PROVERBS AND SAYINGS
The hard-headed Cheshireman may be deficient in legend, but he has invented a number of wise sayings and proverbs which can hold their own in quality and quantity with any other county. Some of the oldest, however, given by Ray, are wrapped in obscurity. The following is a selection:—
“—— by a proverbe certan
Good manners and conynge maken a man.”
Bradshaw (Life of St. Werburgh).
[He was a contemporary of William of Wykeham.]
“Cheshire, Chief of men.”
“Stout, bold, and hardy withal, impatient of wrong, and ready to resist the enemy or stranger that shall invade their country.”—Webb.
Fuller says: “Its gentry is remarkable on a fourfold account—their numerousness ... their antiquity, their loyalty, and their hospitality.”
“Cheshire for men,
Berkshire for dogs,
Bedfordshire for naked flesh,
And Lincolnshire for bogs.”
“By waif, soc and theam,
You may know Cheshire men.”
[Powerful in their legal rights and tenacious of them.]
“As many Leighs as fleas, Massies as asses,
Crewes as crows, and Davenports as dogs’ tails.”
Some of the great Cheshire families.
“There is more than one yew bow in Chester.”
As many a Welshman had found out.
“Cheshire born and Cheshire bred,
Strong i’ th’ arm and weak i’ th’ yed.”
Perhaps invented by neighbours “over the border” who had felt the strong arm.
“To grin like a Cheshire cat.”
No satisfactory explanation of this has ever been given. It has formed the subject for inquiries innumerable in “Notes and Queries.”
There is another version: “To grin like a Cheshire cat chewing gravel.”
“It is better to marry over the mixen than over the moor.”
It is better to marry an honest farmer from next door whom you know, than a fine gentleman from a distance who may turn out a fraud.
“Enough and no more, like Mrs. Milton’s feast.”
Milton married as his third wife Elizabeth Minshull of Wistanstow, near Nantwich, who survived him. She was poor and proud, and her enforced economy was not to the taste of her neighbours.
“When the daughter is stolen, shut the Pepper-gate.”
Equivalent to “shutting the stable door when the steed is stolen.” This originated in a former Mayor of Chester fastening up the Pepper-gate after his daughter had eloped through it with her lover.
“If thou hadst the rent of Dee Mills—thou wouldst spend it.”
These Chester mills yielded annually a large rent.
“As fair as Lady Done.”
The wife of Sir John Done, hereditary bow-bearer of Delamere Forest. Pennant, in his “Tour from Chester to London,” says that “when a Cheshireman would express supereminent excellency in one of the fair sex, he will say, ‘There is a Lady Done for you.’”
“Higgledy Piggledy—Malpas shot.”
All share alike.
The well-known anecdote need not be quoted.
“All on one side, like Parkgate.”
A single street with one side only, the river being on the other side.
“Every man was not born to be Vicar of Bowdon.”
One of the most valuable livings in Cheshire.
“To pull Lymm from Warburton.”
Complete and absolute separation.
“Hanged hay never does cattle.”
Bought hay, hung and weighed in the scales, is not economical. It will not do (pronounced “doe”) cattle.
“To scold like a wych-waller.”
I.e., a “salt-boiler” at one of the wyches of Cheshire.
“To catch a person napping, as Moss caught his mare.”
“I’ll tell thee, quoth Wood,
If I can’t rule my daughter, I’ll rule my good.”
“But when? quoth Kettle to his mare.”
Of these three worthies history is silent.
“Like Goodyer’s pig, never well but when he is doing mischief.”
“He stands like Mumphazard, who was hanged for saying nothing.”
“Like the parson of Saddleworth who could read no book but his own.”
“Roint you witch! as Bessy Locket said to her mother.”
“No more sib (akin) than sieve and riddle that grew in a wood together.”
“If he were as long as a lither, he might thatch a house without a ladder.”
“It would make a dog doff his doublet.”
“She hath broken her elbow at the Church door.”
A woman grown idle after marriage.
“Score twice before you cut once.”
Used by curriers. Holmes’ “Academie of Armourie.”
Don’t cut your leather until you feel sure you have selected the right place.
“Stoppord law, no stake no draw.”
Stockport or Stopport—only those who contribute to an undertaking may reap benefit from it.
“You may know a Mobberley man by his breeches.”
An allusion to poachers in the neighbouring Tatton Park. They made their breeches of buckskin.
