes.

See Lit. Gaz., Dec, 1851. Brocketfs JS T orth. Words, ii., 60.

To find a horse-shoe is considered lucky. And the said horse-
shoe nailed heel upwards upon the door or threshhold of the byre,
stable, or dwelling-house of the finder, hinders the power of
witches. In daleish districts great numbers are still to be
seen so attached.

folklore of the north of england. 63

Burial at Ceoss-Koads.

John and Lancelot Younghusband committed suicide 10th
November, 1818. "They" (the Younghusbands) "were two
respectable and wealthy farmers just adjoining the town of
Alnwick. The sensation must be imagined that pervaded the
little town of Alnwick, when it was discovered that the brothers
had committed suicide at the same time ; consequently must
have consulted and agreed to each other's self murder, if not
assisted in it. This was the great difficulty with the jury, or
they would have returned the usual verdict of temporary
insanity. I was from home at the time ; and in fact I heard of
the dreadful event at Rothbury, and on my return I found the
jury had returned a verdict of felo de se, and that I was called,
upon the Coroner's warrant, along with my brother church-
wardens and the constables of the parish, to inter the bodies in
the public highway. I distinctly recollect that the coroner,
Mr. T. A. Russell, told us the law did not require the burial to
be at cross-roads. As we wished to spare the feelings of
friends, and as a public footpath led through Alnwick church-
yard, we thought we fulfilled the requirements of the law by
interring the bodies along it, so as not to interfere with con-
secrated ground — which was done by making the graves in a
direction opposite to the usual method. There they would have
remained had not the late Sir David W. Smith sent for the
parish officers, and threatened them with a prosecution at the
suit of the Crown, if the bodies were not interred according to
law in a public road.* It was not till the evening that the
parish officers resolved to disinter and re-bury the bodies of the

* However much this command and threat might hurt the feelings
of every relative and friend, still, as the law then stood, every dis-
interested and light-minded person must justify Sir David and the
other magistrates in the part they acted in the matter.

64 THE DBNHAM TRACTS.

unfortunate men, and this was carried out, though not exactly
at midnight, nor were the graves made at cross-roads. The
wish was to have the graves dug at the March between the
Duke of Northumberland and Mr. Hewitson's estate at Heckley
in a lane, called Hindly lane, leading from Heckley to Eglingham,
where the Younghusbands farmed, and perhaps within a quarter
of a mile from where the double suicidal act was committed, but
the ground was so full of rocks, the gravediggers not being able
speedily to accomplish their work, so that we gave directions
for them to come further down the lane, which might be four
or five hundred yards from the March, but not at a crossing ;
there the graves were dug at the side of the road, not where
carts and horses travelled. I do not think it was ten o'clock
when we returned from the melancholy duty with most
distressed minds and harassed feelings.* As the law was
shortly afterwards altered so as to allow the bodies of suicides to
be interred, in churchyards without ceremony, I really think
that this painful circumstance had some influence on our
legislators. Mr. William Davidson, chemist and druggist, of
Alnwick, was foreman of the jury, and as he takes much
interest in local events, and the history of the place, he will
be able to supply further information upon this enquiry,
which I feel incompetent to do." Private Correspondence,
1850.

It is however said that the bodies did not rest long at the
wayside, being removed under the cloud of night, and that they
found a third final resting place in the graveyard of Alnwick
Church.

Anciently a stake was driven through the body of a suicide,
but in the above instance this act was dispensed with.

* The burial was witnessed by a vast concourse of people from
Alnwick and the surrounding neighbourhood.

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 65

[" Go to Heckley Fence " may have originated from the
circumstances above related.]

Roman Burials.
The Romans most generally interred north and south, and
occasionally with the head to the south. Numerous double and
occasionally treble interments are met with, in which the bodies,
singular to say, are reversed ; vulgo, " heads and heels." Many
instances of double interments have been met with at Pierse-
bridge.

Sundry Northern Proverbs.

1. He's a ganger, like Willy Pigg's dick ass.

2. A bumble kite a spider in't — a bad bargain.

3. It's a hobbly road, as the man said when he fell over a cow.

4. Rather better than common, like Nanny Hclmsey's pie.

5. Changeable weather, quoth Molly Hogg, rain every day.

6. As great a thief as Billy P — r, who stole the bolt off his own door.

7. I said nought and I said nought, and still they took hold of my
words.

8. I'll pepper your rams.

9. The old yow's the better tape.

10. High-days and holidays and baan-fire neets.

11. He sticks up his riggin {i.e., the backbone), like a puzzon'd
rattan.

12. To catch Peggy Wiggan.

13. To use some of Michael Pickering's blacking, i.e., none at all.

14. As throng as Throp's wife, when she hanged herself with the
dishclout.

15. May Jemmy Johnson squeeze me.

10. It's sure and sartain, as said Jonathan Martin.

17. She's ready donn'd, like Willy Ho's (Hall's) dog.

18. Like Isaac Ebdalc's stockings, they're no fit.
111. " A little of both," as Harry Hodgson said.

20. It's January, like David Pearse's gin. David should have said
genuine but nut being, as it would seem, a learned man, he fell into
error.

VOL. II. F

66 the denham tracts.

Worm in the Tail.

This is a sort of imaginary disease wonderfully common in
horned cattle, to cure which a portion of the end of the animal's
tail is cut off in order to make it bleed; but the more general
fashion is to make in it a perpendicular incision near to the end
and to rub therein a composition of salt, soot, tar, turpentine,
and garlick, tightly enveloping all with a rag and cord.

Butchers as Jurymen.

The common vulgar error of excluding a butcher from juries,
especially in cases of blood, although it may be said to be
exploded, is still strongly impressed upon the minds of the lower
classes, at least so far as propriety goes. I believe that an
ancient law, still standing on the statute book, actually for-
bade it.

Mayden Assize : White Gloves.

It was formerly the custom to present the judge with a pair
of white gloves when no criminals were condemned to be
hanged. The use now is to make the offering when there are
no prisoners for trial. A pair of gloves also, not many years
ago, was the customary offering by a person claiming a reversal
of outlawry. Amongst swordsmen, to send or cast the gauntlet,
i.e., a glove of mail, was esteemed a challenge of defiance.

To Bite the Glove or Nails.

To bite the glove or finger nails in conversation, even with a
friend, is still looked upon as ominous of passion or hatred. Sir
Walter Scott has a note thereon. See Lay of the Last Minstrel,
cant, vi., st. 7. Shakespeare also remarks it as a gesture of
contempt.

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 67

The Kissing Bush.

At York and Newcastle-on-Tyne tliis ancient token of a
mirthful and I hope innocent custom is still to be seen at
Christmas. The bush is formed of mistletoe, evergreens, rib-
bons, and oranges. May its presence continue to be witnessed,
not only in the kitchens but also in the entrance hall for cen-
turies untold.

The Petting Stone.

Marriages celebrated at the Church of Lindisfarne, in Holy
Island, are said to be unfortunate if the bride, on making the
essay, cannot step the length of it. This stone is supposed to be
the pedestal of St. Cuthbert's Cross, anciently held in super-
stitious veneration. [In some places the bride, after coming out
of the church, was lifted over a stone, called " the petting
stone," that she may never take the pet.]

The Mosstrooper's Grave.

" From the Lake of Grindon, in Northumberland, a small
burn issues and flows about two miles in a westerly course,
when it is suddenly lost in a fissure of its rocky passage in the
limestone, popularly known as a Swallow-hole. Tradition states
that a young mosstrooper, in attempting to rob a farmyard in
the neighbourhood, was shot by one of the servants and brought
to the lonely Swallow-hole and there buried. Upon this tradi-
tion a ballad was founded, which I fear is now lost. I remem-
ber it as very pretty. The grave is worthy of its lawless
occupant." — Private Correspondence, 1849.

Selling oneself to the Devil.

" Tho idea of men and women thus disposing of themselves

F 2

68 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

for wealth and power, for a certain term of years, is not yet
exploded, in Weardale. At the expiration of the period Satan
appears in person, and not only claims the soul, but carries off
the body also. It is supposed the victim can be saved by giving
the fiend anything black when he appears to him^ as a black
hen, black cat, dog, &c. So that it would seem his infernal
majesty is either easily satisfied or easily gulled." — Private
Correspondence.

Charm foe Bewitched Cattle.

An acquaintance of mine, in County Westmeria, had such a
singular succession of ill luck among his cattle that his neigh-
bours, as well as himself, came to the conclusion that they were
bewitched by awde Sally Mackick, who lived at no great dis-
tance from the farmstead. An eldern, well versed in these
matters, recommended the owner to take the heart of a cow
which had died that morning and stick it full of pins, and after-
wards plunge it into the midst of a fire made up for the purpose
at the dead hour of midnight. All made ready, the heart was
dropt into the middle of a huge roaring fire in an awful silence
and covered up, when (mirabile diclu) instantly the most awful
knock came upon the window, where the work was going for-
ward, that the good folks ever heard in their lives, and it was
not, as may be supposed, to bid them hasten to their beds. In
the morning not a relic of either heart or pins was to be met
with . From that period their cattle got almost instantaneously
well, and they lost no more for many long years.

My story, however, ends not here. The supposed witch, after
this, to make use of the language of my narrator, " dowed na
mair, she dwined away, and did na mair good (evil ?), and
nobbnt lived a few weeks, and she's now where the Lord
pleases."

folklore of the nokth of england. 69

Battling Stones.

These now unused relics of a former period are still numerous
throughout the length and breadth of the land, and must remain
so, unless they have the ill-luck to meet the fate of the noble
Piersebridge specimen, which was blown to fragments by means
of gunpowder, by a fellow in the place, a.d. 1826. They were
generally found on the margin of a stream, with the upper sur-
face inclining towards the water. These stones were used by
thrifty housewives some thirty years ago, whereupon to beat,
battle, or beetle their home-made linens or huckabacks, which
even then pretty generally prevailed for domestic wear. The
linen was thrown into the running stream and gradually drawn
upon the stone, and there beat with a beetle or battling staff.
The Piersebridge stone lay on the north side of Carlebury beck,
ii yard or two below the present footbridge. Another stone of
this class, but greatly deficient in magnitude, still exists on the
Cliffe side of the Tees, with one side in the river. It is on the
premises of the George and Dragon Inn, not far from the bridge.
I have many times seen it used. It is a granite boulder, as was
the other.

Nursery Rhymes.

A Supposition.

As I suppose, and as I suppose,

The barber shaved the Quaker,
And as I suppose, he cut off his nose,

And lap't it up in a paper.

Running ok Leaping Rhymes.

Bi'llasay. Bclhi~ay, what time o' tiny,
One o'clock, two o'clock, three and away.

Varia in second line, '• time to away." BcIIasay is evidently

70 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

)i corruption of bell-horses. At Wooler, instead of "Bellasay"
" coach-horses " is used.

An auld Wife's End.

Did ye iwer see an auld wife,

An auld, auld, auld, wife ;
Did ye ivver see an auld wife

Hung ower a dyke to dry ?
The day was het, the wife was fat,

And she hegan to fry ;
So there was an end o' the auld wife,

Hung ower the dyke to dry !

A Mother's saying.

My son is my son till he gets a wife,

But my daughter's my daughter all the days of her life.

Southernwood Ehtmes.

1. Lads' Iotp, lasses' delight,
If t' lads doesn't come
The lasses '11 flite.

2. Lads' love is lasses' delight,
And if the lads don't love
Lasses will flite [i.e. scold.]

Charms.
Ash-Leaf Charms.

1 . The even ash-leaf in my left hand,

The first man I meet shall be my husband.

2. The even ash-leaf in my glove,

The first I meet shall be my true love.

FOLKLORE OF THE NOKTH OF ENGLAND. 71

3. The even ash-leaf in my breast,

The first man I meet is who I love best.

4. The even ash-leaf in my hand,
The first I meet shall be my man.

5. Even ash ! Even ash ! I pluck thee,
This night my true love for to see ;
Neither in his rick, nor in his rear,

But in the clothes he does every day wear.

G. An even ash, or four-leaved clover,

You'll see your true love before the day's over.

7. The even ash-leaf in my bosom,

The first T meet shall be my husband.

8. Find odd-leaved ash, and even-leafed clover,
And you'll see your true love afore the day's over.

9. Even ash, I do thee pluck,
Hoping for to have good luck ;

But if no good luck I get from thee,
I wish I'd left thee on the tree.

Docken or Nettle Rhymes.

1. Docken in and nettle out
Like an awde wife's dishclout.

2. Out nettle, in dock,

Dock shall have a new smock ;"
But nettle shan't ha' nothin'.

3. In dock, out nettle sting
Nettle sting'd me.

If thou doesn't cure me
I'll kill thee !

[Tho rhymes under these two headings have been derived
from several sources.]

72 THE DEKHAM TRACTS.

Folks never catch cold at Chdrch.

This is a saying very common in the mouths of old people,
and is no doubt often an inducement to many to leave their own
comfortable homes on a cold, comfortless, (splishy-splashy) *
Sabbath morning, and travel a couple of miles or more to attend
divine service in one of our doubly-damp country churches,
which has turned green internally, not alone from the effects of
antiquity, but still more so from the exclusion of a free circula-
tion of air, from the afternoon of the previous Sabbath ; where
it is too certain numbers have caught colds, which ere long
have hurried them prematurely to a grave not much more cold
or damp than the church.

Bowed oh Crooked Sixpence.

A crooked sixpence worn continuously in the left side pocket
is looked upon as indicative of good luck to the wearer. I
know a lady whom I have seen turn not less than half a dozen
out of her purse at one time.

" Bowed money appears anciently to have been sent as a
token of love and affection from one relation to another.''' —
Brand.

Gun-firing Superstition.

In the sailors' creed the following article occurs, viz.: —
That if a gun is fired over a dead body, lying at the bottom of
the sea, the concussion will burst the gall bladder, and, mermaid
like, it will ascend to the surface head foremost.

The belief that on the bursting of the gall bladder a dead
creature, be it fish, animal, or human, will rise to the surface
of the water, is not peculiar to civilized life ; it is also asserted
by the Indians of America.

* So pronounced in tho north.

FOLKLORE OF THE NOETH OF ENGLAND. 73

Black Cats and Lovers.

In a house where a black cat is kept the spinster portion of
its population will never lack plenty of sweethearts.

N.B. — This piece of folk-lore I gleaned from a young lady,
who spoke, as she herself told me, not from hearsay information,
but practical experience.

.Rhymes.

1 . Whenever the cat of the house is black,
The lasses of lovers will have no lack.

2. Kiss the black cat, an' that'll make ye fat ;
Kiss yn the white one and that'll make ye lean.

[It ought to be said that this is a childish off-take of one
who is constantly inquiring " What?" and not a piece of folk-
lore implying belief. — J. H.]

Corpse Usages.

The old use of covering looking-glasses with a white linen
cloth in the room wherein a corpse lies still generally prevails.
I have thought that this custom was to prevent the image of
the dead being reflected in the glass.

A pewter plate and a handful of salt placed upon the body
of the corpse is now but rarely seen. About Bowes a sod
(turf) occasionally, however, assumes the duty and place of
the salt. The folks say it ia done to prevent the formation of
gases of the body. A bowl of water is usually placed beneath
tho bed.

I myself have seen a " stranger in blood " lean over a corpse
just previous to removal, and in silence repeat a short prayer.
Of the nature of the prayer I am ignorant.

74 the denham tracts.

Sleek or Calendering Stones.
These domestic utensils of olden time are now wholly out of
use. Their form has been aptly described as that of a large
mushroom reversed, the stalk forming the handle. One, penes
me, is formed of common green or bottle glass, in diameter
4^ inches, and in height 6£ inches. They are now very
rare.

Cats and Corpses.

It is a common remark that a cat will not settle in a house
with an unburied corpse. I know not how far the truth of this
saw may extend ; but this I do know, that on the decease of
the writer's maternal parent, the house cat left the dwelling
and took to the garden, where, by scratching the earth, she
made herself a kind of lair and extended herself therein, like
a hare in her form, with her nose partially covered with loose
soil. This I noticed on many occasions during the period the
body was uninterred.

Bell-Hokses.

The last set of bell-horses either seen or heard in the North
of England were kept by the late Charles Michell, Esq., (of
eccentric memory), of Forest Hall, Richmond. Although it
must now be more than 40 years since I last saw those horses,
in their handsome trappings, pass through Piersebridge, I can
nevertheless fancy I still hear the music of their bells tingling
in my ears. These belis were suspended on a wooden frame
work, which frame was covered with a parti-coloured worsted
fringe.

The Rev. Mr. Darnell, rector of Stanhope, has in his pos-
session a bell of this sort, which is considered a great curiosity.

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. <0

It used formerly to be suspended at the neck of the leading
horse (proverbially known as the bell-horse) of the trains by
which the salters of olden time conveyed their merchandise over
the moors of that district. It is very massive, and has a fine
harmonious tone.

Goats.

It is still a generally received opinion, that one of these
animals kept about an inn or farmstead is not only conducive
to the health of the other domestic animals, but also brings
good luck to the owner.

On Children.

It is believed that a child in its first month has a presentiment
or foresight of everything that has to befall it through life. If
much given to crying, its future life will be one of sorrow, and
per contra. Also that if a child's "tooths down-bank" (i.e.,
has its first teeth in the upper jaw), it won't live long.

Northern Proverbs.

1. There's great (v. rare, brave) doings in the North when they
Steele (bar) their doors \vi' tayleurs.

2. There's great stirring in the North when old wives (? witches)
ride scout.

3. Three great evils come out of the North— a cold wind, a cunning
knave, and shrinking cloth.

Cope, a' cope, a bargain,

Never cope again :

Two cross sticks

And a broker, bane (bone).

The above rhymes (which are headed Legal Oral Contract)
are chanted by two children with the little fingers of their right
right hands hooked together. The use prevails at Scarborough,

76 THE DENHAH TRACTS.

and is evidently a .juvenile contract between the parties, that
the coping (exchange) of properties which has just taken place
shall never be broken by either of them in all future time. It
is clearly, I think, of high antiquity.

[Eing tang the Bottle Bell, A' the leers gangs to Hell.]
[Bargain be'd till ye be deed, A bunder' pound if ye rue again.]

Ber. vars.

A EOUNDHEAD BHYME.

Up 'with the rump,
And down with the stump,
And away with the Presbytereers.

This triplet is sung or said at Driffield in the East Riding of
Yorkshire, on the 29th of May ; and refers us back to the un-
happy era of the first Charles ; Oliver Cromwell ; the Rump
Parliament; the Roundheads and Cavaliers; and the Inde-
pendents and Presbyterians.

These rhymes I find were used as a political " toasting
health " by certain Jacobites. They are noticed in Mr. James
Ray's History of the Rebellion of '45-6. York, 1749.

Ghosts never appear on Christmas Eve !

* * * *

" Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long :
And then they say no spirit dares stir abroad ;
The nights are wholesome ; then no planet strikes,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time."

Marcellus.

" So have I heard and do in part believe it."

* # # #

Horatio.

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 77

So says the immortal Shakespeare ; and the truth thereof
few now-a-days, I hope, will call in question. Grose observes,
too, that those born on Christmas Day cannot see spirits ; which
is another incontrovertible fact. What a happiness this must
have been seventy or eighty years ago and upwards, to those
chosen few who had the good luck to be born on the eve of this
festival of all festivals ; when the whole earth was so overrun
with ghosts, boggles (1), bloody-bones, spirits, demons, ignis
fatui, brownies (2), bugbears, black dogs, spectres, shellycoats,
scarecrows, witches, wizards, barguests (3), Robin-Goodfellows
(4), hags (5), night-bats, scrags, breaknecks, fantasms, hob-
goblins, hobhoulards, boggyboes, dobbies (6), hob-thrusts (7),
fetches (8), kelpies, warlocks, mock-beggars (9), mum-pokers,
Jemmy-burties, urchins, satyrs, pans, fauns, sirens, tritons,
centaurs, calcars, nymphs, imps, incubusses, spoorns, men-ixi-
the-oak, hell-wains, fire-drakes, kit-a-can-stiuks, Tom-tumblers,
melch-dicks, larrs, kitty-witches, hobby-lanthorns, Dick-a-

1. Boggle-honse, parish of Sedgefield. Bcllingham Boggle-Hole,
Novthd. [Bogle-houses in Lowick Forest, Northumberland.]

2. There is also a river of this name in the Bishopric of Durham.
Also at York is Browncy Dike, a portion of the Foss.

3. Tho York Barguest. See Memoirs of Ji. Surtees, Esq. ; new
ed., p. 80, 1852.

4. This merry fay acted the part of fool or jester, at the court of
Oberon, the fairy monarch.

5. Hag-House. A farmstead near Brancepeth.
C. The Mortham Dobby. A Tcesdale goblin.

7. Hob-o-t'-Hursts, i.e. spirits of the woods. Hohthrush Rook,
Farndale, Yorkshire.

S. The spirit or double of a dying person.

9. Mock-beggar Hall. Of houses, rocks, etc., bearing this name
we meet with many instances.

« THE DENHAM TRACTS.

Tuesdays, Elf-fires, Gyl-burnt-tails, knockers, elves (10), raw-
heads, Meg-with-the-wads, old-shocks, ouphs, pad-fooits, pixies,
pictrees (11), giants, dwafs, Tom-pokers, tutgots, snapdragons,
sprets, spunks, conjurers, thurses, spurns, tantarrabobs, swaithes,
(12), tints, tod-lowries, Jaek-in-the-Wads, mormos, changelings,
redcaps, yeth-hounds, colt-pixies, Tom-thumbs, black-bugs,
boggarts, scar-bugs, shag-foals, hodge-pochers, hob-thrushes,
bugs, bull-beggars, bygorns, bolls, caddies, bomen, brags,
wraithes (13), waffs (14), flay -boggarts, fiends, gallytrots,
imps, gytrashes, patches, hob-and-lanthorns, gringes, boguests,
bonelesses, Peg-powlers (15), pucks, fays, kidnappers, gaily -
beggars, hudskins, nickers, madcaps, trolls, robinets, friars'
lanthorns, silkies (16), cauld-lads (17), death-hearses, goblins
(18), hob-headlesses (19), buggaboes, kows (20), or cowes,
nickies, nacks, [necksj waiths (21), miffies, buckies, gholes,
sylphs, guests, swarths, freiths, freits, gy-carlins [Gyre-carling]

10. Elf-Hills, parish of Hutton-in-the-Forest, Cumberland. Elf-
How, parish of Kendal. Elf-Hills, near Cambo.

11. There is a village of this name near Chester-le-Street ; and
singular enough a ghost story, called the " Picktree Bragg," is
attached to it. See Keightley's Fairy Mythology, Bohn's ed. p. 310.

12. 13, 14, 21, 23, 27. The same with note 8.

, 15. This oulde ladye is the evil goddess of the Tees. I also meet
with a Nanny Powler, at Darlington, who from the identity of their
sirnames, is, I judge, a sister, or it may be a daughter of Peg's.
Nanny Powler, aforesaid, haunts the Skerne, a tributary of the Tees.

16. The Heddon Silky, and Silky's Brig, near Heddon. See
Bichardson's Table Book, Leg. Div., vol. ii., p. 181.

17. Occasionally, we may hear Cowed, or rather Cowd Lad. The
meaning, however, is the same ; Cowd being a variation of the more
refined word, cold.

18. Goblin Field, near Mold, Flintshire.

19. Hub-Cross-Hill. A place near Doncaster.

20. " The Hedley Kow," a Northumberland ghost story.

FOLKLORE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 7[

pigmies, chittifaces, nixies (22), Jinny-burnt-tails, dudmen
hell-hounds, dopple-gangers (23), boggleboes, bogies, redmen
portunes, grants, hobbit3, hobgoblins, brown-men (24), cowies
dunnies (25), wirrikows (26), alholcles, mannikins, follets
koiTeds, lubberkins, cluricauns, kobolds, leprechauns, kors
mares, korreds, puckles, korigans, sylvans, succubuses, black-
men, shadows, banshees, lian-hanshees, clabbernappers, Gabriel-
hounds, mawkins, doubles (27), corpse lights or candles, scrats,
mahounds, trows, gnomes, sprites, fates, fiends, sybils, nick-
nevins (28), white women, fairies (29), thrummy-caps (30),

22. " Know you fhe nixies, gay and fair ?

Their eyes are black, and green their hair,
They lurk in sedgy waters."

Keightley.

24. See ghost story of the " Brown Man of the Moor." Richard-
son's Table Book.

25. The Hazelrigg Dunny. An excellent Northumberland ghost

story.

26. " Frae gudame's mouth auld warld tale they hear,
0' warlocks louping round the wirriknow."

The works of Robt. Fergusson, ed. by A. B. Grossart, Edin., 1851,
p. Gl.

Mr. Maxwell uses worrikow as the name of a ghost in his Border
Sketches. From the honour paid to him, according to the above
couplet, he appears to have been a sort of master hobgoblin.

28. Mother witches.

29. Fairy Dean, two miles above Melrose. Fairy Stone, near
Foiirstones, in the parish of Warden, Northumberland. This stone,
in which is a secret cavity, has attained a celebrity in history owing
to the letters being placed therein, to and from the unfortunate Earl
of Derwentwatcr, during the '15.

30. Thrummy Hills, near Catterick. The name of this sprite is
met with in the Fairy tales of Northumberland.

80 THE DENHAM TKACTS.

cutties (31), and nisses, and apparitions of every shape, make,
form, fashion, kind and description, that there was not a village
in England that had not its own peculiar ghost. Nay, every
lone tenement, castle, or mansion-house, which could boast of
any antiquity had its bogle, its spectre, or its knocker. The
churches, churchyards, and cross-roads, were all haunted.
Every green lane had its boulder-stone on which an apparition
kept watch at night. Every common had its circle of fairies
belonging to it. And there was scarcely a shepherd to be met
with who had not seen a spirit ! [See Lit. Gaz. for December,
1848, p. 849.]

31. These are a certain class of female Boggles, not altogether
peculiar to Scotland, who wore their lower robes, at least, a-la-bloomer.
They are named by Burns, in his inimitable poem Tam-o'-Shanter.
Mr. Halliwell gives the word as localized in Somersetshire.

IX.

A. FEW POPULAE RHYMES, PROVERBS, AND SAYINGS
RELATING TO FAIRIES, WITCHES, AND GIPSIES.

" Fairies, black, grey, green and white."

Shakespeare.

Where the scythe cuts and the sock rives,
No more fairies and bee-bikes.

Vervain and dill,

Hinder[s] witches from their will.

Aubrey's Miscellanies, p. 147.

If your whipsticks made of rowan,
You may ride your nag thro' ony town.

Much about a pitch,

Quoth the ilevil to the witch.

Much about much, as the deil said to the witch. — Scots
version.

A hairy man's a geary man ;
But a hairy wife's a witch.

Woe to the lad,

Without a rownn tree gad.

Some readings give " With a," etc.

A witch-wife and an evil,
Is three halfpence worse than the deoril.
VOL. II. G

82 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

Hey-how for Hallow-e'en,
When all the witches are to be seen,
Some in black and some in green,
Hey-how for Hallow e'en.

Thout ! tout ! ! a tout tout ! ! !
Throughout and about.

The cry of the Somersetshire witches, when on their aerial
travels by night.* "

Cummer goe ye before, cummer goe ye,
Gif ye will not goe before, cummer let me.|

The above verses are said to have been the words of a song
sung at North Berwick, in Lothian, accompanied by the music
of a Jew's harp or trump, which was played by Geilles Duncan,
a servant-girl, before two hundred witches, who joined hands
in a short daunce or reel, singing these lines all the while with
one voice.

Witchy, witcby, I defy thee !
Four fingers round my thumb,
Let me go quietly by thee ! !

The anti-witch rhyme used in Teesdale some sixty or seventy
years ago.

Black-luggie, lammer-bead,
Rowan tree, and reed thread,
Put the witches to their speed.

The meaning of black-luggie, I know not. [A small wooden
vessel made of staves, ono of which projects as a handle.]

* This is a sort of freebooting cry.
f Cummer. A gossip, a young girl.

POPULAR RHYMES, ETC., RELATING TO FAIRIES. 83

Lammcr-bead — a coruption of amber-bead. Such beads are
still worn by a few old people in Scotland, as a preservation
against a variety of diseases, especially asthma, dropsy, and
tooth-ache. They also preserve the wearer from the effects of
witchcraft, as stated in the text. I have seen a twig of rowan-
tree, witchwood, quickbane [i.e. quickbeam from cwic, alive
and beam a tree], wild-ash, witchbane, royne-tree, mountain
ash, wicken-tree, wicky, wiggy, witchen, whitty, royan, roun
or ran-tree ; also called wiggan, witty,' wiggin, witch-hazel,
roden, quicken, or roan-tree, * which had been gathered on the
2nd of May [observe this], wound round with some dozens of
yards of reed threed, i.e., red threed, placed visibly in the
window, to act as a charm in keeping witches and boggleboes
from the house. So also wo have : —

Rowan ash and reed threed
Keep the devils fra' their speed.

Ye brade o' witches, ye can do no good to yourself.

Fair they come, fair they go, and always their heels behind them.

Neither so sinful as to sink, nor so godly as to swim.

Falser than Waghorn (Wagner), and he was nineteen times falser
than tbe devil.

Ingratitude is worse than witchcraft.

Ye're as mitch as half a witch.

To milk the tether (i.e., the cow-tie).

To cany off the milk from any one's cow, by milking a hair-
tether. A piece of superstition once prevalent in Scotland
— (equally well known in the North of England).

Go in God's name, so you ride no witches.

Rynt (arroint) you, witch, quoth Bess Lockit to her mother.

* To this list may be added Hicken.
G 2

84 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

They that burn you for a witch lose all their coals.

Never talk of witches on a Friday.

Ye're ower aude ffarrand to be fraid o' witches.

Witches are most apt to confess on a Friday.

Friday is the witches' Sabbath.

To hug one, as the devil hugs a witch.

Laughs like a pixy (i.e. fairy).

Laughing like pixies. — Devonshire proverb, Athenaeum,
1846, p. 1092.

As black (*} as "j

As cross as I

As ugly as } a witch -

As sinful as J

Four fingers and a thumb, witch, I defy thee !

Waters locked ! Waters locked ! !

A favourite cry of fairies.

Borram ! Borram!! Borram!!!

The cry of the Irish fairies, after mounting their steeds,
parallel with the Scottish cry, —

Horse ! Horse !! and Hattock !!! f

Ye're like a witch, ye say your prayers backward.

So many gipsies so many smiths.

The gipsies are all akin.

To live in the land of the Fair family.

A Welsh fairy saying.

* Witches were of two kinds, black and white. The former were
looked upon as the most dangerous and devilish.

f This cry and the one immediately preceding are also of the
ravins' or frebooting class.

POPL'LAR RHYMES, ETC., RELATING TO FAIRIES. 85

God grant that the sweet * fairies may put money in your shoes and
sweep your house clean.

One of the good wishes of the olden time.

Ho who finds a piece of money will always find another in the same
place, as long as he keeps it a secret.

Fairies comb goats' beards every Friday.

Its going on like Stokepitch's can.

A pixy saying, used in Devonshire. The family of Stokes-
pitch or Sukespic, resided near Topsham ; and a barrel of ale in
their cellar had for many years continued to run freely without
being exhausted. It was considered a valuable heirloom, and
was valued accordingly, until a curious maid servant took out
the bung to ascertain the cause of this extraordinary power. On
looking into the cask she found it full of cobwebs ; but the
Pixies, it would appear, were offended, for on turning the cock,
as usual, the ale had ceased to flow !

The common reply at Topsham to the inquiry how any affair
went on was, " Its going on," &c, i.e., it was proceeding pros-
perously.

You're half a witch, i.e., very cunning.
To laugh like Robin Goodfellow. t
Buzz! Buzz !! Buzz!!!

In the middle of tli9 sixteenth century if a person waved his
hat or bonnet in the air and cried Buzz ! three times, under the
belief that by this act he would take away the life of another,

* (Swot, qy. swairt, dark, tawny, swarthy.

f This merry fay acted the part of fool or jester in the court of
Olicron, the Fairy King. And if we may believe Gervase of Tilbury,
liobin was the offspring of a proper young wench by a hee-fayrie, a
king or something of that kind among them.

86 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

the old law and lawmakers considered the person so saying and
acting to be worthy of death, he being a murderer in intent and
having dealings with witches.

T wish I was a far from God as my nails are from dirt.
A witches prayer whilst she was in the act of cleaning her
nails.

All my losses and crosses go alongst the door.

Wednesday is the fairies' sabbath or holiday.

She's like a witch, scratch till the blood come, and she cannot hurt
you.

A witch is afraid of her own blood.

A Pendle Forest witch.

A Lancashire witch.

A witch cannot greet, i.e., weep.

One of the Faw gang.

Worse than the Faw gang.

The Faws are a species of gipsies. It is supposed that they
acquired this appellation from Johnnie Faw, Lord and Earl of
Little Egypt, with whom James TV. and Queen Mary saw not
only the propriety, but also necessity, of entering into special
treaty.

Francis Heron, King of the Faws, bur. [Jarrow] 13 January
1756. — Sharp's Chron. Mir.

To laugh like old Bogie.

He caps Bogie.

Amplified to —

He caps Bogie, bogie capt Redcap, and Redcap capt Old Nick.

To be hag [or witch] ridden.

See Tel tor's Tales and Ballads. "Witches of Birtlcy ; a

POPULAR RHYMES, ETC., RELATING TO FAIRIES. 87

Northumberland Tradition." London. 1852. — Keightley's Fairy
Mythology, p. 332. London. 1850.

Nightmare. A spirit or hag of the night.
To play the Puck.

An Irish saying parallel with the English. To play the
deuce or devil. — Keightley's Fairy Mythology.

Has got into Lob's pound [or pond].

That is into the fairy pinfold. Ibid.

Pinch like a fairy.

" Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins." —
Merry Wives of Windsor.

He's got Piggwiggan, vulgo Peggy Wiggan.

A severe fall or somerset is so termed in the Bishopric.
The fairy Pigwiggan is celebrated by Drayton in his
Nymphidia.

To be fairy struck.

The paralysis is, or rather perhaps was, so called. — Fairy
Mythology.

There never has been a merry world since the Phynodderee lost his
ground.

A Manx fairy saying. See Train's Isle of Man, ii. p. 148 ;
Popular Rhymes, etc., of the Isle of Man, pp. 16-17.

To be pixey led.

" When a man has got a wee drap ower muckle whusky,
misses his way homo, and gets miles out of his direct course, he
tolls a tale of excuse, and whiles lays the blame on the innocent
pixies." — See Fairy Mythology, p. 300.

88 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

The fairies lanthorn.
That is the glowworm.

God speed you, gentlemen.

When an Irish peasant sees a cloud of dust sweeping along
the road, he raises his hat and breathes forth the above blessing
in behoof of the company of invisible fairies whom he believes
to have caused it. — Ibid., pp. 363-4.

The Phooka have dirtied the blackberries.

Ibid. Said when the fruit of the bramble is spoilt through
age at the end of the season. In the North of England we say,
The Devil has set his foot on the bumblekites.

Fairy, fairy, bake me a bannock and roast me a collop,
And I'll give ye a spurtle affmy gad end.

Spoken three times by the Clydesdale peasant when plough-
ing, under, the impression that on his getting to the end of the
fourth furrow those good tilings will be spread forth on the
grass.— Chambers' Popular Rhymes, Scotland, 3rd ed., p. 106.

Turn your clokes (coats)
For fairy folkes
Are in old okes.

[" Now the pixeys work is done,

We take our clothes and off we run."

Devonshire, Athenmim, 1846, p. 1092.]

I well remember that on more occasions than one, when a
schoolboy, I have turned and worn my coat inside out in
passing through a wood in order to avoid the good people. On
" Nutting Days "—those glorious red-letter days in the school-
boy's calendar— the use pretly generally prevailed. The rhymes
in the text are the English formula,— Sec Keightley,^. 29]l300.

POPULAR EHYMES, ETC., RELATING TO FAIRIES. 89

[Children in Scotland blacken marbles, which they then
call witches, imagining that these are not so readily struck
when played at. They also invoke the witch when their play-
fellow aims his marble, by spitting between him and the mark
saying,

" Black witch before your nose,
Paddy (Paddock) pit ye oot."]

X.

PEOVERBIAL RHYMES AND SAYINGS FOR
CHRISTMAS AND THE NEW YEAR.

Christmas.

" A merry Christmas, a happy New Year, and a jovial Handsel
Monday."

A black Christmas makes a fat churchyard.

If the ice will bear a goose before Christmas, it will not bear a duck
afterwards.

The twelve days of Christmas.

As dark as a Yule midnight.

Every day's no Yule day — cast the cat a castock.

That is a cabbage stalk, and the proverb means much the
same thing as " Spare no expense, bring another bottle of small
beer ! "

Yule I Yule ! a pack of new cards and a Christmas fule.

Some readings give stule, i.e. stool, in place of " fule."
Aubrey says it was sung in the West Riding of Yorkshire when
the Yule log was brought in.

A green Yule makes a fat kirk-yard.

Big as a Christmas pig !

It's good to cry Yule ai another man's cost.

PROVERBIAL RHYMES AND SAYINGS FOR CHRISTMAS. 91

As many mince pies as yon taste at Christmas, so many happy
months you will have.

A trite observation, general through the whole of Westmore-
land and Cumberland, counties celebrated for their extreme
hospitality. There is an ancient custom at Piddle-Hinton, Dor-
setshire, for the rector to give away on old Christmas day,
annually, a pound of bread, a pint of ale, and a mince pie, to
every poor person in the parish. This distribution is regularly
made by the rector to upwards of three hundred persons. —
Charity Commissioners' Report, vol. xxix. p. 108.

A windy Christmas is a sign of a good year.
As bare as a birch at Yule even.

In allusion to the Christmas log. It is spoken of one in
extreme poverty. [This does not concern the Christmas log.
Birches are denuded of their foliage long before Christmas,
hence Laidlaw's fine lines :

" "Twas when the wan leaf frae the birk tree was fa'in,
And Martinmas dowie had wound up the year."

A birch-wood in winter, with its multiplicity of dark twigs, is
extremely bare.]

A Yule feast may bo quit at Pasche,

i.e., a Christmas feast may be paid again at Easter, or, " one
good turn deserves another."

Christmas comes but once a year.

Ghosts never appear on Christmas eve.

Shakespeare attests to the truthfulness of this old saw.

Busy as an English oven at Christmas.
Cnld as Christmas.

92 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

A kiss at Christmas and an egg at Easter.
They talk of Christmas so long that it comes.
Yule is good on Yule even.
After a Christmas comes a Lent.

In other words, " After a feast comes a famine."

A jolly wassail bowl.

A winter council, a careful Christmas, and a bloody Lent.

Nixon's Cheshire Proph.

I'll bring your Yule belt to the Beltane bore.

Scots.

A light Christmas, a heavy sheaf.

She simpers like a frummetty kettle at Christmas.

One of the dark days before Christmas.

Now's now, but Yule's in winter.

The year lasts longer than Yule.

The day of St. Thomas, the blessed divine,

Is good for brewing, baking, and killing fat swine.

The 21st December. This too is the shortest day, and the
commencement of the winter quarter. It is likewise the first
day of the festival of all festivals — Christmas — which anciently
continued without intermission from this day to the second of
February, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin
Mary; but Christmas day and the twelve days succeeding were
considered the most sacred to mirth and hospitality ; hence the
proverbial phrase, " The twelve daj-s of Christmas." A custom,
I believe, still exists in some parts of England of ringing a
merry peal upon the bells of the parish steeple on this day. It
is called " Ringing in Christmas." While speaking of bell-
ringing at this festival, I may as well here observe that a
practice of considerable antiquity still exists at Dewsbury,

PROVERBIAL RHYMES AND SAYINGS FOR CHRISTMAS. 93

Yorkshire, which consists in ringing the great bell of the
church at midnight on Christmas eve. This knell is called the
Devil's Passing Bell. The bell is tolled in the manner of a
funeral or passing bell. The moral of it is that the devil died
when Christ was born. This use was discontinued for many
years, but was revived by the vicar in 1828. — ■ Collect. Topograph. ,
vol. i. p. 167. The Eev. Ant. Sterry, vicar of Lidney, gave by
deed, in the fortieth of Queen Elizabeth, the sum of five
shillings per annum, payable out of an estate called the Clasp
in this parish (Ruardean, Gloucestershire), for ringing a peal on
Christmas eve, about midnight, for two hours, in commemora-
tion of the Nativity. The money is still received and applied
as directed. — Char. Com. Rep., vol. xix. p. 10j.

St. Thomas's day is past and gone,
And Christmas is most acorns.

Maidens arise,

And bake your pies,
An save poor tailor Bobby some.

Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes, 4th ed., p. 220.

Bouncer, Buckler, velvet's dear,
And Christmas comes but once a year,
Though when it comes it brings god cheer,
So farewell Christmas once a year.

Varia : Bounce, Buckram, velvet's dear,

Christmas comes but once a year,
And when it comes it brings good cheer,
But when it's gone it's never the near.

Sec note on these rhymes, Halliwell's Rhyme*, 4th ed., p. 4-1.

He's a i'ule that marries at Yule,
For when the bairn's to bear
The corn's to shear.

94 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

A meet companion for the following : —

He who marries between the syckle and the scythe, will never
thrive.

Perhaps the latter proverb was more strictly true when our
forefathers devoted a whole month in which to celebrate their
nuptials, to the entire neglect of all other matters. The former
still holds good with agricultural labourers at the present
moment.

Make we mirth for Christ's birth,
And sing we Yulo till Candlemas.

It's good crying Yule !
On another man's stool.

If Christmas day on a Monday fall,
A troublous winter we shall have all.

Yule ! Yule ! Yule ! Yule !
Three puddings in a pule (pool),
Crack nuts and cry Yule !

This was, some fifty years ago, a common cry in the counties
of York and Durham, on the night of Christmas day ; but what
the three puddings in a pule are intended to typify I have
never been able to discover, unless it be three plum puddings
on a ponderous pewter dish, floating, as it were, in a pule of
sweetened rum sauce ! The ■ command to crack nuts may be
inferred from the following extract from a Christmas carol,
given at the end of old George Withers' " Juvenilia " : —

Hark how the wagges abrode doe call

Each other foorth to rambling;
Anon, yon'l see them in the hall,

For nuts and apples scamhling.

The cry of " Yule, Yule, Yule ! " used anciently to be made

PROVERBIAL RHYMES AND SAYINGS FOR CHRISTMAS. 95

in our northern churches after service on Christmas day, the
people at the same time dancing to the words. — See Glosso-
graphia, ed. 1681, p. 692.

Hogmanay, trollolay;

Give us some of your white bread,

But none of your grey.

Hagmena, Hagmena ;
Give us bread and cheese,
And let us away.

This and the preceding partake more of the quality of cries
or chansons than proverbs. They were sung or said by
children on the last day of the year, when collecting their farls,
as they named it, of oaten cake and cheese. — See Gentleman's
Magazine, vol. Is. p. 499.

Blessed be St. Steven,
There's no fasting on his even.

The eve of this day is Christmas day, and the rhymes are
happily expressive of the good eating and great doings at this
festive season.

Oh ! dirty December:
But Christmas remember !

Yule is young on Yule even,
And old on St. Steven.

■When Yule comes, dule comes,

Could feet and legs ;
When Pasche comes, grace comes,

Butter, milk, and eggs.

Chambers's Popular Rhymes, Scotland.

At Christmas play, and make good cheer,
For Christmas comes but once a year.

itfi THE DENHAM TKACTS.

Martinmas is past and gone,

Christmas in drawing near,
There's no a piece mutton in a' the house

To serve out for Christmas cheer.

Wooler, Northumberland.

Between Martinmas and Yule,
Water's worth wine in any pule.

Yule is come, and Yule is gon"e,

And we have feasted weel ;
So Jack must to his flail again,

And Jenny to her wheel.

The following stanzas are the only now remaining fragments
of the Hagmena Song, as sung by the pinder of the borough
of Richmond, in com. Ebor : —

To-night it is the New Year's eve, to-morrow is the day,
And we are come for our right, and for our ray,
As we used to do in Old King Henry's day.

Sing, fellows, sing ! Hagman heigh !

If you go to the bacon-flick, cut me a good bit ;
Cut, cut, and high, beware of your bra? ;
Cut, cut, and low, beware of your maw ;
Cut, cut, and round, beware of your thoom, —
That me and my merry men may (have some).*
Sing, fellows, sing ! Hagman heigh !

If you go to the black-ark, j" bring me out x mark,
Ten mark, x pound, throw it down upon the ground,
That me and my merry men may (hare some) —
Sing, fellows, sing ! Hagman heigh !

* These two words are omitted in the copy taken down from the
recitation of old master Craven, tho ju'nder of the borough.

| The black ark was a ponderous piece of oaken furniture about six

PROVERBIAL RHYMES AND SAYINGS FOR CHRISTMAS. 97

The dish- clout hangs upon a pin,
Rise maids and let us in :
Be she maid or be she nane,
If she comes she must be ta'en.*

Sing, fellows, sing ! Hagman heigh !

*„* Permit me to suggest the following additional stanza to the
notice of the jolly old Pinder of Richmond, should he be spared
to sing this song at the commencement of another year. I fancy
it would chime in tolerably after verse two : —

Then gang to your aumbric if you please,
And fetch us here some bread and cheese ;
Next bring us out an old whetstane,
And we'll sharpen our whittles every ane,
That me and my merry men may have some.

Sing, fellows, sing ! Hagman heigh !

feet in length and three in depth ; the inside was usually divided into
two parts. Occasionally they had false bottoms. These kists are
often to be met with in the dwellings of ancient housekeepers beauti-
fully carved, bearing the initials of the first owner and the date of
the construction. Their original use was that of holding linen, clothes,
and various other items of still higher value, as implied in the text.
They are now generally devoted to the purpose of holding flour and
bread meal. In Westmoreland they are often used as repositories for
haver cakes.

There is an old proverb which says, " The muck-midden is the
mother of the meal-ark ; " and it is one, too, which altereth not with
time.

In the will of Bernard Gilpin, 1582, the testator leaves to the
" poore of Houghton p'ishe, the greater new ark for come, standin
in the hall to p'vide them grotes in winter."

* Evidently a spurious verse, and belonging to another song, or
rather erased, ,SVc my reply to Steddy, letter first, pp. 1, 2.
VOL. II. H

98 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

" Merry men," anciently written " merrie men," is a term of
frequent occurrence in the early songs and ballads of the North ;
its meaning as here used is true, faithful, &c. The- word is
applied characteristically to Wakefield and Carlisle. On the word
" ray," used in the first verse, I may observe that it evidently
alludes to a sort of cloth woven in party-coloured stripes. The
richer clothes of this hind had streaks of gold and silver.

And everych of them a good mantell
Of scarlet and of raye. — Robin Hood.

See an ancient specimen of the Hagmena Song in Mr. Wright's
Songs and Carols of the Fifteenth Century. Printed for the Percy
Society, Oct. 1847, p. 63.

Yf Christmas day on the Saterday falle,
That winter ys to be dredden alle ;
Hyt shalbe so full of grete tempeste,
That hyt shall sle hothe man and beste ;
Frnte and corne shall fayle grete won,
And olden folkes dyen many on.
Whate woman that day of chylde travayle,
They shalbe borne in grete perelle ;
And chyldren that be born that day,
Within halfe a yere they shall dye, par fay.
The somer than shall wete ryghte ylle,
Yf thou awghte stele, hyt shal the spylle ;
Tho dyest yf sekenes take the.

The seventh and last stanza of a Christmas song of the
fifteenth century. [Excerpit from MS. Harl, No. 2252,
fol. 154 i\]

New Year's Tide.

A happy New Fear and a merry (or jovial) Handsel Monday.
Handsel Monday is the first Monday in the New Year.

Praise we the Lord that hath no peer,
And thank wo him for this New Year.

PROVERBIAL RHYMES AXD SAYINGS FOR CHRISTMAS. 99

If New Year's eve niglit wind blow south,

If betokeneth warmth and growth :

If west, much milk and fish in the sea;

If north, much cold and storms there will be ;

If east, the trees will bear much fruit ;

If north-east, flee it man and brute.

In Sir John Sinclair's Stat. Acct. of Scotland, Edin., 1794,
8vo. vol. xii, p. 458, the minister of Kirkmichael, in county.
Banff, under the head of " Superstitions," etc., communicates :
On the first night in January they observe with anxious
attention the disposition of the atmosphere. Their faith in these
signs is couched in verses which may be thus translated :

The wind of the south will be productive of heat and fertility.
The wind of the west of milk and fish.
The wind of the north of cold and storm.
The wind from the east of fruit on the trees.

The Highlanders on New Year's day burn juniper before
their cattle.

At New Year's tide,

The days lengthen a cock's stride.

This saying is intended to express the lengthening of the
days in a small but perceptible degree. The countryman well
knows the truth of what ho says from observing where the
shadow of the upper lintel of the door falls at twelve o'clock,
and there making a mark. At New Year's day, the sun at the
meridian being higher, its shadow comes nearer the door by
four or five inches, which, for rhyme's sake, is called " a cock's
stride," and so expresses the sensible increase of the day. —
Gent. Mag., 1759.

ii 2

XI.

A FEW RHYMES IN CONNECTION WITH THE MONTHS
OF THE YEAR AND DAYS OF THE WEEK.

Memorial Lines oh the Months.

1. Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November,
February hath twenty-eight alone,
And all the rest have thirty-and-one,
Unless that leap year doth combine,
And give to February twenty-nine.

Young Man's Companion, 1 703

2. Thirty days hath fruit-bearing September,
Moist April, hot June, and cold November,
Short February twenty-eight alone ;

The other months have either thirty-one ;
And February, when the fourth year's run,
Does gain a day from the swift-moving sun.

Shepherd's Kalendar; or Countryman's
Daily Companion.

3. Thirtie days hath September,
April, June, and November ;

The rest have thirtie-and-one,

Save February alone,
Which monthe hath but eight-and-twenty meere ;
Save when it is bissextile, or leap yeare.

Coiicordancy of Yeares, A. Hopton, 1615, p. 60.

RHYMES IN CONNECTION WITH THE MONTHS OF THE YEAR. 101

4. Thirty dayes hath November,
April, June, and September ;
February hath xxvm alone,
And all the rest hare xxxi.

Grafton's Chronicle, 1 570, 8vo.

5. Thirty dayes hath November,
April, June, and September,

Twenty -and-eight hath February alone,
And all the rest thiity-and-one,
But in the leape you must add one.

Harrison's Dis. Brit., p. 119.

Memorial Lines used isy the Society of Friends.

6 Days twenty-eight in second month appear,
And one day more is added each leap year:
The fourth, eleventh, ninth, and sixth months run
To thirty days, — the rest to thirty-one.

Partial Variations.

7. Except in leap year, at which time,
February's days are twenty-nine.

8. But leap year cometh once in four,
And gives to February one day more.

9. Except in February alone,

In which do twenty-eight appear,
And twenty-nine in each leap year.

To find leap year you have this rule : —

Divide by iv, what's left shall be,
For leap year 0, for past i, ii, and iii,

Harris.

102 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

A Rhyme whereby to remember on what Day of the Week
each Month falleth.

April loveth to lint with July, Sunday.

And the merry New Year with October comes by, Monday.

August for Wednesday, Tuesday for May, Tuesday and Wednesday.
March and November and Valentine's Day Thursday.

Friday is June day. and last we seek, Friday.

September and Christmas to finish the week. Saturday.

Rhymes on the Days of Birth.

Born on a Monday, fair of face :

Born on a Tuesday, full of grace :

Born on a Wednesday, merry and glad :

Born on a Thursday, sour and sad:

Born on a Friday, godly given :

Born on a Saturday, work for your living :

Born on a Sunday, never shall want,

And here ends the week, and there's an end on't.

Rhymes on Wedding Days.

Monday for wealth,

Tuesday for health,
Wednesday the best day of all ;

Thursday for crosses,

Friday for losses,
And Saturday no luck at all.

Rhymes on the Days op the Week.

Saturday is Sunday's brother,

Monday is no other :

Tuesday is the market day,

Wednesday carries the week away :

Thursday I won't spin,

And on Friday I'll never begin.

XII.

CHARMS.

A Revelation, on Chabact.

In the Athenian Oracle a charm is defined to be " a form of
words or letters, repeated or written, whereby strange things
are pretended to be done, beyond the ordinary power of nature."
—Vol. ii. p. 424.

" If there be any good or use unto the health in spels, they
have that prerogative by accident, and by the power and vertue
of fancie. If fancie then be the foundation whereupon buildeth
the good of spels, spels must needs be as fancies are, uncertaine
and vaine ; so must also, by consequent, be their use, and helpo,
and no lesse all they that trust unto them." — Cotta, Short Dis-
coveiie of the Unobserved Dangers of sever all sorts of Ignorant and
Unronsiderate Practisers of Physicke in England. 4to. London,
1612, p. 50.

The sale of charms was, a century or two ago, a not un-
common thing in England ; it has now, happily, however, wholly
fallen into desuetude, with the exception of the lower classes of
our brethren from the sister isle. The wholesale usage is still
prevalent through the states of his Holiness the Pope ; also in
Spain, in Portugal, and in Ireland ; in all which countries, be
it observed, the religion of the Romish Church exists in its
most debased and intolerant forms. In the city of Leon (Spain)
"printed charms and incantations against Satan and his host, and
against every kind of misfortune, are publicly sold in the shop*

104 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

and are in great demand. Such are the results of popery." —
Borrow's Bible in Spain. The same author says that he met
with charms of this class not only on the persons of the lower
classes, but he gives a translation of one which he borrowed
from one of the upper grades, who boasted that in it were con-
tained every hope of earthly safety. — Bible in Spain, cap. iii.
The following Anglo-Irish specimen of one of these religious
tracts in manu scripta is copied verb, et lit. for the edification of
the curious in charms, incantations, revelations, spells, and such
like items of the vulgar creed.

A Charm.

" For ye Blessing of Godd and His Son Jhesu Christ.

"A true coppy of y 3 Leter writen by God own hand and it
was found in a valey named Macconaby near to 3-e town of
Jesundry in ye valey named Macconaby in ye year of our Lord
mdclxix. this Letter was written by the command of Jesus
CriSt which was found under a great Red Stone Large it
was and not far from y e afors'd Town of Jesundry in ye valey
named Macconaby which was found in a morning and
Engraven [with] theas words following Blessed are thay that
Turneth me over y e people that Saw y e Stone writen and
Engraven did endevour to torn It over but thear Labour was in
Vain, so that thay could Not by any Means move it and when
thay could not prevaill thay prayed Ernest! j r de Siring God That
thay might and of that Same writing and thear came a Litle
Child betwixt S'x and Seven years of age which ye Same Stone
it turned over and without any world by [qy. worldly] help to
y° Great admaration of ye Beholders the Stone be [qy. being]
turned over ther was found a Leter writen whith Golden Leters
by the very hand of JeSus ChriSt which this Leter was carried
to Jesundry to be red in the Town be longing to y e Lady

CHARMS. 105

Pencelbeo in diderioll (sic) itt was written by ye command of
JeSus CliriStt An Sent by an angell in ye year of Our Lord
MDCIII. which commandment was as foloweth firSt you Shall
Love one another Secondly thay that Workct home [on] ye
Sobboth shall be excommunicate [in the original this word is
partially defaced] Command that you go to Church and keep
that Day holy fourthly with Labour and Endevour and
EarneStly desire me to forgive all your Sins my commandments
you Shall faithfully and zealously keep fifthly you Shall
faithfully believe that it was writin with my own hands you
shall go to the Church and your Children and your Servants
with you thear and obServe my words you Shall Chasten and
correck your Children tach [teach] them to keepe my command-
ments you Shal Live with brotherlye Love you Shal Leave
work one [on] Setterday at nighte at five o'clock In
ye Evening and So continu untell munday at morning
you Shall fast five days in y e ememrance [remem-
brance] of the five wounds I Received for you you Shalle
not tack Nether Gold nor Silver wrongfully nether sorning
[scorning] my words nor my doings and I will give
mannyfold blesings and Long Life unto your Cattle and your
Land shall be repleniched with fruitfully To bring forth abun-
danse of all Sorts of fruite and Blessings Shall come upon you
and I will comfort you but thay that do contrary Shall Cursed
be and not blesed and thear Cattell Shall be cursed and unfruite-
full I will send upon yow Lightenings and Thunderboults and
want of Good Things I will send upon you that be witneSs
againSt this my writing and beliveing that it was not writen
with my own hand Spoken with my mouth and they whear
with given to the poor and will not Shall be cursed and not
blessed of mc in yo Conclution of theas Remember That you
keep holy ye Sabboth day without any Provaning of ye Same
knoweth 1 have given you Sex days to Labour one [on] ye

106 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

Seventh my Self EeSted if any write a coppy of this Letter and
keep it without teaching of others shall be Cursed and not blesed
and whoSoever writ a coppy of this Letter with his own hand
[and] Causeth it to be red and Publiched he Shall [be] Blesed
of me and if he Sinned of then" [qy. often] as thare is Stars
in ye Sky his Sins shall be forgiven him again If you do not
believe theas but go again my Commandments I send unto
him wormes which will d'Sstroy you and your children and your
Goods or what So ever you hath more over if any writ a copy
of this Leter and keep it within his hous no Evil Spiret shall
hantt him If any woman be big with child if She hath a
coppy of this Leter abougkt [her] Shea Shall be delevered of
her burthen you Shall hear no more of me untell ye day of
Judgement all good nes and gladneS Shall come whear a coppy
of this Letter is kept.

" Laus Deo

" In nomina patris et Alius et spiritus sanctus.

" Amen."

Waldron in his description of the Isle of Man names a
Charact or Cbarect of very similar talismanic properties the
original of which Manxmen assert to have been found under a
Cross in the Island which he had frequently seen.

XIII.

RHYMES AND PROVERBS RELATING TO HAWKING
AND THE CHASE.

All are not hunters that blow the horn.

" It is not the value of the fox, but the pleasure of the chase that
makes men foxhunters."

Better to hunt the fields for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught."

-Dryden.

Chapter I.

Foxes never fare better than when they are cursed.

Foxes dig not their own holes.

He who would have a hare for breakfast must hunt overnight.

As cunning as a klyket (fox).

Foxes prey furthest from their earths.

Does not know a fox from a fern bush.

[It's either the tod or the fern-buss. — Ber.]

The fox the finder.

He that will! ^fTf the fox must arise betimes.

The fox knows much, but more he that catches him.

Every fox must pay his own skin to the flayer.

As long runs the fox as his feet.

The fox will not leave a lamb to dine on a carrion-crow.

Does not know a hawk from a heronsew.

Hawks don't \ ?° v ® ; , „ > out hawk's e'en.
\varta, pikej

The gentle hawk mans herself.

108 THE DENHAM TBACTS.

To fly at all gama.

Hold fast is the first point in hawking.

Empty hands lure no hawks.

High flying hawks are good for princes.

Between hawk and buzzard. — Hay.

He's a hawk of the right nest.

A goss-hawk strikes not at a bunting.

He's a good dog can catch all.

You can have nothing of the cat but her skin.*

The hare starts when least expected.

The foremost (varia, hindmost) dog catches the hare.

The more you hunt, the more hares you have.f

Dogs that put up many hares kill none.

If you run two hares you will catch neither.

He runs with the hounds and holds with the hare.

Little dogs start the hare but great ones catch it {i.e. eat it).

To fright the hare is not the way to catch her.

Where we least think there goeth the hare away.

We dogs worried the hare.

Find a hare without a meuse (a hiding place).

A houndless man comes tothe best hunting.

Many hounds may soon worry one hare.

We hounds slew the hare ! quoth the Messett.

A cripple on a cow may catch a hare.

Varia 1. A cripple may catch a hare.

2. A cow may catch a hare.
Perseverance kills the game.

A calf's head will feed a huntsman and his hounds.
Dog won't eat dog.

If you had not aimed at the partridge you had not missed the
snipe.

* There is a tradition in Wales that there was once a people
inhabiting Britain who, destitute of dogs, trained foxes and wild cats
for the chnse. — J. II.

| Explained by when one is killed another comes and takes her
lair.

RHYMES, ETC., RELATING TO HAWKING AND THE CHASE. 109

War, hunting, and law, are :is full of troubles as pleasures.

A buck of the first head.

To take heart of grace (? hart of grease).

The stag when near spent always returns home.

Those who hunt are above the necessity of labour.

To hunt a hare with an ox. — Plutarch.

Ceamer IT.

If you be hurt with hart it brings thee to thy bier,

But barber's hand will boar hurt heal, therefore you need not fear.

Dog-draw, stable-stand,
Back-bear, bloody-hand.

The above rhymes imply that the king's forester had power to
arrest a man whom he suspected of having been hunting in any
of the royal forests under any of the above circumstances.

He that will the chase find,

Let him try up the water and down the wind.

Hunting, hawking, and paramours,
For one joy a hundred displeasures.

XIV.

A FEW FRAGMENTS OF FAIRY FOLKLORE.

" The naturalists of the dark ages owed many obligations to
our fairies, for whatever they found wonderful and could not
account for, they easily got rid of by charging it to their
account." — Brand's Pop. Ant. (Charles Knight & Co.), vol. 2,
p. 285, note 15.

" My grandmother has often told me of fairies dancing upon
our green, and that they were little creatures clothed in green."
— Round about our Coal Fire, p. 42.

" But now can no man see non elves mo."

Chaucer.

The not yet wholly exploded belief in fairies, fays, and elves,
still closely connects itself with —

1.

Fairy Slippers.

12.

Elf Shots/ -

2.

Fairy Stones.

13.

Fairy Cakes.

3.

Fairy Butter.

14.

Fairy Javelins.

4.

Fairy Pipes.

15.

Fairy Kettles.

5.

Fairy Cups.

16.

Fairy Loaves.

6.

Fairy Caldrons.

17.

Fairy Mushrooms.

7.

Fairy Wells.

IS.

Elf Arrows.

8.

Fairy Hills.

19.

Puck Fists.

9.

Fairy Kings.

20.

Fairy Flax.

10.

Fairy Money.

21.

Fairy Bells.

11.

Elf Locks.

22.

Fairy Fingers.

A FEW FRAGMENTS OF FA1KY FOLKLORE.

Ill

23.

Fairy Heads, or (

Jolpixy

41.

Pixy Puffs.

Heads <

42.

Pixy Seats.

24.

Elf Fire.

43.

Pixy Stools.

25.

Elf Knots.

44.

Fairy Nips.

26.

Fairy Saddles.

45.

Elf Kirks.

27.

Fairy Sparks, or
Fire.

Shell

46.

Fairy Caves, Fairy Coves,
Fairy Holes, Fairy Par-

28.

Fairy Stools.

lours.

29.

Fairy Mills.

47.

Pixey's Grindstones.

30.

Fairy Kidneys.

48.

Puck Needles.

31.

Fairy Knowes, or

Hills.

49.

Robin Goodfellow's

32.

Fairy Bourns.

House.

33.

Fairy Kirks.

50.

Elf's Glove.

34.

Fairy Horns.

51.

Fairy Sickness.

35.

Fairy Eings, oi

' Pixy

52.

Fairy Lanthorn.

Rings. Also

called

53.

Fairy Pools.

Fairy Circles, or

1 Fairy

54.

Elf-bore.

Dances.

55.

Fairy Hammers.

36.

Fairy Lint.

56.

Fairy Rades.

37.

Fairy Treasure.

57.

Fairy Music.

38.

Fairy Darts.

58.

Fairy-struck.

39.

Fairy Faces.

69.

Fairy Sabbath.

40.

Fairy Groats.

60.

Fairy Child.

Illustrations.

2. Encrinites and the entrochi.

3. Tremella mescnterica. A substance occasionally found after rain
on rotten wood or fallen timber ; in consistency and colour it is
much like genuine butter. It is a yellow gelatinous matter, supposed
by the country people to fall from the clouds. Hence its second
popular name of star-jelly.

•1. Small smoking pipes of an ancient and clumsy form continu-
ously met with in gardens and tillage fields in the north of England.

112 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

They are also met with in Scotland, where they are called Pech pipes,
and in Ireland, in the immediate localities of Danish forts, where they
are called Dane pipes.

5. The Luck of Eden Hall is a cup of this genus. This name is
also given to small stones perforated by friction, and believed to be
the workmanship of Elves.

6. See an account of a fairy's caldron in Aubrey's Nat. Hist, and
Ant. of the co. Surrey, iii. 396. This vessel is of extraordinary size,
and hammered out of a single piece of copper.

7. The well near Eden Hal], Cumberland, from the brink of which
the cup was snatched by the butler, is of this class of springs.

8. I have been informed by an old native of Bishopton, co.
Durham, that the singular hill existing there was in his days of child-
hood called the Fairy Hill.

9. These rings are in accordance with popular local mythology,
caused during the festive meetings of the Merrie Fayes when daunc-
ing by monelight, to ye niusique of " Eobin Goodfellowe's pipes."

You demi-puppets, that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites ; and you whose pastime
Is to make mid-night mushrooms.

Prospero, The Tempest.

10. Found treasure. Shakespeare notices this olden superstition.
" This is fairy-gold, boy, and 'twill prove so. We are lucky, boy,
and to be so still requires nothing but secrecy." — Winter's Tale. See
also Massinger's Fatal Dowry, act iv. sc. 1.

11. "His haires are curl'd and full of Elves-locks, and nitty for
want of kembing." — Wit's Miser ie, or, The Divels Incarnat of this
Age. By Thomas Lodge. 4to. Lond., 1596, p. 62. Another old
author describes it as " a hard matted or clatted lock of hair in the
neck."

12. The heads of ancient arrows or spears. They occur in abund-
ance in some parts of Scotland. They are formed of flint, about an
inch long and half an inch broad. Vallency says the peasants in
Ireland wear them about their necks set in silver, as an amulet
against being elf-shot.

A FEW FBAGMENTS OF FAIRY FOLKLORE. 1 1 3

There is also a disease in horned cattle known by this name, which
consists in an over-distension of the first stomach from the swelling
of clover and grass when eaten with the morning dew upon it. The
complaint is popularly believed to be produced by the stroke of an
elf-shot or arrow.

