Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales Part 31

The following very curious observations on this town are extracted from an anonymous MS. in my possession, written forty or fifty years ago. I have never seen the lines in print. Aubrey, in his Natural History of Wiltshire, mentions the plant called _Danes-blood_, and derives the name from a similar circ.u.mstance. Some observations on Sherston may be seen in Camden, ed. Gough, i. 96. It is Sceor-stan, where the celebrated battle between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes was fought in the year 1016, and prodigies of valour exhibited by the combatants.

"When a schoolboy, I have often traced the intrenchments at Sherston Magna, which are still visible on the north side of the town, and particularly in a field near the brow of a hill which overlooks a branch of the river Avon, which rises a little below Didmarton; and with other boys have gone in quest of a certain plant in the field where the battle was said to have been fought, which the inhabitants pretended dropt blood when gathered, and called Danesblood, corruptly no doubt for _Danewort_, which was supposed to have sprung from the blood of the Danes slain in that battle. Among other memorials, the statue of a brave warrior, vulgarly called Rattlebone, but whose real name I could never learn, is still standing upon a pedestal on the east side of the church-porch, as I've been lately informed, where I saw it above fifty years ago: of whose bravery, almost equal to that of Withrington, many fabulous stories are told. One, in particular, like some of the Grecian fables of old, built upon the resemblance his shield bears to the shape of a tile-stone, which he is said to have placed over his stomach after it had been ripped up in battle, and by that means maintained the field; whilst the following rude verses are said to have been repeated by the king by way of encouragement:

Fight on, Rattlebone, And thou shalt have Sherstone; If Sherstone will not do, Then Easton Grey and Pinkney too."

NORTH ACRE.

The Lord Dacre Was slain in North Acre.

North Acre is or was the name of the spot where Lord Dacre perished at the battle of Towton in 1461. He is said to have been shot by a boy out of an elder tree.

BELLASIS.

[Communicated by Mr. Longstaffe.]

Johnny tuth' Bellas daft was thy poll, When thou changed Bellas for Henknoll.

This saying, as given by Surtees, is still remembered near Bellasis, and is preferable to Hutchinson's version of it from the east window of the north transept of St. Andrew's Auckland church, where he says, "are remains of an inscription painted on the gla.s.s; the date appears 1386; beneath the inscription are the arms of Bellasys, and in a belt round them the following words:

Bellysys Belysys dafe was thy sowel, When exchanged Belysys for Henknowell."

Collins (followed by Hutchinson), who gives the proverb as-

Belasise, Bela.s.sis, daft was thy nowle, When thou gave Bella.s.sis for Henknowle,

connects it with a grant dated 1380, from John de Belasye to the convent of Durham, of his lands in Wolveston, in exchange for the Manor of Henknoll. But Bellasyse is not even within the Manor of Wolveston, and, in fact, the Manor of Bellasye was held by the Prior in 1361; and we can only account for the proverb by supposing that, at a former period, Bellasyse had been exchanged for lands, but not the manor of Henknoll.

The legend dates the matter in crusading times, and is chivalric in the extreme. John of Bellasis, minded to take up the cross, and fight in Holy Land, found his piety sorely let and hindered by his attachment to the green pastures and deep meadows of his ancestors. With resolution strong, he exchanged them with the Church of Durham, for Henknoll, near Auckland. He went to fight, but lived it seems to return and repent his rash bargain. I descend by one step, from the sublime to the ridiculous, to mention how oddly more recent characters are wound round those of olden time, for a popular notion is that the Red-Cross Knight had enormous teeth, and was pa.s.sionately addicted to "race-horses!"

Children, moreover, have a dark saying when they leap off anything:

Bellasay, Bellasay, what time of day?

One o'clock, two o'clock, three and away!

Miss Bellasyse, the heiress of Brancepeth, died for love of Robert Shafto, of Whitworth, whose portrait at Whitworth represents him as very young and handsome, with _yellow_ hair. He was the favorite candidate in the election of 1791, when he was popularly called Bonny Bobby Shafto; and the old song of the older Bobby, who, it seems, was also "bright and fair, combing down his _yellow_ hair," was revived with the addition of-

Bobby Shafto's looking out, All his ribbons flew about, All the ladies gave a shout- Hey, for Bobby Shafto!

The most ancient verses of the old song seem to be-

Bobby Shafto's gone to sea, Silver buckles at his knee; He'll come back and marry me, Bonny Bobby Shafto.

Bobby Shafto's bright and fair, Combing down his yellow hair; He's my ain for evermair, Bonny Bobby Shafto.

An apocryphal verse says,-

Bobby Shafto's getten a bairn, For to dangle on his arm- On his arm and on his knee; Bobby Shafto loves me.

KELLOE.

John Lively, Vicar of Kelloe, Had seven daughters and never a fellow.

