Lays and Legends of the English Lake Country. John Pagen White
TO "ERMENGARDE."
GUNILDA; OR, THE WOEFUL CHASE.
NOTES TO "GUNILDA; OR, THE WOEFUL CHASE."
NOTES TO "THE SHIELD OF FLANDRENSIS."
NOTES TO "THE ROOKS OF FURNESS."
NOTES TO "THE BRIDALS OF DACRE."
THRELKELD TARN: OR, TRUTH FROM THE DEEPS.
NOTES TO "THRELKELD TARN; OR TRUTH FROM THE DEEPS."
NOTES TO "ROBIN THE DEVIL'S COURTESY."
THE LAY OF LORD LUCY OF EGREMOND.
NOTES TO "THE LAY OF LORD LUCY OF EGREMOND."
THE CHURCH AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.
NOTES TO "THE CHURCH AMONG THE MOUNTAINS."
INTRODUCTION.
In submitting this Book to the Public, I have thought it best to give it precisely as it was left in manuscript by my late Brother. His sudden death in 1868 prevented the final revision which he still contemplated.
The Notes may by some be thought unnecessarily long, and in many instances they undoubtedly are very discursive. Much labour, however, was expended in their composition, in the hope, not merely of giving a new interest to localities and incidents already familiar to the resident, but also of affording the numerous visitors to the charming region which forms the theme of the Volume, an amount of information supplementary to the mere outline which, only, it is the province of a Guide Book, however excellent, to supply.
The Work occupied for years the leisure hours of a busy professional life; and the feelings with which the Author entered upon and continued it, are best expressed in those lines of Burns chosen by himself for the motto.
B. J.
July 1st, 1873.
PREFACE.
The English Lake District may be said, in general terms, to extend from Cross-Fell and the Solway Firth, on the east and north, to the waters of Morecambe and the Irish Sea; or, more accurately, to be comprised within an irregular circle, varying from forty to fifty miles in diameter, of which the centre is the mountain Helvellyn, and within which are included a great portion of Cumberland and Westmorland and the northern extremity of Lancashire.
After the conquest of England by the Normans, the counties of Cumberland and Westmorland, the ancient inheritance of the Scottish Kings, as well as the county of Northumberland, were placed by William under the English crown. But the regions thus alienated were not allowed to remain in the undisturbed possession of the strangers. For a long period they were disquieted by the attempts which from time to time were made by successive kings of Scotland to re-establish their supremacy over them. Supporting their pretensions by force of arms, they carried war into the disputed territory, and conducted it with a rancour and cruelty which spared neither age or sex. The two nations maintained their cause, just or unjust, with unfaltering resolution; or if they seemed to hesitate for a moment, and a period of settlement to be at hand, their frequent compromises only ended in a renewal of their differences. Thus these northern counties continued to pass alternately under the rule of both the contending nations, until the Scottish dominion over them was finally terminated by agreement in the year 1237; Alexander of Scotland accepting in lieu lands of a certain yearly value, to be holden of the King of England by the annual render of a falcon to the Constable of the Castle of Carlisle, on the Festival of the Assumption.
The resumption, at no distant period, of the manors which had been granted to Alexander, renewed in all their strength the feelings of animosity with which the Scots had been accustomed to regard their southern neighbours, and the feuds between the two kingdoms continued with unabated violence for more than three centuries longer. The dwellers in the unsettled districts lying along the English and Scottish borders, being originally derived from the same Celtic stock, had been gradually and progressively influenced as a race by the admixture of Saxon and Danish blood into the population; and although much of the Celtic character was thereby lost, they seem to have retained in their mountains and forests much of the spirit, and many of the laws and manners, of the ancient Britons. They continued to form themselves into various septs, or clans, according to the Celtic custom; sometimes banded together for the attainment of a common end; and as often at feud, one clan with another, when some act of personal wrong had to be revenged upon a neighbouring community. Thus a state of continual restlessness, springing out of mutual hatred and jealousies, existed among the borderers of either nation. The same feelings of enmity were fostered, and the same system of petty warfare was carried on, between the borderers of the two kingdoms. Cumberland and Westmorland, from their position, were subject to the frequent inroads of the Scots; by whom great outrages were committed upon the inhabitants. They drove their cattle, burned their dwellings, plundered their monasteries, and even destroyed whole towns and villages. A barbarous system of vengeance and retaliation ensued. Every act of violence and bloodshed was perpetrated; whilst the most nefarious practices of free-booting became the common occupation of the marauding clans; and a raid into a neighbouring district had for them the same sort of charm and excitement which their descendants find in a modern fox chase. Even after the union of the two kingdoms under one sovereign, when the term "Borders" had been changed to "Middle Shires," as being more suitable to a locality which was now nearly in the centre of his dominions, the long cherished distinctions and prejudices of the inhabitants were maintained in all their vigour; and it required a long period of conflict with these to be persevered in, before the extinction of the border feuds could be completely effected. These distractions have now been at an end for more than two centuries.