Friday rist thy pleaf
      Royal Oak Day
         It's Royal Oak Day,
      Harvest Home and the Mell-Sheaf
         We have her, we have her,
         Here we coom at oor toon-end,
         Weel bun' an' better shorn
         Blest be t' day that Christ was born,
      Guy Fawkes Day
         A Stick and a stake,
         Awd Grimey sits upon yon hill,
      Christmas
         I wish you a merry Kessenmas an' a happy New Year,
         Cleveland Christmas Song
         A Christmas Wassail
         Sheffield Mumming Song
   Charms, "Nominies," and Popular Rhymes
      Wilful weaste maks weasome want
      A rollin' stone gethers no moss
      Than awn a crawin' hen
      Nowt bud ill-luck 'll fester where
      Meeat maks
      The Miller's Thumb
         Miller, miller, mooter-poke
         Down i' yon lum we have a mill,
      Hob-Trush Hob
         "Hob-Trush Hob, wheer is thoo?"
         Gin Hob mun hae nowt but a hardin' hamp,
      Nanny Button-Cap
      The New Moon
         A Setterday's mean
         I see t' mean an' t' mean sees me,
         New mean, new mean, I hail thee,
      Eevein' red an' mornin' gray
      Souther, wind, souther!
      Friday Unlucky
         Dean't o' Friday buy your ring
      An Omen
         Blest is t' bride at t' sun shines on
      A Charm
         Tak twea at's red an' yan at's blake
      A  gift o' my finger
      Sunday clipt, Sunday shorn
      A Monday's bairn 'll grow up fair
      A cobweb i' t' kitchen,
      Snaw, snaw, coom faster
      Julius Caesar made a law
      A weddin', a woo, a clog an' a shoe
      Chimley-sweeper, blackymoor
      The Lady-bird
         Cow-lady, cow-lady, hie thy way wum,
      The Magpie
         I cross'd pynot,(1) an' t' pynot cross'd me
         Tell-pie-tit
      The Bat
         Black-black-bearaway
      The Snail
         Sneel, sneel, put oot your horn,
      Hallamshire
         When all the world shall be aloft,
      Harrogate
         When lords an' ladies stinking water soss,
      The River Don
         The shelvin', slimy river Don

Preface

Several anthologies of poems by Yorkshiremen, or about Yorkshiremen, have passed through the press since Joseph Ritson published his Yorkshire Garland in 1786. Most of these have included a number of dialect poems, but I believe that the volume which the reader now holds in his hand is the first which is made up entirely of poems written in "broad Yorkshire." In my choice of poems I have been governed entirely by the literary quality and popular appeal of the material which lay at my disposal. This anthology has not been compiled for the philologist, but for those who have learnt to speak "broad Yorkshire" at their mother's knee, and have not wholly unlearnt it at their schoolmaster's desk. To such the variety and interest of these poems, no less than the considerable range of time over which their composition extends, will, I believe, come as a surprise.

It is in some ways a misfortune that there is no such thing as a standard Yorkshire dialect. The speech of the North and East Ridings is far removed from that of the industrial south-west. The difference consists, not so much in idiom or vocabulary, as in pronunciation—especially in the pronunciation of the long vowels and diphthongs.(1) As a consequence of this, I have found it impossible, in bringing together dialect poems from all parts of the county, to reduce their forms to what might be called Standard Yorkshire. Had I attempted to do this, I should have destroyed what was most characteristic. My purpose throughout has been to preserve the distinguishing marks of dialect possessed by the poems, but to normalise the spelling of those writers who belong to one and the same dialect area.

The spelling of "broad Yorkshire" will always be one of the problems which the dialect-writer has to face. At best he can only hope for a broadly accurate representation of his mode of speech, but he can take comfort in the thought that most of those who read his verses know by habit how the words should be pronounced far better than he can teach them by adopting strange phonetic devices. A recognition of this fact has guided me in fixing the text of this anthology, and every spelling device which seemed to me unnecessary, or clumsy, or pedantic, I have ruthlessly discarded. On the other hand, where the dialect-writer has chosen the Standard English spelling of any word, I have as a rule not thought fit to alter its form and spell it as it would be pronounced in his dialect.

I am afraid I may have given offence to those whom I should most of all like to please—the living contributors to this anthology—by tampering in this way with the text of their poems. In defence of what I have done, I must put forward the plea of consistency. If I had preserved every poet's text as I found it, I should have reduced my readers to despair.

In conclusion, I should—like to thank the contributors to this volume, and also their publishers, for the permission to reproduce copyright work. Special thanks are due to Mr. Richard Blakeborough, who has placed Yorkshiremen under a debt, by the great service which he has rendered in recovering much of the traditional poetry of Yorkshire and in giving it the permanence of the printed page. In compiling the so-called traditional poems at the end of this volume, I have largely drawn upon his Wit, Character, Folklore, and Customs of the North Riding.

Preface (To the Second Edition)

The demand for a second edition of this anthology of Yorkshire dialect verse gives me an opportunity of correcting two rather serious error's which crept into the first edition. The poem entitled "Hunting Song" on page 86, which I attributed to Mr. Richard Blakeborough, is the work of Mr. Malham-Dembleby", whose poem, "A Kuss," immediately precedes it in the volume.

The poem on page 75, which in the first edition was marked Anonymous and entitled "Parson Drew thro' Pudsey," is the work of the late John Hartley; its proper' title is "T' First