pages 188-189

188                 Illustrations of Lancashire

with them, like all other fables, a profound interior truth - the truth for which, as Carlyle says, "reason will always inquire, while half-reason stands indifferent and mocking." The nucleus of the boggart idea is, that the power of the human mind, exercised with firmness and consistency, triumphs over all obstacles, and reduces even spirits to its will; while, contrariwise, the weak and undetermined are plagued and domineered over by the very same imps whom the resolute can direct and control. So with the superstitions as to omens. When in spring the anglers start for a day's enjoyment, they look anxiously for "pynots," or magpies, one being unlucky, while two portend good fortune. The simple fact, so the ornithologists tell us, is that in cold and ungenial weather prejudicial to sport with the rod, one of every pair of birds always stays in the nest, whereas in fine weather, good for angling, both birds come out. Illustrations of this nature might be multiplied a hundred-fold, and to unabating advantage. Time is never ill-spent upon interpretation of the mythic. The effort, at all events, is a kindly one that seeks -

"To unbind the charms that round slight fables lie,
And show that truth is truest poësy."

The dialect itself is full of metaphor,

Peculiarities                189

images of great beauty not infrequently turning up. Some of them seem inherited from the primevals. That light and sound are reciprocally representative needs, for instance, no saying. From the earliest ages the idea of music has always accompanied that of sunrise. Though to-day the heavens declare the glory of God silently, in the beginning "the morning stars sang together" - old Homer's "rosy-fingered morn" is in Lancashire the "skryke " or cry "of day."
Though much that is deplorably brutal occurs among the lowest Lancashire classes, the character of the popular pastimes is in general free from stain; and the amusements them- selves are often eminently interesting, since in honest and bona fide rustic sports there is always archaeology. The tales they tell of the past now constitute in truth the chief attraction of the older ones. The social influences of the railway system have told no less upon the village-green.than on the streets of cities; any picture that may now be drawn must needs owe its best colours to the retrospective. Contemplating what remains of them, it is pleasant, however, to note the intense vitality of customs and ceremonials having their root in feelings of reverence; such, for example, as the annual "rush-bearing" still current in many parts, and