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YORKSHIRE ODDITIES.

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Yorkshire Oddities

INCIDENTS

AND

STRANGE EVENTS

BY

S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.

AUTHOR OF "MEHALAH," "ICELAND: ITS SCENES AND SAGAS,"
"OLD COUNTRY LIFE," ETC.

"There be such a company of wilful gentlemen within Yorkshire as there be not in
all England besides."—Abbot of York to Cromwell, 1556, Rolls House MS.

FIFTH EDITION

London
METHUEN AND CO.
18 BURY STREET, W.C.
1900

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PREFACE.

A residence of many years in Yorkshire, and an inveterate habit ofcollecting all kinds of odd and out-of-the-way information concerningmen and matters, furnished me, when I left Yorkshire in 1872, with alarge amount of material, collected in that county, relating to itseccentric children.

A friend, when he heard that I was collecting such material, exclaimed,"What are you about? Every other Yorkshireman is a character!" Such isthe case. No other county produces so much originality—and thatoriginality, when carried to excess, is eccentricity.

I look back with the greatest pleasure to the kindness and hospitality Imet with in[Pg vi] Yorkshire, where I spent some of the happiest years of mylife. I venture to offer this collection of memoirs of odd people, andnarrative of strange events, as a humble contribution to the annals ofthe greatest, not perhaps only in extent, of our English counties, and aslight return for the pleasant welcome it afforded a migratory penmanfrom the South.

PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION.

This book was well received in Yorkshire and elsewhere when it firstappeared, and as it preserved notices of strong characters, records ofwhom were passing away, and some taken from Chap Books already becomescarce, a new edition (the 4th) is issued thoroughly revised and onlyvery slightly curtailed.

Lew Trenchard, 12th April, 1890.

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CONTENTS.