Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/269

Rh This proposal was by no means popular. There were many vested interests to be propitiated. Most formidable, because most democratic, was the opposition of Scropton and the nineteen other townships which enjoyed common of pasture in the forest. Accordingly in 1658 Cromwell amended his scheme by proposing to allocate a definite area of forest land to each township in substitution for its lost grazing rights. In the Salt Library at Stafford is a map which shows the proposed partition. Commissioners went so far as actually to measure up and stake out the allotments. Scropton had 158 acres assigned to it. Two years later came the Restoration, and the forest was saved—for a time. In 1780 another attempt was made, and a Bill for the enclosure was brought forward, which adopted ready made the partition prepared by Cromwell's surveyors. This Bill was, however, rejected. Finally came the Enclosure Act of 1861 by which the Scropton freeholders received the strips of land concerning which the tradition is told. I am unable to prove that the actual allotment corresponded in area and locality with that proposed in 1658, but this is for lack of sufficient research. It is more than likely that it did. Be this as it may, it is hardly stretching language beyond its proper bounds to say that village tradition, unshaken by and apparently oblivious of that monument of Parliamentary draughtsmanship known as 41 Geo. III. c. 66, has substantially preserved the memory of historical events of a far earlier period.

II. The next concrete product of folk memory that I produce is a lullaby or jingle which in 1892 was heard sung to a child at Harriseahead, a remote colliery village in North Staffordshire. The singer was an old woman, and there were several verses, but only one was noted: