Page:The white doe of Rylstone - or, The fate of the Nortons. A poem (IA whitedoeofrylsto00wordrich).pdf/159



Poem of the White Doe of Rylstone is founded on a local tradition, and on the Ballad in Percy's Collection, entitled “The Rising of the North.” The tradition is as follows: “About this time,” not long after the Dissolution, “a White Doe, say the aged people of the neighbourhood, long continued to make a weekly pilgrimage from Rylstone over the fells of Bolton, and was constantly found in the Abbey Church-yard during divine service; after the close of which she returned home as regularly as the rest of the congregation.”— History of the Deanery of Craven.—Rylstone was the property and residence of the Nortons, distinguished in that ill-advised and unfortunate Insurrection, which led me to connect with this tradition the principal circumstances of their fate, as recorded in the Ballad which I have thought it proper to annex.