Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore

by Elizabeth Mary Wright

Why gunpowder trayson

Shüde iver be vurgot.

This was sung on the night of Nov. 4, when funds were collected for the next day’s bonfire. On the 5th, the momet or figure was carried round by boys singing:

Guy Fawkes, Guy!

He and ’is companions did contrive

Tü blaw all Englan’ up alive,

With a dark lantern an’ a match,

By God’s massy ’e wuz catched.

Local Traditions

In West Yorkshire, Nov. 5 is known as Plot, and a special kind of cake, made of oatmeal and treacle and called parkin, is eaten at about that date. A curious bit of testimony to the popularity of Shakespeare may be traced in the common Yorkshire expression to play Hamlet (with), e.g. Bai gou, lad! wen ta gets ’oam ther’ll bi ’amlit to pleay; Mi mother pleayed ’amlit wi’ ’im fer stoppin’ aht lat at neet. The use of Hanover in exclamations and mild oaths such as: What the Hanover do I care about it! (Lin.), Go to Hanover and hoe turnips! (e.Suf.), is said to date from the time of the Georges, who were very unpopular in the east of England. According to an old Cheshire legend, for several days before the battle of Blore Heath, there arose each morning out of the fosse three mermaids, who announced: Ere yet the hawberry [hawthorn-berry] assumes its deep red, Embued shall this heath be with blood nobly shed. Higgledy-piggledy, Maupas shot (Chs.) means serving all alike, a saying which is sometimes extended by the addition of: let every tub stand on its own bottom. The tradition which accounts for its origin is by some attributed to James I, and by others to William III. The kernel of the story in either case is the refusal of the then Rector of Malpas to treat the monarch to his share of a dinner at the village inn. In spite of the remonstrances of the Curate, who was also present, the shot was equally divided between the three: higgledy-piggledy all pay alike. Later the monarch caused the same rule to be applied to the benefice, and henceforth the Curate received a moiety of the glebe and tithes. Hobby-horse Day is a festival held in Padstow on May 1. A hobby-horse is carried through the streets to a pool about a quarter of a mile outside the town, where it is supposed to drink. The procession then returns home singing a song to commemorate the tradition that the French, having landed in the bay, mistook a party of mummers in red cloaks for soldiers, and hastily fled to their boats and rowed away. Hockney Tuesday, that is the first Tuesday after Easter week, is celebrated at Hungerford in Berkshire as Kissing Day, in accordance with the charter which John of Gaunt gave the town after its services in some great battle. Two tutty-men visit each house in the borough, and demand a coin of the realm from each male, and a kiss from every female. They each carry a staff about six feet long, bedecked with flowers and ribbons, the whole being surmounted with a cup and spike bearing an orange, which is given away with each salute, and then replaced by another one. The tutty-men [nosegay-men] are the tything-men, selected from the tradesmen of the town, whose duty it was before the establishment of the county police to act as constables, and assist in preserving order in the town. Pictures of the proceedings on Kissing Day appeared in the Daily Graphic of April 6, 1910, entitled ‘Hocktide at Hungerford: Quaint thirteenth-century customs observed’. Hock-Monday in Sussex is kept as a festival in remembrance of the defeat of the Danes in King Ethelred’s time. The term Kemble’s Pipe (Hrf.), applied to the concluding pipe any one smokes at a sitting, is now no longer in current use. The original Kemble was executed at Hereford on Aug. 2, 1679, on a charge of implication in Titus Oates’ plot. On his way to execution he smoked his pipe and conversed with his friends, and hence arose the name Kemble’s Pipe for the last pipe smoked in a social company. The cloud-berry, Rubus Chamaemorus, in many north-country dialects is known by the name of knout-berry. A Lancashire tradition derives this name from King Cnut, or Cnout, who, being reduced to great extremity, was preserved from starvation by feeding on this fruit. There’s been worse stirs than that at Lathom is a Lancashire saying used when a flitting, a whitewashing, or any domestic stir of an unpleasant nature makes an apology needful on the score of untidiness or confusion. It alludes to the havoc made when the Parliamentary forces took Lathom in 1645. To pull