A few years ago, I lived at an old lonesome farm, called ‘Peanock,’ up in the hills toward Blackstone Edge. At that time, a strong little fellow about twenty three years of age, called ‘Robin,’ was employed as ‘keaw-lad,’ or man-servant, at the farm. Robin used to tell me fearful tales of the witches and boggarts of the neighbourhood. The most notable one of them all was ‘Clegg Ho’ Boggart,’ which is commemorated by the late Mr. John Roby, of Rochdale, in his Traditions of Lancashire. This local sprite is still the theme of many a superstitious winter’s tale, among the primitive people of the hills about Clegg Hall. The proverb ‘Aw’m here again – like Clegg Ho’ Boggart,’ is common there, and in all the surrounding towns and villages. I remember Robin saying that when he had to go into the ‘shippon’ or cow-house, early on a winter’s morning, with a light, after opening the door, he used to advance his lantern and let it shine a minute or two into the ‘shippon’ before he durst enter himself, on account of the number of witches and other ‘feeorin’ which ‘swarmed up an deawn th’ inside i’th’ neet time.’ But, he strongly affirmed that ‘things o’ that mak couldn’t bide leet,’ for, as soon as his lantern glinted into the place, he could see ‘witches begin a scutterin’ through th’ slifters o’th wole by theawsans; like bits o’ leet’nin.’ He used to tell me, too, how that a dairy-lass at a neighbouring farm had to let go her ‘churn-pow,’ because ‘a rook o’ little green divuls begun a-swarmin up th’ hondle as hoo wur churnin’. And then he would glance, with a kind of unconscious timidity, towards a certain nook of the yard, in which direction there stood three old cottages connected with the farm; and in one of which there dwelt a very old and deaf man, of singular hahits and weird appearance, of whose supposed supernatural powers many of the people of that neighbourhood harboured a considerable degree of superstitious fear; and, as he glanced toward the corner of the building where the old man generally made his appearance, he would tell me in an undertone that the little Irish cow, ‘Red Jenny,’ which used to be ‘as good a keaw as ever whiskt a tad or gav a meal o’ milk, had never lookt up sin th’ day at ’owd Billy glented at hur through a hole i’th’ shippon wole one mornin as Betty wur milkin hur.’ Prejudices of this kind are still very common in thinly-peopled nooks of the Lancashire hills. Waugh, Sketches.