The Ballads and Songs of Yorkshire / Transcribed from Private Manuscripts, Rare Broadsides, and Scarce Publications; with Notes and a Glossary

ROSEBERRY TOPPING.

Roseberry, or Rosebury Topping, originally, it is said, called "Ottenberg," is a conical hill, situated at the north-west angle of the Eastern moorlands known as the Cleveland hills, near the village of Newton, about one mile to the east of the road from Guisbro' to Stokesley. It is about 1488 feet above the level of the sea, and, by its detatched position and superior elevation, it commands in all directions a prospect at once extensive and interesting, and serves as a land-mark to navigators.

Upon the top of the hill issues, from a large rock, a fountain of very clear water, to which the following very ancient tradition is connected. When king Oswald of Northumberland's son, Oswald, was born, the wise men and magicians were sent for to court, to predict and foretell the life and fortune of the newborn prince; they all agreed that he would when half a year old be drowned. The indulgent maternal queen would have carried him to Chiviot, a remarkable hill in their own county, but for the troubles then subsisting in the north; she, therefore, for his better security, brought him to a lofty hill in peaceful Cleveland, called Roseberry, and caused a cell or cave to be made near the top thereof, in order to prevent his foretold unhappy death. But, alas! in vain; for the fates, who spare nobody, dissolved the rugged rocks into a flowing stream, and, by drowning the son, put a period to all the mother's cares, though not her sorrows; for ordering him to be interred in Tivotdale (Osmotherley) church, she mourned with such inconsolable grief that she soon followed him, and was, according to her fervent desire, laid by her tenderly-beloved, darling child. The heads of the mother and son, cut in stone, may be seen at the east end of the church; and from a saying of the people, "Os by his mother lay," Tivotdale got the name of Osmotherley.

Ah! why do the walls of the castle to-day,

No longer resound with the strains of delight?

And why does the harp of the minstrel so gay,

Now rest in the gloom and the stillness of night?

But late as I travers'd these vallies long,

How high 'mid the air stream'd the banners of joy!

While the birth of prince Oswin, the boast of the song,

Gave mirth to each heart, as it beam'd in each eye.

What stranger art thou, who, in Cleveland so fair,

Of the fate of prince Oswin canst yet be untold?

How an old hoary sage had foreshown the young heir

By water should die when but half a year old!

His mother, all eager her offspring to save,

To Ottenberg high, with the morn did repair,

Still hoping to rescue her son from the grave,

For well did she know that no water was there.

But how powerless and vain is a mortal's design,

Opposed to that will which can never recede;

Who shall pull down the bright orb of heaven divine,

And raise up a meteor his rays to exceed?

Fatigued, and by ceaseless exertion opprest,

At length they arrive near the brow of the hill,

In whose shades on the moss they resign them to rest,

Now fearless of fate as unconscious of ill.

Not long in soft slumbers the fond mother lay,

Ere arous'd by a dream which dire horrors betide,

But, O God, who can paint her wild grief and dismay,

When she saw her lov'd baby lie drown'd by her side!

On the proud steep of Ottenberg still may be found,

That spring which arose his sad doom to complete;

And oft on its verge sit the villagers round,

In wonder recording the fiat of fate.

For this do the walls of the castle to-day,

No longer resound with the strains of delight;

And for this does the harp of the bard once so gay,

Now rest in the gloom of the stillness of night.[139]

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