[E296] Hoven cheese is occasioned by negligence in breaking the curd; and therefore Cisley deserves to be driven to creeks, or holes and corners, for her idleness and inattention.—M.
[E297] Tough or leathery cheese may arise from its being set too hot, or not worked up, and the curd broken in proper time.—M.
[E298] Various causes may bring on corruption in cheese, such as the use of beastings, or milk immediately after calving, moisture, bruises and such like.
[E299] Hairs in cheese can only arise from inexcusable carelessness, or from Cisley's combing and decking her hair in the dairy.
[E300] Magget the py = the magpie, a pun on the word magget, in its two meanings of 1. a maggot, 2. a magpie, commonly called in Prov. Eng. magot-pie, maggoty-pie, from mag, maggot = Meg, Maggie = Margery, Margaret, and pie; Fr. margot, old dimin. of Marguerite, and common name of the magpie. The line, therefore, reads, "If maggots be crawling in the cheese, fetch magget the py." "Pie, meggatapie."—Cotgrave. Cf. Shakspere, Macbeth, Act iii. sc. 4, 125.
[E301] "Cisley, in running after the Bishop in passing, as was the practice in former times, in order to obtain his blessing, might accidentally leave her milk on the fire; and on her return, finding it burnt to the pan, might probably curse the prelate for her mishap, which conduct deserved correction, or a left-handed blessing from her mistress." So Dr. Mavor. Mr. Skeat remarks in reference to it: "That stupid story makes me cross; it is such an evident invention, and no soul has ever adduced the faintest proof of any such practice. The allusion is far less circuitous, viz. to the bishops who burnt people for heresy. That they did so is too notorious." The following extract appears strongly to bear out Mr. Skeat's view: "When a thynge speadeth not well we borowe speach and say 'the byshope hath blessed it,' because that nothynge speadeth well that they medyll withall. If the podech be burned to, or the meate over rosted, we say 'the byshope has put his fote in the potte,' or 'the byshope hath played the coke,' because the byshopes burn who they lust, and whosoever displeaseth them."—Quotation from Tyndale's Obedyence of a Chrystene Man, 1528, p. 166, in Brockett, North Country Glossary, 1825, page 16. If we consider that these verses were written while the memory of the numbers who had suffered death at the stake for their religion was still fresh in the minds of the people, Mr. Skeat's view, borne out, as it is, by the foregoing extract, certainly appears the more reasonable and probable.
[E302] "Here reede": we may take this as meaning either "here read," or, adopting the older meaning of the word reede (A.S. ræd = advice, warning), as "hear my advice or warning."
[E303] "Take nothing to halues," that is, do nothing by halves.
[E304] "Tell fagot and billet," etc.; count your faggots and fire-wood, to prevent the boys and girls from pilfering it, so that when you come to fetch it you find "a quarter be gone." So also in the next stanza, watch the coal men filling the sacks, lest you should get short weight; and, when the coals are delivered, see the sacks opened, for fear the coal dealer and the carman should be 'two in a pack,' or 'harp on one string,' and between them you be defrauded.
[E305] "Philip and Jacob," that is, St. Philip and St. James' Day, May 1st. "When flocks were more uniform as to breed and management, lambs used to be separated from their dams on this day, for the purpose of tithing as well as milking."—M. "Requiem æternam," a portion of the Roman Catholic Service for the dead, hence "least requiem æternam in winter they sing" = lest they die in the winter from not having been allowed to become sufficiently strong before being taken from their dams, and thus being incapable of enduring the severity of the weather.