THE “BEAR’S HEAD,” BRERETON.
The “Lion and Swan” at Congleton is one of the best and most picturesque features of that old-time manufacturing town, more remarkable for its huge old factory buildings, and its narrow, sett-paved streets in which the clogs of the work-folk continually clatter, than for its beauty. The “Lion and Swan,” therefore, is a distinct asset in the picturesque way, with its beautiful black-and-white gables and strongly emphasised entrance-porch. Within it is all timbered passages and raftered rooms, pleasantly irregular.
One of the most striking of the natural features of Cheshire is the isolated hill rising abruptly from the great plain near Alderley, and known as Alderley Edge. So strange an object could hardly fail to impress old-time imaginations, or be without its correspondingly strange legends, and the Edge is, in fact, the subject of a legend well known as the “Wizard of Alderley,” which in its turn has given its title to the “Wizard” inn.
According to this mystical tale, which is of the same order as the marvellous legends of King Arthur and the wise Merlin, a farmer, “long years ago,” was going to Macclesfield Fair to sell a fine milk-white horse, when, on passing the hill, a “mysterious stranger” suddenly appeared before him and demanded the horse. Not even in those times of “long years ago,” when all manner of odd things happened, did farmers give up valuable animals on demand, and (although the story does not report it) he probably said some extremely rude and caustic things to the stranger; who, at any rate, told him that the horse would not be sold at the fair. He added that when the farmer returned in the evening, he would meet him on the same spot, and would receive the horse.
The Wizard, for it was none other, had spoken truly. Many people at the fair admired the milk-white steed, but none offered to buy, and the farmer wended his way home again. In most cases, with the prospect of such a meeting, a farmer—or any one else—would have gone home some other way; but, in that case, there would have been no legend; so we are to imagine him come back at eventime, under the shadow of the Edge, with the Wizard duly awaiting him.
Not a word was spoken, but horse and farmer were led to the hillside, where, with a sound like that of distant thunder, two iron gates opened, and a magic cave appeared, wherein he saw many milk-white steeds, each with an armed man sleeping by its side. He was told, as a metrical version of the legend has it:
These are the caverned troops, by Fate
Foredoomed the guardians of our State.
England’s good genius here detains
These armed defenders of our plains,
Doomed to remain till that fell day
When foemen marshalled in array
And feuds internecine, shall combine
To seal the ruin of our line!
Thrice lost shall England be, thrice won,
’Twixt dawn of day and setting sun.
Then we, the wondrous caverned band,
These mailèd martyrs for the land,
Shall rush resistless on the foe.