13. A disease consisting of a hardness of the side in ages of super-
stition was so called.

14. Local mythology says that a fairy javelin was in the old times
preserved at Midridge Hall, in the county of Durham.

15. The same as number 6.

16. Fossil echini. Also known as fairy-faces.

17. A species of agaric. The same with fairy-stools.

18. The same as number 12.

19. A kind of fungus, vulgo a fuz-ball. The same with pixy-puffs.

20. The purging flax, Linum cathartic um. The same with fairy-
lint.

21. The flower of the fox-glove, which name is said to come from
fairy-folks-glove. My friend, Mr. Hardy, of Penmanshiel, says " the
word is from the A.S. foxesclifc, foxeclofe, foxesglofa, foxesglofe, and
has no reference to fairies."

22. Perhaps fox-glove bells.

23. Fossil sea-urchins.

24. The ignis fatuus was anciently called elf-fire. An old tract
bears the title " Ignis Fatuus, or the Elf-fire of Purgatorie," etc.
4to. London, 1625.

25. The same as note cloven.

26. Waldron tells us of a Fairy Saddle in the Isle of Man which
tho natives believed to be in requisition every night. It was a stone
in the likeness of a saddle — Works, fol., p. 176.

27. Luminous appearances oft seen on clothes by night ; also
called shell-fire. See Ray's E. and S. Country Words.

28. Mushrooms.

29. The domestic hand-mills of the Romans.

Also the sound made by the wood-worm viewed by the vulgar as
prctcr-natural. [" The wood-worm is the small brown beetle. —
Anobium domesticum."—J. H.]

30. Kidney beans.

VOL. II. I

114 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

31, 32. Scenes bearing one or other of these names are by no
means rare either in the north or south of England.

33. A Fairykirk occurs in the parish of Caldbeck, Cumberland.

34. Mythical horns occur in several fairy tales.

35. The same as note 9.

36. The same as note 20.

37. Found treasure. See note 10.

38. The same with numbers 12 and 18, I believe. There is a
curious superstitions account of one in MS. 4811, f. 23.

39. See note 16.

40. A local name for certain old coins. See Harrison's Hist. Eng.,
p. 218.

41. A kind of fungus.

42. Natural knots in the manes of horses.

43. Toadstools.

44. Certain marks on women with child, or women that do give
suck. For a curious account thereof see Ady's Candle in the Dark,
p. 129. Shakespeare uses the expression elvish marked.

45. Natural caves. Occasionally rocks, somewhat isolated, assum-
ing that form.

46. Natural caves in the earth.

47. Stone beads.

48. A common corn weed is so-called in Sussex. [In Hampshire,
" Puck-needle " is the name given to Scandix Pecten- Veneris. See
Wright's Provincial Dictionary.]

49. The wood-louse. " Cheeselyff-wormc, otherwyse called Eobyn
Godfelowe his louse, tylus." Huolet, 1552, part i. p. 6. [This
wood-louse is a species of Oniscus.]

50. The same, I believe, with note 21.

51. See Hone's Tear Book, col. 1533-4.

52. The glow-worm. [Lampyris noctiluca.]

53. In the shady stillness of a summer's eve fairies took delight in
bathing and sporting amongst the waters of a lonely pool or sedgy
bsn4 of some rippling brook. In some parts of the county of
Northamptonshire there are ponds which from this circumstance
receive the name of fairy-pools.

54. A hole in a piece of wood, out of which a knot has dropped,

A FEW FRAGMENTS OF FAIRY FOLKLORE. 115

or been driven, by the superstitious viewed as the operation of the
fairies.

55. A species of stone-hatchet.

56. This grand annual festival occurred on the first day of May.

57. See Waldron's Isle of Man, p. 72.

58. The paralysis is, or rather perhaps was, so called.

59. Wednesday is the fairies' Sabbath or holiday.

60. A changeling. These children were little, backward of their
tongue, and seemingly idiots.

I 2

XV.

ILLUSTRATIONS OP NORTH OF ENGLAND FOLKLORE.

Michael Scott.

Long before Sir Walter Scott had given increased celebrity to
the wizard feats of his clansman, Michael Scott, his fame bad
penetrated to the remotest villages of Northumberland. Similar
anecdotes, but somewhat varied in the telling, have been trans-
mitted of him there, as well as in the hamlets on the northern
side of the Borders. The versions with which Sir Walter Scott
was acquainted are related in the notes to the Lay of the Last
Minstrel. The following are what I once obtained from Michael
M., who had heard them, when living as a young man in the
Hexham district. The Northumbrians call the magician
Mitchell Scott, and my informant's master used jocularly to
address him as " Mitchell Scott, the devil's piper."

Mitchell Scott was on one occasion crossing the sea on the
devil's back, and when they were half way over the devil cun-
ningly asked him what the good wives in Scotland said in the
morning when they rose. Mitchell wrothfully shouted " Mount,
devil, and flee ! " If he had replied, " God bless us a' this
morning," he would have been drowned.

The fame of Mitchell is great in that district for having beat
the devil and his myrmidons by the well-known device of
employing them to spin ropes of sand, denying them even the
aid of chaff to supply some degree of tenacity to the incohesive
material.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF NORTH OF ENGLAND FOLKLORE. 117

In modern times he might have adapted their motive power
to some serviceable purposes, but it is firmly believed that even
in those dark ages some utilitarian ideas for human comfort or
preservation had crossed his mind ; for did he not occupy them
in erecting the Roman Wall, the whole of which they accom-
plished in one night ?

" Watling Street in many places of England is called
Mitchell Scott's Causeway, and it is believed by the credulous
vulgar there that the devil and his friend Mitchell made it in
one night." * In Stirlingshire also the military causeway and
other Koman works are sometimes ascribed to Michael Scott, f
In Fifeshire Michael's emissaries cut a roadway through a hill. J
Michael Scott was desirous to have a road through a marshy
piece of country called Cunninghamhead, in Ayrshire. He
ordered the devil to execute this task. Vestiges of that road
are to be seen to this day.§ Mr. Longstaffe thinks it possible
that Michael Scott may be commemorated in " Scot's Corner,
near Catterick, and Scot's Dike in Northumberland." || Mr.
Denham wrote me that he had seen somewhere in print that
"the devil and Mitchell Scott built the Eoman Wall jointly,
and that they completed the work in a fortnight."

He was also consulted as an engineer to render shallow rivers
capable of floating ships of burden up to quiet inland towns,
whose inhabitants envied the seaports, the flow of traffic cease-
lessly pouring through their crowded streets, to the general
enrichment, as they thought, of the entire community. Of tin's

* Ure's Hist, of Rutherglen, p. 133.
•j" Nimmo's Hist, of Stirlingshiae, p. 82.
| Blair's Rambling Recollections, p. 118.
§ Mitchell and Dickie's Philosophy of Witchcraft, p. 290.
|| " Durham before the Conquest," in Memoirs of Archmolog.
Instit. Xorthd., i. p. 58.

118 THE DEKHAM TRACTS.

we have an instance in that well-written little book, Chatto's
Rambles in Northumberland (pp. 47 and 48), which has been
largely drawn upon by subsequent writers on Northumbrian
Folklore. The River Wansbeck " discharges itself into the sea
at a place called Cambois, about nine miles to the eastward, and
the tide flows to within five miles of Morpeth. Tradition reports
that Michael Scott, whose fame as a wizard is not confined to
Scotland, would have brought the tide to the town had not the
courage of the person failed upon whom the execution of this
project depended. This agent of Michael, after his principal
had performed certain spells, was to run from the neighbourhood
of Cambois to Morpeth without looking behind, and the tide
would follow him. After having advanced a certain distance he
became alarmed by the roaring of the waters behind him, and,
forgetting the injunction, gave a glance over his shoulder to see
if the danger was imminent, when the advancing tide imme-
diately stopped, and the burgesses of Morpeth thus lost the
chance of having the Wansbeck navigable between their town
and the sea. It is also said that Michael intended to confer a
similar favour on the inhabitants of Durham by making the
Wear navigable to their city ; but his good intentions, which
were to be carried into effect in the same manner, were also
frustrated through the cowardice of the person who had to
' guide the tide.' "

" Michael Scott," says Sir Walter Scott, " like his pre-
decessor Merlin, fell at last a victim to female art. His wife, or
concubine, elicited from him the secret that his art could ward
off any clanger except the poisonous qualities of broth made of
the flesh of a breme sow. Such a mess she accordingly adminis-
tered to the wizard, who died in consequence of eating it,
surviving, however, long enough to put to death his treacherous
confidant." (Note 2 E to Lay of Last Minstrel.) The North-
umbrian statement is more circumstantial, and gives a reverse

ILLUSTRATIONS OF NORTH OF ENGLAND FOLKLORE. 119

turn to the event. Mitchell having told his wife that nothing
was more poisonous than the boiled flesh of a breeming sow,
she faithlessly took advantage of the confidence reposed in her
by preparing for him a dish of the deleterious article, of
which he heartily partook. Growing deadly sick, he sus-
pected her infidelity, and ascertaining what she had done, he
made inquiry of what had become of the " broo," or water in
which it was cooked, for this was the only remedy to counteract
the poison. The wife had thrown it out, but being shown the
place where this had been done, he drank out of the hollow
made by a cow's foot sufficient to allay the baneful effects. He
punished his wicked spouse by causing two eggs to be roasted
and put fire-hot below her arm-pits, her arms being tied down.
She was thus, in a most cruel manner, " burnt to death, the
heat reaching to her heart."

Thomas the Rhymek.

Thomas Rhymer's name is equally well known in North-
umberland with that of his wonder-working countryman
Michael Scott, but I could not recover any more of his say-
ings than a rhymed couplet of some popular version of his
prophetic utterances :

" When Low Sunday falls on May Day,
Thomas the Rhymer has nae mair to say."

The author of Cheviot, a Fragment, by E. W., seats the
dim form of the seer upon a grey crag among the gloomy and
often mist-shrouded windings of Dunsdale, which includes as
one of its forks Bizzle or Baizle, the highest and most pictur-
esque range of rocks on the great Cheviot.

'' Then came to Dunsdale on the mountain's side,
Which never yet the sun's bright eye espy'd,

120 THE DENHAM TBACTS.

A dismal den, black as the mouth of hell.

Here once, they say, did frightful spirits dwell ;

Now dead or bound, or sunk much deeper down,

Or domineer where Jesus is not known.

Damp streams, gross darkness, and a troubled air,

Stay yet —

Whilst we look on we are with horror seiz'd,

Yet seem with the delusion to be pleas'd.

Here about Lermot sat, who cou'd not climb,

And was contented with mysterious rhyme ;

Ne'er was nor ever will be understood,

And therefore by the most accounted good." *

Thomas Pringle, the poet, seats not " True Thomas," but the
" mountain spirit," upon the Hanging Stone. This rock is also
on the Cheviots, but further round on the north side, looking
towards Scotland. It acquired this name, it is said, from the cir-
cumstance that a packman was once resting upon it, with his
burden of cloth too near the edge, when the pack slipped over,
and its belt tightening round his neck, strangled him, The
same thing happened to a robber who was carrying off a stolen
sheep, both man and sheep being hanged. It is thus peculiarly
adapted for the seat of an unearthly being :

" For there the mountain spirit still
Lingers around the lonely hill,
To guard his wizard grottoes hoar
Where Cimbrian sages dwelt of yore ;
Or, shrouded in his robes of mist,
Ascends the mountain's shaggy breast,
To seize his fearful seat — upon
The elf-enchanted Hanging Stone." f

* Cheviot, by R. W., edited by John Adamson, 1817, pp. 40, 41.
\ Pringle's Poetical Works, p. 119, London, 1839. •

XVI.

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE.

The Hunter and his Hounds : a Legend of Brinkburn.

Under a grassy swell, which a stranger may know by its
being surrounded with a wooden railing, on the outside of
Brinkburn Priory, tradition affirms there is a subterraneous
passage, of which the entrance remains as yet a secret, leading
to an apartment to which access is in like manner denied ;
and as these visionary dwellings are invariably provided with
occupants, it is asserted that a hunter who had in some way
offended one of the priors was along with his hounds, by the
aid of enchantment, condemned to perpetual slumber in that
mysterious abode. Only once was an unenthralled mortal
favoured with a sight of the place and of those who are there
entombed alive. A shepherd, with his dog attending him, was
one day listlessly sauntering on this verdant mound, when he
felt the ground stirring beneath him, and springing aside he
discovered a flat door, where door had never before been seen
by man — yea, that door opening upwards of its own accord on
the very spot where he had been standing. Actuated by curi-
osity he descended a number of steps which appeared beneath
him, and on reacbing the bottom found himself in a gloomy
passage of great extent. Groping along this warily, he at last
encountered a door, which opening readily, he along with the
dog was suddenly admitted into an apartment illumined so
brilliantly that the full light of day seemed to shine there. This

122 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

abrupt transition from darkness to light for some minutes
deprived him of the power of observing objects correctly, but
gradually recovering he beheld enough to strike him with
astonishment, for on one side at a table, with his head resting
on his hand, slept one in the garb of a hunter, while at some
distance another figure reclined on the floor with his head lying
back, and around him lay many a noble hound, ready as ever
to all appearance to renew that fatal chase which consigned
them all to the chamber of enchantment. On the table lay a
horn and a sword, which, seeing all was quiet, the shepherd
stepped forward to examine, and taking up the horn first
applied it to his lips to sound it ; but the hunter, on whom he
kept a watch, showed symptoms of awaking whenever he made
the attempt, which alarming him he replaced it, and the figure
started no longer. Reassured, he lifts the sword, half draws it,
and now both men became restless and made some angry
movements, and the hounds began to hustle about, while his
own dog, as if agitated by the same uneasiness, slunk towards
the door. Alive to the increased commotion and hearing a
noise behind him very like the creaking of hinges, he suddenly
turned round and found to his dismay that the door was moving
to. Without waiting a moment he rushed through the half-
closed entrance followed by his dog. He had not fled ten paces
when, shaking the vault with the crash, the door shut behind
him, and a terrible voice assailed his ears pouring maledictions
on him for his temerity. The fugitives traversed the passage
at full speed, and gladly hailed the light streaming in at the
aperture above. The shepherd quickly ascended the steps, but
before he got out the cover had nearly closed. He succeeded,
and that was all, in escaping perhaps a worse fate than those
victims of monkish thraldom which he had just left ; but his
poor dog was not so fortunate, for it had just raised its fore-
parts to come up when the door fastened on it and nipped it
through !

BOEDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 123

This story, being a family inheritance of the European race of
people, has obtained a wide circulation, and there are many
modes of telling it, answerable to the far separated localities to
which it has been adapted. We recognise it in the banished
Saturn reposing in a cave on a remote desolate coast (1) ; in
the Seven Sleepers of Epliesus (2) ; in the seven foreign
brethren, in Bom an habits, lying in a profound slumber in a
cave on the shores of the ocean in the extreme northern confines
of Germany (3) ; in the three founders of the Helvetic Con-
federacy, whom herdsmen call the Three Tells, who sleep in
their antique garb till Switzerland's hour of need, in a cavern
near the lake of Lucerne (4) ; in Ogier the Dane, or Holger
Danske, enchanted in the vaults of the Castle of Cronen-
burgh (5) ; in Frederick Barbarossa, miraculously preserved to
unite the Eastern and Western Empires in the Kylfhauser
Berg in Thuringia, or, according to another legend, in
the Untersberg, near Salsburg (6), but in the latter
place the tradition vacillates betwixt him and the great
Emperor Charles V. (7) ; and in the legend of the
tomb of Bosencreutz, as told in the 379th number of
the Spectator. Transferred to Britain, it has peopled the
mountain and sea-side caves with enchanted warriors and
huntsmen. In the subsequent notice will be found the parallel
tales of " King Arthur and Sewingshields." The story crops
out in the tale of the "Wizard's Cave" at Tynemouth (8).
The correct legend about Dunstanborough Castle, tells that its
chieftain was charmed with his hounds, his sword, and bugle-

(1) Plutarch. (2) Gibbon. (3) Paulus Diaconus de Gestis Lonrjo-
bardum, lib. i. c. 4 ; Olaus Magnus Historia de Gentibus Septentrion-
ulilius; Romce, 1555, lib. i. c. 3. (4) Mrs. Hemans' Works, ii. p. 65 ;
Quarterly Review, March, 1820. (5) Inglis's Journey through Nor-
way, Sweden, and Denmark, pp. 290, 291; Quarterly Review, ubi sup.

(6) Menzel's History of Germany, i. p. 487 ; Quarterly Review, 1820.

(7) Kcightlej's Fairy Mythology, p. 234. (8) Hone's Table Book,

124 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

horn, and enclosed in one of the vaults of that ancient for-
tress (9), the adjuncts of Monk Lewis, Service, and others
being imaginary. At Fastcastle the adventurer comes out a
hoary-headed man, minus his coat tails. In the Cheviots the
cave contains " three men in armour," surrounded with their
"hounds, hawks, and horses "(10). Sir Walter Scott in an
early poem makes them an army assembled to aid Halbert Kerr,
by the spells of Sir Michael Scott (11). Sometimes they are to
return with Thomas of Ercildoune, and meanwhile remain
entranced within the chambers of -the Eildon hills (12). The
vault at Eoslin holds alive a warrior who may be approached
every seven years, and the difficulty to free him here, as well as
elsewhere, depends on the choice of the horn or the sword.
Thomas the Rhymer, with a mighty host, lies asleep under
Tom-na-hurich, a mountain near Inverness.

" Beside each coal-black courser sleeps a knight,
A raven plume waves o'er each helmed crest,
And black the mail which binds each manly breast;
Girt with broad faulchion, and with bugle green,
Say, who is he, with summons strong and high,
That bids the charmed sleep of ages fly,
While each dark warrior rouses at the blast,
His horn, his faulchion grasps with mighty hand,
And peals proud Arthur's march from Fairy-land ! "

Ley den*

ii. pp. 747-750. (9) Widdrington, a Tale of Hedgley Moor, by
James Hall, p. 84 ; Alnwick, 1827. (10) Poems by Robert David-
son of Morebattle, p. 172. (11) Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter
Scott, i. p. 310, &c. (12) Scott's Demonology, p. 133, where a
similar story is cited from Eeginald Scott's Discovery of Witchcraft ;
Leyden's Poetical Remains, p. 357.

* For more on this subject see Kelly's Indo-European Tradition
and Folklore, pp. 284-289, and not consulted when the above was
written in 1864 ; also Campbell's Popular Tales of the West High-
lands, iv. p. 85.

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 125

Legends of Kino Annum and of Sewingshields.

On this subject I have already written in the Local Historian's
Table Book, Leg. Div., ii. pp. 37-46, and this might be thought
to be sufficient, but the preceding illustration would not be
complete without the corresponding native versions of the
legend being placed in juxtaposition with it.

Sewingshields lies between the Roman Wall and the military-
road, near the twenty-eighth mile stone from Newcastle, and at
the western extremity of Warden Parish. Of Sewingshields
Castle, Mr. Hodgson informs us that in his time a square,
low, lumpy mass of ruins, overgrown with nettles, still remained.
" Its site is on the end of a dry ridge and overlooked from the
south by the basaltic cliffs, along the brow of which the Roman
Wall was built. There are also some traces of trenches near
it." * This is the castle reforred to by Sir Walter Scott in the
sixth canto of Harold the Dauntless as the " castle of the
seven shields." In reference to its present condition Dr.
Bruce remarks,! " Too truly he says:

' No towers are seen
On the wild heath, but those that Fancy builds.
And save a fosse that tracks the moor with green,
Is nought remains to tell of what may there have been.' "

" It stood in the centre of the only patch of ground in ' the
moss/ which is now subjected to the plough. The walls have
been uprooted and the vaults removed, but the following
tradition relating to it will not readily perish." f

" Immemorial tradition has asserted that King Arthur, his

* Hodgson's History of Korthumbtrland, part ii. vol. iii.
f Wallet-Booh of the Roman Wall, p. 109.
% Ibid.

126 THE DENIIAM TKACTS.

queen Guenever, his court of lords and ladies, and his hounds,

were enchanted in some cave of the crags, or in a hall below

the Castle of Sewingshields, and would continue entranced there

till some one should first blow a bugle-horn that lay on a table

near the entrance of the hall, and then with ' the sword of the

stone ' cut a garter also placed there beside it. But none had

ever heard where the entrance to this enchanted hall was till

the farmer at Sewingshields, about fifty years since, was sitting

knitting on the ruins of the castle and his clew fell and ran

downwards through a rush of briars and nettles, as he supposed,

into a deep subterranean passage. Full in the faith that the

entrance into King Arthur's hall was now discovered, he cleared

the briary portal of its weeds and rubbish, and entering a vaulted

passage followed, in his darkling way, the thread of his clew.

The floor was infested with toads and lizards; and the dark

wings of bats, disturbed by his unhallowed intrusion, flitted

fearfully around him. At length his sinking courage was

strengthened by a dim, distant light, which as he advanced

grew gradually brighter, till at once he entered a vast and

vaulted hall, in the centre of which a fire without fuel, from

a broad crevice in the floor, blazed with a high and lambent

flame that showed all the carved walls and fretted roof, and the

monarch and his queen and court reposing around in a theatre

of thrones and costly couches. On the floor, beyond the fire,

lay the faithful and deep-toned pack of thirty couple of hounds ;

and on a table before it the spell-dispelling horn, sword, and

garter. The shepherd reverently but firmly grasped the sword,

and as he drew it leisurely from its rusty scabbard the eyes of

the monarch and his courtiers began to open, and they rose till

they sat upright. He cut the garter ; and as the sword was

being slowly sheathed the spell assumed its ancient power, and

they all gradually sank to rest ; but not before the monarch had

lifted up his eyes and hands and exclaimed :

BOEDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 127

' woe betide that evil day
On which this witless wight was born,
Who drew the sword — the garter cut,
But never blew the bugle-horn I '

" Of this favourite tradition the most remarkable variation is
respecting the place where the farmer descended. Some say
that after the king's denunciation terror brought on a loss of
memory, and he was unable to give any correct account of his
adventure or the place where it occurred. But all agree that
Mrs. Spearman, the wife of another and more recent occupier
of the estate, had a dream, in which she saw a rich hoard of
treasure among the ruins of the castle, and that for many days
together she stood over workmen employed in searching for it,
but without success." *

Mr. Errington, a recent tenant, has removed the vaults
altogether, without making any discoveries of moment.

The version of this story that I obtained from a native of
South Northumberland is less circumstantial, but its verity is
not the less to be depended on.

A shepherd one day, in quest of a strayed sheep, on the
crags near Sewingshields, had his steps arrested by a ball of
thread. This he laid hold of, and pursuing tho patli which it
pointed out, found it led into a cavern, in the recesses of which,
as the guiding line used by miners in their explorations of
devious passages, it appeared to lose itself. As he approached
ho felt perforce constrained to follow the strange conductor
that had so marvellously come into his hands. After passing
through a long and dreary vestibule he wa9 ushered into an
apartment in the interior. An immense fire blazed on the
liearlh, and cast its broad flashes to the remotest corner of the

Hodgson's History of Northumberland, part ii. vol. iii. p. 287.

128 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

chamber. Over it was placed a huge cauldron, as if pre-
parations were being made for a feast on an extensive scale.
Two hounds lay on either side of the fireplace, in the stillness
of unbroken slumber. The only remarkable piece of furniture
in the apartment was a table, covered with green cloth. At
the head of the table, a being considerably advanced in years,
of a dignified mien, and clad in the habiliments of war, sat,
as it were, fast asleep in an arm-chair. At the other end of
the table lay a horn and a sword. Notwithstanding these signs
of life, throughout the chamber there prevailed a dead silence,
the very feeling of which made the shepherd reflect that he had
advanced beyond the limits of human experience, and that he
was now in the j>resence of objects that belonged more to death
than to life ! The very idea made his flesh creep. He, how-
ever, had the fortitude left to advance to the table and lift the
horn. The hounds pricked up their ears, and the grisly veteran
" started up on his elbow," and raising his half unwilling eyes,
told the staggered hind that if he would blow the/horn and
draw the sword he would confer upon him the honours of
knighthood, to last through time. But such unheard-of dig-
nities from a source so ghastly either met with no apjwejjiation
from the awe-stricken swain, or the terror of finding himself
alone in the company, it might be, of malignant phantoms,
who were only tempting him to his ruin, became too urgent
to be resisted, and therefore proposing to divide the peril with
a comrade, he groped his darkling way, as best his quaking limbs
could support him, back to the blessed daylight. On his return
with a reinforcement of strength and courage every vestige
of the opening of a cavern was obliterated. Thus failed another
of the repeated opportunities for releasing the spell -bound King
of Britain from the " charmed sleep of ages." Within his
rocky chamber he still sleeps on, as tradition tells, till the
appointed hour.

BOEDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 1 29

Of the " Castle of the Seven Shields," thus Sir Walter Scott
sings :

" Seven monarchs' wealth in that castle lie stow'd,
The foul fiends brood o'er them like raven and toad,
Whoever shall question these chambers within,
From curfew till matins that treasure shall win.

But manhood grows faint as the world waxes old !
There lives not in Britain a champion so bold,
So dauntless of heart and so prudent of brain,
As to dare the adventure that treasure to gain.

The waste ridge of Cheviot shall wave with the rye,
Before the rude Scots shall Northumberland fly,
And the flint cliffs of Bambro' shall melt in the sun,
Before that adventure be peril'd and won." *

One more local tradition of King Arthur is told by Dr.
Bruce: " To the north of Sewingshields, two strata of sandstone
crop out to the day ; the highest points of each ledge are called
the King and Queen's Crag, from the following legend. King
Arthur, seated on the furthest rock, was talking with his queen,
who, meanwhile, was engaged in arranging her ' back hair.'
Some expression of the queen's having offended his majesty, ho
seized a rock which lay near him, and with an exertion of
strength for which the Picts were proverbial, threw it at her,
a distance of about a quarter of a mile ! The queen with great
dexterity caught it upon her comb, and thus warded off the
blow ; the stone fell between them, where it lies to this very
day, with the marks of the comb upon it, to attest the truth of
the story. It probably weighs about twenty tons.' " f

* Harold the Dauntless, canto iv. " The Legend of Shewin
Shields " has been made the subject of a poem by James Service. He
makes the hero of the adventure a sort of Kip van Winkle. — Metrical
Legends of Northumberland, Alnwick, 1834, Svo., pp. 124, 139.

t Wallet-Book of the Roman Wall, pp. 110, 111.

VOL. II. K

l.'iO THE DENHAM TJJACTS.

" Near the farmhouse of Sewingshiels," says Mr. Hodgson,
" several basaltic columns rose very proudly and remai-kably in
the front of the high and rugged cliff that the wall had
traversed, and one of these in particular was called by some
King Arthur, and by others King ' Ethel's ' chair. It was a
single, many-sided shaft, about ten feet high, and had a natural
seat on its top, like a chair with a bach, but was most wantonly
overturned a few years since by a mischievous lad." A variety
of other curule seats of ancient monarchs existed till recently in
various parts of the country. On a rock which overhung the
Maiden Well at Wooler, and on the precipitous margin of the
Maiden Gamp, was a natural chair called the " King's Seat," .
whereon a king sat and viewed his army lighting in the
cramped-up hollow beneath ; for, adds the legend, it " was the
custom for kings in those days to sit." This rocky throne has
unfortunately been quarried away. A similar chair exists on
Twinlaw, one of the Lammermoor range, in Berwickshire — a
hill celebrated in the traditionary annals of fraternal discord.*
The unfortunate James IV. of Scotland occupied a kindred
position during a part of the fatal day of Flodden Field, and
posterity, with true attachment to a theme so melancholy, till
recently offered to the passing stranger's gaze the King's
Chair. " It is," or rather was, says Wallis {History of North-
umberland, ii. p. 471), "a natural rock, on the highest part of
Flodden Hill, from which he had a good view of his own and
of the English army, and of the country around him." This is
also now quarried away. Arthur's seat, near Edinburgh, has
also its tradition of this class. There is a hill called King's
Seat about the head of Breamish, between the Hanging Stone
and Bussell's Cairn ; and a King's Seat also in the Lammer-

* New Statistical Account of Scotland, Berwickshire, p. 93. The
information about the chair is from oral testimony.

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 131

moors of East Lothian. But on this subject it would be
prosaic to insist. It has been " married to immortal verse":

" A king sate on the rocky brow
Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis ;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men in nations — all were bis !
He counted them at break of day —
And when the sun set where were they ? "

Byron.

In South Africa it is a chieftain's ambition that he should be
seated aloft on a crag. Moshosh leading the Basutos to take
vengeance on the Mantaetis, a neighbouring tribe, addresses
them : " To-morrow, brothers, you will have reconquered for
mo yonder high rook, whereon the Mantaeti sits at ease ; you
will offer it mo for my seat, mine." The army hissed its
applause, crying, " Thou shall sit, thou shalt sit on the rock,
King." *

In some instances these eminences may have been judgment-
seats of ancient courts. On Kyle Hill, in the parish of Clonfert
Mulloe, in Queen's County, Leinster, " is an ancient judgment-
seat of the Brehons, formed in the solid rock, called by the
peasantry hero the " Fairy-chair." This was the tribunal of the
Brehon of the Fitzpatricks." f Saints also had their memorial
seats on hills. The hill on the south side of Kilcattan Bay is
called Suid Chattan, or St. Cattail's Seat, and the hill on the
farm of South Garrachtie (both being in Bute) is called
Suidh Bhlain, or St. Blane's Seat.J If we consult Camden's
Britannia, it will bo found that these mountain seats are quite
numerous.

* Good Words, 180l», p. 2S4.

f Gorton's Topographical Dictionary of Great Britain and Ireland,
p. 4luS.

{ Wilson's Guide to Rothesay, p. 133. Rothesay, 1848.

k2

132 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

The Bells of Brinkbukx.

Centuries ago one of the priors of Brinkburn presented the
bells of that building to the priory of Durham. They had been
the pride of the secluded sanctuary on the Coquet, for their
tones were possessed of great power combined with sweetness,
and many tempting offers had Durham made to secure them,
but hitherto to no purpose. But she prevailed at length, and
the bells so coveted were removed from the tower and dispatched
on horseback on their way to Durham under the care of some
monks. They journeyed till they reached the River Font,
which, owing to a quantity of rain having fallen, was much
swelled. However, they prepared to ford it ; but when the
horses reached the middle of the stream the bells by some means
fell, or, according to the popular belief, were removed from the
backs of the horses by miraculous interposition, and sank to the
bottom. Owing either to the dangerous state of the stream or
from the bells being unwilling to be removed, the exertions of
the monks to recover them proved unavailing ; so they returned
to Brinkburn and reported the disaster. But the Brinkburn prior,
determined not to be baffled, sent forthwith a messenger to
Durham to request the presence of his brother prior, and both
ecclesiastics then proceeded with a full attendance to liberate
the imprisoned bells ; and lo ! the superior abilities of high
church functionaries over humble monks was manifest to every-
one ; for they had no sooner ridden into the stream than the
bells were lifted with ease; and, being conveyed to Durham,
were lodged there in safety. To this day it is a saying in
Coquetdale that " Brinkburn bells are heard at Durham ;" and
Wallis, in his History of Northumberland, assures us that
the bells of Brinkburn were removed to the cathedral on the
banks of the Wear. Still there are doubters. Walter White,
in 1859, says " the deep pool where the bells were lost is still to

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 133

bo seen in the river" [Coquet] (13); and Mr. Wilson is
positive that some years ago " a fragment of the bell was found
buried at the root of a tree on the hill on the opposite side of
the river" (14).

Of the bells, William Howitt, in his Visit to Remarkable
Places, fyc, p. 523, note, says: "The bell tower looks down
upon the Bell Pool, a very deep part of the Coquet, lying con-
cealed beneath the thick foliage of the native trees that jut out
from the interstices of the lofty, craggy heights, impending
over either side. Tradition says that into this pool the bells
were thrown in a time of danger in order to place them beyond
the reach of the invading Scots. It is still a favourite amuse-
ment among the young swimmers of the neighbourhood to dive
for the bells of Brinkburn, and then it is generally believed that
when the bells are found other treasures will be recovered with
them."

I fear that several of the tales of" flitted" bells are popular
myths. Thus tradition says that the bell of Coldingham Abbey
was transported to Lincoln, and is still there (15). It was a
popular opinion that the bells of Jedburgh Abbey were lost in
the Tweed opposite Kelso, in an attempt made to ferry them
across. " Another tradition is that they were carried off
to Hexham, and fitted up to adorn the venerable cathedral
there " (16).

Of the bells of the abbey of Cambuskenneth, in Clackmannan-
shire, it is reported that one was for some time in the town of
Stirling, but that the finest was lost in its passage across tho
River Forth (17). The Bell of Morven Church had been

(13) Northumberland and the Border, p. 197. (14) Berwickshire Nat.
Club's Proc, iv. p. 140. (15) Fullarton's Gazetteer of Scotland, i.
1>. 290. Hunter's Coldingham Priory, p. 75. (16) Hilson's Guide
to Jedburgh, p. 15. (17) Fullarton's Gazetteer, i. p. 233.

1 34 THE DEXHAM TRACTS.

transferred from Iona (18). There is a tradition that St. Muree
used to preach at a place called Ashig, on the north-east coast
of the Isle of Skye, " and that he hung a bell in a tree, where it
remained for centuries. It was dumb all the week till sunrise
on Sunday morning, when it rang of its own accord till sunset.
Itwas subsequently removed to the old church of Strath, dedicated
to another saint, where it ever afterwards remained dumb, and
the tree on which it had so long hung after withered away "(19)-
Bells were sometimes not satisfied with their new positions.
They required to be tied till they were reconciled to the change.
Many of them, says Brand, " are said to have retained great
affection for the churches to which they belonged and where
they were consecrated. When a bell was removed from its
original and favourite situation, it was sometimes supposed to
take a nightly trip to its old place of residence, unless exercised
in the evening and secured with a chain or rope " (20).

The tolling of the bell of Brinkburn Priory was once the
occasion of the burning of the pile by a party of marauding
Scots, who would not have discovered its situation, so densely it
stood embosomed in woods, except for this imprudence (21).

Mr. Wilson says the fairies lie buried at Brinkburn. This
mortality, unheard of elsewhere, must have been attributable to
the potency of the bells. Half a century ago the bell of the
parish kirk of Hounam, in Boxburghshire, fell ; in consequence
of which the banished fairies reassembled from the ends of the
earth to resume their revelry on the green banks of the Kale.
But the mischief that they perpetrated was insufferable, and as
a remedy the bell was reinstated, when matters were restored

(18) Dr. N. M'Leod, in Good Words, 1863, p. 837. (19) Dr.
W. Beeves on " Moelrubha," in Proceed, of Society of Antiquaries
of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 201. (20) Brand's Pop. Antiq., ii. 136.
(21) Richardson's Table-Booh, Leg. Div., i. p. 223.

BOKDEK SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 135

in statu quo ante (22). This is true to the general belief about
these beings. " There is a hill near Botna, in Sweden, in
which formerly dwelt a troll, a sort of Scandinavian fairy.
When they got up bells in Botna Church, and he heard the
ringing of them, he is related to have said :

' Pleasant it were in Botnahill to dwell,
Wore it not for the sound of that plaguey bell.'

It is said that a farmer having found a troll sitting very dis-
consolate on a stone near Tiis lake, in the island of Zealand,
and taking him at first for a decent Christian man, accosted him
with, ' Well ! where are yon going, friend ? ' ' Ah ! ' said ho,
in a melancholy tone, 'I am going off out the country. I
cannot live hero any longer, they keep such eternal ringing and
dinging !'" (23).

Hid Treasure.

In the South of Scotland " it is believed that there is con-
cealed at Tamleuchar Cross, in Selkirkshire, a valuable treasure,
of which the situation is thus vaguely described in a popular

rhyme :

' Atwcen the wat grund and the dry,

The gowd o' Tamleuchar doth lie ' " (24).

A correspondent thus writes : " Before the old kirk of Hutton
(I think more than twenty years since) was taken down, a man
from about Newcastle, who professed to be a money-finder,
cainc down to Hutton and gave out that there was a large sum
of money concealed under a stone a few yards from the church.
He actually commenced operations in quest of it, but soon
decamped and was no more heard of. This is the only instance,
and a very recent one, that I can remember of a money search
in Berwickshire."

(•2-2) DavidWs/V/rt*, pp. 100, &c, 222, 223. (23) Keightley's
Fair y Mythology, p. 112. (24) Chambers's Pop. Rhymes, p. 240.

136 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

The following Irish formula furnishes another example of the
singularly systematic consistency in the observances prescribed
for such adventures : " You know the rock beside your mother's
cabin ; in the east end of that rock there is a loose stone,
covered over with grey moss, just two feet below the cleft out
of which the hanging rowan tree grows ; pull that stone out and
you will find more gold than would make a duke. Neither
speak to any person, nor let any living thing touch your lips
till you come back " (25).

It is to be hoped that there are now few who regard these
stories otherwise than as exploded fictions of the days gone by.
But if believers in them there are any, it would be lost labour to
expostulate with them for being under an infatuation; they would
not, like the Arab sheik, be convinced, even by the oath of their
own brother. " Osman," said he, " I would not believe it if
that brother had sworn it. I know there is treasure in the
Wady Moussa ; I have dug for it, and I mean to dig for it
again (26).

Fairies.

The Rev. John Horsley in his Materials for the History of
Northumberland, gathered in 1729-30, and printed by the
late Mr. Hodgson Hinde, says, " The stories of fairies seem now
to be much worn both out of date and out of credit." This is,
however, incorrect, so far as regards country people, long after
Horsley's time. An old man once said to me that in the part
of Northumberland where he dwelt there was a time when there
was not a solitary hawthorn tree away out on the green hills,
standing amid its circuit of fine cropped grass, that was not

(25) Oai-leton's Three Tasks, &c, p. 90. (26) Stephens' Travels
in Egypt, &c, chap, 22.

BOUDEK SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 137

witness to the fairy revel and dance held beneath its encircling
branches in the twilight or by the pale light of the moon. The
Northumbrian fairies, numerous as they were, had been once a
shy people, and little now can be gathered about their ongoings,
which, however, have the same peculiarities as have been told
of them in other favourite haunts. I shall give the few simple
stories that I have heard as they were told to me.

A woman had a child that was remarkably puny. It was
voracious enough, " but put all the meat it got within an ill
skin," and never grew any, and there were shrewd suspicions
that it was a changeling. One day a neighbour came running
into her house, and shouted out, " Come here, and ye'll see a
sight ! Yonder's the Fairy Hill a' alowe." " Waes me ! what'll
come o' my wife and bairns ? " screamed out the elf in the bed,
and straightway made its exit up the chimney.

A ploughman was once engaged with his team, consisting of
two oxen and two horses, with a boy to guide them, in tilling a
field at Humshaugli, near the North Tyne, which was reputed to
be haunted by the fairies. While at one of the " land ends"
he hears a great kirnin' going on, somewhere near him. Ho
made another circuit, and listening, was aware of a doleful voice
lamenting: " Alack- a-day I've broken my kirn-staff, what will
I do?" "Give it to me, and I'll mend it,'" cries the good-
natured ploughman; and on his return from the next "bout,"
he found the kirn-staff laid out for him, along with a hammer
and nails. He carefully repaired and left it, when after making
another turn he came back to the spot it was gone, and a
liberal supply of bread and butter was set down in its place.
He and the boy partook of the repast, and all the cattle had a
share, except one ox, which resisted every effort to force the
food upon it. Before he got to the next land's end the stubborn
brute dropped down dead. I have heard the story told in almost
the same manner in Berwickshire. Parallel instances of fairies

138 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

requiring human aid to mend their utensils may be found in
Jabez Allies, " On the Ignis Fatuus, or Will-o'-the-Wisp and
the Fairies/'' extracted in Athenceum, 1846, p. 955 ; also 1. c.
p. 1085.

Mothers sometimes brought the cradle to the field in the
harvest time and left it at the ridge end, when the little inmate
would be liable to be exchanged for one of fairy breed. To
deter children who gleaned behind the reapers from interfering
with the stooks, it was customary to tell them that baits of
" fairy butter " were placed among the sheaves, and if they
were tempted to touch and eat it the fairies would kidnap
them. Of " fairy butter," Mr. Denham in a letter relates : "A
story is told here (Pierse Bridge) how that, some women going
into the field to work rather earlier one morning than usual,
now some fifty or sixty years ago, found as much as nearly a
pound upon the top of a gate post, how they carefully gathered
it into a basin, and how they each and all partook, and found
it to be the ' nicest butther that ony o' them had iver taasted.' "

A fairy man and woman once entrusted the up-bringing of
one of their offspring to a man in Netherwitton. He received
along with it a box of ointment, with which he was enjoined
regularly to rub its eyes, but he was to be careful not to touch
his own with it, otherwise he would incur a heavy penalty.
Curiosity overcame his scruples, and he anointed one of his eyes
with the ointment without experiencing any inconvenience.
Having gone to Long Horsley fair, he saw both the man and
woman moving about among the fair people, and thinking there
could be no harm in it he accosted them. Surprised to be thus
recognised, they inquired with what eye he saw thera, and he
told them, whereupon they blew into his eye and it became
blinded. The child was removed before his return home.

A midwife in Northumberland was one night summoned by a
man to go out and perform her office to a sufferer " in the

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 139

straw," to which she consented. Mounted on horseback behind
him, she was carried with incredible rapidity over an immense
space to a cottage, where the woman was soon after delivered of
a healthy child. An attendant brought to the midwife ointment
in a box, with which she was to anoint the child all over, but
she was to beware of putting any of it on her own eyes. In-
voluntarily, while executing her task, she happened to draw her
fingers across her eyes to remove some obstruction of sight, and
immediately her eyes were opened and she saw that she was not
in a cottage at all, but in the midst of a wild waste, where all
the fairy population was assembled round her. She had the
presence of mind not to betray any alarm, and having done all
that was required, she was conveyed back to her dwelling with
the same dispatch with which she had been taken from it. Sub-
sequently, being at a market, she observed among the crowd
the man and woman with whom she had formed this singular
acquaintance, as well as other agents invisible to man, passing
from stall to stall and purloining bits of butter and other edibles.
She addressed them and asked them their reasons for these pro-
ceedings. " Which eye do you see us with ? " asked they.
" With both," said she ; and they blow into them and both
were blinded. Of this and the previous story there arc many
variations.

At Ohathill farm, north of Alnwick, there was a famous fairy
ring, round which the children of the place could venture to
dance any times less than nine. If they had exceeded the pre-
scribed number of rounds they would have been taken away by
the fairies. It was customary there for the fairies to lay
" o-oodies " and presents of food for cleanly children, but when
the parents became aware of it the practice was discontinued.

Theso three last incidents were told me by Mr. Gr. B.
Richardson, formerly of Newcastle, who afterwards gave a
somewhat embellished version in the Table Book, published by

140 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

his father, vol. iii. p. 45, &c. (Legendary Division), along with
other examples which he has not quite carefully referred to their
proper authorities. Having misprinted the word " fairies " as
" faries," he induced Keightley, who quotes the stories, mis-
takingly to suppose that in Northumberland " fairy " was
pronounced-" farry." (Fairy Mythology, p. 310, note.)

In a Book of Depositions and other Ecclesiastical Proceedings
in the Courts of Durham from 1565 to 1573, we find that " the
farye " was recognised as a disease which required for its
treatment magical agency. Robert Duncan, of Walsend, near
Newcastle, farmer, aged 72 years, depones: " He haithe hard
saye that Jennet Pereson uses wytchecraft in measuringe of
belts to preserve folks from the farye." Catherine Fenwick,
daughter of Constance Fenwick, gentlewoman, aged about 20
years, saith : " That about 2 yeres ago his cosyn Edward
Wyddrington had a childe seke, and Jenkyn Pereson ['s] wyfe
axed of Thomas Blackberd, then this deponente mother ser-
vannte, how Byngemen (Benjamin) the child did, and bad the
said Blackberd byd the childe's mother comme and speke with
hir. And upon the same this deponent went unto hir, and
the said Pereson wyfe said that the child was taken with the
farye, and bad hir sent 2 for southrowninge (south-running)
water, and theis 2 shull not speke by the waye, and that" the
child shuld be washed in that water and dib the shirt in the
water, and so hang it upon a hedge all that night, and that on
the morowe the shirt shuld be gone, and the child shuld recover
health : but the shirt was not gone, as she said. And this
deponent paid to Pereson wife 3d. for hir paynes, otherwais
she knoweth not whether she is a wytche or not" Robert
Thompson, vicar of Benton, aged 52 years : " Dicit that he herd
one wedo Archer doughter, called Elisabethe Gibson, saye that
Jenkyn Pereson wyfe heled hir mother, who was taken with
the farye, and gave hir 6d. for hir paynes, and that the said

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 141

Jenkyn Pereson wyfe toke 3d. of Edmond Thompson for a like
matter." * Elsewhere " the Fayrie " is accounted a peculiar
disease, probably from its name ascribed to fairy influence.
" For one that is stricken with the Fayrie, spread oyle de Bay
on a linnen cloth, and lay it above the sore, for that will drive
it into every part of the body : but if the sore be above the
heart, apply it beneath the sore, and to the nape of the necke." f
Again we are told, both instances no doubt translated from
older works, " The roote and seedes (of Peony), hanged about
the necke of children, is good against the falling sicknesse, and
the haunting of the fairies and goblins." f

* Depositions and other Ecclesiastical Proceedings from the Courts
of Durham, from 1311 to the Reign of Elizabeth. (Surtees Society,
pp. 99, 100.)

f Langham's Garden of Health, p. 47. London, 1574.

X lb., p. 453. See also Sussex Folkfore, in Folklore Record,
i. p. 44, this use of the plant being still in vogue to prevent convul-
sions and to aid dentition ; also Mr. Henderson's Folk-Lore, p. 21.
Pliny says of Peony : " This plant is a preservative against the
illusions practised by the Fauni in sleep," i.e. the nightmare {Nat.
Hist., book xxv. chap. 10 ; Bonn's English edition, v. p. 89 ; Galen,
lib. vi.). Simpl. Medio, is the author of the prescription of the roots
being suspended round the neck as a cure for epilepsy ; and
Matthiolus in his Commentary on Dioscorides supplies us with ,the
figment about the seeds. " There are not wanting," says he, " old
wives who, boring holes in the seeds of the pa;ony, string them like
coral beads and tie them round the necks of their children, being in
the belief that this amulet will keep off the epilepsy." P. A.
Matthioli Commentarii in Libros P. Dioscorides, &c, pp. 594, 595.
Yenetiis, 1570. See also Culpepper's English Physician, whence the
popular belief is probably derived. For the connection between the
pieony and the " Herculean disease,"' epilepsy to wit, see Cowley on
Plants, book iii. Lovell (Htrball, p. 334) says of pwony, " It
heals such as arc thought to be bewitcht, allaid with rue, fennel, and
dill-waters."

142 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

In South Northumberland a great deterrent as well as re-
vealer of the fairies, and a preventative of their influence, was
a " four-neuked clover" (a quadrifoil), although a " five-
neuked " specimen (a cinquefoil) is reckoned equally efficacious.
This I learned from the people. Mr. Chatto furnishes an
instance. " Many years ago, a girl who lived near Nether-
witton, returning home from milking with a pail upon her
head, saw many fairies gamboling in the fields, but which were
invisible to her companions, though pointed out to them by
her. On reaching home and telling what she had seen, the
circumstance of her poM'er of vision being greater than tbat of
her companions was canvassed in the family, and the cause at
length discovered in her weise,* which was found to be of four-
leaved clover — persons having about them a bunch, or even a
single blade, of four-leaved clover being supposed to possess
the power of seeing fairies, even though the elves should wish
to be invisible ; of perceiving in their proper character evil
spirits which assumed the form of men, and of detecting the
arts of those who practised magic, necromancy, or witchcraft." t
Taylor, the water-poet, banters such pretenders as could cure
diseases by charms. Among others —

" Witli two words and three leaves of four-leav'd grass,
He makes the tooth-ache stay, repass, or pass."

" Half a century ago," says Mr. George Tate, in his History
of Alnwick, i. p. 438, "the fairies were supposed to have local
habitations in our district. There was a Fairies' Green not
far from Vittry's Cross; but on moonlight nights these tiny
folk trooped out of dell, and cavern, and mine, and from

* The weise is a circular pad, commonly made of an old stocking,
but sometimes merely a wreath of straw or grass, to save the head
from the pressure of the pail.

t Rambles in, Northumberland, p. 106 ; see also Napier's Folk-Lore
in the West of Scotland, pp. 130, 132, 133.

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 143

beneath the bracken, and from under green knowes, and out
of oilier lonely places, to hold their revels with music and dance
in the Fairies' Hollow at the top of Clayport Bank. Their
favourite haunt was the Hurle Stane, near to Chillingham
New Town, around which they danced to the sound of elfin
music, singing :

' Wind about and turn again,
And thrice around the Hurle Stane ;
Eound about and wind again,
And thrice around the Hurle Stane.'

" Brinkburn and Harehope Hill too they frequented. Old
Nannie Alnwick, the widow of the last of the ancient raco of
Alnwick, the tanners, had faith in the good folk, and set aside
for them ' a loake of meal and a pat of butter,' receiving, as
slie said, a double return from them ; and often had she seen
them enter into Harehope Hill, and heard their pipe music die
away as the green hill closed over them."

On one occasion, while visiting Alnwick, Mr. Tate pointed
out to me the Fairies' Hollow at the head of Clayport, and a
series of steps, or rather little benches, caused by subsidences of
the soil, rising in a gentle gradient to Swansfield Gate, which had
obtained the name of the " Fairy Steps."

The last of the fairy race are said to be interred in Brink-
burn under a green mound. [Table Booh, Leg. Div., iii. p. 48 ;
F. R. Wilson, Ber. Nat. Club Proc, iv. p. 145.) On Fawdon
Hill, one of a series of low round-topped grassy eminences, was
held the fairy court ; the Elf Hills are still pointed out near
Cambo, and the Dancing Green at Debdon, near Rothbury ;
the " Dancing Green Knowe," among the brown heathy-backed
Cockcnheugh range, as well as the Dancing Hall, where stretch
the bleak moors behind Beanie) - , still testify by their names to
their being resorts of the "good people" for their favourite
diversion. " Even in our own day," says Mr. Robert White

144 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

{Table Booh, Leg. Div.,ii. pp. 131-2) "many places are pointed
out as having formerly been the chief resorts of the elfin people.
A small stream called the Elwin, or Allan, which falls into the
Tweed from the north, a little above Melrose, was a noted
locality, so also was Beaumont Water, on the north of Cheviot ;
and the gravelly beds of both are remarkable for a kind of small
stones of a rounded or spiral form, as if produced from the action
of a lathe, called ' Fairy cups ' and ' dishes.' [These are con-
cretions segregated from fine clay. I have a good series from
the Nameless dean, on the Alwen or Elwand, but the locality
where they were obtained is now covered up. I have also picked
up similar fairy stones, known as such to the country people, in
South Middleton dean among the Cheviots, and they occur in
some of the banks on the lower course of the Tweed.] The
chief haunt in Liddesdale was a stream which empties itself
into the Liddell from the south, called Harden Burn. On the
north side of the village of Grunnerton, in Northumberland, is a
small burn, in the rocky channel of which are many curious
perforations, called by the country people ' fairy kerns.'
Similar indentations are likewise observed in the course of
Hart, near Rothley. In Redesdale also the ' train ' was accus-
tomed to dance at the Howestane-mouth, near Rochester, and
at the Dowcraig Top, a solitary spot about a mile north of
Otterburne." At Housesteads, by the Roman Wall, on a
meadow once occupied by a suburb of the military station of
Borcovicus, the fairies come from an adjacent cave for their
moonlight dances.* To the west of the station of Vindolana,
or Chesterholm, are the ruins of an extensive buildino- which
has been furnished with hvpocausts. " The pillars long retained
the marks of fire and soot, which gave rise to the popular belief
that a colony of fairies had here established themselves, and

* W. S. Gibson's Memoir on Northumberland, 1st edit., p. 34.

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 145

that this was their kitchen." * There were once a " fairy-
stone " and a " fairy trough," near Fourstanes, on the borders
of Cumberland and Northumberland. " In the rebellion of 17 1 5,
a square recess with a cover in the fairy stone was employed
to receive the correspondence of the rebel chiefs, and a little
boy clad in green came in the twilight of every evening to
rescue the letters left in it for Lord Derwentwater and deposit
his answers, which were ' spirited ' away in the same manner
by the agents of his friends." f

A number of them dwelt apart in the remotest glen of all that
scar the sides of the Cheviot Hills, where, among a most desolate
scene of peat hags, plashy bogs, and dashing waterfalls, up among
grey craggy declivities, and slopes of treacherous and slippery
boulders, is the obscure opening of a cavern called " Eelin's
Hole," whose final termination no one has ever been able to
reach. Into this gloomy receptacle they are said to have once
lured a party of hunters who were in pursuit of a roe, and who
were never able to find their way out. J

The Rev. John Hodgson, in his History of Northumberland,
has told the story of the fairies of Eothley Mill, in the parish of
Hurtburn, Northumberland (part ii. vol. i. p. 305) ; both of
his incidents have been transferred to Richardson's Table Book,
Leg. Div., vol. i. p. 325, vol. iii. p. 48, the latter without any
acknowledgment ; and from this secondary source it appears in
Kcighfley's Fairy Mythology, p. 313, under the title of " Ainsel."
There aro some original traits of the Northumbrian fairies in
Mr. Robert White's introduction to " The Gloamyne Buchte, a
ballad by James Telfer," in the 'Table Book, Leg. Div., ii. pp.

* Dr. Union's Wallet-Book of the Jlviwtn Wall, p. 145.
f Hodgson' a History of Northumberland, part ii. vol. iii. pp. 411-
412.

+ Chatto's Rambles in Northumberland, p. 232.

VOL. II. L

146 THE DBNHAM TRACTS.

130-138. Telfer's ballad, a fairy lay, is after the manner of
the "Ettrick Shepherd," written in that absurd orthography
which Hogg imagined to be old Scottish, which, to the degrada-
tion of the language, has unfortunately found a crowd of
imitators.

Fairy Treasures at Bambouough.

There is a part of the rock on which Bamborough Castle
stands only revealed to the luckj', where money is found,
having been placed there by the fairies. Those who participate
in their bounty may have it every time they visit the spot, but
unless a silver coin is placed among it to secure it, it would slip
away, as if it had never been. A certain lad got ever so much
money there, but he had always to add to it a piece of genuine
British coin, " to keep it whole," as the phrase went. An old
man upwards of seventy told me, and he had had the account
from his grandmother.

On Tweedside (North Durham), in some old pasture fields,
there still remain the twisted ridges, like ever so many repeti-
tions of the letter S, cast up by the plough, when oxen formed
the draught. The flexure was to enable the oxen to wind out
the furrows at the land's end without trampling on them ; but
the story is that it was a precaution against the malevolence of
the fairies, who took a malicious pleasure in shooting their fatal
bolts at the patient beasts of burden who tore up their grassy
hillocks and recreation grounds, and that they aimed their
arrows along the furrows, imagining them to be straight, but
they were baffled by their being drawn crooked, and thereby
fell wide of the mark. They were therefore called elf- furrows.

In the Tweed, near Kolso, there are some dangerous weills,
or whirlpools, of which the more noted are the Maxwheill, the
Big and Little Coble Holes. An old man, it must be upwards

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 147

of seventy years since, said he never went up the Chalkheugh,
a, high terrace overlooking " Tweed's fair river, broad and
deep," " after dark," without seeing the fairies " dancing round
the weils in the Coble Holes." *

An adventure with the fairies near Yetholm, which unfor-
tunately breaks off abruptly, I find in the MS. of "William
Jackson, a native of Wooler, supplementary to his brother
James Jackson's enumeration of the inhabitants of that place
when he was a young man. It was written in 1837, and
James Jackson was then seventy-four years old, and had been
absent fifty-five or fifty-six years from Wooler, which affords
the date of 1782. " My old schoolmistress, Stilty Mary (Mary
Turnbull, who lived with her sister Isabel), had a brother whose
name was Thomas. He occasionally came from Yetholm and
resided with his sisters for a fortnight or three weeks. When
Thomas was at Wooler the boys in passing used to shout,
' Peace be here till Thomas Turnbull, the king's toller, pass
bye.' This was very annoying to the brother and sisters ; and
Thomas used sometimes to stand behind the door, with the
sneck in his hand, and bolt out upon them, and if he caught
hold of any of them the punishment was not so imaginary as
the offence. The origin of the reproach was this. Their father
was the collector of tolls at Yetholm. He had occasion to visit
Edinburgh, and in coming home, a few miles before he reached
the town, he came upon a large assemblage of fairies, dressed
in green jackets and other splendid equipments, dancing upon
a sunny brae to the sound of a great variety of musical instru-
ments and drums. At this sight and sound old Thomas's horse
stood ' right sore astonished,' and startled and curvetted in

* " Yet I have seen thee by the darkling stream,
Among the fuani-bells deftly dancing.'''

J. Telver, To a Fairy.
L 2

148 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

such a manner as to endanger its rider. In this emergency he
bethought himself that the king's name might possess some
authority, so he shouted out with all his might, ' Peace be here
till Thomas Turnbull, the king's toller, pass bye.' The fairies
were so much engaged with their sport that they had not
observed him before ; but on hearing the order, instead of
obeying it, they came running in great "

(Ccetera desunt.) — The remainder cannot be recovered, but
Thomas probably won the race that would ensue.

The Berwickshire fairies were either a quiet lot or they lived
among a too matter-of-fact population, for their memorial has
almost vanished. The banks of Fosterland Burn, a contribu-
tory to a morass called Billy Mire in the Merse, "were." says
the late Mr. George Henderson, " a favourite haunt of the
fairies in bygone days, and we once knew an old thresher
or barnsman, David Donaldson by name, who, although he
never saw any of those aerial beings, constantly maintained
that he frequently heard their sweet music in the silence
of the summer midnight by Fosterland Burn, by the banks
of Ale Water, and on the broom-clad Pyper Knowes."
In the last resort another authority asserts that " they used to
come out from an opening in the side of the knowe, all beauti-
fully clad in green, and a piper playing to them in the most
enchanting strains." They once attempted, but failed, to
abstract the shepherd's wife of little Billy when in childbed ;
and they were detected loosening Langton House from its
foundations in order to set it down in an extensive morass called
Dogden Moss, in the parish of Greenlaw, but were scared by
the utterance of the holy name.* In one of Mr. Henderson's
MSS. I also find that some curiously formed eminences on the

* Henderson's Popular Rhi/men of Berwickshire, pp. 3, 70, 66, 67,
r.8.

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 149

banks of the Whitadder, near Hutton Mill, called the Cradle
Knowes, were in old times a scene of revelry for the light-
footed fairies.

The fairies of Greenlaw-dean used to hold a harmless mid-
night convention at the outlets of two drains called the Double
Conduits, where there was a constant supply of pure fresh water
to cool their thirst, after their mirthful exertions in footing it
on the fine unbroken sward that there clothes the banks of the
Blackadder.

A steep track, resembling a road, but apparently only a
fracture in the strata, up a steep rock-face near Oldcambus, near
Cockburnspath, is still called the Fairies' Road. Up this, from
the glen beneath, the queen of faery, while still visible to mortals,
was wont to drive in state at evening's close, " in her coach
and six." It was the natural approach to a British camp,
situated on a platform above.

A retired hollow, overgrown in summer with tall ferns, near
the head of Billsdean Burn, East Lothian, is popularly known
as the Fairies' O'on, or Oven, but has no legend attached to it.

The white-flowered Linum catharticum, or purging flax,
which grows in natural pastures, is called by the shepherds in
Berwickshire " Fairy Lint." It is supposed to furnish the
fairy women with materials for their distaffs. [As I was the
first to make known this name in Johnston's Nat. His. East.
Bor., p. 45, I protest against attempts made to explain that it
is so-called " from its great delicacy."]

The foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) has in its name no con-
nection with the fairy folks, but as I have noted elsewhere is
from tho A.S. l'oxesclife, foxeselofe, foxesglofe, foxesglove —
the glove of tho fox. Tho false etymology was, I believe, first
advanced in Landsborough's Arran, p. 144 ; accepted by Dr.
Johnston, Nat. Hist. East. Bord.,p. 157; and eagerly seized on
since by popular writers.

150 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

When I was a boy the large flat stone on which the mistresses
of households knocked their linen webs when bleaching, which
lay beside the well at a farm-place in Berwickshire, had on its
upper surface an excavation resembling a small female foot,
which was reckoned to have been impressed by a fairy footstep.
Another stone with a corresponding impression by which people,
crossed a miry part of a road leading to St. Helen's Church,
Oldcambus, was regarded as a " Mermaid's Stone ; " she
having stepped on it (not being a conventional mermaid with
fishy tail) when escaping from her mortal captor, whoever he
was. These were natural concavities, the rock being of too
indurated a character, viz. Silurian of the closest texture, to
admit of being worked by the chisel. Footmarks cut in rocks,
in the Celtic districts of Scotland and in Ireland, are indicative of
the spot on which a chieftain or king was inaugurated by placing
his foot in the depression. See a paper by Captain Thomas,
R.N., " On Dunadd, Glassary, Argyleshire ; the place of
Inauguration of the Dalriadic Kings," in The Proceedings of the
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1878-9, pp. 28-47. In two
instances cited it is connected with the fairies. " Mr. Jervise
notes that a small undressed block of granite. lies by the side of
the mountain stream of the Turret in Glenesk, near Lord
Dalhousie's shooting-lodge of Millden, and upon it the figure
of a human foot, of small size, is very correctly and pretty
deeply scooped out. This is called the ' fairy's footmark ' "
(p. 39). "About 1831, when the ' Fairy Knowe,' in the parish
of Carmyllie, Forfarshire, was being reduced, or removed in
the course of agricultural improvement, there was found,
besides stone cists and a bronze ring, a rude boulder of about
two tons' weight on the under side of which was scooped (ho
representation of a human foot. Probably some distinguished
cliioftain had erected the tumulus, not only as a tomb for him-
self, but also as a place of inauguration whereon the engraved

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 151

stone, by which the right to rule was conveyed, was placed "
(p. 38, on the authority of Kilkenny, Arch. Jour., vol. v ,
j). 4/31 ; and Jervise's Epitaphs, p. 249).

Of an example of a " Fairy Knowe," popularly so called, at
Stenton, near Dunbar, East Lothian, having likewise proved
on being opened to be a tumulus, I obtained notice, in
February, 1873, and also procured the wholo of the articles
discovered in the interior for examination. Till removed it
appeared to be a smooth grassy mound, but on the surface layer
of earth being stripped off it was found to consist mostly of
stones and boulders. It contained a stone cist formed of sand-
stone slabs, enclosing a large baked clay urn, rudely orna-
mented with lattice work and with upright and horizontal
lines, the mouth undermost, covering a few fragments of
human bones. Along with the urn, a very artistically chipped
flint knife, and a diminutive oblong sharpening stone of primitive
clay slate — both fairy toys — appeared. All these articles belong
to the Neolithic period.

It is true here, as all over the country :

" Where the scythe cuts and the sock rives,
Hae done wi' fairies and bee-bykes ! "

Fairy and Wishing and Healing Wells.

Resort to the Fairy Well is still a favourite pastime in holi-
day times with young people at Wooler. They express a secret
wish and drop in a crooked pin. Hence it is also called the
Pin and Wishing Well. The well is situated in a narrow hollow
among the lower Cheviots which rise above the town, and is
formed out of a natural spring of pure and very cool water
originating amons; rocks at the base of a high platform, which
has been occupied in the olden time by a British camp, now
known as the Maiden Camp (the Maiden Castle of Wallis).
From its connection with llio camp, or in compliment to the

152 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

spirit of the spring, its genuine name is said by the old people
to be the " Maiden Well." * It is drained into an open ditch,
and is at present too shallow to admit of children being dipped
into it. Nor do I know that this has ever been practised here,
but'the old inhabitant who communicated some of this informa-
tion was familiar with the formula incidental to such applications
for healing purposes at sacred springs. The applicant having
cried " Hey, how ! " dipped in the weakly child, and before
departure left a piece of bread and cheese as an offering. Sir
Walter Scott, in his introduction to the Tale ofTamlane, refers
to a spring upon the top of Minchmuir, a mountain in Peebles-
shire, called the Cheese Well, " because, anciently, those who
passed that way were wont to throw into it a piece of cheese as
an offering to the fairies to whom it was consecrated." The
fairies themselves practised such ablutions. Fletcher, in his
Faithful Shepherdess tells us of —

" A virtuous well, about whose flowery banks
The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds
By tbe full moonshine, dipping oftentimes
Their stolen children, so to make them free
From dying flesh and dull mortality."

Mr. George Tate, in a notice of the Wooler Pin Well, men-
tions having heard that a procession was formed to visit the
well on the morning of Mayday. This may have been so, but

* Maiden, however, is a term appropriate to British or even Roman
camps and ways. A terrace now in the centre of Wooler was for-
merly called the Maiden Knowe, and may have been once fortified.
There is the Maiden Castle on Stanemoor ; the Maiden Castle, an
old earthevn fortress, near Durham ; the station of Caer-vorran, from
the Welsh Caer-vonvyn, the Maiden Castle near the Maiden-way;
Edinburgh is the Castra Puellarum, See note in Hodgson's History
of Northumberland, vol. iii. p. 136.

BOBDEE SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 153

on inquiry I could not find any tradition of such a circumstance.
It was natural that those who went to gather May-dew should
proceed to the well, being on the nearest open common. Madron
Well, in Cornwall, on a May morning is visited by groups of
young girls desirous of knowing when they were to be married.
"Two pieces of straw about an inch long were crossed and the pin
run through them. The cross was then dropped into the water
and the rising bubbles carefully counted, as they marked the
number of years which would pass ere the arrival of the happy
day." The practice also prevailed at a well near St. Austell.
" On approaching the well each visitor is expected to throw in
a crooked pin, and, if you are lucky, you may possibly see
the other pins rising from the bottom to meet the more recent
offering." *

The "Worm Well" at Lambton, co. Durham, had formerly
a cover and an iron ladle. " Half a century ago it was in
repute as a wishing well, and was one of the scenes dedicated
to the usual festivities and superstitions of Midsummer Eve. A
crooked pin (the usual tribute of the ' wishers ') may sometimes
be still discovered, sparkling amongst the clear gravel of the
bottom of its basin." t A well of directly the opposite character,.
Ffynnon Elian, the Cursing Well, is referred to in Mr. Halli-
well's Excursions in North Wales, pp. 63-65. " Various cere-
monies are gone through on the occasion ; amongst others, the
name of the devoted is registered in a book — a pin in his
name and a pebble with his initials inscribed thereon are thrown
into the well. When the curse is to be removed the ceremonies
are to a certain extent reversed, such as erasing the name from
the book, taking up the pebble, with several other practices of a
superstitious character."

