Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/238

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

i. MARCH 5, 190*.

Gentleman's Magazine for October, 1793, by which it appears that John Mourisey, Esq., who had then just died, was commonly called King of Patterdale, the owners of Patterdale Hall, in the parish of Barton, co. Westmore- land, having been honoured with this appella- tion from time immemorial. C. E. LKEDS. 62, Clyde Road, Addiscombe.

This appears to have been a local hereditary title, two bearers of which are mentioned one in Newte's 'Tour of England and Scot- land performed in 1785,' and the other in Kett's ' Tour of the Lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland in August, 1798.'

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

In answer to the query of my friend the REV. J. B. McGovERN, I will quote an extract from vol. xv. part ii. of the 'Beauties of England and Wales,' 1814, p. 114 :

"Patterdale Hall has for many generations been the residence of the ancestors of John Mounsey, Esq., its present owner, 'whose forefathers, from time immemorial, have been called Kings of Patter - dale, living, as it were, in another world, and having no one near them greater than themselves.' "

The lines in inverted commas are evidently a quotation, but the authority is not named. The mansion, says the editor, has lately been rebuilt.

CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D., F.R.Hist.S.

Baltimore House, Bradford.

[M. N. says that a Mounsey gained the title by defeating Scotch raiders at Sty barrow Crag.]

FOOTBALL ON SHROVE TUESDAY (10 th S. i. 127). The glories of Easter football play at Workington have passed away, partly in consequence of the occupation of a portion of the playing ground by railways and works, and not less because of a change of feeling. See further ' Bygone Cumberland and West- moreland/ by Daniel Scott, 1899, p. 200.

"As to the manner and circumstances of the game as it was played in its heyday, Easter Tuesday was the great day amongst the sailors and colliers of Workington, who met in an extra-parochial place comprising about a hundred acres, called the Cloffocks, at 4 o'clock on the afternoon of that day, for the purpose of keeping up the old custom peculiar to the place, which had existed time out of mind, inducing hundreds to come from a distance to witness it. The mode of procedure was as follows : The centre of the Cloffocks being determined as near as could be clone, the sailors took the lower part to the end of the Merchants' Quay ; whilst the colliers took the higher part of the said Cloffocks to Workington Hall Park. The ball was then thrown off, when the sailors endeavoured to force it down by kicking and bearing and throwing it towards the Merchants' Quay ; whilst the colliers strove to prevent them and endeavoured to force it up bank towards Workington Hall. Every ex- ertion was made on both sides ; they hauled and pulled one another about like demented men, in

many instances tearing each other's clothes to pieces, each party cheering as the ball went up or down.

After playing for two or three hours the

successful party was treated with a sum of money, which was spent in drink, and eventually they finished up with a fight or two, as all disagreements during the past year were put off until this night to settle, and the town was almost in a state of siege, as the lower class thought whatever wrong they did on that day the law could not lay hold of them." Wm. Whellan's ' History and Topography of Cumberland and Westmoreland,' 1860, p. 479. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

Full reports of the scene at Workington on Shrove Tuesday appear in the Monthly Chronicle of North- Country Lore and Legend for 1889 and 1890, copies of which I possess. I shall be pleased to furnish your corre- spondent with any details.

Many articles on football in general, and in various quarters, have appeared in ' N. & Q.,' but none with reference to the proceedings at Workington.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

SLEEPING KING ARTHUR (9 th S. xii. 502 ; 10 th S. i. 77). This legend, or one similar to it in the main features, has often done duty. Let me mention one version of it at Ricn- mond Castle, Yorkshire, quoted from Mur- ray's ' Handbook for Yorkshire' :

" A piece of 'folk-lore' which has been localized in various places among others under the triple height of Eildon and at Freeburgh Hill in Cleve- land, see Route 15 has found'a home at Richmond Castle. Arthur and his knights are said to lie under the ' roots ' of the great tower, spellbound in mysterious sleep. A certain Potter Thompson was once led into the vault, where he saw the king and his knights, and on a great table a horn and sword. He began to draw the sword, but as the sleepers stirred he was frightened and dropped it, when a voice exclaimed

Potter, Potter Thompson, If thou hadst either drawn The sword, or blown the horn, Thou 'd been the luckiest man That ever yet was born."

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

This story and the verses quoted resemble the Border legend of Canobie Dick the horse- couper and Thomas the Rhymer, laird of Ercildoune, in Berwickshire, as narrated by Scott in Appendix I. to the general preface to the Waverley Novels : Woe to the coward, that ever he was born, Who did not draw the sword before he blew the horn !

ADRIAN WHEELER.

"QuiCE" (10 th S. i. 126). In Hampshire this, the local name for the wood-pigeon or ringdove, is pronounced "queesh," presum-