This superstition has in one instance been productive of good. A few years ago an inhabitant of Threshfield kept a huge he-goat, which the wags of the village would sometimes turn into the lanes, in the night-time, with a chain about his neck, to frighten the farmers on their return from Kettlewell market. They once determined to terrify a badger, or miller, as he returned from the market, by driving the animal with the chains, &c. into the lane through which the man of meal was to pass. About ten o’clock the miller, on entering Threshfield with his cart, espies the goat; and hearing the chains, overwhelmed with terror, he conjectures it to be Bargest, that was sent to take him away for his dishonest dealings; the miller stops his cart, and kneeling down in it, thus prayed, to the great amusement of the young rogues behind the wall:—“Good Lord, don’t let the devil take me this time, and I’ll never cheat any more; do let me get safe home, and I’ll never raise my meal again so extravagantly as I have done of late.” He did get safe home, and was as good as his word till he discovered the trick, when he returned to his old malpractices; exemplifying the old epigram—
“The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be,
The devil got well, the devil a monk was he.”
In the second verse of the legend of “The Troller’s Gill,” it is said,
And the elfin band from faërie land
Was upon Elbōton hill.
Elboton is the largest of five or six very romantic green hills, that seem to have been formed by some tremendous convulsion of nature, at the foot of that fine chain of fells, which extends from Rylstone to Burnsall, and is said to have been, from “time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary,” the haunt of faëries; numbers of these pretty little creatures having been seen there by several men of honour and veracity in this neighbourhood, one of whom has had a faëry in his hand! The elfin train has been visible in many parts of our district, but I know of no place they frequent more than Elboton. One of these diminutive beings, called Hob, is reputed to be a watchful preserver of the farmer’s property, and a most industrious workman. At Close-house, near Skipton in Craven, Hob used to do as much work in one night as twenty human workmen could in the same time; and, as I have been informed by an individual, who resided there about twenty years ago, Hob was accustomed to house the hay, stack the corn, and churn the butter, as well as perform several other offices, which tended materially to lessen the labour of the husbandman and the dairy maid. The occupier of Close-house at that time, thinking to make Hob some return for his kindness and assiduity, laid out a new red cloak for him, which so offended the good faëry, that he ceased his labours, and left the place. On the spot where the cloak was left, the following stanza was found,
Hob red coat, Hob red hood,
Hob do you no harm, but no more good.[476]
Loupscar, alluded to in the third verse, is a place in the Wharfe near Burnsall, where the river is pent in with rocks, and boils along in a confined channel, and then discharges itself into a pool of tremendous depth, forming, as Dr. Whitaker says in his history, “a scene more dreadful than pleasing.” The channel of the Wharfe is in general craggy, and the river abounds with similar vortices to Loupscar; the two most celebrated of which are the Gastrills above Grassington, and the Strid, in Bolton woods. The latter will be recognised by the poetical reader, as the fatal gulf where the Boy of Egremond was drowned, whose story Rogers has versified with such exquisite pathos.
“The Troller’s Gill” is in Skyram pastures, beyond Appletreewick. I visited it a few days ago, when the torrent was considerably swollen by the recent heavy rains amongst the mountains. The roar of the water, the terrific grandeur of the overhanging crags, and its loneliness, united to heighten the terrors of the place. To an inhabitant of London, the scene of the wolf’s glen, in the Drury version of “Der Freischütz,” may give some faint idea of it. Dr. Whitaker thought Troller’s Gill “wanted the deep horror of Gordale,” near Malham. There is certainly more sublimity and grandeur about Gordale; but as to horror, I think it nothing to “the Troller’s Gill.” This, however, is a matter of taste.
The last verses allude to the beautiful and ancient custom, still universally prevalent throughout our district, of chanting a solemn dirge at funerals, till the corpse reaches the church-yard gateway. I know of nothing more affecting to a stranger than to meet, at evening, a funeral train proceeding along one of our romantic vallies, while the neighbouring rocks are resonant with the loud dirge sung by the friends of the departed. Long may this custom continue! Too many of our old customs fall into misuse by the ridicule thrown on them by dissenters, as being popish, &c.; but I am happy to say, that in Craven the dissenters are great encouragers of funeral dirges. In Mrs. Heman’s sacred melody, “Last Rites,” this stanza alludes to the practice:—
By the chanted psalm that fills
Reverently the ancient hills,
Learn, that from his harvests done,
Peasants bear a brother on
To his last repose!