* Hunt's Popular Romances of the West of England, p. 295.
t Sir C. Sharp's Bishopriclc Garland, p. 23.

154 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

I had written thus much when I received from my friend
Mr. Thomas Arlle, Highlaws, Morpeth, an account of a
" wishing well" at Keyheugh, in the parish of Elsdon, North-
umberland, which has remained hitherto unnoticed. '•' In the
parish of Elsdon," writes Mr. Arkle, "about a mile south o:
Midgey Ha', on a steep hill called Darden, is a perpendicular
precipice of freestone rock, which is a striking object from the
Elsdon and Rothbury road, at a point a little to the east of
Graslees Mill. The rocky face extends to a considerable length,
the greatest height being about sixty feet. On the southern or
higher side the ground is level with the top of the cliff, whilst
below a large area is covered with detached fragments of rock
of all sizes, scattered about in the wildest confusion, the whole
place presenting clear indications of the tremendous power of
glacial action.

" Such is the wild and romantic place called Keyheugh, which,
though now lonely and deserted, was in olden times the
attractive Sunday resort of the young people resident in the
neighbourhood. At a little distance from the main precipice is
a well, on the bottom of which, centuries ago, might always
have been observed a number of pins ; or, as my informant,
who had visited the place in his youthful days, expressed him-
self, ' a heap of pins,' each visitor dropping in one to further
the fulfilment of wishes silently breathed over the magic
fountain."

The Rev. Gr. Rome Hall, in a very interesting account of
"Modern Survivals of Ancient Well Worship in North Tyne-
dale," in the Arch. ySliana, n.s., vol. viii. pp. 60-87, refers to
some of the fountains in the district to which votive offerings
were presented, either in the present age or the past. Some of
these wells had healing attributes, others conferred prosperity,
or led to pleasant anticipations that would ultimately terminate
in a course of action which would obtain the object desired.

BORDER SKETCHKS OF FOLKLORE. 155

Over several of these wells saints had obtained the guardianship,
the native deities being deposed. The Halliwell, in the parish
of Chollerton, a chalybeate spring in a burn of the same name,
on Gunnerton Fell, has for a long time drawn numerous
votaries to its healing waters. In the village of Colwell, in the
same parish, the well, on or about Midsummer Sunday, used to
be dressed with flowers, as was customary with other wells else-
where in England on certain holidays.

Into the village wells at Wark, at New Year tide, the first
visitant was wont to cast in as an offering flowers, grass, hay, or
straw. The Birtley Haly Well was till recently visited on " fine
Sunday afternoons in summer, and itinerant vendors of refresh-
ments from the village, which is about a mile distant, were wont
to be present on the spot." But the chief well for pilgrimage
in North Tynedale seems to have been the Bore Well on
Erring Burn, near Bingfield, which is strongly impregnated with
sulphur. " On the Sunday following the 4th day of July,"
says Mr. Hall, " that is, about Midsummer day, according to
the old style, great crowds of people used to assemble here from
all the surrounding hamlets and villages. The scene has been
described to me as resembling a fair, stalls for the sale of various
refreshments being brought from a distance year by year at the
summer solstice. The neighbouring slopes had been terraced,
and seats formed for the convenience of pilgrims and visitors.
One special object of female pilgrims was, I am informed, to
pray at the well, or express a silent wish as they stood over it

for the euro of barrenness If the pilgrim's faith were

sufficient, her wish at the Bore Well would be certain to be ful-
filled within tho twelve months A very considerable

number of visitors, with tents and purchasable commodities,
assembled even this last year to celebrate the old Midsummer
Sunday at the Bore Well." This festival was called " Bore
Well Sunday." Our Lady's Wells, or the Holy Wells, on the

156 THE DBNHAM TRACTS.

banks of the Hart, near Longwitton, as related by Mr. Hodgsou
in his Hist, of Northumberland, of which the easternmost was
termed the Eye Well, attracted a great concourse of people from
all parts, in memory of the old people, on Midsummer Sunday
and the Sunday following, who amused themselves with leaping,
eating gingerbread brought for sale to the spot, and drinking
the waters of the well. A tremendous dragon, whom Guy of
Warwick slew, once guarded the fountains.*

Within Mr. Hall's recollection there was a yearly pilgrimage
to Grilsland Wells on the Sunday after old Midsummer Day
called the " Head Sunday," and the Sunday after it. " Hun-
dreds, if not thousands, used to assemble there from all directions
by rail, when that was availabe, and by vehicles or on foot
otherwise."

In the copious well of St. Ninian at Holystone, near Alwinton,
also called " Our Lady's Well," Dr. Embleton of Newcastle on
one occasion observed at the bottom many pins lying as votive
offerings. There was a holy well of great repute called St.
Mary's Well at Jesmond that had supposed healing properties,
and the Rag Well at Benton was also famous, where the votaries
left fragments of their garments attached to the trees and
bushes growing near the sacred fountain. At the well of
Venerable Bede, at Monkton near Jarrow, in Brand's time, " as
late as 1740 it was a prevailing custom to bring children
troubled with any infirmity, and a crooked pin was put in, and
the well laved dry between each dipping. Twenty children
were brought together on a Sunday to be dipped in this well,
and at Midsummer Eve there was a great resort of the

* The Eev. John Horsley (Materials for a Hist, of Xortlmmberland,
p. 9) says, " They have a story concerning a dragon at Thornton
Wells," which arc in the vicinity of Longwitton. They were mineral
waters.

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 157

neighbouring people (Brand's Pop. Antig., i. p. 383 (note), and
Hint, of Newcastle, vol. ii. p. 54). In the Picture of Newcastle
it is added that the concourse at the summer solstice was
attended with " bonefires, music, dancing, and other rural
sports," but that these customs had been discontinued before
1812, although people then alive remember to have seen great
numbers of infirm and diseased children dipped in expectation
of their being restored to health.

Quite recently Mr. Hall was told by an eye-witness at
Ricearton Junction of a man from that district of Liddesdale
who had taken the journey by the railway to St. Boswell's for
the purpose of visiting a Holy Well. His offering was a farthing,
and he returned home in full faith that the cure of a near rela-
tive suffering from cancer would be effected by the application
of the simple lotion.

Mr. Hall gives a number of other illustrations from other
districts, for which I refer to his paper ; and he inquires
whether the accumulation of Roman coins and other relics in
Coventina's Well at Procolitia, on the Roman Wall, may not
have been in part propitiatory, and connected with well-
worship.

The Hazeliugg Dunnie.

In crossing Belford Moor, by the upper road leading to
Wooler, there are several projecting rocky eminences of sand-
stone overlooking the valley, where Lyham, Holburn, Cheesham
in the Grange, and two farms called Hazelrigg lie. Several of
the more conspicuous rocks bear names, such as Cockenheugh
Craj^s, Collierheugh Crags, Bounder's or Bowden doors Crags.
Sum' Crag, and Jack's (Jack Daw) Crags.

In former times, and it may be so still, these heights were
frequented by a mischievous being, or rather spirit, called the
Hazelrigg Dunnie. Dunnie is reputed to have been a petty

158 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

reiver of olden time who hoarded his gear in the crags, which
contain several cavernous receptacles adapted for concealment.
On one occasion, however, he was surprised by the people of
Hazelrigg in the granary robbing corn, and sacriticed to their
vengeance. He was loath to die, for it took " a the folks o'
Hazelrigg " to kill him. This event happened " lang syne."
His ghost, however, has haunted the place ever since. His
pranks seem to lie chiefly in frightening the children and
rustics of the village, and to be somewhat akin to those of the
Hedley Cow. Often in the morning when the ploughman has
caught his horse (as he thinks) in the field and brought him
home and yoked him with fitting care, he will be horror-stricken
to see the harness come slap to the ground just as he has
finished ; while his tractable brute, never guilty of such pranks,
is already beheld afar off, kicking up his heels and scouring
across the country like the wind. According to other accounts
Dunnie (as his name imports) was a Brownie, and created
uproar in mornings by an upturn of furniture. He also was
general exchanger of babies between the fairies and thoughtless
good wives, and was particularly on the alert when the mid-
wife came, sometimes substituting himself for the horse that
brought her and landing both her and her conductor in a
morass, taking precious care that "Dun" at least should not
be " in the mire."

This is a sample of Dunnie's mischief. At other times his
dim form is seen about the Crags, apparently bewailing the loss of
his buried treasure. This is inferred from his constantly repeat-
ing the rhyme given subsequently, whence the natives believe
that they could soon be rich enough — if they only knew how.

My friend Mr. W. B. Boyd, writing to me from Hetton
Hail, of date 1st October, I860, says, " The other day, on
examining an old map of South Hazelridge, I found the crag
running almost parallel with the Dancing Green Knowe, which

BOltDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 159

is on North Hazelridge, but on the opposite side of the march, is
called Collier (or Coller) braes ; possibly the Collier-heugh of
the rhyme. A little further along on the south side of the
road to Belford is a crag called Bowden Doors, of which, I
think, the word Bownders must be a contraction. They lie
within half a mile of each other."

Still more recently, in passing a quarry before coming to
Plazelrigg, Mr. B. pointed out the steepest part, and said that it
was there that Dunnie sometimes used to hang over his legs,
when he took an airing at night. During high winds a peculiar
loud singing and changeable sound about one of the windows of
the farmhouse of North Hazelrigg perplexed the inmates, who
attributed it to Dunnie. On a careful examination it was per-
ceived to be caused by a piece of paper, fixed in the top of the
window, which the wind had converted into an iEolian harp.
Allan Ramsay in some verses, " Spoken to iEolus, in the house
of Marlefield (Roxburghshire), on the night of a violent wind,"
actually compares the noise occasioned to that of the action of a

" kow."

" Say, wherefore makes thou all this din,
In dead of night ? — hech ! like a kow
To puff at winnocks, and cry ' Wow ! ' "

The story of Dunnie I got from a herd-boy, who came to me
when one day I was resting, within view of all the places
mentioned ; the rest of his character was known to an old man
of the district whom I questioned. It has appeared in Mr.
Denham's tracts, but I replace it here with additional remarks.
Mr. Henderson {Folklore of the Northern Counties, pp. 263,
270) compares Dunnie with the " Picktree Brag," &c, of
which he gives a pretty full account. In the notes to Thomas
Wilson's Pitman's Pcty, there are particulars of another Bran- of
the kind, which I feel bound to cite, that it may be preserved in
its appropriate plate.

1 60 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

Mr. Wilson has been speaking of the witches of Gateshead
Fell, and their good treatment compared with those of Newcastle,
as they " were allowed full liberty to go where they pleased,
in what shape they pleased, and in what way was most agree-
able to themselves, either to scud over our hills in the shape of
a hare or whisk through the air on a broomstick."* One of
these, old Nell Bland, was " the only real witch we had on
the Low Fell." Going to the pit to meet " Awd Nell and
Cuddy's swine,"

" Twee varry far fra sonsy things,"

made the workmen " on the look out through the day for
some untoward event." f

Mabel was another of those old wives whose repute was none
of the best.

" The highly -gifted race of ' witches,' " says Mr. Wilson,
" seems rapidly tending toward extinction. There are here
and there yet to be seen the remains of their weak and de-
generate descendants, but in such a feeble and feckless state
as hardly to deserve the name. I have known one of these poor
creatures many years ago whose power never extended further
than raising a wind to blow off the roof of her neighbour's
cottage or shake his standing corn. I am aware that she
was accused of more serious mischiefs ; but how far these ill-
natured aceusations were true is very difficult to say, for I
could never discern anything about Mabel that would warrant
them, for she was neither deformed nor ugly, nor did I ever
recognise her frisking about in any other shape than her own-
In some other respects, however, she was rather a singular
woman. She had a memory that retained the date of every
event that had taken place for some miles round the place

* Page 74. t Tages 20, 23.

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 161

where she lived. She could give you the day and hour of all
the births and deaths in the neighbourhood during her time.
She knew exactly who 'came again,' as she called it, after
suffering violent deaths, either in coal-pits or elsewhere ; what
shapo they were in (for they did not always appear in their
own), and what they said when they could be prevailed upon
to speak, what it was that brought them back, aud how long it
was before the priest or some such competent person got them
laid at rest in their graves. All the haunted houses or places
she had off by rote, and could have given you the names of all
the ' uncanny folk,' or such as had ' bad een,' and had
amuied themselves by plaguing their credulous neighbours.

" Poor Mabel has been dead manyyears. She was in the habit
of amusing her young auditors with the birth and parentage of
' Dick the Deevil,' who frequently rode over the Black Fell to
his work upon the ' Porto Bello Brag,' a kind of wicked sprite
that was well known in that part of the neighbourhood. The
description of the ' Pel ton Brag ' (Picktree, in the vicinity of
l'elton), given by Sir Cuthbert Sharp in his Bishoprick Gar-
land, induces me to believe that it must have been the same
roguish sprite that played such tricks at Porto Bello. As the
places are only a few miles distant, it is possible that he might
extend the sphere of his antics to the latter place when he was
not particularly busy at home. If they were not the same they
were evidently, from the similarity of their habits, from one
common stock. It delighted in mischief, and whoever mounted
it (for it always appeared in the shape of an ass) were sure to be
thrown into some bog or whin-bush at parting, when the crea-
ture, as if enjoying the mischief, would run off, ' nickerin' and
laughin',' as Dick would say. He had put the assmanship of
many to the test, but none were able to sit him whenever he
had arrived at a suitable place for depositing his load — not
even Dick, who had become a favourite, and who in the end was
VOL. II. M

162 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

the only one who had spirit enough to cross him. Dick, how-
ever, from long practice, had a pretty good idea whereabouts he
would be laid, and, from being on his guard, very seldom
received an injury. The case was often very different with
others, who had not his precaution, or were not such favourites
as Dick, who was generally accommodated with a soft fall."*

For another version of the Hazelrigg Dunnie, derived equally
with my own from traditionary sources, I am indebted to Mrs.
Culley, of Fowberry Tower, which contains a few additional
particulars.

The ghost known as " Hazelrigg Dunny " is said to be that of
a reiver, which takes the occasional form of a dun-coloured
horse or pony, and frequents a cave on the side of Cockenheugh,
near Hazelrigg, called the Cuddie's Core. He had, according to
a tradition contained in the following old rhyme, lost a great
treasure, which he had no doubt buried in the neighborhood of
Cockenheugh : —

In Collier heugh there's gear eneugh,
In Cocken heugh there's mair,
But I've lost the keys of Bowdea Doors,
I'm ruined for evermair."

The two first-mentioned places are tracts of moorland, and the
" Bowden Doors " is a craggy mass of rock near Lyham.

Var. — " For I've lost the key o' the Bowden Doors."

"In the infernal regions," says Hans Anderson, "misers stand
and lament that they had forgotten the keys of their money

chests."

Pitman's Pay, p. 75, note.

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 163

A favourite haunt of the " Dunny " is Fowberry Bridge, and
lie is even said to pay a visit now and then to Fowberry Tower.

A few words as to the Cuddie's Cove. Cuddie is a corrup-
tion of the word Cuthbert, and an older and more beautiful
tradition than that of the "Dunny" assigns the Cuddie's or
Cutlibert's Cove on Cocken Heugh as an occasional resting
place of the famous St. Cuthbert when, as Bishop of Lindis-
farne, lie used to make journeys through his diocese.

It is told to Dunnie's credit that, if supper plates were not
washed up overnight, the Dunny came and washed them ;
whether he was a sympathiser with tired or lazy people, or
whether he did not like plates to be long dirty, tradition
deponeth not.

Apparitions.

In Murray's Traveller's Guide for Northumberland, pp. 161,
102, it is said: " Chillingham till lately had its Radiant Boy;
Hazelrigg, the goblin called Dunnie; Brinkburn, a terrible
monk ; Cresswell, a lady who starved herself to death in its old
tower; Wallington, its headless lady; and Willington, another
lady of awful aspect." Of several of these I have not traced
the history, but I find the " radiant boy " again at Corby
Castle, the seat of one of the branches of the Howard family,
lying on the Eden, near Carlisle. Mr. Fraser Tytler, the his-
torian of Scotland, visited Corby Castle, November 8th, 1840, of
which he thus writes to his sister : " The whole place is redolent
of feudal antiquity, with a fine gallery of old portraits, an old
library, and (as you know) a ghost ; but I have come away
without seeing the radiant boy of Corby. This was extra-
ordinary, for I had to walk to my bedroom every night through
n long dark gallery of which you could not see the termination,
with old warriors frowning on me, and the moon streaming in
through the Gothic window at the end — circumstances which

M 2

164 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

one would have thought any well-conditioned ghost would have
profited by." — Burgon's Memoir of P. F. Tytler, p. 300.

A lady writes me : " There is a ghost at Painters' Gate, near
Fowberry, situated close to the cross roads between Wooler and
Chatton, Fowberry and LilburD. The ghost here is said to be
a man on a dun-coloured horse. Another instance of a ghost of
this kind is at the cross roads at Lilburn, where a man riding
with his head under his arm and a lady wringing her hands are
said to be seen."

A ghost used to frequent Weetwood Sandy Lane, and also
Weetwood Bridge and the road approaching it from Wooler.
If I remember right, some unhappy being "put away with
himself," or committed suicide, somewhere thereabouts.

Bev. Matthew Culley, writes : " The village of Humble-
ton, not far from AVboler, where the famous battle was fought
in 1403, is haunted by a ghost (of what sex I know not) in the
form of a hare, which is hunted sometimes by the Wooler and
Humbleton people — but is never killed."

The Rev. John Horsley in his Materials for a History of
Northumberland (1729-30), says, p. 9: "Adam Crisp, who
lived at Crawley Dean, is said to have had encounters with an
apparition there. They talk also of his going to London and
coming back in forty-eight hours. Mr. Punshon told me that
Crisp had sent to him about the apparition. On the 4th of
July, 1728, when I was at Piercebridge, in my tour, the people
told me of a stone coffin which had been converted into a swine
trough, but the people who had done this were so haunted and
disturbed that they were glad to return it to i(s former place."

Mr. Sidney Gibson, in his Memoir on Northumberland, 1st
ed., p 36, states that "the ruins of a mansion of the Orde
family, built at a place called Sandy Bank, is attributed to a
ghost of such terrific character as to have rendered it unin-
habitable."

border sketches of folklore. 1 65

Dudley Brechan's Ghost.

The spirit of Dudley Brechan haunted the " Big House," on
the Tenter's Hill, a bulky, red-tiled, and white-washed mansion,
one of a row built on a ridge, where the dyers of Wooler were
wont in former days to stretch their webs to dry. It is an old
story, with its details lost. When the ghost paid its evening
visits, its descent was like a " meikle cupple " falling with a
crash on the ceiling. Many a "gliff" the folk got; but
beyond frightening them it perpetrated no other mischief.

When people wakened and looked out early in the morning,
they would have seen a carriage coming up the main street of
the town, drawn by black horses, on its way to the churchyard.
No one living at Wooler knew anything of" Dudley Brechan." *

* There is a notice of the Brechans or Brechams or Brighams, in
the MS. of the brothers Jackson, of date as far back as 1782. John
Brccliam lived then in Ramsay's Lane, as a dyer, and valued himself
for dyeing " a good bright yellough," as he pronounced the word
yellow. He was supposed, from his dialect, to be from Aberdeen-
shire. " He was a great peaferer, often complaining of little to do
and consequent poverty. My father when living in Stein Laidley's
house, had a frequent visit of Johnnie, when working by candlelight.
Knowing John's weakness he used occasionally to provide a shilling's
worth of halfpence, which he put in a leathern purse and shook at him,
when he came in. ' Aye weol-a-wat, Andrew, ye get it aw ; ye have
nye plenty and ma share o' the siller is very sma.' I have often
heard it remarked that old people, though very feeble when they
began harvest work, revived greatly in a few days. I remember
gathering upon Horsdcn (a cultivated hill face above Wooler) after
the shearers. T was sitting near Jenny Biecham, John's wife, at
dinner time, when she made this remark to one of her neighbours :
' And for instance,' said she, ' there's our Johnnie, when he came
first out he could scarcely step over a strae, and now ho's as canty as
a kale-worm.'" This pair may have been relatives of Dudley, for I
can gather that they had a family.

166 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

It was recollected that a suicide, " one who put down himself,"
was buried at the churchyard gate of that place.

"Willy Wabby's Ghost.

Willy Wabby's (Walby's) ghost, which once gained great
notoriety, was contrived by a person who wished to get pos-
session of a " big house," called Lark Hall, near Burrowdon,
about the year 1800. The plates and other crockery came
dancing off the shelf on to the floor. People going into the
house would suddenly have a pot or other utensil clapped on
the crown of their head, or be liable to have some other divert-
ing cantrip played on them. The country folks used to flock
from a far way off to witness or get the news of the droll pro-
ceedings. There are full particulars in Mackenzie's History of
Northumberland, ii., note, p. 42, but this reference to it is
traditionary.

Andrew Bates, who was curate of Si John's Church, New-
castle, from 1689 to 1710, was much employed in exorcising
houses reputed to be haunted. I remember his son, Ulric
Bates, living 1763. Bates was celebrated in particular for
laying, as they stated it, the ghost of one Barbara Cay, wife of
a Mr. Cay, a Presbyterian of fortune and reputation in New-
castle, after all the Presbyterian ministers had failed. — Credat
Judceus (Spearman's MSS.).

White Ladies.

The White Lady was either akin to the ghost or the spirit of a
fountain. A wood between Yeavoring and Akeld, which is
nothing more than a strip of modern planting, is haunted by a
" White Lady," who appears to walk there during the night to
frighten people. The White Lady near Whittingham, in

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 167

Northumberland, had some connection with a well close to the
River Aln above that village, situated at the Lee or Lea-side.
The well goes by the name of the Lady Well or Lady's Well.
" The Legend of the White Lady of Blenkinsopp " is told in
Richardson's Table Book, Leg. Div., iii. pp. 144-148 (by
William Pattison and G. B. Richardson).* At Detchant, near
Belford, is what was named to me a " Cattle Well, " f which
was frequented by a White Lady. I could ascertain nothing
more of her from the old man, who had heard of it in his
youth. Detchant, he told me, was wont to be a lonely place,
and was infamous for robberies committed near it.

For the following account of a White Lady who haunts
Coupland Castle on the River Glen, I am indebted to Rev.
Matthew Culley, and I give it in his words. His letter is
dated August 17th, 1880 :

"According to a tradition, one of the rooms, a large and
gloomy apartment, in the oldest part of this castle (Coupland) is
haunted by a ghost in the shape of a 'White Lady.'

"As to who she is, wherefore she appears, or when she first
appeared, tradition is silent; but it is certain that half a century
ago the 'haunted room' at Coupland had as 'uncanny' a reputa-
tion as it has at present. Within my own memory, and indeed
quite recently, strange phenomena have been witnessed, and
many unaccountable sounds, such as wailing voices, knockings,
&c, have been heard at night by persons sleeping in the haunted

* Mr. Denhani told me that William Pattison, who contributed
several papers to the Table Book, went to London, and it was
believed died there. G. B. Richardson emigrated to Australia or
New Zealand.

| Perhaps cattle drank at it. On Wooler Common there was a
well of this description called " The Neatherd's Well," a neatherd
being employed in charge of the townspeople's cows.

168 THE DBNHAM TRACTS.

room and in rooms close by; whilst during the last six or seven
years the White Lady herself is said positively to have been
seen on more than one occasion."

The Death of Jean Gordon.

The Gipsies, or Faas, from its proximity to their head-
quarters at Yetholm, greatly frequented Wooler, especially at
the two fairs, which offered excellent opportunities for the
disposal of their wares. On one of these statute anniversaries
one of the Faas stole a pair of shoes from a stall. The towns-
people, although some ascribed the ill- deed to the country folks,
broke out and carried the culprit to the mill-dam, which
branching off from Wooler water flows along the bottom of the
high bank on which the town is situated, and ducked her there
till she was next to dead among their hands. One of them had
gone so far as to set his foot on her to keep her down. When
the excitement subsided down she was drawn out, all be-
draggled with slime, and laid on a high stone on the wooded
bank above the mill-lead ; but she was too far gone for recovery,
and gave only a gasp or two and died. " Old William Bolam,"
who was once a schoolmaster in the place, and who died in the
workhouse several years since, recollected seeing her in that
deplorable condition, and how before removal the mud had to
be washed from her clothes and bod}-. The Gipsies never
forgot this barbarous outrage, and vowed revenge ; and hence
a constant watch had to be kept on their movements for many
years, to prevent their taking similar "wild justice," for this
wicked maltreatment of one of the clan. "Within memory the
townspeople used to live in dread of them. The woman's name
was Jean Gordon, and she was married to a Faa.* She was a
relative of the famous Jean Gordon, who was equally cruelly

* The Falls (pronounced Faas) belonged to the family of the King
of the Yetholm Gipsies.

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 169

drowned by the mob at Carlisle. Till this day, whenever a
continuance of bad weather is experienced at the little town at
the foot of the Cheviots, old superstitious people say, " That's a
cloud for the death o' Jean Gordon," or, "A race of bad
weather will always hang over Wooler for the death o' Jean
Gordon, drowned in the mill-dam."

Silky— A Northumbrian Tradition.

" wha wad Imy a silken gown,
Wi* a poor broken heart."

Scots' Song.

Eighty or ninety years ago the inhabitants of the quiet village
of Black Heddon, near Stamfordham, and of the country round
about, were greatly annoyed by the pranks of a preternatural
being called Silky. This name it had obtained from its mani-
festing a predilection to make itself visible in the semblance
of a female dressed in silk. Many a time, when any of the
more timorous of the community had a night journey to per-
form, have they unawares and invisibly been dogged by this
spectral tormentor, who, at the dreariest part of the road, the
most suitable for thrilling surprises, would suddenly break
forth in dazzling splendour. If the person happened to be on
horseback, a sort of exercise for which she evinced a stronsr
partiality, she would unexpectedly seat herself behind, "rattling
in her silks." There, after enjoying a comfortable ride, with
instantaneous abruptness she would, like a thing destitute of
continuity, dissolve away and become incorporated with the
nocturnal shades, leaving the bewildered horseman in blank
amazement.

At Belsay, some two or three miles from Black Heddon, she
had a favourite resort. This was a romantic crag finely studded
with trees, under the gloomy umbrage of which, " like one for-

170 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

lorn," she loved to wander all the live-long night. Here often
has the belated peasant beheld her dimly through the sombre
twilight, as if engaged in splitting great stones, or hewing with
many a stroke some stately " monarch of the grove." And
while he thus stood, and gazed, and listened to intimations,
impossible to be misapprehended, of the dread reality of that
mysterious being, concerning whom so various conjectures were
awake, all at once, excited by that wondrous agency, he would
have heard the howling of a resistless tempest rushing through
the woodland — the branches creaking in violent concussion — or
rent into fragments by the impetuous fury of the blast — while
to the eye not a leaf was seen to quiver, nor a pensile spray to
bend.

" All was delusion, nought was truth."

The bottom of this crag is washed by a picturesque lake or fish-
pond, at whose outlet is a waterfall, over which a venerable
tree, sweeping its umbrageous arms, adds impressiveness to the
scene. Amid the complicated limbs of this tree Silky possessed
a rude chair, where she was wont, in her moody moments, to
sit — wind-rocked — enjoying the rustling of the storm in the
dark woods, or the gush of the cascade as it ascended with
spirit-like fitfulness, during the pauses of the gale. It is due to
the present proprietor, Sir Charles M. L. Monck, Bart., of
Belsay Castle, to state that the tree so consecrated in the
sympathies and the terrors of the vicinity has been carefully
preserved. Though now no longer tenanted by its aerial
visitant, it yet spreads majestically its time-hallowed canopy
over the spot, awakening in the lore-versed rustic when the
winter's wind raves gusty and sonorous through its leafless
boughs, the soul harrowing recollection of the exploits of the
ancient fay ; but in the springtide beautiful with the full-flushed
verdure of that exuberant season, and recipient of the kindling

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 171

emotions of reverence and affection. It still bears the name of
" Silky's seat," in memory of its once wonderful occupant.

Silky exercised a marvellous influence over the brute creation.
Horses, which possess a discernment of spirits superior to man,
at least are more sharp-sighted in the dark, were in an extra-
ordinary degree sensitive of her presence and control. She
seems to have had a perverse pleasure in arresting these poor
defenceless animals while engaged in their labours. When
this misfortune occurred, there was no remedy brute force
could devise ; expostulation, soothing, whipping, and kicking
were all exerted in vain to make the restive beast resume the
proper direction. The ultimate resource, unless it might be
her whim to revoke the spell, was the magic-dispelling witch-
wood (mountain ash), which was of unfailing efficacy. One
poor wight, a farm servant, was once the selected victim of her
frolics. He had to go to a colliery at some distance for coals,
and it was late in the evening before he could return. Silky
waylaid him at a bridge, a " ghastly, ghost-alluring edifice,"
since called " Silky's Brig," lying a little to the soutli of Black
Heddon, on tho road between that place and Stamfordham.
Just as he had reached " the height of that bad eminence," the
keystone, horses and cart became fixed and immoveable as fate.
And in that melancholy plight might both man and horses
have continued — quaking, and sweating, and stock-still — till
the morning light had thrown around them its mantle of pro-
tection, had not a neighbouring servant come up to the rescue,
who opportunely carried some of the potent witchwood about
his person. On the arrival of this seasonable aid, the perplexed
driver rallied his scattered senses, and the helpless animals being
duly seasoned after the fashion prescribed on such occasions, he
had the heartfelt satisfaction of seeing them apply themselves
with alacrity to the draught ; and in a short time both he and
the coals reached home in safety. Ever afterwards, however,

172 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

as long as he lived, he took the precaution of rendering himself
spell-proof, b}' being furnished with a quantity of witch-wood,
by no means being disposed that Silky should a second time
amuse herself at his expense and that of his team.

She was capricious and wayward. Sometimes she installed
herself in the office of that old familiar Lar, Brownie, but with
characteristic misdirection, in a manner exactly the reverse of
that useful species of hobgoblin. And here it may be remarked,
that throughout her disembodied career, she can scarcely be said
to have performed one benevolent action for the sake of its moral
qualities. She had, from first to last, a latent hankering for
mischief, and gloried in withering surprises and unforeseen
movements. As is customary with that " sturdy fairy," as he is
designated by the great English Lexicographer (1), her works
were performed at night, or between the hours of sunset and
daydawn. If the good old dames had thoroughly cleaned their
houses, which country people make a practice of doing,
especially on Saturdays, so that they may have a comfortable
and decent appearance on Sunday, after they had retired to rest
Silky would silently have turned everything topsy-turvy, and the
morning presented a scene of indescribable confusion. On the
contrary if the house had been left in a disorderly state, a plan
which they generally found best to adopt, everything would
have been arranged with the greatest nicety.

At length a term had arrived to her erratic course, and both
she and the peaceably disposed inhabitants whom she disquieted
obtained the repose so long mutually desired. She abruptly
disappeared. It had long been surmised by those who paid
attention to those dark matters, that she was the troubled
phantom of some person who had died very miserable in conse-
quence of having great treasure, which before being overtaken

(1) Journey to the Western Islands, p. 171.

BOEDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 173

by her mortal agony had not been disclosed, and on that account
she could not lie still in her grave ! About the period referred
to a domestic servant, being alone in one of the rooms of a
house at Black Heddon, was frightfully alarmed by the ceiling
above suddenly giving way, and something quite black and
. uncouth falling from it with a clash upon the floor. The servant
did not stay an instant to examine it, but at once fled to her
mistress screaming at the pitch of her voice, " The deevil's in
the house ! The deevil's in the house ! He's come through the
ceiling!" With this terrible announcement the whole family
were convoked, and great was the consternation at the idea of
the foe of mankind being amongst them in a visible form ; and
a considerable time elapsed before airy one could brace up
courage to face " the enemy," or be prevailed to go and inspect
the cause of alarm. At last the mistress, who happened to be
the most stout hearted, ventured into the room, when instead
of the personage on account of whom such awful apprehensions
were entertained, a great dog or calf's skin lay on the floor,
sufficiently black and uncomely, but filled with gold. After
this Silky was never more heard or seen. Her destiny was
accomplished — her spirit laid — and she now sleeps with her
ancestors as peacefully and unperturbed as do the degenerate
and unenterprising ghosts of modern days..

Mr. Robert Kobson of Sunderland, county of Durham, com-
municated rough notes whence this sketch has been composed.
Another informant states that the house wherein this occurred
was at the time occupied by the Hepples, respectable yeomen at
the place, whose descendants are yet the proprietors, and who,
it is said, acquired a considerable sum from Silky's long hidden
treasure so unexpectedly brought to light. This has been im-
puted to many other prosperous men besides Mr. Hepple, and
not unfreqiicntly in a spirit of envy. Stephen Cochran, of
Clippeiis, in Renfrewshire, presented his relative, Wm. Cock-

174 THE DENHAM TKACTS.

burn, of Caldoun, the ancestor of the Dundonald family, with
a large sum of money (it was said a skinful) for his good offices
in freeing him from a malignant charge of witchcraft, and this
was acknowledged by Thomas, the eighth earl, to have been the
foundation of the family (2) . We are told by an old authority
that " to labour and to be content with that a man hath is a
sweet life ; but he that findeth a treasure is above them
both" (3).

Some points of folklore may be here illustrated. Trees that
stretch their long arms across waterfalls, and flourish by main-
taining a perpetual struggle with the powers of nature amidst
elemental commotion, supply, it would appear, fit roosting places
for the spirits of darkness, and the ominous birds concerned in
their malpractices.

" The heron came from the witch-pule tree,"

sings James Telfer ; and likewise Sir Walter Scott,

" Where o'er the cataract the oak
Lay slant, was heard the raven's croak."

In Barskeogh Wood, near Dairy, on the water of Ken, in
Galloway, " the clachan witches held their midnight revels by
the light of the hunter's moon ; and the famed sister of Lowran
Burn proudly rode on the branches of the forest ash that over-
hangs the roaring linn of Earlston ; while the young noviciates
in the mysteries of witchcraft merrily danced in the bosom
of the pool beneath, amid the white spray of the dashing
stream." Fairies, too, as Burns tells us, delight

" to stray and rove
Among the rocks and streams ; "

(2) Mitchell and Dickie's Philosophy of Witchcraft, p. 386.
Paisley, 1839.

(3) Ecclesiasticus, c. xl. r. 18.

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 175

and there has been heard amid the darkness " plitch platching
as it were o' some hundreds o' little feet i' the stream ; when a'
at yince the plitch -platching gae owre, and there was sic a queer
eiry nicker, as o' some hundreds o' creatures laughin' cam frae
the upper linn " (4). An old man in Wales had "often seen
the fairies at waterfalls ; particularly at that of Sewyd yr Rhyd
in Cwm Pergwm, Vale of Neath, where a road runs between
the fall and the rock. As he stood behind the fall they appeared
in all the colours of the rainbow, and their music mingled with
the noise of the water" (5). The celebrated fall of the Liffey,
in Ireland, near Ballymore Eustace, is named Pool-a-Phooka,
or Puck's Hole (6). "The Russians believe in a species of
water and wood maids called Rusalki. They are of a beautiful
form, with long green hair; they swing and balance themselves
on the branches of trees, bathe in lakes and rivers, play on the
surface of the water, and wring their locks on the green meads
at the water's edge" (7).

The power of evoking a magic tempest, which was only

" an enchanted show
With which the eyes mote have deluded been,"

is one of the attributes of the beings not of this world. For thus
Oberon attempted to deter Huon of Bordeaux from proceeding
through the enchanted forest which offered the shortest passage
to Babylon. " For before you have left the wood he will cause
it so to rain on you, to blow, to hail, and -to make such right
marvellous storms that you will think the world is going to
end." But this was " nothing but a phantom and enchant-

(4) It. White in Richardson's Table Bool:, Leg. Div., ii. 137.

(5) Keightley's Fairy Mythology, p. 417.

(6) Mil., ]>. 371.

(7) //«'(/., i>. 191, from (irimm.

176 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

ments" that the dwarf made (8). When the vicar of Dean
Prior's (Devon) is about to lay a ghost in a deep hollow at the
foot of a waterfall, called the Hound's Pool, as they enter the
wooded valley, " it seemed as if all the trees in the wood ' were
coming together,' so great was the wind "(9). It is said
that the walls of Fyvie Castle, Aberdeenshire, had stood for
seven years and a day, wall-wide, waiting for the arrival of
True Tammas (Thomas the Rhymer) to pronounce their fate.
" At length he suddenly appeared before the fair building, ac-
companied by a violent storm of wind and rain, which stripped
the surrounding trees of their leaves and shut the castle gates
with a loud crash. But while the tempest was raging on all
sides, it was observed that, close by the spot where Thomas
stood, there was not wind enough to shake a pile of grass or
move a hair of his head " (10).

Silk, as a spirit-raiment, has had a strong charm for the
popular mind, perhaps from its cleanliness being associated, like
the snowy robe of the ghost, with ideas of purity and innocence ;
or from its leaf-like fissle being judged akin to the tiptoe move-
ment of unhappy souls. Dr. Dee's Ariel was " a spiritual
creature, like a pretty girl of seven or nine years of age, attired
on her head, with her hair rolled up before and hanging down
behind, with a gown of silk, of changeable red and green, and
with a train" (M).* Mr. Campbell, in his Highland Tales,
vol. ii. p. 192, states that the miller's wife at Loch Xigdal, near

(8) Keightley's Fairy Mythology, p. 39.

(9) Folklore, N. and Q., p. 223.

(10) Chambers' Rhymes of Scotland, p. 8.

(11) Mack ay's Popular Delusions, i. p. 157.

* Cowley, as translated, Book of Plants, B. I, says cf spirits:
" Their subtle limbs silk, thin as air, arrays,
And therefore nought their rapid journey stays."

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 177

Skibo Castle, was one day favoured with a sight of the Banshie
of the lake. " She was sitting on a stone, quiet, and beauti-
fully dressed in a green silk dress, the sleeves of which were
curiously puffed from the wrists to the shoulders." Among the
wonderful relations of Glanvil, in his Saducismus Triumphalus,
of the drumming demon of Tedworth, the man-servant " heard
a rustling noise in his chamber, as if a person in silks was
moving up and down ; " and the maids also heard one "that
rustled about as if it had been dressed in silk/' The mansion
house of Houndwood, in Berwickshire, has attached to it a
family apparition called " Chappie." The servants were
annoyed with its pertinacious visits even in the daytime.
" Sometimes a knocking would be heard at the front door,
and if anyone went to open it, nobody could be seen ; except on
one occasion, when, on the servant opening the door, a grand
lady rushed past, and went up the passage with a majestic gait,
rustling in silks and satins ; but this lady was never afterwards
seen, either within or without the house " (12). Denton Hall,
near Newcastle, is regularly set down as haunted by a
female clad in rustling silks, and the spirit or goblin or
whatever it was that was embodied in these appearances was
familiarly known by the name of Silky. " There is some obscure
and dark rumour of secrets strangely obtained and enviously
betrayed by a rival sister, ending in deprivation of reason and
death; and the betrayer still walks by times in the deserted
halls which she has rendered tenantless, always prophetic of
disaster to those she encounters." " Midnight curtains have
been drawn aside by an arm in rustling silk " (13). " The
profligate Duke of Argyle, while residing at Chirton (near

(12) Hondorson's Rhymes of Berwickshire, p. 73.

(13) T. Doublcday in Richardson's Table Book, Leg. Div., iii.
p. 315.

VOL. II. N

178 THE DENH AM TRACTS.

North Shields), in the reign of William III., had a mistress
who died very suddenly ; and, as the neighbouring gossips con-
cluded she had been murdered, her spirit ever after took its
nocturnal ramble, dressed in brown silk, in the shady avenue
that leads to Shields ; but in modern times this troubled spirit
seems to have retired to rest " (14). She is also said to have
rendered the mansion house untenantable by means of unearthly
noises. She is the third Silky on record. At Allanbank (or
Bighouse) , in Berwickshire, there is a famous ghost, endued with
similar attributes, called Pearlin' Jean. " In my vouth," says
Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, " Pearlin' Jean was the most re-
markable ghost in Scotland, and my terror when a child. Our
old nurse, Jenny Blackadder, had been a servant at Allanbank,
and often heard her rustling in silks up and down stairs and
along the passages. She never saw her, but her husband did.
She was a Frenchwoman, whom the first proprietor of Allan-
bank, then Mr. Stuart, met with at Paris, during his tour to
finish his education as a gentleman. Some people said she was
a nun, in which case she must have been a sister of charity, as
she appears not to have been confined to a cloister. After some
time young Stuart either became faithless to the lady or was
suddenly recalled to Scotland by his parents, and had got
into his carriage, at the door of the hotel, when his Dido
unexpectedly made her appearance, and, stepping on the
fore-wheel of the coach to address her lover, he ordered the
postillion to drive on ; the consequence of which was that the
lady fell, and one of the wheels going over her forehead killed her.
In the dusky autumnal evening, when Mr. Stuart drove under
the arched gateway of Allanbank, he perceived Pearlin' Jean
sitting on the top, her head and shoulders covered with blood.
After this, for many years, the house was haunted ; doors shut

(14) Mackenzie's Northumherland, ii. p. 456.

BOEDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 179

and opened with great noise at midnight; the rustling of silks
and the pattering of high-heeled shoes were heard in bedrooms
and passages. Nurse Jenny said there were seven ministers
called in at one time to lay the spirit, ' but they did no muckle
good/ The picture of the ghost was hung up between those of
the lover and his lady, and kept her comparatively quiet ; but
when taken away she became worse-natured than ever. The
ghost was designated Pearlin, from always wearing a great
quantity of that sort of lace — a species of lace made of thread.
Nurse Jenny told me that when Thomas Blackadder was her
lover (I remember Thomas very well) they made an assignation
to meet one moonlight night in the orchard at Allanbank. True
Thomas, of course, was the first comer, and seeing a female in
a light-coloured dress at some distance, he ran forward with
open arms to embrace his Jenny ; when lo and behold ! as he
neared the spot where the figure stood, it vanished ; and pre-
sently he saw it again at the very end of the orchard, a
considerable way off. Thomas went home in a fright; but
Jenny, who came last, and saw nothing, forgavo him, and
they were married. Many years after this, about the year
1790, two ladies paid a visit to Allanbank — I think the house
was then let — and passed the night there. They had never
heard a word about the ghost ; but they were disturbed the
whole night with something walking backwards and forwards in
their bed-chamber. This I had from the best authority " (15).
Sir Robert Stuart of Allanbank was created baronet in 1697,
so that it must have been previous to that time that Jean died.

We cannot assign to these traditions a far back date; although
they refer to a period when silk, as an article of dress, was so
seldom seen, that it took the attention in country places. We
find a lady's silk dress in the Breton Lai of Ywenec. Ladies

(l.'>) Mrs. Crowe's Night-side of Nature.

N 2

] 80 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

wore silk mantles at Kenilworth Castle in 1286 ; but it was
not till the reign of James T., in England, that it came into
general use. Massinger's " City Madam " wore

" Sattin on solemn days,
It being for the City's honour that
There should be a distinction made between
The wife of a patrician and a plebeian."

In the time of Charles II. Secretary Pepys' wife dresses in a
tabby or waved silk. In the year 1668 the tide of fashion set
entirely in favour of French fabrics, so that it became a com-
plaint that " the women's hats were turned into hoods made of
French silk, whereby every maid-servant became a standing
revenue to the French King of one-half of her wages " (16).
This trade, we learn from the Guardian of September 25th,
1713, was interrupted by Marlborough's wars; and it was
apprehended that if peace was then concluded, " in all pro-
bability half the looms in Spittlefields would be laid down, and
our ladies be again clothed in French silk." " In the good old
times," says Washington Irving, " that saw my aunt in the
heyday of youth, a fine lady was a most formidable animal, and
required to be approached with the same awe and devotion that
a Tartar feels in the presence of the Grand Lama. If a gentle-
man offered to take her hand, except to help her into a carriage,
or lead her into a drawing-room, such frowns ! such a rustling of
brocade and taffeta ! " (17). Hence the poets of these days in
inviting from the court to the cottage, inquire in accents
winning as they are musical :

" O Nancy wilt thou go with me,

Nor sigh to leave the flaunting tcwn ?
Can silent glens have charms for thee,

The lowly cot and russet gown ?

(16) Silk Manufactures, p. 25.

(17) Salmagundi, April 25, 1807.

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 181

No longer drest in silken sheen,

No longer deck'd with jewels rare,
Say canst thou quit each courtly scene,

Where thou wert fairest of the fair ? "

In Scotland, the upper classes alone were privileged to
" wear claithes of silk." Prohibitory edicts extend from
the time of James I., 1429, down to 1673, in the reign
of Charles II. In 1621 it was statuted " That no servants,
men or women, weare any clothing, except those that are made
of cloath, fusteans, canvas, or stuffs made in the countrey. And
that they shall have no silk upon their cloathes ; except silk
buttons, and button holes ; and silk garters without pearling or
roses, under the paine of one hundreth markes, tolies qaoties."
It thus was felt as a terrible offence to the aristocratic circles of
Edinburgh, and became a town talk, when a girl of the city in
1750 presumed to wear a silk gown ! (18). It was long before
this innovation became general. Thus, about 1724, sings the
" country lass : "

" Although my gown be homespun grey,
My skin it is as soft
As them that satin weeds do wear,
And carry their heads aloft."

Silk dresses were inherited as heirlooms for generations.

" For her gown some ancient matron quakes,
Her gown of silken woof, all figured o'er
With roses white, far larger than the life,
On azure ground — her grandani's wedding garb,
Old as the year' when Sherifl'muir was fought."

Grahame.

I shall not venture to trace this luxury northwards into
Northumberland. As we learn from the Spectator, July

(18) Chambers' Traditions of Edinburgh, ii. p. 55.

182 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

28, 1711, the fashions of the metropolis did not then travel
rapidly as now, but crept by slow degrees into the pro-
vinces. " A fashion makes its progress much slower into
Cumberland than into Cornwall. I have heard in particular
that the Steenkirk (neckcloth) arrived but two months ago at
Newcastle, and that there are several commodes in those parts
which are worth taking a journey thither to see." This at
least we know, that a silk dress had reached North Shields in the
reign of William III., and the degraded wearer, like a Scottish
damsel two hundred years before her, paid the penalty of her
folly.

" My kirtill was of lincum green,

Weill lacit with silken passnients rair ;

God gif I had nerer prideful been,

For fadit is my yellow hair.

" When I was young I had great stait,
Weill cherishit baith with less and mair ;
For shame now steill I off the gait,
For fadit is my yellow hair ! "

N.B. — In an article in the Transactions of the Tyneside
Naturalists' Field-Club, for 1861, p. 93, on "Local Super-
stititions at Stamfordham," bv the Rev. J. F. Bigge, M.A., it
is said, " The renowned Silky has not been heard of for some
years. I was once attending a very old woman, named
Pearson, at Welton Mill, the foundations of which, if they exist,
are at the bottom of one of the Whittle Dean reservoirs. The
old woman told me, a few days before her death, that she had
seen Silky the night before, sitting at the bottom of her bed,
dressed in silk."

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 183

The Gbay Man of Bet-lister.

" An old rude ' tale ' that fitted well
The ruin wild and hoary."

Coleridge.

It was at the gray of the evening twilight, about half a
century ago, that a stripling held his way towards the castle of
Bellister, with the view of entering into service there. Having
crossed the Tyne at Haltwhistle, he found the darkness in-
creasing fast ; and although the distance he had to travel was
not great, yet in those days bad companions were more common
than welcome on the unfrequented roads after nightfall. Leaving
the ferry, he passed a thicket of willow bushes, and then his
route lay along a broken road, which he had been directed to
follow as that which would conduct him to the castle. He had
not proceeded far when he descried a traveller at some little
distance in advance ; a circumstance rather singular, as he had
tarried for a few minutes at the ferry, and no one had come
over for some time previous. The youth, a stranger in the
place, and looking forward with solicitude towards the new
scene of his labours, soon overcame the mysterious feeling, to
which this idea gave rise, in the prospect of relief from his own
anxious thoughts presented to him for some part of the journey.
He therefore quickened his pace, and when sufficiently near
shouted to the unknown individual to stop. But the stranger paid
no regard — he neither stopped nor looked behind. The lad had
now approached within a few yards, yet with the utmost exertion
he could not overtake him ; for he passed forward with superhuman
rapidity, gliding rather than walking over the surface. An un-
pleasant sensation of fear crept over the youth, which was not a
little increased, by a closer inspection, so far as the dubious
lio-ht enabled, of the object of his misgivings. His head was

184 THE DENHAM TKACTS.

uncovered, and his long hair hung behind, white as the frosts
of winter. He was wrapt in a long gray cloak reaching to
his heels, and he appeared to carry a small bundle under his
arm, concealed by his upper vestments. So occupied had the
youth been in the struggle, that he did not at first perceive that
he had now reached the broken gateway of the old castle
of Bellister. At the instant, when its dark mass became
evident through the gloom, the mysterious figure unexpectedly
stood still, and turning abruptly round upon the youth revealed
the awful nature of the fellowship which he, in the simplicity
of his heart, was so eager to obtain. Death had set his pallid
seal on that grisly countenance, and a bloody gash that ran
across it heightened the expression of ghastliness imprinted
there ! The thick beard was dripping with blood, and the fore-
part of the garments was dyed with the ensanguined stream.
The being fixed its large lustreless eyes upon the youth, and
pointing with a menacing scowl towards the dilapidated ruin
melted silently away.

It was a scene of the deepest horror. For some time he stood
spell-bound to the spot, gazing into the vacant air that gave
back no image, but extended itself in limitless expansion into a
vast, terrible, all-absorbing gulf that seemed to invite him
forward in pursuit of the dread, unsubstantial essences that
roamed its dim and dismal depths. Rallying his scattered for-
titude, his first idea was that of self-preservation. His new
home was nigh, and thither, scarcely conscious of the action, he
betook himself. The old mistress was the only one of the family
within, and to her he revealed the horrifying apparition he had
witnessed. The old lady was much concerned. Of the existence
of a spirit near the place she was fully aware ; she had heard of
it from others wiser and older than herself, members of a gene-
ration of which there were now few survivors ; and there were
several instances in which it had made itself visible to persons

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 185

whom she well knew. Such a thing never occurred, she said,
without some accompanying calamity, and when, as on the
present occasion, there were manifested tokens of a vindictive
disposition on the spirit's part, the danger was near and alarm-
ing. It came to pass as the old lady feared and predicted. That
very evening the unfortunate lad was seized with a severe
illness, and before next morning was a corpse.

When the castle was occupied by the Blenkinsops, its ma-
norial lords, many, many centuries ago, a wandering minstrel,
says tradition, sought the protection of its roof far on in the
evening, and the humble request was granted, and the aged
musician was invited to the family hearth. The days of high-
souled chivalry and of generous feeling had not then departed,
when, not yet knowing " the bleak freezings of neglect," the
minstrol obtained a ready admittance to the society of the gentle
and the august, and his tale and harp found favourable audience
with all.

" High placed in hall, a welcome guest,

He poured to lord and lady gay,

The unpremeditated lay."

But the hospitable boon had not been long conceded ere dark
suspicions began to rankle in the breast of the Lord of Bellister.
He was at feud with a neighbouring boron, who scrupled not to
employ the basest means for gratifying his rancour. In the
appearance of this stranger, at such an untimely hour, there
appeared to him some reason to dread the intrusion of a spy, or
the disguised agent of his rival, to execute some revengeful plot.
Distrust, therefore, sat upon the countenance of the baron,* and

* " Some gentlemen of the north are called to this day barons,"
says Grey, in his Chorographia, 1649. The Blenkinsops of Bellister
wore entitled to the designation of baron only in courtesy. By a
similar token of respect the Whitfields of Whitfield, in the same

186 THE DENHAM TKACTS.

as the cordiality with which he had been received declined, a
visible constraint gathered over the minstrel's features, which
soon communicated itself to the entire circle.

" By fits less frequent from the crowd
Was heard the burst of laughter loud.
For still, as squire and archer stared
On that dark face, and matted beard,

Their glee and game declined."

Hence it was with more than customary alacrity that the signal
for withdrawal was obeyed. After the company had retired,
the Lord of JBellister continued to pace his apartment, filled with
perplexing anxieties. The image of the harper, too abject to
justify his fears, still haunted him, and the oft experienced
perfidy of his deadly foe. At length suspense rose into passion.
He summoned his attendants and directed them to bring the
harper into his presence. But how was every doubt and
jealousy anew inflamed when they found the chamber that he
had occupied empty, and the inmate gone ? Either he had
augured treachery from his entertainer, or he was conscious
that the guilty errand on which he had been sent was detected.
In the mind of the baron his flight only served to confirm the
unfavourable ideas that he had been led to conceive. The
bloodhounds were ordered out, and instant pursuit after the
fugitive commenced, the baron himself leading a band of his
followers. The bloodhounds were soon upon his track, and
rapidly outstripped the vengeance of their exasperated master.
They came up with the poor old minstrel hard by the willow

vicinity, transmitted to the latest generation the local title of yearl,
i.e. earl ; which, after they became extinct, passed to Whitfield of
Clargill, whose daughter and heiress — married to a Dr. Graham —
was called Countess of Clargill.

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 187

trees near the banks of the Tyne, and tore him to pieces before
any of the party had reached him.

Remorse for the barbarous outrage seized the baron, but the
deed of violence was irremediable. Whenever after the sunset
hour he took his way to the castle the fate of the hapless
minstrel rose in terror before his eyes, ana the visible shape of
the murdered man attended him home. The baron slept with
his fathers, and likewise all that race. But the injured spirit
still frequented its ancient circuit — unsatisfied and unappeased.
At some periods it was more than usually outrageous ; its
efforts to attract notice became more assiduous, and the
appearances that it assumed more terrific. This agitation and
inquietude were always found to be the prelude of some im-
pending misfortune to the house of Bellister and its dependents,
between whose fate and its own there had been induced an
inseparable bond.*

* Similar to this is the Irish and Gaelic superstition of the Banshee,
or attendant fairy-wife of families of the pure stock, whose office it
was to announce, by her wailing, the approaching death of some one
of the destined race.

" To me, my sweet Kathleen, the Benshce has cried,
And I die — ere to-morrow I die ;
This rose thou hast gathered, and laid by my side
Will live, my child, longer than I "

Smyth.

According to Delrio, a spectral woman in mourning attire was wont
to appear in the castle of an illustrious family in Bohemia previous to
the death of its mistress. The Macleans of Loch Buy are thus
premonished by the spirit of one of their ancestors. " Before the
death of any of his race, the phantom chief gallops along the sea-
lieach near to the castle, announcing the event by cries and lamenta-
tions" (Scott's Demanvloyt/, &v., p. 341.) Thus also the family of

188 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

The Gray Man no longer appears at Bellister nor traverses
the broken pathway near which the clump of willows still
responds in sad murmurs to the wizard blast of evening. But
Bellister and its vicinity continue to be a haunted and forbidden
place after nightfall. The rustic passes it with a beating heart ;
the schoolboy's bravery is over and his merriment hushed till
it is by ; and the rider, trusting neither his eye nor his ear,
applies the spur to his steed and hurries past. The dread of an
unexpiated crime and of a mystery unrevealed hangs unlifted
from the spot ; and nature, as she spreads .the pall of midnight
over the lonesome way and the gloomy ruin, and as the sweep
of the rushing river combines with the moaning breeze and the
owl's funeral scream, seems to sympathise with the peasant's
awe and approve his reverence for the life of a fellow-being.

The jottings of this Northumbrian ghost story were com-
municated by Mr. William Pattison, a native of the district in
which the castle is situated. Bellister Castle stands on an
artificial mount, on the southern side of the Tyne, opposite to

Rothiemurcus had the Bodach na Dun, or the Ghost of the Hill ;
Kinchardine the Spectre of the Bloody Hand —

" With Highland broad sword, targe, and plaid,
And fingers red with gore."

Gartinbeg House was haunted by Bodach Gartin, and Tulloch Gorm
by Maug Molaeh, or the Girl with the Hairy Left Hand (Pennant).
And like to these were the " White Lady of the House of Branden-
burg," and the fairy Melusine, who usually prognosticated the
recurrence of mortality to sonic noble family of Poitou. Prince, in
his Worthies of Deron, records the appearance of a white bird per-
forming the same office for the worshipful lineage of Oxenham
(Croker's Fairy Legends, p. 126). Brand identifies these with
wraiths, but they had a general commission, whereas the "warning
spirit " was a family appurtenance.

BORDER SKETCHES OF FOLKLORE. 189

Haltwhistle, and was surrounded by a broad fosse. It has been
an irregular structure, and now consists of a rude and
crumbling mass of ruins, overshadowed by an enormous
sycamore. Being the seat of a younger branch of the Blenkin-
sops, it was the property of Thomas Blenkinsop 1553, and of
George 1568. At present the castle and estate belong to the
Bacon family.*

* Mackenzie's Northumberland, ii. p. 316.

XVII.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF NORTH OF ENGLAND
FOLKLORE.

Legexds of Nafferton.

There are two legends about Nafferton ; one to Nafferton
Castle, or Nafferton Old Hall, built by Philip de Ulecote,
concerns Long Lonkin ; the other, located at Nafferton Hall, a
more recent structure, is a ghost story of a murdered pedlar.

Nafferton, in the parish of Ovingham, "lies immediately
north of Ovington, from which it is separated by a small stream
which joins the rivulet flowing through Whittle Dean." Philip
de Ulecote, a favourite of King John, commenced the erection
of the castle, taking the materials from the Roman wall in the
vicinity. He was not permitted to finish the structure, and the
dismantled ruin still remains much in the same state in which
it was left by the workmen in 1217. " The building consisted
of a keep, twenty feet square, and two outer balies, of moderate
dimensions, placed on the summit of a gentle slope. There was
no natural protection on the west, nor would it have been easy
to make one of a formidable character. At present the remains
of Philip de Ulecote's castle lie screened from passing observa-
tion by the surrounding plantations ; though it is probable that
in the winter season they may be discerned through the leafless
trees as the traveller journeys along the high road contiguous,

ILLUSTRATIONS OF NORTH OF ENGLAND FOLKLORE. 191

leading from Haddon-on-the-Wall to Corbrirlge." * I am
informed that the moat can be traced on three sides of the
building.

It is with this ruin that the Northumbrian version of the
" Ballad of Lammikin," corrupted into Long Lonkin, has
acquired a local association. As the cattle never was inhabited,
unless as forming a receptacle of robbers, the popular tradi-
tion which I have to relate is manifestly apocryphal in so far
as it relates to Nafferton. The following narratives relating to
both mansions I obtained in 1844 from an old man named
Forster, in Newcastle, the descendant of one of the tenants of
the Derwentwater family.

A lady, courted by a gentleman named Long Lonkin (whom
the Northumbrian ballad makes a moss-trooper), preferred the
lord of Nafferton, whose circumstances made him a more
desirable match. One child blessed the marriage. Long
Lonkin vowed to be revenged, and, to accomplish his purpose,
attached to his interest the child's maid, with whom he con-
certed his measures. His vengeance was most bitter, for he
had determined to stab both the mother and her offspring. It
happened that the lord of the place had occasion to proceed to
London on business, and Lonkin, apprised of his approaching
absence, came in the evening and was admitted by the
treacherous maid. Tn order to induce the lady to descend
from an upper chamber, by the advice of the maid he pricked
the child till it cried, and then a second time till it screamed.
The mother called down to the maid to appease the child, but
she exclaimed that she could not — she would have to come

herself.

" I can't still him ladie,
Till you come down yoursell."

* Hartshorne's Memoirs of the History and Antiquities of Northum-
berland, ii. pp. 237, 238,

192 TEE DENHAM TRACTS.

Lonkin pricked the child a third time, and the poor mother
appeared on the scene, and was killed as well as her child.

The Lord of Nafferton had not proceeded far on his journey
when an impression took hold of his mind that all was not
right at home; Two of the ballads tell how this alarm was
created. The rings on his fingers were bursting in twain, and
the silver buttons of his coat would not stay on. Returning
with all speed, he called to the servants within to let down the
drawbridge, and it being done he was admitted. When Long
Lonkin heard the noise of the coach passing over the bridge he
sought means to escape ; but the bridge was secured, and as he
could not get across the moat he fled to a dean below the castle,
in which flows the Whittle Burn, and took refuge in a large
tree that overhung a deep pool in the water. When the lord
of the place entered his apartments a horrible scene of carnage
was revealed, and the guilty maid did not conceal by whose
agency it had been effected. The murderer was sought for the
whole night, but it was not till morning that he was detected,
concealed among the tree branches. The outraged husband
called on him to descend, but he refused. He then threatened
to shoot him if he did not surrender, but Lonkin recklessly
leapt into the black boiling pool beneath, and sunk, never to
rise. This pool, now called Long Lonkin's Pool, the country
people declare is bottomless. A good swimmer had dived into
it from the crags on both sides and had found no bottom, and
it was only by great exertions that he escaped the fate of
Lonkin. Some suppose that there is a spring at the bottom of
it, for in the extremest cold it is never frozen over ; but this
circumstance others account for from a weill, or continuous
eddy, being in the middle of it. Long Lonkin's tree was cut
down thirty or forty years previous to 1844.

There are at least seven versions of the ballad relating to this
" ogre," as Professor Aytoun designated Lonkin, or Lammikin,

ILLUSTRATIONS OF NOETH OP ENGLAND FOLKXOBE. 193

with a variety of other aliases. In most of these the murderer
is hanged, and his accomplice is burned at the stake. In one
he is " boiled in a pot full of lead." The Scots versions make
Lammikin the architect of a castle ; sometimes it is Buncle
Castle, Berwickshire, " Lord Weire's Castle," " Lord Wearie's
Castle," the Castle of " Balwearie," " Prime Castle," which
he built up, but for his labour "payment got nane." It was
for this wrong that he " brewed the black revenge " that
wrought out such a fatal catastrophe.

The New Hall at Nafferton, according to the narrator's
statement, was for a time an occasional residence * of the
Derwentwater (Radcliffe) family, who left it for Dilston Hall,
after its re-edification in 1768. When this old man was
acquainted with it, it had become a farmhouse. When occu-
pied by one in that line of life, strange things were seen about
the place, and most unaccountable noises were heard. The
apparitions were most rampant when a child was to be born,
or any one was to die, or as preliminaries to any fatal accident,
and they took the forms of a white weasel, a white hen,
or a white rabbit, and sometimes of a person without the
head dressed in white. Rappings were customary at the
windows, and uproars in various quarters mingled with loud
shrieks. Doors would open without cause, and would
not shut. The farmer, who appears to have been a recent
incomer, accommodated himself to these disturbances as best
ho could, till one night they became insufferable. He slept in

* I merely give the narrator's statement, and I am not sure of its
accuracy. In 1677 Allan Swinburne, of Nafferton, gent, was a
Roman Catholic recusant (Depositions from York Castle, Surtees
Soc, p. 228). Dec. 19, 1688, Edmond Johnson, a Roman Catholic
priest, depones that he was received in that month at Mr.
Swinburn's, of Naferton (p. 280).

VOL,. II. o

194 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

an upper room near the " leads." From the door of this room
a stair conducted to the " leads," round which one could walk,
access being obtained to this outer area by another door at the
stair-top. On this occasion the commotion became so active
that he afterwards declared, in consonance with his agricultural
ideas, that if ever so many " trace-chains " had been trailed
across the floor, they would not have created a noise so aggra-
vating. As if this was not sufficient, something Like a skeel *
or cog turned on its side commenced rolling down the stairs
on the outside, and played " bump " against the door of his
room, as if it would smash it to pieces. The noise inside
appeared to proceed from and retire to a cavity in his room
covered by a hearthstone, called the " Priest's Hole." To
ascertain that no one had entered from the leads, he went up
the stair and examined the door above, but found it shut.
When he returned again to his sleeping apartment, the advanc-
ing and retreating noises recommenced in the direction of the
Priest's Hole. Determined to be at the bottom of this annoy-
ance, he called his brother to his assistance there and then, and
they took up the hearthstone. Beneath it there was an accu-
mulation of rubbish, broken bricks, &c, as if it had been in-
tentionally filled up. They got a spade and a bag, and emptied
the space of its contents, until they reached a flagged recess,
surrounded at the sides by a stone seat. This was the hiding-
place of the priest on any dangerous emergency, and there
generally was one of these concealed compartments in the
houses of the gentry of the old Roman Catholic persuasion.
The operators having cleared this out were about to desist,

* Skeel, a cylindrical wooden vessel for carrying milk or water,
with an upright handle made of one of the staves in plu.ee of a
bow. Isl. " Skiola," a milk-pail. Sw. " Skal," "a bowl. — Bro.ckett's
Glossary.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF NORTH 01' ENGLAND FOLKLORE. 195

for there was nothing in this to account for the noises, but they
imagined that they twice heard a voice urging them to dig on.
On striking the flags of the floor, one sounded as if covering a
hollow ; and on removing this they gained access to a second
apartment, stuffed with shavings and stable manure. This was
also flagged, and pursuing similar tactics, they were admitted
to a third place of retreat, which was in like manner filled with
shavings and " horse muck ; " and while emptying it they came
upon a shirt and a nightcap. The shirt was all bloody where
the bowels in a living body would have been situated when it
was worn. There was no skeleton nor any human remains ;
but there was an oven, in which any vestige of humanity might
have been consumed. It is needless to comment on the unlike-
lihood of the articles of clothing being neglected by those who
took so many precautions to have their crime concealed. Tho
material of the shirt when taken up appeared like new linen,
and the farmer was going to send it to the factor, but when he
tried it, after being exposed to the atmosphere, it had become
like " burnt tinder."

The farmer now began to question an old man who had long
dwelt at the place if there could be any reasonable explanation
of what ho had witnessed. The old man thought there was. In
the interval between the Radcliffes' occupancy and its being
converted into a farmhouse, and that was a considerable time
before this occurrence, a man had kept an inn in the hall, and
let out the rooms for the accommodation of shooters during the
fowling season. Once on a time there came a "pethcrt," or
pedlar, to lodge there, who having never more been heard
tell of, there were strong surmises of his having been murdered,
and many of the old coal-pits thereabouts were searched for his
body, without any result. When suspicion had been allayed, it
was observed that the innkeeper's daughters began to dress in
garments made of an expensive material, which girls in their

o 2

196 THE DBNHAM TRACTS.

station were not in the habit to wear, but which corresponded
with some of those which the missing packman had been
accustomed to carry. But this elevation was but transient;
" they did little good ; everything went against them, and they
became ruined," said the old man, with a satisfied air, in sum-
ming up.

