while a comparatively modern one may be found in Stratford St Mary church, in the concluding lines of an epitaph dated 1739:—
'The Night is gone, ye Stars Remain,
So man that die shall Live again."
Dickens has caught the East Anglian dialect readily enough in David Copperfield, where he makes Mr Peggotty say, "Cheer up, old mawther" to Mrs Grummidge, and speak of "a couple of mavishes," while Ham talks to David as "Mas'r Davy, bor." The willing Barkis, too, who asks "do she now?" and speaks of the "stage-cutch," is a true product of the soil.
For the benefit of those not to the manner born, let it be repeated that a "mawther" is not necessarily a parent. It is the generic name for a female. A "mawther" may therefore be a girl infant or a grown woman. "Bor" is, of course, a corruption of "neighbour," but need not, in fact, specifically mean a neighbour, and is practically the masculine of "mawther," and applicable to any man; friend close at hand or stranger from distant parts.
The Norfolk dialect has attained the distinction of being made the subject of study, and glossaries and collections of local words have long been made by enthusiasts in these matters. Perhaps the most interesting and amusing of the examples of Norfolk talk is found in the East Anglian version of the Song of Solomon, published many years ago by Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte. It was taken down from a reading by a Norfolk peasant. A few verses will be instructive:—
1. The song o' songs, as is Sorlomun's.
2. Lerr 'im kiss me wi' the kisses of his mouth; for yar love is better 'an wine.
3. Becaze o' the smell o' yar intements, yar name is as intements pored out, therefoor du the mawthers love yĕ.
4. Dror mĕ, we'll run arter yĕ: the king he ha' browt me into his charmbers; we'll be glad and reījce in yĕ; we'll remahmber yar love more 'an wine: the right-up love yĕ.
5. I em black, but tidy, O ye darters o' J'rusal'm, as the taents o' Kedar, as the cattins o' Sorlomun.
6. Don't sin starrin' at me, cos I em black, 'ecos the sun t'have barnt mĕ; my mother's children wor snāsty wi' me; they made me keeper o' the winyerds, but m'own winyerd I han't kept.
7. Tell onto me, yow hu my soul du love, where ye fade, where ye make yar flock to rest at nune: fur why shud I be as one tarn aside by yar cumrades' flock?
8. If so bein' as yĕ don't know, O yow bootifullest o' women, go yer ways furth by the futtin' o' the flock, and feed yer kids 'eside the shepherds' taents.
9. I ha' likened yow, O my love, to a taamer o' hosses in Pharer's charrits.
10. Yar cheeks are right fine wi' ringes of jewiltry, yer neck wi' chanes o' gold.
The full flavour of this vernacular is only to be obtained by reading the original verses side by side with the above.
Among the sports that obtained on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk of old was "camping." "Camping" was an old East Anglian game that, could it be revived, would please the footballing maniacs of our own day. It was a wild kind of football, played on these commons, often with a hundred players aside, and we are told that the roughest kind of Rugby football was child's play compared with it. If stories of old camping contests be true, it might almost seem that in ascribing the thinly-populated condition of Norfolk and Suffolk to the long-standing effects of the Black Death, and to mediæval insurrections and their resulting butcheries, we do an injustice to pestilence and the sword, and fail to make count of the casualties received in play. As the wondering Frenchman said, in witnessing a camping-match, "If these savages be at play, what would they be in war?"
"These contests," says a Norfolk historian, "were not infrequently fatal to many of the combatants. I have heard old persons speak of a celebrated camping, Norfolk against Suffolk, on Diss Common, with three hundred on each side. Before the ball was thrown up, the Norfolk men inquired tauntingly of the Suffolk men if they had brought their coffins. The Suffolk men, after fourteen hours, were the victors. Nine deaths were the result of the conflict in a fortnight." Camping went out of favour about 1810, and the coroners had an easier time.
XXXVI