_Popular Sayings.--The Sparrows at Lindholme_ (Vol. vii., p. 234.).--The
sparrows at Lindholme have made themselves scarce here, under the following
circumstances:--William of Lindholme seems to have united in himself the
characters of hermit and wizard. When a boy, his parents, on going to Wroot
Feast, hard by, left him to keep the sparrows from the corn; at which he
was so enraged that he took up an enormous stone, and threw it at the house
to which they were gone, but from throwing it too high it fell on the other
side. After he had done this he went to the feast, and when scolded for it,
said he had fastened up all the sparrows in the barn; where they were
found, on the return home, all dead, except a few which were turned white.
(Vide Stonehouse's _History of the Isle of Axholme_.)
As for the "Doncaster Daggers" and "Hatfield Rats," also inquired after, I
have no information, although those places are in the same neighbourhood.