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  LAYS AND LEGENDS
  OF THE
  ENGLISH LAKE COUNTRY.




  LAYS AND LEGENDS
  OF THE
  ENGLISH LAKE COUNTRY.
  _WITH COPIOUS NOTES._


  BY
  JOHN PAGEN WHITE, F.R.C.S.


                        "In early date,
  When I was beardless, young, and blate,
  E'en then a wish, I mind its power,
  A wish that to my latest hour
      Shall strongly heave my breast;
  That I for poor auld _Cumbria's_ sake,
  Some usefu' plan or beuk could make,
      Or sing a sang at least."


  LONDON: JOHN RUSSELL SMITH.
  CARLISLE: G. & T. COWARD.
  MDCCCLXXIII.




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