CHAPTER XI POPULAR PHRASES AND SAYINGS |
  To most people the details contained in the preceding chapter will seem but the dry bones of dialect speech; they would prefer the bones to be covered with sinews and flesh. Dialect speech as the embodiment of living, many-sided, human nature is perhaps nowhere so closely seen as in a collection of the figurative terms and phrases applied to people and things. Here we approach the unlimited humour displayed in the dialects. It is of all kinds—the ironical, the sage, the frankly jolly, the merely ridiculous. It takes every shape; we meet it in similes, metaphors, proverbs, and in various other forms which elude description. A characteristic form of humour, often combined with sarcasm, appears in those comparisons wherein the moods, habits, and actions of men are likened to those of birds, beasts, fishes, and even insects in real or imaginary situations. The following is a miscellaneous selection of similes: as awkward as a cat in pattens; as big as bull-beef, said of a conceited person; as black as the devil’s nutting-bag; as blue as a whetstone; as bug [self-satisfied, vain] as a pump with two spouts; as busy as bees in a basin, said when any one is busy about trifles; as busy as a cat in a tripe-shop; as clean as print; as cold as snow in harvest, said of any one who looks hard and unfeeling; as dark as a boot; as dark as a black cow’s skin, said of a very dark night; as dateless as a rubbin’-stoop [as stupid, insensible as a rubbing-post]; as dazed as a duck against thunder; as dazed as a goose with a nail in its head; as deaf as a beetle [a wooden mallet]; as deaf as a haddock; as drunk as mice, cp. ‘We faren as he that dronke is as a mous,’ Chaucer, Knightes Tale, l. 403, ‘Thou comest hoom as dronken as a mous,’ Wife of Bath’s Prol., l. 246; as dunch [deaf] as a door-post; as dutch [fine, affected in language] as a dog in a doublet; as dutch as a mastiff, said of one who assumes an air of innocence after having done some mischief; as fat as a modiwarp [a mole]; as fast as a midge in a treacle-pot; as fast as a thief in a mill [i.e. an old windmill, built on posts, and with only one way of ingress and egress]; as fine as a new-scraped carrot, used to describe any one who has dressed himself up smartly for any occasion; as flat as a flaun [a pancake, O.Fr. flaon]; as fond [foolish] as a besom; as fond as a poke [bag] of chaff with the bottom end out; as foul as a curn-boggart [as ugly as a scarecrow]; as friendly as a bramble-bush; as genny [fretful] as a bear with a sore lug [ear]; as greedy as a fox in a hen-roost, referring to the fact that a fox kills many more hens than he can eat; as good-natured as a pump; as green as a leek, cp. ‘His eyes were green as leeks,’ Mids. N. D. V. i. 342; as happy as pigs in muck; as happy as little pigs in new straw; as handy as a gimlet, said of any one who is quick and useful; as hard as a ground toad, said of any one who looks healthy and strong; as hardened as Pharaoh; as heart-sound as a cabbage, said of any one possessing a good constitution; as hungry as a June crow; as in and out as a dog’s hinder leg, said of any one not to be depended on; as keen [strong] as Samson; as lilty as tykes in a tramp-house [as light-hearted as vagrants in a tramps’ lodging-house]; as lonely as a milestone; as lonely as a steg [gander] in sitting-time, said of a bachelor living by himself; as mild as a moon-beam, said of a particularly mild and placid person; as narrow as a drink of water, said of a person excessively thin; as nimble as a cat on a hot backstone; as nimble as a cow in a cage, said of a person who is clumsy and awkward; as plain as a pack-staff. This refers to the pedlar’s staff which supports the pack on his back, and also serves to measure his wares, and which by constant wear on his journeyings becomes exceedingly smooth. The better known version—as plain as a pike-staff—is thought to be a corruption of pack-staff. As peart as a gladdy [as lively as a yellow-hammer]; as peart as a robin; as pleased as a dog with two tails; as poor as a rames [as thin as a skeleton]; as right as pie; as sackless as a goose; as safe as a church tied to a hedge, said when superfluous precaution has been used; as sharp as a weasel; as simple as a ha’porth of cheese; as simple as a ha’porth of soap in a washing-mug, i.e. as ineffectual as so small a quantity of soap would be in so large a vessel of water, mug here denoting a wash-tub; as slender in the middle as a cow in the waist, said of a very stout person; as slick as a oont [as smooth as a mole]; as slim as a barber’s pole; as soft-hearted as a rezzil [weasel], said of a person who is absolutely cruel; as sound as a trout; as sour as a grig, referring to grig, the wild bullace, not to the proverbial merry grig; as straight as a loach, an allusion to the swift direct motion of the loach; as sure as God’s in Gloucestershire, an allusion to the large number of churches and religious houses the county used to possess; as throng [busy] as a cobbler’s Monday, said in ridicule, because a cobbler is supposed to rest on Monday to work off the effects of a drinking bout at the week-end; as tough as a withy; as wakken as a witterick [as lively as a weasel]; as warm as a bee; as weak as a midsummer gosling; as weak as a wet dish-clout; as welcome as flowers in May, said to a friend entering the house; as welcome as snow in harvest, or as welcome as water in one’s shoon, said of an undesired guest; as whisht as a winnard, an allusion to the redwings which reach Cornwall in the late autumn, and are seen there in the winter in a very thin and miserably weak condition; as windy as a wisket [basket], said of a forgetful person; as yellow as a gollan [a corn-marigold]. Similes and Metaphors To look like a bit of chewed twine is to look worn out; the tears were running down his cheeks like beetles up a hill is said in ridicule of a child who is crying for nothing; to grin like a Cheshire cat chewing gravel, eating cheese, or brass wire. Charles Lamb once explained why a Cheshire cat is given to grinning: ‘I made a pun the other day, and palmed it upon Holcroft, who grinned like a Cheshire cat. (Why do cats grin in Cheshire?—Because it was once a county palatine, and the cats cannot help laughing whenever they think of it, though I see no great joke in it.)’ Letters, vol. i, p. 245. Like a chip in a mess of milk, or like a chip in porridge, said of a person or thing of no importance, useless; to stare like a choked throstle, or like a throttled earwig; like a cow handling a musket, said of a person doing something in a clumsy manner; to look like death on a mopstick is to look miserable; to work like Diggory is to work hard. The name Diggory was once a common Christian name. It occurs as the name of a farm labourer in Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer. To go like a dinner of broth is to go successfully without hitch or friction; short and sweet like a donkey’s gallop; to go buzzing away like a dumbley-dory [a bumble-bee] in a snoxun [a foxglove], or like a dumble-dore in a warming-pan, is said of a humdrum preacher; she’s like an old ewe dressed lamb-fashion is said of an old woman gaily dressed; she’s in and out of folkses housen like a fiddler’s elbow is said of a gossiping woman; to be like a fly in a glue-pot is to be in a state of nervous excitement; to have a memory like a frog-tail is to have a bad memory, or none at all; to be like a hen on a hot girdle is to be restless and impatient; off, like a jug handle; laid out like lamb and sallet is said of a person gaily dressed; it’s bare work and poor pay, like licking honey off a thorn, said of an employment yielding only a small and uncertain profit; lost like a lop in a barn, said of a person living in too big a house; to be like a pig in a well is to be without visible means of support; to be like a pig, to do no good alive, is said of a covetous and selfish man; it’s much cry for little wool, like shearing a pig; to mend like sour ale in summer is to grow worse and worse; to look like a sow with side-pockets is said of a person absurdly dressed; anything very useless is said to be of no more use than a side-pocket is to a toad, or an umbrella to a duck; like a sucking duck, said of a foolish person; it’s slow work, like sucking buttermilk out of a sieve; to follow any one like a Tantony pig is to stick as close to him as St. Anthony’s favourite is supposed to have done to the saint, cp. ‘Lord! she made me follow her last week through all the shops like a Tantiny pig,’ Swift, Polite Conv. i; to sit like a toad on a