Thoo mud end wiv a craw,
Bud if thoo’s seea feealish
Ez ti be pawky an’ pert,
Maist leyke thoo’ll start wiv a craw
An’ end up wiv a chirp.
The Yorkshireman is not one who believes in luck. Hard work, toil from early morn till night, is the daily lot of thousands. ‘Luck!’ said one; ‘ther is neea sike thing ez luck; what cums ti yan, ’ez ti be fetched. Good luck’s t’ best gitten at wiv a wet sark,’ i.e. with a shirt wet with perspiration through working hard. But hard work, if not applied in a proper and sensible manner, will result in failure: brute force is not everything. ‘T’ thickness gans for nowt if t’ roape isn’t lang eneeaf;’ i.e. the strength of a rope goes for nothing if it is too short.
Can better advice be given than is couched in the old saying of ‘Deean’t saay nowt on t’ deearstan at’ll rax ya ti preeave ower t’ thresho’d’? It is only one stride from the doorstep over the threshold, therefore it will be wise at all times to say nothing which will cause you infinite trouble to prove immediately afterwards.
The old saying, ‘Buckles borrow, brussen tag-holes beg,’ clearly points that our fore-elders had a pretty correct notion of human nature in their day. The short saying embodies much. If the status of those who needed assistance was such that they could afford to wear nice buckles on their shoes, such obtained help under the head of borrowing; but of those whose lace-holes were burst, and buckles altogether wanting, it was said they begged. Appearance goes a long way towards giving a name to our actions.
Again, ‘Pull t’ bobbin wi’ joy, bud knock wi’ sorrow,’ and ‘Ill news is shooted ti t’ reeaks, bud good news is whispered ti snahls[70],’ both tell the same story. In olden days a bobbin, attached by a string to the sneck within, hung outside every door. The saying urges us to haste with all speed to pull the bobbin and enter if we have good news, but with sorrow we are to be careful as to how we make it known. Again, an evil report, it would seem, has ever been urged on its hurtful career. The rook is a bird which is not only noisy, but flies far afield, whilst, as every one knows, the snail is silent and slow; but the truth of the old saying that ‘Evil news is shouted to the rooks, whilst good tidings is only whispered to the snails,’ is, we fear, as true to-day as when first uttered ages ago.
I will close this chapter with a few truisms, which fail to be hidden in the doggerel:—