Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/245

 Collectanea. 205

Bury had, besides its festival customs, its local legend, which I took down as follows from the dictation of another of my aunts on June 8th, 1890. She gave it as "from the relation of Anne Bentham," a housemaid, '■'■ circa 1825."

" Old Mr. Hodgson, Master of the Grammar School at Bury, was enjoying his midday meal, when his wooden trencher ^ began to turn round, and he was immediately convinced that something very wrong was going on in the schoolhouse. So he hastened thither, and found the boys in great consternation, for by means of saying the Lord's Prayer backwards they had raised the Devil, and they could not lay him again. Mr. Hodgson knew that the only way to get rid of him would be to give him a task which he could not perform, and that, if in three trials they could not hit upon such a task, the case would be hopeless.

"Mr. Hodgson first desired him to count the blades of grass in the Castle Croft. This task the Devil performed directly. He was next ordered to count the grains of sand on the School Brow.'* This gave him no more trouble than the former feat. Only one chance was left. A happy thought occurred to Mr. Hodgson. He commanded the Devil to count the letters in the large Bible in the Parish Church. In an instant the Devil descended to the lower regions through the floor of the school, leaving a great crack on the hearthstone where he passed through, to attest the truth of this story to future generations."'^

The eldest of the Goodlad sisters married the Rev. William Whitelegge, afterwards Honorary Canon of Manchester, He was

^Such no doubt as the college boys at Winchester ate from till within the last half-century.


 * Brow = hill, in the dialect of Lancashire.

^ Here I cannot forbear pointing out the influence of personality on the preservation and record of folklore. The sister who as a child was so much impressed by the damage to the simnel cakes, numbered among her many talents in later years that of being an excellent housewife, and a successful trainer of many inexperienced young cooks. She whose childish eye was caught by the shining silver was afterwards distinguished by her taste for art, and delighted in being surrounded by brilliant objects, — polished wood- work, glossy silks, flashing jewels : while she whose memory retained the story of the adventure with the Devil was famed for scrapes as a child, and grew up a spirited energetic woman, keenly interested in public events, and a leader in every enterprise in which she had the opportunity of taking part.