Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/17

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Preface.

have been classified under different heads as far as possible; but there are many curious items which do not readily admit of any special arrangement.

In the appendix will be found a reprint of a rare old chap-book on the Lancashire Witches, an account of the Lady in White of Samlesbury Hall, &c., all of which will probably be acceptable both to the general and the antiquarian reader.

We have now the pleasing duty of tendering our acknowledgments to R. W. Procter, Edwin Waugh, Benjamin Brierley, and William Beamont, Esqrs., and other authors whose writings are occasionally quoted. Our thanks are also due to W. C. Boulter, Esq., of Hull, and Joseph Chatwood, Esq., President of the Manchester Literary Club, for the poems and extracts contained in the memoir. We are also much indebted to W. A. Waddington, Esq., of Burnley, for his spirited and accurate sketch of the Foldys Cross, which forms so appropriate a vignette to the present volume. The inscription round the octagonal base runs thus:—"Orate pro anima Johannis Foldys cappellani qui istam crucem fieri fecit anno domini mcccccxx." This stately memorial was erected in the churchyard at Burnley by a Foldys of Danes House, who was then incumbent, and, after being thrown down many years ago in a drunken frolic, it was removed to Towneley, where it has been re-erected on the lawn behind the Hall. It is to be hoped that in a short time it will be restored to its original site, from which it ought never to have been removed.

T. T. W.

Burnley,

November 1872.