A well-told story of a pedlar murdered in a lone farmhouse
above Rothbury, whose ghost haunted the perpetrator to her
dying day, may be seen in W. A. Chatto's Rambles on the
Scottish Border, pp. 93, 94. James Hogg in one of his ballads
gives the tale of the murder of the " Thirlestane Pedlar," and its
singular discovery. Thirlestane is situated near Primside
Loch, Yetholm. Mr. Robert White, of date October 17th,
1861, writes : " Similar stories to that of the Thirlestane Pedlar
exist in Northumberland. Tradition speaks of a packman being
murdered in the same way at Ray Mill, near Whelpington.
Poor fellows ! they would for the most part have some money
and goods upon them ; and this might induce rogues to deprive
them of life, more especially as the cruel deed might not easily
be discovered.

XVIII.

LEGENDS RESPECTING HUGE STONES.

" Oh ! make his tomb where mortal eye,
Its buried wealth may ne'er descry.
Years roll away — oblivion claims
Her triumph o'er heroic names ;
And hands profane disturb the clay
That once was fired with glory's ray ;
And avarice from their secret gloom,
Drags even the treasures of the tomb. !

Hemana.

" What hath the miner found ?
Relic or treasure, giant sword of old,
Gems bedded deep, rich veins of burning gold ? " •

Ibid.

" This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so We are lucky, boy,
and to be so still requires nothing but secresy."

Shakespeare's " Winter's Tale."

" The taste for gold everywhere precedes the desire of instruction,

and a taste for researches into antiquity."

Humboldt.

A large stone in the middle of a field, or laid in cumbrous
bulk by a pathway side, has little to commend itself to the
attention of the passer-by beyond the conjectures that may be
raised as to the causes that have detached such a huge mass
from its parent, rock and conveyed it to the situation that it

198 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

occupies. To the individuals, however, under whose recogni-
tion it has habitually fallen during a lifetime spent in its neigh-
bourhood, it possesses an interest due to something more than
to a mere aggregation of unconscious matter transported from
its parent site by some unknown operation of nature. Besides
serving as the emblem that recalls many a scene of youthful
frolic — many an hour of " perfect gladsomeness " spent around
its base in the " careless hour," which even to the busiest
affords a lucid interval — it, in all likelihood, has become inter-
woven with their higher principles, the reverence with which
they regard things of ancient date, and the veneration attached
to the works and memories of their sires. These sympathies it
has enlisted in its favour from certain presumed purposes it
may have served in the economy of their remote ancestors, or
from some history " passing strange," of which it is the
memorial. Perhaps it stands as one of those primitive land-
marks, which it would be sacrilege to remove ; perhaps it is the
trophy of some old battlefield, memorable in proportion to the
carnage with which it was bedewed and the obstinacy with
which it was contested ; perhaps reared by the might of armies
over the tomb of some ancient chieftain whose " soul brightened
in danger " — in the days of yore, ere an oblivious generation
had forgotten the story — it bore a name " at which the world
grew pale ; " or perhaps it was the rude and unhewn altar
on which, during the days of heathen idolatry, the Druid
priest offered cruel and detestable sacrifice to sanguinary
divinities, and from the recesses of the sacred grove, with
which it might have been environed, promulgated his de-
crees of horror and of blood. The general opinion, however,
with regard to any unusually bulky stone which the strength
and means of the agriculturist cannot remove beyond the
precincts of his field, or which, variegated with the accumulated
lichens of centuries, catches the eye in solitary massiveness

LEGENDS RESPECTING HtJGE STONES. 199

upon the waste, is that it marks the spot where " bones of
mighty chiefs lie hid " — men who, like the northern Vikings,
had their ill-gotten booty inhumed with them in order that
their posterity, with no other heritage than the sword, might
not indulge in disgraceful inaction, or sully the fierce fame of
their ruthless race. It is also an accredited belief that, in the
troublous times with which past history teems, many people
were constrained to adopt the means of concealment, which the
coverts of such stones offered, to secure their valuables from
marauding Dane, or Scot, or Pict, or Saxon, till more pros-
perous times should dawn, and they, coming back from long
exile or from the battlefield, should possess their patrimonial
property in peace. But the expected calm returned not — or
the owner having fallen in distant lands, the prospect of his
native scenes never gladdened his bosom more ; and his
relinquished wealth lies mouldering and gathering dross in the
fields from which hard industry had wrung it, excluded from
all benefits that it might confer as a portion of the circulating
medium.

In consequence of such various surmises, while these stones
on some occasions awaken misgivings from the wild tales asso-
ciated with them, they have likewise become themes of livelier
interest, from the incentives that they supply to avarice, as
being the depositories of unsunned treasures. But fearful bar-
riers, sufficient to deter the devoutest champion in the cause of
Mammon, separate the eagerness of adventurers and " the all-
wished for gold." Argus-eyed monsters, more hideous and
dread than Demogorgon, have had it entrusted to their vigilant
superintendence, and spells which baffle human ingenuity and
might to unlock have interposed their potent seal against all
attempts to recall the buried stores to their legitimate purposes.
And even though these bugbears be disregarded as fictions of
a terrified imagination, the uncertainty of money-finding is so

200 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

proverbial, and the indications of its existence are so deceptive,
that even the most enthusiastic votary of the trade seldom
ventures upon its practice without some more certain intima-
tions than the floating traditions of a past age. How then shall
it be determined that his labour shall not be disconcerted — the
true period for securing the prize has arrived — and that his
hopes are not placed on perishable foundations? The usual
intelligence of this fact, leaving out of view the aid of the
diviner's wand, which with magnetic certainty vibrates to the
emanations evolved from its sympathetic metal, is obtained by
dreams — three unvarying dreams, and the mind is set at rest
as to every circumstance connected with the accomplishment of
its desires !

Out of the tales that tradition has preserved of endeavours
after stone-concealed riches, two may be selected, in neither of
which the lords of the manor were entitled to lay claim to
treasure trove.

In a field near Meldon, a favourite site in the records of local
treasure quests, was placed a large stone, under which a person
named James Gillies dreamt successively there was hid a box
of a three- sided figure filled with gold. James was unfor-
tunately destitute of one of the prime qualities of an adept in
money explorations — the capacity of being " sworn to deepest
secrecy." Recognising no merit in privacy or concealment,
whatever event of novelty occurred to him was invariably
uppermost, and what could better attract a wondering auditory
than a revelation of his unrivalled vision? Henne it became
blazed abroad and reached the ears of more individuals than
even he would have been willing to entrust it to, who made no
scruple of appropriating to their own private account the infor-
mation so obligingly furnished. The instances in which the
nocturnal hints were repeated became at length so frequent that
James, who was always a great loiterer, resolved to make a

LEGENDS EESPECTING HUGE STONES. 201

complete story of his materials by exploring the " golden
harvest," which assuredly fortune had been devising for him, as
the result of such incessant importunities. Arrived at the spot,
he found indeed the stone, as the dream had represented, but it
had been violently wrenched from its position, and upon ex-
amining its former resting-place he beheld in the midst a
triangular pit that bore, moulded upon its sides, the impression
of some more solid nucleus having once existed there of suffi-
ciently ample size to satisfy the wishes of the most eager aspirant
after a competency of the world's riches ; but the " pose " was
gone, the coffer had vanished, while to the garrulous dreamer
there remained nothing but the mortification of having the prize
snatched from him because he could not hold his peace.

" But not a word of it, 'tis fairies' treasure ;
Which, but reveal'd, brings on the blabber's ruine."

Massinger's Fatall Dowry.

A money coffer of a triangular shape is not a Northumbrian
peculiarity, for Hogg, in his Winter Evening Tales, has related
a tradition of a " three neukit stane like a cockit hat," under
which was hid a purse or pose — the scene being Kelso Bridge
(London Bridge according to other authorities) .

In the fields between Lilburn and Middleton rests a stone
which, in the suggestions of the " Beligio loci," is not to be
removed while the present system of things maintains its
stability. Two hinds, with more than the intrepidity of their
class, resolved to explore the mystery that it shrouded and
enrich themselves by one energetic stroke. Accordingly, when
the shades of night had fallen and nature had sunk to repose,
having provided themselves with mattocks and spades, thev,
without informing any one, and without waiting for the cus-
tomary warnings, repaired to the scene of enterprise and com-
mciieed their daring operations. They had already penetrated

202 THE DENHAM TKACTS.

to a considerable depth without any manifestations of danger,
each fresh spadeful of earth communicating invigorated energy
to their arms, and reinspiring them with hope ; and they had
begun to flatter themselves that the oft-repeated tale of
demoniac watchers over the treasures that slumbered beneath
was but a vain chimera which ignorance had conjured up,
when all at once one of them heard a low fluttering, as of some-
thing struggling to get free, come from beneath the stone. He
communicated his impressions to his coadjutor, but as the sound
had not reached him, he received but a rude banter to reassure
him. He again resumed the work, when suddenly a repeated
movement from below shot a pang of terror to the heart of both.
One of them still persisted in disturbing the precincts of the
fated stone ; but scarcely had he removed the unhallowed soil
when the stone commenced moving up and down violently, and
out there issued from under it— and the earth quaked to let it
forth — a creature all in white, in figure like a swan, that
" flaffered and flew," and made such strange and hideous
outcry that the delinquents, casting down their implements,
hurried off, each in the direction his terrors prompted him would
farthest carry him from the grasp of the evil thing which his
unhallowed doings had evoked from the recesses of the earth,
and whose rage no human power might avail to appease. The
sanctuary of the stone was ever afterwards inviolate. Fixed in
its pristine position it still draws the dread and reverence of all
the swains in its vicinity who have not yet learned to under-
value the opinions and belief of their simple progenitors.

The immovable stone has its representative elsewhere. On
a hillside at Chertsey, in Surrey, " lies a huge stone of gravel
and sand which they call the devil's stone, and believe it cannot
be moved, and that a treasure is hid underneath." *

* Aubrey's Natural History and Antiquities of Surrey.

LEGENDS RESPECTING HUGE STONES. 203

In a letter from the famous astrologer, Dr. John Dee,
to Lord Burghley, dated 3rd October, 1574, he says that
" of late, I have byn sued unto by diverse sorts of people,
of which some by vehement iterated dreams, some by vision
(as they have thought), other by speche forced to their
imagination by night, have byn informed of certayn places
where Threasor doth lye hid : which all, for feare of Kepars
(as the phrase commonly nameth them), or for mistrust of truth
in the places assigned, and some for other causes, have forborn
to deal farder, unleast I should corage them or cownseile them
how to procede." * In Ireland " the popular opinions with
respect to hidden treasures are that they are generally under
the guardianship of spirits who assume various hideous shapes
to affright mortals who seek to discover them. Several of the
great lake serpents and water-cows of the Irish Fairy Mythology
are supposed to guard treasures ; in some instances black cats
are similarly employed." t Near Gunnarton, in North
Tynedale, is a remarkable British earthwork, called the " Money
Hill," from the local tradition of a dragon-guarded hoard of
treasure.^

It is the general opinion, worthy of notice as respects the
acknowledged supremacy of industry in contributing to success
in the pursuits of life, that few of those who have endeavoured
to enrich themselves by waiting upon such accidents of fortune,
in preference to engaging in a lawful calling, have received
special benefit from the riches thence derived. Illusory as
fairy treasures they have gone away from their possessors with-

* Sir H. Ellis's Letters of Eminent Literary Men, p. 36.

\ Wilde's Irish Popular Sujierstitions, p. 98.

J Rev. G. It. Hall in Arch. JEliana, N. S., Tiii. p. 66 ; also vol.
vii. p. 12. It was opened in 1865, and afforded only a negative
result.

204 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

out their enjoying any perceptible advantage from them. No
one has ever come to good who searched for gold, say the
Italians. As a maxim applicable to the bulk of mankind, it is
undeniable that opulence easily and unexpectedly procured
leaves its thoughtless obtainer in even a worse state of wretched-
ness than his original poverty.

" For as lie got it freely, so
He spends it frank and freely too.'"

There are, however, individuals, exceptions from the crowd,
in whom prosperity, instead of exciting them to a prodigal
profusion, or conduct incompatible with their previous steady
attention to the duties of their station, only generates increased
exertions, in order to be found worthy of the eminence to
which they have unexpectedly attained. By this moderate
procedure, any unforeseen efflux of wealth becomes so moulded
and incorporated with the products of their prudently acquired
gains, that it participates in the blessing which will sooner or
later reward the efforts of patient and well-bestowed diligence.
As an illustration of these remarks a popular story may be
cited, of which the occurrences happened about eighty years
ago, and have, according to the relator's account, the testimony
of living and faithful witnesses.

A farm-steading situated near the borders of Northum-
berland, a few miles from Haltwhistle, was occupied at
the period to which we refer by a family of the name of

W k n. In front of the dwelling house, and at about

sixty yards' distance, lay a stone of vast size, as ancient, for so
tradition amplifies the date, as the Flood. On this stone, at
the dead hour of the night, might be discerned a female
figure, wrapped in a groy cloak, with one of those low-
crowned black bonnets so familiar to our grandmothers
upon her head, incessantly knock ! knock ! knocking in a

LEGENDS RESPECTING HUGE STONES. 205

fruitless endeavour to split the impenetrable rock. Duly as
night came round she occupied her lonely station in the same
low, crouching attitude, and pursued the dreary obligations of
her destiny till the grey streaks of the dawn gave admonition to
depart. From this, the only perceptible action in which she
engaged, she gained the name of " Nelly the Knocker." So
perfectly had the inmates of the farmhouse, in the lapse of time
which will reconcile sights and events the most disagreeable and
alarming, become accustomed to Nelly's undeviating nightly
din, that the business of life went forward unimpeded by any
apprehension accruing from her presence. Did the servant-
man make his punctual resort to the neighbouring cottages,
he took the liberty of scrutinising Nelly's antiquated garb,
that varied not with the vicissitudes of seasons, or pried sym-
pathisingly into the progress of her monotonous occupation ;
and though her pale, ghostly, contracted features gave a
momentary pang of terror that unhinged the courage of the
boldest, it was rapidly effaced in the vortex of good fellowship
into which he was speedily drawn. Did the lover venture an
appointment with his mistress at the rustic stile of the stack-
garth, Nelly's unwearied hammer, instead of proving a barrier,
only served by imparting a grateful sense of mutual danger to
render more intense the raptures of the hour of meeting. So
apathetio were the feelings cherished towards her, and so little
jealousy existed of her power to injure, that the relator of these
circumstances states that on several occasions she has passed
Nelly at her laborious toil without evincing the least flutter of
the nerves, beyond a hurried step, as she stole a glance at the
inexplicable form. An event, in the course of years, disclosed
the secrets which that marvellous stone enshrined, and drove
poor Nelly for ever from the scene so inscrutably linked with
her fate. Two of the sons of the farmer were rapidly approach-
ing maturity, when one of them, more reflecting and shrewd,

206 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

suggested the idea of relieving Nelly from her avocation, and
of taking possession of the legacy to which she was evidently
and urgently summoning. He proposed, conjointly with his
father and brother, to blast the stone, as the most expeditious
mode of obtaining access to her arcana ; and this in the open
daylight, in order that any tutelary protection she might be
disposed to extend to her favourite haunt might, as she was
a thing of darkness and the night, be effectually countervailed.
Nor were they disappointed, for upon clearing away the earth
and fragments that resulted from the explosion, there was
revealed a cluster of urns, closely packed together, containing
gold. Anxious that nothing should transpire, they had taken
the precaution in the meanwhile to despatch the female servant
a needless errand, and ere her return the whole was efficiently
and without suspicion secured. And so completely did they
succeed in keeping their own counsel, and so successfully did
their reputation keep pace with the cautious production of their
undivulged treasures, that for many years afterwards they were
never suspected of gaining any advantage from Nelly's " knock-
ing " ; their improved appearance and the somewhat imposing
figure they made in their little district being solely attributed to
their superior judgment and to the good management of their
lucky farm. As Lilly the adept says, " Secrecy and intelligent
operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they
are doing, are best for this work." *

The " Knocker " is a Welsh spirit, little statured, about half
a yard long, who indicates to the workmen in the mines the rich
veins of silver and gold. The buccas or knockers are also be-

* Lives of Lilly and Ashmole, p. 48. Mr. J. P. Campbell,
author of the West Highland Tales, on reading this in 1862, remarks:
" The same story is now current of a farmer near Skipness. It is but
a popular tale, I suspect."

LEGENDS EESPECTING HDGE STONES. 207

lieved to inhabit the rocks, caves, adits, and wells of Cornwall.*
Such also is the German Wichtlein, the " swart fairy of the
mine." f Thus widely scattered are the relics of pagan
beliefs, from the common home, whence they diverged in the
far back ages.

Far up in the bleak moorland hollow that divides the tail-
ridges of Hedgehope and " the wild Dunmore," half concealed
by rank heath and the gray mountain mosses, half sunk in the
yielding peaty soil, hard by a fretful rivulet, bordered by its
narrow stripe of emerald grass and rushes, stands the decayed
Druid Circle of Three-stone Burn. It consists of a single circle
of rude, unequal, porphyritic stones, placed in an oval, whose
diameter from west to east is 38, and from north to south 33
yards. The stones are about eight or nine yards distant, but
there are many gaps occasioned by the stones having been over-
turned, or having disappeared in the ground, during the lapse
of ages. Whether they once enclosed an area dedicated to
religious observances, or formed the thingstead for determining
the controversies among the rude tribes, the foundations of
whose circular abodes, whose still open peat diggings, and
whose plots of corn ground, laid out in antique fashion, still
occupy, undisturbed, many a slope and depression of that
hilly region, is immaterial to our present theme. J It

* Hunt's Popular Romances of the West of England, p. 88.

t Grose. Brand's Pop. Ant., ii. pp. 276, 283.

| A British townlet, with several camps, attendant tumuli, and
hollow ways, as well as patches of ancient tillage ground, is situated
by the side of the footpath leading from Middleton to Uderton-Dodd
shepherd's house ; and similar remains are frequent elsewhere on the
hills around, denoting a former dense population. There are also
cyclopean walls on the margin of the burn, near the ruinous circle.
Old peat mosses exist far up on the back of Cunnion, opposite to
Three-stone Burn, excavated not in modern times, but ascribed to the

208 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

consisted once, tradition rumoured, of 12 stones, but only
11 of them were visible, and it was foretold that when-
ever the 1 2th was found, a fortune in money would reward the
lucky discoverer. The present worthy tenant, at the head of a
company of hay-makers, whose work in the adjacent haining
had been interrupted by a shower, instituted a search after the
missing pillar, and lo ! instead of twelve there were thirteen
stones. Thirteen is always an unlucky number, so his pains-
taking was unremunerated. Perhaps he was not aware that
Druid money is only bestowed by reversion in the world to
come.* This fact, however, came to light, that all the
prostrate stones had fallen from the west, but the cause of this

dwellers thereabouts in the days of old. Ground broken by like
ancient peateries has also been observed on the heights behind
Yeavering Bell. Other relics are a horn, not differing from that of
the present domestic cattle found while cutting turf for fuel to the
south of Three-stone Burn House, and " a sharping stone," lying
18 inches deep, near a place called the Prashy Syke. The stone may
have sunk to that depth, but the place was dry and covered with
heath when it was found imbedded in peat. It is of the usual
form, squarish, seven inches long by one inch broad. It had been
" badly sharpened " with, and was rounded, and not flat as now on
the sides. It was reckoned to be " burn-stone," is of a grey colour,
not unlike some of the greywacke series. Stone celts of greywacke
have been turned up near Hetton Hall, so it is not unlikely that this
rock likewise may have supplied the "primitive inhabitant" with
whetstones. A short stone cist, with bones in it, was disinterred at
Carr's Fold, in the direction of Langlee, while rebuilding it some
years since.

* " Like money by the Druids borrow'd
In the other world to be restor'd."

Hudibras.
Druidre pecuniam mutuo accipiebant in posteriore vita reddituri.
Pat.ricius, torn. ii. p. 9.

LEGENDS RESPECTING HUGE STONES. 209

disposition was not ascertained. Some time after the vanished
gold promised to reproduce itself in another form. The burn,
during its winter impetuosity, rushing against the decomposed
granite of its bed, detaches the tarnished specks of mica, which
as they are twirled among its eddies, emit a flashing metallic
lustre. This was enough to tempt an exploration among the
sand and debris, but the illusion of having met with a gold
mine among the Cheviot Hills soon passed away, for the scales
that were picked up were merely " cat's-gold" — "as far from
true gold as a painted fire is from a real."

" Like tho Leganian mine,
Whore sparkles of golden splendour

All over the surface shine.
But if in pursuit we go deeper,

Allur'd by the gleam that shone,

Ah ! false as the dream of the sleeper,

Tho bright ore is gone."

Moore.

But expectations of subterranean wealth as concomitants
of tho

" Stones of power
By Druids raised in magic hour,"

can bo justified by various precedents. In 1824, a gold sceptre
or red of office, which may have been borne by some ancient
arch-priest or king in the great assemblies of his people, was
dug up in tho circle of Leys, Inverness-shire ; and in 1838, a
gold ring and an armilla of beaten gold were found in the
island of Islay, under a large standing stone. Sometimes it is
the key lias gono a-missing. Thus " the Hazclrigg Dunnie "
loses the key of Dowdon-doors, and is " ruined for overman"."'
VOL. II. i'

210 'I HE DENHAM TRACTS.

Of Cairn-a-vain, a gigantic pile of stones on one of the Ochill
hills in Kinross-shire, it has been prophesied :

" In the Dryburn well, beneath a stane,
You'll find the key o' Cairn-a-vain,
That will inak' a' Scotland rich ane by ane." *

Equally fortunate shall it be with the west of Ireland ; where
the visions that dazzle the fancy of the half-starved inhabitants
compensate for and are created by contrast with the gloomy
features of the surrounding scenes ; for there lies the Celtic
elysium, and the accumulated treasures of centuries. " The
inhabitants of Arran More, the largest of the south isles of
Arran, on the coast of Gahvay, are persuaded that in a clear
day they can see Hy Brasail, the enchanted (or Royal) Island,
from the coast, the paradise of the pagan Irish." f On the
north-west of the island they call this enchanted country Tir
Hudi, or the city of Hud, % believing that the city stands
there which once possessed all the riches of the world, and that
its key lies buried under some Druidical monument. When Mr.
Burton, in 1765, went in search of the Ogham monument,
called Conane's Tomb, on Callan Mountain (also called Callaw

* Wilson's Archwologij and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, pp.
114, 316, 141. Mr. J. F. Campbell, in some remarks on this paper,
with which he favoured me, says, " Cairn-a-vain may signify cairn of
the ore or mine, spelt in the genitive mhein, pronounced Vein or Vain
with a nasal sound. This looks more like a fact. The vein of some
mine may be visible at the bottom of an old shaft under a stone."
(2Uth January, 180-2.)

f See West Ilif/Jihiinl Tales, vol. iv.

X Mr. Campbell notes that this is some corruption ; Tir na h
night; the land of youth, is a common name for this "Western
paradise.

LEGENDS INSPECTING HUGE STONES. 21 1

Mountain), the people could not be convinced that the search
was made after an inscription, but insisted that he was seeking
after an enchanted key that lay buried with the hero, and
which, when found, would restore the enchanted city to its
former splendour, and convert the moory heights of Callan
Mountains into rich and fruitful plains. They expect great
riches whenever this city is discovered." *

* Vallancey's Collectanea de Rebus Hiberrdcis. Beauford's Ancient
Topography of Ireland.

XIX.

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Plague or Silver Stone.

" Plague or Silver Stones were placed in the vicinity of a
town or by the wayside and were used thus. When the plague
existed in a town, one of the parties in money transactions,
deposited the silver or money in water, in a cavity on the top of
the stone, and retired to a distance, while the receiver advanced
and took it out, thus preventing contagion.

" The remains of this stone at Hexham was standing in the
recollection of an aged lady (my informant), who stated that
being taken by her father to walk, when a child, on coming
near the Silver Stone she was told to spit upon it, and she
would find silver near. Her father contrived to drop a piece of
silver, unknown to her, which she readily found, to her surprise
and delight. She confessed to have returned some days after,
unknown to her father, to the stone, but the spit did not pro-
duce the same effect." — A Guide to the Abbey Church of Hex-
ham, by Joseph Fairless, p. 17. Hexham, 1853.

Finding of a Horse-shoe.

Near Woolcr, when a horse-shoe is found, the holes clear of
nails are to be counted, as these indicate how long it is before
tho party who picked it up is going to bo married. Elsewhere

MISCELLANEOUS. 213

tho number of nails remaining indicate luck. Some simple
people, it is said, nailed a horse-shoe to the door of a house,
that they might always have moonlight, taking the horse-shoe to
be the fallen moon.

Bees.

A hive-bee lighting on the hand is fortunate and portends
the reception of money.

It is still customary to warn the bees of the death of their
master, otherwise they will bring luck no longer. One had
seen a piece of the funeral cake placed at the mouth of the hive,
which the inmates dragged w r ithin with a mournful noise.

Petting Stone. Roping.

Eglingham Church was one of those in former times where
there was a tl petting stone " for the bride to jump over. At
other churches a stool was placed, with a man in attendance at
each side, over which they " jumped " the bride and bridegroom
by taking hold of their hands and partly lifting them. After the
couple were married, and on their way home, they were way-
laid, and a rope placed across the street or the road, which it
was necessary to leap over, and in order that it might be suffi-
ciently lowered to enable this ceremony to be performed, the
holders of the rope claimed a money perquisite. In country
places the roping would take place for three times at the least.

my Mally, inconstant Mallek.

A Northumbrian Song.

" I bought to my Mally, the ribbons of red,
The ribbons I bought her was a crown every yard ;
All that I bought her, it still winna' do,
For she to another proved constant and true.

my Mally, inconstant Mallee !

214 THE DENHAJI TRACTS.

" I bought to my Mally, the riDbons of silk,
The ribbons I bought her was whiter than milk,
All that I bought her, it still winna do,
For she to another proved constant and true,

my Mally, inconstant Mallee ! "

This was sung to a simple and rather plaintive air, and was
known in the country district near Hexham. The air I know,
but it has possibly never been taken down.

Old Toast in North Northumberland.

Mr. W. told me that when a boy he had often heard about
Wooler, among country folks, the following toast, but the
memory of it had now died out :

" Health, "Wealth, Milk, and Meal,

May the Deil,

Rock him weel,

In a creel,
Who doesn't wish us a' weel."

Guisarding Rhymes.

Fragment of a Guisarding Rhyme in South Northumberland.

" silence, gentlemen, if you would silent be,
Alexander is my name, and I'll sing right cheerfully;
We are six actors young, who never acted before,
And we will do our best, and the best can do no more.
Oh the first that I call in, he is a squire's son,
He's like to lose his true love, because he is too young ;
The next that I call in, he is a tailor fine,
What think you of his work, when he made this coat cf mine. !

A coat of many colours ncd adornments.

MISCELLANEOUS. 215

Billy come thee way, with thy valiant spear,

For thou canst act thy part, as well as any here.

# * # *

As we are marching round, think of us what you will,
Fiddler strike up and play, the " Auld Wife of Covershill."

At Wooler, in North Northumberland, children begin guisard-
ing on Halloween night, and continue in going about in separate
bands, which call at most of the houses of the town, reciting
rhymes, of which I have obtained an example. One enters and
recites :

" Redd stocks (or sticks), redd stools,
Hero comes in a pack of fools ;
A pack of i'ools behind the door,
That was never here before."

Eggs versus Cheese.

A man at one time laid a wager that he would cat ever so
many eggs, " teens " at least, i.e. from thirteen to twenty;
every morning in the year ; but this diet proved too much for
him, and he died before the year was out. He was opened, and
a hard substance of the shape of a knife was extracted from his
stomach. His brother obtained possession of this, and having
got a blado put into it, used it as a knife. Some time after,
while labouring in the field, he had bread and cheese to dinner,
and ho laid the handle of his knife on tho cheese and found that
it was quite dissolved away. He then made a wager that he
would eat twice as many eggs as his brother bargained to do,
and on the same conditions. The offer was taken, and he went
on with tho daily meal of eggs, always eating a piece of cheese
after them, and no evil effects resulting, he won the wager.
The moral taught was, " Cheese digests everything but itself."

216 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

The Druid's Lapfu' and the Devil's Stone.

The standing stone at Yevering in G-lendale is a large column
of porphyry planted upright in a field at the northern base of the
hill called Yevering Bell. It is usually spoken of as indicating
a battle, but is in reality prehistoric, there being another, now
prostrate, among the old forts and tumuli on the eastern end of
the lower slope of tliat hill.* By the common people it is called
the " Druid's Lapfu'." A female Druid's apron string broke
there, and the stone dropped out and remained in its present
position. Another account is that one of the Druids, who are
represented like the Pechs or Picts to have had very long arms,
pitched it from the top of the Bell, and it sunk into the soil
where it fell.

The " Apron full of stones " was a large heap of stones near
Hedgley, removed in 1768 or 1769, supposed by the country
people to be the work of the devil. They were found to cover
the base and fragments of a cross, which is called in Armstrong's
map " Fair Cross. "f

The Bev. Gr. Eome Hall, P.S.A., in the Archceologia ^Eliana,
N. S., vol. viii. p. 68 (1879), notices a monolith, twelve feet
high, similar to the one still standing at Yevering, by the name
of the Devil's Stone or Eock. It stands in the neighbourhood
of two ancient British camps, not far from Birtley Holywell, in
North Tynedale. " Tradition asserts this to have been tlie
scene of a Satanic leap, the ' very hoof marks ' being yet visible
on its altar-like summit in the shape of what geologists would
call ' pot holes,' a leap intended to result in the demon's descent

* Both stones were standing in Horsley's time (1729-30).
Horsley's Northumberland, p. 12, and are noticed elsewhere,
f Mackenzie's Hist, of Northumberland.

MISCELLANEOUS. 217

at Lee Hall, on the opposite bank of the river, about half a mile
distant; but the interval not being carefully estimated, the con-
sequence was a fall into the deepest abyss of the North Tyne,
just below the Countess Park Chuts, thence called the ' Leap-
Orag Pool,' where the Satanic personage is said to have been
drowned ! " *

In a close near Barrasford, on the North Tyne, a cluster
of standing stones stood within memory, which have been
removed by agricultural operations. The last of them, of
basalt, blasted a few years since by gunpowder, yet lies in an
inclined position. Beneath the stone fragments of bones and
charcoal were found in digging, which would indicate an ancient
interment. " It is popularly believed that the series of stones
which once stood here were located on the spot, through a duel
between two ancient giants, who from their respective stations
on the heights east and west of the river hurled these Titanic
missiles at each other, which clashed and fell midway, a legend
closely resembling that of Brittany, which terms such great
stones the quoits or palets de Gargantuan f

Cavern Stories and Pipers' Coves.

The Hurlstono, a sandstone monolith, which stands in a
cultivated field on Chillingham Newton Farm, and is supposed
to have been an old boundary stone, has already been referred
to, as well as the legend attached to it. The Lite Mr. Tate, of
Alnwick, has written a version of it, but others that have
appeared more recently in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle
nowspapcr are possibly more exact representations of the

• It is also described by Mr. Hall, in Arch. ^Elian., N. S., vii.
pp. 10, 11.

t Rev. G. It. Hall, Arch. JElian., N. S., vii. p. 11.

218 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

popular belief. A. Scorer writes, " There is a cavern on
Bewick Moor called the ' Cater an' s Hole,' which has not been
fully explored, although tradition mentions an adventurer pro-
ceeding so far that he heard supernatural visitants dancing
round the Hurlstone." John Slobbs, London, says, " I suppose
this will be a version of a story I heard in the far north many
years ago. It was of a cavern, somewhere, and nobody knew
where it went to, or where it ended. An adventurous wight
made up his mind to solve the difficulty and win renown in his
own rustic circle. He therefore took seven years' meat and seven
years' candles, or seven days' meat and seven days' candles — I
cannot say which exactly, but either will do — and started on
his journey. And as happens in all such cases, he travelled
and travelled and travelled. And he travelled until he had
only one-half of his meat and one half of his candles left. Then
he began to consider that if he travelled much further, and did
not reach the end of his journey, or an opening to get out of
some way, he would neither have meat nor candles to serve him
on his road back, and consequently must die there and never
more be heard of. And it so happened that whilst he was
studying what to do, and quite at a loss to know whether to
return or proceed, he heard a voice saying — •

' Jee woali agyen
Turn back tlie stannin' styen.'

And he took it as a warning, and returned to his home and
kindred." This writer's impression was that the cavern he had
heard of was on Grcenside Hill, near Glanton. J. Swinhoe,
writing on the same subject, relates : "It was always believed
that there was a subterraneous passage clear all the way from
Cateran's Hole, on Bewiok Moor, to Hell's Hole (more fre-
quently oalled Hen's Hole),' a wild ravine at the foot of Cheviot
Hill, and that in the olden, troublous times of Border warfare

MISCELLANEOUS. 219

it was frequently used both for purposes of offence and defence,
for concealment of person and property, and as the means of
transporting rieving bands of hostile borderers from the one
locality to the other. An adventurer, our wight, made up his
mind to test the truth of its existence, and took provisions and
candles — whether for seven years or seven days, I cannot
exactly tell either — but he travelled on and on until the con-
sumption of half his stock suggested the necessity of returning ;
and just when he was wondering where he might be, and
what he should do, he plainly heard overhead the voice of a
ploughman, saying to his horses :

' Hup aboot and gee agyeen,
Roond aboot the Whii-lstycn.'"

He states that an acquaintance recently explored the cavern
on Bewick Moor, and it ended in something less than forty
yards ; in no simple obstruction, but solid rock.

There was a different tradition about the termini of this sup-
posed underground passage in Horsley's timo. He says that
" at Hebburn," which is near Chillingham, and by the
crags under which lie Hebburn Wood, behind which stretch
wastes of peaty moor, connected with the moorlands that
stretch to Bewick, " is a hole called Heytherrio Hole, which
people imagine to be an entrance into a subterraneous passage,
continued as far as Dunsdale on the west (north rather) side of
Cheviot Hill, where there is another hole of the same kind
called Dunsdale Hole." *

It is told of " Eelin's Hole," which lies far up among the
rocks on the east side of the Henhole llavine, that a piper
having once entered it to explore it, his music continued to be

* Materials for a History of Northumberland, p. 58.

220 THE DENHA.M TRACTS.

heard for half-way across the interval betwixt it and Oateran's
Hole, on Bewick Moor. Like other pipers in a similar predica-
ment, his tune terminated in —

" I doubt, I doubt I'll ne'er win out."

Such a legend we have attached to Windielaw Cove, near
Eedheugh, on the coast of Berwickshire ; and also to some of
the caverns near Montrose. Pudding Gyve, in the vicinity of
Thurso, is a hollow cove, worn into the solid rock by the cease-
less grinding of the sea. " There is an old tradition of a piper
who ventured ' too far ben,' and ultimately lost himself. Many
people, good people, heard him long, long after, playing his
pipes in a low, hollow sound, some four miles up the country "
(Robert Dick, in Smiles' Life of that worthy, p. 116). The
" Piper's Coe o' Cowend," in the parish of Colvend, in Gallo-
way, has also its musicians, but there is a different set of ideas
connected with it. (See Mactaggart's Gallovidian Encyclopedia,
p. 382.) There is a Piper's Hole on the banks of Peninnis, in
St. Mary's, Scilly, which communicates, as tradition saith, with
the island of Tresco, where another orifice known by the same
name is seen. Strange stories are related of this passage, of
men going so far in that they never returned — of dogs going
quite through and coming out at Tresco with most of their hair
off, and such like incredibles (Heath's Scilly Isles). Several
who have attempted to penetrate the Fugoe Hole at the Land's
End have escaped only by great luck — " by the skin of their
teeth," as the saying is. (Hunt's Popular Romances of the
West of England, p. 185.)

Remedies for HYDRornoniA.

To cure the bite of a mad dog in South Tynedale, it was
usual to send to " Lockerly," on the borders of Scotland, for the

MISCELLANEOUS. 221

water of some well into which something flying over it had
dropt a stone which had communicated curative virtue to the
spring. One day, at the place where my informant dwelt, a
suspicious-looking dog, which was going " allyin " * about in a
field, was induced to come to the stable and was tied up ; but
the mad fit took it, and it broke loose and bit a weaver's dog
and many cattle. A man was forthwith dispatched for Lockerly
water ; and when it was brought every animal on the place had
to taste a little, and the result was that no evil effects ensued
from the bites.

Another person had heard of great numbers of cattle, in the
county of Durham, being affected with hydrophobia, and a mes-
senger was sent to the borders of Cumberland for a stone, which
being placed among water to be given them to drink would
havo the effect of curing them ; but unfortunately the remedy
in this particular case failed. The Gateshead Observer news-
paper, of date March 23rd, 1844, under tho heading of " Mad
Dogs," stated that during the preceding three months the
neighbourhood of Kirkwhelpington and Birtley, in Northum-
berland, had been much alarmed by visits of dogs in a rabid
state, no less than seven having been killed. " We may add
that the ' spirit of the age' has not yet banished the popular
belief in tho virtues of LockerJee water ; a large supply having
been procured by voluntary subscription. The worming of
dogs has likewise been extensively performed." The "Lockerby
water " (Dumfriesshire) appears to havo been intended, for
which see Mr. Henderson's Folklore of the Northern Counties,
p. 1G3; the confusion in the name arising from the similar
qualities of the far-famed Lockhart of Lee Penny.

• To movo or run from side to side. In North Northumberland
tlic word is sail gin' , signifying sauntering, getting on slowly with
Hui'k ; iiImi alli/in, wasting time.

222 THE DUNHAM TRACTS.

I am enabled, from former personal acquaintance with a rela-
tive of the late Mr. Turnbull, to whom the Hume-byres Penny
belonged, to give some additional particulars of its history to
those contained in Mr. Henderson's work, ubi supra. It was
called the Black Penny, possibly in contradistinction to a silver or
white penny. It was left to Mr. T. by an aunt as an heirloom.
The following was said to be its origin. A cow, or as others say
all the cattle, was bitten at a place by a mad dog, and a con-
sultation was held whether she should be slaughtered or undergo
a course of medicine. Perplexity was removed by a crow in
the hour of extremity fetching the penny in its mouth and
dabbling it amongst water to show how it was to be rendered
efficacious. Mr. T. lent it to a person near Morpeth, and having
lost faith in its virtues, never took the trouble of recalling it.
Mr. T.'s nephew, who as well as him has now been dead for
many years, wrote me thus on the subject, 25th April, 1843 :
" The magical penny which Mr. Turnbull had was not quite so
large as a common penny, but thicker. It had a kind of raised
rim or border, and seemed to be composed of copper and zinc.
It had been in the family for a hundred years at least. The
family lived at Hadden, near Sprouston, when they got it. It
had been several times given out, and once a purse containing
gold, but to what amount was not known, was left as a deposit
for its safe return. In Northumberland and Yorkshire much
credit was given to its powers. Mr. T. has a letter of thanks,
but I have not yet prevailed on him to search for it. Upon one
occasion a Yorkshireman came to Hume-byres on his master's
account for the penny ; and fearing that Mr. T. might not part
Math it, ho was provided with barrels to carry the healing water ;
but, unfortunately for him, the penny was not at Hume-byrcs,
but at Northbank, near Linlithgow ; however, he extended his
ride and procured it. T think it was his master who returned a
letter of thanks. The last person who got it away, fifteen" years

MISCELLANEOUS. 223

ago, wrote to Mr. T. saying he had returned it by post ; but that
is doubted. His address is as follows : Mr. Thomas Millburn,
Parish of Bothal, Bothal, Ogle, North Seaton. The gentleman
for whose cattle it was got was John Saddler, Esq., Tritling-
ton." [In Mackenzie's Hist, of Northumberland, ii. pp. 149,
150, it is said: " Tritlington, Hebron Chapelry, Morpeth, is
situated about If miles north-east of Hebron, and one mile east
from the great post road. Here is an old hall," &c. " Near to
this old hall a neat mansion house was lately erected by Mr.
John Sadler, who from a humble beginning has, by his agricul-
tural knowledge and exemplary industry, risen to opulence, and
acquired a valuable estate here."] " When I was inquiring
about it, there was a cattle-dealer at Hume-byres who was about
a fortnight since making the same inquiry at Morpeth and
Wooler. He found the circumstances of the penny belonging
to Mr. Turnbull having been in that neighbourhood fresh in the
memory of some of the inhabitants."

The belief in the "mad-stone" extends to America. In
Hardwicke's Science Gossip for September, 1871, vol. vii.
p. 213, there is a quotation from a New York paper to this
offect: " Five children, three white and two black, were bitten
by a mad dog in Pulaski, Tenn., one day last week. Mad-
stones were applied promptly to the white children, it is said,
with the desired effect, all of them being now well and safe,
while the negro children, to whom the mad-stone was not
applied, have gone mad. The account says there were several
mad-stones in the neighbourhood." In the same work, for
January, 1872, vol. viii. p. 20, Dr. Josiah Curtis, Knoxvillo,
Tennessee, writes that there is a popular belief in America that
certain stones possess the power of averting hydrophobia from
persons bitten by rabid dogs, and it is quite widespread.
" It mostly prevails among the unlearned and superstitious, but
is not (.'unfilled In such. A very respectable lady in Riehinund,

224 THE DENUAM TRACTS.

Va., has one of these so-called mad-stones, in which she has
implicit faith, and I have known a reputable physician in
Illinois who fully believed in their efficacy. There are no
special localities where these stones are found, nor is there any-
thing very peculiar in their appearance."

Mr. George Henderson, in his Popular Rhymes of Berwick-
shire, p. 23, mentions a very recent instance of a healing stone,
that might have become famous had the popular belief in such
cures not been superseded by the skilled veterinary. " There
is," he says, "or was, a locality near Ayton called the Corbie-
hough, because of the number of corbies (ravens or carrion-
crows) that were wont to breed there in former times. Our
great-grandfather lived in Ayton about 1730, and he got into
his possession an article of glamourie which he took out of a
corbie's nest, in the "Corbie-heugh, which is said to have
wrought many miraculous cures both on man and beast. It
is only a few years since this talisman, which was a small
triangular piece of glass or transparent stone, was in our
keeping, but it is now lost." In a letter of date October 1 1 ,
1861, Mr. Henderson writes": " The corbie's stone was about
the size of a pigeon's egg, and of that thickness, but more
elongated. It was of a whitish colour — not so white as our
common chucky stones (quartz), and almost opaque. It was
said to have cured the Laird of Kimmerghame's cattle of some
pestilential disease, by being laid in the pond out of which they
drank." The corbie may have mistaken the stone for an egg,
and carried it off. From its thickness it could not have been
an elf-arrow head, which was in Ireland, sometimes " boiled
with some reep halfpence in drink for the suffering creature." *

* Dr. W. R. Wilde, North. Brit. Agriculturist, October 23, 1861,
p. 1038.

MISCELLANEOUS. 225

Stewart Hall, in the parish of Kothesay, Isle of Bute, for-
merly the seat of the Stewarts of Kilwhineloch, was once " the
repository of certain blessed stones considered invaluable in
curing man and beast, under ' the blink o' an ill e'e.' " In
like manner " the milk of cows, which witches took away,
returned freely as ever, when they got a certain drink in which
those stones had been boiled." * More might be said about
curing stones.

* Wilson's Guide to Rothesay and the Isle of Bute, p. 67.

VOL. II.

XX.

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE.

On Covin, Coban, or Capon Trees.

Dr. Jamieson, in his Scottish Dictionary, says, that in Kox-
burghshire, the cooin-tree signifies " a large tree in front of an
old Scottish mansion-house, where the laird always met his
visitors." A corruption of it is supposed to be " coglan-tree."
He derives it from the French convent, convention or agree-
ment ; which, again, is from the Latin conventum, a covenant,
or conventus, an assembly. Covent, Anglo-Norman, is a cove-
nant or agreement in " Morte Arthure." The witches of
Auldearn met in covines, and the prettiest of them was called
the Maiden of the Covine. The covin-tree is thus a variety of
the trysting-tree, whose name and functions as the place of
summons in the old " Riding " era, as the spot where rural
lovers met and plighted troth, or where the exchangers of
services and commodities held and still hold their convention,
are indelibly impressed upon northern language and literature.
Sir Walter Scott, in a note to his Letters on Demonology and
Witchcraft, p. 277, holds the same view as Dr. Jamieson.
" The tree near the front of an antient castle was called the
covine-tree, probably because the lord received his company
there."

" He is lord of the hunting-horn,

And king of the Covine-tree ;
He's well lov'd in the western waters,

But best of his ain Minnie."

"When on a visit to Alnwick in summer, 1861, I found it to

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 227

be well understood that a tree, called there a coban or covan
tree, once stood before every castle (within a bowshot of
Alnwick Castle for instance), and it was there the lord met his
guests. And there used to be, and still is, a rhyme having
reference to it, sung by young girls, while playing at " keppy
ball," against a tree. From the time they can keep up the
ball, they also divine their future prospects as to matrimony or
spinster life.

" Keppy ball, keppy ball, Coban-tree,
Come down the lang loanin' and tell to me,
The form and the features, the speech and degree,
Of the man that is my true lover to be.

" Keppy ball, keppy ball, Coban-tree,
Come down the lang loanin' and tell to me,
How many years old (name) is to be —

One a maiden, two a wife,

Three a maiden, four a wife," &c.

And so on, the odds for the single, the even numbers for the
married state, as long as the ball can be kept rebounding
against the tree round which they play. The Scottish covin
and the Northumbrian coban trees are thus identical.

But there is another class of trees, that has puzzled both
antiquarians and county historians, that ought, I think, to be
coupled with these. These are the capon-trees ; for v, b, and
p, are letters mutually interchangeable in European languages.
One of these capon-trees, a venerable oak, in a very decayed
state, stands by the highway near to Brampton, Cumberland,
and fulfilled, it is to be remarked, the office of a tree of meeting.
" It obtained its name from the judges being formerly met here
by javelin men, well armed and mounted, from Carlisle, who, in
addition to the armour on their backs, were further loaded with
a goodly number of cold capons ; and here, under the spreading
branches of this once stately tree, did the learned judges and
their body-guard partake of this food," (Denham's Curnber-

Q 2

228 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

land Rhymes and Proverbs, p. 11.) Tradition makes amusing
mistakes in the etymology of local names. The only other,
and by far the most famous capon-tree that I know of, stands
on the property of the Marquis of Lothian, near Jedburgh.
Mr. Oliver, of Longraw, in a letter of 3rd April, 1855, states :
" It has its name, tradition says, from its having been the roost-
ing-place of the capons belonging to the monks of Jedburgh
Abbey. From the shape of the tree, I think the word capen
is literally coped, topped. It has a short stem, and a wide-
spreading umbrageous top or cope." But this is the character-
istic of many other trees besides the capon-tree. Another
Roxburghshire friend suggests the "kepping,"or trysting-tree ;
but this is not likely, when there is a term in the language
appropriate to trysting-trees with a special function such as
this may have once possessed. Two other derivations have
been proposed by Mr. Jeffrey. In vol. i. p. 48 of his History
and Antiquities of Roxburghshire he thus mentions it : " The
banks of the river Jed, as it winds round Prior's haugh, are
dotted with fine old wood, and at the foot of the haugh, on the
south margin, stands a large oak, called the capon-tree. It is
thought that the tree derives its name from the Capuchin friars,
who delighted to wander amid such lovely scenes, and linger
beneath the shade of the wide-spreading oaks. The haugh on
which the tree stands belonged to the monastery, and was
named after the prior. The tree measures twenty-one feet
above the roots ; about ten feet up it divides itself into two
branches, which measure respectively eleven feet and a half,
and fourteen feet. It is between seventy and eighty feet high,
and covers fully an area of ninety-two feet." J. Grigor, in
Morton's Cyclopwdia of Agriculture, vol. ii. p. 477, says :
" The circumference of its trunk two feet from the ground is
twenty-six feet. The height of the tree is fifty-six feet, and the
space occupied by the spread of its boughs is nearly a hundred
feet in diameter." Mr. Jeffrey, in his second volume, p. 260,

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 229

corrects himself as to the origin of the name. " I am now
satisfied that the tree derives its name from its remarkable
resemblance to the hood worn by monks of Jedburgh, and
which was called a capon." Calling pictorial representation to
his aid, his artist figures the capon-tree, with two monks in
hoods, wielding sheep-crooks, conferring under the tree, if the
accompaniments are not allegorical, about the points of fat
beeves, and the prices of wool and mutton — an occupation
more correspondent to their historical character than any-
romantic predilection, like the Lady Grace of Sir John Van-
brugh, for a cool retreat from the noon-day's sultry heat under
a great tree. In what language capon signifies a friar's cowl,
Mr. J. does not inform his readers. Capuchon, capuce, or
capuche (Latin caputium) are the customary terms ; but
neither they nor their derivative, Capuchin, resemble capon.
Relying then on analogy, we continue in the opinion, that the
capon-tree was the covin-tree of the Prior of Jedburgh, who,
like other heads of religious houses, had the rank and attributes
of nobility.

A poetical address to the capon-tree, which was contributed
to Hogg's Instructor (2nd Series), ii. p. 8, by William Oliver,
Esq., of Longraw, embodies the striking vicissitudes of which
during the troublous ages of past history this aged tree may
have stood a silent witness : —

" To the Capon-tree.

" Old Capon-tree, old Capon-tree,

Thou standest telling of the past,
Of Jedworth's forest wild and free

Thou art alone, forsaken, last.
Thou witness of dark ages gone,

Ere time doth lay his scythe to thee,
I fain would know what thou hast known,

Thou sere and time-worn Capou-tree.

230 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

"Jed ' wander'd at its own sweet will,'

When thy green spring-time first began ;
The wolf's lone howl the glades would fill,

As through their moonlit depths he ran.
The antler'd deer with ears alert,

Would listen to his deadly foe,
Then hound away, with panting heart,

O'er ridge of oak, through brake of sloe.

: Say, did'st thou flourish when those bands,

The Eternal City's legion'd ones,
Did strike their prows 'gainst Albyn's sands,

To combat with her savage sons ?
And did the breeze, as passing by,

It whisper'd through the spreading boughs,
Bear on the Eoman battle-cry,

And answering shriek of painted foes ?

: And did the startled deer upspring

From thy wide top's far-spreading shade ?
And did the wild bull's bellow ring

Through forest, scaur, and tangled glade,
As that unwonted battle-cry

The breeze through Jedworth's forest bore ?
Now forest, Roman, all gone by ;

Eome's tongue — a memory — no more I

The hoary Druid bless'd thy shade,

And held thee sacred, mystic tree ;
What were the gods to whom he pray'd ?

What sort of faith had he in thee ?
Hast thou e'er seen the sacred knife —

The breast of human victim bared ?
Or, when the blood ebb'd with his life,

His agonized shrieking heard ?

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 231

" Old 'Capon -tree, thou must have seen

That, of all creatures on this earth,
Man to his kind has falsest been

And cruelest ; yet there is mirth,
And joy, and love, and goodness much ;

Oh ! would that in a world so fair,
The beautiful man's heart might touch —

That crime-bom sorrow were more rare !

" Rough savage hordes, with stealthy stride,

Have wander'd 'mid thy brethren hoar ;
And many a host, in warlike pride,

Has pass'd thee in the days of yore.
And holy monk and castellane,

And knight and baron debonair,
Have mingled in the glancing train,

With courtly prince and lady fair.

" Ah ! did'st thou see that hapless queen,

The fair, the wrong'd, not blameless Mary !
She wander'd sure, 'mong paths so sheen,

When at fair Jedworth she would tarry ;
And did the fays among thy boughs

Not pine to see their charms surpass'd ?
Ah ! sunk beneath most cruel woes.

Unenvied was her fate at last !

" 'Twas in yon glen * that Richmond's knight

Was caught by Douglas in the toil ;
In vain were numbers, valour, might —

The well-plann'd ambush all could foil ;
Entrapp'd and conquer'd all, or slain,

It was the Southron's fate to yield,
And Douglas from his king did gain

Another blazon to his shield.

This glen is about a quarter of a mile from the capon-tree.

232 THE DENHA.M TRACTS.

" Old Ferniherst,* whose battled keep

Still towers embosom'd in the woods,
Where, now, all warlike echoes sleep,

Has rung to sounds of Border fends ;
The English, Scotch, and Frenchman'sf shout,

The clang of arms, the victim's wail,
The din of onslaught, siege, and rout,

Have sped along thy native vale.

" With thee, old tree, I live again,

To wander through Jed's forest wide,
To see the mail-clad warrior train

Upon some Border foray ride ;
To hear the clang of hound and horn,

See falcon's stoop, and heron's wile ;
Hear matin-chime, at grey-eyed morn,

From fair St. Mary'sJ hallow'd pile.

" Sweet Jedworth 1 nestling in the vale,

Surrounded by the forest lone,
Thy beauties grac'd the minstrel's tale,

And oft to princely guests were known :
No princes now with thee remain,

Thy ancient woods are wede away ;
The winds sweep through thy ruin'd fane,

And monks and abbots where are they ?

" I love not the unsparing hate

That would all ancient things reject ;
Nothing that e'er has been held great,

Or good, or true, deserves neglect ;
And though we many errors find,

These errors, once, were view'd as sooth,-^
Were labours of the human mind

Struggling, as mind is yet, for truth.

* Ferniherst Castle stands half a mile from the tree,
t A.D. 1549. J Jedburgh Abbey.

BOEDER SKETCHES AND EOLKLOKE. 233

" The human ocean-stream rolls on,

With hidden depths, and ceaseless tide ;
A single wave, now ages gone,

Will never, in effect, subside ;
But still, though all unmark'd by man,

Will modify the heaving whole :
Some acted thought, through all life's span,

Shall tincture ev'ry living soul.

" And now, old Capon-tree, farewell !

There is an awe bred by the thought
That'thou, with silent tongue, dost tell

Of swarming millions grave-ward brought —
Fallen as thou hast shed thy leaves !

That glory, honour, gladness, shame —
That ev'ry passion which still heaves

The breast, was and will be the same "

" Our Capon-tree," says Mr. Hilson, in his Guide to the
Scenery and Antiquities of Jedburgh, " is one of the noblest
objects in Jed Water. It stands on a little meadow terminating
at the third bridge. It is told of John Foster, the celebrated
essayist, that he had a peculiar respect for old trees, and with a
pleasantry scarcely his own, designated them ' fine old fellows.'
There are few who have not shared in the feelings of reverence
for the more ancient members of the forest race. While other
objects around them recall the passing away of time, they,
in a striking degree, suggest the train of pensive reflec-
tion. The dismantled castle may present the memorial
of olden times, telling the tale of mutation and change ;
but a venerable tree has a moral which the dead and inert
remains of lifeless strength do not suggest. In the budding,
and blossoming, and decline, and in the removal of growth,
there is something akin to that human life, with whose progress
it may have kept company through long generations of history.

234 THE DENflAM TBaCTB.

There is something inspiring to the mind in the sight of the
monarch of the wood — the oak of a thousand years, casting its
arms aloft, and wooing the influence of light and air with the
eagerness of the tender sapling. Its castle-like strength of
trunk, its massy boughs and doddered angles, its freaks of
growth, its bourgeoning world of leaf and branch, spreading far
away from the central trunk — the strong but graceful balance of
the whole — when seen, as in the Capon-tree, form as noble an
object as Nature's out-of-door world presents."

Alnwick Mercury, July 1, 1862.

Whittingham Vale.

" Now I gain the mountain's brow,
What a landscape lies below." — Dyer.

Many of our Northumbrian hills, vales, and villages present
pleasing pictures of rural life, calculated to inspire our hearts
with love for our native land. They are filled with the elements
of poetry ; for not only are the external features beautiful, but
they are also the scenes of historic events and old-world legends
which people them, as it were, with the busy life of other
generations. Englishmen travel into distant lands in search of
the wonderful and picturesque, and often leave unvisited richer
scenes near to their own homes. Let them wander through the
vale of Whittingham, and then say where they will find more
charming views and more interesting associations.

Whittingham is but a small village on the banks of the Aln,
which is here a tiny brook ; yet it stands in the midst of
memorials of other times ; in the fortlets on the adjoining hills,
and in the old weapons found near them, we see footprints of
the ancient British people ; the Roman has left his wonderful
roads, the Saxon his church, and the Norman his pele tower.

From Simeon, who wrote his history of the church of Durham

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLOEE. 235

in the twelfth century, we learn that Hwittingham was in
existence in a.d. 737 and belonged to Ceolwulph king of
Northumberland. The name is Saxon, derived from Hwiting,
a personal name, and the common termination ham, a town
or village, being the town or village of Hwiting. During
this troubled period, when England was divided into seve-
ral distinct kingdoms constantly at war with each other, the
seeming peacefulness and security of the cloister tempted
many to devote themselves to a religious life, and take
refuge in monasteries. According to the Venerable Bede,
nobles as well as private persons left the study of martial dis-
cipline and became monks. Ceolwulph, a listless and inactive
king, was smitten with the prevailing mania, and after reigning
eight years, he resigned his crown to his nephew, Eadbert, and
entered as a monk the monastery of Lindisfarne ; he enriched
it by his beneficence ; milk and water had previously been the
beverage of the monks, but to gladden their hearts he introduced
wine ; he brought with him kingly treasures and lands and
bestowed upon it the villages of Bregesne (Brainshaugh, near
Warkworth) and Wercewede (Warkworth), with all their
appendages and with the churches which he had built there ;
and besides these, four other villages, Wudcestre, Hwitingham
(Whittingham), Eadulfiugham (Edlingham), and Eagwlfingham
(Eglingham). Truly royal gifts to a church. No mention is
here made of a church at Whittingham, but there can be little
doubt that one was built there about this period, or not long
afterwards, for the present church still retains distinctive work
of Saxon times. Twenty-two years ago such early remains
were more extensive ; but unfortunately much of the old Saxon
work was destroyed in 1840, when the church was repaired and
altered.

Undoubted Saxon remains are few in North Northumberland ;
not even the foundations of dwelling houses, towers, or castles

236 THE DENHAM TBACTS.

can be traced. Constructed for the most part of wood and clay,
the houses were frail and perishable; but the contempt and
hostility felt by the proud Normans towards the conquered
Saxons led to the destruction of many monuments of Saxon art ;
while the fell swoop of the ruthless conqueror, when he wasted
and destroyed Northumberland by fire and sword, would reduce
all to ruin. Our Saxon relics are all ecclesiastical. Part of
the shaft of a Saxon cross supports the font in Rothbury Church;
other fragments of Saxon crosses are at Warkworth and Lindis-
farne ; and several sculptured stones, remains of the Norham
Saxon church, are built up into a pillar in Norham churchyard.
But the most interesting relic of the period was taken from
Alnmouth Church, and is now preserved in Alnwick Castle
Museum ; it is a sculptured cross, with an inscription partly in
rude Roman letters and partly in Runic characters. Formerly
many of the works of Norman builders were attributed to the
Saxons — Alnwick Castle was Saxon, Lindisfarne Priory and
other churches with circular arches were represented to be
Saxon ; but all such are now known to belong to a later period.
And here we may indicate the characters of the Saxon style as
seen in churches. It was founded on the Roman type, but of a
rude kind, like the imitations made of the works of a civilised
people by a race little advanced in art. The masonry of the
walls was a rough irregular rubble, or rag, formed indiscrimi-
nately of large and small stones and united with a coarse
cement ; this rubble was sometimes set, as in Sompting Church,
in a framework of narrow vertical strips of stone, extending
through the thickness of the wall, and projecting a little beyond
it, representing as it were the wooden framework used in con-
structing the frailer ordinary dwelling houses. At the corners
of the towers there was a peculiar quoining, called long and
short work, which consisted of a long stone set upright at the
corner, and a short one laid on it and bonding one way or both

BORDEK SKETCHES AND FOLKLOKE. 237

into the wall. Arches, when large, were semicircular, and
rested on a rude impost ; and mouldings were flat and simple ;
the windows were small, usually with semicircular and some-
times with triangular headings ; but those in the belfry
were highly characteristic, for the small windows were
double, being divided by a rude balustre set back a little
from the front. All these peculiarities are not to be seen
in any one building now remaining ; and it is only some of
them that appeared in Whittingham Church. Rickman gives a
brief account of this church, and a drawing of the tower, as they
existed before modern alterations had marred their peculiar and
interesting features. At that period, the west end of the aisles
and one arch on the north appeared of the same early Saxon
style of architecture ; the corners of the tower and the
exterior angles of the aisle wall had "the long and short
work ; " in the upper stage of the tower there was a double
window, the division being made by a rude balustre, and in the
lower stage there was another original window with an heading
formed by two inclined stones ; and a very plain arch with a
large rude impost and a plain square pier remained in the nave.
But of these peculiar features there only remain the lower part
of the tower, which still shows externally the characteristic
Saxon long and short work, and internally portions of a rude
double circular arch in the eastern wall. Notwithstanding the
storms of eleven centuries have broken over this old tower, the
rubble masonry and quoins built of the gritty sandstone of the
district are but little decayed ; and now, when there is a greater
respect felt for old memorials, may we not hope that, as time
has dealt kindly with this tower, man may hereafter lay no
ruthless hand on what is left. There is no such old relic in
North Northumberland ; it is an architectural type adopted by
our early forefathers — an unwritten historical record — and we
ought not to be deprived of its teachings and associations.

238 THE DEWHAM TRACTS.

Leaving the church, we turn aside and meet with a memorial
of another period in a strong Border pele, with a vaulted under
story, and with walls eight feet in thickness. An original
entrance, and a window on the east, evidence that it is an
Edwardian structure of the fourteenth century. In a Survey
made by Sir Robert Bowes and Sir Raufe Ellerker, in December,
1542, two towers were then in a good state. " At Whyttingam,"
say they, " bene two towers whereof one ys the mansion of the
vycaridge and the other of the Inheritance of Eb't Colling-
wood Esquier both in measurable good repar'ons."

These massive square fortresses, now picturesque objects in a
peaceful country, recall the period when life and property were
insecure from Scottish marauders who lived by plunder. In
1460 there were thirty-seven castles and seven or eight of these
pele towers in Northumberland. Without such protection men
could not live in the district ; and indeed one extensive lordship,
the Kidland, was entirely untenanted because there was no
tower for its protection. This state of insecurity continued
down even to a comparatively late period. Lord Wharton
reported on 20th March, 1556, that " the Liddledayle horsemen
in the nighte burnte a house a young woman and 16 noute in
the same ; and hurt the owner and two other." " The 16th I
began," continues he, " the Wardaine court at Alnewik Castle,
whear was arraigned James Crosser, Ed. Cross, Robert Graye,
Skotts, and Andrewe Noble, Englise rebbele, who confessed
their offenses openly. Ed. Cross, Grey, and Noble suffered,
and Noble's head was set upon a tower's gait at the towne of
Alnewik." " A Book of the losses of the middle marches by
the Scotts Theuves, presented at Alnwick on ] 6 April, 1586,
gives the names of 37 townes and villages that have been most
spoiled in this tyme of peace ; and all or the most parte of them
ar within 6 miles of Sir John Forster's dwelling-house and
within his office." Then follows a large number of complaints

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 239

with a special account of the losses sustained. The following is
an example — " goods taken out of the Lordship of Bewick by
the Scotts — est Lilborne, 16 horse and mares, 42 kyne and
oxen, 17 score sheep and 20 marks worth of insight (household
goods). New Bewick 30 oxen and kyne, 13 score of sheepe,
and insight worth 20 marks." A darker picture is drawn of
the period by Sir William Bowes in a letter to Sir B. Cecill,
January, 1596. " The distrested people are in despair and the
country miserable from the horrible murders and incorrigible
pride and disobedience of the ravenous malefactors. Touching
murders, I cannot yet come by the certane number, but the
number is great, the manner horrible ; killing men in their
beds. I take it that Buckbage will be found guiltye of murthers
above 20 ; Sir Robert Oarr 16. The Bournes and Younge, in
revenge of their feede (feud) for one of their name chaunceably
slayne in England by Sir Cuthbert Collingwood, his man
rescuing from him a poore man's goodes, have murdered 35
Collingwoods." The value of the spoyles committed by the
Scots in 1587 was estimated at £92,969 6s. 7d. — a great sum in
those days.

A remarkable order was made in 1561 for fortifying the
Borders — little closes or crofts were to be enclosed of lands next
adjoining every town or village, none to be more than two acres
or less than half an acre, so that the towns might be strengthened,
free passage prevented, except by narrow ways, hedges and
ditches, where a few men may resist and annoy many — the ways
between enclosures were to be narrow and crooked, that an enemy
or a thief may be met at corners and annoyed by the bow ; these
ways were to be made by tenants, farmers, and owners, well
ditched with a ditch 4 feet deep and 6 feet broad, with a double
set of quicks and some ashes. The great remedy, however, in
these dismal times was hanging, and many of the Can's, Youngs,
Bournes, Armstrongs, and Elliotts endured this penalty for

240 THE DENHAM TEACT8.

their lawlessness. The union of the two kingdoms under one
monarchy brought this period of rapine and bloodshed to a
close ; and when we look back upon these horrors we may feel
thankful for the freedom and security now enjoyed in the Border
lands.

The ownership of Whittingham in the middle ages was often
changed. In John's reign it was held along with Thrunton,
Kyle, and Barton, by Michael, the son of Michael ; in Edward
I/s reign, Kobert of Glanton held three parts of it with the half of
Glanton; and in the same reign the family of Flamvill had
possession of it, one half being held in capite from the king by
service of a sparrow-hawk yearly, and the other half on a tenure
peculiar to the ancient kingdom of Northumberland, called
dr engage, the lowest tenure giving a permanent claim to land,
but placing the holder only as a half freeman between the free
tenant and villain, for he was obliged to render servile duties in
ploughing, harrowing, and sowing his lord's lands. The term is
from the Anglo-Saxon dreogan, to work ; and it is still pre-
served in the word drudge, applied to a person who performs
the lowest kinds of labour. After passing through various
changes, the property was in the seventeenth century held by
the Border family of Collingwoods ; but George Collingwood,
having joined the cause of the Stuarts in 1715, he was executed
at Liverpool, and his estates were forfeited to the Crown, from
whom they were purchased by Liddell of Eavensworth ; and
they are now held by his descendant, the present Lord Ravens-
worth.

