Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/325

 Rh Blore Heath in 1459, where the traditional spot where the Lancastrian leader, Lord Audley, fell, is marked by a small obelisk set up in 1764 by the then lord of the manor. This, and one or two pieces of armour dug up in the neighbouring fields, have doubtless helped to keep alive the memory of the battle: but be this as it may, the people tell how the brook ran red with blood for three days and three nights after the fight, and that when the Lancastrians were worsted, Queen Margaret hurried down from Muckleston church-tower, where she was watching the fray, made the village blacksmith reverse the shoes of her horse to mislead her pursuers, and so fled in all haste to the Bishop of Lichfield’s castle at Eccleshall.

The same story of a queen watching a lost battle, and fleeing away with reversed horseshoes, is told, with less foundation, on the site of the battle of Shrewsbury.

One more example of a different kind. An unlettered old cottager, at High Offley in Staffordshire, startled me one day by observing that the village wake would be held on the Monday after the 15th of August, “the ’Sumption o’ Mary.” Now the festival of the Assumption of the Virgin has, we know, been removed from the calendar of the English Church since 1549. I knew the old body well, and I do not think she can have come in contact with anyone likely to inform her of the festival as a matter of scholarly learning. I cannot but think that it was the importance of fixing the right date for the village wake that has caused the disused Saint’s day to be remembered for over 300 years.

So far as such examples as these go, they would tend to show that the folk, even in England, do preserve some memory of historical events for three or even four centuries, and that it would be rash to assert that such an event never happened, or such a character never lived, because the popular tradition concerning it or him is mixed with fiction. But collectors have hitherto given very little attention to this subject, and till they have done so, one dare