Now! Then! A Yorkshire Almanac for 2024

Excerpt

It is clear that primitive instincts towards blood-letting and frightfulness were somewhat dominant in us then, and in confirmation of this I quote the diary for 28th of that same February: “Bob and I went to Leckby Carr. Arminson Bland shot two sparrows whilst we were there, Bob bought them for a penny. This afternoon we had a cat hunt, and then walked to Mr Parker’s stacks, and there found six small mice, which we buried, alivo!”

Comment

Comment

I thought that “Alivo” was a reference to the chorus of the song Molly Malone, but that is first attested in 1876, and so it must allude to the street cries of her English (and Yorkshire) colleagues:

As the good doctor W-n, was one Sunday morning going through the street towards the cathedral [in Winchester], he heard a woman cry, “Mackerel, all alive, alive, O !” And on his arrival at the church, he began the service as follows, “When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, and doth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive, alive O!” These last words the doctor proclaimed aloud, in the true tone of the fish woman, to the great surprise of the congregation; but the good doctor was so studious and absent, that he knew not what he had done (Lackington 1803).

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Original

It is clear that primitive instincts towards blood-letting and frightfulness were somewhat dominant in us then, and in confirmation of this I quote the Diary for 28th of that same February:

Bob and I went to Leckby Carr. Arminson Bland shot two sparrows whilst we were there, Bob bought them for a penny. This afternoon we had a cat hunt, and then walked to Mr Parker’s stacks, and there found six small mice, which we buried, alivo!

84 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Allison, William (1851-1925) (12), Yorkshire-born sporting journalist ·
• Blood sport (5) ·
• Cat (4) ·
• Cundall, North Yorkshire (4) ·
• Field sports (4) ·
• Fish (8) ·
• Mackerel (1) ·
• Molly Malone (1) ·
• Mouse (1) ·
• Sparrow (1) ·
• Winchester (2) ·

All tags.

Similar

• 14 February 1863: William Allison (11) witnesses hare-coursing at Cundall
• 12 August 1866: William Allison (15) goes grouse shooting for the first time, on Saltergate Moor (Pickering)
• 23 February 1863: The Rev Samuel Gray of Cundall tries to make school interesting for a nervous William Allison (12)
• 10 March 1863: William Allison (11) rides two miles on a donkey from Cundall to Brafferton to help celebrate the marriage of the future Edward VII to Alexandra of Denmark
• 22 January 1863: Young William Allison sees Bob Gowland, Kilvington’s blacksmith, slaughter a pig while drunk
• 2 January 1863: William Allison (11) fails to shoot any rabbits at Coxwold
• 19 February 1557: At a tithe hearing, Ralph Dicconson (60) of Malton recalls his visits 40 years ago as a pedlar to Kirkham Priory before its dissolution in 1539
• 16 June 1863: William Allison (12) travels from Coxwold to the circus at Easingwold, hoping to see Tom King, ‘The fighting sailor’
• 13 June 1635: A Puritan talks to the gardener at York of the notorious miser and swindler, Sir Arthur Ingram
• 10 April 1877: Echoing Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, John Collier tells a meeting at Walkley (Sheffield) that there was an initial local separation between Normans and Anglo-Saxons