“The Mayor of Altrincham lies in bed while his breeches are mending.”
“The Mayor of Altrincham, and the Mayor of Over,
The one is a thatcher, the other a dauber.”
These places were small and unimportant, and the mayors were therefore sometimes chosen from men in humble ranks of life.
“A Stopport (Stockport) chaise.”
Two women riding sideways on one horse.
“As thrunk as three in a bed.”
Thrunk = crowded.
“It is time to yoke when the cart comes to the caples.”
“In some part of England they call a horse a caple.”—Chaucer. Latin = Caballus.
“Good to fetch a rich man sorrow and a dead man woe.”
“As much wit as three folks—two fools and a madman.”
“She hath been to London to call a strea a straw, and a waw a wall.”
Adopting the London pronunciation and forgetting, or being ashamed of, the county dialect.
“To come home like the parson’s cow, with a calf at her foot.”
“To look a strained hair in a can.”
“To shed riners with a whaver.”
“To surpass anything skilful or adroit by something still more so.”—Wilbraham. Riner = a toucher used at quoits.
“Too-Too will in two.”
Strain a thing too much and it will not hold.
“Well, well, is a word of malice.”
“You been like Smithwick, either clemed or bossten.”
Too little or too much.
“Afraid of far enough.”
“Afraid of him that died last year.”
Of that which is never likely to happen.
LOCAL RHYMES
Holt liars, Farndon bears,
Churton greyhounds, Aldford hares.
In Stoak there are but few good folk,
In Stanney—hardly any.
Gobbinshire, Gobbinshire from Gobbinshire Green,
The ronkest oud beggar as ever was seen.
Gobbinshire was a name of the lower portion of the Wirral peninsula.
Sir Randle Crewe, the Lord of this manor,
Was born in Nantwich, the son of a Tanner.
Middlewych is a pretty toun
Seated in a valley,
With a Church and Market Cross
And eke a bouling alley;
All the men are loyal there,
Pretty girls are plenty,
Church and King, and doun with the Rump
There’s not such a toun in twenty.
—Cavalier Ballad.
“Congleton rare, where they sold the Bible to buy a bear.”
The inhabitants once laid by money for a new Bible, but the town bear having died, they devoted their savings to buying a new bear for baiting.
When the Chester and Birkenhead railway was made, the name of Ledsham was given to a station which was nearest to Sutton, and this gave rise to the following:—
“I want to go to Sutton please.”
“There aren’t no Sutton now.”
“It’s taken t’name o’ Ledsham, sir.”
“For an estate? or how?”
SUNDRY SAWS
Farm servants dissatisfied say:—
Maily bread an maily pies,
Skim Dick full o’ eyes,
Buttermilk astid o’ beer,
I’m sartin I shanna stop here.
(South Cheshire.)
Come aw ye buttermilk sellers that have buttermilk to sell,
Ah’d have ye give good mizzer, and scrub yo’r vessels well;
For there’s a day o’ reckoning, an hell will have its share,
An’ the devil will have you nappers as Mossy ketched his mare.
“Go fiddle for shives (slices of food)
Amongst old wives.”
Said in contempt.
“Laus-a-dees
What times be these.”
“Stare-agog, stare agog
Tumbled o’er the tatoe-hog.”
Children irritate bulls by shouting:—
“Billy Billy Belder
Sucked the cai’s elder” (udder).
PHENOMENA
Dee’s valley mild till close of year
Means three months cold in store, I fear.
The Moon.
When hoo fulls at ye midnight, or soone after that,
In ye sommer, great heat,
In ye winter, hard frost.
When hoo fulls at ye midday, or soone after that,
Winter cries, “O ye rain,”
Summer says, “Cheshire’s lost.”
—Old Cheshire Household Book, 1675-85.
(Hoo is the old English “she.”)
A winde from Sandbach in the Easte
Blows good to neither man nor beast.
Malpas ales and Malpas gales
Cheer the farmer, fill his pails.
Whenever Chester chimes at Congleton do sound
A flood, like Noah’s, will wash away ye ground.
The towns are thirty miles apart.
It rains, it pains, it patters i’ the docks,
Mobberley wenches are weshin’ their smocks.
As long as Helsby (hill) wears a hood,
The weather’s never very good.
If Wednesday, Thursday, or if Friday
Happen this year to be May day,
Then begin some harmless thing
And it will thee much credit bring.
—Randle Holme, Harleian MSS.