[69] Bunbury Church Accounts.
One other point remains to be noticed. There is a widely-spread belief
that the indentures of apprentices in Chester contained a clause
stipulating that they should not be compelled to eat salmon more than
three days in each week. No such indenture has ever been seen, and the
late Mr. Frank Buckland offered, in vain, a reward of five pounds for
the sight of such a document. The tradition exists wherever there is a
salmon river, but investigation shows that it is without foundation.
Such is some of the folk-lore of Cheshire, and there may still be a
great deal which has never yet been recorded. It behoves every one to
use his utmost endeavours to put into print every song, legend, saying,
or custom that he may meet with. Such relics of the past can only now
be obtained from aged people, and in a few years this source will fail,
and the rising “school-board” generation will neither know nor care for
such things. It is well to remember also (to quote another Cheshire
proverb) that “the unlikeliest places are often likelier than those
which are likeliest.”
It has been impossible to give all references, but especial mention
must be made of Hazlitt’s and Ray’s _Proverbs_, Mr. Robert Holland’s
various papers, _The Cheshire Sheaf_, and some _Bird Notes_ of Mr. T.
A. Coward.