Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/190

 spreading through the district, it will shortly only be known as a matter of history.

HUNTING AT EXTWISTLE HALL. of our Lancashire gentry appear to have been fond of field-sports; and their prowess has frequently been made the subject of local songs and ballads. The late Mr Harland included one of these—"The Stonyhurst Buck Hunt"—in his "Early Lancashire Ballads;" and the following composition relates to the same "noble sport," by one of the Parkers of Extwistle, near Burnley. From some memoranda, in a copy of "Merlinus Liberatus," for 1699, the present owner of Extwistle and Cuerden considers "the Owd Squire" to have been Robert Parker, of Extwistle, who married a co-heiress of Christopher Banastre, of Banke, and by her obtained Cuerden. He kept a "Journal of Events," which includes the days he went hunting and killed "haires."

OWD SQUIRE PARKER O' EXTWISTLE HALL.

Come all ye jolly sportsmen, give ear to me all, An' I'll sing you of a huntin at Extwistle Hall. Sich huntin, sich huntin, you never did see; So come, jolly sportsmen, and listen unto me.
 * Sich huntin, sich huntin, you never did see;
 * So come, jolly sportsmen, and listen unto me.

There were Squire Parker, and Holden o' th' Clough, T' one mounted on Nudger, and t'other on Rough; An' tantivy, tantivy, the bugles did call, To join in that huntin fra Extwistle Hall.
 * Sich huntin, sich huntin, you never did see;
 * So come, jolly sportsmen, and listen unto me.

They hunted fra Roggerham to Wyecoller Moor, But t' buck kept ahead and made th' horses to snore;