292
DERBYSHIRE SAYINGS.
Beware of a breed if it be but a batterdock [colt's foot].
Derbyshire born and Derbyshire bred,
Strong i' th' arm but weak i' th' yed.
Easily led but dour to drive.
Eldon Hole wants filling up [said as a hint that some statement is untrue. Eldon Hole is a deep vertical cavern on Eldon Hill, on the eastern side of the Peak Forest. A Mr. Lloyd descended into it in 1781, and found a bottom at 62 yards' depth. Cf. Black's Guide to Derbyshire, p. 77].
Fou' i' th' cradle, fair i' th' saddle. [Cf. Ray, s.v. A ragged colt may make a good horse.]
"God speed you well," quo' clerk o' Hope. [?]
He can't dint into a pound of butter [said of a weak hitter].
He hasna a idle bone i' a' his body.
He stares like a stuck pig.
He'd skin a bowder-stone to get at its rops [intestines].
He's driving his hogs o'er Swarson's brig [=he has undertaken a hazardous enterprise. "Swarson's brig" is a very long bridge over the Trent, at which the Highlanders turned back daunted in 1745, teste Charlotte Snape, Hazelwood, Derbyshire, 1889].
He's get a' his buttons on [=he is wide awake].
He's get a' th' water o' th' wheel [=he has got more than his share].
He's a puir jaffle-yedded sort o' half-bake, and mun be bled for the simples [=he is a simpleton].
He's non' gain [=he is no fool].
He's nowt good-for till he's happed-up. [Happed-up=buried. Said of a miser whose money profits no one till he is dead.]
[He's nowt good-for till he gies crows a pŭdden: ditto. Charlotte Snape, Hazelwood, 1889.]
Hot love (or calf-love) is soon cold. [Ray.]
I'd elder go to Derby nor to the Bastoile [=I'd sooner go to gaol than to the workhouse].
"I'm forty fashions," as Jack Fielding o' Todholes says.