anything Lymm from Warburton (Chs.) signifies to pull anything to pieces. The expression originates from the fact that the church livings of Lymm and Warburton were formerly held together, but that they were eventually separated, and the income of the rectors of Lymm thereby reduced. Nelson’s bullets (n.Cy.) is the name of a kind of sweetmeat made in the shape of small balls. A Norman (Suf.) is a tyrannical person. Lord Northumberland’s Arms (Nhb.) is synonymous with a black eye. The 29th of May, commemorating the Restoration of Charles II, is commonly observed in the midland and south-western counties. The day is variously known as: Oak-apple Day, Oak-ball Day, Royal Oak Day, and Shick-shack Day. Shick-shack is the name of the piece of oak, especially one with an oak-apple attached, which is worn before noon, mostly by school-children. In the afternoon the shick-shack is discarded, and monkey-powder, i.e. leaves of the ash, put in its place. In the evening both emblems have to disappear, or the wearers are beaten with nettles (Oxf.). Elsewhere the beating with nettles is the punishment for not wearing any oak-leaves at all. In Yorkshire a boy who does not wear the oak is nicknamed a Papish. The Penny Hedge (Yks.) is a fence or hedge of wicker-work set up annually on the eastern shore of Whitby harbour, at the Feast of the Ascension. According to a legend, dating from 1315, ‘the lords of Sneaton and Ugglebarnby, with others, whilst hunting the boar, did mortally injure an hermit, who dared to protect the quarry.’ As penance for this outrage, the local lord and his successors after him must thenceforth plant a certain number of stakes every year in the tideway. This performance is now called the Horngarth Service, or the Setting of the Penny Hedge. A Cheshire version of a well-known proverb is: When the daughter is stolen, shut the Peppergate. The proverb is said to be founded on fact. The daughter of a certain Mayor of Chester was stolen as she was playing at ball in Pepper Street, and the young man who carried her off took her through the Pepper Gate. After the loss of his daughter, the Mayor ordered the gate to be closed. The case is altered, quoth Plowden (Shr.), is a phrase which originated through the unexpected decisions given by Judge Plowden, an eminent lawyer in Queen Mary’s time. A pussivanting (Dev. Cor.) is an ineffective bustle; used as an adjective the word is equivalent to meddling, fussy. It is undoubtedly a corruption of poursuivant, but whether the original Poursuivants from whom the term is derived were those sent into Cornwall in the fifteenth century, threatening punishment for the blackmailing habits of certain Cornish sea-captains, or whether they were the Poursuivants of the latter part of the seventeenth century, who were sent to search out all those entitled to bear arms, is a matter on which opinions differ. The name of Queen Anne is used to denote a coloured butterfly (Chs.), an ancient gun (Sc.), and an old-fashioned tale (n.Yks.), e.g. Tell us some o’ your aud Queen Anners. Queen Anne’s flowers (Nrf.) is a name for the daffodil; Queen Anne’s needlework (Nhp.) is the striped crane’s-bill. Queen Mary’s thistle (Nhp.), the cotton thistle, Onopordon Acanthium, owes its name to the tradition that it was brought to Fotheringay by Mary’s attendants. Various plants are named after Robin Hood, e.g. Robin Hood’s feather, or fetter (Cum.), the traveller’s joy, Clematis Vitalba; Robin Hood’s hatband (Cum. Yks.), the club moss, Lycopodium clavatum; Robin Hood’s men, or sheep (Lin.), the bracken fern, Pteris aquilina. To go round by Robin Hood’s barn (Cmb. w.Midl.) is to go a roundabout way, to go the farthest way; Robin Hood’s wind (Chs.) is a wind which accompanies a thaw. It is said that Robin Hood could stand anything but a thaw wind. A Yorkshire proverb runs: Many speak of Robin Hood, that never shot his bow, i.e. many people talk of doing great things which they can never accomplish. It’s long o’ comin’, like Royal Charlie (Irel.), is said of a thing that has been long expected. A Scarborough warning (Yks. Nrf.) signifies no warning at all. The origin of the saying rests on the statement that in 1557 Thomas Stafford entered and took possession of Scarborough Castle before the townsmen were aware of his approach. Sherra-moor (Sc. Nhb. Dur.), used to signify a row, tumult, a state of confusion, is originally a name given to the Rebellion of 1715. The title of Vicar of Bray (Brks.) is applied as a term of contempt to a turncoat.