| “Round the fire such Legends go.” |
| Sir W. Scott. |
LONDON:
WHITTAKER, AND CO., AVE MARIA LANE,
AND
R. COCKER, MARKET-PLACE, WIGAN.
MDCCCXLI.
| TO |
| THE RIGHT HONOURABLE |
| LADY STANLEY, |
| THE “LEGENDS OF LANCASHIRE” |
| ARE, |
| WITH HER LADYSHIP’S KIND PERMISSION, |
| RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. |
| PAGE. | |
| The Battle of Wigan Lane | 6 |
| The Witches of Furness | 69 |
| The Devil’s Wall | 91 |
| The Prophetess and the Rebel | 155 |
| The Spectre Coach | 229 |
| The Cross and Lady Mabel | 243 |
| Lancaster Castle | 303 |
A Preface before an Introduction seems sufficiently impudent.
It is like popping our face in at the door for a shortreconnoitre, before we introduce ourselves. Be it so!
The Chronicler of the “Legends of Lancashire” has no apology tooffer, except to his palsied hands, for taking up the pen. He isnot a Paul Pry, appearing before the public, with his perpetualnon-intrusion plea. He imagines that his motives for writing theLegends are distinctly enough stated in the following Prospectus.
“Lancashire, of all Counties in England, is the most interestingto the antiquarian. Its rivers once flowed with blood;—its houseswere towers, castles, or abbeys;—its men were heroes;—its ladieswere witches! But now, what a change! The county is commercial.Where the trumpet of war called Arthur to his victories, the noisyengine is roaring. The fortresses have become factories; theabbeys—workhouses;—the heroes—clerks, merchants, and bankers.The ladies, indeed, profess to be what they were in former ages,and still call themselves ‘Lancashire Witches.’ It may not besafe for the ‘Chronicler,’ aged as he is, to speak lightly ofthe power of their[viii] spells; they may yet be of a deadly natureto him—for witches love revenge. Report says, however, thatthey cannot use the broomstick on which their ancestresses wereaccustomed to perform their nightly wanderings in the air; but theChronicler is not so ungallant as to conclude, that it is becausethey have broken it over their husbands’ shoulders. The witchesof a former age were accustomed, with awful incantations, to mixtheir drugs:—pooh!—those of this age infuse a cup