An equivocal rhyme of the bishopric, which may either mean that the parson of the sixteenth century had no son, or that he had no equal in learning, &c. He certainly, however, mentions no son in his will, in which he leaves to his daughter Elizabeth, his best gold ring _with a death's head in it_ (Compare Love's Labour Lost, v. 2), and seventeen yards of white cloth for curtains of a bed, and to his daughter Mary his silver seal of arms, his gimald ring, and black gold ring. Another version of the proverb reads "_six_ daughters," and indeed _seven_ is often merely a conventional number.

ROSEBERRY-TOPPING.

"Not far from Gisborough is Ounsberry-hill, or Roseberry-topping, which mounts aloft and makes a great shew at a distance, serving unto sailors for a mark of direction, and to the neighbour inhabitants for a prognostication; for as often as the head of it hath its cloudy cap on, there commonly follows rain, whereupon they have a proverbial rhyme,

When Roseberry-topping wears a cap, Let Cleveland then beware a clap.

Near to the top of it, out of a huge rock, there flows a spring of water, medicinable for diseased eyes; and from thence there is a most delightful prospect upon the valleys below to the hills above."-Brome's Travels, 8vo. Lond. 1700.

LINCOLN.

"As for the town, though it flourished mightily for some years together after the Norman Conquest, by reason of a staple for wooll and other commodities, setled here by King Edward the Third; yet it met still with some calamities or other, which hindred its growth and eclipsed its grandeur, for it had its share of sufferings, both by fire and water, in King Stephen's days, about which time, it seems, though the king had at first been conquered and taken prisoner, yet he afterward entred into the city in triumph, with his crown upon his head, to break the citizens of a superst.i.tious opinion they held, that no king could possibly enter into that city after such a manner, but some great disaster or other would befal him; but neither did it then, or by the barons' wars afterwards, sustain half the damages which of late years it hath received from the devouring hands of time, who hath wrought its downfal, and from a rich and populous city hath reduced it almost to the lowest ebb of fortune; and of fifty churches, which were all standing within one or two centuries, hath scarce left fifteen; so that the old proverbial rhymes (which go current amongst them) seem so far to have something of verity in them:

Lincoln was, and London is, And York shall be The fairest city of the three."-Ibid.

SKIDDAW.

"After we had pa.s.sed these borders we arrived again safe in our own native soil, within the precincts of c.u.mberland, which, like the rest of the northern counties, hath a sharp piercing air; the soil is fertile for the most part both with corn and cattle, and in some parts hereof with fish and fowl; here are likewise several minerals, which of late have been discovered; not only mines of copper, but some veins of gold and silver, as we were informed, have been found; and of all the shires we have, it is accounted the best furnished with the Roman antiquities.

Nor is it less renowned for its exceeding high mountains; for, beside the mountain called Wrye-nose, on the top of which, near the highway side, are to be seen three shire-stones within a foot of each other, one in this county, another in Westmoreland, and a third in Lancashire.

There are three other hills, Skiddaw, Lanvalin, and Casticand, very remarkable. Skiddaw riseth up with two mighty high heads, like Parna.s.sus, and beholds Scruffel Hill, which is in Annandale, in Scotland; and accordingly as mists arise or fall upon these heads, the people thereby prognosticate of the change of weather, singing this rhime:

If Skiddaw have a cap, Scruffel wotts full of that.

And there goes also this usual by-word concerning the height, as well of this hill as of the other two:

Skiddaw, Lanvellin, and Casticand, Are the highest hills in all England."-Ibid.

INGLEBOROUGH.

"Here are three great hills, not far distant asunder, seeming to be as high as the clouds, which are Ingleborow, Penigent, and Pendle, on the top of which grows a peculiar plant called cloudsberry, as though it came out of the clouds. This hill formerly did the country much harm, by reason of an extraordinary deal of water gushing out of it, and is now famous for an infallible sign of rain whensoever the top of it is covered with a mist; and by reason of the excessive height for which they are all three celebrated, there is this proverbial rhime goes current amongst them:

Ingleborow, Pendle, and Penigent, Are the highest hills betwixt Scotland and Trent."-Ibid.

THE KIRBY FEIGHT.

Eighty-eight wor Kirby feight, When nivver a man was slain; They yatt ther meaat, an drank ther drink, An sae com merrily heaam agayn.

After the abdication of James the Second, in the year 1688, a rumour was spread in the North of England that he was lying off the Yorkshire coast, ready to make a descent with a numerous army from France, in hopes of regaining his lost throne. This report gave the Lord Lieutenant of Westmoreland an opportunity of showing his own and the people's attachment to the new order of things; he accordingly called out the _posse comitatus_, comprising all able-bodied men from sixteen to sixty.

The order was obeyed with alacrity; and the inhabitants met armed in a field called Miller's-close, near Kendal, from whence they marched to Kirby Lonsdale. This historical fact explains the above popular rhyme, the meaning of which is, at this day, perhaps not generally understood.-West. and c.u.mb. Dial. 89.