shovel, said of any one who has a very uncertain seat on horseback, and also of a person in a very uncertain condition of affairs; like a toad out of a tree—thump; to live or lead a life like a toad under a harrow is to suffer from ill-treatment or ill-usage; he’s like a Tom-noup [the great tit] on a round of beef, said of a swaggering, pretentious, little man; drinking to drown sorrow is like trying to sleck a fire with gunpowder; it runs in the blood like wooden legs. Conversational Allusions to Fictitious Persons or Things Beside these are the longer similes in the style of those conversational allusions for which Sam Weller is famous. For example: all asiden like Martha Roden’s twopenny dish, said of something aslant, out of the perpendicular; like the old cow’s tail, all behind, said when any one is behind-hand with work; all to one side like the handle of a jug; same’s the crow said by the heap of toads, all of a sort; same’s the old Tucker found his halfpenny, all to a heap; all together like Brown’s cows; like Morley’s ducks, born without a notion; it’s as broad as it’s long, like Paddy’s blanket, means that it matters not which of two ways a thing is done; clean gone, like the boy’s eye, and that went into his head; like Malachi’s child, choke-full of sense, said of any one who boasts of himself or of his children; to do things by degrees as the cat ate the pestle [shank or foreleg of an animal, especially of a pig]; as dirty as Thump-o’-Dolly, that died of being washed; dressed to death like Sally Hatch; forty save one like Obitch’s colt, applied to persons of a certain age who affect youthful manners; he’s like a pig-tail, going all day and nothing done at night; he’s like the parson’s fool, he likes everything that’s good; like Jan Trezise’s geese, never happy unless they be where they baint; hitty-missy, as the blind man shot the crow; nought’s impossible, as the old woman said when they told her the calf had swallowed the grindlestone; knoppy road, as the man said when he stumbled over a cow; as knowing as Kate Mullet, and she was hanged for a fool; you’re late, as Paddy Loughran said to the ghost; as lazy as Ludlam’s dog, that leaned up against the wall to bark; long in the legs like Nanny Panter’s hens; like lucky Jan Toy, who lost a shilling and found a twopenny loaf, applied to any one who is rejoicing over a small gain purchased at the expense of a greater loss; there’s more clout than pie, as the schoolboy said when he unwrapped his dinner; he won’t do it if he hasn’t a mind to, as the man said by his jackass; ’tis neat but not gaudy, as they said of the devil when they painted his body pea-green, and tied up his tail with red ribbons, said in ridicule of showy dress; don’t be in a hurry, it’s one at a time here, as the old woman said at the wirligog [turn-stile]; as queer as Dick’s hatband, that went nine times round and would not tie at last; like the quest [wood-pigeon] always saying ‘to do’, but everybody knows it makes the worst nest in the wood; thee beest a queer quest, as the boy said to the owl; quietness is best, as the fox said when he bit the cock’s head off; as throng as Throp’s wife when she hanged herself with the dish-clout, applied to a woman who is for ever busying herself about domestic affairs, but whose house and surroundings are nevertheless always untidy; you thought wrong, like Hob’s hog, which, it is said, when the butcher went into the sty to kill it, fancied its breakfast was coming. To catch a person napping, as Moss caught his mare, is a saying which occurs as far back as 1641 in Taylor’s works. To sit like Mumchancer who was hanged for saying nothing contains an allusion to an old game of chance played with cards or dice, at which silence was essential. Figurative and Metaphorical Terms and Phrases Amongst the figurative and metaphorical terms and phrases are: ankle-biters, children, e.g. I had too many little ankle-biters to save much; abbey-lubber, an idle person, a loafer. This is a very old word occurring in Cotgrave, and also in Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary, in the latter it is defined as: ‘a slothful loiterer in a religious house, under pretence of retirement and austerity.’ The blacksmith’s daughter, a padlock; a bread-and-cheese friend, a true friend, as distinguished from a cupboard-lover; bread, or potatoes and point, a meal of bread, or potatoes, only; calf-lick, a tuft of hair growing on the human forehead, which will not part or lie flat; calf’s tongue, a person who is, according to occasion, mild-spoken or harsh-spoken, like the tongue of a calf, smooth on one side and rough on the other; cat-lick, a hasty, indifferent washing; cat-malison, a recess or cupboard in the ceiling, in which meat, &c., is hung, called the cat’s curse because from its position it was secure from the cat; a churn-milk [buttermilk] study, reverie, a brown study; clash-bag, a tale-bearer, a scandal-monger; cobbler’s pork, bread; cold turkey pie, bread and cheese; countryman’s treacle, garlic; a duck’s frost, a slight frost, or none at all, also a drizzling rain; fly-by-sky, a giddy, flighty person; hearthstone talk, boastful talk, promises made at night and not intended to be kept in the morning; hopping-Giles, a cripple, so named from St. Giles, the especial patron of cripples; a lawyer, a long thorny stem of bramble or briar; a lick and a promise, a slight, ineffectual washing, any work done in a perfunctory manner; a messenger, a sunbeam, a small detached cloud betokening rain; Methody cream, or milk from the brown cow, rum in tea; milestone-bread, shouting-cake, or Here be I, where be you? bread, cake, or pudding in which the currants or raisins are far apart; Miss Nancy, an effeminate man, especially one conspicuous for outward adornment, but deficient in common sense; muck-spout, a person who uses filthy language; news-poke, a gossip; nip-curn [-currant], nip-fig, nip-raisin, a person so stingy that he would nip a raisin in two; the one-armed landlord, a pump; pea-swad [-pod] days, young days; the poor man’s piano, a wringing-machine; poverty-engine, a tea-kettle; Prince-town College, Dartmoor prison; a pump without a handle, any person or thing that is quite unfit to discharge the office which he or it has to fill; Purdy’s lantern, the moon; sike-fat [rill-fat], water used instead of fat in making cakes, puddings, &c.; a snail’s gallop, a very slow pace; snow-blossom, a snowflake; a stepmother’s blessing, a loose piece of skin at the base of the finger-nail; a Sunday saint and Monday sinner, a pseudo-religious person; tea-kettle broth, weak tea, or broth made of bread, hot water, and an onion or two; tongue-bang, to scold, abuse; water-bewitched, weak tea or ale; a winter Friday, a cold, wretched-looking person; a wooden cloak, dress or sark, a coffin. To tell a long story without much point is to beat the Devil round the gooseberry-bush; to be lazy is to have Lawrence on one’s back; Lawrence bids high wages is said of a person who is rendered almost incapable of work by the heat of the weather, or who yields to it too willingly; the boy’s gone by with the cows, and the snap’s down, are sayings addressed to one who has lost a certain opportunity, and is now too late; a person who has fallen into trouble by his own foolishness or misconduct says: Ah’ve browt me pigs tiv a bad mahkit; to make a bad bargain is to sell a hen on a rainy day, cp. ‘Never mind our son, cried my wife; depend upon it he knows what he is about. I’ll warrant we’ll never see him sell his hen of a rainy day. I have seen him buy such bargains as would amaze one,’ Vicar of Wakefield, chap. xii; a person who has been deceived once, and will not be so again, says: Ah’ve been ta Jerry berrin’ [Jerry’s funeral]; it’s all along of Colly Weston, said when anything goes wrong, bears reference to a very old phrase found as early as 1587. Collywest, or collyweston, is an adverb or adjective meaning askew, not straight or level. Of a project or undertaking that has failed it is said: That cake’s all duff [dough]. A Warwickshire folk-rhyme runs: O, dear, O! My cake’s all dough, And how to make it better I do not know. Shakespeare uses the phrase twice in the Taming of the Shrew, I. i. 110; V. i. 145; and it occurs in Don Quixote, translated by Jervas: ‘The duchess’s cake was dough, as the saying is, till she had read her letter.’ To be all mops and brooms is to be bewildered; to be all skin and grief is to be half-starved, of a melancholy disposition; anything peculiarly agreeable is said to be honey and nuts; a rich fool is said to carry his brains in his breeches-pocket; to make a great show on insufficient means is to carry a tight swagger [ship’s flag] on a rotten mast; a person singing or whistling badly is told that he would charm the heart of a wheelbarrow; goa tell thy mother to cheÄn ugly up is a remark often made to a pouting, ill-tempered child; choose how the cat jumps is a phrase equivalent to by hook or by crook; to comb the head with a three-legged stool is to beat, knock, cp. ‘... doubt not her care should be To comb your noddle with a three-legg’d stool,’ Tam. of Shr. I. i. 63; of the return of a penniless scapegrace it is said he’s coming home with Penny Liggan, or Peter Lacken, probably the original phrase was penny lacking; a person with a sharp temper is asked: Did ye come past the smithy?; a disagreeable person is told that he looks sour enough to come [curdle] a cheese; of a very blunt knife it is said that it would cut butter if it was hot; to attempt the impossible is to cut smoke with a leather hatchet, to eat stir-pudding with an awl, to sup sowens [oatmeal and water] with an elshin [a shoemaker’s awl], to gape against a red-hot oven, to get blood from a turnip, to stop an oven with butter, to throw straws at the wind; the dule’s had o’ th’porritch an’ the Lord’s nobbot getten th’pon for t’scrape is said of a death-bed repentance; a person belonging to a different religious denomination to that of the speaker is said to dig with the wrong foot; of a draught in a room it is said that it would deet [winnow] potatoes; of a weak person or animal it is said he can’t dint into a pound of butter; to eat rue-pie signifies to repent, regret; to eat bread dipped in fried water is to live poorly; when a horse is left standing outside a door, especially of a public-house, it is said to be left to eat sign-post hay, or sneck [latch] hay; sparrow-pie, or sparrow-pudding is a dish supposed to make a person preternaturally sharp, e.g. Her’s purty flip this morning, idden her? I rakkon her’th abin ayting sparrer-pie; Bless her heart! aw could ate her wi’ a butter-cake! is a rustic compliment; highly complimentary also is the saying: Hoo’s an e’e i’ her yed at ’ud fot a duck off th’ wayter; a long and dull discourse is said to be enough to deafen a spider; something irritating and provoking is said to be enough to urge the blood of Peter Cockerel; Fare thee well, Oula, is an expression used when parting from something one is not likely to see again; to a person smiling or laughing for no apparent reason it is said: What bist thee a-loffin’ at? I sh’d think thee ’adst fund a tiddy-obbin’s nist un’ wus a-loffin’ at the young uns; I never flacker my wings ower t’edge o’ my awn nest means that I never go beyond the bounds of my own circumstances; to fly up with Jackson’s hens is to be bankrupt; to gather or sow gape-seed is to stare about, to stare out of a window; to gather strings, or to pick up one’s crumbs, is to regain one’s health after an illness, e.g. Our Liz bin ter’ble bad, her was a’most come to a nottomy [skeleton], but her’s pickin’ up her crooms again now like, thank th’Almighty; to get one’s kale through the reek [smoke] signifies to get a good scolding; a very tall and lazy person is told to go and get measured for a pikel [pitchfork]; of a very dull, unintelligent person it is said: He’s getten a head and so has a mell [mallet]; of a scolding woman it is said: Hoo’s getten a tung sharp enough for t’shave a urchant [hedgehog]; Eh, what a tail our cat’s got! is said at the sight of unwonted finery and conceit; when the head of the family has introduced various members of the family into the same employ it is said that the fingers have got pretty close to the thumb; of a mean man it is said: He’s a rare good customer wheer they’re givin’ things away for nowt; an undecided person, wanting in manly straightforwardness is said to go betwix the oak and the rind; a person living beyond his means is said to graze beyond his tether; a man who invites friends during his wife’s absence is said to hang out the besom; He’s hing’d his fiddle on the door-sneck is said of a man in a bad temper; a person completely happy and independent may say: I wo’dn’t thenk ye to hev th’ Queen for my aunt; of a haughty woman it is said that she will hardly know the Queen’s cousin; of a coward it is said that he has no more heart than a dumbledory; of a child who repeats sentences or opinions picked up from his father it is said: He’s heard the old cock crow; to heat or warm up old broth signifies to renew an old courtship; of scant fare received in another person’s house it is said that the shelf was pretty high; to keep on good terms with any one is to keep the wheel in the nick; a person using large means for very small ends is said to be killing clocks [beetles] with clubs; a person supposed to be thoroughly acquainted with any particular matter is said to know both the hare and the hare-gate; a state bordering on starvation is described as lean lickin’ o’ thibles [sticks for stirring porridge]; to marry for money and then to be discontented with one’s lot is to like the boose [stall for a cow] but not the ring-stake; a man who marries for money, and whose wife turns out to be a scold, is said to wed t’midden for t’muck and be puizened wi’ t’stink; to live or die an old maid is to live the life or die the death of Jenkin’s hen[2]; not to be deterred from anything by blustering talk is to live too near the wood to be frightened by an owl; to a tardy messenger it is said: Theaw’rt th’reet mon for t’send for sorrow—theaw’rt so lung uppo th’road; to be in a state of bewilderment or confusion is to look two ways for Easter, or to look seven ways for Sunday; of a person who squints it is said that he was born in the middle of the week, and looked both ways for Sundays; a man not to be depended upon is said to be loose in the haft, not to be trusted further than you could throw a pig by the soaped tail; If a mak an erran’ tae yer face, it ’ill no be tae kiss ye is an expression of anger; a very cold wind is said to make thin linings, i.e. to make one’s clothes feel thin, My word! but it’s a thin wind this morning, it’ll go through you before it’ll go round you; to discourse pointlessly or beyond the mark is to milk over the can; there’s a mule in the garden signifies that something unpleasant is going on; of a person who has said or done something foolish it is said that he is plagued with the simples; to do anything in the slowest possible way, to work ineffectually, is to plough with dogs; to sew hurriedly and badly is to put in a stitch for a friend; to attempt to improve a thing which is already perfect is to put butter on bacon; to take away one’s appetite is to put one by one’s porridge, e.g. What, thoo’ll nivver come nar neea mair? Let me tell thi that’ll put nin on us by wer poddish; they don’t put up their horses together means that they are not friendly together; when something has interfered to prevent an arrangement being carried out it is said that the pigs ran through it; an old woman’s rock-staff [distaff] is a contemptuous expression for a silly superstitious fancy; of an impudent person it is said that he has rubbed his face with a brass candlestick; of a person given to petty and ‘penny-wise’ economies it is said that he saves at the spigot and lets it run out at the bung-hole; to consent readily is to say sniff if another says snaff; to earn one’s bread laboriously before one eats it is to scrat before one pecks; a person complaining of want of sociability or kindness amongst neighbours will say: ’Er didn’t say as much as Set down, dog, or: There isn’t one as’ll so much as look in and say Dog, how beest?; when milk is burnt, and adheres to the sides of the saucepan, it is said that the bishop has set his foot in it. This is a very old saying, cp. Tusser, Husb., ‘Blesse Cisley (good mistris) that Bishop doth ban For burning the milk of her cheese to the pan’; and Tindale, Obedience of a Christen Man (1528), ‘Yf the podech be burned to, or the meate over rosted, we saye the bysshope hath put his fote in the potte, or the bysshope hath playd the coke, because the bysshopes burn who they lust and whosoever displeaseth them.’ Of a very thin person it is said that he shames his pasture; of hollow friends it is said: They’ll shak ye by t’hand an wish your airm off by t’elbow; of a tedious caller it is said: She’ll sit a hen-sit; of a stingy, niggardly person it is said that he would not part wi’ t’reek off his keal, and that he would skin a toad for the hide and tallow; of an avaricious person it is said that he would steal the cross off an ass, i.e. the dark marks across its shoulders; to idle about the streets gossiping is to spin street-webs; a description of poor fare is stare and stand back—three jumps at the pantry door and a drink of cold water; of a bow-legged person it is said that he couldn’t stop a pig in a snicket; to have a sad life is to sup sorrow by spoonfuls; to pay attention to one’s own faults is to sweep up one’s own doorstep; of a very loquacious person it is said that he would talk a butt of bees to death, or talk a dog’s hind leg off; of a tedious person it is said that he would weary a growing tree; to tell improbable stories is to tell dildrams and Buckingham Jenkins; to attract by good feeding is to tether by the teeth; to a thriftless and extravagant wife it is said: Don’t throw your property out of the door with a spade while your husband is bringing it in through the window with a spoon; of a bachelor it is said that he trails a light harrow, his hat covers his family; of a person who has known sorrow or misfortune it is said that the black ox has trodden on his foot. This saying occurs in our early literature, cp. Tusser, Husb., ‘Why then do folke this prouerbe put, The blacke oxe neare trod on thy fut, If that way were to thriue?’; and Lyly, Sapho and Phao (1584), ‘She was a pretie wench, when Juno was a young wife. Now crowesfoote is on her eye, and the black oxe hath trod on her foot.’ To quit a business at a critical point is to unyoke in the sherd [gap in the hedge]; to like to have one’s own way is to want the water to run in one’s own ditch; a person who boasts of doing difficult things is asked if he can whistle and chew meal; to go whistling jigs to a milestone is a phrase used of any fruitless attempt or impossible undertaking; I wish I had our cat by t’tail is said by people a long way from home and fireside; to work overtime without receiving extra pay is to work for the Queen; to do work for which the pay has been already drawn is to work on a dead horse. Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings Proverbs and proverbial sayings are very numerous in all the dialects, generally introduced in plain epigrammatical style, but sometimes preluded by: It’s an owd sayin’, an’ it’s a true un.... The following specimens may be taken as a fair sample of the whole. It will be seen that some are merely dialect readings of well-known lit. Eng. proverbs, e.g. It’s th’yarly bird as gollaps th’wurm; others convey the same meaning, but under a different figure to that with which we are familiar, e.g. To give apples to orchards, beside the ordinary lit. Eng. To carry coals to Newcastle. It’s bad clicking butter out of a dog’s throat; a bealing coo soon forgets it cauf; the beard won’t pay for the shaving; a blate [timid] cat makes a proud mouse; co [call] thi own cawves t’gether an’ le’ mine come whoam o’ thersels; kaa [call] me an’ aa’ll kaa thee = one good turn deserves another; a child and a chicken should always be pickin’; christen your own child first = charity begins at home; a deaf man hears hae [have, take this]; wan’s as dip i’ the mood as t’oother i’ the moire = it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other; dumb folks heirs no land, said when anything is to be obtained by speaking; it’s easy holding down the latch when nobody pulls the string, usually applied to a woman who boasts about remaining single; way mut all ate a peck o’ dut afore way doy, a saying commonly supplemented with: but non on us wants it all at woonst; empty barrels make the most noise; what do you expect from a pig but a grunt?; those who can’t fadge must louster, said of people who increase their physical labour by want of foresight, cp. his head doesn’t save his heels; them at feals [hide] can find; a feeal’s bolt is seean shotten, cp. ‘Sottes bolt is son i-scoten,’ Prov. Alfred, c. 1275; there’s never a gant [yawn] but there’s a want of mate, money, or sleep, cp. ‘Them that gant Something want, Sleep, meat, or making o’,’ Galt, Sir Andrew Wylie, 1822; if ye’ve got one [i.e. child] you can run, If ye’ve got two you may goo, But if ye’ve got three You must bide where you be; ther’s no gettin’ white meeol eawt of a coal-seck = you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear; geea ne hetter kail nor ye can sup yorsel; half an egg’s better an a team’d shell = half a loaf’s better than no bread; hantle o’ whistlin’ an’ little red lan’ [ploughed land] = much cry and little wool; have a little, give a little, let neighbour lick the mundle [stick for stirring porridge] = charity begins at home; the hailer is zo bad as tha stailer, cp. Germ. Der Hehler ist so gut wie der Stehler; every yerrin’ should hang by it own gills; a hundred words won’t fill a bushel; a hungry eye sees far; hunger’s famous kitchen [relish eaten with bread]; an idle mon’s yed’s the divvle’s smithy; if stands stiff in a poor man’s pocket; If ifs and an’s Were pots an’ pans There’d be naya trade for tinklers; If ifs an’ buts Were apples an’ nuts, Wouldn’t I fill my guts; a bad shearer [reaper] nivvor gat a good hyuk = bad workmen abuse their tools; never invite a friend to a roast and then beat him with the spit; nivver judge a blade by t’heft; the kail-pot’s callin’ the yetlin [pan] smutty; it isn’t oft at t’kittlin’ carries t’owd cat a maase; to learn one’s granny to lap ashes; they might lick thooms to the elbows = one is as bad as the other; a little word is a bonny word = least said, soonest mended; it is not good to live where you can hear your lord’s cock crow; ye may lock afore a haand-tief, but no afore a tongue-tief; A man may spend And God will send If his wife be good to ought, But man may spare and still be bare If his wife be good to nought; those that have marbles may play, but those that have none must look on; to measure a peck out of one’s own bushel is to judge of another’s disposition or experience by one’s own; meeat is mickle but mense [goodness, courtesy] is mair; iv’ry megullat [owl] thinks her own bubs best; the mellerest apple hes a crawk [core] i’side; o’er muckle water drowned the miller; a nimble ninepence is better than a slow shilling; peekle in yer ain pwoke neuk = mind your own business; Pity without relief Is like mustard without beef; pull the bobbin with joy, bud knock wi’ sorrow; a raffle [foolish] tung an’ a race-hoss gan t’faster t’leeter wight tha hug [carry]; a rolling stone gathers no moss, but a tethered sheep winna get fat; save thy wind to keel thy porridge; never scaud your lips in ither folk’s kail; seein’s believin’, but feelin’s God’s truth; when I see shells I guess eggs = there’s no smoke without a fire; it’s nouther seeds nor meal = neither one thing nor another; a shift and a shilling is worth thirteen pence, i.e. an expedient or contrivance will increase the value of anything, and make it go further; as well sit teum [empty] as run teum = better make the best of a bad bargain; skeer [rake out] your own fire; he maun be seun up that cheats the tod [fox]; never speak ill of the bridge that carries you; don’t stretch thi arms farther nor thi sleeves reyks [reach]; ye mauna think to win through the world on a feather-bed; Them as ’oon thrive Mun rise at five. Them as have thriven May lie till seven; tiggers should not be tarrowers = beggars should not be choosers; if a man tinkles, he must expect to be grimed; to tirr [unroof] the kirk to theek the quire = to rob Peter to pay Paul; Twoast yer bread An’ rasher yer vlitch, An’ as long as e lives Thee ’ooll never be rich; the toll is heavier than the grist = the game is not worth the candle. Formerly the miller always took his payment in a toll of the corn, a custom alluded to in a metaphorical epitaph found in Surrey on the tombstone of a miller: O cruel Death, what hast thou done, To take from us our mother’s darling Son? Thou hast taken toll, ground and drest his grist, The bran lieth here, the flour is gone to Christ. A toom purse makes a blate merchant; other tow to teaze, other oats to thrash = other fish to fry; dunna waste a fresh haft on an ould blade = don’t throw good money after bad; there’s aye some water where the stirk [heifer] drowns; better wed over the mixen than over the moor; the well is not missed until it is dry; better a wet mitten than a cold hand; t’wheem sew yets t’draff [the still sow eats the pig-wash]; A whistling woman and a crowing hen Will fear the old lad out of his den; he that will to Cupar maun to Cupar = a wilful man must have his way. An interesting elucidation of the common proverb: Don’t spoil your ship for a ha’porth of tar, is given by comparison with the dialect version of it, which remains faithful to the original. The