Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.
BEING
SHORT STORIES AND RHYMES
IN THE DIALECTS OF THE WEST
BORDER COUNTIES.
BY
ALEXANDER CRAIG GIBSON, F.S.A.
What hempen Home-spuns have we swaggering here.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Speech, manners, morals, all without disguise.
The Excursion.
LONDON: JOHN RUSSELL SMITH;
CARLISLE: GEO. COWARD.
MDCCCLXIX.
TO
WILLIAM DICKINSON,
OF NORTH MOSSES AND THORNCROFT,
F. L. S.,
Author of “A Glossary of Cumberland Words and Phrases,”
“Lamplugh Club,” “A Prize Essay on the Agriculture
of West Cumberland,” “The Botany of
Cumberland,” &c., &c., &c.,
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED,
IN CORDIAL RECOGNITION OF THE PRE-EMINENT
INDUSTRY AND SKILL DISPLAYED IN HIS ELUCIDATIONS
OF THE HOMELY SPEECH
OF OUR NATIVE COUNTY, AND IN GRATEFUL
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF THE UNFAILING SYMPATHY
AND THE KINDLY HELP WITH WHICH HE
HAS BRIGHTENED A FRIENDSHIP
OF MANY YEARS.
iv
One or two of the Cumberland stories included in thisvolume, as well as some of the pieces in rhyme, havealready been circulated very largely in newspapers,pamphlets, and collections. Their reappearance,along with many hitherto unpublished additions, inthis aggregated form, is due mainly to the popularityattained by them separately. Whether they may beas popular in this more pretentious guise as in theirhumbler, and perhaps, more appropriate form, remainsto be tried.
I claim superiority over most of the earlier workersin the same philological ground in respect of thegreater purity of my dialect. The Cumberland speechas written herein is pure Cumbrian, as the speech ofthe Scottish pieces, introduced for variety’s sake, ispure Scotch. Miss Blamire, Stagg, Anderson, Rayson,vand others, have all written their dialect pieces, more orless, in the Scoto-Cumbrian which prevails along thesouthern side of the west Border. In other respectsmy inferiority to those deservedly popular writers issufficiently evident. But, as expositions of the folk-speechof those parts of the County where, and whereonly, the unadulterated old Norse-rooted Cumbrianvernacular is spoken, I claim for these Tales andRhymes the distinction of surpassing all similarproductions, excepting only the dialect writings ofmy friend Mr. Dickinson, and perhaps the BorrowdaleLetter of Isaac Ritson, and the Gwordie and Will ofCharles Graham. I should not omit to state, however,that Mr. John Christian of London, and a writer whoassumed the nom de plume of Jack Todd, have evincedin their contributions to the local press, a masteryover the dialect of Whitehaven and its vicinity whichmakes us wish that their pens had been more prolific.
For the illustrations I have attempted of the speechof High Furness and its Westmorland border, I askno such distinction. The dialect there, as in theadjacent parts of Cumberland, is vitiated by a