Country Rambles, and Manchester Walks and Wild Flowers: Being Rural Wanderings in Cheshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire, and YorkshireGrindon, Leo H. (Leo Hartley)
History
Country Rambles, and Manchester Walks and Wild Flowers: Being Rural Wanderings in Cheshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire, and Yorkshire
Grindon, Leo H. (Leo Hartley)
England -- Description and travel; Natural history -- England -- Manchester
We have spoken of Boggart-hole Clough in conformity with the generally
current idea, namely, that in the olden time it was a haunt or
habitation of "boggarts." Boggart-_hole_ is thought by some to be a
mistaken and enlarged spelling of Boggart _Hall_, the appellation of a
house near the head of the clough, once and for a long while of evil
repute as the home of an unclean spirit. Samuel Bamford seems to favour
the popular conception, probably because unwilling to disturb it,
though he himself never hints at the existence in this clough of any
particular uncanny inmate. The boggart of the hall was no other, it is
further contended, than the "brownie" found in some shape or other all
the world over, superstitions of this character being co-extensive with
human nature, sometimes vulgarized, sometimes exquisitely etherialised,
and taking as many forms as there are powers of fancy in the human
mind. The pixies of Devonshire and Titania's "Sweet Puck" belong to
the poetical line of thought; the ugly and mischievous "boggarts" to
the rustic one. The entire subject has been dealt with by Harland and
Wilkinson in the _Lancashire Folk-lore_. The legend is also given
in the _Traditions of Lancashire_, the compiler of which would seem
to have adopted an earlier version in the _Literary Gazette_ for
1825. There is yet another surmise, that "boggart" in this particular
instance is a mistake for "Bowker," a family of which name is said to
have once occupied the hall. Possibly. Admitting either explanation to
be the true one and finally established, the received idea still goes
abreast of that beautiful old tendency of the universal human heart to
assign spiritual beings to every part of physical nature, the basis
of all the primitive religions, and which will endure when etymology
is dead. Mrs. Banks supplies yet another version, referring us to the
time of Prince Charles Edward, the Pretender, one of whose unfortunate
followers was constrained to hide himself in the clough, friends who
were in the secret giving out, in order to hinder search by the enemy,
that the place of refuge was the abode of demons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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