saying Dunnot loaz t’yow [ewe] for a hawporth o’ tar, i.e. do not be niggardly or over-economical in farming, is recorded as far back as 1636 in the form ‘hee that will loose a sheepe (or a hogge) for a pennyworth of tarre cannot deserve the name of a good husband’. It thus becomes clear that our word ‘ship’ is here a dialect form of sheep, and that the ha’porth of tar does not signify the remedy for a leaking vessel, for which it would be wholly inadequate, but the means for marking the owner’s initial on a sheep’s back to prevent its being unrecognized when found straying. The introduction of spoil for lose is no doubt due to the misunderstanding of ‘ship’. Phrases referring to Time We noted at the beginning of Chapter II some examples of the multifarious expressions which can be found in the dialects for one simple idea, but a few more may be added here: a moment of time, instantly, is: in a couple of cat-squints, in half a dozen cracks of a cobbler’s thumb, in two claps of a lamb’s tail, in the fillin’ o’ a pipe, in a pig’s whisper, in the shaking of an ass’s lug, in the snifter [sniff, snort] of a rabbit, in the snirt of a cat, in the twinkle of a bed-post, and—commonest of all—in a twink, cp. ‘That in a twink she won me to her love,’ Tam. of Shr. II. i. 312; never is: o’ St. Pawsle’s [Apostle’s], at Tib’s Eve, on Whistlecock Monday, in the reign of Queen Dick, midsummer-come-never, to-morrow-come-never, next neverstide, when apples grow on orange-trees, when there are two moons in the lift [sky], when there are two Fridays in the week, when two Sundays come together, the first Sunday in the middle of the week, some Sunday in next week, a week of three Sundays; a long, indefinite period of time is: from seven year end to seven year end, for years long years and donkey’s ears; a place far off and solitary is: aback o’ beyond, or aback o’ beyont where they kessen [christen] cawvs and knee-band lops [fleas], behind God speed, up atop o’ down yonder miles-endy-ways; to go to Jericho is to go to Buckhummer, or to gill-kickerty. A person who is half-witted, or slightly insane is said to have a leaf out, to have nought but what was put in with a spoon, to be a bit of a toby-trot, to be sort o’ comical in his head, to be gone past hisself, to be half-rocked, nobut ninepence to the shilling, not exactly plumb, not up to Monday, one of God’s oddlin’s, put in wi’ the bread and a’tookt out wi’ the cakes like. Phrases referring to Death The phrases referring to death are of many kinds, some cold and commonplace, some grim, and a few almost poetical. Amongst them are: he has put his spoon in the wall; he is gone to the mole country; he is singing Whillalooya to the day nettles; he’s gone deeod sure enough, an’ iv he’s ta’en his brass wi’ him it’ll be melted bi neaw; thou’l niver be satisfied til thoo gets thi moothful a mould is a phrase used to a grumbling, discontented person; he’s nowt good for till he’s happed up [buried, lit. covered], said of a miserly churl; they’ve a-putt poar ol’ Bill tÜ beyd wi’ a showl [shovel] tÜday; of a delicate person not yet old, it is said he’ll never carry a grey toppin’ whoam; of a person too ill to be likely to recover it is said: I fear he’s boun’ up padjan-tree; the sexton has shaked his shool at him; of an old man in failing health it is said he’s going down the brewe [brow, hill]; it’s welly [wellnigh] six o’clock with him, six o’clock being the hour at which labourers, when it is light, leave off work; he’s gettin’ into th’ linderins. The linderins or lindrins are ropes put round a weaver’s beam when the woof is nearly finished, and the term is applied thus figuratively to the approaching end of an old man’s life. And then, when the end has come, like the hand-loom weaver whose work is finished: he’s ta’en his reed and gears in at last. There is something picturesque in the use of the phrase to go home applied to trees and flowers. My gardener always speaks of a dead plant or a withered blossom as having gone home. Evasive Replies to the Inquisitive There are certain curious expressions used in the dialects as replies to children and inquisitive questioners when the person addressed does not mean to give the desired information. For example, answers to the question What’s that? are: rare overs for meddlers; lay-overs for meddlers, and crutches for lame ducks; shimshams for meddlers; a trina-manoose; a whim-wham for a mustard mill, or for a treacle-mill, a whim-wham to wind the sun up. What are you making? Ans. A snoffle [snout] for a duck. What are you doing? Ans. Muckin’ ducks wi’ an elsin. What have you got in the cart there? Ans. Only a load of post-holes. What did that cost? Ans. Money and fair words. Where did that come from? Ans. I got it from the Binsey treacle-mine (Oxf.). What’s the latest news? Ans. The Dutch have taken Holland. Where is he gone? Ans. To Botn’y Baay and theÄre he maay staay. How old are you? Ans. As owd as me tongue an owder than me teeth. How old was So-and-So (lately deceased)? Ans. Oh! I reckon he lived same’s Tantarabobus—all the days of his life. Why did you do that? Ans. For fun and fancy, because Bob kissed Nancy. What will you bring us from the Fair? Ans. If you’ll be good children, I’ll bring you all a silver new-nothing to hang on your arm. Salutations Dialect forms of greeting are usually short and comprehensive. It is not uncommon for a rustic to pass the time of day with a friend met on the road by the use of a single monosyllable. All forms of salutation, from the single monosyllable to the interchange of a few remarks, may be termed passing the time o’day. This expression is current in practically all the dialects of England, e.g. A niver stopped to speak to ’im, on’y just passed the time o’ day, cp. ‘But meet him now, and, be it in the morn, When every one will give the time of day, He knits his brow,’ 2 Hen. VI, III. i. 14, ‘Good time of day unto my gracious lord!’ Rich. III, I. i. 122. Noo! is a common greeting in the North when two friends meet. There are various forms of inquiry after the well-being of the person addressed, e.g. Well, an’ how be ’ee to-day? Purty bobbish, thank-ee. Are ye middlin’ weel? Hoo’s a’ wi’ ye? On a grey day among the Yorkshire moors every native one meets salutes one with the single word Dull! If the weather be fine he will say in passing, Grand day! If wet, his greeting will be: Soft weather! or, A soft day! A story is told of two Irishmen who thus greeted each other when they met at a Fair: Bad luck to you, Pat, says one, How are you? Good luck to you! Mick, answered the other, and may neither of them come true. A common Devonshire salutation at meal-times is Gude stummick to ee wan an’ all, a phrase which from its like significance might claim country-cousinship with the after-dinner greeting ‘Gesegnete Mahlzeit’ of North Germany. A Cornish grace before meat runs: Lord mek us able To eat what’s upon table, followed by: The Lord be praised Our stummicks be aised. Outspoken phrases of this kind have their charm, when they proceed from simple, honest hearts. After a long morning walk on a Yorkshire moor, plates of home-made cake, and tumblers of new milk, spread in a farm-house kitchen with the homely invitation, Reik tul, an’ mak yersens at ’oam, can be a meal which will linger in the memory long afterwards as a feast of fat things, and wines on the lees well refined. Reach to, in its various forms, is the ordinary phrase in the northern dialects, e.g. Noo reeach teea an’ help yersels, ther’s nowt ya need be neyce [shy] aboot, an’ ya needn’t mak spare ov owt; Noo, deean’t be owre neyce, reach tul an’ git agait; Noo you munnot be shy and owernice, but mak a lang airm to what you like best. The guest may reply: Ah sal lad, ah sal bide noa assing [await no asking]; I’s ower meeat-yabble [hungry] to be blate [bashful]. Not this time, thank you, is a polite way of declining to take any more food at the hospitable board, and when the guest leaves the house he says: Well, a mun love ye, and leave ye. Phrases denoting Contempt Turning from the language of courtesy and good-feeling to that of contempt and derision, we shall find in the dialects a rich variety of expressions of a still more outspoken and forceful character. For example: Me gwain to have thick [that] hangdog-looking fuller!