The New Forest: Its History and Its Scenery

by John R. Wise

Of your own making.”

When, if nothing is given, they throw stones and shards at the door.[219]

Plenty, too, of old love superstitions remain—about ash boughs with an even number of leaves, and “four-leaved” clover, concerning which runs a Forest rhyme:—

“Even ash and four-leaved clover,

You are sure your love to see

Before the day is over.”

Then, too, we must not forget the Forest proverbs. “Wood Fidley rain,” “Hampshire and Wiltshire moon-rakers,” and “Keystone under the hearth,” have already been noticed. But there are others such as “As yellow as a kite’s claw,” “An iron windfall,” for anything unfairly taken, “All in a copse,” that is, indistinct, “A good bark-year makes a good wheat-year,” and “Like a swarm of bees all in a charm,” explained further on, which show the nature of the country. Again, “A poor dry thing, let it go,” a sort of poacher’s euphemism, like, “The grapes are sour,” is said of the Forest hares when the dogs cannot catch them, and so applied to things which are coveted but out of reach. “As bad as Jeffreys” preserves, as throughout the West of England, the memory of one who, instead of being the judge, should have been the hangman. Again, too, “Eat your own side, speckle-back,” is a common Forest expression, and is used in reference to greedy people. It is said to have taken its origin from a girl who shared her breakfast with a snake, and thus reproved her favourite when he took too much. Again, “To rattle like a boar in a holme bush,” is a thorough proverb of the Forest district, where a “holme” bush means an old holly. Passing, however, from particulars to generals, let me add for the last, “There is but one good mother-in-law, and she is dead.” I have never heard it elsewhere in England, but doubtless it is common enough. It exactly corresponds with the German saying, “There is no good mother-in-law but she that wears a green gown,” that is, who lies in the churchyard. The shrewdness and humour of a people are never better seen than in their proverbs.

Further, there are plenty of local sayings, such as “The cuckoo goes to Beaulieu Fair to buy him a greatcoat,” referring to the arrival of the cuckoo about the 15th of April, whilst the day on which the fair is held is known as the “cuckoo day.” A similar proverb is to be found in nearly every county. So, also, the saying with regard to Burley and its crop of mast and acorns may be met in the Midland districts concerning Pershore and its cherries. Like all other parts of England, the Forest is full, too, of those sayings and adages, which are constantly in the mouths of the lower classes, so remarkable for their combination of both terseness and metaphor. To give an instance, “He won’t climb up May Hill,” that is, he will not live through the cold spring. Again, “A dog is made fat in two meals,” is applied to upstart or purse-proud people. But it is dangerous to assign them to any particular district, as by their applicability they have spread far and wide.

One or two historical traditions, too, still linger in the Forest, but their value we have seen with regard to the death of the Red King. Thus, the peasant will tell of the French fleet, which, in June, 1690, lay off the Needles, and of the Battle of Beachy Head—its cannonading heard even in the Forest—but who fought, or why, he is equally ignorant. One tradition, however, ought to be told concerning the terrible winter of 1787, still known in the Forest as “the hard year.” My informant, an old man, derived his knowledge from his father, who lived in the Forest in a small lonely farm-house. The storm began in the night; and when his father rose in the morning he could not, on account of the snow-drift, open the door. Luckily, a back room had been converted into a fuel-house, and his wife had laid in a stock of provisions. The storm still increased. The straggling hedges were soon covered; and by-and-by the woods themselves disappeared. After a week’s snow, a heavy frost followed. The snow hardened. People went out shooting, and wherever a breathing-hole in the snow appeared, fired, and nearly always killed a hare.[220] The snow continued on the ground for seven weeks; and when it melted, the stiffened bodies of horses and deer covered the plains.[221]

And now for a few of the Forest words and expressions, many of which are very peculiar. Take, for instance, the term “shade,” which here has nothing in common with the shadows of the woods, but means either a pool or an open piece of ground, generally on a hill top, where the cattle in the warm weather collect, or, as the phrase is, “come to shade,” for the sake of the water in the one and the breeze in the other. Thus “Ober Shade” means nothing more than Ober pond; whilst “Stony Cross Shade” is a mere turfy plot. At times as many as a hundred cows or horses are collected together in one of these places, where the owners, or “Forest marksmen,” always first go to look after a strayed animal. Nearly every “Walk” in the Forest has its own “Shade,” called after its own name, and we find the term used as far back as a perambulation of the Forest in the twenty-second year of Charles II., where is mentioned “the Green Shade of Biericombe or Bircombe.”