Publisher's Synopsis
From the beginning of the INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
IT is difficult, while living on the surface of society, so smooth, so rational, so commonplace, to realise what relics of a widely different past linger in its depths- relics of an extensive and deeply-rooted system of mythology, antedating in great measure Christianity itself. Yet so it is: in almost every part of our island we occasionally come across such bits of stubborn antiquity, but in the North of England they abound. The district between the Tweed and the Humber teems with Folk-Lore of a rich and varied character. Great part of the county of Durham is indeed spoiled (in an antiquarian point of view) by collieries; but it still contains some quiet villages far away from great thoroughfares, where strange tales are yet told and strange old customs practised; while the north and west of Northumberland, and the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire, abound with them.
Those who mix much among the lower orders, and have opportunities of inquiring closely into their beliefs, customs, and usages, will find in these remote places-nay, even in our towns and larger villages-a vast mass of superstition, holding its ground most- tenaciously. On looking closely into this we discern, among much that is mythical and legendary in its character, and much that is the simple outgrowth of human fancy and imagination, a good deal of what is unquestionably heathenism in disguise. Archbishop Whately states this perhaps too broadly.
"It is," he says, " a marvel to many, and seems to them nearly incredible, that the Israelites should have gone after other gods, and yet the vulgar in most parts of Christendom are actually serving the gods of their heathen ancestors. But then they do not call them gods, but fairies or bogles, and they do not apply the word worship to their veneration of them, nor sacrifice to their offerings. And this slight change of name keeps most people in ignorance of a fact that is before their eyes."
This is a strong statement, yet historical facts appear to bear it out. We know that as late as the seventeenth century undisguised idol-worship was to be found in Brittany, while down to the eighteenth it was common there for offerings of money, milk, and ears of corn to be made to the great Menhir, an obelisk once connected with Druidical worship. We know, too, that almost if not quite up to the present time, on holiday eves, the Norwegian peasant has offered cakes, sweet porridge, and libations of wort or buttermilk, on mounds consecrated to the invisible folk, and called bocttir mounds; and, as will be shown hereafter, well-nigh within the memory of man, beasts have been slain in sacrifice, at times of great extremity, in our own country; while the rites still in use for the dressing of wells at Buxton and Tissington in Derbyshire, and in other places throughout England and on the Borders, bear a singular resemblance to the Fontinalia of heathen Rome, when the nymphs of wells and fountains were honoured by flinging nosegays into the fountains and crowning the wells with garlands of flowers....
