Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/62

 ladder to milk old Cushy. But alas! "much would have more." We know how the goose was served that laid golden eggs. It is conjectured that one of the far-famed Pendle witches (perhaps bribed and instigated by some envious milk-seller who had lost his custom, and wished to destroy the opposition shop) took, instead of a milk-pail, a large riddle or sieve, and went up to milk the old dun cow. At work she kept all day; the milk flowed in rich and copious streams but at night the riddle was still empty. In vain the bountiful milk-giver taxed her powers to fill the old hag's strange milk-pail; the effort was too much the fountain that had never failed before at last became dry; and either through the exhaustion of nature, or from vexation and disappointment at being outwitted by an old woman, the old cow gave up the ghost, and those dreary moors ceased for ever to be "a land flowing with milk." The rib hangs over the door, a sad memento of the Old Dun Cow, and by its size challenges the attention of the passer-by—a sort of "Ex pede Herculem."

THE EAGLE AND CHILD. fabulous tradition of the Eagle and Child, the crest of the Stanleys, Earls of Derby, associates itself with the family of Lathom, and is thus gravely related:—Sir Thomas Lathom, the father of Isabel, having this only child, and cherishing an ardent desire for a son to inherit his name and fortune, had an intrigue with a young gentlewoman, the fruit of which was a son. This infant he contrived to have conveyed by a confidential servant to the foot of a tree in his park frequented by an eagle; and Sir Thomas and his lady, taking their