Leaving the village, we pass through the great Thrunton
Wood, which has an area of 1,500 acres, on to the Thrunton
Crags, crossing in our route the branch Roman road, which
joined the Devil's Causeway a little eastward of Whittingham,
and which passing along the base of the Crags, and away by
Holystone, extended to Watling Street) thus connecting the two

BOEDER SKKTCHES AND FOLKLOEE. 241

great roads which, during the Roman occupation, traversed the
county.

The crags are sandstone, and in some parts rise as cliffs to the
height of one and two hundred feet. There are great rents in
these rocks and tumbled-down masses, which here and there
form caverns. One of these is Weddei-burn's Cave, another
bears the name of the Priest's Cave. In times of disturbance
and insecurity, when the borders, especially, were subject to
plundering and slaughter, such caverns may have been used as
hiding places, and have taken their name from the persons
who found refuge in them. Some persecuted minister of
religion may have found temporary safety in the Priest's
Cave, and possibly a freebooting Wedderburn may have
escaped death by concealment in the dark recess which bears
his name.

The ascent through the wood to the top of the crags is very
steep, but the toil is rewarded by the magnificent view enjoyed
over the Whittingham vale. Resting on the summit for a while,
we scan over the varied and beautiful features of the scene, and
trace the boundary of the geological formations which have
impressed their character on the district. The fine conical forms
of the porphyritic hills, belonging to the Cheviot range, are seen
rolling into each other at the head of the valley. A mass of this
rock protrudes like a promontory as far eastward as the Rylcs,
and northward in a deep bay we have old red sandstone con-
glomerate ; some patches of the Tuedian or lower carboniferous
group are in the lower grounds at Garmitage and Crawley Dene.
From beneath the sandstone hill on which we rest, there comes
out one of the lowest limestones of the mountain limestone
group, and in one of the shales, interstratified with it, we found
a species of Modiola. The thick beds of sandstone forming the
great crags of Thrunton belong to the same formation, and arc
a continuation of the ridge which, after bounding the valley of

VOL. II. F

242 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

the Till and Breamish at Doddington, Eos Castle, and Bewick,
sweeps round by Beanley and Alnwick Moor to Thrunton, and
thence in a southerly direction over the bleak upland moors of
Northumberland. The broad vale which lies beneath is highly
cultivated, adorned with woods, and studded over with halls,
villages, and hamlets, forming indeed one of the most beautiful
and diversified scenes in Northumberland.

On the Thrunton Crags, the falcons some time ago built
their nests and brought forth their young : but they have
been driven from their home by the incessant persecutions
of gamekeepers, who ruthlessly shot them as "vermin."
Any nobleman might be proud of having such tenants
of his rocks, and surely the few rabbits or partridges
which might be taken for food should not be grudged, in
order that this noble bird may not altogether disappear from
our district.

Callaley Castle Hill is a detached rugged sandstone hill of the
same range, somewhat conical in form and densely shrouded
with wood. The summit, which is an irregular and broken
plain of about two acres, is the site of an old camp, which like
most of our early fortlets is rounded in form, but modified to
suit the outline of the ground. The rampiers and ditches are in
some parts very distinct, and the height from the bottom of the
ditch to the top of the rampier is, on the west side, twenty feet.
On the north side the escarpment of the hill is very steep, and
there is but one rampier ; but there are two on the other sides,
and there is a third at a distance of about one hundred yards
down the hill on the west side, whence an attack could most
easily be made. The ditch in some parts is cut deeply into the
sandstone rock. Two entrances are traceable nearly opposite to
each other, that on the W.S.W. side crosses the deep ditch by
means of a causeway. This fortlet is remarkable, not only for
its strong position and the skilful construction of its entrench-

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 243

ments, but also for the peculiarity of its inner rampier, which
in some parts is formed of stones roughly squared, built up, and
even bedded with lime ; and in this it differs from most fortlets
attributable to the ancient British people, for their rampiers are
usually made of undressed stones and earth. Probably this,
originally a Celtic camp, was afterwards occupied by another
people, who reconstructed with more art the inner wall. The
Komans may for a time have occupied it, for one of the Roman
roads passes at a short distance.

Callaley House stands at the base of the hill on low ground on
the site of an ancient pele tower ; and it is the subject of a
curious Northumbrian legend, which very probably had its
origin in the apparent remains of extensive buildings on the
Castle Hill.

The legend is briefly told thus: —

A lord of Callaley in the days of yore commenced erecting a
castle on this hill ; his lady preferred a low sheltered situation in
the vale. She remonstrated ; but her lord was wilful, and the
building continued to progress. What she could not attain by
persuasion she sought to achieve by stratagem, and availed
herself of the superstitious opinions and feelings of the age.
One of her servants who was devoted to her interests entered
into her scheme; he was dressed up like a boar, and nightly
he ascended the hill and pulled down all that had been built
during the day. It was soon whispered that the spiritual powers
wero opposed to the erection of a castle on the hill ; the lord
himself became alarmed, and he sent some of his retainers to
watch the building during the night, and discover the cause
of the destruction. Under the influence of the superstitions
of the times, these retainers magnified appearances, and when
the boar issued from the wood and commenced overthrow-
ing the work of the day, they beheld a monstrous animal of
enormous power. Their terror was complete when the boar,

i; 2

244 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

standing among the overturned stones, cried out in a loud
voice —

" Callaly Castle built on the height,
Up in the day and down in the night ;
Builded down in the Shepherd's Shaw,
It shall stand for aye and never fa'.

They immediately fled and informed the lord of the supernatural
visitation ; and regarding the rhymes as an expression of the
will of heaven, he abandoned the work, and in accordance with
the wish of his lady built his castle low down in the vale, where
the modern mansion now stands. — George Tate, F. Gr. S., in
Alnwick Mercury, August 1, 1862.

Traditions of Meg of Meldon.

Old Man. " And hast thou never, in the twilight, fancied
Familiar object, some strange shape
And form uncouth ? "

Thalaba. "Aye! many a time." Southey.

Seldom has the county historian stooped from his curt and
often dry collocation of dates and facts long since forgotten to
notice what his reader would more thankfully appreciate, the
alleged spiritual occupants that rendered many a spot much
more memorable than he, with all his piled-up researches, can
ever hope for. More learned and more elaborate than most of
those, who have engaged in such laborious works, the last and
best historian of Northumberland, the Rev. John Hodgson, of
Hartburn, never overlooked those romances of uncultivated

BOEDEE SKETCHES AND FOLKLOBE. 245

minds ; but was careful to enshrine them amidst the data of
charter chests and public records, where they reward the reader,
like a dash of verdure amidst rocks hoary with the hues of time.
Had he not told us, we should never very well have known why
" Meg of Meldon " was stigmatised as a witch while she was
alive, and continued to be a ghost so long as there lingered any
belief in spiritual beings commissioned to walk the earth after
the sun had gone to rest.

" Meg of Meldon," he says, " would seem to have been
Margaret Selby, mother of Sir William Fenwick, of Meldon,
who distinguished himself as a royalist in the civil wars, and
died in May, 1652. She was a daughter of William Selby,
Esq., of Newcastle, and brought to her husband, Sir William
Fenwick, of Wallington, a considerable fortune, which, being
mortgaged upon Meldon (then belonging to the Herons), was
the cause of that manor passing into the possession of the
Fenwick family. On the decease of her husband she resided at
Hartington Hall, and is represented to have been a miserly,
pitiless, money-getting matron. In a picture of her, which was
at Seaton Delaval in 1810 (she having been related to the Delaval
family, who also had a portrait of her at Ford Castle), she was
habited in a round hat, with a large brim tied down at each ear,
and in a stiff gown turned up nearly to the elbows, with a
vandyked sleeve of linen; the whole shoulders were covered
with a thickly-gathered ruff or frill." " She is represented,"
says Mackenzie, " in the costume of a witch, with a high-pointed
liat ; her nose is crooked, her eyes penetrating, and her wholo
countenance indicates that superior acuteness, intelligence, and
strength of mind, which being so uncommon among an ignorant
and barbarous people, acquired her the character by which she
is distinguished." * " The investment of her fortune in the

* Mackenzie's Hist, of Northumberland, ii. p. 394.

246 THE DENHAM TKACTS.

mortgage of Meldon, and the hard case of the young Heron
being forced to join in conveying the ancient seat and lands of
his ancestors to her son, were circumstances likely enough to
cause a strong popular feeling in favour of the ousted heir, and
as strong a hatred to his wealthy oppressors/'

But besides this drawback to her popularity, Mr. Robert
White says, " An opinion is generally entertained by the
sagacious people in the neighbourhood that Meg was possessed
of a large amount of money besides that which she invested on
the manor of Meldon ; and being ever desirous of turning it to
account, she frequently laid out heavy sums on such commodities
as could be disposed of again to advantage. Amongst these she
is said to have dealt largely in corn ; and being enabled, when
prices were low, to make extensive purchases, she would, when a
rise in the market took place, realise thereby a proportional
profit."

" In addition to her hoarding propensities," continues Mr.
Hodgson, " tradition reports that she was a witch, and, being a
person of considerable celebrity in her day, she has since her
death continued the subject of many a winter evening's ghost
tale. She used to go between Meldon and Hartington Hall by
a subterraneous coach road, and the entry at Hartington into
this underground way was by a very large whinstone in the
Hart, called the battling stone, upon which people used to beat
or battle the lie out of their webs in the bleaching season. As
a retribution for her covetous disposition and practice in un-
earthly arts, her spirit was condemned to wander seven years
and rest seven years alternately. During the season she had to
walk she was the terror of the country from Morpeth to Harting-
ton Hall. She frequented those places where she had bestowed
her hoarded treasure; but always abandoned them when the
pelf was discovered and turned to useful purposes. Many nights
of watching and penance are said to have been spent over a well

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLOEE. 2-47

a little to the south-east of Meldon Tower, where she had
deposited a hull's hide full of gold. The most frequent scene of
her midnight vagaries was about Meldon Bridge, along the
battlements of which she was often seen running in the form of
a little dog. Another of her haunts was in an ancient stone
coffin on the site of Newminster Abbey, where those who had
the gift of seeing ghosts have seen her sitting in a doleful
posture for many nights together. This coffin was called by the
country people the trough of the maid of Meldon, and water found
in it was a specific in removing warts, and curing many
inveterate complaints." Mackenzie says "it is used as a trough
for cattle." " One of her most favourite forms was that of a
beautiful woman. But she was Proteus-like, and appeared in
a thousand forms, lights, and colours, flickering over the Wans-
beck, or under a fine row of beech trees, in the lane between
the bridge and Meldon Park. The people of Meldon, however,
became so familiarised with her appearance as to say when she
passed them, ' there goes Meg of Meldon.' Such were the fables
with which the calumny of an ignorant and superstitious age
aspersed the character and memory of a person who was pro-
bably much more enlightened and virtuous than her credulous
contemporaries.

" Within the last century some large fortunes are attributed
to the discovery of bags of her gold. That which was deposited
in the well near Meldon Tower has never been found ; but the
ceiling of Meldon school-house once gave way with the woight
of a bag of her money. This occurred while the master was
out at dinner, and the varlets who were fortunate enough to be
in, and devouring the contents of their satchels at the time, had
a rare scramble for the coins." *

It is related by Mr. Kobert White, on the testimony of a

" Hodgson's JJial. of Northumberland, part 2, vol. ii. pp. 11, 12.

248 THE DUNHAM TKACTS.

correspondent, that an attempt was once made by an honest
countryman to recover the mass of treasure which had been
deposited in the well near Meldon Tower. " He was requested to
repair to the place alone, on a particular night, exactly at twelve
o'clock, and he would meet another person like himself who
would assist him in raising the gold. He was further reminded
that to be successful profound silence was necessary to be ob-
served. Being a man not destitute of courage, he attended at
the time and found the assistant, apparently a decent-looking
personage, awaiting his arrival. Having brought with him a
piece of chain and a set of grappling hooks, he attached them to
a jack roll, which at that period would appear to have been
fixed over the well for the purpose of drawing water. His
comrade seemed to be perfectly acquainted with the nature of
their business, for he rendered him all the assistance in his
power, and when a loop was formed towards the middle of the
chain the countryman thrust one leg therein, while the other
allowed him to descend with all possible care. To his surprise
he found the well nearly empty of water, and fastening his
grapplers round the money succeeded once more in ascending to
the top. Grasping the other handle of the jack he and his
fellow exerted themselves so well that the treasure was speedily
raised, and the former, seizing it firmly, gave it a swing towards
him that he might land it safely on the bank. Unfortunately,
however, when he was performing this last important part of liis
task, excitement had wound him to the highest pitch ; the store
of wealth was about to be placed at his feet, and the words,
' we have her now,' escaped from his lips. This operated like a
dissolving spell on what was done, the hooks quitted their hold,
the object of his anxiety eluded his grasp and descended again
into the well, out of which it is never more to be raised by
mortal power. Even tho personage who had assisted the
countryman seemed changed from the masculine to the femi-

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 249

nine gender, and appeared to be no other than Meg herself,
who, strange to relate, had endeavoured to bestow on the poor
man what, had his own folly not marred the design, would have
made him ' a gentleman for life.' " *

I have also met with several kindred relations from an aged
native of that part of the country. Some children, while play-
ing in the ruinous " castle " or tower of Meldon, where tradition
says she once resided, happening to turn over some of the stones,
lighted upon a considerable sum of money, of which some got
so much as their hats full ; but there had been something not
" cannie " about it, for although they made good enough use of
it, " it went all away, and they never knew themselves any
better for it ; " a very prevalent opinion about evil-got money
thus brought to light.

A stonemason once dreamt that a triangular box filled with
gold was concealed underneath a large stone that lay in one of
the fields near Meldon, but before making a trial to obtain it he
had spoken of the circumstance to some one or other, and sure
enough, some days afterwards when he went, the stone was over-
turned and a " three-neukit" hole appeared in the midst of
where it had lain. Who had secured the treasure was never
divulged.

In troublesome times, my informant went on in substance to
say, it was customary to conceal valuables from the clutches of
lawless freebooters, in the hope of recovering them when the
rights of property became again respected. Of this kind, and
not Meg's accursed pelf, is the treasure that, wrapped up in
a bullock's hide, was sunk to the bottom of the deep, clear well
of Meldon. It was never discovered except on one occasion.
Not only had it been revealed to sight, but it had been got hold

• Richardson's Local Historian's Table Book, Legend. Div., i. pp.
l;i,S, 189.

250 THE DENHAM TKACXS.

of, and two oxen and two horses had been yoked to it and had
hauled it to the brim, when one of those engaged spoiled all by-
challenging all the fiends of the nether world to do their best,
" for we have her now." Scarcely had he made the impious
boast when the bag burst asunder, and its ponderous contents
went plunging down into the depths and were never seen more.
But often still the youngster gazes wistfully down through the
crystal waters, unfathomably deepened by the reflection of the
blue ether overhead, for he is sure that the treasure is yet
there, and may he not cherish the hope that he, as well as any
other, may be the lucky one whom it is to raise to plenty and
honour !

" The infernal machinations of Meg," says Mackenzie, " long
continued the terror of the neighbouring villagers. Few of the
last age were so foolhardy as to venture through Meldon woods,
where it is reported she made her dreadful exit when the
sun was below the horizon." Fated only to review at night
the domains that it had once been her pride to own, she tarried
as long as permitted in the beloved territory, for when the
ploughmen went out in the grey dawn to catch their horses she
would have been still discernible among the dissolving vapours,
"riding in her coach and four upon the Meldon hills."

She was a true ghost, for, as Mr. Hodgson remarks, it was
her particular pleasure to haunt Meldon Bridge, My informant,
when a boy, never passed it late in the evening without bracing
himself with a sort of defiant exorcism, saying to himself,
" What do I fear on Doll [a riding mare] and wee Fanny [his
canine attendant] beside me." Meg had not been listening, for
he was never put in jeopardy of his life.

A woman and her daughter were once bringing letters from
Morpeth to a Captain Middleton, who then dwelt in that quarter,
and night came upon them as they reached a field which they
had to cross in going for the bridge. There was a slidit

BOKDEE SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 251

" grimeing " of snow on the path at the time, and from a track
of footprints they remarked that a woman had preceded them.
When they arrived at the bridge, the mother thought she saw a
white woman, some way off', leaning against one of the battle-
ments, and " had it in her mind " to say to her daughter, who,
not so observant, had perceived nothing, " there's the woman
whose footmarks we saw ; " but a feeling as if that was some-
thing " not right " made her hold her peace till she had passed
the place where the object of alarm appeared to stand, but when
she looked back the figure had vanished, and as for the foot-
steps, like Lucy Gray's, " further there were none." This is
easily explicable.

" Things viewed at distance through the mist of fear,
By their distortion terrify and shock
The abused sight."

But what shall we say of another of Meg's pranks ? An indi-
vidual, well known for his scepticism in regard to ghosts, had
frequently heard of Meg's achievements in frightening people,
but would not credit them. He, however, had no scruple in
perpetuating the belief among the credulous, so one mirk night,
dressed in white, he placed himself on the parapet wall of
Meldon Bridge, and there sat awaiting passers-by. He had not
stayed long till he found Meg herself seated alongside of him.
" You've come to fley," * said she, " and Fve come to fley, let's
baith fley thegither." At the same time she drew herself a little
nearer him, while he, jealous of a too familiar intimacy, moved
still further along. Meg repeated her movement, and he still
shrunk from her approach. She at length came so close as to
give him a push, which he hastily attempted to shun, but lost

Frighten.

252 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

balance, and fell headlong into the water. Let us hope that
Meg was rewarded with a respite for ducking the rival ghost.

Another adventure in which Meg was concerned was sent me
in 1877 by a clergyman in that neighbourhood, in the hand-
writing of the narrator, a tradesman, I believe, in Whalton. I
shall reproduce it pretty nearly in the language in which it was
told. Two dwellers in the hamlet of Thornton who believed in
Meg's appearance as a ghost, and a friend of theirs, a Scotchman,
who could not be brought to credit it, sat one night after having
been at the smithy, in a public-house at Meldon, disputing as to
her existence or non-existence as a spiritual visitant. They then
left in company for Thornton. At a certain part of the road
one of the two believers, named Todd, gave some chains he was
carrying from the smith's shop to his mate and fell behind.
As soon as the other two were out of sight and hearing he took
a short cut across a corner of a field and placed himself behind
a hedge at the foot of a bank, a favourite haunt of Meg, and
getting himself into the most ghostly style he could assume, he
awaited their arrival. The Scotchman came up first, shouting,
"Where are ye, Meg? Let's see you, Meg!" when Todd
stepped out into view, saying, " Here's Meg, what want ye wi'
Meg?" The other lad dropped the chains and made off, and
the Scotchman after him. Todd, thinking he had overdone the
thing, picked up the chains and ran after them to stop them,
but the faster he ran the faster ran they, the tinkling of the
chains behind keeping up their terror. The two lads had got
upon Meldon Bridge over the Wansbeck, which was then a
very narrow and steep structure. At the one end of it they
disturbed a kyloe that had got out of a field. This started out
as Todd was passing, and "gave a rout," and ran headlong
across the bridge behind him. Todd, taking the beast for Meg.
increased his speed, the most frightened of the three. Thus
thore were throe men and a kyloe all terrified and running at

BOHDEK SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 253

their utmost pith. The three men arrived home in a serious
state of fear, from which they were long recovering. The
narrator adds a remark of identification. " Todd was said to
be the father or grandfather to Jack Todd, the wood wagoner.
Both the public-houses in Meldon were closed before my day."

Stripping off the accessories of these stories, the machinery
engages our attention ; and from it we obtain intimations of the
native soil of the fragments of ancient beliefs, thus specially
localised. The seven years' wandering and alternate rest is akin
to the cave that opens its portals once septennially, that its
enchanted inmates may be enfranchised ; or to Thomas of
Ercildoune's and other waifs that have fallen to the good folks
seven years' compulsory residence in Fairyland. The Pixies in
Devonshire, for which we have Mrs. Bray's authority, punish
those that offend them for the same sacred interval.

The spirit's appearance as a dog is also in accordance with stand-
ard sanction. When the evil one himself assumes the " shape
o' beast," a black dog is a favourite form. Thus he appeared
to Janet Watson, tried for a witch, 1661; and to cite a Border
instance to Kobert Grieve, alias Hob Grieve, the Lauder wizard
(tried anno 1649), in a haugh on Galawater, near Stow, " like
a great mastiff, bigger than any butcher's dog, and very black,
running upon him." {Satan's Invisible World Discovered,
p. 35.) The notion may come from the east, where the dog as
an unclean animal is held in detestation. " The Turks report,
as a certain truth," says Morgan's History of Algiers, " that the
corpse of the Heyradin Barbarossa was found four or five times
out of the ground, lying by his sepulchre, after he had been
there inhumed ; nor could they possibly make him lie quiet in
his grave, till a Greek wizard counselled them to bury a black
clog together with the body ; which done, he lay still, and gave
them no further trouble."

Wells, marshes, and pools of water actually appear to have

254 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

been resorted to as places for concealment of articles of im-
portance in periods of alarm. In the day of calamity the
ancient Briton consigned his bronze cooking utensils to the
nearest " well-eye," or peat pit, rather than permit the invader
to gain possession of them.

In Ireland, treasure crocks guarded by huge serpents lie at
the bottom of the deepest lakes.* In Wimbell Pond, in Sussex,
an iron chest of money is concealed,! and there is a Yorkshire
legend to that effect. Some have been enriched by money
found in wells. In Sharp's History of Hartlepool we read of
one Nicholas Woodifield, farmer at Mainsforth, in Durham,
who filled his brogues so well with gold pieces discovered at the
bottom of a well, that he purchased the manor of Trimdon, in
that county.

A box of sunken treasure, in Bromley Lake, Northumber-
land, was laid under a spell to be won, " by two twin yauds,
two twin oxen, two twin lads, and a chain forged by a smith of
hind ;" % a myth corresponding to the helpers at the well of
Meldon. We find a similar agency and catastrophe repeated in
a Yorkshire tale. A person having intimation of a large chest
of gold being buried in an artificial mount, called Willy Howe,
near Bridlington, " dug away the earth until it appeared in
sight ; he then had a train of horses, extending upwards of a
quarter of a mile, attached to it by strong iron traces ; by these
means he was just on the point of accomplishing his purpose,
when he exclaimed —

' Hop Perry, prow Mark,
Whether God's will or not, we'll have this ark.'

* Irish Penny Journal, p. 234.
t Choice Notes and Queries, Folklore, p. 113.
| R. White, in Richardson's Local Hist. Table Booh, Leg. Uif.,
iii. p. 106.

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 255

He, however, had no sooner pronounced this awful blasphemy,
than all the traces broke, and the chest sunk still deeper in the
hill, where it yet remains, all his future efforts to obtain it being
in vain." * We have the legend with a slight change repeated
in Cornwall. Nathan's Keeve is a large round basin, which a
fall of water a hundred feet in height has formed out of the
solid rock. According to tradition, " there was in it a silver
bell, for which some men were fishing, when one who had
brought it above water cried, * Thank God, here it is ; ' but the
other replying, ' No thanks to him, we have got it without him,'
it immediately tumbled in again and there remained." J

For aught we know an animal's skin would bo the most
durable coffer that could be suggested to a rude people. That
prankish spirit " Silky's " treasure was " sewed up in a great
dog or calf-skin." In the ruins of a round tower in Southwick
parish, near Borland, Kirkcudbrightshire, as the tradition goes,
there lies somewhere in the foundation a bull hide full of gold,
as much as would enrich all Scotland. " Katie Neevie's hoard,"
in tho parish of Lesmahagow was secreted under a vast stone in
the shape of " a kettle-full, a boot-full, and a bull-hide full" of
gold.* In the scarcity of manufactured products at an early
period of our history the hides of animals performed many im-
portant services of which at present we have little idea. The
ancient Scot cooked his meat in a cauldron improvised of the
skin of the animal that furnished the meal. I have been told of
a hideful of tallow in good preservation dug out of a Highland
peat moss. Thero are instances in which a hide was employed
as a winding-sheet. The body of Hugh Lupus, the great Earl
of Chester, who came over with the Conqueror, and who died

* Hone's Table Book, i. col. 82.

j - Life and Labours of Dr. Adam Clarice, p. 117.

X Chnmbcrs' Popular Rhymes of Scotland.

256 THE DENHAM TBACTS.

before 1120, when discovered in 1723 was first wrapped in
" leather," and then enclosed in a stone coffin.* John Forcer,
prior of Durham, who died in 1374, was stitched up in an ox-
hide at the price of nine shillings, including the tailor's wages ;
and the hide was found " tolerably fresh," but the body much
decayed, in 1729, when the pavement of that part of Durham
Cathedral where he had been laid was under repair. f Tradition
in this respect appears to have retained the impress of primitive
practices, of which there are no longer any recollections.

The Drake Stone, Harbottle.

Near the frowning and rugged crags of Harbottle, in
Northumberland, which impart a high degree of sublimity to
the adjoining scenery, is the famous " Drake Stone," near
the Loughs, which rivals the Bowder Stone in Westmoreland.
It is customary with the young men in the neighbourhood to
climb up this huge rock, from the top of which there is a fine
prospect of the vale below, but it requires considerable dexterity
and address to descend.

The rustics here relate a story respecting the " Drake Stone"
with great glee. On one fine summer evening, a few years ago,
a stranger arrived at the village. He entered a public-house,
and having taken some refreshment, immediately departed. His
intention was to ascend the Drake Stone, which he did with
little difficulty, and after remaining for some time on the summit
of the rock, enjoying the beautiful and extensive prospect, the
deepening gloom warned him that it was time to depart, and he
therefore set about descending the dangerous rock, but in vain.
He looked at the yawning depth below and shuddered at the

* Defoe's Tour through Great Britain, ii. p. 366.
J Raine's Durham Cathedral.

BOISDEE SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 257

prospect of attempting to descend ; further, the night was closing
in, not a human being was in sight, and the poor traveller in an
agony of fear was obliged to content himself with remaining' on
the cold rock with the starry heaven for a canopy. Wrapping
himself up in his garments as well as he could, he laid him
down to obtain, if possible, some repose. To sleep, however,
was not in his power, the knowledge of his situation made him
to lie awake anxiously awaiting the break of day. Early on
the following morning the inhabitants on rising were surprised
to hear a human voice, " loud as the huntsman's shout," bawling
lustily for assistance. Seeing his danger, they immediately pro-
ceeded to the stone, and by proper means and some exertion he
was safely extricated from his very perilous situation where he
had passed so sleepless a night.

Harbottle is not only distinguished by one of the most perfect
Saxon camps in the county, but it is also remarkable as being
the birthplace of General Handyside, whoso regiment is noticed •
by uncle Toby in Tristram Shandy. — Alnwick Mercury, Aug. ] ,
1863.

Legends of Brinkburn.

The history of Brinkburn Priory, by Mr. F. R. Wilson, the
architect, so far as it can be traced from an elaborate study of
the remains of the buildings, and in incidental notices from old
writers, forms one of those local monographs that of late years
have added so much to the value of the Transactions of the Ber-
wickshire Naturalists' Club.

With the " Book " or Chartulary of Brinkburn still inacces-
sible to public research, Mr. Wilson does well to assume
" that there are many chapters in the history of Brinkburn yet
untold."

The contributions that we now present are written neither on
sculptured stone nor in old dim writs hard to be deciphered,
VOL. II. s

258 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

but have been preserved by faithful tradition even until now,
and what we have to do is to render them accurately as they
have been delivered to us, so that the popular interest in the
ruined monastery on the Coquet may also have its abiding
record.

The Hunter and his Hounds.

Under a grassy swell, which a stranger may know by its
being surrounded with a wooden railing, on the outside of the
priory, tradition affirms there is a subterraneous passage, of
which the entrance remains as yet a secret, leading to an apart-
ment to which access is in like manner denied ; and as these
visionary dwellings are invariably provided with occupants, it is
asserted that a hunter who had in some way offended one of the
priors was, along with his hounds, by the aid of enchantment,
condemned to perpetual slumber in that mysterious abode.
Only once was an unenthralled mortal favoured with a sight of
the place, and of those who are there entombed alive. A shep-
herd, with his dog attending him, was one day listlessly saunter-
ing on this verdant mound, when he felt the ground stirring
beneath him, and springing aside he discovered a flat door —
where door had never before been seen by man— yea, that door
opening upwards of its own accord on the very spot where he
had been standing. Actuated by curiosity, he descended a
number of steps which appeared beneath him, and on reaching
the bottom found himself in a gloomy passage of great extent.
Groping along this warily, he at last encountered a door which
opening readily he, along with the dog, was suddenly admitted
into an apartment illumined so brilliantly that the full light of
day seemed to shine there. This abrupt transition from dark-
ness to light for some minutes deprived him of the power of
observing objects correctly, but gradually recovering he beheld
enough to strike him with astonishment, for on one side, at a

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 259

table with his head resting on his hand, slept one in the garb of
a hunter, while at some distance another figure reclined on the
floor with his head lying back, and around him lay many a noble
hound ready as ever, to all appearance, to renew that fatal chase
which consigned them all to the chamber of enchantment. On
the table lay a horn and a sword, which, seeing all was quiet,
the shepherd stepped forward to examine, and taking up the
horn first applied it to his lips to sound it. But the hunter, on
whom he kept a watch, showed symptoms of awakening when-
ever he made the attempt, which alarming him he replaced it,
and the figure started no longer. Reassured, he lifts the sword,
half draws it, and now both men became restless and made some
angry movements, and the hounds began to hustle about, while
his own dog, as if agitated by the same uneasiness, slunk towards
the door. Alive to the increased commotion and hearing a
noise behind him, very like the creaking of hinges, he suddenly
turned round and found to his dismay that the door was moving
to. Without waiting a moment he rushed through the half-
closed entrance, followed by his dog. He had not fled ten paces
when, shaking the vault with a crash, the door shut behind him
and a terrible voice assailed his ears, pouring maledictions on
him for his temerity. Tho fugitive traversed the passage at full
speed, and gladly hailed the light streaming in at the aperture
above. The shepherd quickly ascended the steps, but before he
got out the cover had nearly closed. He succeeded, and that
was all, in escaping perhaps a worse fate than those victims of
monkish thraldom whom he had just left ; but his poor dog was
not so fortunate, for it had just raised its fore parts to come up
when the door fastened on it and nipped it through.

This story being a family inheritance of the European race of
people has obtained a wide circulation, and there are many
modes of telling it, answerable to the far-separated localities to
which it it has been adapted. We recognise it in the banished

260 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

Saturn reposing in a cave on a remote desolate coast ; * in the
Seven Sleepers of Ephesus;t in the seven foreign brethren,
in Eoman habits, lying in a profound slumber, in a cave on
the shores of the ocean, in the extreme northern confines of
Germany ; % in the three founders of the Helvetic confederacy,
whom herdsmen call the three Tells, who sleep in their antique
garb, till Switzerland's hour of need, in a cavern near the
lake of Lucerne ; § in Ogier the Dane or Holger Danske,
enchanted in the vaults of the Castle of Cronenburgh ; || in
Frederick Barbarossa miraculously preserved to unite the
Eastern and Western Empires, in the Kylfhausen Berg in
Thuringia, or, according to another legend, in the Untersberg,
near Salsburg ; IT but in the latter place the tradition vacillates
betwixt him and the great Emperor Charles V .; ** and in the
legend of the tomb of Rosencreutz, as told in the 379th number
of the Spectator. Transferred to Britain, it has peopled the
mountain and sea-side caves with enchanted warriors and hunts-
men. Of King Arthur and Sewing-shields I have already
written in the Borderers' Table Booh. The story crops out in
the tale of the "Wizard's Cave" at Tynemouth.ft The
correct legend about Dunstanborough Castle tells that its

* Plutarch.

f Gibbon.

+ Paulus Diaconus de Gestis Longobardum, lib. i. c. 4. Olaus
Magnus Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus, Soma;, 1555, lib. i. c. 3.

§ Mrs. Herman's Works, ii. p. 65. Quarterly Review, March,
1820.

II Inglis's Journey through Noru-ay, Siveden, and Denmark, p.
290, 291. Quarterly Renew, tibi sup.

H Menzel's History of Germany, i. p. 487. Quarterly Review,
1820.

** Keightley's Fairy Mythology, p. 234

•ft Hone's Table Bool; ii. p. 747-750.

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 261

chieftain was charmed with his hounds, his sword, and bugle-
hom, and enclosed in one of the vaults of that ancient fortress ; *
the adjuncts of Monk Lewis, Service, and others being
imaginary. At Fast Castle the adventurer comes out a hoary-
headed man, minus his coat-tails. In the Cheviots the cave
contains "three men in armour" surrounded with their
" hounds, hawks, and horses." f Sir Walter Scott in
an early poem makes them an army assembled by the spells
of Sir Michael Scott to aid Halbert Kerr.J Sometimes
they are to return with Thomas of Ercildoune; and mean-
while remain entranced within the chambers of the Eildon
Hills. § The vault at Roslin holds alive a warrior who may
be approached every seven years ; and the difficulty to free him
here, as well as elsewhere, depends on the choice of the horn or
the sword. Thomas the Rhymer, with a mighty host, lies asleep
under Tom-na-hurich, a mountain near Inverness.

" Beside each coal-black courser sleeps a knight ;
A raven plume waves o'er each helmed crest,
And black the mail which binds each manly breast,
Girt with broad faulchion, and with bugle green. —
Say, who is he, with summons strong and high,
That bids the charmed sleep of ages fly ; —
While each dark warrior rouses at the blast,
His hom, his faulchion grasps with mighty hand,
And peals proud Arthur's march from Fairy-land ! "

Leyden.

* Widdrington, a Tale of lledgely Moor, by James Hall, p. 84.
Alnwick, 1827.

f Poems by Robert Davidson of Mm-cbattlc, p. Hi.

\ Locklmrl's Life of Sir Walter Scott, i. p. 310, &c.

§ Scott's Demonologu, p. l."3 ; where a similar story is cited
from Reginald Scott's Discovery oj Witchcraft . Ley den's Poetical
HemuiiiK, p. ;!."i7.

262 the denham tracts.

The Bells of Brinkburn.

Centuries ago, one of the priors of Brinkburn presented the
bells of that building to the priory of Durham. They had been
the pride of the secluded sanctuary on the Coquet, for their
tones were possessed of great power combined with sweetness,
and many tempting offers had Durham made to secure them,
but hitherto to no purpose. But she prevailed at length, and
the bells so coveted were removed from the tower and dis-
patched on horseback on their way to Durham, under the care
of some monks. They journeyed till they reached the river
Font, which owing to a quantity of rain having fallen was
much swelled. However, they prepared to ford it ; but when
the horses reached the middle of the stream the bells bysome
means fell, or according to the popular belief were removed
from the backs of the horses by miraculous interposition,
and sank to the bottom. Owing either to the dangerous state
of the stream, or from the bells being unwilling to be removed,
the exertions of the monks to recover them proved unavailing ;
so they returned to Brinkburn and reported the disaster. But
the Brinkburn prior determined not to be baffled, sent forth-
with a messenger to Durham to request the presence of his
brother prior, and both ecclesiastics then proceeded with a fidl
attendance to liberate the imprisoned bells, and lo ! the
superior abilities of high church functionaries over humble
monks were manifest to every one. For they had no sooner
ridden into the stream, than the bells were lifted with ease;
and being conveyed to Durham, were lodged there in safety.
To this day it is a saying in Coquetdale that " Brinkburn bells
are hoard at Durham ; " and Wallis, in his History of
Northumberland, assures us that the bells of Brinkburn were
removed to the cathedral on the banks of the Wear. Still there
art; doubters. Waller White in 185'.), sav.s " the deep pool

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKXOKE. 263

where the bells were lost is still to be seen in the river"
[Coquet] ;* and Mr. Wilson is positive that some years
ago, " a fragment of the bell was found buried at the root of a
tree, on the hill on the opposite side of the river." f

I fear that several of the tales of " flitted" bells are popular
myths. Thus tradition says that the bell of Coldingham
Abbey was transported to Lincoln, and is still there. J It
was a popular opinion that the bells of Jedburgh Abbey were
lost in the Tweed opposite Kelso, in an attempt made to feriy
them across. Another tradition is " that they were carried off
to Hexham, and fitted up to adorn the venerable cathedral
there." § Of the bells of the abbey of Cambuskenneth in
Clackmannanshire, it is reported that one was for some time in
the town of Stirling, but that the finest was lost in its passage
across the river Forth. || The bell of Morvern Church had
been transferred from Iona. T There is a tradition that St.
Maree used to preach at a place called Ashig, on the north-east
coast of the Isle of Skye, " and that he hung a bell in a tree,
where it remained for centuries. It was dumb all the week till
sunrise on Sunday morning, when it rang of its own accord till
sunset. It was subsequently removed to the old church of
Strath, dedicated to another saint, where it ever afterwards
remained dumb ; and the tree on which it had so long hung
after withered away." ** Bells were sometimes not satisfied

* Northumberland and the Border, p. 187.

■(■ Berwickshire Naturalists' Club's Proceedings, iv. p. 140.

X Fullarton's Gazetteer of Scotland, i. p. 290. Hunter's
Coldingham Priory, p. 75.

§ Hilson's Guide to Jedburgh, p. 15.

|| Fullarton's Gazetteer, i. p. '2S'.i.

•[ Dr. N. M'Leod in Good Words, 1863, p. 8o7.

•• Dr. \V, Reeves on St. Maclrubha, in Proceeding* of Society
of Antiquaries oj Scotland, vol, iii. p. 2'J1.

264 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

with their new positions. They required to be tied, till they
were reconciled to the change. Many of them, says Brand,
" are said to have retained great affection for the churches to
which they belonged, and where they were consecrated. "When
a bell was removed from its original and favourite situation, it
was sometimes supposed to take a nightly trip to its old place of
residence, unless exercised in the evening, and secured with a
chain or rope.*

The tolling of the bell of Brinkburn Priory was once the
occasion of the burning of the pile by a party of marauding
Scots, who would not have discovered its situation, so densely it
stood embosomed in woods, except for this imprudence, f

Mr. Wilson says the fairies lie buried at Brinkburn. This
mortality, unheard of elsewhere, must have been attributable to
the potency of the bells. Half a century ago the bell of the
parish kirk of Hounam, in Roxburghshire, fell ; in consequence
of which the banished fairies reassembled from the ends of the
earth, to resume their revelry on the green banks of the Kale.
But the mischief that they perpetrated was insufferable, and as
a remedy the bell was reinstated, when matters were restored
in statu quo ante.% This is true to the general belief about
these beings. " There is a hill near Botna, in Sweden, in which
formerly dwelt a troll, a sort of Scandinavian fairy. When
they got up bells in Botna Church, and he heard the ringing of
them, he is related to have said :

" Pleasant it were in Botnahill to dwell,
Were it not for the sound of that plaguey bell."

u It is said that a farmer having found a troll sitting very dis-
consolate on a stone near Tiis lake, in the island of Zealand,

* Brand's Popular Antiquities, ii. 136.

| Richardson's 'Table Book, Leg. Div., i. p. 223.

$ Davidson's Poems, p. 100, &c. 222, 2i

o.

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLOEE. 265

and taking him at first for a decent Christian man, accosted
him with ' Well ! where are you going, friend ? ' ' Ah ! ' said
he, in a melancholy tone, ' I am going off out the country. I
cannot live here any longer, they keep such eternal ringing and
dinging!' "*

Superstitions connected with Holed Stones.

In the western part of Cornwall there are several ancient
monuments known by the name of " Holed Stones." They
consist of thin slabs of granite, each being pierced by a round
hole, generally near its centre. They vary in size and in form.
The monument to which I would now more particu-
larly call attention is at Tolven Cross Formerly it was

a conspicuous object by the wayside ; but within the last twelve
or fourtoon years a house has been built betwixt it and the road.
It now forms part of a garden hedge. In a field adjoining the
opposite side of the road, perhaps eighteen j-ards from the stone,
is a low irregular barrow, about twenty yards in diameter and
studded with small mounds. Dr. Borlase has alluded to the
superstitious practice of drawing children through the holed
stone at Madron to cure them of weakness or pains in the back,
a practice still observed at the holed stone at St. Constantine. I
was told that some remarkable cures had been effected there
only a few weeks since. The ceremony consists of passing the
child nine times through the hole alternately from one side to
tho other, and it is essential to success that the operation should
finish on that side where there is a little grassy mound, recently
made, on which the patient must sleep with a sixpence under his
head. A trough-like stone, called tho " cradle," on the eastern
side of tho barrow, was formerly used for this purpose. This

* KviglilU'v's Fairy Mi/l/ivhy//, p. 11:.'.

266 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

stone unfortunately has long been destroyed. That holed stones
were not originally constructed for the observance of this pecu-
liar custom is evident, for in some instances the holes are not
more than five or six inches in diameter. A few years ago a
person digging close to the Tolveh discovered a pit in which were
fragments of pottery, arranged in circular order, the whole being
covered by a flat slab of stone. Imagining that he had disturbed
some mysterious place, with commendable reverence he imme-
diately filled up the pit again. Taking the proximity of the
barrow in connection with the pit, it seems most probable that
the Tolven is a sepulchral monument, stones of this kind being
erected perhaps to a peculiar class of personages. — Alnwick
Mercury, Oct. 1, 1869.

Warnings.

In treating of warnings believed to be sent to relatives before
the death of their near connections, I speak of incidents that
were communicated by parties who, as it is expressed, have
long since " gaen to their place," it is hoped to a better one,
for worthy, well- living people they were, although haunted with
the infirmity of a superstitious foreboding. They are all from
humble life. E. H., on the night on which her grandfather
died, was engaged in darning stockings in the house of her
half-sister, whose grandfather this was not, when she heard as
if a person was moaning in the adjacent cottage. Her half-
sister, who was in bed, on its being alluded to, said she had not
heard any noise ; and when she went out to inquire at the other
house they were at rest in bed, and she could not obtain an
answer. When she returned and resumed her work, she
became once more conscious of the sounds of distant moaning.
When morning arrived, there was nothing the matter with the
people in the oilier house ; but three days afterwards, when

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 267

the news came of her relative's decease, she found that the
time corresponded with that during which she had been listen-
ing to those mysterious tokens of human agony, but her relative
had passed away quietly without a murmur.

The same grandfather had also been forewarned, once in his
lifetime, of some approaching calamity before the death of his
first wife. On returning from selling some sheep, he saw
before him the vision of a man, with a corn rope or band in
his hand, as if he were preparing to tie up a sheaf, which
vanished from before his eyes when he reached the spot where
it appeared.

Her father and another man, when once thrashing with the
flail in the barn, heard twice or thrice a singular noise, as if
something was screwed down from the roof, and then fell on
the floor. Her father, thinking it was fire, went to extinguish
it with his foot. " Ah ! " said the other man, who had appre-
hended its ominous character, " ye needna tramp it oot, it's a
warning for you an' for me." And accordingly, shortly after
that, the other man had one of his children, and her father his
wife and two of his children, carried off by fever.

These are Berwickshire occurrences, but the same creed was
prevalent about the same period in Northumberland. An old
man who lived on Tyneside told me that three sharp taps had
been applied to the window before his first wife died, but they
were not taken into account till all was over.* He had an
aunt who had got a token of the death of all her kindred except
one, whose wraith she was vouchsafed to behold instead thereof.
One day she was surprised to see this relative, who was a
carrier, on a day customary for him to be elsewhere, approach-
ing towards her across a lea, within view of the door of her

* For death-warnings by tluv distinct knocks on the bed's-liead,
see Aubrey's MitatluiifS, \i[>. 121-2, Loudon, 1721.

268 THE DENHAM TEAMS.

house, where she stood. She remarked to a neighbour, who
was also looking out at her own door, what could have brought
such a one there at that time of the week; but her neighbour,
who may not have perceived anything, made no relevant reply.
On that very day the carrier was drowned in crossing the
Tyne, the water being stiff, and he seated on a pack-horse
was hampered in directing its movements, and swept away.
This same dame also felt so sure of her sagacious prescience,
that she on one occasion foretold the death of one of her
neighbours, a lass possibly consumptive, who sold milk.
Having asked one of the place who had been purchasing
her morning's supply of milk how she was, the answer was,
" Weil ! " " Aye," says she, " she'll flit soon," and she died
next day.

A joiner's wife in the country above Hexham got a " token "
of her husband's death. It was on a Sunday, and he had gone
to church, and she being left at home was on the outlook at
the period when she expected his return. She saw him on his
way back, as she thought, go past a dike-end, but he was so
long in arriving afterwards that she wondered, and again went
outside the house ; and although the whole of the road was in
view, she saw nothing of him. After a short suspense, how-
ever, her husband reached the house, but took to bed that after-
noon and never left it.

A man in Wooler heard three raps before his father died.
His father dropped down suddenly shortly afterwards at Wooler
" High Fair."

These stories may be accounted trivial, but they show the
incipient stages of still more extravagant beliefs, and some of
them have no doubt been propagated traditionally. The
narrators will sometimes express their unbelief by the qualify-
ing statement that " wc needna mind thae freits," or it's "just
an aukl frcit."

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 269

Again, A. C. believed that she had a warning of the death
of her daughter shortly before she departed. She and her
husband were watching beside the sick bed, when, at four
o'clock in the morning, she heard a rap on the bed-head.
" Ah ! " she exclaimed, addressing her husband, "my daughter's
gone. Did you hear that ? " He rose, and observed that the
child was asleep ; but in the afternoon of that day, at four o'clock,
the hour foreshadowed, the child died.

Another woman had got warnings of the death of all her
brothers except one, who still survived, far away from his
native district, or much communication with her, being resident
in the vicinity of London, while she dwelt in the northern part
of Northumberland. Poor people who have no other earthly
ties are much perplexed about the welfare of their relatives out
of reach of being visited. In this instance, for about a week, his
sister had most troublous dreams regarding her last brother,
and told a friend of her apprehensions for his health. This was
about three weeks before word reached her of his sudden illness,
and a letter following announced his death.

Another individual dreamt of witnessing the marriage of a
neighbour who was already a married man, but who was at
present from home at a distance. While he was relating the
circumstances of his dream to his wife, this man came homo
taken badly and died shortly after, for, said the narrator who
told these stories and thoroughly believed them, " to dream of a
marriage is a sign of death."

From the same party I derived a specimen of some warnings
believed in among the colliery population near Newcastle. Near
Heaton, a woman was returning one night from a visit to one of
her gossips who was sick and lived about a mile away. As she
passed the mouth of a certain pit near tho road she saw, as it
were, a white female rise up, who in a short time grew in size
and assumed the shape of a white galloway of fiery temper, which

270 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

struck the coals about the pit mouth with its heels, as if
pawing in eagerness to cleave the clouds, causing the particles
to fly so as even to reach her, and while she was concerned
about the annoyance this occasioned her it had vanished.
Although she never had had any experience of such apparitions,
she augured disaster from it, either to her friend or the pit.
One to whom she told it was sceptical and declared he would go
next night to the pit at one o'clock and see if there was any
truth in the vision, and wonderful to tell he beheld the same
wild thing she had done, and was so overcome that he swarfed
for fear. It was seen by another party a third time, and the
next day after four men were killed in the pit.

In a letter from Mr. Denham, dated October 27th, 1852, he
gave me a good example of a wraith, from Westmoreland, which
may be appropriately told here. " I have heard a curious relation
of two men, father and son (the latter of whom I knew for forty
years, and he only died this year), seeing the ghost of a naked
woman in crossing a lonesome moor in Westmoreland by night.
What is singular, the one said to the other, it is so and so,
naming the female whom both knew. On getting to their home,
some two or three miles distant, the first news which met their ear
was the death of the individual above alluded to in childbirth,
nearly an hour previous. This relation has ever occurred to me
as the most simple and singular ghost story that ever I met with.
The name of the father was Isaac Nelson, of the son, John.
They were natives of Westmoreland, and respectable yeomen."

The following is from Bee's Diary, January 17th, 1684-5:
"Departed this life John Borrow (of Durham), and 'twas
reported y* he see a coach drawn by 6 swine, all black, and a
black man satt upon cotch box ; he fell sick upon't and dyed,
and of his death soverall apparations appeared after."

A dog at one place gave three tremendous yoicls, in the dead
of night, before a person died. It came to the door for the
purpose and had to be driven away.

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 271

In the vicinity of Kendal, in Westmoreland, a cock-crowing
at night is often considered as ominous of something evil to the
family. "A few years ago," says Mr. Pearson in a paper on
tho Superstitions of Westmoreland, " I had a servant, an elderly
man, who was much disturbed because the cock took it into his
head to crow in the night-time, frequently before we went to
bed. Whenever this was the case, it was perceived that it threw
him into no small perturbation. He was afraid that either death
or some great calamity would occur to some of us. And what
was indeed curious, a female to whom he was much attached
did indeed die soon afterwards, so that there is no doubt he is
more than ever confirmed in the belief that a cock-crowing in
the night is ominous of death or some great misfortune "*

In Fifeshire, I was told by an acquaintance, an old cock — for
had it been a young one it would have been the less thought of —
crew about eight o'clock at night. A person was sent out, who
caught and brought it into the house, and "threw its neck
about." This was a death-omen to the family, unless the spell
had been reversed by killing the cock.

Dr. Beattie, tho poet and philosopher, evinced " a singular
but deep-rooted aversion all his life for the crowing of a cock ; " f
perhaps it arose from this popular superstition about cock-
crowing.

In Westmoreland, " a dog howling three times, a cock crow-
ing the same number before midnight, putting a stocking on
wrong side out — theso are all considered very ominous things,
and bring a gloom on a weak mind which will last a whole
week."*

In North Northumberland it is said that " the coroner never

• London Saturday Journal, March 31, 1841, vol. i. p. 131.
■)• Sir W. Forbcs's Life of Beattie, ii. p. 243.
| Loudon Saturday Journal, vol. i. p. 134.

272 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

comes once but he comes twice/' i.e. if one fatal death occurs,
two will be sure to follow. Also, if one breaks a dish, it is said
" there are other two to break yet," i.e. to be broken. In the
parish of Llanymynech, in Montgomeryshire, " there is a saying
much credited that ' if one dies there will be three, if four die
there will be six.' This signifies, that whenever a funeral takes
place there are generally two more within a short time, and
should there happen to be four there will be two more." * If
one has anything stolen from them it is a token of evil to follow,
was believed in at Newcastle. In Montgomeryshire " the loss
of articles of common use, or even the dropping of them acci-
dentally, is thought to be a token." f

If one dream that a tooth is out it is a sign of a relative's
death.

An old man had got warnings at the death of all his children
who had died, but one was still left to him. One day a drop of
blood gathered at his nose, which he observing, exclaimed sor-
rowfully, "Ah! my son's dead." It was too true, for a letter
arrived next day which confirmed the omen.

There is a good description of a Warning, agreeable to the
popular belief, in the Border novel of Matthew Paxton, the scene
of which is laid in Northumberland, close to the Tillside.

"Before the story had lost its first freshness in my mind, an
aunt of mine, far away in Liddesdale, was very ill, though I
knew it not, sick unto death, and my mother was away west to
see her, when one night I was riding by myself alone along a
very lonely road far away from any house, on my way home
from a day's visiting, at a part of the road where nobody could
be hiding to fright me, I heard my name called three times,

* John Fewtrell in Montgomeryshire Collections by Powys-Land
Club, vol. xiii. p. 125 (1880).
t Ibid., p. 126.

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 273

Matthew, Matthew, Matthew, in a voice I could not clearly
mind, but so like my mother's or my aunt's that I thought it
was one of them. I did not think much of it at the time, but a
few days after I got a letter from Liddesdale, with a black seal,
and saw that my aunt had died at that very hour that I had
heard the voice, so I could not help connecting these things in
my own mind and thinking it was a warning from the depart-
ing spirit to me." *

Physical Endowments or Impekfeotions.

It is a belief not only in the north of England but also on the
Continent, that the seventh son of a family, born without any
girl intervening, is endued with sovereign virtue — the power
once attributed to crowned heads — of healing diseases by the
touch, and that he is destined to be a skilful and eminent phy-
sician/)- As an attestation of his capabilities, a representation of
" the seven starns " is believed to be impressed on his side or
his breast. A medical practitioner, near Newcastle, to flatter
one of his customers, told a mother that she should make her
newly-born seventh son a doctor. '"Deed," she says, "I havena'
the means to make him a doctor, but if ye'll take him yersell,
and make him one, you're welcome to hao him, as I've dealt
sae lang wi' ye." If a seventh daughter appeared in uninter-
rupted succession, she was to be a witch.

On October 17, 1663, one William Moulthrope, a Pontefraet
labourer, was called in question for speaking seditious words of
Charles II. Among other expressions which he used were
these: "What is the king better than another man? for
Robin Bulman (meaninge one Robin Bulman, of Pontefraet,

* Matthew Paxton, 3 vols , London, 1854, vol. ii. pp. 181-2.
f See also Aubrey's Miscellanies, p. 129.
VOL. II. T

274 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

laborer), a seaventh sonne, can cure seaven evils, and the kinge
can but cure nine, soe that the kinge is but two degrees better
than Eobert Bulman."* A prescription in the Physician of
Myddvai, p. 456, for the cure of warts is: " Wash the warts
with the water from a font in which the seventh son of the same
man and wife is baptised."

A popular but strange remedy for sleep-walking, is the
peculiar attribute of individuals born with their feet first. A
benevolent and even sensible old lady, thus privileged " in life's
morning march," once rose from what proved a mortal illness
to cure her grandchild who was afflicted with this unreasonable
restlessness. This she did by stamping nine times with her
naked feet on his breast.

In Northumberland there are what are called "evil- eyed"
and " bad-handed " people. Those who have the misfortune to
labour under the latter imperfection, if they set a cletch of
chickens, or even handle the eggs, they will miscarry. Mrs.
Fen wick, a farmer's wife, has been notified to me as having a
" bad hand," and the servants had to set the cletch of chickens.

Egg-setting, I am told, is not such a simple process as one
would think, but has to be gone about after a form, and has
annexed to it certain well-established conclusions. I will here
place a few of its saws and observances, which are from Ber-
wickshire.

It takes thirteen eggs to a cleckin, odd numbers being lucky.

" Wet-fited " ('meaning web-footed) " beasts sit a month, and
hens three weeks."

If eggs are set before the sun go down they come out cocks ;
if later in the evening hens are hatched.

If eggs are attempted to be set on a Sunday the chickens will
" not come out."

* Depositions from York Castle, p. 101.

BOKDEE SKETCHES AND FOLKLOEE. 275

Housewives don't set eggs in May, although it is confessed
that when set in that month they produce the strongest birds.

The Sign of Life.

Professor Lebour, of the University of Durham College of
Science, New castle, furnishes me with a somewhat singular super-
stition, which I have not seen noted elsewhere, called " The
Sign of Life." " The expression is one," he writes, " I have
only met with in the neighbourhood of Falstone, up North Tyne,
where a peculiar tremulous involuntary twitching of the eye
is said to be the ' Sign of Life,' and if repeated a certain number
of times (three times, I think) in a month or a year (I forget
which) is supposed to portend great things, but what things —
whether good or bad — I cannot remember. My chief informant
with regard to this mysterious ' Sign of Life,' was Mrs. Rob-
son, the postmistress of Falstone, a very mine of local know-
ledge. My wife informs me that in the south of England
(Hampshire and Wiltshire) the same thing is called ' Living
Blood.' "

Virtues of Irish People.

A cow in the Wooler district having been stung by an adder,
an Irish woman, who laughed all the while at the people's
application to her, was brought to stroke or rub the swelling
occasioned by the poison. She was also called on to rub the
throat, when "the pap o' the hass came down." It is also
believed that if Irish people spit all round a toad the animal will
die. On this subject, see Mr. Henderson's Folklore, p. 166.

The Evii- One.

A great fear of the presence of the Evil One evoked in-
advertently pervaded the popular mind. One of the propitia-

T 2

276 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

tory names given to the malign being was " Owd Harry.''
"As cunning as Owd Harry" is a popular phrase. An old
wife had a grown-up son called Harry, whose Christian name
she had a maternal pride in unnecessarily repeating. On one
occasion she was heard saying to him, " Harry, Harry, my
son Harry, I daurena ca' ye Harry at neet, for fear the deil
should come."

After death, and before the deposit of the inanimate body in
the tomb, watch was placed over it, lest the archfiend should
claim it — if deceased was one of his disciples — as a perquisite
that had fairly lapsed. Long ago in a country place in Berwick-
shire some neighbours were watching beside the corpse of one
who had been a very wicked man. One of the company,
happening to go out to the door, beheld a large misshapen
animal coming up a field towards the house, not quite straight-
forward, but questing backwards and forwards, as if in search
for prey. He called out the rest of the company to see the
ill-looking thing, but they speedily drew back and shut the door.
Not long after the door opened, and a big dark man entered.
All betook themselves to prayer. Some raved nonsense, others
did not know what to do in their perplexity. The man ap-
proached the bed ; but prayer being maintained he went away,
" not being commissioned further," as my informant suggested.
This is a piece of simple peasant lore without exaggeration.

" The alarm often experienced by country people on their
seeing a balloon descending on their fields is well known. A
singular instance is said to have occurred on the Scottish border.
A shepherd who tended his ' peaceful people,' saw, with con-
sternation, the aerial phenomenon immediately overhead and
fled precipitately. The voyager shouted, and threw down a
crown-piece in hope of tempting him to render assistance. The
shepherd, seeing the shining bribe and hearing the voice, guessed
with whom he had to deal, and turning his head towards the

BOEDEE SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 277

supposed arch-fiend, cried out : ' Na, na, Satan ! Sauney
defies thee ! ' " (T. H. Bell, Alnwick, in Newcastle Mag., ii.
(1823), p. 351.)

In the case of the will of Thomas Hopper, of Medomsley, son
of Humphrey Hopper, who died insane 1575-6, the father acts
as if he considered his disease as being diabolical possession and
practices exorcism. " The said Umphray conjeured the devyll
when his sone was madd and raved."* The son " kend not his
owne father when the said Umphra went to the doore, and came
in againe and asked the said Thomas, ' Whoe am I ? Am I
not thy father ? ' And he, the said Thomas, wold say, ' Thou
art the blak devell of Edeedsbrig.' And then the sayd Um-
phray saynd the said Thomas and corssed (crossed) hym, and
spyttyd, and said, ' Away, devell/ many times. "f During one
violent paroxysm the attendant could not control the patient,
and was obliged to waken the father to assist. " Then this
examinato cauld of the said Umphray out of his bedd, which,
seinge hys sone, the said Thomas, in that radg, maid a compas
about his said sone Thomas bedd, and spytted and said, ' Fye,
away, thou fowell theife, that comes to tempt us,' sainge to his
son Thomas many times, ' Thou or I have oifended God.' "\

There was one Cuddy (Cuthbert, a common name in St.
Cuthbert's territory) Blacket, who lived at Howburn or
Holborn, in Lowick parish, in the era of Buonaparte's wars,
and being a volunteer he had occasion to come and go to
Belford to undergo military training. One night he got
fuddled, and in returning home was passing over a stone laid
for a bridge across a ditch or burn in the Bogle House Plant-

* Depositions and other Ecclesiastical Proceedings at Lurliam,
p. 271.
t Hid,, p 272.
\ lliitl., p. 275.

278 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

ing. He might have been lost on the broad heathery moor that
surrounds it, but at this juncture he foregathered with a gentle-
man dressed in black who conducted him to Howburn. He
was the civilest gentleman he ever encountered, but before he
had gained an undue influence over him he chanced to glance
at his feet, and behold ! they were cloven. The Bogle-houses
— houses in Lowick Forest, consisting of a few humble
cottages inhabited by pitmen — was an uncanny place, notable
for ferlies being seen about it and unearthly noises being heard,
which may have been only the wailings of the wind exaggerated
by the fears of the lonely dwellers.

Divinations.

Sowing hempseed is part of the Halloween ritual as pre-
served by Robert Burns. In Northumberland its practice does
not appear to have been confined to the epoch of that festival.
The direction is : Go in at one door of the barn and out at
another, and while sowing the hempseed say :

" Hemp seed I sow tliee
And she (or he) that is to be my true love,
Come after me and mow thee."

On looking over the left shoulder the form of his or her lover
will be seen cutting down the visionary crop. To deter one
making the experiment, it is told that a too curious girl, having
gone through the operation, was shocked on looking behind to
see a coffin. This was practised in Dorsetshire on Midsummer
eve. (W. Barnes, in Hone's Year Book, 1175.)

Another form of prying into the future was to go to the
churchyard and look through the keyhole; but unfortunately
my informant had forgotten the remainder.

BOEDEE SKETCHES AND FOLKLOEE. 279

Put your shoes with the soles turned upwards beneath your
pillow as you turn in to sleep and repeat,

" I hope this night that I may see,
The woman that's my bride to be ;
Not clothed in her rich array,
But in clothes that she wears every day,"

and you will be favoured in a dream with a sight of her who is
destined to be your wife. The person who told me this had
gone through the performance successfully. One day after the
trial, when riding out, he passed a girl and said to himself this is
she of whom I dreamt. He had a firm conviction that, although
a stranger, he had seen her before. They became acquainted,
and subsequently were married.

In Dorsetshire if a girl, " at going to bed, put her shoos at
right angles with each other, in the shape of a T, and say,

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

she will be sure to see her husband in a dream, and perhaps
in reality by her bedside." (W. Barnes, ubi sup.)

" Whenever I go to lye in a strange bed I always tye my
garter 9 times round the bed post, and knit nine knots in it,
and say to myself :

' This knot I knit, this knot I tye,
To see my love as he goes by ;
In his apparel'd array,
As he walks in every day.' "

Connoisseur, No. 5G.

" You must bo in anothor county, and knit, the left garter
about tho right-logged stocking (let the other garter and stocks

280 THE DBNHAM TRACTS.

ing alone), and as you rehearse these following verses, at every
comma knit a knot :

1 This knot I knit,
To know the thing, I know not yet,
That I may see,

The man (woman) that shall my husband (wife) be,
How he goes and what he wears,
And what he does all days, and years.'

" Accordingly in your dream you will see him ; if a musician,
■with a lute or other instrument ; if a scholar, with a hook or
paper." (Aubrey's Miscellanies, p. 137.)

" A gentlewoman that I knew confessed in my hearing that
she used this method, and dreamt of her husband, whom she had
never seen. About two or three years after, as she was on
Sunday at church (at Our Lady's Church in Sarum), up pops a
young Oxonian in the pulpit. She cries out presently to her
sister, ' This is the very face of the man I saw in my dream.'
Sir William Soames's lady did the like." *

" Lovers in an open passage at night sought to see through
the meshes of a riddle the form of their future partners in con-
nubial life."f

This custom is said to have been common in Northumberland
without any form of words, it being sufficient to secure a dream
of one's lover, when in a strange bed, to tie the garter round
the bedpost.

If one eats a red herring raw to supper, and goes to bed
backward, not saying a word, he will dream of his future wife
before the morning.

On the appearance of the first moon after the new year, look

* Aubrey's Miscellanies, pp. 137-8.

| Hodgson's Hist, of Northumberland, part 2, vol. ii. p. 329.

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 281

through a black silk handkerchief unwashed at it, and you will
see by the number of moons visible the number of years that
will elapse before you are married. In the Glasgow Mechanics'
Magazine, No. 60 (1825), we have a query : " Observe the new
moon through a silk napkin, and the number of moons visible
will denote her age in days. This holds good till she is five or
six days old. What is the cause of this phenomenon ? " There
are few young people in the country who have not tried this
experiment.

Another way with the moon is to charm it thus : " At the
first appearance of the new moon after New Year's Day (some
say any other new moon is as good), go out in the evening and
stand over the spars of a gate or stile looking on the moon, and

say:

' All hail to the moon, all hail to thee,
I prithee good moon reveal to me
This night, who my husband (wife) must be.'

<( In Yorkshire they kneel on a ground-fast stone- You must
presently after go to bed. I knew two gentlewomen that did
thus when they were young maids, and they had dreams of
thoso that married them." *

At Wooler servant girls tie their left-leg stocking round
their neck in order to dream of him whom they were to get for
a husband. The first cut of " baby's cheese " is used to dream
upon with similar intent ; so also is a portion of the plateful of
cake thrown over the bride's head immediately before she
enters her future home, as well as a narrow piece of the bride's
cake passed nine times through the wedding ring, this being

* Aubrey's Miscellanies, p. 138 ; quoted, but not exactly, in Mr.
Henderson's Folklore, p. 115; the omitted particulars are worth
knowing, and therefore I repent it. It is said to be customary in the
Highlands of Scotland (Napier's Folklore, p. 98).

282 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

done of purpose for " dreaming pieces." Sops are made in
beer, and a ring introduced, and then they are supped, and the
first to whom the ring falls is to be first wed.

6. Although both Mr. Denham and Mr. Henderson have
treated of the " Even-ash " leaf, they have not the exact North-
umbrian formula. The leaf of the ash which has an equal
number of divisions on each side, which is very difficult to
obtain, is pulled with the following rhyme :

" Even, even, ash,

I pull thee off the tree,
The first young man that I do meet.
My lover he shall be."

It is then placed in the left shoe. It is also said, " Even-
ash, under the shoe, will get you a sweetheart."

The same friend, now deceased, who supplied me with the
above from Long Benton, communicated, in 1845, the following
varieties of divining in a small way.

" Scalding pease is common. My mother has seen a bean placed
in a swad, the receiver, whether male or female, is to be first
married. On Carling Sunday, in some parts of Northumber-
land, fried pease are served up on a dish. Every one of the
company is furnished with a spoon ; they help themselves in
regular succession, until the quantity is too small to allow of
that mode of division. They then dole out one at a time,
and whoever gets the last will be first married.

11 Saint Agnes's Fast. — My father knew a woman who tried this
charm, but contrary to the usual number of one, saw actually three,
the last of whom had a wooden leg. This woman had the second
man whom she saw in her dream, when she told my father of the
circumstance ; adding that she thought it very improbable that
she would get the third, as he (a neighbour) had then a wife
alive, and sho had a dislike to his wooden leg ; but who can

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 283

control the fates ! this man's wife dying, and her husband also,
she so far conquered her aversion to his timber toe as to become
his for better for worse."

On the eve of St. Agnes's day (January 21), says Brand,*
" many kinds of divination are practised by virgins to discover
their future husbands. This is called fasting St. Agnes's Fast."

