by Peter Hill
I heard you call my brother a fool.
Stand back, stand back, you dirty dog,
Or by my sword you’ll die,
I’ll string your giblets round your neck,
And make the buttons fly!
(They fight)
Doctor: In comes I, the noble doctor from Spain,
To raise the dead to life again.
Soldier: What can you cure?
Doctor: I can cure ixy, pixy, palsey and gout.
I’ll cure this man, there is no doubt.
Here’s a pill for you, young man.
If this does not work between now and eight o’ clock tomorrow,
You will be a dead man, but in a trance,
I pray young man, now get up and dance!’
(He does so to lots of cheers and applause)
On one occasion at Northampton in the nineteenth century, six mummers in white garments seized the maid when she answered the door and, in a show of pretence, muttered threats to her. This had been arranged earlier when she had been bribed to play along with the scheme. She consequently took them into the dining room while the surprised family were eating supper, whereupon the mummers began to act out the play. One of the performers could not help laughing and gave away his identity – he was a member of the family from next door, who were all taking part!
Verse
The Lynches are a wooded area, originally ridges of ancient ploughland, overlooking the Nene, stretching down a slope from Thorpe Achurch towards Lilford Hall. From the eighteenth century, they became celebrated as a renowned venue for game shooting, attracting participants from far and wide. The following verse, ‘Ballad of the Lynches’, written in 1879 anonymously by G.W., gives a flavour of one such event, describing it like a military operation and mentioning names of people and places connected with the county, though many today might object to words like ‘hero’ when describing the actions of those involved! There is said to be a tune to accompany the words, but attempts to trace this have so far failed:
The Christmastide had passed away; the New Year had begun:
‘The Lynches must be shot today’, cries Lilford’s eldest son.
The Lord of Lilford he had gone a-sailing on the main,
And flies the Royal Squadron Flag adown the coast of Spain.
His lady fair and sons at home – two gallant youths, I wot;
And they have sworn a mighty oath, ‘The Lynches must be shot’.
Now summon forth the beaters, that they the woods may beat,
And promise them a guerdon of bread, and ale, and meat.
No matter though the woods be thick, the beater knows no fear:
I trow they would do anything for glory and for beer.
Forth troop they at the summons from all the country’s side;
From Achurch and from Pilton they march with honest pride,
From Wigsthorpe’s distant hamlet (where Nevitts all were born),
Prepared to face the thickest brakes, and brave the sharpest thorn.
‘Come, look alive, you beaters!’ it is the warning cry
Of Jones, the great head keeper, from whom the poachers fly;
A very small acquaintance with Northamptonshire he owns,
Who does not know the voice and form of Mr Samuel Jones.
Tight are the breeches of the youth who loves the fox to chase,
And tight the garments worn by those who royal circles grace;
But tighter far than such as these, by many a painful inch,
The breeches worn by Jones the day on which they shoot the Lynch.
A group of friends stand round him; but none such garments own:
Donald (who comes from where such things are very near unknown) –
Harvey from Farming Woods, is there, a friendly face to show;
Stout Dixey comes from Titchmarsh, Perkins from Wadenhoe;
George Hollyce, who surveys the nets; and, radiant as a star,
The purple nose of Nevitt scents luncheon from afar.
And now the beaters stand in line as if ’twere for a race,
And Mr Jones looks down to see as if each is in his place.
From Oundle and from Thrapston, the traveller, half afraid,
With wonder hears the thunder of the distant cannonade;
And the crafty poacher sighs to think that he and his good mate
May pay a visit to the Lynch, but just a night too late.
Now fierce the combat rages, and valiant deeds are done,
And each turn destroys the foe with glorious feats of gun.
’Twere hard to single out a name to trace on history’s page,
Amid that band of heroes of every size and age;
Still must we speak of Burroughes, a man of Norfolk fame,
Who ‘fetched em down’, as Jones observed, with more than mortal ain;
Tom proved himself a worthy son of him now far away;
And Mr John the spot was on through all that famous day;
Still the red hat of Lyveden was foremost in the fight;
And Hunt, of Wadenhoe, ‘pulled them down’ when almost out of sight.
And long as we may hope to live, still will the tale go round,
Of how we shot the Lynches when the snow was on the ground.
