Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore

by Elizabeth Mary Wright

But to illustrate more fully what has been stated above, I will here give some specimens culled promiscuously from various dialects: cost dibble tates? (Chs.), can you set potatoes; hoore’s his heeaf-hod? (n.Yks.), where is his home?; hod thi clack (e.Yks.), be silent; till the want-snap (Som.), set the mole-trap; t’deear beeals oot on t’jimmer (Yks.), the door creaks on the hinge; us lads wur shollin’ doon a stie (n.Yks.), we boys were sliding down a ladder; what have you got there? Ans. Nobbut a whiskettle o’ wick snigs (Chs.), only a basketful of live eels; t’titter oop t’sprunt mun ower a bit (n.Yks.), the one soonest up the hill must wait awhile; thoo mun think ma on ti remmon it (Yks.), you must remind me to remove it; tak the sharevil an’ the kipe, an’ goo an’ get up some o’ them frum tatoes out o’ the slang (Shr.), take the garden fork and the wicker measure, and go and get up some of those early potatoes out of the narrow strip of ground; whot ail’th’n? Aw, they zeth he’th got a pinswill in ’is niddick (Dev.), a boil on the back of his neck; gan through the yet, an swin the field wi’the beass in’t (Nhb.), go through the gate and traverse diagonally the field with the cattle in it; you needna be afeard o’ gweïn through the leasow, they’n mogged the cow as ’iled poor owd Betty Mathus (Shr.), you need not be afraid of going through the meadow, they have moved to another pasture the cow that gored poor old Betty Matthews; they war fearful fain to pike amang t’shrogs some shoups, bummelkites, and hindberries (w.Yks.), they were very glad to glean among the bushes some dog-rose hips, blackberries, and wild raspberries; an’ the leet windle ne’er blubbereth or weeneth, but look’th pithest and sif’th (Dev.), and the little delicate child never cries or whimpers, but looks piteous and sighs; ae’s pinikin, palchy, an’ totelin, ae’s clicky an’ cloppy, an’ a kiddles an’ quaddles oal day (Cor.), he is ailing, delicate, and imbecile from old age, he is left-handed and lame, and he potters about and grumbles all day; shoe maddles an taums ower in a sweb (w.Yks.), she talks incoherently, and from weakness falls down in a swoon; she shruk so wonnerful that I fared hully stammed (Ess.), she shrieked so strangely, that I was wholly overcome with amazement; it’s a soamy neet, ah’s ommast mafted (Yks.), it’s an oppressive night, I am almost overpowered by the great heat; when t’ bent’s snod, hask, cranchin an’ slaap, it’s a strang sign of a pash (w.Yks.), when the coarse moorland grass is smooth, brittle, crackling under the foot and slippery, it’s a strong sign of a sudden downpour of rain; it snew, an’ it stoured, an’ it warn’t while efter dark at ah wossel’d thruff an’ wan yamm (n.Yks.), it snowed, and the wind was driving the snow in gusts, and it was not till after dark that I had battled through and reached home; does it ever rain here? Ans. Why, it donks an’ dozzles an’ does, an’ sumtimes gi’s a bit of a snifter, but it never cums iv any girt pell (Cum.), it drizzles and rains slightly, and is misty, and sometimes there is a slight shower, but it never comes with any great downpour of rain; a cam doon wee a dousht an’ a pardoos, an sair did it rackle up ma banes, it wiz nae jeesty job (Bnff.), I fell with a sudden fall, striking the ground with great violence, and sorely did it shake my bones, it was no jesting matter; hee’s waxen a gay leathe-wake, fendible, whelkin, haspenald-tike (Yks.), he has grown a fine supple, hard-working, big, youth; I is to gie notidge at Joanie Pickergill yeats yown t’neet, t’moorn at moorn, an’ t’moorn at neet, an’ neea langer as lang’s storm hods, cause he c’n get na mair eldin (n.Yks.), I am to give notice that J. P. heats his oven to-night, and to-morrow, morning and night, and no longer as long as the snow lasts, because he can get no more fuel; tendar! tendar! [guard] stop the injun, left ma boondle on the planchen [platform] (Cor.). An old man having an order for some gravel was asked whether it was ready. He replied: Naw, Sur, but we’ve a got un in coose, we must buck [break] et, an’ cob [bruise into small pieces] et, an’ spal [break into yet smaller pieces] et, an’ griddle [riddle] et twice, an’ then et’ll be fitty (Cor.). A Cornish girl applying for a housemaid’s situation was asked: What can you do? Ans. I can louster and fouster, but I caan’t tiddly; I can do the heavy work, and work hard at it, but I can’t do the lighter