For the Table Book.
Hitchingstone Feast.—Cowling Moons.
On the highest part of Sutton Common, in Craven, is a huge block of solid granite, of about fifty yards in circumference, and about ten yards high. It is regarded as a great natural curiosity, and has for generations been a prominent feature in the legends and old wife’s tales of the neighbourhood. On the west side is an artificial excavation, called “The Chair,” capable of containing six persons comfortably, though I remember it once, at a pinch, in a tremendous thunder shower, containing eight. On the north side is a similar excavation, called “The Churn,” from its resemblance to that domestic utensil; on the top is a natural basin, fourteen yards in circumference. This stone is the boundary-mark for three townships and two parishes, viz. the townships of Sutton, Cowling, and Laycock, and the parishes of Kildwick and Keighley. From time immemorial it has been customary to hold a feast round Hitchingstone on the 1st of August, the amusements at which are of a similar nature with those of the village feasts and tides (as they are called in some places) in the vicinity, as dancing, racing, &c. At a short distance from Hitchingstone are two smaller stones, one on the east, called Kidstone, the other on the north-east, called Navaxstone; whence the three names are derived I am ignorant.
The inhabitants of Cowling, or Cowling-head, the village from which the township takes its name, are known in Craven as “Moons;” an epithet of derision, which is said to have had its origin from the following circumstance:—Cowling-head is a wild mountain village, and the inhabitants are not famed for travelling much; but it is told, that once upon a time, a Cowling shepherd got so far from home as Skipton, (six miles;) on entering Skipton it was a fine moonlight night, and the shepherd is said to have made this sagacious remark: “How like your Skipton moon is to our Cowling-head moon.” Be the story true or not, the inhabitants are called “Moons;” and in the vulgar vocabulary of Craven a silly fellow is called a “Cowling moon.” Not knowing a single inhabitant of Cowling I cannot speak of their civilization; but it does not say much for their advancement in knowledge, that the Joannites have a chapel amongst them, and remain true to their prophetess; who, as they suppose,
——— is but vanish’d from the earth awhile,
To come again with bright unclouded smile.
While residing a few days at a gentleman’s house in the neighbourhood, I frequently observed the Cowling Joannites, with their long beards, rambling up and down the fells. A friend likened them to the ancient Druid priests, but I thought they more resembled goats, and formed no bad substitute for that animal, which is almost wholly banished from the fells of the district.
He’s got t’Oil-bottle in his Pocket.
This is a Craven saying, and is applied to a person, who, like the heathen Janus, has two faces; in other words, one who acts with duplicity, who will flatter you to your face, and malign you behind your back. Alas! how many are there amongst all ranks, and in all places, who have “got t’oil bottles in their pockets.”
Swine Harry.
This is the name of a field on the side of Pinnow, a hill in Lothersdale, in Craven; and is said to have derived its name from the following singular circumstance. A native of the valley was once, at the dead of night, crossing the field with a pig which he had stolen from a neighbouring farmyard; he led the obstinate animal by a rope tied to its leg, which was noosed at the end where the thief held it. On coming to a ladder-style in the field, being a very corpulent man, and wishing to have both hands at liberty, but not liking to release the pig, he transferred the rope from his hands to his neck; but when he reached the topmost step his feet slipped, the pig pulled hard on the other side, the noose tightened, and on the following morning he was found dead. I believe this story to be a fact; it was told me by an aged man, who said it happened in his father’s time.