Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, &c./Part 5/Lancashire Riddles
LANCASHIRE RIDDLES.
Red within, and red without;
Four corners round about.
Ans.—A brick.
All hair except the head;—
Guess me right and go to bed.
Ans.—A cow-tie.
Four stiff standers,
Four dillydanders,
Two hookers, two snookers,
And a flip-flap.
Ans.—A cow.
Clink, clank, under the bank;
Ten against four; try once more.
Ans.—A girl in pattens, milking.
Little Nanny Netticoat
Has a white petticoat;
The longer she stands
The shorter she grows;
Now cross both your hands,
And tell me who knows.
Ans.—A candle.
We have a horse
Without any head;
He is never alive,
And will never be dead.
Ans.—A clothes-horse.
As round as an apple,
As deep as a cup;
All the Queen's horses
Can't draw it up.
Ans.—A well.
A riddle, a riddle,
As I suppose;
Full of eyes,
But never a nose.
Ans.—A sieve.
Long legs, crooked thighs,
Little head, and no eyes.
Ans.—Tongs.
Humpty-dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty-dumpty got a great fall;
Threescore men, and threescore more,
Can't make Humpty as before.
Ans.—A broken egg.
Old Mother Twitchett has but one eye,
And a long tail which she makes fly;
And every time she goes over a gap,
She leaves a piece of her tail in a trap.
Ans.—Needle and thread.
Meal-porridge hot,
Meal-porridge cold,
Meal-porridge in a pot,
Nine days old.
Beef and bacon boiled in a hat;
In four letters spell me that.
Ans.—T-h-a-t
Higgledy-piggledy,
Here we lie;
Picked and plucked,
And put in a pie.
Ans.—Pigeons.
LANCASHIRE RHYMES.
Lancashire law—
No stakes, no draw.
This is often quoted by those who, having lost a wager, do not wish to pay, on the ground that no stakes had been deposited.
As foolish as monkeys
Till twenty or more;
As bold as lions
Till forty and four;
As cunning as foxes
Till threescore and ten,
They then become asses,
Or something—not men.
WEATHER RHYMES.
If red the sun begins his race,
Expect that rain will fall apace.
The evening red, the morning gray,
Are certain signs of one fair day.
If woolly fleeces spread the heavenly way,
No rain, be sure, disturbs that summer's day.
In the waning of the moon,
A cloudy morn—fair afternoon.
When clouds appear like rocks and towers,
The earth's refreshed by frequent showers.
When Pendle wears its woolly cap,
The farmers all may take a nap.
Owd Know [i.e. knoll, a hill between Rochdale and Rossendale] hes bin awsin [offering] to put hur durty cap on a time or two to-day; an as soon us hoo can shap to see it, ther'll be waytur amang us, yo'll see.
Of the Duddon and other streams in the north of Lancashire, a local expression states that, "Up with a shower, down in an hour."