Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/12



legends and traditions are rapidly disappearing from the fireside literature of our county. Some of them pass away with the ancient mansions to which they were attached; others die out with the individuals who were wont to repeat them orally to their descendants; and not a few have become modified by the changes which have taken place in our social relationships to each other. Elementary education, also, is doing its work slowly, but surely, and with the spread of correct information amongst the masses, much of our popular superstition will cease to exist. That which remains will become modified according to prevalent ideas, just as Pagan rites, ceremonies, and beliefs, were Christianised by our forefathers and accepted under their modified forms.

How, or when, many of these popular legends took their rise cannot now be determined. Their origin is lost in the far distant past, and forms matter for mere conjecture. Some have probably been invented in order to account for certain unusual appearances, and a resort to the supernatural has been too frequently indulged in when natural phenomena have not admitted of an easy explanation to those who lacked the requisite information. The ringing of the curfew bell at Burnley, and other places, is plainly a relic of early Norman times, and the origin of the custom is well understood; but when the mysterious writing was found on the walls of the cellar b