" Hupperless to bed they must retire,
Nor look behind nor sideways ; but require
Of heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire."f

" In Scotland, a number of young men and women met
together on St. Agnes's eve at midnight, went, one by one, to
a certain field and threw in some grain, after which they
repeated the following rhyme : —

' Agnes sweet, and Agnes fair,
Hither, hither, now repair ;
Bonny Agnes, let me see

The lad who is to marry me. ' "

The shadow of the destined bride or bridegroom was
supposed to be seen in a looking-glass on this very night."J
" On St. Agnes night, 21 day of January," says Aubrey,
" take a row of pins and pull out every one, one after another,
saying a pater noster (or Our Father), sticking a pin in your
sleeve, and you will dream of him or her you shall marry ."§

Near Kendal " there were ceremonies in use not long
ago of rather an awful nature, which for those who had the
courage to use them were said to yield the desired information.

Pop. Antiq., i. p. 21.

f Keats' Eve of St. Agnes, st. vi.

\ English Folklore, by the Rev. T. F. Thisclton Dyer, p. ] 81.

§ Aubrey's Miscellanies, p. l:)G. London, 1721.

284 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

One was to walk backwards round a church three times on a
certain night in the year, and then sit down in the porch, when
the ghosts of their intended husbands or wives would pass
before them; but if they were unfortunately not destined to
enjoy that happy state, then they would see the apparition of
their coffins. I recollect when a boy hearing an old man aver
that he had gone through this trying ordeal ; and that the
apparitions of his two wives passed before him in the order he
afterwards married them."* Something similar to this was
practised in Yorkshire on St. Mark's eve, but it required three
years' continuous vigils — See Brand's Pop. Antiq., i. p. 115 —
also on Midsummer eve, when all that were to die that year in
the parish passed by in procession into the church. {Ibid.,
p. 170.)

To this class of beliefs belongs the superstition about the
" She-Holly," which I first related in the Local Historians'
Table Book, iii. pp. 254, 255 ; but as that work is out of print
and becoming scarce, I may now transfer it here.

In Northumberland holly is divided into two kinds, he and
she. He has prickles, but of she, being the upper leaves of the
tress,

" Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear."

The leaves of the she -holly possess the wondrous virtue, if
gathered in a proper manner, of exciting dreams concerning
that momentous topic — a future husband or wife. To ensure this
the leaves must be plucked upon a Friday evening, about mid-
night, by parties who, from their setting out until next day at
dawn, must preserve unbroken silence. They are to be col-
lected in a three-cornered handkerchief, and after being brought

* Mr. Pearson on Superstitions of Westmoreland, &c, in London
Saturday Journal, i. p. 131 (1841).

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 285

home, nine of the leaves must be selected and tied with nine
knots inside the handkerchief, and then placed underneath the
pillow. A dream worthy of all credit will be the issue.

My informant was once the leader of a party in an expedi-
tion that promised, by means of these potent holly leaves, to
unlock the secrets of futurity. It consisted of himself, at that
time a farm labourer, of his master's sister, and the female
servant. When decent folks had gone to bed these three mad-
caps set out in profound silence for the tree, which stood at a
farm homestead at a considerable distance, and having got
there they provided themselves with the requisite supply. On
their way back it added much to the frolic that each endea-
voured to induce his or her fellows to break, in a heedless
moment, the silence essential to the rite. This, though produc-
tive of much mirth, elicited no profane vocable. As the head
of the party lived at a separate farmhouse, it was previously
agreed that if on going home he should be refused admittance
he was to return, and his two companions would provide him
with a bed beside the master. The difference between master
and servant at that period was not so wide as to make this to
be reckoned an impropriety. He went home and knocked,
but as he would not answer the questions put to him he was
forced to return to his master's house, into which he was
admitted by his expectant partners. At the time he entered
his master's bedroom, which was upstairs, the master happened
to be asleep ; and he having undressed as quietly as possible and
prepared his holly, crept in behind him. This, however, roused
the slumbering farmer, who was surprised to find his bed
invaded in this unceremonious way. " Wha's thou?" he
shouts out. No reply. "Is thee, Geordy?" (his first-born,
who lived at an off-farm). Deep silence. " Is thee, Tommy? "
(another of his sons). No answer. " Is't thee, Michael?"
(the real person). Michael heard him well enough, but pre-

286 THE DKKHAM TKACTS.

tended to snore in sleep. The farmer in some perplexity was
about to don his garments and descend to the kitchen to inquire
after his singular bedfellow. It was well he did not, as the
parties below would have equally tantalised him with dumb
show. As it was, they were both stationed at the bedroom
door, ill-able to restrain their pent-up mirth. The farmer at
length, supposing the intruder to be actually asleep, and that
he could be none other than he had surmised, judged it most
advisable to follow his example. When morning arrived the
whole thing was explained, and the farmer enjoyed a hearty
laugh at his own share in the pantomime. The result of the
matter was that Michael had a dream, in which he saw two
damsels, of whom, the thoughts of the evening being uppermost,
the master's sister was one, but neither of them was she — or
rather they, for he was twice married — whom he afterwards led
before the priest.

In the island of Bute there is a " dreaming tree " of a
different species. This is a very lofty pine which grows in the
centre of au enclosure called the " Devil's Caldron," near St.
Blane's Chapel, at Kilcatan Bay. This " dreaming tree " to a
great height " is divested of its foliage by those who wished to
test its supposed qualities by breaking off small pieces to put
under their pillows."*

The game of " keppy ball," as played at Alnwick, at the
"coban tree," is another example of rural divination, although
confined to children. I shall again avail myself of an article of
my own, contributed to a local journal, " On Covin, Coban, or
Capon Trees." Dr. Jamieson, in his Scottish Dictionary, says
that in Roxburghshire the covin-tree signifies " a large tree in
front of an old Scottish mansion-house, where the laird always
met his visitors." A corruption of it is supposed to be " coglan-

Wilson's Guide to Rothesay, p. 131.

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 287

tree." He derives it from the French convent, convention or
agreement ; which again is from the Latin conve?itum, a
covenant, or conventus, an assembly. Covent, Anglo-Norman,
is a covenant or agreement in " Morte Arthure." The witches
of Auldearn met in covines, and the prettiest of them was called
the maiden of the covine. The covin-tree is thus a variety of
the trysting-tree, whose name and functions as the place of
summons in the old " Riding" era, as the spot where rural
lovers met and plighted troth, or where the exchanges of ser-
vices and commodities held and still hold their convention, are
indelibly impressed upon northern language and literature. Sir
Walter Scott, in a note to his Letters on Demonology and Witch-
craft, p. 277, holds the same view as Dr. Jamieson. " The tree
near the front of an ancient castle was called the covine-tree
probably because the lord received his company there."

" He is lord of the hunting-horn,
And king of tho covine tree ;
He's well lov'd in the western waters,
But best of his own Minnie."

When on a visit to Alnwick in 1861 I found it to be well
understood that a tree, called there a coban or covan tree, onco
Btood before every old castle (within a bowshot of Alnwick
Castle for instance), and it was there the lord met his guests.
And there used to be, and still is, a rhyme having reference to
it, sung by young girls while playing at " keppy ball," or catch-
ball, against a tree. From tho time they can keep up the ball,
they also divine their future prospects as to matrimony or
spinster life.

" Keppy ball, keppy ball, covine tree,
Come down tho lang loanin' and tell to me,
The form and the features, the speech and degree,
Of the man that is my true lover to be.

288 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

" Keppy ball, keppy ball, coban tree,
Come down the lang loanin' and tell to me,
How many years old (her name) is to be —

" One a maiden, two a wife,
Three a maiden, four a wife,
Five a maiden, six a wife," &c.

And so on, the odds for the single, the even numbers for the
married state so long as the ball can be kept rebounding against
the tree round which they play.

The Scottish covin and Northumbrian coban trees being
thus identical, it is shown that capon trees such as that at
Brompton, in Cumberland, and the capon tree on the Prior's
haugh at Jedburgh, are of the class, the letters v, b, and p
being mutually interchangeable in European languages. Mr.
Tate, to whom I owe the rhyme, in return adopted my theory.
See History of Alnwick, i. p. 436.

Tuening the Riddle.

A much less excusable form of divinations is that called
''Turning the Riddle." The following is a lively instance:
One Moll Ha' (Mary Hall) in Wooler, overintimate with
Satan, was accustomed to resort to this malpractice, at the
instance of applicants, whenever anything was lost or stolen.
She turned it and named the thief, and thus " gliffed " (or
frightened) them to make restitution. One Jenny Sim, having
had purloined some caps and shifts from a washing laid out to
dry, had recourse to her, after other means of recovery failed.
" The old folks of Wooler mind it well ; what a day that was ;
all the houses shook as if stirred by an invisible wind," for she
had actually bought up the prince of the power of the air.*

* To this wo find a parallel in the evidence, April 1, 1670, of

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 289

That this was a very prevalent practice appears from the
Depositions before the Courts at Durham and those kept at
York Castle, published in two of the volumes of the Surtees
Society, Nos. 21 and 40. 26th January, 1566-7, Margareta
Lambert, against Elizabeth Lawson. " John Lawson, husband
of Elizabeth, informs that the said Margaret is an exorcist,
' that for certaine things lackinge she turned a seve upon a pair
of shores.' "* She was also a reputed " charmer." Between
1561 and 1577, one Allice Swan, wife of Robert Swan, made tt
confession after the minister in St. Nicholas Church at New-
castle, upon Sunday after the Sermon, for turning the riddle and
Bheares. To this iniquitous act she had been recently incited
by the means and procurement of Margaret Lawson, Anne
Hedworth, Elizabeth Kindleside, Agnes Rikerbye, Anne Bewike,
and Jerrerd Robison. And "not having the feare of God"
before her eyes, " but following the persuasion of the devell,"
she had " of a filthie lucre and under colour of a singular and
secret knowledge of lost things, used by the space of certen
yeres to cast or tourne the riddle and sheares, a kind of divi-
nation or charming expressedly forbidden by G-ode's lawes and
the Queue's Majestie."f I 11 1573, Thomas Hardye, of Morpeth,
shoemaker, had as a hired man one John Bell, who was " sus-

Margaret, wife of Richard Wilson, who "sayth, that in her former
husband John Akers' life-time, she once lost out of her purse 50a.
all but three halfe-pence ; and, shortly after, there hapned to be a
great wind, and after the wind was downe she mett with Anne
Wilkinson, who fell into a great rage, bitterly cursing her, and telling
her that she had bene att a wise man, and had raisd this wiud which
had put out her eyes, and that she was stout now she had gott her
money againe." — Depositions from York Castle, p. 177.

• Depositions at Durham, p. 84.

f Ibid., p. 117.

VOL II. U

290 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

pect of michery (knavery) and untreweth concerning a shirt of
one Thomas Somer," his fellow- workman, now servant to Eobert
Turner of Felton. While residing at Morpeth "bytwixt
Christenmas and Easter," Somer had " his shirt goon [taken
away] , and maid moch to do for yt ; and the said Bell moved
this examinate to make no wonder for yt, and said for a grote
of this deponent's pursse he shuld cause the said shirt to come
againe, saing that he, the said Bell, reported that ther was a
wyff in Newcastell, his cosinge, thatculd torne theryddle, etc.;
and within thre days nexl after this examinate found his said
shirt that was a laking. And then the said Bell demandyd 4d.
of this examinate, and this deponent wold not agree to gyve the
said Bell any thing unless he wold tell hym who had his said
shirt he lacked." The consequence was that the Aldermen of
Morpeth, and the representatives of the shoemaker trade, dis-
charged Bell from working in that town till " he had brought
them a certificat frome the said wyffe of Newcastell, that she
could tell of things that weir stolne ; but this he failed to do,
and therefore he was accounted " to be no honest man." Bell
required of Somer " 6 names of everge syd of his neighbours,"
along with the 4d., to give to this " wyf of Newcastell that wold
turne the redell, and get him the shirt within a weack." *

At Newcastle, February 15, 1659-60, Elizabeth, wife of George
Simpson of Tynemouth, fisher, was accused for practising witch-
craft, and besides she was reported to be a charmer, "and
turnes the sive for money."-)- On December 13, 1598, the wife
of Thomas Grace, of the parish of Stannington, Northumber-
land, was presented " for turninge of the ridle for things loste
and stolne." The Rev. John Hodgson in noticing this case
says a pair of spring shears were commonly used with the

* Depositions at Durham, pp. 251, 252.
f Depositions, $c.,from York Castle, p. 82.

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLOKE. 291

riddle, " and of their own accord turned round when the name
of the person who had stolen the goods pursued was called over
them."*

"Dec. 10, 1667. Cumberland. Before Thos. Denton,
219. Mary, wife of Stephen Johnson, of Carleton, saith, that,
us shee was coming from Clifton, shee met with Jo. Scott, whoe
told her that his wife had cast the riddle and sheares for some
cloathes of George Carre's that was stole ; and one Jo. Webster
of Clifton, told them that they knew as much as he could tell
them, and that it was a little bleare-eyed lasse that gott them,
whoe lived neare them." The Rev. James Kaine, who quotes
this example, informs us that the formula used by the operator
was as follows :

" By St. Peter and by St. Paul

If has stolen 's

Turn about riddle and shears and all." j

Dec. 12, 1596, the wife of Thomas Grace, of Stannington,
Northumberland, was presented at a visitation for turning the
riddle for things lost or stolen. (Hodgson.)

Chakming.

Charmers and fortune-tellers, as distinct from witches, have
long maintained their trade in the north of England, nor is the
belief in " spaeing women " yet obsolete, even in the busiest
haunts of industry on the Tyne or Wear. There are several
examples recorded in the depositions before the Ecclesiastical
Courts at Durham, which carry back the practice to a remote
poriotl. In October, 1446, Mariotde Belton and Isabella Brome

* Hodgson's Hist, of Northumberland, part ii. vol. ii. p. 329.
f Depositions, $c.,from York Castle, p. 82, note.

U 2

292 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

were accused of this crime. The first was blamed for being a
diviner by lots, and in particular of telling disengaged women
desirous of being married that she had the power of causing
them to obtain those on whom their affections were set. She had
to clear herself by twelve hands of honest women, i.e. six people,
her neighbours, who became security for her. Isabella for
a similar cause was cleared by four hands. In October, 1450,
Agnes Bowmer, late of Witton, was summoned for forecasting the
future by lot. She as well as the others denied the allegations.*
23 March, 1451-2, Joh. Davison and Alicia Davison were
summoned, and Alicia the mother compeared. It was alleged
against her that she used divination by lot, which consisted in
being a mediciner, in what manner is not specified, with lead
and comb and iron (" utetur arte medical ' cum plumbo et pect '
et ferro c ") f- 4 Feb., 1566-67, John Lawson accused of
defaming Margaret Lawson by calling her " a chermer," his
reply being that it had been so reported-! In Oct. 20, 1663
one Nicholas Battersby, of Bowtham, in Yorkshire, exercised
the art of a wise man, having had " skill in the discoveringe of
those persons that had stolne moneyes ; and where the monyes
might bee found."§

Feb. 3, 1664-5, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, before Sir Francis
Liddle, knight, mayor, Mrs. Pepper, midwife, was cited for
using charms to remedy the afflicted. One Robert Pyle, pitman,
was affected with fits, one of which lasted " the space of one
houre and a halfe," and he was " most strangely handled."
" And the said Mrs. Pepper did take water and throwed itt upon
his face, and touke this informer's child, and another sucking

* Depositions, fyc.,from York Castle, p. 29.
t Ibid., p. 33.
j Ibid., p. 84.
§ Ibid., p. 101.

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKXOEE. 293

child, and laid them to his mouth. And shee demanding the
reason why she did soe, she replyed, that the breath of the
children would suck the evill spirritt out of him, for he was
possessed with an evill spirritt ; and she said she would prove itt
either before mayor or ministers that he was bewitched."
Another female witness did see this Mrs. Pepper " call for a
bottle of holy water, and tooke the same, and sprinkled itt upon
a redd hott spot which was upon the back of his right hand ; and
did take a silver crucifix out of her breast, and laid itt upon the
said spott. And did then say that shee knew by the said spott
what his disease was, and did take the said crucifix and putt itt
in his mouth." *

A still older example of charming by applying living animals
to the mouth, in order to re-animate the sinking frame of the
patient with fresh life, is recorded as happening at Wooler, on
July 23rd, 1604, when the Vicar-General of the Bishop of
Durham proceeded against Katherine Thompson and Anne
Nevelson of Wooler, " pretended to be common charmers of
sick folkes and their goodes, and that they use to bring white
ducks or drakes, and to sett the bill thereof to the mouth of the
sick person, and mumble upp their charmes in such a strange
manner as is damnible and horrible/' f

The disease called the thrush in the interior of the mouth
prevents infants from imbibing their food. Aubrey gives a
singular case, akin to the above, which he appears to have had
from " an experienced midwife." " Take a living frog, and
hold it in a cloth, that it does not go down into the child's
mouth, till it is dead ; and then take another frog and do the

* Depositions, fyc.,from York Castle, p. 127.
t Visit. Book, Register Office, Durham; quoted also in Depositions,
4c, from York disllc, p. 127, note.

294 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

same."* This distemper is actually called in North Northum-
berland " the frog in the mouth."

Feb. 16, 1653-4, John Tatterson of Gargreave, Yorkshire,
" being disabled in body " and depressed in mind, " troubled with
ill spiretts, who would have advised him to worshippt the enemye"
has recourse to Ann Greene, a wise woman or mediciner, who
cured him, for which he ought to have been grateful, but
instead thereof becomes her accuser. " This informant went to
the said Ann, tellinge her that hee was perswaded that she
could helpe him, beeinge pained in his eare. The which disease
shee told him that blacke wool was good for itt,f but he said
that that was not the matter. Whereuppon she loosed the
garter from her legg, and crossed his left eare 3 times there-
with, and gott some heire outt of his necke, without his consent.

* Aubrey's Miscellanies, p. 144.

j " For Ulceration of the Bars. Take the seed of the ash, other-
wise called the ashen keys, and boil briskly in the water of the sick
man ; foment the ear therewith and put some therein on black ioooI.
By God's help it will cure it." — The Physicians of Myddvai, p. 327.
" For Noise in the Head, preventing Hearing. Take a clove of
garlic, prick in three or four places in the middle, dip in honey, and
insert in the ear, covering it with some black wool," &c. — Ibid., p. 338.
Black wool is an ingredient in the charm, " which was made by the
Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and shown to the three brethren,
asking them where they went : we go said they to the ount of
Olives, to gather herbs to heal wounds and contusions." &c. —
Ibid,, p. 455. " New shorn wool, especially that of the neck of a black
sheep, is good against wounds in the beginning, stroaks, desgramma-
tions, bruises, and broaken bones, being soaked in vinegar, oile or
wine, and is used in embrocations.'" — Lovell's Panzoologicomiiwalogia,
p. 113, Oxford, 1661. This appears to be from Pliny and Dioscorides,
but I do not find in either author mention of the wool of a black sheep.
Among the Romans the victims offered to the infernal gods were
black.

BOEDEE SKETCHES AND FOLKLOEE. 295

And he askeinge her what she would doe therewith, she tould
him what matter was that to him, she would use it att her
pleasure; goe his waye home and care nott. But, goeinge
home, hee was more pained than beefore, and returneinge to her
he told her to looke to itt or hee would looke to her. "Where
uppon she crost his eare three times againe, and promised hee
should mend. And, accordingely, hee did, some corruptible
matter runinge outt of his eare as itt did amend."

In her own defence she said, " that she sometimes useth a
charme for cureing the heart each (ache), and used itt twice in
one night unto John Tatterson of Gargreave, by crosseinge a
garter over his eare and sayeinge these words, ' Boate, a God's
namef 9 times over. Likewise for paines in the head, she
requires their water and a locke of their heire, the which she
boyles together, and afterwards throwes them in the fire and
burnes them ; and meddles nott with any other diseases."

Some of the pretensions of those impostors called wisemen
are contained in the depositions, Jan. 19, 1673-4, before Robert
Roddam, mayor of Newcastle, against Peter Banks, who
cunningly took advantage of the popular credulity in a variety
of ways, most likely to succeed, as being in consonance with the
ideas of that age. Jane, wife of Cuthbert Burrell, shipwright,
deposed that he persuaded people that he could let leases to
people for a term of years and life, thereby insuring their lives
for that period. " Whereupon divers seamen repair to him and
putt trust in his conjurations, and pay him 20s. a pcice for
such leases." A year and a half previously he tried to impose
upon her husband, who was accustomed to take sea voyages, by
thrusting one of these fictitious leases into his hands. The wile
having discovered the fraud " was mighty angry and much
greived." The contents were these: " I charge you and all of
you, in the high sword name, to assist and blesse (Aith. Burrell,
belonging to — (such a ship) — from all rocks and sands, storms

296 THE DENBAM TRACTS.

and tempests thereunto belonging, for this yeare." This she
indignantly thrust into the fire, on which account Banks
" threatened he would plague" her, "that she should never be
worth a groat," and he continued to molest her by his " strange
stratagems." " The said Peter Banks hath often confessed to
her and others that he used inchantments, conjuracions, and
magick arts ; and, in perticuler, in conjureing evil and
malicious spiritts ; and, espetially, about a young woman that
lived in Gateshead, whose name she knows not, who came to
him when the informer was present, and discovered about her
being molested with a spirit and the like. Whereupon lie
looked iu his books, and writt something out of the same into a
paper and delivered it to that young woman. And told her
that when the spirit appeared lett her open that paper, and she
would be noe more molested. And afterwards, as Banks con-
fessed, the same woman came back again, and gave him thanks
and payment." He " made his cracks and boasts," " that he
medicined and conjured an evill spirit that Thomas Newton's
daughter was troubled with, and in the night time he burnt
peices of paper in the fire written on for that end, and a certaine
number in the night, at a certaine time, and used words that he
had mastered the spirits. He likewise said that he could com-
pell people that had iil husbands to be good to their wifes. And
he did nominate one Jane Crossley, to whom he had letten a
lease for that end, and had got 10s. and two new shirts for his
pains ; and that the same lease endured for a yeare, and, during
that time, her husband was loveing and kind ; but the yeare
expireing, and she not renewing her lease, her said husband
was ill and untoward againe. And he also declared that he
could take away a man's life a yeare before his appointed time,
or make him live a yeare longer." Ellinor Patteson, alias
Phillips, alleged that contention having arisen between her and
Banks, " she often in the night time was terrified with visions

BOEDEB SKETCIIES AND FOLKXOEE. 297

and apparitions; and in such a manner as she thought the said
Banks was standing up in flames of fire, and could never be
att rest and quietnesse till she made agreement with him."
Banks persuaded her that " she was wronged and bewitched
and he could cure her. Therefore by his perswasions she per-
mitted him to eutt a litle haire out of the back side of her neck
in order to medicine and cure her. After which he putt tho
haire into a paper, and having sealed it upp, gave it again to
the informer, and bidd her burne it. After which she amended
and grew better." *

In an accusation of witchcraft, April 12, 1673, Mark Humble,
of Healy, saith " that his mother, Margaret Humble, then lyeing
not well, Isabell Thompson tooke some of her haire to medicine
her." f

The Rev. James Raino remarks that the use of the hair of the
sick person is derivable from classical antiquity. J

Thomas Wilson, in his Pitmain Pay, p. 17, has these lines :

" Aw'vo just been ower wi' somethin' warm,
Te try to ease the weary cough,
Which baffles byeth the drugs and charm,
And threetens oft to tyek him off."

He adds in a note : " Quackery is not confined to drugs. The
ignorant are often imposed upon by what designing knaves call
' charms ; ' and when the former fail recourse is had to the
latter."

Wilson notices another charmer and fortune-teller, who once
carried on a great traffic near Brampton, and transmitted the
profession to her daughter, who was still more a proficient.

* Depositions, tj-c, from York Castle, pp. 204, 205.

f Ibid., p. -Jnl.

I Ibid., p. (J 1, liotf.

298 THE DENHAH TRACTS.

Elizabeth or Lizzy Douglas " lived near Brampton, and carried
on the craft of fortune-telling, recovering things stolen or
strayed, and restoring cattle that laboured under diseases
inflicted by witchcraft. She was the oracle of the vicinity for
many miles round, and sent many a forlorn maiden away with
a light heart; for, after bamboozling and mystifying the
inquirer with a variety of questions, so as almost to make her
say what she wanted to be told, she delighted her with the
initials of the name of the swain of her choice, not forgetting,
however, whilst shuffling the cards, to shuffle the money from
the girl's pocket into her own. She was once applied to for
assistance in the case of some cattle that were ' dwining away '
under the power of witchcraft. She was rather puzzled how to
act in this matter ; but, after applying her fertile mind to it for
some time, she came to the conclusion that slitting their tails
and putting pieces of rowan-tree into the opening would free
them from the power that was destroying them. This, of
course, was tried ; but the owners of the cattle declared that
it had no effect upon the disease, and that they might as well
have 'laid salt on their tails.' Lizzy, no doubt, often missed
her mark on these occasions ; but she sometimes made a lucky
hit, which kept her fame afloat with the dupes that consulted
her. She has been dead many years ; but her daughter, it is
said, has succeeded to the business, and inherits the rare quali-
ties of her far-famed parent." *

At Wooler, to cure the stye a gold ring is applied nine times
to the place affected, also the cat's tail if the eye is rubbed
with it.

A charm there for a new tooth was to wrap the tooth in a

* The Pitman's Pay and Other Poems, by Thomas Wilson, p. 85,
note.

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 299

piece of paper along with some salt and cast it into the fire,
saying :

" Fire, fire, burn byen,
Lord, send me my tnith agyen."

This is customary among children in the south of Scotland, the

saying being :

" Fire, fire, burn bane,
And send me my tooth again."

To obtain a clock at a raffle, sit crossed-leg and you will be
sure to get it.

Anne Baites and Others ; for Witchcraft.

"April 2, 1673. Before Humphrey Mitford, Esq. Ann
Armstrong, of Birchen-nooke, spinster, saith, that Ann, wife
of Thomas Baites, of Morpeth, tanner, hath beene severall
times in the company of the rest of the witches, both att
Barwick, Barrasford, and at Ridingbridg-end, and once att
the house of Mr. Francis Pye, in Morpeth, in the seller there*
The said Ann Baites hath severall times danced with the dived
att the places aforesaid, calling him, sometimes, her protector,
and, other sometimes, her blessed saviour. He hath seen the
said Ann Baites severall times att the places aforesaid rideing
upon wooden dishes and egg-shells, both in the rideinge house
and in the close adjoyninge. She further saith that the said
Ann hath been severall times in the shape of a catt and a hare,
and in the shape of a greyhound and a bee, letting the divcll
see how many shapes she could turn herself into.

" April 4. Before Sir Richard Stote. The same witness
saith, that since she gave information against severall persons
who ridd her to severall places where they had conversation
with the divell, she hath] beene severall times lately ridden by
Anne Driden and Anne Forster, and was last night ridden by
them to the rideing house in the close on the common, where

300 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

the said Anne Forster, Anne Driden, Lucy Thompson, John
Crauforth, Wm. Wright, Elizabeth Pickering, Anne Usher,
Michaell Aynesley, and Margaret his wife, and one Margarett,
whose surname she knowes not, but she said to the protector
she came from Corbridge, and thre more, whose names she
knowes not, were all present with their protector, and had all
sorts of meates and drinkes they named, siltt * upon the table
by pulling a rope, and they tooke the bridle of this informant,
and made her singe to them whilst they danced ; and all of
them who had donne harme gave an account thereof to their pro-
tector, who made most of them that did most harme, and beate
those who had donne no harme. And Mary Hunter said she had
killed George Taylor's filly, and had power over his mare, and ,
that she had power of the farre hinder leg of Johne Marche.

" Feb. 5, 1 672-3. Newcastle-on-Tyne, before Ealph Jenison.
Anne Armstrong, of Birks-nooke, saith, that, being servant to
one Ma'ble Fouler of Burtree House, in August last, her dame
sent her to seeke eggs of one Anne Foster, of Stocksfield ; but
as they could not agree for the price, the said Anne desired
her to sitt downe and looke her head, which ' accordingly ' she
did. And then the said Anne lookt this informant's head.
And, when they had done, she went home. And, about three
days after, seekeing the cowes in the pasture, a little after day-
breake, she mett, as she thought, an old man with ragg'd
cloaths, who askt this informant where she was on the Friday
last. She tould him she was seekeing eggs at Stocksfield. So he
tould her that the same woman that lookt her head should be
the first that made a horse of her spin-it, and who should be
the next that would ride her ; and into what shape and like-
nesses she should be changed, if she would turne to there God.

* Sile, Northumbrian, is to percolate, to flow ; also, to strain, to
purify milk through a straining dish.— Brockett's North Country
Words.

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 301

And with all tould this informer how they would use all meanes
they could to allure her : first, by there tricks, by rideing in the
house in empty wood dishes that had never beene wett, and
also in egg shells, and how to obtaine whatever they desired bv
swinging in a rope ; and with severall dishes of meate and
drinke. But, if she eate not of their meate, they could not
harme her. And, at last, tould her how it should be divulged by
eateing a piece of cheese, which should be laid by her when
she laie downe in a field, with her apron cast over her head,
and so left her. But after he was gone she fell suddainely
downe dead and continued dead till towards six that morneing.
And, when she arose, went home, but kept all these things secrett.
And since that time, for the most parte every day, and some-
times two or three times in the day, she has taken of these fitts,
and continued as dead often from evening till cockcrow. And
whilst she was lying in that condition, which happened one
night a little before Christmas, about the change of the moone,
this informant see the said Anne Forster come with a bridle,
and bridled her and ridd upon her crosse-legged, till they
came to (the) rest of her companions at Rideing Millne bridg-
end, where they usually mett. And when she light of her
back, pull'd the bridle of this informer's head, now in the like-
nesse of a horse ; but, when the bridle was taken of, she stood
up in her own shape, and then she see the said Anne Forster,
Anne Dryden, of Prudhoe, and Luce Thompson, of Mickley,
and tenne more unknowno to her, a long black man rideing on
a bay galloway, as she thought, which they called there pro-
tector. And when they had bankt theire horses, they stood all
upon a bare spott of ground, and bad this informer sing whilst
they danced in severall shapes, first of a hare, then in their
owne, and then in a catt, sometimes in a mouse, and in severall
other shapes. And when they had done, bridled this informer,
and the rest of the horses, and rid home with their protector

302 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

first. And for six or seaven nights together they did the same.
And the last night this informer was with them they mett all
at a house called the Rideing house, where she saw Forster,
Dryden, and Thompson, and the rest, and theire protector,
which they call'd their god, sitting at the head of the table in
a gold chaire, as she thought ; and a rope hanging over the
roome, which every one touch'd three several times, and what-
ever was desired was sett upon the table, of several kindes of
meate and drinke ; and when they had eaten, she that was last
drew the table, and kept the reversions. This was their custome
which they usually did. But when this informer used nieanes
to avoyd theire company they came in their owne shapes, and
threatned her, if she would not turne to theire god, the last
shift should be the worst. And from that time they have not
troubled her. But further saith that, on St. John day last,
being in the field, seeking sheep, she sitt downe, being weary,
and cast her apron over her head. And when she got upp she
found a piece cheese lying at her head ; which she tooke up and
brought home, and did eate of it, and since that time hath dis-
closed all which she formerly kept secrett.

" Apr. 9, 1 673. At the Sessions at Morpeth, before Sir
Thomas Horsley and Sir Richard Stote, knights, James Howard,
Humphrey Mitford, Ralph Jenison, and John Salkeld, Esqrs.

" Anne Armstrong, of Birks-nuke, spinster, saith, that the
information she hath already given is truth. She now further
saith that Lucy Thompson, of Mickley, widdow, upon Thursday
in the evening, being the 3rd of Aprill, att the house of John
Newton off the Riding, swinging upon a rope which went
crosse the balkes, she, the said Lucy, wished that a boyl'd capon
with silver scrues might come down to her and the rest, which
were five coveys consisting of thirteen person in every covey ;
and that the said Lucy did swing twice, and then the said capon
with silver scrues did, as she thinketh, come downe, which

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 303

capon the said Lucy sett before the rest of the company, whereof
the divell, which they called their protector, and sometimes their
blessed saviour, was their cheif, sitting in a chair like unto
bright gold. And the said Lucy further did swing, and
demanded the plum-broth which the capon was boyled in, and
thereupon it did immediately come down in a dish, and likewise
a botle of wine which came down upon the first swing.

" She further 6aith that Ann, the wife of Richard Forster off
Stocksfeild, did swing upon the rope, and, upon the first swing,
she gott a cheese, and upon the second she got a beakment *
of wheat flower, and upon the third swing she gott about halfe a
quarter of butter to knead the said flower withall, they haveing
noe power to gett water.

" She further saith that Margret, the wife of Michaell Aynsley
of Hiding did swing, and she gott a flackett t of ale containing,
as she thought, about three quarts, a kening % of wheat flowers
for pyes, and a peice of beife.

" She further saith that every person had their swings in the
said rope, and did gett several dishes of provision upon their
severall swings according as they did desire ; which this in-
formant cannot repeat or remember, there beinge soe many
persons and such variety of meat ; and those that come last att
the said meeting did carry away the remainder of the meat.

" And she further saith that she particularly knew at the said
meeting one Michael Aynsly of the Rideing, Mary Hunter of
Birkenside, widdow, Dorothy Green of Edmondsbyers in the
county of Durham, widdow, Anne Usher of Fairlymay, widdow,
Eliz. Pickering of Whittingeslaw, widdow, Jane wife of Wm.
Makepeace of New Ridley, yeo., Anthony Hunter of Birken-

* Beatmont, a measure containing about a quarter of a peck,
f Flackett, a flask or wood-bottle.
J Kening, half a bushel.

304 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

side, yeo., John Whitfield of Edmondbyers, Anne Whitfield of
the same, spinster, Chr. Dixon of Mugleswqrth Park and Alice
his wife, Catherine Eliot of Ebchester, Elsabeth Atehinson of
Ebchester widdow, and Issabell Andrew of Crooked-oake,
widdow, with many others, both in Morpeth and other places,
whose faces this informer knowes but eannot tell their names.
All which persons had their severall meetings at diverse other
places at other times : viz., upon Collup Monday last, being the
tenth of February, the said persons met at Allensford, where
this informant was ridden upon by an inchanted bridle by
Michael Aynsly and Margaret his wife ; which inchanted bridle,
when they tooke it of from her head, she stood upp in her owne
proper person, and see all the said persons beforemencioned
danceing, some in the likenesse of hares, some in the likenesse
of catts, others in the likenesse of bees, and some in their owne
likenesse, and made this informant sing till they danced, and
every thirteen of them had a divell with them in sundry shapes
And at the said meeting their particular divell tooke them that
did most evill, and danced with them first, and called every of
them to an account, and those that did most evill he maid
most of.

" And this informant saith that she can very well remember
the particular confessions that the severall persons hereunder
named made to the devill then and there, as well as at other
times : and first Lucy Thompson of Mickly confessed to the
divell that she had wronged Edward Lumiy of Mickly goods by
witcheing them; and in particular one horse by pincing to
death, and one ox which suddainly dyed in the draught, and the
devill incouraged her for it.

" Ann Drydon of Pruddoe confessed to the devill that, on the
Thursday night after Fasten's even last, when they were drink-
ing wine in Franck Pye's seller in Morpeth, that shee witched
suddenly to death her neighbor's horse in Pruddoe.

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOI.KLOKE. 305

" Anne wife of Richard Forster of Stoeksficld confessed that
sho bewitched Robert Newton's horses of Stocksfield, and that
there was one of them that had but one shew on, which she
took and presented with the foot and all to the divell at next
meeting. And she further confessed to her protector that she
had power of a ehilde of the said Robert Newton's called
Issabell, ever since she was four yeare olde, and she is now
about eight yeares old, and she is now pined to nothing, and
continues soo.

" Moreover Michael Ainsly and Anne Drydon confessed to the
divell that they had power of Mr. Thomas Errington's horse, of
Kideing mill, and they ridd behinde his man upon the said
horse from Newcastle like two bees, and the horse immediately
after he came home, dyed ; and this was but about a moneth
since.

" The said Anne Forster, Michaell Ainsly, and Lucy Thompson
confessed to the divell, and the said Michaell told the divell
that he called 3 severall times at Mr. Errington's kitchen
dore, and made a noise like an host of men. And that night,
tho divell asking them how they sped, they answered nothing,
for they had not got power of tho miller, but they got the shirt
of his bak, as he was lyeing betwixt women, and laid it under
his head and stroke him dead another time, in revenge he was
an instrument to save Raiph Elrington's draught from goeing
downo the water and drowneing, as they intended to have done.
And that they confessed to tho divell that they made all tho goer
goo of tho mill, and that they intended to have made the stones
all grindo till thoy had flowne all in peeces.

" Mary Hunter confessed to the divill that she had wronged
George Tayler of Edgebrigg's goods, and told her protector that
sho had gotten the power of a fole of his soe that it pined away
to death. And she had gott power of the dam of the said fole,
and that thoy had an intention, the last Thursday at night, to

vol. n. x

306 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

have taken away the power of the limbs of the said mare. About
Michaelmas last she did come to one John Marsh, of Edgebrigg,
when he and his wife was rideing from Bywell, and flew some-
times under his mare's belly and sometimes before its breast, in
the likenesse of a swallow, untill she got the power of it, and it
dyed within a week after. And she and Dorothy Green con-
fessed to the divill that they got power of the said John Marshe's
oxo's far hinder legg. And this is all within the space of a year
halfe or thereabouts.

"Ann Usher, of Fairly May, confessed to the divell that by his
help she was a medciner, and that she had within a little space
done £100 hurt to one George Stobbart, of New Ridlv, in his
goods. And that she and Jane Makepeace, of New Ridly, had
trailed a horse of the said Geo. doune a great scarr, and that
they have now power of a greye of the said Geo., which now
pines away.

" Elizabeth Pickering, of Whittingstall, widdow, confessed,
that she had power of a neighbor's beasts of her owne in
Whittingstall, and that she had killed a child of the said
neighbor's.

"And this informer saith that all the said persons were
frequently at the meetings and rideings with the divill, and
craved his assistance, and consulted with him about all the
aforesaid accions.

"She further saith that Jane Hopper of the Hill confessed to
the divill that she had power over Wm. Swinburne, of New-
feild, for near the space of two yeares last past, by which is
sore pined, and she hopes to have his life. And Anthony
Hunter, of Birkenside, confessed he had power over Anne, wife
of Thomas Richardson, of Crooked Oak ; that he tooke away the
power of her limbs, and askt the divill's assistance to take away
her life. And Jane Makepeace was at all the meetings among
the witches, and helped to destroy the goods of George
Stobbart.

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 307

" Anrl this informer deposeth that Ann Drydon had a lease for
fifty ycarcs of the divill, wliereof ten ar expired. Ann Forster
had a lease of her life for 47 yeares, whereof seaven are yet to
come. Lucy Thompson had a lease of two and forty, whereof
two are yet to come, and, her lease being near out, they would
have persuaded this informer to have taken a lease of thro
score yeares or upwards, and that she should never want gold
or mony, or, if sho had but one cow, they should let her
know a way to get as much milk as them that had tenn.

" And further this informer cannot as yet well remember."

" Apr. 21, 1673. The said witness, Anne Armstrong, deposes
further before Ralph Jonison, Esq.

" On Monday last, at night, she, being in her father's house,
see one Jane Baites, of Corbridge, come in the forme of a gray
catt with a bridle hanging on her foote, and breathed upon her
and struck her dead, and bridled her and rid upon her in the
name of the devill southward, but the name of the place she
docs not now remember. And after the said Jane allighted and
pulld tho bridlo of her head, and she and the rest had drawno
thoir conipasse nigh to a bridg end, and the devil placed a stone
in the middle of the compasse, they sett themselves downo, and
bending towards the stone, repeated tho Lord's prayer back-
wards. And when they had done the devill, in tho forme of a
littlo black man and black cloaths, calld of one Isabell Thomp-
son, of Slealy, widdow, by name, and required of her what
service she had done him. Sho roplyd she had gott power of
the body of one Margarett Teasdalo. And after he had danced
with her ho dismissed her, and call'd of one Thomasine, wife of
Edward Watson, of Slealy, who confessed to the devill that she
had likewise power of tho body of the said Margaret Teasdale,
and would keepe power of her till she gott her lifo.

" At sevcrall of their meetings she has seeno Michall Aynsley
and Margaret his wife, now prisoners in his Ma tlca goale, and

x 2

303 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

Jane Baites, of Corbridge, ride upon one James Anderson, of
Corbridge, chapman, to their meetings, and hankt him to a
stobb, whilst they were at their sports, and when they had done,
ridd upon him homeward.

" May 12. She further saith that on the second day of May
laste, &t night, the witches carried her to Berwicke bridge end,
where she see a greate number of them, and amongste the reste
she see one Ann Parteis, of Hollisfeild, and heard her declare
to the devill that she did enter into the house of one John
Maughan, of the pareshe of Haydon, and found his wife's rocke
lyinge upon the table. And she tooke up the rocke to spinne of
it, and by spinneinge of the rocke she had gotten the power of
the said Anne that she should never spinne more, and would
still torment her till she had her life.

" May 14. She being brought into Allandaile by the parish-
iners, for the discovery of witches, Isabell Johnson, being under
suspition, was brought before her, and she breathing uppon the
said Anne immediately the said Anne did fall downe in a sound
and laid three quarters of an houre, and after her recovery she
said if there were any witches in England Isabell Johnson was
one.

" At Morpeth Sessions as aforesaid Robert Johnson, of Eydeing
Mill, saith that about the latter end of August last, late at night,
lyeing in his bed at Rydeing Mill, betwixt two of his fellow-
servants, he herd a man, as he thought, call at the dore and ask
whoe was within. Upon which this informant rose and went
and layd his head against the chamber window to know whoe
it was that called, and he heard a great noise of horse feet, as
though it had been an army of men. Whereupon he called, but
none would answer. Soe he returned to his bed, and the next
morneinge, riseing out of his bed, he wanted his shirt, which
seeking after he accused his two fellow-servants, which were
amazed at the thing and denyed that ever they knew of it,

BOEDER SKETCHES AKD FOLKLORE. 309

which tliis informant further searching after, found it lapt upp
under his pillow at Ids bed head. He further saith, that Mr.
Errington's draught, and Ra. Elrington's, being away at
Stiford leading tyth corne there, and being late in comeing home,
this informer could not rest satisfied, but went to seek the
draughts and to know what was become of them, and met them
comeing out of Stiford towne end, and came homeward with
thorn, till they came to tho water. And Mr. Errington's draught
being got through he herd the people with the other draught
cry that they were goeing downe the water. And then he got
on to a horse and rode downe after them some 3 score yards or
thereabouts, where ho came to them just at the entring into a
great deep pool, where, if he had not made great help, they
might have been lost, both men and beasts. And getting them
turned and brought upp to tho other draught they came all
home together, and this informant haveing loosed tho beasts out
of lu3 maister's draught and goeing to bed, was that night sud-
dainly strucken dead in tlio kitchen to the sight of his fellow-
servant. Ho further saith that, about some sixteen dayes before
Christmas last, he could not by any means ho could use gett tho
mill sett, and about the hinder end of Christmas hollidayes,
being sheeling somo oatcs about two hours before the sunn-
sotting, all the gecr, viz 1 , hopper and hoops, and all other things
but the stones, flew down and were casten of, and he himselfo
almost killed with them, they comeing against him with such
force and violence.

" He further saith that, about a moneth since, one Win.
Olliver, his fellow-servant, went to Newcastle in the morneing
and rodo upon a gray gelding of his master's, which, to all
their sights, was as well and as good like as any horse could
beo. And his fellow-servant sayed that he came as well homo
and rode as heartily ass any horse could doo. Ana after he is
cuino home this informant went to (he dure ami tiH.ki: tho hoi><;

310 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

by the bridle and led him into the stable where he usualley
stood. And there haveing him in his hand by the bridle reen,
and haveing not gott him fastened nor out of his hand, till
suddainly the horse rushed downe, he being not hott at all with
rideing ; and soe continued a good while, sometimes lookeing
very cheerily about him, and other sometimes striveing, as it
were for life and death, soe that this informer was forced to
goe to bed and leave him, and in the morneing when he came to
the stable again he found him lyeing dead, and takeing him out
of the stable they rippt him upp to see what might be the cause,
and could finde nothing, but that the horse was all right enough
in his body.

"John March, of Edgebrigg, yeoman, saith, that, about a month
since, he went to a place called Birkside nook, and there Ann
Armstrong heareing him named began to speak to him and asltt
him if he had not an ox that had the power of one of his limbs
taken from him. And he telling her he had, and inquireing
how she came to know, she told him that she heard Mary
Hunter, of Birkside, and another, at a meeting amongst diverse
witches, confesse to the divell that they had taken the power of
that beast ; and she not knowing her name Sir James Claverjng
and Sir Richard Stote thought proper to carry her to Eden-
byers, and there to cause the woman to come to her ther, to
the intent she might challenge her. And she challenged one
Dorothy Green, a wicldow, and she said she was the person
that joyned with Mary Hunter in the bewithcheing of the said
ox. And the ox now continues lame and has noe use of his farr
hinder legg, but pines away, and likely to dye. He saith that
Ann Armstrong told him that the said persons confessed before
the devill that they bewitched a gray mare of his, and he saith
that about a fortnight before Michaelmas last, he and his wife
were rideing homo from Bywell on a Sunday at night upon the
same mare, about sun-sett ; and there came a swallow, which

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 31 1

above forty times and more flew through under the mare's belly,
and crossed her way before her brest. And this informant
slrook at it with his rod above twenty times and could by no
ineancs hinder it, untill of its owne accord it went away. And
the mare went very well home, and within four dayes dyed ;
and, before she dead, was two dayes soe mad that she was past
holding, and was strucke bliude for four-and-twenty houres
before she dead.

" He further saith, that the said Mary Hunter came downc to
his house on Monday last, where lie had Anil Armstrong, and
she askt her what she had to say to her. And she told her that
she was a witch, and that she had seen her at the devil Pa
meetinges. The other askt her where, and she answered, " In
this same house, last night, being Sunday, amongst all the
companye." And the said informer saith, that that very night
when she said they mett, he was was soe sore affrighted that
ho was in a manner dead ; and afterward comeing to himselfe
againo he herd a great thundering and saw a great lighteningc
in the house, and to the number of twenty creatures in the
resemblances of catts, and other shapes, lyeing on the floores
and creeping upon the walls. And immediately after I herd
the girll singing to them. And his servants, being in bed with
the young woman, awakened, and came downe out of the roomc
where the girll lay and said, " Alas ! the witches were gone
with the girll." And he went upp and found her body lyeing
in the bed, as she were dead, neither breath nor life being
discerned in her ; and continued soe for the most part of an
hour till he fetched in two or three of his neighbors to see her
in that condition. And presently after they came in she began
to stir and open her eyes and lokod on them for about an hour
before she spake anything. And when she spoke she said that
all the companyes wore there, and were endeavouringe to get
her away, but wero prevented. And further ho saith, the said

312 THE DE'JHAM TRACTS.

Ann Armstrong enquired of the said Mary Hunter for her sonn
Anton, and there being one of her sons called Cuthbert, wee
told her that he was the man she askt for, which she denyed,
and said that it was not the man, for she knew him very well
and had seen him severall tymes at their meetings; and desired
her to send him downe, and a lass that she, the said Mary,
severall times ride upon and singe unto them, and she would
resolve her whether it were they or not. Thereupon Anton
afterwards came downe and questioned her what she had to say
to him. She said she would lett him know at the sessions,
hearing he was to be there ; and because he had threatened her
she would say noe more, but told this informer, after he was
gone, that Anton had confessed before the devill lie had taken
the power of Anne, wife of Tho. Eichardson of Crooked Oaks'
limbs from her, and had likewise bewitched several cattle to
death. And further saith, that he knowes that the said Ann
Richardson is in a very bad condicion, being sometimes able to
goe, and other times that she cannot goe without help. He
never see the said Ann in his life before, neither, to his know-
ledge, was she ever where he was, ribr never sawe none of his
beasts, but told him all this when he went to see her.

" Geo. Tayler, of Edgebridge, yeoman, saith, that coming to
Birkside nook to speak with'one Ann Armstrong, whoe had
oftentimes formerly desired to have seen him, and she being
asleep upon a bed, her sister awakened her and raised her, and
being asked if she knew him or could name him, she answered
that if he were the man that had a fole lately dead, and if he
lived at Edgebrigg, his name was Geo. Tayler. Upon his
demanding on her how she came to know it, she told him that
she herd Mary Hunter of Brkenside, widdow, confesse it before
tho divell at meetingo they had that she had gotten the power
and tho life of his folo. Tho said fole began not to be well
ahuut Michueliuas last, and dyed about a nioneih since, and it

BOEDEE SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 31o

had noc natural! disease to his knowledge, but often swelled in
sevcrall parts of the body of it; and its head and lipps would
have been sore swelld, and letten him have endeavoured never
soo often to blood it, thinking thereby to prevent its death, ho
could never get any in noe part of the body of it. And when it
was dead, he opened it to see if there w r ere any blood or not,
and lie saith that ho thinks, very, a quart pott would have holden
all that it had and more, and that litle that it had was all drawnc
about the heart thereof.

" He saith that Ann Armestronj; told him that she heard when
the said Mary Hunter and Dorothy Green, of Edmondbyers,
eonfesse to the devill that they had the power of his oxen and
kyne, horses and mares, and that now, at this present, he has
a grey mare, the dam of the said fole, pineing away, and in
the same condition that tho folo was in. And he thinks that all
his goods doo not thrive, nor are like his neighbours goods,
notwithstanding he feeds them as well as he can, but are like
anatomycs.

" Apr. 21, 1673. Marke Humble, of Slealy, tayler, saith,
that ho, betwixt 7 and 8 yeares agoc, walking towards tho
high ond of Slealy, mett one Isabell Thompson walking down-
ward. And when she was gone past him, she being formerly
suspected of witchcraft, he lookt back over his shoulder and did
sco tho said Isablo hould up her hands towards his back. And
when he came home he grew very sick, and tould the people in
the house that ho was afraid Isabell Thompson had done him
wrong. And for some 3 or 4 yeares continued very ill by
fitts in a most violent manner, to tho sight and admiration of
nil his neighbours. And whilst he continued in this distemper,
the s:iid Isabell enmo to his house and said it was reported she
had bewitched him. She tould him if it were so it would
soono be kiiownc. And further saith, that his mother Margaret
Humble then lvcing not well, Isabell Thompson tooke noun: of

314 THE DENHAM TKACTS.

her haire to medicine her." Depositions, fyc, from York Castle,
pp. 191—201.

All the accused persons denied their guilt, but the result of
the affair is not known.

Two volumes issued by the Surtees Society, Depositions
and other Ecclesiastical Proceedings from the Courts of Durham,
extending from 1311 to the. Reign of Elizabeth "(1845), and
Depositions from the Castle of York, relating to Offences com-
mitted in the Northern Counties in the Seventeenth Century (1861),
contain a large assemblage of witchcraft cases from the Northern
English Counties, to which only a limited reference can be made,
for the more salient features. The first case on record is that
of Margaret Lyndyssay along with another woman, in the parish
of Bdlyngeham, Northumberland, who — 1 Feb. 1435 — cleared
herself of the imputation of being an enchantress, whereof she
had been blamed by John de Longcaster, John Somerson, and
John Symson.* 16 Feb. 1447-8, Mariot Jacson, accused of
the same crime, was, on the favourable testimony of her neigh-
bours, restored to her pristine good credit | About 1569 one
Margaret Reed, apparently of Newcastle, had been misrepre-
sented as being a "water wych."f 17th May, 1572, at
Stockton, two foolish women revile each other, and one of them,
Elizabeth Anderson, called her neighbour, Annie Barden,
" crowket haudyd wytch," the accusation being aggravated by
the words being shouted out " audiently," where " might
many have herd them, beinge spoken so neigh the crosse and
in the toune gait as they were. JJ § 18 Jan. 1574, Margaret
Shafto, of Throkele}'-, Northd., bears testimony that. Janet
Wilkinson did call Katherine Anderson " hange lipped witche;"
and another witness from the same place " did heare the said

* Depositions, p. 27. f P. 20.

t P. 91- § P. 247.

BOEDEE SKETCHES AND FOLKXOEE. 315

Janet Wilkinson call Katheryne Anderson ' darted witche,'
and that ' sho had comen of Hedden-on-the-Wall for his good
deedes doinge.' * 15 July, 1586, a case of chicling deposed on,
which took place at Blaidon, parish of Ryton, between Arthur
Bell and John Robson, wherein the cause of offence was that
Robson said to Bell, " Thou haist a witch to thy eld-mother,
and why cannot the young theef learne at the old ? " this " eld-
mother " being Isabell Chamber, Bell's wife's mother.t

These instances of defamation give place in the succeeding
contury to full-framed articles of accusation. December 31,
1646, Elizabeth Crossley and others, of Hep ten Hall, in York-
shire, are accused of maliciously, on being refused alms, causing
young children to take convulsions, whereof they died, a stroke
with a candlestick to draw blood from the reputed witch having
proved ineffectual, although temporarily affording relief, to
counteract Crossley's influence. Her confederate, Mary
Midgeley, being denied an almes of wool, and obtaining instead
theroof an alms of milk, from Martha the wife of liichard
Wood, of Hepten Hall, " shee departed very angry." The
consequence was that the clay after six of the milch kine fell
sick. Upon this Mrs. Wood hied away to the woman, and
confessed her fault in slighting her, " and desired her to
remedio it if she could. Longe it was before shee would take
too that shee had done it, but at last tooke six pence of her, and
wished her to goe homo, for the kyno should mende, and desired
her to take for every cow a handfull of salte and an old sickle,
and lay undernoath them, and, if they amended not, then to
como to her againe." Mary Midgeley confessed that Martha
Wood came to her to " asko her advise touchingc one of her
kync whose mylke earned in tho gallin ; " whereupon she told
her that sho had " learned of ono Issabel Robinson who had

• P. 813. t P- 3 >8.

316 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

good skill (if anythinge were gone), and shee wished her to
take a litle salte and old yron, lay it under the cow, and pray
to God for mend." The others denied the charges, and pro-
bably nothing came of it* March 18, 1648-9, a girl, daughter
of Dorothy Rodes of Boiling, is frightened into convulsions by
conceiving that she is haunted by one Mary Sykes, who had an
evil repute, as well as by the likeness two other women, one of
whom had been dead two years previously. Richard Booth, of
Boiling, had often heard Mary Sykes say to him, " Bless the,"
and " I'le crosse the," and " had much loss by the death of
his goods." To Henry Cordingley, of Tonge, Mary Sikes had
said " since Christenmus was twelve monthes, that he had
nyne or tenn beasts and horses, but she ' wold make them
fewer,' and 'Bless the,' but Tie cross the.' He further saith
that, some three dayes before the saide Cristenmas, he goeing
to fotlier horses, about 12 o'clock in the night, with a candle
and lanthorn, his beasts standing neare his horses, he sawe the
said Mary Sikes riding upon the backe of one of his cowes.
And he, endeavouring to strike att her, stumbled, and soe the
saide Mary flewo out of his mistall windowe, haveing three or
fower wooden stanchions, the saide cowe being then white over
with an imy sweate. And he likewise saith that he had one
blacke horse, worth 4£ 16s., begun n to be sickc about Tewsday
was a fortnight, and contincwed dithering and quakeing till
Sonday following, and then dj-ed. And he, opening the saide
horse, could not finde an eggshell full of blood. And he is
verily porswaded that the saide horse was bewitched. And he
saith, allsoe, that a blacke mcnre of his hath beene sicke in like
manner as the former horse was, since about Tewsday last was
a fortnight, till the tymo that the saide Mary was searched by
the wcomon ; but, since that, she hath recovered and amended,

'"* ]>i'i>i:*iliuH$, <Jt , j'ivih Turk Citslh , pp. G-0,

BOIiDEE SKETCHES AND FOI.KLOKE. 317

and eatos her meate verie well." Five women sworn as
searchers did indeed find " upon her left side neare her arme
a litle lumpe like a wart, and being pulled out it streteht
about lialfo an inch. And they further say that tbey never
sawo the like upon anie other weomen." The jury were
incredulous, and Mary Sykes was acquitted.*

10 Jan., 1650-1, Margaret Morton, of Kirkethorpe, was
accused at Wakefield of giving a little boy of about four years
old, " then in good health and likeing, a peeee of bread," after
which the child " begann to bee sicke, and his body swolled very
much, and his flesh did daly after much waste, till he could
neither goe nor stand." The mother mistrusting Morton sent
for her, and she submitted to ask the child forgiveness three
times, " and then this informant drew bloud of her with a pin,
and immediately after the child amended." In addition to this
the informant " at clivers times " " could not get butter when she
chimed nor cheese whon she earned." Four women searched
Morton and found two black spots, one whereof " was black on
both sides, an inch broad, and blew in the middest." Besides
being long suspected for a witch, her mother and sister, who
were then both dead, " were suspected to be the like." She was
tried at the assizes and acquitted. In September, 1650, a woman
callod Ann Hudson, of Skipsey, in Holderness, was charged
with witchcraft. The sick person had recovered after he had
scratched her and drawn blood, f

Jan. 23, 1651-2, Hester France, in the West Riding of York-
shire, " a reputed witch for above twenty years," cured a
servant girl, " and prayed to God that she shold never bake
again," whereupon she is seized with catalepsy. The reputed
witch is prevailed on to visit her and submits to be scratched,
and the symptoms are considerably abated. Another person

• Ibid., pp. 28-30. f Ibid., p. 38 and note.

318 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

idling for half a year, sends for her — patient woman as she
W as — " and she being come into the chamber he scratclit her
very sore, and sayde, ' I think thou art the woman that hath
done me this wrong,' and then she answred and sayde that she
never did hurt in her life."*

March 17, 1652-3. One Elizabeth Lambe is accused by several
sick people of doing them harm, and like the poor woman in
the preceding instance she has to submit to various indigni-
ties for being so notorious. She frightened John Jonson, of
Reednes, by appearing to him at night, accompanied by an old
man in brown clothes, whereupon " his goods fell sick, and the
farrier could not tell what disease they were ill of." When
others of his neighbours had received loss " in their goods,
which they did conceive this Eliz. Lambe to be the author
of, they also did beat her, and was never afterwards dis-
quieted by her." The constable had a child sick, whereupon
" his wife meeting the said Eliz. at her owne doore, she did fall
downe on her knees and asked her forgiveness, and the child
did soone after recover." Nicholas Baldwin, of Rednes, declared
that about the year 1648 she drowned him "fhre younge foles
ever as they were foled, by witchcraft," whereat Baldwin,
enraged beyond measure, did beat her with his cane, and he
declared in his evidence, "had it not bene for my wife, because
she sat doune of hir knesse and aske me forgivenes, I had bet
her worse." She also cruelly handled one Richard Browne at
the heart in his sickness by drawing "his heart's blood from
him." The sick man thought he would get better if he could
draw blood from her, who had so drained him of life's stream,
and she being brought to him by a wile, Browne said to her,
" Bes, thou hast wronged me. Why dost thou soe ? If thou
wilt doe soe no more I will forgive thee." And she answered

Ibid., pp. 51, 52.

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 319

nothing. Ho then scratched her till the blood came, but within
n week after he died."*

The case of Elizabeth Roberts, Oct. 14, 1654, may be given
entire. " John Greencliffe, of Beverley, sayth, that on Saturday
last, about seaven in the evening, Elizabeth Roberts [who was
the wifo of a joiner at Beverley, and denied any knowledge of
what was charged against her] did appeare to him in her usuall
wearing clothes, with a ruff about her neck, and, presently
vanishing, turned herself into the similitude of a catt, which
fixed close about his leg, and, after much strugling, vanished ;
whereupon ho was much pained at his heart. Upon Wednesday
there seized a catt upon his body, which did strike him on the
head, upon which he fell into a swound or traunce. After he
received the blow, ho saw the said Elizabeth escape upon a wall
in her usuall wearing apparell. Upon Thursday she appeared
unto him in the likenesso of a bee, which did very much afflict
him, to witt, in throwing of his body from place to place, not-
withstanding thcro wero five or six persons to hold him doune." f
The bee was in his bonnet, no doubt of it. Another cat case is
reported of date at Newcastle, Nov. 10, 1 GG3, before Sir James
Clavoring, Bart., mayor, wherein Jane, wife of Wm. Milburne,
of Newcastle, imagined that " Fryday gone a seaven night,
about 8 o'clock att night, she being alone and in chamber,
thero appeared to her something in the perfect similitude and
shape of a catt. And the said catt did leape at her face, and
did vocally speake with a very audible voyce, and saidc, that itt
had gotten the life of one in this house, and camo for this
informer life, and would have itt before Saturdny night. To
which she replyod, ' I defye the, the devill and all his works.'
Upon which the catt did vanish. The second time the cat
appeared, " the said catt did violently leape aboute her neck and

• Ibid., p. f>8. t Ibid, p. 67.

320 THE DENHAH TRACTS.

shoulders, and was soe ponderous that she was not able to sup-
port itt, but did bring her doune to the ground," and kept hc-r
there for a quarter of an hour. On the third occasion it
attempted to pull her out of bed, if her husband had not held
her fast. This cat she believed was Dorothy Stranger, the wife,
of a cooper, who had threatened her, "and non else. And she
haveinge a desire to see her did this morneing send for the said
Dorothy, butt she was very loth to come, and comeing to her
she gott blood of her, at the said Stranger's desire, and since
hath been pritye well." The dress of the witch of the period is
preserved for us by this witness. The cat was not a black but
a grey one. " And itt did transforme ittselfe into the shape of
the said Dorothy Stranger, in the habit and clothes she wearcs
dayly, haveing an old black hatt upon her head, a greene waist-
coate, and a brounish coloured petticoate."* Another woman,
at Newcastle, Jane Watson, a mediciner and reputed witch,
wore, in 1661, "a red waistcoate and greene petticoate." f A
third, named Isabell Atcheson, wore a "green waistcoate." J
Dress was not one of the items in which witches differed from
other people.

Jan. 11, 1654-5. Katherine Earle was accused of having
struck Henry Hatefield, of Rhodes, parish of Rodwell, gent.,
upon the neck " with a docken stalke, or such like thing, and
his maire upon the necke also, whereupon his maire imediately
fell sicke and he himselfe was very sore troubled and perplexed
with a paine in his necke." She had also clapt one Mr. Franke,
late of Rhodes, between the shoulders with her hand, and said,
"You are a pretty gentlemen ; will you kisse me? Where-
upon the said Mr. Franko fell sicke before he gott home, and
never went out of doors after, but dyed, and complained much
against the said Katherine on his death-bed." § Katherine

• Ibid., pp. 112,114. f Ibid., p. 93.

% Ibid., p. 125. § Ibid., -p. 69.

BOlIDEl! SKETCHES AND POLKLOKE. 321

having been searched, a mark was found upon her "in the
likenesse of a rapp."

In the case of Jennet and George Benton, June 7, 1G56, at a
farm called Bunny Hall, near Wakefield, Richard Jackson, the
occupant, besides grievous torment as if he were " drawne in
peices at the hart, backe and shoulders," hears singular noises
"like ringing of small bells, with singinge and dancinge,"
accompanied with groans. At last he, his wife and servant,
heard three heavy groans, and " at that instant doggs did howlo
and yell at the windows, as though they would have puld them
in peeces. He had also a great many swine which broako
Ihorrow two barn dores. Also the dores in the howse at that
time clapt to and fro ; the boxes and trunkes, as they conceived,
was removed; and severall aparitions like black doggs and catts
was seene in the house. And he saith that, since the time the
said Jennet and George Benton threatned him, he hath lost 18
horses and meares." *

In such cases complaints were common of the heart being
racked with pains. Frances Mason, daughter of a soldier at
Tynemouth, Feb. 15, 1659-60, having lost the power of her
limbs, attributes it to one Elizabeth Simpson, who she said
tormented her in bed, " and did punch her heart and pull her
in pieces;" whereupon the father drew blood from the accused,
and his daughter obtained quiet, but not the use of her limbs.t
Stranger (Nov. 10, 1663) " tormented Jane Milburne's body
soe intollerably that she could nott rest all the night, and was
like to teare her very heart in pieces." J May 17, 1673,
Dorothy Himers of Morpeth accuses Margaret Milburne, of
causing her to take fits in which she apprehended she saw the
said Margaret; and in one of these she " did apprehend that
alio did seo the said Margaret Milbourne, widdow, standing on
nn oatescepp att her bed feet, thinkeing she was pulling her

• Ibid., p. 75. t Ibi(L > P 82 - t Ibi(L > P- 113 -

VOL. II. y

322 THE DENHAM TEACTS,

heart with something like a threed."* In one instance, at New-
castle, Aug. 8, 1661, the pain at the heart is by the use of a
certain ointment, employed to ease a headache, transferred to
the witch herself. The witch appears in the night-time at the
bedside, and asks him to " wype off that on thy forehead, for
it burns me to death." He asked her what it was that burnt
her ; she answered " that ointment that is on thy brow," and
puft and blew and cryed, " Oh, burnt to the heart."f

Oct. 10, 1661, Mary Watson, witch and mediciner, transfers
a disease to a dog within the house, which " presently dyed/'J

Aug. 18, 1664, at Newcastle, the complainant, Alice Thomp-
son, continually cried out " of one Katherine Currey, alias
Potts, that wrongs her, saying, ' Doe you not see her ? doe you
not see her, where the witch theafe stands ? ' And she doth
continually cry out that she pulls her heart ; she pricks her
heart, and is in the roome to carry her away." §

Cases of vomiting pins, or being pricked with them, occur.
July 12, 1656, Elizabeth Mallory, daughter of the Lady
Mallory, of Studley Hall, who afterwards became wife of Sir
Cuthbert Heron, of Chipchase, Bart., and at his decease re-
married Ralph Jenison, of Elswick, Esq., aged 14, accused
William and Mary Wade as the cause of her long sickness and
fits, declaring she would never recover till the woman had con-
fessed she had done her wrong, or was carried before a justice
and punished. This young lady made people believe that she
" vomited severall strange things, as blottinge paper full of
pins and tlired tied about, and likewise a lumpe of towe with
pins and thred tied about it, and a peice of wooll and pins in it,
and likewise two feathers and a sticke." In another fit she saw
two cats, " one blacke and one yellow catte." When they were

* Ibid., p. 202. f Ibid; P- 89.

| Ibid., p. 93. § Ibid., p. 124.

