Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/286



He numbered them all. And the man in his walks, Said—'In this field how many wheat stalks?' At one swoop of his scythe, the stalks he all trundles, And bound them up quick in manifold bundles, And gave him the number, as he held them in hand. Now the poor fellow's was a pitiful case, As plain might be seen from his long length of face. 'Now make me, dear sir, a rope of your sand, Which will bear washing in Cocker, and not lose a strand.' The devil and mate then went down to the strand, In a jiffy they twisted a fine rope of sand, And dragged it along with them over the land; But when they brought the rope to be washed, To atoms it went—the rope was all smashed. The devil was foiled, wroth, and gave him a shaking; Up he flew to the steeple—his frame all a-quaking. With one horrid frig—his mind very unwilling, He strode to the brig o'er Broadfleet at Pilling."

Pilling is a small town and chapelry in the parish of Garstang, and has long been noted for its moss. In the year 1745, there was an irruption of this moss, similar to that of Solway Moss in 1771. Part of it, near Heskam House, gradually rose to a great height, and then moved slowly towards the south, covering more than one hundred acres of land under cultivation. The vast supplies of turf for fuel obtained from this dreary waste has given rise to the saying—"As inexhaustible as Pilling Moss." The "Devil's Stride," from Cockerham to Pilling, must have been, at least, the orthodox seven miles in length.