—why, I widn be azeed in a ten-acre field way un; Au wodn’t be seen at a hen-race wi’ thee; Thee jump up an’ knep [pick] a daisy; He don’t care for kith, kin, hog, dog, nor devil; Her temper’ll ne’er be meawlt [mouldy] wi’ keepin’; Thou gert lang-catching buzzard; Old cinderwig; You’re a nice cup o’ tea, you are, said to a person who thinks himself a fine fellow; Thou gaumless donnat [stupid good-for-nothing]; ’Er’s a vigger ov nort, ’er is; A jolter-yeded gawpsheet; Old gimlet-eye; Thoo gert idle honk, thoo; Shoo is a pullet, shoo goes abaht like a guytrash; A ragabrash slitherin’ owd raskald; Wor hes thoo been aw this time, thoo sledderkin, thoo?; Tomnoddy, big heed an’ little body, a street-boy’s gibe at a person of dwarfish stature. Phrases applied to Localities Corresponding to the figurative and proverbial similes and sayings of a general nature are the more strictly local ones, recording some feature of the locality, some current tradition, or some real or imaginary characteristic of the inhabitants of a special town or county, for example: all on one side like Bridgnorth Election, said of anything which is oblique or out of the perpendicular. The saying is supposed to refer to the fact that members of the Tory Whitmore families of Apley, near Bridgnorth, have, with rare exceptions, represented the borough in Parliament from 1663 onwards for over two hundred years. All on one side like Marton Chapel (Chs.); all on one side like Parkgate, said of anything lopsided. Parkgate is a fishing village on the Cheshire side of the river Dee, consisting of one long street with houses on one side only, the sea wall being on the other side. All play and no play, like Boscastle Market, which begins at twelve o’clock and ends at noon (Cor.); always too late like Mobberly clock (Chs.); to end in a whew, like Cawthorne feast, said of anything which ends badly or never comes to pass (w.Yks.); like a Whillymer cheese, it wants an axe and a saw to cut it (n.Cy.); it’s gone over Borough Hill after Jackson’s pig, said when anything is lost. Borough Hill is an extensive Roman encampment near Daventry. ’Tis as long in coming as Cotswold barley, applied to things which are slow but sure. This proverb, alluding to the slow growth and ultimate excellence of Cotswold corn, is amongst those collected by Ray in 1678. Ship-shape and Bristol fashion signifies respectability, steadiness, stolidity; he has been sworn in at Highgate, is said of a man who is very sharp or clever (n.Der.). The custom of swearing on the horns at Highgate near London is described in Hone’s Everyday Book, 1827. As big as Russell’s wagon (Cor.). This was a huge wagon for the conveyance of goods and passengers, drawn by six, eight, or even ten horses. It took nearly a fortnight to go from Cornwall to London. Passengers sometimes took their own bedding with them, and slept in the wagon, and they made their wills before starting. Like Nicholas Kemp he’s got occasion for all (Cor.) is a saying referring to a traditional voter in a Cornish borough who, in order that it might not be said that any one had given him a bribe, was told to help himself from a table covered with gold in the election committee-room. Taking off his hat, he swept the whole mass into it, saying: ‘I’ve occasion for all.’ They’ll rax [stretch] an’ run up like Tommy Yarrow’s breeches (Nhb.) is applied to anything very elastic. Tommy Yarrow was a celebrated maker of leather breeches, which he asserted to be capable of stretching or shrinking to meet the wearer’s requirements. To creg means to be short-tempered or ill-natured, like the inhabitants of Cragg Hill, a geographical portion of Horsforth in West Yorkshire. Local Nicknames Nicknames for the inhabitants of certain towns are: Bury muffs; Dawley oaves, a name derived from the traditional Dawley Barrow-maker who was the original oaf. He is said to have built a wheelbarrow in an outhouse with so small a door, that he could not get the barrow out when it was finished. Morley gawbies; Leeds loiners; Radcliffe boiler-lifters; Wigan Hearty-Christers, an allusion to a form of oath peculiar to the Wigan colliers, a corruption of Heart-of-Christ; Yarmouth bloaters, cp. ‘But Peggotty said, with greater emphasis than usual, that we must take things as we found them, and that, for her part, she was proud to call herself a Yarmouth Bloater,’ Dickens, David Copperfield. A Dicky-Sam is a Liverpool man; and a Jug is a man of Brighton. Sometimes these sayings are in rude rhyme, e.g. Proud Preston, poor people, Eight bells in a crackt steeple; Birstal for ringers, Heckmondwike for singers, Dewsbury for pedlars, Cleckheaton for sheddlers [swindlers]; Oh, Boston, Boston, thou hast nought to boast on But a grand sluice and a high steeple, And a coast as souls are lost on; Cheshire bred, Strong i’ th’ arm But weak i’ th’ head; Derbyshire born, Derbyshire bred, Strong i’ th’ arm, and thick i’ th’ head; Essex miles, Suffolk stiles, Norfolk wiles, many men beguiles, cp. ‘For Norfolke wiles, so full of giles, Haue caught my toe, by wiuing so,’ Tusser. Gobbinshire is an old name for a portion of West Cheshire, gobbin signifying a clownish person, a country fellow. Parallel to the nicknames belonging to certain towns are the county ones, such as: an Essex calf; a Hampshire hog [sheep]; a Norfolk dumpling; a Yorkshire bite, or tyke; wild people, i.e. the inhabitants of the Weald of Sussex. Shropshire is reputed to be full of trout and Tories. Anciently the Salopian was proverbial for sharp shins, as recorded by Leland and others: I am of Shropshire, my shinnes be sharpe: Ley wode to the fyre and dresse me my harpe. Leland’s Itinerary, 1710-12. This old proverb remains in a crystallized form in the term sharpshins, e.g. Now then, sharpshins, taking me up as usual! said in rebuke to some sharp speech, or captious criticism. Phrases denoting Local Characteristics To direct a person to go to a place not to be named to ears polite is to tell him: to go to Melverley (Shr.), a saying which has arisen from the fact that this village is continually flooded by the irruptions of the Severn, and is therefore a place where ills and misfortunes befall the inhabitant; to go to Halifax (Yks. Lin. Oxf.); to Hexham (Nhb. Yks.); to Hull. From Hull, Hell, and Halifax, Good Lord deliver us (Yks. n.Lin.), is a saying based on the local history of the two towns named. At Hull all vagrants found begging in the streets were whipped and put in the stocks, and at Halifax persons taken in the act of stealing cloth were instantly, and without any process, beheaded. Jedburgh and Lydford (Dev.) bear a like fame for summary infliction of punishment. Jedburgh-justice and Jedburgh-law are proverbial phrases signifying trial after execution. ‘First hang and draw, Then hear the cause by Lidford law,’ is amongst Ray’s Proverbs, 1678. To send a man to Dingley couch, or Dinglety-cootch (Irel.), means to send him to Coventry. Dingle-i-Coush was an old name for Dingle in Co. Kerry, a place very remote and inaccessible; to be sent to Ketton (n.Lin.) signifies to be sent to the prison at Kirton-in-Lindsey; to be sent to Wakefield is a parallel expression current in Yorkshire. You could tell that up in Devonshire is a Cornish expression equivalent to: Give a cat a canary, or: You fry your feet (e.Suf.), said when any one makes an incredible statement. Stories illustrating Local Stupidity Deeds such as those for which the Wise Men of Gotham are famous are localized in various parts of the country. In Wiltshire people sometimes speak of their western neighbours as Somerset hedge-cuckoos, in taunting allusion to their making a hedge round the cuckoo to keep it from flying away. The natives of Madeley-on-Severn are said to have tried to secure the cuckoo by standing round it in a ring with clasped hands; whilst they of Borrowdale sought to compass the same end by building a wall. Moonraker, a term for a very foolish person (w.Yks. Hrf. Oxf. Hmp. Wil.), has its origin in similar tradition. The Wiltshire moonrakers are best known to fame, but it is also told of the natives of Slaithwake that they raked the canal to secure the moon which was reflected therein, and which they mistook for a cheese. It has been stated with regard to the existence of the term in Hampshire, that the original moonrakers were smugglers who, when detected on their journeyings, were wont to pitch their booty into one of the numerous ponds in the district, to be raked out again some night when fear of pursuit was past. As fond as the folks of Token (Cum.) is a saying based on the tradition that the first coach that passed through Token was followed by a crowd of the inhabitants who were anxious to see the big wheel catch the little one; as fond as th’ men of Belton, at hing’d a sheÄp for stealin’ a man, is a north Lincolnshire expression. A Coggeshall job means in Essex a stupid piece of work, a foolish action. Many stories are told in