Part 31 (1/2)

The following very curious observations on this town are extracted from an anonymous MS. in my possession, written forty or fifty years ago. I have never seen the lines in print. Aubrey, in his Natural History of Wilts.h.i.+re, mentions the plant called _Danes-blood_, and derives the name from a similar circ.u.mstance. Some observations on Sherston may be seen in Camden, ed. Gough, i. 96. It is Sceor-stan, where the celebrated battle between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes was fought in the year 1016, and prodigies of valour exhibited by the combatants.

”When a schoolboy, I have often traced the intrenchments at Sherston Magna, which are still visible on the north side of the town, and particularly in a field near the brow of a hill which overlooks a branch of the river Avon, which rises a little below Didmarton; and with other boys have gone in quest of a certain plant in the field where the battle was said to have been fought, which the inhabitants pretended dropt blood when gathered, and called Danesblood, corruptly no doubt for _Danewort_, which was supposed to have sprung from the blood of the Danes slain in that battle. Among other memorials, the statue of a brave warrior, vulgarly called Rattlebone, but whose real name I could never learn, is still standing upon a pedestal on the east side of the church-porch, as I've been lately informed, where I saw it above fifty years ago: of whose bravery, almost equal to that of Withrington, many fabulous stories are told. One, in particular, like some of the Grecian fables of old, built upon the resemblance his s.h.i.+eld bears to the shape of a tile-stone, which he is said to have placed over his stomach after it had been ripped up in battle, and by that means maintained the field; whilst the following rude verses are said to have been repeated by the king by way of encouragement:

Fight on, Rattlebone, And thou shalt have Sherstone; If Sherstone will not do, Then Easton Grey and Pinkney too.”

NORTH ACRE.

The Lord Dacre Was slain in North Acre.

North Acre is or was the name of the spot where Lord Dacre perished at the battle of Towton in 1461. He is said to have been shot by a boy out of an elder tree.

BELLASIS.

[Communicated by Mr. Longstaffe.]

Johnny tuth' Bellas daft was thy poll, When thou changed Bellas for Henknoll.

This saying, as given by Surtees, is still remembered near Bellasis, and is preferable to Hutchinson's version of it from the east window of the north transept of St. Andrew's Auckland church, where he says, ”are remains of an inscription painted on the gla.s.s; the date appears 1386; beneath the inscription are the arms of Bellasys, and in a belt round them the following words:

Bellysys Belysys dafe was thy sowel, When exchanged Belysys for Henknowell.”

Collins (followed by Hutchinson), who gives the proverb as-

Belasise, Bela.s.sis, daft was thy nowle, When thou gave Bella.s.sis for Henknowle,

connects it with a grant dated 1380, from John de Belasye to the convent of Durham, of his lands in Wolveston, in exchange for the Manor of Henknoll. But Bellasyse is not even within the Manor of Wolveston, and, in fact, the Manor of Bellasye was held by the Prior in 1361; and we can only account for the proverb by supposing that, at a former period, Bellasyse had been exchanged for lands, but not the manor of Henknoll.

The legend dates the matter in crusading times, and is chivalric in the extreme. John of Bellasis, minded to take up the cross, and fight in Holy Land, found his piety sorely let and hindered by his attachment to the green pastures and deep meadows of his ancestors. With resolution strong, he exchanged them with the Church of Durham, for Henknoll, near Auckland. He went to fight, but lived it seems to return and repent his rash bargain. I descend by one step, from the sublime to the ridiculous, to mention how oddly more recent characters are wound round those of olden time, for a popular notion is that the Red-Cross Knight had enormous teeth, and was pa.s.sionately addicted to ”race-horses!”

Children, moreover, have a dark saying when they leap off anything:

Bellasay, Bellasay, what time of day?

One o'clock, two o'clock, three and away!

Miss Bellasyse, the heiress of Brancepeth, died for love of Robert Shafto, of Whitworth, whose portrait at Whitworth represents him as very young and handsome, with _yellow_ hair. He was the favorite candidate in the election of 1791, when he was popularly called Bonny Bobby Shafto; and the old song of the older Bobby, who, it seems, was also ”bright and fair, combing down his _yellow_ hair,” was revived with the addition of-

Bobby Shafto's looking out, All his ribbons flew about, All the ladies gave a shout- Hey, for Bobby Shafto!

The most ancient verses of the old song seem to be-

Bobby Shafto's gone to sea, Silver buckles at his knee; He'll come back and marry me, Bonny Bobby Shafto.

Bobby Shafto's bright and fair, Combing down his yellow hair; He's my ain for evermair, Bonny Bobby Shafto.

An apocryphal verse says,-

Bobby Shafto's getten a bairn, For to dangle on his arm- On his arm and on his knee; Bobby Shafto loves me.