'What do you keep him for?' asked John.
'Luck,' said Young Billy. 'Always had one in the hut, ever since I can remember, and dad, that's Old Billy here, can remember longer than me.’
'Aye, we've always had an adder,' said Old Billy, 'and so had my dad, when he was at the burning, and he was burning on these fells a hundred years ago.’
Young Billy neatly dropped the snake in its box and shut the lid of it. He held the box for the children to listen. They could hear the snake hissing inside. Then he gave the box back to Old Billy, who went off with it back into the hut. A big puff of smoke rolled from the burning mound. 'Look there,' said Young Billy, 'Can't leave him a minute but he's out. Like the adder is fire. Just a bit of a hole and out he comes.’(7) |
"What's the biggest eel you've ever caught?' said Tom. 'I didn't catch him,' said the old man. 'Not to keep him. But we were a big 'un, that warmint. I dart for him with my old spear and catch his tail, and he shake his tail and throw my old spear into the reeds, and he near upset my boat before he go off fierce downstream with a wash after him bringing the banks down like them motor cruisers. Did you never hear tell of the old eel that come up through Breydon Water to Reedham to swop crowns with the king? That were a rare old eel. And did you never hear tell of the sea-serpent that very near stick between banks going down between Yarmouth and Gorleston? Sea serpent? That weren't no sea serpent. Great old eel. That's what he were.” |
"My wife she live at the Weir Farm when she were a young woman. I never come to see her there, for there weren't any followers allowed. One night, when she and a fellow-servant were brewing in that long room they used to call the Cheese-room, they hear someone walking to-and-fro overhead. My wife, who never was afraid of anyone, she say she would go and see what it was, and she go up the stairs … “(20) |
"Well, she *went round that there yard two or three times there with the tumbril on one wheel; and then the other owd cows, they were going about there, you know, with their pump-handles up. Well there! you talk about going and—all I was afraid she was going to do—she was coming on to the road so she would run into me! **Do, [if she did] she'd ha' made a mess of me! 'Stead of that, she *went round the comer of the stable and she **hit the comer of the bam and *turned the tumbril right over, that *did! And that *laid there bottoms up when Mr Collyer **come up with his throshing tackle at night, and he ***say: 'Hullo!' he ***say, 'what-you have a horse run away here?’ And they *told him this here cow **run away. Of course it was right: this poor owd cow, she *ran right across these fields there, what they ****call Brookey's Wood; and they *had to go and fetch her. Dear, or dear! Heart alive! You talk about-didn't I laugh! I never forget it till the day I die. I shan't. No!’ “(26) |
School of Modern Languages University of Bath |