illustration of the stupidity of the people of Coggeshall, for instance, it is related that when they had built their church they found they had forgotten to make any windows. So they got some hampers, and set them open in the sun to catch the light, then shut them up tight, wheeled them into the church in barrows, and there opened them to let the light out. Another legend tells that the people thought that their church was in the wrong place. In order to move it, they went to one end to push it, laying their coats down on the ground, outside the opposite end, on the spot to which the wall was to be removed. When they judged that they had moved the building far enough, they went round to find their coats, but none were to be found. They at once concluded that they had pushed the wall over them, and went to look for them inside the church. Further, they are said to have placed hurdles in the stream to turn the river, and to have chained up the wheelbarrow when the dog bit it. Historical Allusions Among the most interesting of the dialect sayings are those which contain historical allusions. Here we find the memory of old, unhappy, far-off things, and battles long ago, handed down from generation to generation, enshrined in some quaint word or phrase. Or perchance it is the name of some great or notorious man that has now passed into a rustic proverb, some notable event in political or Church history which, long after it has ceased to live in men’s minds, still lingers in their speech. When Durham boys are quarrelling or playing at soldiers, one may taunt another by crying: A coward! a coward! o’ Barney Castle Dare na come out to fight a battle. In all probability this refers to the holding of Barnard Castle by Sir George Bowes during the Rising of the North in 1569. The couplet: Bellasis! Bellasis! daft was thy knowle, When thoo swapt Bellasis for Henknoll (e.Yks.), refers to a foolish exchange of estates in the fifteenth century. An Easter Monday custom peculiar to Ashton-under-Lyne, called Riding the Black Lad, consisted in carrying through the streets an effigy which was afterwards publicly burned. Originally this effigy represented a man in black armour, and was intended for Sir Ralph Assheton, the tyrannical Black Knight of Assheton, but later it was made up to resemble some person who happened to be politically or socially unpopular in the town. Bloody Mary (w.Yks.) is a name for the crane’s-bill, Geranium Robertianum. To vanish in a bokanki (Dur.) is to take precipitate flight after the manner of Dr. Balcanqual, Dean of Durham, in the time of the Civil Wars, who fled from the city with extreme precipitation, after the battle of Newburn, for fear of the Scots. A reminiscence of the days when rural England lived in terror of a Napoleonic invasion is contained in the phrase: marrow to Bonny (Lakel. w.Yks.), i.e. a match for Buonaparte, equally bad, applied to any one who bears a very bad character, or who has been guilty of a bad action. Chewidden Day, Picrous Day, and the phrase drunk as a Perraner, are all references to the reputed finders of tin in Cornwall. Tradition tells that St. Perran was one day cooking for himself a humble meal when a stream of white metal flowed out of the fire which he had built on a heavy black stone. Great was the joy of the good saint, for he perceived that there had been revealed to him from above something which would be useful to man. He communicated his discovery at once to St. Chewidden, and the two saints soon devised ways and means of producing this metal in large quantities. They called the Cornishmen together and told them of their treasures, and how they could set to work to obtain them. Days of feasting followed the announcement; mead and metheglin and other drinks flowed in abundance, and were partaken of so freely by the saints and their followers, that St. Perran’s name from that day passed into a proverb. The name of Cromwell occurs in an Irish imprecation: the curse of Cromwell, and in the Lincolnshire saying: it caps old Oliver, and he capped Long Crown, i.e. the Cavaliers, so called from the shape of their hats, said when anything very extraordinary is recounted. Other versions of this expression are: it caps Leatherstarn, and he capt the divel (e.Yks.), it cowes the gowan (Sc.), it flogs t’doll (Yks.). A red-haired Dane (Sus. Wil. Som. Cor.) is a term of reproach applied to a man with red hair. Such a man is often said to be crossed wi’ the Danes, or a bit touched wi’ the Danes. Danes’ blood (Wil.) is the dwarf elder, Sambucus Ebulus, popularly believed only to grow on the ancient battle-fields, and to have sprung originally from the blood of the slain Danes. The same name is also given to the pasque-flower, Anemone Pulsatilla (Hrt. Cmb. Nrf.), and to the clustered bell-flower, Campanula glomerata (Cmb.); it also denotes a certain species of red clay found in Hampshire. Dane-weed (Nhp.) is a name for the field eryngo, Eryngium campestre. A Dane’s skin is a freckled skin. Derwentwater Lights (Nhb. Cum.) is a name for the aurora borealis. On the night of the execution of the Earl of Derwentwater the aurora borealis flashed with remarkable brilliancy, and has since been so named in remembrance of him. Duff’s luck (Sc.) is a proverb expressive of some special good fortune. Duff is the family name of the Earls of Fife, a family which has for many generations gone on adding land to land, successfully building up huge estates. The days of the Duke of Monmouth’s rebellion are remembered as Dukin’-time (Som.). Schoolboys in north Lincolnshire call coloured snail-shells or butterflies English, the origin of which term dates back to the period of the long war with France, when children used to kill all the white butterflies they could find, regarding them as symbols of the French. Allusions to Historical Events and Noteworthy Personages Here and there some noteworthy man is commemorated in an everyday simile, as for instance: as deep as Garrick; as big as Gilderoy; as sour as Hector. The name gaskin (Ken. Sus.) denotes a species of wild cherry brought from France by Joan of Kent when her husband, the Black Prince, was commanding in Guienne and Gascony. Effigies of Guy Fawkes may still be seen on Nov. 5, carried by small boys who beg for coppers with a: Please to remember poor Guy, but the old rhymes narrating his history are now seldom heard. An old Devonshire version runs: Wul É plaize tÜ remimber Tha veefth ov Novimber Tha gunpowder trayson an’ plot; I daunt zee no rayson Why gunpowder trayson ShÜde iver be vurgot. This was sung on the night of Nov. 4, when funds were collected for the next day’s bonfire. On the 5th, the momet or figure was carried round by boys singing: Guy Fawkes, Guy! He and ’is companions did contrive TÜ blaw all Englan’ up alive, With a dark lantern an’ a match, By God’s massy ’e wuz catched. Local Traditions In West Yorkshire, Nov. 5 is known as Plot, and a special kind of cake, made of oatmeal and treacle and called parkin, is eaten at about that date. A curious bit of testimony to the popularity of Shakespeare may be traced in the common Yorkshire expression to play Hamlet (with), e.g. Bai gou, lad! wen ta gets ’oam ther’ll bi ’amlit to pleay; Mi mother pleayed ’amlit wi’ ’im fer stoppin’ aht lat at neet. The use of Hanover in exclamations and mild oaths such as: What the Hanover do I care about it! (Lin.), Go to Hanover and hoe turnips! (e.Suf.), is said to date from the time of the Georges, who were very unpopular in the east of England. According to an old Cheshire legend, for several days before the battle of Blore Heath, there arose each morning out of the fosse three mermaids, who announced: Ere yet the hawberry [hawthorn-berry] assumes its deep red, Embued shall this heath be with blood nobly shed. Higgledy-piggledy, Maupas shot (Chs.) means serving all alike, a saying which is sometimes extended by the addition of: let every tub stand on its own bottom. The tradition which accounts for its origin is by some attributed to James I, and by others to William III. The kernel of the story in either case is the refusal of the then Rector of Malpas to treat the monarch to his share of a dinner at the village inn. In spite of the remonstrances of the Curate, who was also present, the shot was equally divided between the three: higgledy-piggledy all pay alike. Later the monarch caused the same rule to be applied to the benefice, and henceforth the Curate received a moiety of the glebe and tithes. Hobby-horse Day is a festival held in Padstow on May 1. A hobby-horse is carried through the streets to a pool about a quarter of a mile