If the traditions of the past, and the estimate formed of them by
their distant neighbours, bear rather hardly upon the people of
Borrodale, it must be remembered that the relations of that dale to
the world without were very different a hundred years ago from what
they are now. It was a recess, approached by a long and winding
valley, from the vale of Keswick, with the lake extending between
its entrance and the town. The highest mountains of the district
closed round its head. Its entrance was guarded by a woody hill,
on which had formerly stood a Roman fortress, afterwards occupied
by the Saxons, and which in later times was maintained in its
military capacity by the monks of Furness. For here one of their
principal magazines was established, and the holy fathers had great
possessions to defend from the frequent irruptions of the Scots
in those days. Besides their tithe corn, they amassed here the
valuable minerals of the country; among which salt, produced from a
spring in the valley, was no inconsiderable article.
In this deep retreat the inhabitants of the villages of Rosthwaite
and Seathwaite, having at all times little intercourse with the
country, during half the year were almost totally excluded from all
human commerce. The surrounding hills attract the vapours, and rain
falls abundantly; snow lies long in the valleys; and the clouds
frequently obscure the sky. Upon the latter village, in the depth
of winter, the sun never shines. As the spring advances, his rays
begin to shoot over the southern mountains; and at high noon to
tip the chimney tops with their light. That radiant sign shows the
cheerless winter to be now over; and rouses the hardy peasants to
the labours of the coming year. Their scanty patches of arable land
they cultivated with difficulty; and their crops late in ripening,
and often a prey to autumnal rains, which are violent in this
country, just gave them bread to eat. Their herds afforded them
milk; and their flocks supplied them with clothes: the shepherd
himself being often the manufacturer also. No dye was necessary to
tinge their wool: it was naturally a russet brown; and sheep and
shepherds were clothed alike, both in the simple livery of nature.
The procuring of fuel was among their greatest hardships. Here the
inhabitants were obliged to get on the tops of the mountains; which
abounding with mossy grounds, seldom found in the valleys below,
supplied them with peat. This, made into bundles, and fastened upon
sledges, they guided down the precipitous sides of the mountains,
and stored in their outbuildings. At the period to which we refer,
a hundred years ago, the roads were of the rudest construction,
scarcely passable even for horses. A cart or any kind of wheeled
carriage was totally unknown in Borrodale. They carried their hay
home upon their horses, in bundles, one on each side: they made no
stacks. Their manure they carried in the same manner, as also the
smaller wood for firing: the larger logs they trailed. Their food
in summer consisted of fish and small mutton; in winter, of bacon
and hung mutton. Nor was their method of drying their mutton less
rude: they hung the sheep up by the hinder legs, and took away only
the head and entrails. In this situation, I myself, says Clarke,
have seen seven sheep hanging in one chimney.
The inhabitants of Borrodale were a proverb, even among their
unpolished neighbours, for ignorance; and a thousand absurd
and improbable stories are related of their stupidity; such as
mistaking a red-deer, seen upon one of their mountains, for a
horned horse; at the sight of which they assembled in considerable
numbers, and provided themselves with ropes, thinking to take him
by the same means as they did their horses when wild in the field,
by running them into a strait, and then tripping them up with a
cord. A chase of several hours proved fruitless; when they returned
thoroughly convinced they had been chasing a witch. Such like is
the story of the mule, which, being ridden into the dale by a
stranger bound for the mountains, was left in the care of his host
at the foot of a pass. The neighbours assembled to see the curious
animal, and consulted the wise man of the dale as to what it could
be. With his book, and his thoughts in serious deliberation, he was
enabled to announce authoritatively that the brute was a peacock!
So when a new light broke into Borrodale, and lime was first sent
for from beyond Keswick; the carrier was an old dalesman with horse
and sacks. Rain falling, it began to smoke: some water from the
river was procured by him to extinguish the unnatural fire; but the
evil was increased, and the smoke grew worse. Assured at length
that he had got the devil in his sacks, as he must be in any fire
which was aggravated by water, he tossed the whole load over into
the river. The tale of the stirrups is perhaps a little too absurd
even for Borrodale. A "'statesman" brought home from a distant fair
or sale, what had never before been seen in the dale, a pair of
stirrups. Riding home in them, when he reached his own door, his
feet had become so fastened in them, that they could not be got
out; so as there was no help for it, he patiently sat his horse
in the pasture for a day or two, his family bringing him food,
then it was proposed to bring them both into the stable, which
was done; his family bringing him food as before. At length it
occurred to some one that he might be lifted with the saddle from
the horse, and carried thereupon into the house. There the mounted
man sat spinning wool in a corner of the kitchen, till the return
of one of his sons from St. Bees school, whose learning, after
due consideration of the case, suggested that the good man should
draw his feet out of his shoes: when to the joy of his family he
was restored to his occupation and to liberty. But the story of
the Cuckoo has made its local name the "Gowk" synonymous with an
inhabitant of the vale. There the Spring was very charming, and the
voice of the bird rare and gladsome. It occurred to the natives
that a wall built across the entrance of their valley, at Grange,
if made high enough, would keep the cuckoo among them, and make
the cheerful Spring-days last for ever. The plan was tried, and
failed only because, according to popular belief from generation to
generation, the wall was not built one course higher.
The wetness of the weather in Borrodale is something more than
an occasional inconvenience. It may be judged of by observations
which show the following results. The average quantity of rain
in many parts of the south of England does not exceed 20 inches,
and sometimes does not even reach that amount. The mean rain fall
for England is 30 inches. Kendal and Keswick have been considered
the wettest places known in England; and the annual average at
the former place is 52 inches. It was found by experiments made
in 1852, that while 81 inches were measured on Scawfell Pike; 86
at Great Gable; 124 at Sty Head; 156 were measured at Seathwaite
in Borrodale; shewing, with the exception of that at Sprinkling
Tarn, between Scawfell, and Langdale Pikes, and Great Gable, where
it measured 168 inches nearly, the greatest rainfall in the Lake
District to be at the head of Borrodale. Taking a period of ten
years, the average annual rainfall at Seathwaite in that dale was
over 126 inches; for the rest of England it was 29 inches.