Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/247

 of the finer varieties of grain. The high grounds are all sheep pastures, and the "few small crofts of stone-encumbered ground," divided by dry-walls, and attached to each tenement, are devoted to the growth of summer grass and winter fodder for the hardy cattle, and of oats and potatoes for the equally hardy families. This limited range of agricultural produce is remarked upon in two jingling verses, wherein nearly all the farms in Seathwaite are mentioned—

In the fall of the year, a caller at any Seathwaite farmhouse will notice upon a hanging-shelf, or some such repository, a bundle of what looks rather like dirty straw, but which, on examination, turns out to be half peeled rushes saturated with fat; and are the principal, if not the sole provision made for the supply of light to the household in the evenings of winter. In the dales around Seathwaite a proverbial saying may be heard to the effect that "a Seathwaite candle 's a greased seeve;" seeve being Cumbrian for rush. Another domestic custom in Seathwaithe has given rise to another proverb. The week's meat (generally mutton) is all boiled on the Sunday for broth, and the cold meat is eaten on the other six days of the week. This dried mutton is not very nice when eaten hot, but when cold is excellent; while the broth is simply detestable, so much so, that people in the neighbouring dales, when they find their