outside the town, where it is supposed to drink. The procession then returns home singing a song to commemorate the tradition that the French, having landed in the bay, mistook a party of mummers in red cloaks for soldiers, and hastily fled to their boats and rowed away. Hockney Tuesday, that is the first Tuesday after Easter week, is celebrated at Hungerford in Berkshire as Kissing Day, in accordance with the charter which John of Gaunt gave the town after its services in some great battle. Two tutty-men visit each house in the borough, and demand a coin of the realm from each male, and a kiss from every female. They each carry a staff about six feet long, bedecked with flowers and ribbons, the whole being surmounted with a cup and spike bearing an orange, which is given away with each salute, and then replaced by another one. The tutty-men [nosegay-men] are the tything-men, selected from the tradesmen of the town, whose duty it was before the establishment of the county police to act as constables, and assist in preserving order in the town. Pictures of the proceedings on Kissing Day appeared in the Daily Graphic of April 6, 1910, entitled ‘Hocktide at Hungerford: Quaint thirteenth-century customs observed’. Hock-Monday in Sussex is kept as a festival in remembrance of the defeat of the Danes in King Ethelred’s time. The term Kemble’s Pipe (Hrf.), applied to the concluding pipe any one smokes at a sitting, is now no longer in current use. The original Kemble was executed at Hereford on Aug.2, 1679, on a charge of implication in Titus Oates’ plot. On his way to execution he smoked his pipe and conversed with his friends, and hence arose the name Kemble’s Pipe for the last pipe smoked in a social company. The cloud-berry, Rubus Chamaemorus, in many north-country dialects is known by the name of knout-berry. A Lancashire tradition derives this name from King Cnut, or Cnout, who, being reduced to great extremity, was preserved from starvation by feeding on this fruit. There’s been worse stirs than that at Lathom is a Lancashire saying used when a flitting, a whitewashing, or any domestic stir of an unpleasant nature makes an apology needful on the score of untidiness or confusion. It alludes to the havoc made when the Parliamentary forces took Lathom in 1645. To pull anything Lymm from Warburton (Chs.) signifies to pull anything to pieces. The expression originates from the fact that the church livings of Lymm and Warburton were formerly held together, but that they were eventually separated, and the income of the rectors of Lymm thereby reduced. Nelson’s bullets (n.Cy.) is the name of a kind of sweetmeat made in the shape of small balls. A Norman (Suf.) is a tyrannical person. Lord Northumberland’s Arms (Nhb.) is synonymous with a black eye. The 29th of May, commemorating the Restoration of Charles II, is commonly observed in the midland and south-western counties. The day is variously known as: Oak-apple Day, Oak-ball Day, Royal Oak Day, and Shick-shack Day. Shick-shack is the name of the piece of oak, especially one with an oak-apple attached, which is worn before noon, mostly by school-children. In the afternoon the shick-shack is discarded, and monkey-powder, i.e. leaves of the ash, put in its place. In the evening both emblems have to disappear, or the wearers are beaten with nettles (Oxf.). Elsewhere the beating with nettles is the punishment for not wearing any oak-leaves at all. In Yorkshire a boy who does not wear the oak is nicknamed a Papish. The Penny Hedge (Yks.) is a fence or hedge of wicker-work set up annually on the eastern shore of Whitby harbour, at the Feast of the Ascension. According to a legend, dating from 1315, ‘the lords of Sneaton and Ugglebarnby, with others, whilst hunting the boar, did mortally injure an hermit, who dared to protect the quarry.’ As penance for this outrage, the local lord and his successors after him must thenceforth plant a certain number of stakes every year in the tideway. This performance is now called the Horngarth Service, or the Setting of the Penny Hedge. A Cheshire version of a well-known proverb is: When the daughter is stolen, shut the Peppergate. The proverb is said to be founded on fact. The daughter of a certain Mayor of Chester was stolen as she was playing at ball in Pepper Street, and the young man who carried her off took her through the Pepper Gate. After the loss of his daughter, the Mayor ordered the gate to be closed. The case is altered, quoth Plowden (Shr.), is a phrase which originated through the unexpected decisions given by Judge Plowden, an eminent lawyer in Queen Mary’s time. A pussivanting (Dev. Cor.) is an ineffective bustle; used as an adjective the word is equivalent to meddling, fussy. It is undoubtedly a corruption of poursuivant, but whether the original Poursuivants from whom the term is derived were those sent into Cornwall in the fifteenth century, threatening punishment for the blackmailing habits of certain Cornish sea-captains, or whether they were the Poursuivants of the latter part of the seventeenth century, who were sent to search out all those entitled to bear arms, is a matter on which opinions differ. The name of Queen Anne is used to denote a coloured butterfly (Chs.), an ancient gun (Sc.), and an old-fashioned tale (n.Yks.), e.g. Tell us some o’ your aud Queen Anners. Queen Anne’s flowers (Nrf.) is a name for the daffodil; Queen Anne’s needlework (Nhp.) is the striped crane’s-bill. Queen Mary’s thistle (Nhp.), the cotton thistle, Onopordon Acanthium, owes its name to the tradition that it was brought to Fotheringay by Mary’s attendants. Various plants are named after Robin Hood, e.g. Robin Hood’s feather, or fetter (Cum.), the traveller’s joy, Clematis Vitalba; Robin Hood’s hatband (Cum. Yks.), the club moss, Lycopodium clavatum; Robin Hood’s men, or sheep (Lin.), the bracken fern, Pteris aquilina. To go round by Robin Hood’s barn (Cmb. w.Midl.) is to go a roundabout way, to go the farthest way; Robin Hood’s wind (Chs.) is a wind which accompanies a thaw. It is said that Robin Hood could stand anything but a thaw wind. A Yorkshire proverb runs: Many speak of Robin Hood, that never shot his bow, i.e. many people talk of doing great things which they can never accomplish. It’s long o’ comin’, like Royal Charlie (Irel.), is said of a thing that has been long expected. A Scarborough warning (Yks. Nrf.) signifies no warning at all. The origin of the saying rests on the statement that in 1557 Thomas Stafford entered and took possession of Scarborough Castle before the townsmen were aware of his approach. Sherra-moor (Sc. Nhb. Dur.), used to signify a row, tumult, a state of confusion, is originally a name given to the Rebellion of 1715. The title of Vicar of Bray (Brks.) is applied as a term of contempt to a turncoat. Historical Value of Loan-words Apart from isolated scraps of history preserved in epithets and sayings such as these, there is the mass of historical evidence that can be gleaned by a careful study of the loan-words in the dialects. We have already noted many of them, but only for their philological value. To estimate their importance from an historical point of view they would have to be treated geographically, the point of consideration being not the form in which they are found, but the locality. Thus we should obtain valuable corroborative testimony to known historical facts, regarding the settlement of the British Isles. For instance, history tells us that some time before the Norman Conquest some Flemish people settled in England. John of Trevisa wrote: ‘The Flemmynges, that woneth in the west syde of Wales, habbeth yleft here strange speche and speketh Saxonlych ynow.’ But in learning English they carried over into the new language some of their own words, and these Flemish words brought in by these colonists have remained in the dialects of those counties which lie on the west side of Wales, e.g. south Pembroke and Glamorganshire. The loan-words, further, give living support to written history in pointing back to the existence of Frisians in Kent, the Isle of Wight, and Hampshire; to an early settlement of people from the south-west of England in Wexford; to the influx of Scots into Ulster; and of Huguenots into Norfolk. They prove, too, that far more Normans settled in the south-midland and southern counties than in the rest of England; that the Scandinavian settlers in East Anglia were to a great extent Danes; and that the Scandinavians in Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire, and Lancashire were chiefly Norwegians.
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