English Folklore (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from English Folklore

In 1725 Henry Bourne dedicated to those "Incouragers of Learning and Rewarders of Merit," the Mayor and Corporation of the town and county of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he was curate of All Saints' Church, a little book with the title Antiquitates Vulgares, or "The Antiquities of the Common People. Giving An Account of several of their Opinions and Ceremonies. With Proper Reflections upon each of them; shewing which may be retain'd and which ought to be laid aside." The mixture of affable condescension to the "common people," and of humble apology to their "betters" for a display of interest in what vulgar folk did and thought, makes the book delightful reading nowadays. The preface says: "I would not be thought a Reviver of old Rites and Ceremonies to the Burdening of the People, nor an Abolisher of innocent Customs, which are their Pleasures and Recreations: I aim at nothing, but a Regulation of those which are in Being among them, which they themselves are far from thinking burdensome, and abolishing such only as are sinful and wicked."

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