The celebrated county verse ‘Pancakes and Fritters’ is a variation of ‘Oranges and Lemons’. The fruit first arrived in London during the Stuart period and the name ‘Oranges and Lemons’ was first recorded in 1665 as ‘a square for eight dance’. Elements of this were used to accompany the rhyme, which did not appear until 1744, and in early versions it had additional lines including ‘Old shoes and slippers, say the bells of St Peter’s’ (shoes were traditionally thrown at newly married couples). The St Peter’s line was retained for the first version appearing in the county but ‘pancakes and fritters’ replaced the initial words. This version was short and applied only to the town of Northampton, mentioning four parish churches and St John’s Hospital:
‘Roast beef and marsh mallows’
Say the bells of All Hallows,
‘Pancakes and fritters’ say the bells of St Peter’s
‘Roast beef and brides’ say the bells of St Giles’
‘Pokers and tongs’ say the bells of St John’s
‘Shovel, tongs and poker’ say the bells of St Pulchres’. [Holy Sepulchre]
Later, a longer version appeared, which mentioned other places around the county:
‘Pancakes and fritters,’
Says the bells of St Peter’s.
‘Where must we fry ‘em?’
Says the bells of Cold Higham.
‘In yonder land furrow’,
Say the bells of Wellingborough.
‘You owe me a shilling,’
Says the bells of Great Billing.
‘When will you pay me?’
Says the bells of Middleton Cheney.
‘White bread and sop,’
Says the bells at Kingsthorp.
‘Trundle a lantern’,
Says the bells of Northampton.
It is often erroneously said that these rhymes were recited on Pancake Day but there is no recorded evidence for this. There certainly was a custom in the county of putting a corn dolly in a furrow on Plough Monday to bless and encourage the coming year’s growth, for which there may be hidden evidence in line six of the rhyme, a pancake or something else made of corn being used as a substitute.
Richard Braithwait (1588-1673) was a writer of verse, whose Tales of Drunken Barnaby were posthumously published in 1716, nearly 100 years after they were written, under the pen name Coryambaeus. The tales describe the escapades of an inebriated traveller making his way from London to Westmorland via Wisbech. En route, he enters Northamptonshire, where he drinks his way through the county, stopping at Daventry,Weedon, Towcester and finally on the northern boundary at plague-stricken Wansford, where he falls asleep on a haystack which gets swept up in a flood and carries him along the Nene. Some w
ay along the river, he awakes. Some bystanders ask him where he is from and in his befuddled condition he mentions his homeland, England. The event is celebrated in the name and on the sign of a riverside hostelry at Wansford bridge, the Haycock Hotel. The verses were reprinted in Northamptonshire Notes and Queries in 1899:
Thence to Daintree with my Jewell, Famous for a Noble Duell,
Where I drunk and took my Common, In a Taphouse with my Woman;
While I had it, there I paid it; Till long chalking broke my credit.
At Daintree earely might you find me, But not th’ Wench I Left
behind me,
Neare the Schoole-house where I boused, Her I sought but she
was spoused,
Which I having heard that night-a, ‘Farewell (quoth I) Proselyta’.
Thence to Wedon, there I tarried, In a Waggon to be carried;
Carriers there are to be found-a, Who will drink til th’ world run
round-a:
‘Pay good fellows, I’le pay nought heere, I have left more than I brought heere.’
Thence to Tosseter on a Tuesday, Where an artfull Batchler chus’d I
To consort with; we ne’re budged, But to Bacchus revels trudged;
All the Night-long sat we at it, Till we both grew heavy pated.
(He then proceeds to Wansford)
On a Hay-cock sleeping soundly, Th’ river rose and tooke me roundly
Downe the current; people cryed, Sleeping downe the streame I hyed;
‘Where away’, quoth they, ‘from Greenland?’
No; from Wansforth-brigs in England!
DIALECT AND GLOSSARY
In Britain we commonly refer to a north/south divide to show differences in lifestyle and wealth. Yet the term could well be applied in a historical sense to Northamptonshire, a county whose dialect and customs were shaped by circumstance depending on which part you lived, whether south, centre or north. The reason that the county is unique is its part-Saxon and part-Danish Viking heritage. The Treaty of Wedmore in AD 793 resulted in Northamptonshire being left with much of its area under the Danelaw, the boundary set at Watling Street, which is now the A5.
The arrival of the Danes and other Norsemen was a good thing for the development of English. They did get on well with the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants (despite the bias of early writers), intermarrying with them, and merging into society, with a combination of both languages forming the names of some of the county’s settlements. Their language was identical in many ways but simpler and this helped modify the more heavily inflected Old English, simplifying it and adding several monosyllabic words to the vocabulary. In addition, Northamptonshire, like other counties under the Danelaw, had a range of local, more specific, words. In Danish grammar, the singular and plural forms for ‘to be’ are the same: ‘er’, for am, is and are. This influence can be seen in old dialect of the county, in ‘I are’, ‘he are’, ‘it are’ and so on.
