By this time the mixture of races in Lancashire is so complete that it is not easy to gather at first hand fresh data as to indigenous superstitions. This is more especially the case in the populous districts, where immigrants from every part of the United Kingdom and from abroad have been attracted by the great industries of the County Palatine. These influxes have necessarily had their influence upon the population and its beliefs. There is the danger of mistaking for a genuine product of the Lancashire soil what is merely an exotic. This danger exists as to oral tradition, but is still greater with regard to what has become literature. It will be well to illustrate this by a concrete example. In the pleasant volume of “Poems and Songs” by Thomas Newbigging there is a poem entitled “The Story of Old Gamul,” narrating as a Rossendale tradition one of those strange legends which are links in the history of fiction. According to Mr. Newbigging’s story, old Gamul had the enmity of but one man—the keeper, who determined to work his destruction. This villain caused a pit to be dug, and cunningly covered over with turf and branches. Thinking that the victim is already there, the keeper goes to the place and falls into it himself. Gamul soon after passes, and hearing a cry for help, lets down ropes, and pulls up, first a lion, then a serpent, then an ape, and last of all his enemy. The keeper invites Gamul to his house, and when he goes there, knocks him down with a club, and casts him forth as dead. Gamul, however, recovers, and when next he goes to the wood, he is aided in his labour by the ape, the serpent brings him “the adder’s magic stone,” and the lion shows him a cave full of treasure. “That lucky night went Gamul home, The richest wight in Christendom.” The keeper finally hangs himself for vexation, and the old woodman becomes Sir Gamul. “Nor e’er were turned the homeless poor Unfriended from the open door.”