The Folk-Lore Journal/Volume 7/Derbyshire and Staffordshire Sayings
DERBYSHIRE SAYINGS.
[Contributed to the Derbyshire Advertiser by George Hibbert.]
A wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse.
Afore I'd do that, I'd run my yed atween Will Shore's two trees on Oaker. [Oaker Hill is on the west side of Darley Dale. Two trees on the top of it are said to mark the site of a fratricide, and can be seen for a long distance. Cf. "An Attempt at a Derbyshire Glossary," by J. Sleigh, in the Reliquary for 1865.]
All awry like Dick's hatband.
As bug [?] as bull-beef.
As crooked as Robin Hood's bow. [See Robin Hood below.]
As dear as cinnamon.
As drunk as David's sow.
As hollow as my shoon when my foot's out on't.
As ill scauden as brunt [=it is as bad to be scalded as burnt].
As lazy as Ludlam's dog that laid him down to bark. [Ray.]
As lean as a shot-herring, [how did this saying come so far inland?].
As mony rags as th' parson preaches on.
As merry as a grig.
As near dead as a toucher [?].
As nitle as a tup-maiden [=as smart as a boy who does woman's work].
As pratty as paint.
As right as a trivet.
As safe as Chelsea.
As sound as a roach.
As thin as a grew'nd [greyhound].
As thick as inkle-weavers; or, as two in a bed.
As throng [busy] as Throp's wife; and she hanged hersen in a dish-clout.
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.
"I'm very wheamow" [nimble], quo' th' old woman when she stepped into th' middle o' th' bittlin, [milkpail. Yorkshire, Ray].
Let's goo to Gilgal; i.e. get out of the way.
Like Cadman's tit, nought to be catck't, nought when it wor catch't.
[Like Chesterfield steeple, all o' one side. Charlotte Snape, Hazelwood, 1889. The spire of Chesterfield Church is out of the perpendicular.]
Mony a one lives in Hope as ne'er saw Castleton. [Hope is a mile and a half from Castleton; apparently this reflects on the stay-at-home character of the villagers.]
More pigs and less parsons.
Muckson up to the buckson; i.e. dirty up to the knuckles.
Nowght's niver i' danger.
"Now, Jack, gie it randy bacon!" an expression used by the leader of a village band when urging the drummer to play louder. (!)
One fool in a play is more than enough.
[Only fools and fiddlers sing at meals. Robin Hood could stand any cold but that of a thaw-wind. Two sayings of my Derbyshire grandfather, who died 1844. C. S. B.]
Robin Hood's pennyworths. [?]
To over-shoot Robin Hood. [Cf. "As crooked," above.]
Strike, Dakeyne! the devil's i' th' hemp. [?]
The blortin' [noisy] cow soon forgets its calf.
'Tis better to lose i' th' kit than i' th' carcase [to lose goods than to suffer bodily injury].
Weal and woman never pan.
But woe and woman can. [Ray.]
Where Meg Mutchell lost her shuf. [?]
Yo' conna spell Chesterfield steeple aright, [=neither words nor witchcraft will put it straight; see above].
STAFFORDSHIRE SAYINGS,
FROM THE NORTH-WESTERN OR "POTTERY" DISTRICT.
[Contributed to the Staffordshire Advertiser, Dec. 8th, 1877, and Jan. 26th, 1878, by Mr. G. Statham, Congleton, and a correspondent from Hanley.]
All of a spinning=all alike.
As bad as Swath Hoome (=Hulme), who was two hours getting his shirt on, and then he didna do it right. [Used in rebuking dawdling and clumsiness.]
Booked for Bucknall=going to be married. [Hanley people formerly preferred to be married at Bucknall Church. Both places were originally chapelries in Stoke-on-Trent parish. Bucknall was erected into a separate district in 1807, Hanley not till 1827. Probably the fashion and the saying arose in the interval between the two events.]
Fly round by Jackson's end=make haste. Often used by mothers when sending their children on errands.
Going over Yarlet Hill=going to gaol, because the road to Stafford from the north of the county lay over Yarlet Hill.
Hanging Jos=eating before the appointed time. "Mothers when putting up children's dinners to take with them to school, or to their place of employment, often give the injunction, 'not to get hanging Jos.' 'He's hanging Jos' is a remark often made on a potworks when any one is seen to be mortgaging on what has been packed up for his dinner."
I shall go to Leek out of the noise. "This saying is of Congleton origin, and arose through a murder committed a hundred years ago outside that town by a man named Thorley, whose body was gibbeted on West Heath. The deed caused great excitement, and Thorley, hearing people all round him talking about it, uttered the words named, which from that time have become a proverb used when any one finds himself, through something he has done, the object of inquiry and comment." [Congleton is in Cheshire; Leek, about ten miles distant, in Staffordshire. It is obvious that Thorley's remark, and his want of participation in the general excitement, were what drew suspicion on him and caused the saying to be remembered.]
Like Bott's cocks, all of a breed=all alike.
Once nowt, twice summat=a first offence counts for nothing. "Akin to the German 'Einmal, keinmal.'" [This seems like a forgotten beginning, or first half, of the common proverb "The third time pays for all."]
To throw one over the bridge="to give up entirely, to utterly forsake one."
You can't get more from a cat than its skin="you can't get out of a creditor more than he has got."