BOKDEB SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 323

committed to prison she was freed of her fits. Wade himself
rightly divined what was the matter with her, viz. she was
" possessed with an evill spirit," * not unlike that which ani-
mated Christian Shaw of Bargarran House, who caused the
death of seven poor persons by similar accusations. Tho date,
however, is later, 1697. f April 1, 1670, it was shown that on
the previous day Mary Earneley of Alne, Yorkshire, fell into a
very sick fit, in which she continued a long time, " sometimes
cryinge out that Wilkinson wyfe prickt her with pins, clappingo
her hand upon her thighs, intimatinge that shee pricked her
thighes;" and she also ran a spit into her. The old woman,
Ann Wilkinson, was also accused of bewitching to their death
two sisters of Mary Earneley's, out of the mouth of one of them
there being taken, a little before her death, " a black ribbond
with a crooked pinne at the end of it." She also cursed people,
and prevented butter coming when there was a churning. She
was acquitted, t In another Yorkshire case, Aug. 6, 1674,
" Timothy Hague of Denby, saith, that he was present when
Mary Moore did vomitt a peice of bended wyer and a peice of
paper with two crooked pins in it, and hath att severall other
tymes seene her vomitt crooked pinns." §

An accusation of the latest stamp occurs Dec. 11, 1680,
before Sir Thomas Loraine, wherein Nicolas Rames informs
that Elizabeth Fenwicke, of Longwitton, "being a woman of bad
fame for witchcraft severall yeares hearetofore," had threatened
to avenge herself for some ill turn he had done her. This sho
does by tormenting his sick wife, by riding upon her, and
endeavouring to pull her out of the bed on to the floor. More-

• Ibid., pp. 75-78.

t Mitcholl nnd Dickie's Philosophy of Witchcraft, pp. 33-116.

\ Depositions, <$r., pp. 176-7.

§ Ibid., p. 210.

t2

324 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

over, in presence of the wife, a black man, thought to be the
devil, " by the said Elizabeth Fenwicke danc togeather." Rames
goes to the accused to ask her to visit his wife ; and when she
came his wife proposed to Fenwicke that she must have blood
of her for bewitching her. "The saide Elizabeth answesheard
again that if her blood would doe her any good she might have
had it long since, and the saide Elizabeth would ha cutt her
finger, and the sayde Anne Raines answeared againe, ' I will
have it uppon the brow whear other people give it uppon
witches;' and the sayde Elizabeth answeareth againe that if her
chyldren should get notice of the saide blooding they would goe
madde." But she consented to the operation, and the husband
appears to have thrice run a great pin into her brow, before she
would bleed, '' and she, the sayde Elizabeth, desired him nott to
discloase it, and he declared that if no further prejudice was to
him or his wife he would not prosecute her." She was
acquitted.*

The most interesting Northumbrian trial of all, that of Anne
Baites and others, April 2, 1673, apparently modelled on some
of the Scots cases of that period, would require to be given
entire, being, as Mr. Baine remarks, " one of the most extra-
ordinary that has ever been printed."!

Witchcraft.

I did not find many fresh illustrations of the belief in witch-
craft in those portions of Northumberland where I endeavoured
to hunt them up.

The last witch in the north was said to have been burnt at
Eglingham, a village mid-way between Wooler and Alnwick.
I have only tradition for this statement.

A woman was " scored above the breath " for a witch, some

* Ibid., p. 247. f Ibid -> PP- 191-201.

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 325

goventy or eighty years ago, at St. Ninian's fair, which is held
on the 27th of September in a stubble field near Fenton, on the
River Till, not far from Floddenfield. One attacked and
scored the other for seducing her husband, making a bloody
cross on her brow with a pin.

A little girl at Wooler said one day, " I met , whom

folks call a witch. But I crookit my thumb at her." Mr. J.
G. Fenwick says that in Weardale, in passing a witch, doubling
the thumbs under the forefingers was considered a preventive
to being bewitched. *

Those who have the eyebrows met are witches and warlocks.

Red butterflies are killed, being accounted witches.

An old man told me that his aunt used to keep a piece of
bour tree, or elder, constantly in her kist (chest) to prevent her
clothes from malign influence.

A stone with a natural hole in it was suspended from the
bed-post to prevent sweating at night. It was called a " self-
bore."

A similar stone hung on a nail on which the key is placed is
called a witch's stone.

Moreover, a stone with a hole in it tied to the tester of the
bed prevents nightmare from man and beast. f

A friend writes from near Newcastle in 1845 : " Stones with
holes in them I have frequently seen hung up behind the doors
of dwelling-houses to keep out evil spirits."

Witch stones, so far as I have examined them, consist of old
whorl-stones, of loom-weights, of any holed stone picked up in

* Folklore tteronl, ii. p. -'0").

\ Sue Aubrey's Mixvcllanii's, p. 147. To prevent the hug riding
horses at night, it may be either a fliut with a hole in it hung by
tho manger, or a flint without a hole will do if suspended from their
necks.

326 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

the fields; and even of the upper stone of querns or hand-
mills.

Cows and cows' milk are particularly susceptible of being
hurt or perverted by witches.

All the cows' milk of a place in Northumberland was once
bewitched, the milk having become so glutinous that it could be
drawn out in strings. To remedy this the cows were milked
in a south-running stream.*

When cows eat nettles, or have their udders bitten by
pismires, they give bloody or lappered or stringy milk, and
then are said to be bewitched. Also when the kirn is witched,
and butter will not come, it is discovered that if a stronger
person than the owner, whoso strength is failing, does the
churning, there is nothing wrong with the product.

Witched cows recover if sold.

When a cow calved it was customary to strew salt all along
its back to keep the witch from hurting it.

If a stranger going past a woman milking a cow doesn't say,
" Good luck to her," i.e. the cow, some misfortune will befall
her. In the parish of Grargunnock, Stirlingshire, if a cow is
suddenly taken ill it is ascribed to some extraordinary cause.
If a person, when called to see one, does not say, " I wish her
luck," there would be a suspicion he had some bad design.t .

A farmer in Northumberland at one time lost a number of
his cattle by a strange malady. Becoming suspicious that tbey
were bewitched by a certain malevolent neighour, he had
recourse to a " Skeely man," who advised him to take the

* " Est quando lac etiam cruentum excernitur : quo animadverso,
mnlicrculaa lac omnc emulsum aquas fluenti infundunt ; aleae
mulctrali inverso id est fundo emulgeat, et signo crucis notant. H«c
scribo ut aniles superstitiones istre proditte improbuntuv." — Con.
Ocsneri Historia Animalium, vol i. pp. 58, 59.

f Sinclair's Stat. Acct, of Scotland, xviii. p. 123.

EOEDEU SKETCHES AND FOLKLOEE. 327

heart of one of the dead cattle and burn it, after having stuck
it full of pins. While this was doing he was to take the pre-
caution of having the doors and windows kept close. The rite
was scarcely half completed, when the person suspected came
" reeling '' at the doors and windows for admission, " as if she
would pull the house down." If the witch arrives before the
heart is consumed, the operation is rendered inefficacious. A
sheep's heart stuck full of pins and similarly treated was effica-
cious for a bewitched cow. These are from both the north and
south of the county.

" In the parish of Sowerby, near Halifax, Yorkshire," writes
Mr. John Carr, of Bondgate Hall, Alnwick, in 1824, "where
the writer happened to be at the time, the cow of a poor
cottager was taken ill soon after calving, and in the family
distress at the prospect of losing its chief support, a cunning
man was consulted, who declared that the cow was bewitched
and the true calf carried off, and replaced by the witch herself
in the shape of the calf then with the cow, and that by sur-
rounding the disguised witch with a circle of fire, and slowly
roasting her until quite consumed, the cow would recover and
the true calf be restored. The horrible sacrifice was actually
performed in the midst of the assembled villagers, and the
terrific bellowings that issued from the burning sufferer were
deomed certain evidence of the witch's presence and inability to
escape, and were replied to by triumphant shouts at the success
of the infamous proceeding. The cow died, and the vile
impostor saved his conjuring reputation by impudently alleging
that they had not, as he had urgently directed, conducted the
previous preparations with sufficient secrecy, whereby the witch
discovered what they wcro about, and again changed places
with the calf before the burning." *

.Wurastle Miiijuiiiie, 1821, p. 4.

328 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

A female on the harvest ridge, once haying the misfortune
to break her sickle, was obliged to proceed home for another.
As she went hastening along a hare hirpled across the path
before her, and then turned round to gaze. She hurled her
broken sickle at the hare, and it sprang suddenly across the
field, as if a pack of harriers were on its trail. At her return,
near the same spot, she encountered the hare, in the same
attitude as before, and, determined not to be beat this time, she
launched the fresh sickle at it and struck it on the brow. But
instead of flying the hare with a wild scream of vengeance
darted at her, and began biting and scratching her on the face
like an enraged cat. A fight, attended with loud outcries, then
commenced betwixt the two, which two labourers mowing in
the vicinity overhearing hastened to the woman's rescue, else
there is no saying what might have happened. On attempting
to lay hold of the hare it slipped through Iheir hands and
escaped. Not long after that a very old woman in that quarter
had, in some unknown manner and by a sharp instrument, an
ugly gash made athwart her brow. This venerable dame had
hitherto been very intimate with the individual who fought with
the hare, but from that time forward could not abide her, and
diligently avoided her presence. She now fell under the impu-
tation of being a witch, for though looked upon askance and
with dread, she had hitherto preserved external propriety.
Losing this, she came forth in her true colours, renounced the
friendship of her former associates, wreaked her fury on milk,
butter-churns, and dwining babies, fell foul of the farmer's
stock and shook his corn — in short, committed all the untoward
disasters within her neighbours' limited geographical range.
What befell her I was not told.

The most powerful efficient in averting the influence of magic
and in revoking the spells of witches was witchwood, the
mountain ash (Sorbus aucuparia), called in divers parts of
Northumberland tho "Whicken tree and Rowan tree. Under

BORDEK SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 329

these standard terms it is mentioned by Turner, the father of
English botany, in his Herbal, part ii. fol. 143, Cologne, 1562.
" The tre groweth in moyste woodes, and it is called in Norfh-
umberlande a rowne tre, or a whicken tre ; in the south partes
of England a quick beam tre." Ihre derives the word rowan
from runa, incantation, because of the use made of the wood
in magical arts. As an infallible antidote to avert supernatural
influences of a malignant nature, it has long been celebrated.
Nations bore attestation to its sovereign qualities, and assigned
to it functions the most select. Eudbeck mentions its sacred
character among the northern Gothic tribes. They inscribed
their laws upon its wood, an honour which it shared with
the beech. Bishop Heber noticed a parallel superstition in
Hindustan connected with a species of mimosa, which at a
little distance wears considerably the aspect of the mountain
ash. " A sprig worn in the turban, or suspended over the
bed, was a perfect security against all spells, evil-eye, &c,
insomuch that the most formidable wizard would not, if he
could help it, approach its shade " (Heber's Journal). In
the days of yore, when fairies footed it on every emerald
hillock, and witches cast their cantrips with unlimited might —
when such a debasing state of ideal fear prevailed that " the
sound of a shaken leaf" inspired images of dread — rowan-tree
was of paramount importance in Northumberland and else-
where. Almost every mansion and outhouse was guarded with
it in some shape, for it would have been heresy to doubt the

adage —

" Eowan tree and red thread
Haud the witches a' in dread." *

* There is a Roxburghshire saying to this effect :

" Hagborry, hagberry, hang the deil,
Rowan-tree, rowan-tree, help it weel."

The hag-berry i> the bird -cherry (Primus padus).

330 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

Usually the dwelling-house was secured with a rowan-tree
pin, that the evil thing might not cross the threshold. In
addition to the bit in his pocket, the ploughman yoked his oxen
to a rowan-tree bow, and with a whip attached to a rowan-
tree shaft, drove the incorrigible steer along the ridge. More-
over, the ox not unlikely had his horns decorated with red
thread, amidst which pieces of rowan-tree were inserted, or a
portion of the wood carved with quaint devices and similarly
garnished with threads would be dangling at the tail. Thus
fenced in person, home, and stall, the agricultural labourer
bade defiance to sorcery and fiendish malice. It used to be
remembered that once when the axle-tree of a cart driven by
a superstitious old man broke down, his more enlightened com-
panions jeeringly asked at him where was his " rowan-tiee
pin the day ? " In a case of supposed witchcraft in Yorkshire,
Aug. 26, 1674, Thomas Bramhall was inexpugnable to magic
art, " for they tie soe much whighen about him, I cannot come
to my purpose, else I could have worn him away once in two
yeares." * But it was equally requisite to a prosperous voyage
on the deep, and sailors, to ensure no other hazards than those
incidental to their profession, had over and above their cargo
a store of this harm-expelling preservative on board, f

A deceased friend wrote to me several years since, saying :
" Mr. John Holmes, of the Banks, in Cumberland, knows an
old man who travels the country with besoms. He carries
with him and gives to the women, his customers, pieces of
rowan-tree, of an inch or so in length, with various cuts and
notches on each, two of which, one on each end of the piece
of wood, are in the form of a cross. These, he says, if carried
in the pocket, will keep off evil spirits."

* Depositions, §-c.,from York Castle, p. 209.
f J. H., in Richardson's Local Hist. Table Book, Leg, Div., ii.
1>. 183.

BORDEE SKETCHES AND FOLKLOEE. 331

I once met with a person who told me a pure version of the
enchanted toad at Bamburgh Castle, the same story which
Lambe converted into the ballad of the " Laidley Worm," in
which the development of the plot mainly depends upon the
potentiality of the rowan-tree over whitchcraft. I communi-
cated the story to my friend Dr. Johnston, of Berwick, who
has interwoven it with his own materials in a passage or two
of his Natural History of the Eastern Borders, pp. 233, 234.
I will give it nearly as it is found there. Once on a time —
a long time ago — Bamburgh Castle was the residence of a
witch stepmother, who, from hatred and jealousy, banished her
lord's son beyond the seas, and changed his fair daughter into
a toad ; and this loathsome shape she was to endure until her
brother could return and dissolve the enchantment. The fond
brother very often made the attempt to return, but as often in
vain, for the coast was guarded by a powerful spell, and every
ship that strove to reach the shore was either driven off by
invisible agents, or the nails drew off themselves from the
beams, and the vessel went to pieces. At length he bethought
himself of having a ship built entirely of rowan-tree wood, and
the sails and the ropes bound with rod thread. Immediately
on the brother's embarkation the vessel bounded over the
favouring sea, and in .spite of the might and skill of the witches
under the command of the step-dame, it sailed, as if self-moved,
into the desired haven.* Lambe's version illustrates this more

fully :

" They built a ship without delay,
With masts of the rown-tree ;
With fluttering sails of silk so tine,
And set her on the sea.

• There was no " interposition of n fairy " in my draft of the
story.

332 T3E DENHAM TKACTS.

" The queen look'd out at her bower window
To see what she could see ;
There she espied a gallant ship
Sailing upon the sea.

" When she beheld the silken sails
Full glancing in the sun,
To sink the ship she sent away
Her witch, wives every one.

" The spells were vain ; the hags returned
To the queen in sorrowful mood,
Crying that witches have no power,
Where there is rown-tree wood."

Aided by the Index, which, however, is not very correct, of
the 1st vol. of Richardson's Table Booh, a summary of the
incidents of witchcraft in Northumberland and Durham may be
compiled. 28th July, 1582, Allison Lawe of Hart, co. Durham,
" a notorious sorcerer and enchanter," did penance once in the
market-place at Durham, once in Hart Church, and once at
Norton Church. Janet Bainbridge and Janet Allenson, of
Stockton, were accused of " asking counsell at witches, and
resorting to Allison Lawe for cure of the sicke" (Surtees).
Two men and two women were committed to prison by Sir John
Forster, on suspicion of having caused the death of Nicholas
Ridley, of Willimoteswick, sheriff of Northumberland, who died
16th January, 1585-6 (Sharp). In 1649, the witch-finder, in
consequence of a petition from the inhabitants of Newcastle, was
invited there from Scotland by the magistrates. This impostor
set aside twenty-seven out of the thirty suspected persons, and
in consequence fourteen witches and one wizard belonging to
Newcastle were executed on the town moor (Gardiner's England's
Grievance). The following entry occurs in tho register of the
parochial chapelry of St. Andrew in Newcastle : " 1650, 21st

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 333

August. — Thes partes her under named, wer executed in the town
mor for wiches. — Isab' Brown, Margrit Maddeson, Ann Watson,
Ellenor Henderson, Elisabeth Dobson, Matthew Boner, Mrs.
Elisabeth Anderson, Jane Huntor, Jane Koupling, Margrit
Brown, Margrit Moffit, Ellenor Robson for stellin of silver
spownes, Kattren Wellsh for a wieh, Aylles Hume, Marie
Pootes." At the close occurs " Jane Martin, the miliars wif
of Chattin, for a wieh." In 1649 the following entry occurs in
Gateshead parish books, whence it is copied into Sykes' Local
Records : " Paid at M ti9 Watson's when the justices sat to
examine the witches, 3s. 4d. ; for a grave for a witch, 6d. ; for
trying the witches, £1 5s."

The witch-finder afterwards went into Northumberland to
try women there, where he got of some three pounds a piece to
allow them to escape, for which being called in question he fled
into Scotland, where it is satisfactory to know he was hanged
(Brand). July 30, 1649, the magistrates of Berwick invited
him to try witches within the town (Fuller).

In January, 1652, Francis Adamson and one named Powle
were executed in the city of Durham for witchcraft (Surtees).
At the assizes at Durham, July, 1668, Alice Armstrong, wife
of Christopher Armstong, of Shotton, labourer, was tried for
bewitching to death an oxe belonging to Barbara Thompson
(Sykes).

In the Legendary Division of the Table Bool; i. pp. 391,
396, Mr. Robert White narrates the adventures of one of the
Delavals of Seaton Delaval with witches, whose place of con-
vention for the performance of horrible rites was Wallsend Old
Church.

" The Witches of Birtley " form the subject of a well-written
sketch by James Telfer in his Tales and Ballads (London, 1852,
pp. 241-261). I question, however, if there is any more
truth in it than the declaration in the opening sentence that

334 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

" the village of Birtley, in North Tynedale, is spoken of by
tradition as having been at one time a notable haunt of witches."
Jane Frizzle, a notorious witch on the Northumbrian side of the
Derwent, near Muggleswick, as we learn from a note to a poem
in the Derwent, written by Dr. John Carr, who died in 1807,
"practised on men, maidens, and cattle," but ere he had com-
posed it " she had long breathed her last." The scene of Robert
Davidson of Morebattle's poem, " The Witch's Cairn," was, I
was told by the late Mr. George Tate, Newton Torr, on the
River College, among the Cheviots. Its natural crown of rock,
resembling a ruinous castle, certainly corresponds to " the old
cairn on the edge of the fell," but the author in his notes does
not exactly specify where it was situated. This little book,
entitled Leaves from a Peasant's Cottage Drawer, was pub-
lished in Edinburgh in 1848, pp. 230, 18mo. His notes make
reference to cases of witch-burning at Beggar-Muir on the
estate of Hartrigge, near Jedburgh, where the last victim is
supposed to have perished in 1696.

Margaret Stothard, a poor old woman belonging to Edling-
ham, was, 22nd Jan., 1682-3, delated for witchcraft and charm-
ing before Henry Ogle, of Edlingham, Esq. The depositions
elicited several popular beliefs in this department of necro-
mancy. To John Mills, a yeoman at Edlingham Castle, while
he was in his bed at night, came something in a blast of wind,
which, pressing him over the heart, emitted cries like those of a
cat ; then a light shone at the bed-foot, and Margaret Stothard
was visible in the light ; with which visitation he was so greatly
affrighted that he took a fit, during which it required several
persons to hold him. Moreover, one night, when returning
from paying his rent, be had occasion to ride past her door, when
a flash of light crossed " over before him, and as he thought
went to her dore," wherewith both him and his horse were
terrorstruck ; for " his hair stood upward on his head," and his

BOHDKE SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 335

horse " took to a stand and would neither goe back nor for-
ward," till he prayed to a higher power for deliverance. This
same woman had charmed a sick or rather a bewitched child
of one Jane Carr, of Lemenden, and cast the trouble upon a
calf, which " went perfectly madd," and had to be slaughtered.
A child of a woman belonging to Lorbottle, who had slighted
this supposed witch in denying her alms, grew unwell the next
morning, complaining that the woman was like to break her
back, and press out her heart, and continued in this condition
till she died next morning about cock-crow. " My Lady
Widdrington," being informed of the circumstances, could form
no other conclusion than that the child had been bewitched.
But the more curious particulars are contained in the evidence
of Isabel Maine, of Shawdon, spinster, who was the dairymaid
of Jacob Pearson, of Titlington, gent. The milk of the cows
having gone wrong would not produce cheese, and believing
this to be occasioned by " some witch or other," she applied to
Margaret Stothard, of Edlingham, as a " reputed charmer."
Margaret promised to make all right again, and accomplished
it within eight days. Although Miss Maine was a half believer
in Margaret's powers, she was not disposed to make experiments
on the subject ; still she must have her curiosity satisfied. " In-
formant asked the said Margaret Stothard the reason why the
milk came to be in that condition, she the said Margaret said
that it was forespoken. and that some ill eyes had looked on it ;
and this Informant further asked her what was the reason that
her master's cows swett soe when they stood in the byar ; and
then she bidd liir take salt and water and rubb upon their backs,
and she further said to this Informant as touching the milk,
allwayes when you goe to milke your cowes put a little salt in
your pale or skeel ; this Informant refusing to doe that, she
would then give her a piece of Rowntree wood, and bid her
take that alwayes along with hir when she went to the cowes."

336 THE DENHAM TBAOTS.

She kept the piece of wood, but found no necessity for using it,
as the quality of the milk was restored, and she could get " both
butter and cheese of it." She then proposed to pay Margaret
" for hir soe mending or charming of the said milk, and would
have given hir a penny, and said it was charmer's dues, but she
answered and said noe, a little of anything will serve me." Her
master being informed of it, gave Margaret a fleece of wool, to
which she added a little more, in a free-handed sort of way ;
the result being that after that " they had their milke in very
good order." The last piece of advice received, she indignantly
rejected. " The said Margaret Stothard said if you judge any
person that hath wronged your milke, take your cowe-tye and
aske the milke againe for God's sake (a common formula in such
a case),* and she the said informant answered she would neer
do that, if their milke should never be right any more." f It is
probable that no further proceedings were taken.

In a calendar of prisoners confined in the Castle of New-
castle, to be tried at the assizes in 1628-9, occurs the name of
" Jane Eobson, wife of Matthew Eobson of Leeplish," in
Tynedale, committed by " Cuthbert Ridley, clerk, 19° July,
1628," and charged "with the felonious killing of Mabell
Robson, the wife of George Robson, of Leeplish aforesaid, his
brother-in-law," by sorcery or witchcraft.^

In 1711 William Grey was a quack and warlock doctor at
Littlehoughton, Northumberland. (Parish Register of Long-
houghton >y )

* Milking the cow-tether, see Napier's Folklore, <$•<;., pp. 75, 170 ;
Henderson's Folklore, pp. 199, 200 ; Chambers' Popular Rhymes of
Scotland, p. 329, ed. 1870 : Kelly's Indo-Europ. Trad, and Folklore,
p. 230.

■f Mackenzie's Hist, of Northumberland, ii. pp. 33-36.

t Mickleton MSS. in ibid., p. 36.

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 337

The belief in witchcraft died hard. Among the obituary
notices in the Newcastle Chronicle for March 21, 1807, occurs
the following : " At Hartburn, near Stockton, aged upwards
of 90, a woman, who has for many years past, by the common
people, been reputed a witch."

A proprietor of an estate near Wooler, a generation back,
erected a shepherd's cottage in a most exposed situation near
the summit of Hartsheugh, one of the lower Cheviot Hills.
The wife of the last shepherd who tenanted it got credit for
being a witch and a brewer of storms. The winds, however,
overmatched her, for they not only dismantled the house, but
" blew up the hearth-stone."

In a list of the inhabitants of Wooler about 1782, written by
James Jackson from recollection in 1837, I find mention of
" Jenny Hardy, a reputed [witch," as living near Padge Pool
Garden, about the north-west end of the town. The house and
its neighbour,5Jboth very low-roofed and small, are now
removed.

An anonymous writer, who dates from Alnwick, Feb. 14,
1770, gives a credible statement of the effects of being nurtured
up in superstitious beliefs, such as were prevalent at that period,
witchcraft being not the smallest to be dreaded. The writer
had been initiated by his grandmother, until he became a
"perfect adept in all the branches of superstition, from the
trifling prognostics of coffee-grounds to the awful predictions of
the planetary worlds." " A hare could not start or a magpie
chatter in my walks which I did not interpret as prognosticating
some calamity. A couple of straws lying across each other in
my path were as terrible as a drawn sword in the hand of a
murderous ruffian." " My case was by no means singular. I
had several acquaintances equally wrapt up in superstitious
absurdity. One would not pare his nails on a Friday because it

VOL. II. z

338 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

was unlucky; another would refrain from going on the most
important journey if he met a person carrying water as he set
out ; and a third pretended to cure several distempers by burn-
ing horse-shoes in the chamber fire while he repeated certain
magical prayers and incantations over the patient. A poor old
superannuated woman was nearly bled to death by our thrusting
a large pin into a vein in her temples, we having long suspected
her for a witch, and the author of several little accidents which
at that time befel us ; many of us constantly wore charms and
amulets for the prevention of witchcraft ; and in short, we were
devoted slaves to all the foolish freits which fable yet has
feign'd or fear conceived."*

Mr. Raine is of opinion that in none of the trial cases there
was any conviction, and compliments the clear-headed jurymen
of the North from their freedom from prejudice. At some of the
Durham assizes the accused were perhaps not so fortunate. In
1649-50 witches cost the ratepayers of Gateshead much good
money. " The poor suspected creatures had sad treatment at
the hands of blind justice : arrested, examined, imprisoned,
buried, — at the charge of the community."

£ s. d.
Going to the justices about the witches . . . .040
Paid at Mrs. Watson's when the justices sat to examine

A the witches . .034

Given to them in the Tolebouth, and carrying the witches

to Durham . . . . . . . .040

To constables, for carrying the witches to goul . .040

Trying the witches . . . . , . .15

A grave for a witch 6

The departed witch of St. Mary's, buried at a charge of six-

* The Literary Register or Weekly Miscellany, vol. ii. pp. 48, 44.
Newcastle, 1770.

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 339

pence for her grave, would be committed to the earth in a parish
coffin*

Notes op Possession in Books.

In a copy of Sir John Skene's Regiam Majestatem, Edin-
burgh, 1609, that had belonged in 1 708 to Sir James Calder,
of Muirtoune, who was created a baronet 5th November, 1686,
I find the following :

" This book is mine if ye would know,
By leters nyne I will you show,
The first is J, a leter bright,
The next is Calder in all mens sight.

James Calder."

" Sir James Calder of Mourtone is the right owner of this book,
1708 years. Amen."

" Hear is a book, but small,
But doth in it contain."

This book had also been the property of Robert Gordon,
rector of Sutherland, 1617, also of George Lord Strathnaver,
who died fifteenth Earl of Sutherland, 4th March, 1703. It
contains another rhyme in an ancient hand.

" James Desenne God me defend,
And in my misrie God wits send,
I pray to God my hand to mend,
And bring my sowell to ane guid end.
ffinis quoth dan bobus."

* Mr. James Clephane on Abigail and Timothy Tyzack, and Old
Gateshead. Arch. /Elian., n.s., viii. pp. 230, 231.

z 2

340 the denham tkacts.

Some New Year's Observances.

To request a light on the morning of the New Year in North
Northumberland is held by those retentive of old scruples as a
very bad omen. At a farmhouse a careless servant, neglecting
to cover up her fire on the Old Year's night, had to be obliged to
her neighbours before it would kindle in the morning. Her
master, apprised of the fatal omission, predicted some unforseen
evil would be the consequence, and accordingly some time after
two valuable cows that this girl milked were found one morning
strangled at the stake. Several will not for any consideration
even allow a borrowed fire to proceed from their dwellings.
This heathenish belief is condemned about a.d. 746, in a letter
from St. Boniface to Pope Zachary, whence it appears that " at
Rome on New Year's day no one would suffer a neighbour to
take fire out of her house, or anything of iron, or lend any-
thing." (Hospinian apud Brand, Pop. Ant., i. 9.) Nor was it
lucky to sweep any dirt or ashes out of the house, nor throw
out dirty water on New Year's day, but it was customary to
gather everything inward, in order that plenty might bless the
household for another season. All dirty clothes must be washed
up before the New Year's advent. While careful thus of
keeping one's property together, it was on the other hand
unlucky to go out empty-handed, and to meet one with a bottle
and glass in hand was fortunate. On that day to meet as first-
foot a person with the eyebrows met was considered a bad
encounter. To spill salt is at all times unlucky, but it is
especially heinous on New Year's day. The coincidence of these
with some of the observances at New Year's tide in the West
of Scotland are worth remarking. Confer Napier's Folklore, p.
160.

The Eev. G. Home Hall, F.S.A., in his article in the Arch.
jEliana, n.s., viii. pp. 66, G7 (1879), on " Ancient Well Wor-

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 341

ship in North Tynedale," mentions several curious observance?,
connected with wells in West Northumberland at New Year's
tide, survivals of ancient paganism. At the ancient village of
Wark there are three springs of water for tho supply of the
inhabitants. " On New Year's morning, within memory, each
of these wells was visited by the villagers in the hope of
their being the first to take what was called the ' Flower
of the Well ' [see Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 366
et seq., who refers to this curious custom], that is, the first
draught drunk by any one in the New Year. I have heard of
one aged crone, who had the reputation of being uncanny, and
concerned in forbidden devices of witchcraft, endeavouring to
anticipate her rivals by going to the wells before ' the witching
midnight hour,' so as to be in readiness for the advent of the
incoming year. Whoever first drank of the spring would obtain,
it was believed, marvellous powers throughout the next year,
even to the extent, as my informant averred, of being able to
pass through key-holes and take nocturnal flights in the air.
And the fortunate recipient of such extraordinary powers notified
his or her acquisition thereof by casting into the well an offering
of flowers or grass, hay or straw, from seeing which the next
earliest devotees would know that their labour was in vain when
they, too late, came to the spring in the hope of possessing the
flower of the well." At the Croft-foot Well at Birtley (formerly
Birkley) the same custom was followed in the last generation.
"There the villagers of a generation ago frequented the well in
early hours of the New Year, like their neighbours at Wark ;
but they held that the fortunate first visitant of the well on New
Year's morning who should fill his flask or bottle with the water
would find that it retained its freshness and purity throughout
the whole year, and also brought good luck to the house in which
it remained."

342 the denham teacts.

Midsummer Bonfires.

The Rev. Gr. R. Hall, writing in 1879, says that " the fire
festivals or bonfires of the summer solstice at the Old Mid-
summer until recently were commemorated on Christenburg
Craga and elsewhere by leaping through and dancing round the
fires, as those who have been present have told me." " The
driving of cattle through the smoke of the need-fire, as a sup-
posed preventative of murrain, and the carrying from farm to
farm as quickly as men could ride the sacred self-lighted fire,
made by two pieces of dry or rotted wood being rubbed together
very quickly, has occurred at Birtley within the last thirty years ;
and this forms one of the most recent survivals of the adoration
once so generally rendered to the great orb of day and to the
element of fire." *

The Rev. J. E. Elliot Bates, rector of Whalton, in a paper
on Whalton and its Vicinity, written for the Berwickshire
Naturalists' Club (Proc, vol. vi. pp. 242-3 J, narrates that " on
Midsummer's eve, reckoned according to the old style, it was
formerly the custom of the inhabitants, young and old, not only
of Whalton but of most of the adjacent villages, to collect a
large cartload of whins and other combustible materials, which
was dragged by them with great rejoicing (a fiddler being seated
on the top of the cart) into the village and erected into a pile.
The people from the surrounding country assembled towards
evening, when it was set on fire ; and whilst the young danced
around it, the elders looked on smoking their pipes and drinking
their beer, until it was consumed. There can be little doubt
that this curious old custom dates from a very remote antiquity."
In his evidence in March, 1878, in the Whalton Green case,
which was deoided in favour of the right of user by the villagers,

* Archaeologia jEliana, n.s., viii. p. 73.

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 343

the rector of Whalton gave evidence as to the constant use of
the part of the green in question since 1843. "The bonfire,"
he said, " was lighted a little to the north-east of the well at
Whalton, and partly on the footpath, and people danced round
it and jumped through it. That was never interrupted." *

Friday Unlucky.

The Messrs. Kichardson, painters, Newcastle, were super-
stitious observers of lucky and unlucky days. They were
invited on a Saturday to Day the artist's to inspect a particular
process, but they had an engagement elsewhere. " Why not
come on Friday then " asked Mr. Day, " when none of us are
occupied?" The excuse was, "Me an' ma son dinna' like to
begin any work on a Friday."

It is unlucky to enter into the occupancy of a house at term-
time on a Friday ; and Friday is not a good day to buy or make
a bargain on. Sailors reckon Friday the worst day to sail on ;
Sunday is the best day for a fortunate voyage. An emigrant
vessel that sailed on a Friday was wrecked.

In Northumberland it is unlucky to cut hair on a Friday, or
pare the nails on a Sunday, for according to the rhyme :

" Friday's hair and Sunday's horn,
Ye'll meet the Black Man on Monanday morn."

See also Dyer's English Folklore, p. 237 :

" Friday cut and Sunday shorn,
Better never have been born."

On the other hand, " an old hexameter at the end of the
editions of Ausonius has: Ungues Mercurio, barbam Jove,

Arch. uEliana, ubi tap.

344 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

Oypride crinis (nails on Wednesday, beard on Thursday, hair
on Friday)"*

In Westmoreland, " there are few country people will begin
any important work on the Friday. If they commence hay-
making or the corn harvest on that day, they believe it will have
an unfortunate termination. It is an unlucky day, and it will
not do to begin anything of consequence on that day." f

At Wooler it is the same: "Never begin any work," old
people would tell you, "that ye canna finish that week."

Barking-out Day.

On this subject I received a communication which is dated
Newcastle, May 18th, 1844, from Mr. Eobert Bolam, who I
was informed kept a school there. J I shall preserve it nearly iu
the form in which I obtained it, as it preserves some peculiari-
ties in a teacher's life not likely to occur now ; although among
the Cheviots, not many years ago, I encountered young men
who kept school and were boarded alternately for a month in
the shepherds' houses who had children.

" Barring-out day " was the last school day in the year — the
day in which all schools broke up for the Christmas holidays,
and was looked forward to with great anxiety by the pupils in
the county of Northumberland. A day on which they for one
short hour were to have the mastery was worth all the rest of
the year. On that day a small subscription was made; in
general the boys contributed 3d. and the girls 2d. each,

* Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, vol. i. p. 123, English edition,
t Mr. Pearson on Superstitions of Westmoreland, &c, London
Saturday Journal, vol. i. p. 130 (1841).

J Mr. Bolam contributed to Richardson's Table Book, Leg. Div., i.
DO, 1'7, " "Wild Ad^el1^u^cs with the Dwarfs on Simonside Hills."

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 345

defaulters being as rare as they were odious. To this the
master, though well aware of the coming mutiny, added a
donation of sixpence or a shilling, and several neighbours too
aided the fund. With this money a quantity of bread and
strong beer was procured, wherewith the scholars regaled them-
selves until they became warm with the liquor, when the master
was mobbed and turned out and the door locked on him. A
parley then took place as to the number of days' play the
children were to have, nor was the dominie admitted again until
the terms were settled and he had consented to forgive them for
their riotous conduct.

When it is understood that the quarter pence still run on
during the vocation, it may naturally be asked why the master
had so strong an objection to a lengthened recess ? Though I
do not profess to trace the custom back to its origin, I will
hazard a conjecture that the social manner in which school-
masters were in those times usually engaged was not without
its influence on the conduct of both masters and pupils. It was
customary for two or more of the wealthier inhabitants of a
rural district to give the master his board and lodging, in weekly
rotation, for the tuition of their children, allowing him to make
what he could by the attendance of others in the vicinity. In
many cases the pocket money accruing to the master was very
scanty, and as he had to spend the holidays among his own
friends and relations, a long vacation pressed sore upon his
scanty finances, and furnished him with a sufficient motive for
an early return to his free quarters, while on the other hand the
children in their fondness for play cared not how long his stay
was protracted.

[Mr. Bolam had forgotten that if the schoolmaster had
abdicated too long, his manliness would have been called in
question, and it would have been said of him that the children
hud the iipperhand ; moreover, if he was conscientious, there

346 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

was the waste of precious time, even though the days were then
of the briefest.]

Mr. B. goes on to relate the only instance in which he ever
saw " barring-out" put into practice:— On the 23rd December,
1808, the pupils of Mr. Edward Storey, at Throphill, assembled
in the schoolroom during the dinner hour, and having elected
one of the senior boys as speaker, locked themselves in. On
the master arriving and peremptorily requiring admission, the
youth behind the door resolutely requested a fortnight's play.
After a little altercation, the master, perceiving himself likely to
be made the object of ridicule by the neighbours, who began to
assemble to see the fun, thought it most prudent to accede to
the terms, but no sooner had he set his foot over the threshold
than he broke his word by abridging the term to nine or ten
days. In this instance the bread and beer were not brought in
till the middle of the afternoon. In this school these customs
were wholly done away with on the following season by Mr.
Alexander Ross, Mr. Storey's successor.

[At Alnwick Grammar School, when Mr. Eumney was
master, a famous barring-out occurred, which lasted for a week.
It was headed by Percival Stockdale, who describes it in his
Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 88-92 ; see also Tate's Hist, of Alnwick, ii.
pp. 90, 91, 96. At that place this anniversary was observed on
St. Andrew's day. It is still practised in some rural schools,
but the playtime is rarely more than a single day. The contri-
butions levied by the scholars are spent on sweetmeats. In
Scotland "themaister is steeketoot" on the "shortest day."
In the school that I attended there was an annual " barring-
out." The verses used were very puerile, although defiant:

" This is the shortest day,
An' we maun hae the play,
An' if ye wunna gies the play,
We'll steek ye oot a' the day."]

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 347

GniBARDiNO Rhymes.

Redd room, redd room, for Guisard's sport,
For to this house I must resort ;
Kesort, resort, for merry play,
Call in Goliah, and he'll clear the way.

A room, a room, my gallant boys,

Give us room to rise.

Stir up the fire and give us light,

For in this house shall be a fight.

If you don't belieye the word I say,

111 call in Goliah, and he'll clear the way.

No. 2. Here comes I, Goliah, Goliah is my name,

"With sword and pistol by my side, I hope to win the game.
No. 1. The game, sir, the game, sir, it's not within your power ;

I'll slash you to inches in less than half an hour.
Nos. 1 and 2 fight ; 2 falls, and 1 breaks out into a lament.
No. 1. Alas ! alas I what's this I've done ?

I've ruin'd myself, and kill'd my only son ;

Hound the kitchen, round the hall,

Is there not a Doctor to be found at all ?

One at the door says :

No. 3. Yes I here am I, Johnny Brown,

The best Doctor in the town.
No. 1. How came you to be the best Doctor in the town ?
No. 3. By my travels.
No. 1. Where did you travel ?
No. 3. Hickerty, pickerty, France and Spain,

Then back to old England again.
No. 1 . "What can you cure ?
No. 8. Anything.
No. 1. Can you cure a dead man ?
No. 3. Yes, indeed, that I can.

[Holds a bottle to the slain champion, and says :
Rise up, Jack, and fight again.
The result being that lie is resuscitated.

348 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

No. 4 enters. Here comes in old Row-rumple,
On my shoulder I carry a dumple,
In my hand a piece of fat.
Please can you pitch a copper into my old hat.

After this beggarly conclusion, and the singing of a song or
two, the little actors, having obtained a donation, hasten off to
the next dwelling.

Verses used in old Valentines in Northumberland and
Berwickshire.

heart of gold ! thou love of mine,

1 drew you for my Valentine ;
I drew you out among the rest,
And took you for my very hest.

The rose is red, the violet's blue,
The honey's sweet, love, so are you I
And so are they that sent you this,
And when we meet, we'll have a kiss.

Round is (or as) the ring that has no end,
So is my love to you, my friend ;
My heart and hand are joined together,
Your love may change, but mine can never.

The ring is round, the bed is square,
You and I shall be a pair.

Some draw valentines by lot,
And some draw those that they love not ;
But I draw you whom I love best,
And choose you from among the rest.

The ring is round, and hath no end,
And this I send to you, my friend ;
And if you take it in good part,
I shall be glad with all my heart.

BOEDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 349

But if you do these lines refuse,

The paper burn, pray me excuse.

Excuse me now for being so bold,

I should have wrote your name in gold ;

But gold was scarce, as you may think,

"Which made me write your name with ink.

The above purports to be taken from a collection of last-
century valentines, and was sent by Thomas Groom to Ann
Jebb. "Ann Jebb, however, married, in 1788, a Mr. Nun-
nerly, and became grandmother of one of the six hundred of the
Balaklava charge."

Kern-rhymes in Northumbeuland.

On the conclusion of the harvest, while carrying the corn-
baby from the field, the reapers shout :

" A kern, a kern, a heigh-ho !
A kern, a kern, a heigh-ho !
For Mr. B.'s corn's a' well shorn,
And we'll hae a kern, a heigh-ho."

It is usually recited by the clearest-voiced individual in the
company. The following specimen of it has often awakened
the echoes on the green banks of the Wansbeck :

" Blessed be the day our Saviour was born ;
For Master Lennox's corn's all well shorn,
And we will have a good supper to-night,
And a drinking of ale, and a kern ! a kern ! ahoa ! "

Those who would not join in the call had their ears "cobbed,"
or roughly pulled and pinched. In Glendale an abbreviated
version of the harvest rhyme is in use :

" The master's corn is ripe — and shorn,
We bless the day that he was born,
Shouting a kern 1 a kern ! ahoa."

350 the denham tracts.

The Dbowned Faa, a Wooleb Tradition.

The Wooler Fairs were wont to be regularly frequented by-
numbers of the Yetholm gypsies. At one of these periodical
gatherings a female " faa " stole a pair of shoes from a stall.
There had been in those days an inefficient system of police, for
the Wooler people (although some ascribed the hasty action to
the country attenders, tradesmen, or others of the fair) broke
out and drowned the culprit off-hand in the " Blue Mill " dam.
One man, it used to be told with shuddering, set his foot on the
struggling victim to hold her down in the water. When
reflection succeeded this popular outburst, the dead body was
dragged out and laid upon a high stone, still conspicuous on the
wooded bank east of the town, above the present Wooler Mill,
where the slime was washed from the inanimate form. The
gypsies never forgot the cruel outrage, and vowed revenge on
the town, although, owing to the watch kept on them, they
were prevented from putting their threats into execution. Old
people, all gone now, used to keep in memory their dread of
this retaliation. The town also was believed to lie under a
curse for the unexpiated offence against justice, and whenever a
long continuance of snow, or thunder, or rain, or gloomy days
prevailed, the superstitious would mutter to each other that the
prophecy was being fulfilled, " that a race of bad weather will
hang over Wooler, for the death of Jean Gordon, drowned in
tho mill-dam." Singular effect of isolation and consequent
dependence on physical phenomena, that they feared no retri-
bution worse than frowning skies, and imagined that they had
spells of bad weather in which the rest of the district did not
participate ! — J. H., in The Gypsies of Yetholm, tyc, edited by
Wm. Brockie, Kelso, 1884, pp. 138-9.

Denwick.
Denwiok, a pretty village of sixteen cottages, was one of the

BOEDEE SKETCHES AND FOLKLOBE. 351

ancient villa of Alnwick barony. " At Michaelmas time Aln-
wick feasted and Denwick played; and on the Monday the
youthful population of Alnwick went to enjoy the games ; the
distinction appears in the old popular rhyme :

"Alnwick feast and Denwick play,
Bonnie lasses had-away."

Had-away is an Alnwickism, meaning come away. Tate's
Hist, of Alnwick, ii. p. 376.

Games.

All the ordinary games of football, handball, droppy-pocket-
handkerchief, kittie-cat and buck-stick, or as it is called in
Scotland, hornie holes, clubbing or brandy-ball, and through-
the-needle-se, were played in the Pasture at Alnwick on Shrove-
tide, Easter, Whitsuntide, Michaelmas, Christmas, and other
holidays. Not far from Ferniherst Castle, a very large oak
tree, one of the last remains of the great Forest of Jed, is
called the capon-tree ; and near to Brampton, by the roadside,
stands [stood] the branchless trunk of a capon-tree, beneath
whose shade, tradition says, a cold collation, of which capons
were the principal dainties, was provided for the judges of
assize when met there by the authorities of Carlisle.*

* In Dr. Kobert Chambers's Popular Rhymes of Scotland, p. 115,
there is a ball-playing rhyme :

" Stottie ba', hinnie ba', and all to me,
How mony bairns am I to hae?
Ane to live, and ane to dee,
And ane to sit on the nurse's knee ! "

Addressed to a handball by girls, who suppose that they will have
many children as the times they succeed in catching it.

352 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

Keppin Well.

Glanton has a famous well with imaginary salubrious qualities.
It was the common well of the villagers, and lies near the base
of a slope of Glanton Hill beyond the present school-house, and
the water issued from a pipe. I am told that it was once custo-
mary for parents to take their weakly children to it in summer
to be strengthened by the application of its refreshing waters.
They were wrapped up in blankets and placed under the spout.
It was called the Keppin' or Keppie "Well, owing to the water
having to be caught or " kepped " in pails, or skeels, or jugs,
with which the townspeople resorted to it in the morning to take
their turn in carrying home the domestic supply for the day.
It was a great resort for gossip, but had no connection with
"kepping " in the sense of convention.

Callaly Castle Khymes.

The old generation who dwelt round Callaly Castle, it has
been ascertained of late years, had some reason for their rhymes
and traditions of another structure than the castle that occupies
the present low-lying site having occupied the area of the old
British Camp on Callaly Castle Hill. In preparing for a meet-
ing of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, on June 25th, 1890,
Major A. H. Browne, the genial and kind-hearted owner, caused
excavations to be made all over the platform occupied by the
extensive settlement of the pre-historic race who had made it a
stronghold. The operation is not jet completed, but this much
has been revealed, that within the area of the ancient encamp-
ment there are the foundations of a medieval building of an
oblong shape, constructed of ashlar stones laid with mortar, and
that the occupants had strengthened the interior wall of the old
camp with a facing of mortar-laid ashlar, of which two courses

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 353

at least are still preserved, having till lately been buried under
rubbish, and tliat they had also strongly rebuilt the walls of the
main gateway, and while quarrying for materials to execute
these operations had deepened the ditches of the camp rings.
It is just possible that this newly discovered edifice may have
been the " Castrum de Kaloule vet'," the Castle of Old Callaly
of the List of Fortalices, made in 1415, but which afterwards
the owners may have removed to a more sheltered and better
watered situation in the vale below. That there was in 1415 a
" New Callaly " is apparent from " Old Callaly " being speci-
fied in the return of fortified places of defence on the Borders
at that period.

The rhyme appears to have been popular, as it has become
subject to numerous variations. I have before me materials for
the history of these, which it may be of interest to preserve in
a series.

(1) It first occurs in Bell's " Northern Bards ," 1812, p. 199,
with this comment :

"At Callaly, the seat of the Claverings, tradition reports that,
while the workmen were engaged in erecting the castle upon a
hill, a little distance from the present edifice, they were surprised
every morning to find their former day's work destroyed, and
the whole impeded by supernatural obstacles, which causing
them to watch, they heard a voice saying :

' Callaly Castle stands on a height ;
It's up in the day, and down at night ;
Build it down on the Shepherd's Shaw,
There it will stand and never fa'.'

Upon which the building was transferred to the place mentioned,
where it now stands."

(2) Taken down from tradition from an ancient North-
umbrian in Gateshead :

VOL. II. 2 A

354 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

" Callaly Castle stands on a height,
Up in the day, and down in the night ;
Set it up on the Shepherd's Shaw,
There it will stand and never fa'."

J Hardy, in Richardson's Table Book, Leg. Div., ii. p. 109 (1846);
whence it was transferred to Mr. G. B. Richardson's Guide to
the Newcastle and Berwick Railway, p. 12, and M. A. Denham's
Popular Rhymes, $c, 1858 ; Monthly Chronicle, 1889, pp. 378-9.

The first line, as I learned afterwards, varies to :
" Callaly Ha' stands up on a height."

(3) " Callaly Castle built on a height,

Up in the day and down in the night,
Builded down in the Shepherd's Shaw,
It shall stand for aye and nerer fa'."

George Tate, in Hist, of Ber. Nat. Club., iv. p. 225 (1861) ; W.
W. Tomlinson's Guide to Northumberland, p. 357 (1888).

(4) " Callaly Castle stands on a height,

Up i' the day an' doon i' the night ;
If ye build it on the Shepherd's Shaw,
There it'll stand and never fa'."

D. D. Dixon's Vale of Wldttingham, p. 32 (1887).

(5) " Callaly Ha's up on a heet,

Up i' the day, an' doon i' the neet,
If ye beeld it down yon Shanter Shaw,
There it'll stand, an' nivver fa'."

L., on the authority of his grandfather and grandmother, Alnwick
and County Gazette, July 5, 1890.

(6) " Callaly Castle stands on the height,

Up by day and down by night,

Set it down by the Shepherd's haugh,

There it shall stand and never fa'."

Version at the castle, 1890.

border sketcries and folklore. 355

Callaly Pot Boiling.

When the " Callaly pot is boiling " it indicates bad weather.
A mist in a ferment rises straight up from the ravine between
the Castle Hill and Lorbottle Moor, and clings to the top of the
hill. This is a sure sign of rain, both as seen from Biddleston
on the west and Shawdon on the east. The " Callaly pot" was
boiled by the Clavering owners, who were a Catholic family, to
provide a dinner for tho poor people who on Sunday and
holidays attended the services at tho chapel attached to the
mansion. The " Haggerstone kail pot," of similar import,
has already been noticed. Both are things of the past, but the
mist still towers up on Calhtly Hill in damp weather, an un-
failing barometer.

Hob Thrush's Mills.

Hob Thrush's Mill Nick is a deep fissure with deep pot-holes
and waterfalls in Callaly Crags, near Callaly Castle, worn out
in the sandstone by the continuous action of the flooded waters
of a streamlet originating in the eastern quarter of Lorbottle
Moor. The pot-holes in the rocky water-course aro Kobin
Goodfellow's or Hob Thrush's Mills, wherein he grinds his
visionary grain. Tho mills are set agoing by spates, which
bring down stones that rattle in the pot-holes, like the grinding
gear of a mill set in motion. Another haunt of this sprite, who
was a sort of Brownie, was at Holy Island, in Hob Thrush
Island (now St. Cuthbert Island) , where St. Cuthbert frightened
him, and got tho whole island to himself, name inclusive. Hob
is very susceptible of an affront, as we are informed by Mr.
Henderson in his Folklore of the Northern Counties, see p. 264.
He was fond of seaside caverns. The oldest mention of him is
perhaps containod in tho following quotation from HalliwelPs

356 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, i. p. 453. Hob-
Thrush, a goblin or spirit generally coupled with Eobin Good-
fellow. See Cotgrave, in v. Loup-garou ; Tarlton, p. 55. The
millipes is called the Hob-thrush louse.

" If lie be no Hob-thrush, nor no Eobin Goodfellow, I could find
with all my heart to sip up a sillybub with him." — Two Lancashire
Lovers, 1640, p. 222.

There is a Hob's Flow near Oakenshaw Burn and Caplestone
Edge, in the dreary swampy solitudes close on the Border line
between England and Scotland. — J. H., in Hist. Ber. Nat. Club,
vol. xiii. p. 52.

Eowhope Wedding. [In Kidland.]

A tradition of the " Eowhope Wedding " still lingers in the
memories of several of the residents of the Vale of the Coquet.
This wedding took place about the year 1840, when James
Hornsby and Mary Telford were married at Alwinton Church.
There was a race for the " Kail," when sixteen horsemen rode
for the prize, Eowhope being seven miles from Alwinton Church,
far among the Cheviots, at the very foot of the Windy Gyle.
The number of guests invited to celebrate the wedding was so
great that the little house at Eowhope was filled to the door,
which gave rise to the local saying, whenever there was a
throng anywhere, that it was "like the Rowhope weddin' —
strampin' ither's taes, an' rivin' ither's claes." — D. D. Dixon's
Tractate on Old Wedding Customs in Upper Coquetdale and
Alndale, 1888, p. 8.

Elsdon.

An " Elsdon Feast," according to a native, is " Curlew Eo-ws
and Heather Broth." Mr. W. W. Tomlinson, in his Guide to

B011DER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 357

Northumberland, p. 306, says the village is popularly called
" Cold Elsdon." Whatever it may be in winter, it has a
cheerful aspect in autumn, being outwardly surrounded by a
background of hills, but there is a cleugh behind its famous
" Moat," down which a wind from the moorlands must sweep
with great force. One of its rectors, the Rev. Charles Dodgson,
could not endure its winter temperature. " I lay in the par-
lour," he wrote, " between two beds, to keep me from being
frozen to death, for, as we keep open house, the winds enter
from every quarter, and are apt to creep into bed to one." The
Hexham poet, George Chatt, thus bedittles this entertainment
for visitors by quoting the country proverb :

" An' heather broth an' curlew eggs,
Ye'll get for supper there."

The people of Eedesdale, of which this is the capital, are as
kind-hearted and hospitable as a visitor can desire, and there
is no lack of what the old Scotch people called " creature
comforts." Experto crede. — J. H.

The Heather Chieftain.

Col. John Blenkinsopp Coulson, of Blenkinsopp Hall, was
called the " Heather Chieftain," from having ridden to Morpeth
at the head of the voters of South Tynedale, during the fiercely
contested election of 1826, with a sprig of heather in his hat.
He died in 1863.

Houtck IIoi.k. Lowick Weather Wisdom.

1. At Lowick, if the wind in summer is in " Howick Hole,"
the people expect thunder.

2. When LJluuk-heddon Hill, one of the Kyloc range, looks

358 THE DENHAM TKACTS.

as if it had approached Lowick, and the seams and depression
on its face become vivid, rain is certain.

3. A Norham Feast wind is very hurtful 'in September for
shaking corn. The feast is about the equinox.

Whittingham Place Khymes.

Eslington for bonnie lasses,

Callaly for craws ;
Whittingham for white bread,

Thrunton for Faws.

These are places on the Alne. — Faws'= Gypsies.

Whittingham Fair.

Are you going to Whittingham Fair ?

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme ;
Remember me to one who lives there,

For once she was a true love of mine.

Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,

Parsley, &c*

Without any seam or needle work,

For once, &c*

Teli her to wash it in yonder well,

Parsley, &c.

Where never spring water or rain ever fell,

For once, &c.

Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn,

Parsley, <5a\

Which never bore blossom since Adam was bom,

For once, &c.

* In the original these are ^ivcu in full.

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 359

Now he has asked me questions three,

Parsley, &c.

I hope he will answer as many for me,

For once he was, &c.

Tell him to find me an acre of land,

Parsley, &c.

Betwixt the salt water and the sea-sand,

For once, &c.

Tell him to plough it with a ram's horn,

Parsley, &c.

And sow it all oyer with one pepper corn,

For once, &c,

Tell him to reap it with a sickle of leather,

Parsley, &c.

And bind it up with a peacock's feather,

For once, &c.

When he has done and finished his work,

Parsley, &c.

tell him to come and he'll have his shirt,

For once, &o.

D. D. Dixon's Tractate on The Vale of Whittingham,
Newcastle-upon Tyne, 1887.

" To Cuthbert, Car, and Oollingwood, to Shaftoe and to Hall,
To every gallant generous heart that for King James did fall."

Apparently a Jacobite toast, preserved among Sir Walter
Scott's Memoranda (Lockhart J s Life of Sir Walter Scott, royal
8vo, p. 731), not correctly taken down. George Oollingwood of
of Eslington, a descendant of Sir Cuthbert Oollingwood, Captain
John Shaftoe, Robert Shaftoe of Bavingtou and his son, and John

3G0 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

Hall of Otterburn, were participators in the " rising " of
1715-6. I do not remember any Carrs or Cutherts. — J. H.

" Tinmouth was Tinmouth wlien Shiels* was nyen,
An' Tynemouth '11 be Tynemouth when Shields is gyen."

A Guide to Tynemouth, p. 42.

The Four Quarters of the Globe.

The cabin boy's "fower quarters o J the globe" were: "Roosha,
Proosha, Memel, and Shiels." — Ibid.

It is said that the Northumbrian salutation is, " What '\\ you
hev?" and the Durham greeting, "What J ll you stand."

Jarrow (Co. Ddrham).

" There was once an awd wife at Jarra,

An' she had nowt better t' dee,

So she put her awd man in a barra,

An' who-o-rl'd him ower the quay." — Ibid.

Rimside Black Sow.

Rimside Black Bow is a large sandstone block on Rimside
Hill, remarkably like the effigy of the animal it is supposed to
represent.

Signs of the Weather.

At Hauxley, on the Northumbrian coast south from Wark-
worth, bad weather is portended when the white wall of Alnwick
Park, which lies at a considerable distance northwards, is very
distinct to the view. The sounds of the sea foretell bad weather
a night or two before, and the blast comes out of the direction

* North Shields.

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 361

whence the noise arises, although when first heard the wind
may not be in that quarter.

" Mar Fire," or " Sea Mare," is spoken of by the Hauxley
fishermen. On some nights there is a " vast o' fire " of this
sort before bad weather. There are also what are called by
them "greasy spots," or smooth-looking spaces, dappling the
brine all over. — M. H. Dand.

When the water breaks white between the land and Holy
Island it is the sign of a blast from the east. — Ibid.

" From Mountain to Mile."
Spoken of two farm places near Glanton.

Debdon Dirt.

Tlio coal at Debdon Colliery, which adjoins Rimside Moor,
abovo Rothbury, was so inferior that it was stigmatised as
" Debdon Dirt." It is now disused.

Scotland.

The lordship of Wark, in Tynedale, was held by the Kings of
Scotland for a long period as a fief from the English Kings till
Edward I. made the disrupture. There are still portions of the
banks of the Tyne called Scotland, e.g. below Haydon Bridge,
at Allerwash. On the north side of South Tyne England is
pointed out, and Scotland on the south of the river, as still
preserving the distinction.

The IIkiuIiANDs.

The Highlands at Wooler is often the name given to tho
Cheviot raii'T.

362 THE DENHAM TKAOTS.

Like the Cobbler in the West is the Carter in the East.

The Cobbler is one of the Arroehar Hills at the head of
Loch Long, Argyleshire; Carter Fell is a prominent member of
the Cheviot Hills, whence the rivers Reed and Jed arise.

Cutty Soams.

Cutty Soams was a coal-pit Bogle, a sort of Brownie, whose
disposition was purely mischievous, but he condescended
sometimes to do good in an indirect way. He would occa-
sionally bounce upon and thrash soundly some unpopular over-
man or deputy viewer ; but his special business and delight was
to cut the traces or " soams " by which the poor little assistant
putters (sometimes girls) used then to be yoked to the wooden
trams underground. It was no uncommon tiling in the morn-
ing, when the men went down to work, for them to find that
Cutty Soams had been busy during the night, and that every
pair of rope-traces in the colliery had been cut to pieces. By
many he was supposed to be the ghost of one of the poor fellows
who had been killed in the pit at one time or other, and who
came to warn his old marrows * of some misfortune that was
going to happen. At Callington Pit, which was more particu-
larly haunted, suspicion fell upon one of the deputies named
Nelson, and soon after two men, the under- viewer and the over-
man, were precipitated to the bottom of the pit, owing to this
man Nelson cutting the rope by which they descended, all but
one strand. As a climax to this horrible catastrophe, the pit
fired a few days afterwards, and tradition has it that Nelson
was killed by the damp. Cutty Soams Colliery, as it had come
to be nicknamed, never worked another day. — Monthly Chronicle,
1887, pp. 269, 270.

* l-'ellows.

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 363

Shilbottle Blue Bonnet on Blue Cap.

Of another Goblin, altogether a more sensible and indeed an
honest and hard working Bogle, a writer in the Colliery Guardian
of May 23rd, 1863, wrote as follows :—

" The supernatural person in question was no other than a
ghostly putter, and his name was Blue-cap. Sometimes the
miners would perceive a light-blue flame flicker through the air
and settle on a full coal-tub, which immediately moved towards
the roily-way as though impelled by the sturdiest sinews in the
working. Industrious Blue-cap required, and rightly, to be paid
for his services, which he moderately rated as those of an ordi-
nary average putter, therefore once a fortnight Blue-cap's wages
were left for him in a solitary corner of the mine. If they were
a farthing below his due, the indignant Blue-cap would not
pocket a stiver ; if they were a farthing above his due, indignant
Blue-cap left the surplus revenue where he found it."

At Shilbottle Colliery, near Alnwick, Blue-cap was better
known as Blue Bonnet. — Monthly Chronicle, p. 244.

The following series has been kindly furnished by Captain
It. G. Huggup, Gloster Hill, Warkworth, and consists both of
Popular Sayings and Folklore. — J. H.

" You are like the Piper o' Hexham."

You are like the Piper o' Hexham ; he had only three tunes.
The first was " Lang unkenned " ; the second, " Naebody
kenned; " and the third, " He didna' ken hissel."

This is said to an unmusical person.

" Onco more round Jarrow Slake, and then I'll be done."

This was used by a tailor while making a pair of breeches for
a very stout gentleman.

364 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

" That is going round by Newcastle to get to Shields."

My father often used this saying to express disapproval of the
method of doing some work. His aucestors having farmed in
the neighbourhood of Bedlington for a long period, I think it is
likely that he had picked it up in his early days from some one
of his relations.

" No good ever came out of Howick Hole."

When a child I have often heard this proverb in Bamborough-
shire. I think it refers to the S.E. gales which bring so much
wet to this county.

[This is already entered, but in a different form.]

" It's all ower [all over] like Jack's weddin"

I do not know if this is local, but I never heard it beyond the
county.

" Gannin' folks are aye gettin'."

Those who travel much are always picking something up.
" A ganging fit," &c, is the Scots form.

" What has that to do with the price of coals ? "

I have often heard this used in North Country ships during
an argument on any subject. It means, " You are getting wide
of the mark."

" Yon can make a, kirk or a mill on't for me."

That is, I have given you my advice, and you won't take it,
so it is indifferent to mo what becomes of the project.

BORDER SKETCHES AND FOLKLORE. 365

" He neither said ' buff ' nor ' stye.' "

This means, " He had not a word to say," a very common
expression. I can offer no suggestion as to its origin.

Only five years ago I had a cow that took milk-fever after
calving. An elderly woman immediately asked if we had been
careful to rub a pinch of salt along her back at the moment she
calved.

I have seen a corpse laid out with a small plate of salt placed
on the breast, and believe it to be usually done in Northumber-
land.

Seventy years or so ago it was a common practice among the
Hauxley fishermen, when shipwrecks had been scarce, to shut
up the cat in a cupboard. — M. H. Dand.

The peasant women believe that the " black and white
puddings" made at a pig-killing will certainly burst while
boiling if the cook does not, when putting each string of
puddings into the pot, mentally dedicate it to some one who is
not present. This has nothing to do with the subsequent dis-
posal of the delicacy.

Our peasantry have, or had within my recollection, a curious
superstition that if a pig was killed when Ihe moon was waning,
the flesh would not take the salt.

Dr. 0. Schrader, in his Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryans,
speaks of something analogous to this as being of most remote
antiquity. — E. G. Huggup.

Neat's Fire.

In another communication Mr. Huggup says that his uncle,
James Huggup, now deceased, gave him an account of the
custom of using Neat's Fire to cure the hoose in cattle, a disease
occasioned by worms in the throat. It was used every year in
the district on the clayey lands south of the mouth of the

366 THE DENHAM TKACTS.

Coquet, but long before his time. The farmers came to an
arrangement as to the order in which they were to use it. The
fire was kindled with some ceremony at a certain farm agreed
upon, and the cattle were then shut up in the straw-barn, where
the fire was kept up among them for some time ; after which
a lighted brand was carried on to the next farm, where prepara-
tions had been made for a similar proceeding. If it went out
the virtue was gone, and that year would probably be looked
forward to with dread of many deaths among the herd. When
this clay land was undrained there would be much loss from
worms in the throat in cattle, so that there is something to
commend itself to a practical farmer in smoking the herd.

For the process of making " Neat's Fire," or " Need Fire,"
see Mr. Denham's entry, ubi supra, " Need Fire."

XXI.

PLANT LORE : A BIOGRAPHY OF BORDER WILD
FLOWERS.

The Ribwort Plantain— Plantago lanceolata, L.

Grateful to the traveller to leave the dusty pathway near a
town, bared by public traffic of every green thing — for the
same road stretching away through the less frequented country
district; for those strips of verdure, that like the over-fresh-
ened margin of a stream, line the wayside on either hand — so
clean, so cooling and so grassy, while they lighten his move-
ments over their elastic sod, cheer also the spirits, by the
variety of their vegetative covering ; for nowhere is there a
richer assemblage of country graces, beautiful anywhere, but
nowhere more luxuriant and better looking than there, the
ground being kept continually fertilized, and but sparingly
cropped by flock or herd. There the gaudy dandelion first con-
fesses how irresistible is the penetrative influence of opening
spring ; there the demure daisy earliest unseals its rosy lips and
laughs out in the sunshine ; there the speedwell sparkles —
brightest organization of heaven's azure ; and there the
buttercups speck like golden studs nature's emerald raiment.

" Can Imagination boast,
Amid his gay creation, hues like these ? "

These spots are the favourite resort of the Ribwort Plaintain.
Youngsters in search of flowers will likely refuse its black and
apparently bloomlcss heads, a place among the almost indis-

368 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

criminate ingredients of the spring posy ; and it is true that its
napless sugar-loaf hat looks rather odd and unflowerlike beside
the trimmer head-dresses of its more brilliant companions ; yet
it cannot be said that amidst them it

" Like a purple beech among the greens
Looks out of place ; "

for during the period of flowering — they are pretty objects — its
circles of pale slender filaments and nodding anthers streaming
around a dark centre, like the radiance about a saintly head,
and particularly when sensitive to the aerial currents, they look
like its feelers agitated by the breeze. The spike arises droop-
ingly, black, and tapering to the point; but erects itself as the
bloom wears off, and becomes quite cylindrical, and the colour
progressively changes to brown, as if not sufficiently imbued
with dye to withstand the sunlight ; this being the lighter shade
of the interior surface of its fast expanding florets. There is
some variety in the size and shape of the heads ; in the broader
or narrower foliage ; and in the length and tint of its filaments
and stamens. In moist mornings, the last, like those of grass,
being easily detached, are sprinkled copiously over the shoes of
such as tread the " dewy lawn." The heads sometimes become
forked, or multiple ; sometimes entirely converted into leaves,
with a new race of stems and heads originating from the centre ;
or one leaf or more springs from the typically unclothed stalk.
None of these are of modern discovery ; the older botanists
knew all that we know of them ; and attempted their classifica-
tion under names such as we might apply to them.