housework. Sometimes a request for an interpretation of mysterious words only draws forth more of the same nature, for instance: Mester, that back kitchen’s welly snying [swarming] wi’ twitch-clogs. What do you mean by twitch-clogs, Mary? Whoi, black-jacks (Chs.). But ‘Mester’ was still in blissful ignorance of the presence of black-beetles in his back kitchen. The following conversation is reported from Somersetshire: I wish you would tell me where you get your rennet. Why, I buys a vell and zalts’n in. A vell! whatever is that? Don’ee know hot a vell is? Why a pook, be sure! Dear me, I never heard of that either; what can it be? Zome vokes call’n a mugget. I really cannot understand you. Lor, mum! wherever was you a-brought up to? Well, to be sure! I s’pose you’ve a-zeed a calve by your time? Of course I know that. Well then, th’ urnet’s a-tookt out of the vell o’ un. Some one who had never heard the word gouty as used in Cheshire to mean wet, spongy, boggy, asked: What is a gouty place? Ans. A wobby place. What’s a wobby place? A mizzick. What’s a mizzick? A murgin. A judge at the Exeter assizes asked a witness: What did you see? Witness: A did’n zee nort vur the pillem. Judge: What’s pillem? Witness: Not knaw what’s pillem? Why, pillem be mux a-drowed. Judge: Mux! What’s mux? Witness: Why mux be pillem a-wat [mud is wet dust]. An assault case came before a magistrate in a Yorkshire Police Court. Magistrate—to plaintiff: Well, my good woman, what did she do? Plaintiff: Deeah? Why, sha clooted mi heead, rove mi cap, lugged mi hair, dhragged ma doon, an’ buncht ma when ah was doon. Magistrate—to clerk: What did she say? Clerk (slowly and decisively): She says the defendant clooted her heead, rove her cap, lugged her hair, dhragged her doon, an’ buncht her when sha was doon. Sometimes the inability to comprehend is on the side of the country rustic. At a school in Wensleydale a South-country inspector, examining a class on the Bible, said: Neow tell me something abeout Mouses. Cats kill ’em, was the prompt rejoinder. A lady reading Exodus ix. 3, ‘There shall be a very grievous murrain,’ to a Sunday School class of Cornish children, was puzzled by the seemingly irrelevant comment made by one of her scholars: Ants is awful things, aint ’em? Afterwards she discovered that an ant in Cornwall is called a muryan. A similar story comes from Sussex. A lady who had been giving a lesson on Pharaoh’s dreams was startled to find that all the boys supposed that the fat and lean kine were weasels. In Surrey, Kent, and Sussex a weasel is called a kine, or keen. An old labourer reading the Book of Genesis came to this verse: ‘And Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die’ (chap. xlv. 28). There’s a hatch zomewhere in this story, vor however could wold Jacob zee hes zon Joseph if hee’d ben yet alive? If he’d ben yet up alive, or dead, how could there be any of ’en left vor his father to zee? That’s what I wants to know (I.W.). It must have been a more highly educated person who understood the coroner’s question: Did you take any steps to resuscitate the deceased? Ans. Yes, sor, we riped [rifled] ’ees pockets (Nhb.). An old woman once asked a neighbour the meaning of the word Jubilee. Ans. Why, ’tes like this, if yiew an’ yieur auld man ’ave ben marrid fifty years, ’tes a Golden Wedden’, but if the Lord ’ave took un, ’tes a Jewbilee. A local preacher expounding the Bible to a rural congregation in North Yorkshire told his hearers that the ‘ram caught in a thicket’, Genesis xxii. 13, meant: an aud teeap cowt iv a brier.

The Dame’s School

The quaintly-worded command, Ye mun begin an’ aikle nai (Chs.), has more significance than meets the eye of those who read it now, for it records a faint echo from the times of that ancient institution once common to every village, but now obsolete, namely, the Dame’s School, the theme of Shenstone’s poem, The School-Mistress (1742), wherein he sought to imitate the ‘peculiar tenderness of sentiment remarkable throughout’ the works of Spenser:

In ev’ry village mark’d with little spire,

Embow’r’d in trees, and hardly known to fame,

There dwells, in lowly shed, and mean attire,

A matron old, whom we school-mistress name;

Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame.

The ‘Ye mun begin an’ aikle nai’ [you must begin and get dressed for going now] was the signal given by an old dame who kept a school near Wrenbury to her ‘little bench of heedless bishops’ that lessons were over for the day.