The county was divided into two areas of dialect – the Anglo-Saxon area and the area under the Danelaw – with a third appearing around the centre where the two areas met, which synthesised into a standard, perhaps purer, form. In all parts of the county, it was the vowels that had the greatest diversity of sound variation. The old Midlands vowel inflections were apparent: for example, ‘sheep’ would sound like ‘ship’, ‘dog’ like ‘dig’ and ‘voice’ like ‘vice’. Other peculiarities were ‘ees’ used for ‘yes’, ‘sen’ for ‘self’ – as in ‘hissen’ and ‘hersen’ – ‘istray’ for ‘yesterday’ and ‘nunch’ for ‘lunch’. The old Anglo-Saxon (and modern German) plural ending ‘-en’ was often used instead of ‘-s’, as in ‘housen’. In common grammar, the verb ‘to be’ would take the following forms: ‘bin’ instead of ‘are’, ‘bistn’t’ for ‘aren’t’, ‘be’ for ‘am’, ‘beant’ or ‘baan’t’ for ‘am not’ and ‘wur’ for was. ‘Wo’t’ meant ‘won’t’ and ‘caint’ was ‘can’t’. ‘Must’ was ‘mun’ and ‘mustn’t’ was ‘maunt’.
When Anne Baker and Thomas Sternberg brought out their respective pioneering books on the county’s dialect and words in the mid-nineteenth century, they were both limited to what research had been made in the fields of etymology and philology at that time. Since then, great advances have been made. Both Baker and Sternberg were, however, somewhat guilty of not isolating county words from regional words and hence there was a mixture of both in their glossaries. This does not matter too much, since a lot of word exchange had been going on through the ages and still does, as more ‘outsiders’ come into the county bringing new words and pronunciation, which become part of everyday speech and vocabulary. A good example can be found in the Corby area today, where there is much Scottish inflection and a common expression is ‘yous’ – as in ‘see yous later’ – whether addressing one person or several. A substantial immigrant population from many Eastern European countries was initially based in the same town and has since spread elsewhere, quickly becoming integrated and adding new forms of dialect and customs to the county’s heritage.
Much of the old dialect of the county had already disappeared by 1850, a casualty of time, custom and demographic change. What survives today is also in danger of vanishing, yet you can still frequently hear expressions like ‘me duck’, meaning ‘my dear’, in the street, in a shop or at the market.
Most glossaries tend to be in the form of a dictionary, listing words alphabetically. However, with such a rich heritage of vocabulary and dialect in the county, an effort has been made in this section to group words and phrases thematically to simplify and facilitate the task for the reader.
Creatures and insects
arriwig, battle twig
earwig
asker
newt, lizard
bandy
stickleback
bee skip
beehive
bree, cleg
gadfly
bum
buzz
chilp
chirp
cock, cogger
banded snail
conker
small caterpillar
dodman
snail
emmer
ant
forkin Robin
earwig (north)
goggle shell
large snail shell
Harry-long-legs
daddy-long-legs
hornet
large dragonfly
hug-hog
hedgehog
Jenny Spinner
daddy-long-legs
joey
rabbit
kit
young ferret or hare
lady cow, clock-a-clay
ladybird
long-legged tailor
daddy-long-legs
midgeon
gnat
miller
moth
mouldiwarp
mole
mouldy band
ant hill
Old Sally or Sarah
hare (young or old)
paddock, poddock
frog or toad
pismire
ant
pollard, poll-head
tadpole
polly wriggle, pot ladle
tadpole
powhead
tadpole
puddock (ON)
buzzard, kite
pug
fox or squirrel
puss
hare
ram-cat, gib-cat
mole
tiddy hog
millipede
titty puss
kitten
urchin
hedgehog
woodseer
froghopper
Birds
bluecap
blue tit
butter bum(p)
bittern
cawdy-mawdy
seagull
clodhopper
wheatear
cobweb
spotted flycatcher
eek
le
woodpecker
fern owl
nightjar
firetail
redstart
hoolet
owl
knave
blackbird
neb (ON)
beak, bill
Old Frank
heron
Philip
sparrow
piana
magpie
pink
chaffinch
redcap, proud tailor
goldfinch
Royston crow
hooded crow
sheep rack
starling
stag
male turkey
starnel
starling
writing/scribbling
lark
yellowhammer
Flowers, plants, trees
akkern
acorn
bloodwall, bloody
wall flower
warrior boodle
corn marigold
bunny rabbit
antirrhinum
bunts
puffballs
butter and eggs
daffodil
Candlemas bell
snowdrop
cat haws
hawthorn berries
Daneweed
field eryngo
deal apples
fir cones
featherfew
feverfew
frog seats
toadstools
hell weed
bindweed, honeysuckle, red clover
Kiss me at the garden gate