Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore

The linguistic importance of the dialect-vocabulary for the study of our English language and literature in its earlier periods cannot be over-estimated, for herein is preserved...

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. Dia...

The average educated Englishman has no accurate conception of what a dialect really is, beyond a vague notion that the term covers a mass of barbarisms, corruptions, and mispron...

Charms for warding off unseen harm and danger, and for curing bodily ills were of course much more numerous, and more generally accredited in the early decades of last century t...

A book such as this cannot pretend to do justice to the mine of folk-lore which even the most superficial acquaintance with the dialects opens up to any one who cares to delve t...

As might be expected, very many ancient superstitious ideas have lingered round the three great events of man’s life--his birth, marriage, and death. They took shape in various...

So far we have considered only those words which, whether recently or long ago, have left the ranks of standard modern English and become ‘dialect’. But another wide field for s...

Chief among the ‘unlucky’ things regarded by the superstitious as omens of approaching calamity are those to which is attached the idea of a death-portent. This warning of death...

‘There was no information for which Dr. Johnson was less grateful than for that which concerned the weather.... If any one of his intimate acquaintance told him it was hot or co...

On Palm Sunday village churches used to be decorated with the catkin-laden twigs of the common sallow, or, as in Kent, with branches of yew, according to the local interpretatio...

It is generally supposed that the vocabulary of dialect-speaking people is very small; indeed, it has been stated as a scientific fact that the common rustic uses scarcely more...

We have often been told, or we have read in newspaper reviews and suchlike works, that the rustic vernacular is indigenous to the soil, mostly raw material in the rough, but ent...

The linguistic study of the dialects becomes an entertaining pursuit when we turn our attention to the dialect usage of literary words in a sense other than that to which we are...

A few of the dialect plant-names have been noticed in previous chapters in connexion with superstitious beliefs, medical lore, &c., but there are a great many more, equally well...

Beside the customs connected with the changes and chances of man’s mortal life, which we have considered in the foregoing chapter, there are those which belong to certain fixed...

The most prevalent of all the superstitious practices and charms for divining future events are the ceremonies connected with love-divination. Many of them are still in use, sec...

If we are to avoid on the one hand the danger of regarding a dialect as nothing better than a wilful perversion of standard English, we yet must not allow ourselves to be beguil...

Our difficulty in understanding the vernacular of a dialect-speaker arises in great measure from the fact that many of the sounds being unfamiliar to us, we cannot tell which sy...

Addy, Sidney Oldall.--A Glossary of Words used in the neighbourhood of Sheffield, including a selection of local names, and some notices of folk-lore, games, and customs. E.D.S....

With the spread of education, and the ever-increasing means of rapid locomotion throughout the length and breadth of the land, the area where pure dialects are spoken is lesseni...

Children’s games form a study in themselves. Nobody who has once dipped into one of the two big volumes of that scholarly and intensely interesting work by Mrs. Gomme, entitled...

A love of alliteration and rhyme in phrase and compound has always been characteristic of English as a whole. We tend naturally to say weary and worn, or sad and sorrowful, and...

Anybody who has ever done any practical housekeeping in a provincial town is familiar with certain anomalies in the buying and selling of farm produce and other articles in comm...

New meanings grafted on to old practices 265 Superstitious customs at the birth of a child 266-267 The birth-feast, and the special dainties prepared for it 267-268 The christen...

Old words from early literature surviving in the dialects 36-37 Substantives 37-43 Adjectives 43-46 Verbs 47-53 Archaic words from the Authorized Version of the Bible 53-54 Arch...

The New Year 283-286 Twelfth Day, and Plough Monday 286-288 Candlemas Day 289 Shrovetide 290-291 Sundays in Lent 291-292 Good Friday 292-293 Easter 293-296 May-day 296-297 Rogat...

Variety of terms for expressing one and the same idea; names for a fool, the smallest pig of a litter, the woodpecker, the foxglove, a stream of water, a girl 6-9 Forceful and d...

Old meanings of standard English words surviving in the dialects 77-84 Historical forms surviving in the dialects 84-86 Old grammatical distinctions preserved in the dialects 87...

Humorous similes 158-160 Metaphorical and figurative phrases and sayings 160-170 Proverbial sayings 171-174 Phrases referring to death 175-176 Answers to inquisitive questioners...

The weather as a topic for conversation 312-313 Signs of rain and of fine weather 314-317 Prophecies concerning seasons and crops 317-318 Thomas Tusser and his ‘good husbandlie...

Belief in ghosts 191-192 Boggarts 192-195 The Gabriel Ratchets 195 The Devil and his Dandy-dogs; Tregeagle 196 The Seven Whistlers 197 Imaginary monsters referred to in threats...

Some apparent corruptions shown to be old forms 28 Corruptions of Latin and French phrases such as: _nolens volens_, _Pater noster_, _rendezvous_, &c. 29-30 Standard English wor...

CHARMS AND MEDICAL LORE Devices for warding off witches 230-235 Superstitious remedies 236 Dialect phrases describing states of health 237-238 Medicines for general debility 239...

The classification of dialects 126-127 Characteristics of the various dialect groups 127-128 Phonology of the dialects compared with standard English 129 Vowels 130-132 Consonan...

Quotations illustrating the meanings given in the dialects to literary words 110-118 Dialect words alike in form to existing literary words, but different in meaning and origin,...

Love-divination by means of plants, apple-pips, &c. 257-260 The hempseed charm 261 The dumb-cake charm 262 Wedding-cake under the pillow 263 St. Mark’s Eve customs, and divinati...