I claim superiority over most of the earlier workers in the same philological ground in respect of the greater purity of my dialect. The Cumberland speech as written herein is pure Cumbrian, as the speech of the Scottish pieces, introduced for variety’s sake, is pure Scotch. Miss Blamire, Stagg, Anderson, Rayson, and others, have all written their dialect pieces, more or less, in the _Scoto_-Cumbrian which prevails along the southern side of the west Border. In other respects my inferiority to those deservedly popular writers is sufficiently evident. But, as expositions of the folk-speech of those parts of the County where, and where only, the unadulterated old Norse-rooted Cumbrian vernacular is spoken, I claim for these Tales and Rhymes the distinction of surpassing all similar productions, excepting only the dialect writings of my friend Mr. Dickinson, and perhaps the _Borrowdale Letter_ of Isaac Ritson, and the _Gwordie and Will_ of Charles Graham. I should not omit to state, however, that Mr. John Christian of London, and a writer who assumed the _nom de plume_ of Jack Todd, have evinced in their contributions to the local press, a mastery over the dialect of Whitehaven and its vicinity which makes us wish that their pens had been more prolific. For the illustrations I have attempted of the speech of High Furness and its Westmorland border, I ask no such distinction. The dialect there, as in the adjacent parts of Cumberland, is vitiated by an intermixture of that of the County Palatine, of which Furness forms a portion; and as it is spoken, so, if written at all, should it be written. These appear here for the reason already assigned for the introduction of the Rhymes given in the dialect of Dumfriesshire. The work rests its claims to favourable consideration entirely on its value as a faithfully rendered contribution to the dialect literature of the country. No higher estimate is sought for it. The production of its various contents has been an occasional amusement indulged in during some of the intervals of leisure and repose afforded by pursuits of a more important, more engrossing, and it is hoped, a more useful character, with which, had it in any wise interfered, it had not been proceeded with. Its composition has been a relaxation, not a task; a divertisement, not an occupation; and had its success when published been deemed incompatible with these conditions, it had not appeared. BEBINGTON, _December 18th, 1868_. CONTENTS. PAGE Joe and the Geologist (Cumberland) 1 T’ Reets on’t (Ibid.) 7 Bobby Banks’s Bodderment (Ibid.) 17 Wise Wiff (Ibid.) 27 Lal Dinah Grayson (Ibid.) 37