Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/268

 246 CHAPTER VII.

LOCAL SPRITES.

HE Land o’ Cakes is well known to be haunted by many kinds of sprites and goblins, some of which have found their way across the Cheviots, while the North of England has unearthly denizens peculiarly its own. The Scotch peasant Barnaby, in the Ettrick Shepherd’s tale of the “Woolgatherer,” speaks thus of the sprites of his country, and the popular belief in them of his day:—

“Ye had need to tak care how ye dispute the existence of fairies, brownies, and apparitions: ye may as weel dispute the Gospel of Saint Matthew. We dunna believe in a’ the gomral fantastic bogles an’ spirits that flay light-headed folk up an’ down the countree; but we believe in a’ the apparitions that warn o’ death, that save life, and that discover guilt. I’ll tell ye what we believe ye see. The deil and his adjents, they fash none but the gude folk—the Cameronians and the prayin’ ministers an’ sic like. Then the Bogles, they are a better kind o’ spirits; they meddle wi’ nane but the guilty; the murderer, an’ the mansworn, an’ the cheaters o’ the widow an’ fatherless, they do for them. Then the Brownie, he’s a kind of half-spirit, half-man; he’ll drudge, and do a’ the work about the town for his meat, but then he’ll do no wark but when he likes for a’ the king’s dominions. That’s what we a’ believe here awa’ auld and young.”