Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/276

 248 Now mark three points. Daniel Stringer had never heard of Burghall's diary. He did not know the name of the rector. In point of fact the rector of 1643 was Richard Fowler, whose sympathies were well-known to be with the Puritan party. It is pretty evident, therefore, that Mr. Fowler, "the hopeful young man" of the diary who lost his life, and the rector's son of the tradition were one and the same person.

And so the affair does not appear quite so wanton and cold-blooded an atrocity as the Puritan historian would wish his public to understand.

Fortunately for the reputation of Lord Byrom's troop what one may term official history is here supplemented and corrected from traditional sources. This is an admirable instance of the strong sidelight which survivals of this nature may throw upon past events. But it would be futile to argue that all traditions can be so satisfactorily worked out as this.

Three of these examples, it will be observed, date from the period of the Civil Wars, some two centuries and a half ago. Two of them, at any rate, were consciously related as historical incidents. The two remaining examples derive from a much older period. Such place-names as Earlsway and Rocester Lane embody no conscious tradition. They have no meaning for the folk who use them, and to whose tenacious memories we owe our knowledge of them. Superficially, all the material brought to your notice this evening is commonplace. Many a highly-coloured picturesque tradition can be traced to an imaginative guide-book. But there is no ground for suspecting any of these five traditions to have been inspired or due to motive. The evidence of bygone social conditions which they afford is all the more weighty because it is unconscious; and this leads me, though it is a little beside my main point, to draw attention to a popular belief which is by no means peculiar to Staffordshire. In October, 1910, a witness at an inquest at