Although the schoolboy may not admit its claims as a flower,
yet in his estimation compared with it, what are " roses,

violets " —

" But toys
For the smaller sort of boys,
Or for greener damsels meant ? "

PLANT LOBE. 369

for from its heads he obtains the weapons of a warfare that
mimics " manly " might. Two little heroes challenge each
other, and go and select an equal number of the toughest stems
of ribwort they can meet with. One then holds out his stem,
at which his opponent with another aims a deadly blow to
behead it. Whether successful or not, he must in turn submit
a stem with a head on it to the risk of the next stroke ; and
thus by alternate attempts is the contest continued, until one of
them lose all the heads of his flowers, in which case he also
loses the fight. Both the game and the weapons are called
Kemps. A hemp, as at present in use, is the struggle for the
" land end " in the harvest field.

" 'Twas on the left the harsher jar,
Of sickles spoke commencing war,

And anger mutter'd low ;
The soldier saw with jealous glance,
The blacksmith's ridge too far advance,

And held that ridge a foe ;
And bore away ; that action soon
Like light'ning glanced along the boon,
Till all, from side to side, was life,
Resentment, bustle, rage and strife,
And foot to foot the kempers join."

Story's Harvest.

But " kemp," sayeth Verstegan,* is a word of " noble
descent ; " and in the olden time signified a champion, or
knight skilled in feats of arms.

" But on did come the kyng of Spayne
With kempe3 many a one."

Ballad of King Estmere.

In Anglo-Saxon cempa is a soldier, campian to fight ; the Danish
* Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, p. 233.

VOL. II. 2 B

370 THE DENHAM TKACTS.

kempe is a giant ; the Islandic hamper, a warrior. The Cimbri
struck terror into their enemies, not less by their fighting quali-
ties than by the name which these had stamped on them, for
they were kem.pers, "the bravest of the brave".* The
proudest title of the Cid was " the Compeador ; " our kemp or
kemper in the Spanish idiom. " Compeador is a term hardly
translatable into English, for our word ' champion,' to which it
most readily answers, excites little of that proud triumphant
feeling which thrills the Spanish bosom at the mention of the
' Compeador.' " Sir James Kempt at Waterloo, and Dr. Van-
derkemp, the African missionary, each in their respective fields
of honour, vindicated their ancient lineage and name, f The
Swedes call Plantago media kampar, from their word kampa, to
contend or struggle. Plantago major is sometimes also our
" kemps," perhaps the " kemp-seed" of Jamieson. In some parts
of Scotland " Soldiers " is the Ribwort's name. In the pit-vil-
lages around Newcastle, " Cock-fighters " is the term for the
game; modified about Berwick to " Fightee-eocks." In Suffolk
it is "Cocks" (Moor); "Fighting-cocks" in Northampton-
shire, " many a time have I played at fighting-cocks with them"
(C. W. Peach) ; " F'ghting-cocks " in the east of England (Hal-
liwell); "Hardheads," in Lancashire (Brockett)4 It does
not, however, appear to have been its celebrity in boyish diver-
sions that has earned for it the title of " Herba martis," § for
it fell under the warrior god's protection for another reason.
For " Mizaldus and others, yea almost all astrology-physicians,

* Percy's Ri-liques of Ancient Poetry, i. p. 373; and Ruddiman
Sibbald's Glossary.

t " Kemp, the surname of a man, that is, in old English,
soldier." Ch.imbevlayne's Magna Britannia? Xotitia, p. 162.

\ The English name has passed over into Ireland : it is " Cocks "
in Arniagh ; " Cocks and Hens " in Waterford,

§ Phrysins in J. fianhin's Hist. Plantarvm, in. p 505.

PLANT LORE. 371

hold this to bo an herb of Mars, because it cures the diseases of
the head, which arc under the houses of Mars." " Neither,"
continues Culpepper, " is there hardly a martial disease but it
cures."

It was once a custom in Berwickshire to practise divination
by means of kemps. Two spikes were taken in full bloom, and
being bereft of every appearance of blow, they were wrapt in a
dock-leaf and put below a stone. One of them represented the
lad, the other the lass. They were examined next morning, and
if both spikes appeared in blossom, then there was to be " aye
love between them twae :" il none, the "course of true love"
was not " to run smooth." The appeal, however, generally
ended as the parties wished, for since it is the rule in the inflo-
rescence of spikes that the florets blow in succession, the being
laid beneath a stone would have little influence in retarding
their expansion if ready for development. A similar supersti-
tion prevails in Northamptonshire: thus Clare in his Shepherd's
Calendar, p. 49 : —

" Now young girls whisper things of love,
And from the old dame's hearing move ;
Oft making ' love-knots ' in the shade,
Of blue-green oat or wheaten blade ;
Or, trying simple charms and spells
Which rural superstition tells,
They pull the little blossom threads,
From out the knot-weeds button heads,
And put the husk with many a smile,
In their white bosoms for a while, —
Then if they guess aright, the swain
Their love's sweet fancies tries to gain ;
'Tis said, that ere it lies an hour,
'Twill blossom with a second flower,
And from the bosom's handkerchief
Bloom as it near had lost a leaf."
2 h 2

372 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

From Miss Baker's Northamptonshire Words and Phrases, i.
p. 374, it appears that " knot- weed " in that county is applied
indifferently to the three species of knap-weed, Centaurea
cyanus, nigra, and scabiosa; all of which agree with ribwort
in having hard heads or " knaps," which is Gerard's expression
for the compact spike of the ribwort. Following on the knap-
weed we can trace the superstition back again to the Borders ;
for what is Eobert Story, the Northumbrian bard's " Flower of
Love," in Guthrum the Dane, but Centaurea nigra. * Bertha,
the Danish maiden, and secretly though vainly attached to him,
is the instructress in the English language of Aymund, a Danish
prince, wounded and taken prisoner.

" This plant, of many branches on a stem
And each branch crested with a purple gem
Which, armed and plumed, like a warrior stands —
We call a ' thistle.' This the tenderest hands
May grasp, although its shape and colour strike
As being to the others not unlike.
It has no - name I wot of ; but, above
The rest, it should be styled ' The flower of love ; '
For 'tis to it the wondrous spells belong,
Which thus some bard has worked into a song.

" Young Waddie, on a summer's eve,

The maid he long had wooed, addressed :
' See ! I these flowers of bloom bereave,

And put them underneath my vest.
The first shall bear thy name, 'tis meet;

The other that of Edith Bain !
And won't the morning, love, be sweet,

That sees one relic bud again ? '

* Story's Poetical Works, 336, 337.

PLANT LORE. 373

" They parted — as young lovers part,

With many a last good night and kiss ;
And each went home, with lightened heart,

To dream a dream of love and bliss.
Yet her heart was not happy quite ;

She pondered on these flowerets twain ;
And oft the maiden said, that night,

O 1 which of them will bud again ?

" Next morning to her cot he hied :

' Come, guess on which the bloom's begun ? '
* I nothing care,' she archly cried,

4 So Edith Bain's be not the one.'
He caught her in his arms. ' We meet,

Life-wedded by this token plain !
And is not love, the morning sweet,

That sees the relic bud again 7 '

" The Maiden, having sung her simple lay,
Two flowers selected ; cut the bloom away ;
Then bade me place them ' underneath my vest ; '
To represent the two I loved the best.
' I know,' she said, ' the favourite of the twain,
But have a doubt that that will bud again.' "

Nor are these the only mysterious properties of ribwort. It
is introduced as a magical herb in a burlesque poem from the
Bannatyne MSS., entitled " An interlude of the laying of ane
Ghaist," the scene of which is in the vicinity of North Berwick.
Thus runs the spell that bound him : —

" Litill gaist, I conjur the,
With lierie and larie,
Bayth fra God, and Sanct Marie,
First with ane fischis mouth,
An syne with ane sowis towth,
With ten pertaine tais,
And nync knokis of windil strais,

374 THE DENHAM TBACTS.

With three heids of curie doddy. '
And bid the ghaist turn in a body
Then after this conjuratioun,
The litill gaist will fall in sonn,
And thair efter down lye,
Cryand mercy piteously ;
Then with your left heil sane,
And it will never cum againe,
As muckle as a mige amaist."

The "Curie Doddy" is the head of the ribwort. In Moray-
shire it is " Carl-Doddies " ; * in Banff and Aberdeen, " Carl-
Dods." It is " Curl-Doddies " in Forfarshire, as I am in-
formed by John Nevay, who has introduced it into his " Hymn
to the Skylark" (Poems, p. 258) :

" From yonder field where sits thy mate

Among Curl-Doddies, clover red and white,

I saw thee rise, thy soul elate
With blest connubial love,

Blithe warbling up the ethereal dome,

Eight o'er thy grassy home."

There are a plurality of plants claimants of the name. In Ber-
wickshire and Roxburghshire the Scabiosa succisa and Knautia
arvensis are " Curly-Doddies : " and likewise the rising crosier-
headed fronds of the male fern ( Lastrea FilLv-mns) ; in Orkney
natural clover bears the name ; and Curly Kale in the south of
Scotland, f "Dod" is the reedmace (Typha latifolia) in the

* Dr. Gordon's Flora of Moray, p 6.

•f In the following passage from "Ane Brash of Wowing, by
Clerk " (Sibbald's Chron. of Scottish Poetry, i. p. 370 ; Evergreen,
ii. p. 19), it appears to be a synonym for clover : —
" Quod he, my claver, my curie dody
My hinny-sopps, my sweit possody,
Be not owre bowstrous to your billy."

PLANT LORE. 375

north of England. " Curly" is obvious enough ; but " Carl "
may have the masculine import which it had in the old language,
and which still remains in such terms as Carl-cat, Carl-crab, Carl-
hemp, Carl-tangle. The Irish Caoirle, a club, a reed ; diminu-
tive, Caoirlin, also offers itself. Dr. Jamieson thinks " Poddie"
signifies bald ; and hence we have the " Angus doddies, " cattle
without horns. Then we have " Doddie," frizzled (doideach) in
Gaelic ; and also " Dolde " in German, the top of a tree or
plant. But the likelihood is that it is the same term as that
applied on the Borders to round-topped hills. Thus we have
Ilderton Dodd in the Cheviots; Duddo (Dodd, and A.S. hoe,
a height) in North Durham , and also in the parish of Stanning-
ton ; Doddington and its Dodd Well, Dodd House near Wal-
lington, Dodd End in Alston parish, Dodbank near Whitfield,
and Doddheap on Reed Water in Northumberland ; Belton
Dodd and the Dodd Hill in the Lammermoors ; the Dodd near
Hawick, and the Dodburn in Kirkton parish, Roxburghshire,
not forgetting the " high Dodhead," and its redoubtable occu-
pant of the " Riding Times," " Jamie Telfer." The family
name of Dodd and Dodds originated among the Border hills.*
We have an old English word dod to lop as a tree, which might
be metaphorically applied to cowed cattle, to knob-headed
flowers, and smooth hills of the conical form. In this sense it
is only the truncated pyramidal heights of South Africa that
can correctly be said to be dodded.

In Fife the bairns make a plaything of the Curly Doddy,
saying :

" Curly Doddy, do ray biddin'
Soop my house and shool my midden ". f

• Brockie's Family Xaims of the Folks of Shields, p. 41.
t Chamber*' Popular Rhymes, p. i'i.

376 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

Those of Berwickshire form of the heads of Scabiosa succisa a
horologe of a primitive sort. The head is twisted round a few
times, and then left to recover its position. The number of
circumvolutions is the true index to the time of day.

Moreover, this kind of plantain, like others of the genus, is

" Full of great -virtues, and for medicine good."

As a healing herb it ranks with P. major, which as an applica-
tion " to stop the bleeding of wounds and to consolidate their
lips," is renowned in Berwickshire as the " Healin' Leaf," or
" Healin' Blade." The Highlanders and Irish call the ribwort
Slan-lus, i.e. healing-herb, and apply it bruised to fresh
wounds.* The Irish reapers greatly vaunt its merits for
sickle-hurts. It is thus Shenstone's

" Plantain ribb'd, that heals the reaper's wound."

In Ayrshire P. major is thus employed; in Galloway it is
P. lanceolate.. From its being a specific against poison, Shake-
speare's "plantain leaf" appears to have been the greater
plantain ; but Dr. Drummond makes it the ribwort.

Rom " Your plantain leaf is excellent tor that."
Ben. " For what, I pray thee ? "
Rom. " For your broken shin." I

" When this and other herbs were in repute as vulneraries, the
principles which should regulate the treatment of wounds were

* Another Gaelic name equivalent to the above is Lus-an-t-
slanuehaidh.

■f In Yorkshire, as I am informed, it is believed that the
plantain leaf may be beneficially applied fresh to any hurt in the leg.

PLANT LORE. 377

Uttle understood. The supposed virtues of the herb, however,
produced this good effect ; it was firmly bound over the cut so
that the raw edges came in contact, adhesion followed, and the
wound healed nearly as well as though the plant had not been
used. The real secret of the cure was the application of the lips
of the wound to each other ; but this was not understood, and
the supposed vulnerary bore off the credit." * The applica-
tion of plantain to check the flow of blood is mentioned by both
Dioscorides and Pliny, and subsequent herborists only copy
what they promulgated.

Dioscorides recommended his plaintain (arnoglossos) for
hydrophobia ; and in the last century we find the same thing
reported of ribwort as a novelty : " Eibworth, or rib-grass, was
given at Roscrea in Ireland in 1 796 with success ; a table-
spoonful of the juice (the quantity given to a dog) every
morning and evening for a week, and a poultice of the bruised
rib-grass applied to the wound until it healed. This saved the
life and cured one person out of seven who were bit by a mad
terrier; all the others died although they had immediate
recourse to sea-bathing." f

P. lanceolata was cultivated more frequently formerly than
at present, combined with a grass crop. It affords an early bite,
but is not much relished by stock. " On poorer and drier soils
it is said to answer well for sheep, being much used on the hills
in Wales, where its roots spread and occasion a degree of
fertility in districts which would otherwise be little better than
bare rock." " Botanists," continues the writer of British
Husbandry, i. p. 512, "differ in their estimation of its qualities,
for by some it is said to be injurious to cows, and by others it is
asserted that the richness of the milk in the celebrated dairies of

* Drummond's First Steps to Botany, p. 246.
f Daniol's Rural Sports, i. p. 177.

378 THE DENHAM TEACTS.

the Alps is attributable to this grass and the common lady's
mantle, or Alchemilla vulgaris. When sown along with
clover* it is also said to prevent cattle from being hoven."
However, the " Adelgras " or " Riz," esteemed the second
best milk-producing Alpine plant, in the wild-hay of the Alps
(Meum mutellina being the first) is a different species, Plantago
alpina. It grows at 6,000 feet and upwards, f By experi-
ment the composition of 100 parts of the ash of Plantago
lanceolata collected on the Bradford clay, a calcareous loam,
consisted of 2 - 37 silica, 7 - 08 phosphoric acid, 6*11 sulphuric
acid, 1440 carbonic acid, 19"10 lime, 351 magnesia, 090
peroxide of iron, 33-26 potash, 4 - 53 chloride of potassium, 8 - 80,
chloride of sodium. J

The Icelanders, who call P. lanceolata, " Selegrese," use it
for food. §

Ribwort is eagerly sought after for its pollen by the hive-
bees, in some localities, about the 19th of July. The bees pull
down the long filaments with their forelegs, pass the anthers
between their mandibles, by which means the pollen is scattered
upon the face and body, whence it is speedily transferred to
the hinder legs. They wheel round the flower with wonderful
celerity, and then hasten on. The pollen thus collected is of a
pale yellow or whitish tint.

I once met with a small oblong gall on the stalks from which
I obtained a small black weevil of a corresponding shape,
Mecinus semieylindricus. This, I believe, is the first time its

* Cheshire Report, p. 181.

\ Berlepsch on the Alps ; or Sketches of Life and Nature in the
Mountains, p. 350.

| J. T. Way and G. H. Ogston in Journal of Royal l Agric.
Soc, xi. p. 537.

§ Van Trail's Letters on Iceland, p. 108.

PLANT LORE. 379

transformation has been noted. The upper surface of the leaves
of both this and P. major are mined by the maggots of a small
two-winged fly, apparently, for they did not hatch with me,
Phytomyza nigricornis of Macquart, the same species that is so
abundant in the leaves of sow-thistles and Cinerarias. The
larva of a small moth, Gracilaria tringipennella of Zeller, mines
the upper surface of the leaves of the P. lanceolata ; one brood
begins to feed in October, changing to pupa in May ; the other
brood feeds up in June and July. * The caterpillars of three
butterflies, Melitcea Cinxia, M. Athalia and Steropes Paniscus
also feed on the leaves ; and those of various other Lepidoptera
select by preference this and other plantains, t

That distinguished scholar, the late Dr. Adams of Banchory
(in the Appendix to Murray's Northern Flora), considered that
P. lanceolata was one of the species of Arnoglossos mentioned
by Dioscorides, P. major being the other ; and of this opinion
also was William Turner, the early English botanist; both
doubtless following Macer. This Macer, not the iEmilius
Macer quoted by Ovid, but it is said Odo, or Odobonus, a
physician of later times in the guise of his name {%), is the
first to bring forward, in his leonine verses, the specific name
lanceolata, which alludes to the lance-shaped form of the
leaves : —

" Altera vero minor, quam vulgo lanccolatam
Dicunt, quod foliis, ut lancea, surgat acutis."

Lanceolata continued to be the officinal term, while Lanceola
became the common one, and exists to the present clay as the
Lanceole of the French, and the Italian Lancivola. The lesser
plantains, from the five ribs in the leaf, were called Pentaneuros

* Stainton's Tineimt, p. 198.

f Stainton's Manual of British Butterflies and Moths.

\ Pultoney's Sketches, i. p. 32.

380 THE DENHAM TRACTS.

or Quinquinervia, to distinguish them from P. major, which
" propt by her seven nerves," was the Heptapleuros or Septi-
nervia. It is doubtful whether the English name Rib-wort or
Rib-grass is modelled on this. Coles, indeed, in the Art of
Simpling, London, 1657, p. 30, says, " Plantane is called Rib-
wort because every leafe hath five strings somewhat like ribs."
In Somner's Anglo-Saxon Lexicon Ribbe is rendered Cyno-
glossus, which is an old alias of the plantain. William Turner,
Names of Herbes, London, 1548, thus notices it : " Plantago
is called in Greke Arnoglossus. There are two sorts of Planta-
ginis; the one is called in Englishe alone Plantain or waybread
or great waybread. The other is called Rybwurte or Rybe-
grass, and of some Herbaries Lanceolata." In the second part
of his Herball, he says it was called " in many places rybgrasse ; "
whence it appears that the name had been well established in
his time. John Bauhin accounts for the name in saying that
the Germans called it Rosripp, from the resemblance of the leaf
to a horse-rib ; and by a similar analogy the Dutch name is
Hontsribbe, i.e. Dog-rib. In Donegal it is called RuppU-grass ;
Ripple-grass in Ettrick Forest and Galloway ; and Riplin-grass
in Lanarkshire ; manifest corruptions of Rib grass. The Welsh
have for it a superfluity of unpronounceable names. They call
it Llyriad Llwynhidydd, Llwyn y neidr, Traeturiad y bugeilydd,
Ysgelynllys, Astyllenlys, Pennau'r gioyr. The last may represent
our " Curly- Doddy ; " from pennaicr, an ornament worn on
the head, and gwyr, crooked, or it may be a contraction for
gwyran, hay, reed, grass. They call it and P. major, Sowdl
Crist, Christ's heel.

There are few spots in Great Britain where the ribwort does
not prevail. Dr. Macgillivray noticed it on the shores of
Harris*; it, as well as a small variety, is common in Shet-

* Prize Essays and Trans. Highland Soc, vii. p, 104.

PLANT LORE. 381

land.* Mr. H. C. Watson found it on the north coast of
Caithness and Sutherland, and observed it at the height of five
hundred yards in Forfarshire, t Its range in Yorkshire is
up to seven hundred yards, ascending to near the peaks of the
highest hills. \ It is widely diffused throughout Europe ;
Pallas found Plantago media and P. lanceolata on the peninsula
of Kerteh, near Arabat, on the Sea of Azof.§ A variety of
it, P. Azorica, Hochst., grows in the Azores. || It crosses
the Atlantic, and is one of the plants in North America that
descend to the sea-coast in the arctic zone. 1T The European
plantains, or species similar to them, occur also at Sitka, on the
western coast of America, in 57° north latitude, where we find a
vegetation corresponding with that of western Europe under the
same parallels. **

* Edmonston's Flora, p. 17.

t Murray's Northern Flora, p. 97.

t Baker's North Yorkshire, p. 271.

§ Travels, ii. p, 271.

|| Ray Society Reports and Papers on Botany, 1849, p. 389.

f Meyen's Geography of Plants, p. 220.

•* Ibid., p. 203.

INDEX.

[Niimcs of tomtit or other places, when not accompanied by a descriptive
note, are place-names which occur in rhymes or proverbs.]

Adder stones, 43

Agnes (St.) Day, 282 283

Alhuldco, a class of spirits, 79

All Fool's Day, 31

All Soul's Day, 26

Allanbank, Berwickshire, apparition
at, 178

Alls, the four, popular saying, 37

Alnwick, barring out at, 346

coban tree at, 227

games at, 351

leaping the well, 40

Alwinton, sacred well at, 156

Amber bead, worn as amulet, 83

Amulet, amber bead, 83

crooked sixpence, 72

Anderson Place, Newcastle, 61

Animal sacrifice at Christian burials,
20-21

Animals, living, applied to the mouth
to suck out the evil spirit, 293

Apparitions, 163-167

of Margaret Selby, 260-

253

Applety pie, rhyme, 36

Apron full of stones at Hedgley, 216

Arrnn Isles, beliefs of, 210

Arrows, elf, 30

Arthur (King), legends of, 125-129

Arthur's Seat, near Edinburgh, 130

Arvil dinners, 39

Ash, seed of, used to cure ear ache, 294

Ash, mountain, witchwood 32H

ABh-keys, preservative against witch-
craft, 30

Ashlcaf charms, 70-71

divination by, 282

Assize, maiden, and white gloves, 66

Asthma, amber Ijc:u1 worn as cure for,
83

Avon, abode of a spirit. 12

Babes in the wood, song, 27-28
Bachelors, 45
Bad-handed, 274
Baking custom, 45
Ball-beggars, a class of spirits, 78
Ball playing at Easter, 32
Ball-playing rhyme, 351
Ballads, 51

Balloon, alarm of peasants at, 276
Bamborongh, fairy treasures at, 146
Bamborough Castle legend, 331
Banshee superstition, 79, 187
Barring out, 6-8

at Newcastle, 344-346

Bargaining rhyme, 75

Baron, title of, used in the north, 1«5

Barguests, a class of spirits, 77

Barrasford, standing stones at, 217

Basuto custom, 131

Bathing rhyme, 18

Battling stones, 69

for weaving, 246

Bay, oil de, cure for fairy, 141

Beamish, king's sunt at, 130

Beans at funerals, 37

Beatmont, a measure containing a

quarter of a peck, 303
Beaumont River, abode of fairies, 144
Bede (St.), sacred well of, 156
Bees, witch in shape of, 299, 319

bring luck, 213

warned of owner's death, 213

Bell horses, 74

Bellasay, coach horses, in nursery

rhyme, 69
Bellistcr, the grey man of, 183-1*7

Castle, 'lSX-is-.i

Bells of Brinkburn, 132-133, 134
Beltane, 92

Belts, to preserve from fairies, 140
Benton, sacred well at. 156

384

1NDKX.

Berwickshire customs, 348

Herrit's dyke, 34

Betty Martin, proverbial saying, 17
Bingfield, sacred well at, 155
Birthday rhymes, 102
Birtley, devil's stone at, 2 1 6

sacred well at, 1 55, 341

sacred fire at, 342

witches of, 333

" Black and white is my delight "

rhyme, 53
Black bugs, a class of spirits, 78
Black cats, lucky for spinsters, 73
Black dogs, a class of spirits, 77
Black hair and red beard, objections

to, 24
Black man, a class of spirits, 79
Black object, gift of, to the devil, 69
Black wool used in folk medicine, 294
Blackluggie, a small vessel made of

staves, 82
Blane's, St., seat, 131
Blankets, superstition concerning, 48
Blenkinsop family, tradition of, 185-

187
Blindness, 48

Blood at the nose, sign of death, 272
Blood of witch, drawn by pricking,

86, 317, 319, 324, 338
Bloody bones, a class of spirits, 77
Bloody stones, 60
Blue cap, a goblin, 363
Bodach Gartin, an ancestral spirit,

188
Boggarts, a class of spirits, 78
Boggleboes, a class of spirits, 79
Boggles, a class of spirit, 77

place names derived from,

77

Boggy-boes, a class of spirits, 77
Bogies, a class of spirits, 79, 86
Bogle-houses, Lowick Forest, 278
Boguests, a class of spirits, 78
Bollets, a class of spirits, 79
Bolls, a class of spirits, 78
Bomen, a class of spirits, 78
Bone of giant cow at Mulgrave

Castle, 29
Bonelesses, a class of spirits, 78
Bonfires, midsumtrer, 342
" Bonny lass, canny lass, will ta be

mine," rhyme, 53
Books, notes of possession in, 339

rhymes, 18

Border warfare, 238-239
Borewell, near Bingfield, 155
Borran, cry of the Irish fairies, 84

Bosworth man, name for " knave " in
cards, 38

Bowes, Yorkshire, arvel dinner at, 40

corpse usages at, 73

need fire at, 50

Bows and arrows, 46

Boy-bishop, 7

Brag, a sprite, 78, 159, 161

Brandy ball, game of, 351

Bread-making custom. 45

Breaknecks, a class of spirits, 77

Brechau (Dudley), ghost of, 165

Brehou, stone chair of the, 131

" Brenky my nutty cock," game rhyme,
53
~Bride-cake, divination by, 281

Bridle, enchanted, need by witches,
301, 304, 307

Brimstone pan, 49

Brinkburn, bells of, 132, 133

fairies at, 143

legend of, 121-124, 257-

265

British camp, road to, attributed to the
fairies, 149

earthwork near GunnasLon, 203

Bromley Lake, Northumberland, buried

treasure in, 254
Brown man of the moor, ghost story,

79
Brownies, a class of spirits, 77

— ■ place names derived from,

77
Brown-men, a class of spirits, 79
Buckies, a class of spirits, 78
Bugbears, a class of spirits, 77
Buggaboes, a class of spirits, 78
Bugs, a class of spirits, 78
Building legend, 243-244, 353
Bulmer stone, Darlington, 18
Burial, beans used at, 37

virgin garlands at, 33

on north side of churches,

38

at cross roads, 63-64

customs, 20-21

Butchers as jurymen, objected to,

66
Bute, dreaming tree in, 286
Butter, fairy, 30, 111, 13S
Butterfly, red, killing of, 325
Button rhyme, 46
Bygoms, a class of spirits, 78
Buzz, a saying indicating witchcraft,
85-86

Caddies, a class of spirits, 78

INDEX.

385

Cairn-a-vain, a pile of stones, 210

Cakes, fairy, 30, 113

Calcars, a class of spirits, 77

Calgarth skull, 19

Callaley, camp on Castle Hill, 242

rhymes, 352-355

legend of, 243

Callan mountains, 211

Cambuskenneth Abbey, bells of, 133

Candle bark, domestic utensil, 32

Capon trees, 226-234

Darling Sunday, 282

Cat, shut up at shipwrecks, 365

Cats and corpses, 74

Cats, black, rhymes, 73

Cattle, cure for bewitched, 68

Cattle disease, 66 ; charm for, 50

Cauldron, fairy, 30, 112

Cavern legends, 217-220

Celts, stone implements, known as

holystones, 44
Centaurs, a class of spirits, 77
Changeling, fairy, 78, 137, 138
Chapbook legend, 45
Chappie, a family apparition, 177
Charm prayers, 11-13
Charms, 70-71, 291

written, 103-106

Chase, rhymes and proverbs on, 1C7-

109
Cheese, digestive powers of, 2 1 5
Cheese, baby's, divination by, 281
Cheese, eating of, by witch, 301, 302
Cheese-well at Minchmuir, 152
Chcrtsey, devil's stone near, 202
Cheshire, customs of, 7
Chests, oak, for keeping flour, etc.,

97
Children, future life betoken by first

month, 75
Child's first visit, customs at, 25
Chillingham, Hnrlstone at, 217
Chirton, near North Shields, haunted

by an apparition in silk, 177
Chittafaces, a class of spirits, 79
Chollerton, sacred wells at, 1 55
Christening custom, 42
Christmas observances, 25-26

■ rhymes, 37, 90-96

— Bay, ghosts not seen on, 76,

77,91
Church, chancel, funeral feasts set

forth in, 40

clock, custom, 50 ; omen, 51

cold never taken nt, 72

• marriage custom, 1 1

■ porch, divination in, 284

vol. n. 2 c

Church dancing in, at Christmas, 95
north side, bnrials on, 38 ; west

side, antipathy to, 38
Churching of women after childbirth,

23
Churchyard, visit to, for divination,

278
Churning, witchcraft in, 326
Clabbernapjiers, a cla«s of spirits, 79
Cleveland, local rhyme, 1 4
Clonfert Mulloe, Queen's County,

stone chair at, 131
Clothes changed inside out to avoid the

fairies, 8S
Clothes, home spun, 69
Clover, four- necked, preventive against

fairies, 142
Cluricauns, a class of spirit", 79
Coach, apparition of, a sign of death,

270
Coban trees, 226-234, 2*6
Cock, crowing of, at night, prognosti-
cation of death, -'71
Cockles, harbingers of bad weather, 21
Cocklety bread, rhyme, 36
Cock's stride, 99
Coffin, stone, at Ncwminster, legend

connected with, 2 1 7
Coldingham Abbey, bells of, 133
Collup Monday, .'Mil
Colpixy heads! 30, 111, 113
Colt-pixies, a class of ppirits, 7«
Conune's tomb. Callan Mountain. 210
Coniscliffc (High), near Darlington,

burials nt, 3x

murria^n custom, 11

Contempt, to bit" the glove or nail, a

sign of, Oil
Contract, ancient rhyme to accompany,

7li
Cor. the giant, 29
Corbie's stone. 221
CorbrUige, tradition concerning, 62
Cork, Karl of, name for "jkc of

diamonds," US
Cornwall, holed stones in, 265-266
Corpse, exposure of, at the funeral

feast, 39

usages, 73

Corpse lights, a class of spirits, 79
Coupland Castle, white lady at, 167
Covin trees, 226-231, 2*7
Cow-milking superstition, S3
Cowics, a class of spirits, 79
Cows, holy stone used to protect, 43
Cradle Knowcs, the abode of fairies,

148

386

INDEX.

Cradle, not sold under distraint, 40
Cradle rocking superstition, 49
Cross roads, burial at, 63-64
Cuckoo, first hearing of, 6
Cuddie's cove, 163
Cummer, a gossip, 82
Cumberland, customs of, 7, 8, 14, 91
divination practices in,

291
Cups, fairy, 30,112
Curing stones, 223-225
Curie doddy, the ribwort, 374-376
Curse of Scotland, name for " nine of

diamonds," 38
Cursingwell at Ffynnon Elian, 153
Curwen's card, name for " knave of

clubs," 38
Cushions, midsummer, 1
Cnthbert (St.), tradition of, 163
Cutties, a class of spirits, 80
Cutty soams, 362

Dancing in churches at Christmas,

95
Darlington, Bulmer stone at, 18
Days, rhymes on the, 102
Death customs and beliefs, 59
Death-hearses, a class of spirits, 78
Dead, excessive grief for, 58

touching the, 59

Denton Hall, haunted by an apparition

in silk, 177
Denwick, games at, 361
Derwentwater family, 193-195
Devonshire fairies, saying of, 85
Devil, invocation of the, 275-278

selling oneself to, 67-68

passing bell, 93

Devil's cauldron, in Bute, 2S6
Devil's stone, 216-217

Dewsbury, Yorkshire, bell ringing at,

92
Dick-a-Tuesdays, a class of spirits, 77
Dill, a protection from witchcraft, 81
Dirt not swept out of the house on

New Year's Day, 340
Disease known as farye, 140-141

transference of, to animal, 322

Dish, breaking of, prognostication

trom, 272
Ditchant, sacred well at, 167
Divinations, 278-288
Dobbies, a class of spirits, 77
Docken, or nettle rhymes, 71
Dodd in place names, 375
Dog, appearance of a spirit as, 253

Dog, bnrial of, with owner, 21

Dogs howling a death omen, 65, 270,

271
Domestic utensils, see " Battling

Stones," "Candle-bark," "Chests,"

" Quern. " " Sleek Stones, "

" Trenchers "
Domestic sprite, 172
Dopple-gangers, a class of spirits, 79
Dorsetshire, divination in, 279
Doubles, a class of spirits, 79
Drake-stone, Harbottle, 256-257
Draw bucket of water, game, 36
Dreams, as warning of death, 269
Dress, male and female, interchange

of, 3

witches', 320

Driffield, Roundhead rhyme at. 76
Drophandkerchief, game of, 351
Dropsy, amber-bead worn as cure

for, 83
Druids lapful, a stone at Yevering,

216
Dadmen, a class of spirits, 79
Dunnies, a class of spirits, 79, 157
Dunstanborongh Castle legend, 123
Durham customs, 2, 3, 4, 7,,,14,'i21,

43

divination practices in, 289,

291

-witchcraft in, 332, 333

- see " Gainford," " Gates-

head "
Dnst caused by fairies, 88
Dwafs, a class of spirits, 78
Dykes, 34

Earache, cure of, 294
East, bowing to the, 41
Easter Sunday superstition, 24
Eating, divination after, 280
Edeedsbrig, black devil of, 277
Edlingham, witchcraft at, 334
Eelin's hole, a fairy cavern, 145, 219
Fgg presentation to child on first visit,

48
Egg-setting formulae, 274
Eggs, eating of, to excess, 215
Eggshells, witches riding on, 299, 301
Eglingham, witchcraft at, 324

petting stone at, 213

Elder tree, nsed to prevent witchcraft,

325
Elf, place names derived from, 78
Elf-arrow head boiled to cure madness,

224

INDEX.

387

Elf hills, 143

Elf shot*, 30, 112, 113

Elf-fireB, a class of spirits, 78

Elf lucks, 30

Klsdon feast, 356

Elves, a class of spirits, 78

Elwin, river, abode of fairies, 144

Eston Knab, local rhyme, 14

Ethel's (Kirjg) chair, a stone, 130

Evil eye, 274

Eye twitching, sign of life, 275

Eye well, near Longwitton, 156

Eyebrows, meeting, sign of witches,

325
Eyes, fairy ointment for the, 138

l'ace, rhymes connected with, 36
Fairies, 30, 79, 110-115

buried at Brinkburn, 134

cry of the, 84

cnps, 43

legends, 136-151

place names derived from, 79

Fairings, rhyming formula used ut, 9
Fairy, as a disease, 140-141

rhymes relating to, 81, 84, 85, 86

Family apparitions, 183-188

Family descent, traced to river god,

42
Family legends, 44, 85
Fantasms, a class of spirits, 77
Farmin (St.), well dedicated to, 33
Fates, a class of spirits, 79
Fauns, a class of spirits, 77
Fawn, a race of gipsies, 86
Fays, a class of spirits, 78
Feasts of dedication, 3-4
Feet first, persons born, 274
Fenton, witchcraft at, 325
Festivals at sacred wells, 155-157
Fetches, a class of spirits, 77
Fiends, a class of spirits, 78
Fig sue, a customary Good Friday

dish, 9
Finger nail superstition, 24
Finger superstitions, 24
Fingers, fairy, 30, 113
Fire, circle of, to prevent withcraft,

327
Fire, elf, 30, 113
Fire for cattle disease, 365-366
Fire, not put out on New Year's Day,

340
Fire superstitions at Christmas, 25
Fire-drakes, a class of spirits, 77

First-foot, 340; female unlncky, 24,

26 ; male lucky, 26
Fish and ring, Btory of, 44
Flackett, a flask or wood bottle, 303
Flax, fairy, 113

Flayboggarts, a class of spirits, 78
Flint implements attributed to the

fairies, 112, 113
Flodden, king's seat at, 130
Flowers, wells dressed with, 155
Folkmoots, 130, 131 j inauguration

stones, 150
Food left for fairies, 143
Food, magical, produced by witches,

302
Food, eating of, power by, in witch-
craft, 301
Food peculiar to certain seasons, 28
Footstep, fairy, on stone, 160
Forefinger of right hand considered to

be venomous, 24
Fortification of towns on the borders,

239
Fortune telling, 298
Fox, rhymes on the, 107
Foxglove, a fairy flower, 30, 113, 149
Freiths, a class of spirits, 78
Friar's lanthorn, a class of spirits, 78
Friday, unluck of, 343-344

witches' attitude to, 84

Frog, living, used to cure thrush, 293
Fruit tree not to be topped with a

saw, 29
Fugoe Hole, Land's End, 220
Funeral cakes, 54

eustoms, 58

feast, 39

hymn, 52

procession, prognostication

from first person met by, 49 ; honour

to, by passers by, :19
see " Burial "

Furrows of the plough twisted to avoid
the fairies, 146

Gabriel- hounds, a class of spirits, 79
Gainford, co. Durham, ridiDg the stang

at, 4-5
Gall bladder, superstitious belief con-
cerning, 72
Gallybeggars, a class of spirits, 78
Gallytrots, a class of spirits, 78
Games, children's, 36, 52, 351

with the ribwort plantain, 368

Gant, a village fair or wake, 3

388

INDEX.

Garlands, virgin, 33

rush bearer's, 33

Garter, divination by, 279-280

, used in charms, 291-295

red, charm for rheumatics, 48

Gateshead, pit villages near, riding
the stang at, 5-6

Gaudy Bay at, 6

witchcraft at, 338

Gaudy day, 6

Gelt, local rhyme, 14
Gholes, a class of spirits. 78
Ghosts, 165

laying of, by ribwort, 373

Giant traditions, 29, 78
Gilsland wells, 156
Gipsies at Wooler, 349

sayings connected with, 84, 86

Gipsy story, 168-169

Glanton, sacred well at, 352

Glove, to bite the, a token of contempt,

66
Glowworm, fairy lanthorn, 88, 114
Gnomes, a class of spirits, 79
Goats, good luck from, 75
Goblin, a class of spirits, 78

place names derived from, 78 "

Gold objects discovered, 209
Good Friday customs, 9

rhyme, 18

superstitions, 24

Goodman, the head of the house, 31
Gordon (Jean), death of, 168-169
Grace card, name for " six of hearts,"

38
Grants, a class of spirits, 79
Gray-man of Bellister, 183-187
Greata, river, snperstitious practice at,

29
Greyhound, witch in shape of, 299
Gringes, a class of spirits, 78
Groats, fairy, 111, 114
Guests, a class of spirits, 78
Guisarding rhymes, 214, 347-348
Guisers, harvest, 3
Gun- firing superstition, 72
Gunnarton, money hill near, 203
Guy Fawkes rhymes, 15-16
Guy of Warwick, dragon slain bv,

156

Hagberry, the bird cherry, 329
Hagmena, rhyme, 95
Hags, a class of spirits, 77
place name derived from, 77

Hair cut from the neck for charms,

294, 297
Hair not cut on Friday, 343

matted, fairy locks, 112, 113

used by witches, 314

colour of, superstition as to, 24

Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes, 27
Hallowe'en, witches seen on, 82
Haltwhistle, stone near, 204
Hamilton, local rhymg, 14
Handsel Monday, 90

Hanging stone, tradition, 120

Harbottle, Northumberland, drake-
stone, 256-257

Harden Burn river, abode of fairies,
144

Hare, apparition in the form of, 164

witch in shape of, 299, 301, 328

proverbs on the, 108

Harehope Hill, fairies on, 143
Harry, Old, name for the devil, 276
Hartburn, witchcraft at, 337
Harvest home, 2-3

Hawking, rhymes and proverbs on,

107-108
Hay harvest rhyme, 20
Hazelrigg Dunnie, a sprite, 157-159,

162-163
Hazelrigg Dunny, a ghost story, 79
Heart stuck with pins, core for witch-
craft, 68, 327
Heather chieftain, 357
Heckley Fence, proverbial saying con-
nected with, 65
Hedgehogs, urchins, 57
Hedley Kow, a ghost story, 78
Hellhounds, a class of spirits, 79
Hellwains, a class of spirits, 77
Hempseed divination, 278
Hen, white, apparition of, 193
Herb-pudding, eating of, in Passion

Week, 32
Herrit's dyke, 34
Hexham, plague stone at, 212
Heytherrie Hole, 219
Hide, used for burying treasure, 255

burial in, 256

Hills, fairy, 30, 112
Hob-and-lanthorns, a class of spirits,

78
Hob Collingwood, name for "four of

hearts," 38
Hobbits, a class of spirits, 79
Hobby-Ian thorns, a class of spirits, 77
Hobcross, place names derived from, 78
Hobgoblins, a class of spirits, 77, 79
Hobhoulards, a class of spirits, 77

INDEX.

389

Hob's Flow, 356

Hob-thrushes, a class of spirits, 78

Hob-thrust, place name derived from,
77

a class of spirits, 77

Hob Thrush's Mill, 355

Hodge-pochers, a class of spirits, 78

Hogmanay, rhyme, 95, 96

Holed stones, 265-266

• charm to prevent witch-
craft, 325

Holly, he and she, divination by,
284-286

Holy water used in charming, 293

Holy stones, 41, 43

Hoodhill, local rhyme, 1 4

Hoppings, village, 3

Horuie holes, game of, 351

Horns, fairy, 114

Horse, offering of, to the church at
death of owner. 21

hair from the tail becomes an

eel. 29

holy stone used to protect, 43

witch in shape of, 301

Sower of seeing spirits by, 171
oes, 62, 212

cure of distemper by burning,

338
Hounam church bell, falling of, 134
Houudwood, Berwickshire, a family

apparition at, 177
House charm, 41
Housestoads, fairies at, 144
Hud, the city of, Aran Islands, 210
Hudskins, a class of spirits, 7n
Hume-byres penny, charm, 222
Huntor and hounds, legend, 121-124,

268-261
Hurlo-stane, near Chillingham, 143,

217
Hutton Church, treasure hidden at, 1 35
Hy Brasail, Irish belief concerning,

210
Hydrophobia, remedies for, 220

Ice before Christmas, 90

" If I had gold in goupins," rhyme, 54

Ignis fatuus, 77, 113

"I'll away yhame," rhyme, ">.'{

Imps, a class of spirits, 77, 78

Incubusses, a class of spirits, 77

Ireland, buried treasure in, 254

belief as to elf arrows, 224

Ireland, fairies, cry of the, 84 ; dust
caused by, 88

Irish, objections of adder to, 275
Irish Btone, a charm, 40

Jack-in-the-Wads, a class of spirits, 78
Jacobite toast, 359
Jarrow rhyme, 360

we'll at, 156

Javelins, fairy, 30, 113
Jedburgh Abbey, bells of, 133
Jemmy-burties, a class of spirits, 77
Jcsmond, sacred well at, 156
Jinny-burnt-tails, a class of spirits, 79
Journey, signs of unluck on starting,

338
Judges, meeting of, at Brampton,

Cumberland, 227
Jury, butchers objected to serve on, 66

Kail wedding, 356

Katie Ncevie's hoard, 255

Kelpies, a class of spirits, 77

Kelso Bridge, legend connected with,

201
Kemps, game of, 369

divination by, 371

Kendal, divination practices near, 283

Kening, half a bushel, 303

Kent customs, 20

Keppen Well, at Eglanton, 3.">2

Keppy ball, game of, 227, 286-288

Kerns, fairy, 144

rhymes, 349

Keswick, legend of the Giant Cor, 29

Kettles, fairy, 30, 113

Keyheugh, Northumberland, sacred

well at, 154
Keys, enchanted, 209-211
Kidnappers, a class of spirits, 78
Kidneys, fniry, 113
Kilcattan Bay, stone chair at, 131
King's dyke at Newcustlc-on-Tync, 34
King's evil cured by seventh son, 39,

274
King's seat, stones so called, 130
Kirk, fairy, 114
Kirkby Stephen, new years' gifts at,

33

Gny Fawkes at, 15

Kissing bnsh at Christmas, 67
Kit-a-can-sticks, a class of spirits, 77
Kittie-cat and buck-stick, game of,

351
Kitty-witches, a class of spirits, 77

390

INDEX.

Knipe-scar, local rhyme, 14
Knockers, a class of spirits, 78, 206-7
Knots, divination by, 279

elf, 30

Knowes, fairy, 143, 148, 150, 151
Kobolds, a class of spirits, 79
Korigans, a class of spirits, 79
Korrids, a class of spirits, 79
Kors, a class of spirits, 79
Kous, a class of spirits, 78

Lambton, sacred well at, 153

Lammer bead, an amber bead, 82

Lammermoors, king's seat in, 130

Lammikin, ballad of, 191

Lancashire customs, 14, 19, 20

Land measures, 34

Land's End, Fugoe hole, 220

Larrs, a class of spirits, 77

Leap Year rhymes, 101

Lease, life, to witch from the devil,

307
Left leg stocking, divination by, 281
Left shoe, divination by, 282
Leicestershire, see "Lutterworth "
Leprechauns, a class of spirits, 79
Leys, stone circle of, 209
Lian-hanshees, a class of spirits, 79
Lifting, custom of, Westmoreland, 31
Light from the house, not to be taken

on New Tear's Day, 24, 340
Lilburn, stone near, 201
Lindisfarne, petting stone at, 67
Lint, fairies, 149
Loaves, fairy, 30, 113
Lob's pound, allusion to, 87
Local rhymes, 14
"^Lockerley well, cure for hydrophobia,

221
London, legend connected with, Bridge,

201

customs, 40

field of the Forty Footsteps,

23

Long Benton, May kitten beliefs at, 55
Long Lonkin, ballad of, 191
Longwillon, sacred well at, 156
Looking glass, covering of, where

corpse lies, 73
divination by, on St.

Agnes' Eve, 283

■ superstition, 48

Lord's Prayer backwards in witchcraft,

307
Lots, divination by, 292

Low Sunday, 119
Lubberkins, a class of spirits, 79
Luck of Eden Hall, 112
Luck, wishing of, 326
Lutterworth, superstition at, 46
Lyke wake, 58

MacCulloch (Sir Godfrey), tradition.

concerning, 61
Macleans of Loch Buy, ancestral

spirit, 187
Madcaps, a class of spirits, 78
Mad stones, 223, 224
Madron, sacred well at, 153
Magpie rhymes, 19, 20
Mahounds, a class of spirits, 79
Maiden assize and white gloves, 66
Maiden in place-names, 152
Mally, a Northumbrian song, 213
Mamsforth, Durham, buried treasure

in, 254
Mannikins, a class of spirits, 79
Manx fairy saying, 87
Marble playing, witches invoked in, 89
Mares, a class of spirits, 79
Markets, 29

Mark's (St.) eve, customs, 284
Marriage, omen from church clock

striking, 51

celebrations, 94

customs, 356 ; at Coniscliffe,

41 ; Durham, 43

dream of, a sign of death,

269

petting stone, 67, 213
rhymes, 93, 94, 102
shoe-throwing at, 33

Martinmas rhyme, 96
Maug Molach, an ancestral spirit, 188
Mawkins, a class of spirits, 79
May, eggs not set in, 275

dew, gathering of, 153

kittens, 55

roan tree gathered on the second

of, S3
Mayor, ceremonial, choosing of, 6
Meg-with-the-wads, a class of spirits,

78
Meg of Meldon, 244-256
Melch-dicks, a class of spirits, 77
Meldon, stone near, 200
Mell day. 2, 3

Men-in-the-oak, a class of spirits, 77
Men not allowed at women's funerals.

40
Mermaid's stone, 150

INDEX.

391

Merrymen, 98

Middleton, British townlet near, 207

Midsummer bonfires, 342

cushions, 1

eve, customs, 284

Midwife, fairy, 139

Miffies, a class of spirits, 78

Milk, susceptibility of, to witchcraft,

326
Milking superstition, 83
Mills, fairy, 113
Mince pies, 91

Minchmuir, cheese well at, 152
Mistletoe used in the kissing bush at

Christmas, 67
Moaning, a warning of death, 267
Mockheggar, place-name derived from,

77
Mockbeggars, a class of spirits, 77
Money digging, 62

fairy, 30, 112

finding of, 85

Money Hill, near Gunnarton, 203
Montferraud, near Beverley, 26
Months and days, rhymes, 100-102
Moon changing on Saturday, 10

first, divination by, 281

man in the, 55

new, superstition, 24

Morden carrs, local rhyme, 14
Morinos, a class of spirits, 78
Morpeth, divination practices in, 289,

290

tradition concerning, 118

Mortham Dobby, a Teesdale goblin,

77
Morven church, bells of, 133
Mosstrooper's grave, 67
Mountain ash, a preservative against

silky, 171
Mouse, witch in shape of, 301
Mulgrave Castle, bone of giant cow at

29
Mummers' harvest, 3
Mnmpokers, a class of spirits, 77
Murcc- (St.), tradition of, 134
Murder causes earth to be barren, 23

corpse bleeding superstition,

49

Museum at Newcastle, folklore objects

in, 41
Mushrooms, fairy, 30, 113
Music, fairy, 148
Myddvai, physicians of, 294

Nacks, a class of spirits, 78
Naffcrton, legends of, 190

Nails, finger and toe, superstitions, 24
finger, to bite the, a sign of con-
tempt, 66

not pared on Friday, 337

Names, superstition concerning, 49
Nanny Powler, spirit of the Skerne, 78
Nathan's Keeve, Cornwall, buried

treasure in, 255
Neatherd, town's, at Wooler, 167
Neat's fire, for cattle disease, 365, 366
Ned Stokes, name for " four of spades,"

38
Need fire, 60, 342
Nelly the knocker, spirit of a stone,

205
Neolithic implements found at Sten-

ton, 151
Nettle rhymes, 71
Newcastle, All Saints, burials at, 38

barring out at, 344, 346

charms at, 40

divination practices in, 290

kissing bush at, 67

King's Dyke at, 34

trials for witchcraft, 300-302,

322, 332, 336
Newminster, stone coffin at, 247
New Year's Day customs, 24, 31

gifts, 33

observances, 340, 341

rhymes and sayings, 9

tide, 98-99

Nickers, a class of spirits, 78
Nickies, a class of spirits, 78
Nicknevins, a class of spirits, 79
Nightbats, a class of spirits, 77
Nightmare, a class of spirits, 87
Nightmare, holystone used to prevent,

43, 325
Nips, fairy, 114
Nipsey springs, forecast of weather

from, 48
Nisses, a class of spirits. 80
Nixies, a class of spirits, 79
Norfolk, customs, 11
Northamptonshire, divinations in, 371
Northumberland, customs of, 3, 8, 20,

21,29,41,44.348,349
trials for witchcraft, 314,

327, 336
Nursery rhymes, 53, 69
Nursery song, 27-28
Nutty-cock, an old term of endearment,

53

Oak Day, 54

Ointment, fairy, for the eyes, 138

392

INDEX.

Old, prefix to place-names, 44

Old maids, 45

Old shocks, a class of spirits, 78

Ouphs, a class of spirits. 78

Ouse, river, tradition concerning, 51

Oven, fairies', 149

Oxenham family, ancestral spirit, 188

Padfooits, a class of spirits, 78

Palm Sunday customs, 57

Pancakes, 17, 19, 31

Pans, a class of spirits, 77

Paralysis, fairy struck, 87, 115

Pasche eggs, 95

Passion week customs, 32

Patches, a class of spirits, 78

Patience Dock, a herb, 32

Pearlin' Jean, an apparition, 178

Pease, divination by, 282

Pech pipes, 111

Pedlar murder, tradition, 196

Peg Powler, goddess of the Tees, 42, 78

Pele towers, 238, 243

Pelton Brag, a sprite, 161

Penny, Hume-byres, charm, 223

Peony, cure for falling sickness, 141

Petticoats, superstition concerning, 48

Petting stone at Lindisfame, 67 ; at

Eglingham Church, 213
Phooka, blackberries spoiled by, 88
Phynodderee, a Manx fairy, 87
Pickering, origin of the town, 44
Picktree Brag, a spirit, 159
Picktree Bragg, a ghost story, 78
Picktree, place-names derived from, 78
Pictrees, a class of spirits, 78
Piddle Hinton, Dorsetshire, poors' gift

at, 91
Piercebridge, battling stones at, 69
Pig, unlucky to kill, at moon waning,

365
Piggiviggan, a severe fall, 87
Pigmies, a class of spirits, 79
Pins, divination by, 283

offerings of, at sacred wells, 153,

154, 156

vomited by bewitched people,

322, 323

Piper, legends concerning, 220

of Hexham, 363

Pipes, fairy, 30, 111
Piper's Coe o' Cowend, 220
Pixies, a class of spirits, 78
Pixyled, 87

Place-names connected with fairies,
142, 143

Place-names from spirits, 77-80
Plagne stones, 212

Playing-cards, popular names for, 38
Ploughing, fairy at the, 137

fairies objecting to, 146

incantatioD, 88

Pools, fairy, 114

" Poor Johnny's deed " rhyme, 52
Portunes, a class of spirits, 79
Prayer, secret, said over corpse, 73

witches', 86

Pregnancy beliefs, 30
Priest's hole, 194
Proudlock's poems, 59
Proverbs, 57, 65, 75, 363-365
Puck, Irish allusion to, 87
Puck fists, 30, 113
Puck needle, 114
Puckles, a class of spirits, 79
Pucks, a class of spirits, 78
Puddening infants, 25
Pudding Gyve, 220

Queen Bess, name for " queen of clubs,"

38
Quern mill, 32

Rabbit, white, apparition of, 193

Radiant boy apparition, 163

Rags offered at wells, 156

Rain rhymes and sayings, 22, 47

Rainbow custom, 58

Rawheads, a class of spirits, 78

Ray, a cloth woven parti-coloured, 98

Red-men, a class of spirits, 79

Red thread used as charm to keep away

witches, 83, 329
Redcaps, a class of spirits, 78
Rhyme, burial, 37

nursery, 36, 46

Rhyming charms, 70, 71

formula? used in customs. 2, 5,

8, 9, 15, 20

Rihwort plantain, 367-381
Richmond, 61, 62

bell-horses used at, 74

Riddle, divination by, 280, 288-291
Riggin, the backbone, 65
Rimside black sow, a stone, 360
Ring found in fish, story of, 44

wedding, divination by, 281

Ringing in Christmas, 92, 93
Rings, fairy, 30, 112, 139

River gods, 42; descent of family
from, 42

INDEX.

393

River spirits, 78

superstitions, 29, 4G

traditions, 51

Hi vers, abode of fame-, 144
Riving-pikc, local rhyme, 14
Road, fairies', at Oldcambus, 149
Koads attributed to Michael Seott,

117
Robin believed to cover dead bodies, 28
ltobin Goodfellows, a class of spirits,

77, K,-,
Robinets, a class of spirits, 7*
Rocks, names of, 157
Roman burials, 05
remains attributed to fairies,

144, 145

■ wall built by Michnel Scott,

117; well-offerings on the, 157

Roscberry Topping, local rhyme, 14

" Rosemary green and lavender blue "
rhyme, 54

Roshn, tradition concerning, 124

Rothiemurcus family, ancestral spirit
of, 1*8

Rothley Mill, fairies of, 145

Roundhead rhyme, 76

Howan tree, a protection from witch-
craft, 30, 81-83, 328-330, 335

Rowhope wedding, 35(5

Running and leaping ihymes, G9

Rush-bearer's garland, 33

Sackworth, local rhyme, 14

Sacrifice, row, to cure witchcraft, 327

Saddles, fairy, 30, 113

St. Boswell, sacred well at, 157

St. Nicholas' day cuslom, 6-8

St. Stephen's day, 26

Saints, as guardians of wells, 155

Salt placed on dead bodies, 73

as charm against witchcraft, 335

as preventive of evil, 365

Rand, ropes of, devil set t'i spin, 116
Saturday, Christmas day falling on, 99

moon changing on, 10

Satyrs, a class of spirits, 77
^car-bugs, a class of spirits, 7S
Scarecrows, a class of spirits, 77
Schoolboy rhymes, 17, 54
H'hool customs, 7

Scotland, banks of the Tyne called,
361

■ marble playing, 89

■ regalia of, 1 1 1

<™tt (Michael), the wizard, 116-119
Scrags, a class of spirits, 77

Scrats, a class of spirits, 79

Scruffell, lecal rhyme, 14

Sea, superstition connected with, 72

Selby (Margaret), legend of, 244-256

Seventh son, 39, 273

Sewingshields, King Arthur at, 125-

129
Sex rhymes, 70

taboos, 40

Shadows, a class of spirits, 79
Shag foals, a class of spirits, 78
Sheaf of corn, appearance of, a warning

of death, 267
Sheep's bone used as amulet, 58
Sheffield Christmas rhyme, 37

pancake custom at, 31

Shellycoats, a class of spirits, 77
Shoe take,, as pledge or payment, 31

throwing at marriages, 33

Shoes, divination by the, 278, 279
Shrove-tide rhyme, 17, 19

Tuesday custom, 31, 32

Silence, divination performed in, 2£ 5

necessary for discovery of

treasure, 248, 249

Silk, a spirit raiment, 176-179

nse of, for dresses, 180-182

Silky, a sprite, 78, 169-174, 182

place-names derived from, 78

Silver stones, 212

Sirens, a class of spirits, 77
Sixpence, crooked, worn as amulet,

72
Skeely man, 326
Skerne, river, spirit of, 78
Skiddaw, local rhyme, 14
Skull superstition, 19
Sleek or calendering stones. 74
Sleep-walking, cure for, 274
Slippers, fairy, 30
Snake stones, 43

Snapdragons, a class of spirits, 7s
Somersetshire customs, 4
Songs, 358, 359

Northumbrian, 213

Soul mass cake, 26

South-running water, cure for witch-
craft, 326

Sowerby, witchcraft at, 327
Spinning, powerover, by witchcraft, 308
Spirit, evil, expelled by suction, 293
Spirits, local names of, 77-80

of the dead, 58, 59

Spoorns, a class of spirits, 77
Sprats, u class of spirits, 78
Springs, forecast of weather from, 48
Sprites, a class of spirits, 79

'HI., II.

•J. I>

394

INDEX.

Spunks, a class of spirits, 78

Spurns, a class of spirits, 78

Stang, riding the, 4-6

Stanging, lifting custom, 31

Stealing, a warning of evil, 272

Stentin, near Dunbar, tumulus at, 151

Steven (St.), day, 95

Stewart Hall (R >thesay), curing stones
at, 225

Stirlingshire, witchcraft in, 326

Stocking put on wrong side out, prog-
nosticates death, 271

Stolen articles, used as charm, 48

Stone chairs as seats, 130

coffin, restored to its place by

means of apparition, 164

Stones, ascurefor hydrophobia, 221-223
bloody, 60 .

customs or superstitions con-
cerning, 18

fairies dancing round, 143

fairy, 30, 143-145

holed, charm to prevent witch-
craft, 325

holy, 43

inauguration, 150

■ legends concerning, 129, 197-

211,216,217

thunder, 45

Storms, fairies and spirits connected
with, 176

caused by witches, 337

charms against, 295

Strath church, bell legend, 134
Straws, 337

Stye, cured by gold ring, 298
Subterraneous passages, belief in, 30, 60
Succubusses, a class of spirits, 79
Suicides, burial of, 63-64
Sunday, lucky to start on voyage, 343
Sunderland fitter, name for " kuave of

clubs," 38
Swaitb.es, a class of spirits, 78
Swallow, witch in shape of, 306, 311
Swarths, a class of spirits, 78
Swedish fairy legend, 135
Swift, river, superstition as to over-
flowing of, 46
Swinging witches, 302, 303
Sybils, a class of spirits, 7!)
Sylphs, a class of spirits, 7S
Sylvaus, a class of spirits, 79

Tailors, 51

Tamleuchar Cross, treasure hidden at,

135
Tansy pudding, 4 1

Tantarrabobs, a class of spirits, 78
Taps, three, warning of death, 267-

269
Tees, river, spirit of the, 42, 78
Teeth superstitions, 24, 75

burning of, 48

and toes, prognostication from, 48

Tempest family, legend connected with,

44
Thames, abode of a spirit, 42
Thirteen at table unlncky, 25
Thomas' (St 1 dav, 92, 93
Thomas the Rhymer. 119, 120
Thrashing, warning of misfortune

during, 267
Threeston, Burn, 207-209
Throngh-the-needle, &c, game of, 351
Th rummy, place-name derived from , 79
Thrummycaps, a class of spirits, 79
Thrush (disease), cure of, 293
Thumbs, doubling of, to prevent witch-
craft, i25
Thunderstone, 45
Thnrses, a class of spirits, 78
Tints, a class of spirits, 78
Toad, daughter turned into, by witch,

331
Toast, Northumbrian, 214
Todlowries, a class of spirits, 78
Toe-nail superstition, 24
Tompokcrs, a class of spirits, 78
Tom-thumbs, a class of spirits, 78
Tom-tumblers, a class of spirits, 77
Tooth, dream of, sign of death, 272

extracted, put into fire, 298, 299

Toothache, amber bead worn as cure

for, 83

charm, 9, 10

Topsham, family legend, 85
Towers, used for protection, 238
Treasure attributed to silky sprite, 173
hidden, 135, 200, 202, 203,

247-250, 254
Treasures, fairy, at Bamborough, 146
Tree (dreaming), at Bute, 286
Trees, stretching across streams, haunt

of sprites, 174

hawthorn, fairies dance near,

136

Trenchers, wooden, in servants' hall, 33
Tritons, a class of spirits, 77
Trolls, a class of spirits, 78
Trows, a class of spirits, 79
Tumuli, attributed to the fairies, 151
Turf placed on dead bodies, 73

charm for cattle's diseased foot,

50

1NDKX.

295

Tutgote, a class of spirits, 78
Tweed, river, spirit of the, 42
Twinlaw, stone chair on, 130
Twins, boy and girl, 30
Tjnemouth, wizard's cave at, 123

Urchins, a class of spirits, 77
name for hedgehogs, 57

Vnlcr.tine rhymes, 348, 349
Veal pie, at funeral feast, 10
Vervain, a protection from witchcraft,
HI

Virgin garlands, 33

Wabby (Willy), ghost of, ICG
Waffs, a class of spirits, 7H
Weghom, a false man, 83
Waitlw, a class of spirits, 78
Wake at funerals, 58
Wansbeck river, tradition concerning,
UK

Wurk Castle, 61

sacred well at, 155, 341

Warlocks, a class of spirits, 77
Warnings to relatives of death or mis-
fortune, 266-273

Warts, cure for, by the seventh son, 274
Wassail bowl at Christmas, 8, 92
Water, south-running, as a curative,
140

person carrying, sign of ill-
luck, 338

placed beneath the bed on

which corpse lies, 73
Water falls, abode of fairies, 175
Water witch, 314
Watling Street, called Michael Scott's

Causeway, 117
Wear, river, tradition concerning, IIS
Weasel, white, apparition of, 193
Weather forecasts, 357, 300, 361

lore of New Year's day, 99

proverbs, 21-23

Weaving on a battling stone, 2 46
Wednesday, the fairies' holiday, 86, 1 1.1
Weise, used by milkmaids, 142
Well buried treasure id, 248, 249

— near Whittingham, white ladies
appear at, 167

rites at Alnwick, 40

Wells, fairy, 30, 112

sacred, 33, 151-1.17, 221, 341,

3.12

Welsh fairies, 81, 17.1

Westmoreland, customs of, 7, 8. 1 1, 14,
20, 31, 33, 38, 46, 47, .11, 91

Whalton. sacred fire at, 342

Whicken tre, charm for witchcraft, 329

Whirlpools, attributed to the fairies,
146

Wh.le animal, apparition of 193

ducks or drakes, used fur

charming, 293

ladies apparition. 166, 167

White women, a class of spirits, 79
Whittingham place-rhymes, 359

sacied well at, 107

vale. 234-214

Wife, rhymes on, 37

Will, rhyming, 16

Wills, customs noted from, 39

Willy Howe, near Bridlington, buried

treasure in, 2.14
Wimbell pond, Sussex, buried treasure

in, 254
Wind, devil's connection with the, 30

rhymes and savings, 23, 29

Windielaw Cove, 220
Wirrikows, a class of spirits, 79
Wisemen, practices of, 295-297
Witch formulae, 12, 13
Witchcraft, cases of, 100, 161, 324-339
attributed to Margaret

Sclby, 245

beliefs, 30

trials for. 299-324

Witches, charms to keep away, 83

invoked in marble playing,

89

of Auldearn, 2N7
■ rhymes relating to, 81-84,

Witches' Cairn, 334

Wooden dishes, witches riding on,

299, 301
Wuoler, gipsies at, 349

guisarding tit , 21.1

sacred well at, 151

stone chair at, 130

superstitions, 287,288, 293,298

ivitehciaft at, 325, 337

Woman cause of death to hero, IIS
Women, not allowed at men's funerals,

40
Word charms, 29.1
Worm well at Lambton, 1.13
Wraith, as wanting of death, 208. 270,

272
Wraithes, a class of spirits, 78
Written charms, lo, 1 1
Wycliffe (John), superstition connected

with bones of, 40

396

INDEX.

Yeavering Bell, ancient remains near,

208
Yethhounds, a class of spirits, 78
Yetholm, the fairies at, 147
Yevering, stone legend at, 216
Yew trees, planting of, 46
York, divination practices in, 289
kissing bush at, 67

Yorkshire customs, 2, 7, 11, 14, 25, 26,
29, 33, 40, 44, 4S, 91

trials for witchcraft, 315

Yowe, a female sheep, 5

Yule cake, 25

candle, 25, 26

cheese, 25

day, 90

log, 25, 26, 90, 91

PBtNTliD DY NICHOLS AND SONS, 25, PARLIAMENT STREET, S.W.

ra-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-PTT

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