“ In the traditions to be found in the present volume, the popular legend in every case has been sought to be preserved, without any attempt to add the slightest embellishment, much less to rear a superstructure of invented fiction upon the crumbling foundations of a genuine tradition. In short, it is Lancashire folk-lore, and not the product of an editor's inventive imagination, that is recorded in the following pages. Where it is practicable, the traditions are arranged alphabetically, according to the names of their localities. ”

“ Of those popular punishments, which were inflicted in the spirit of Lynch-law for offences which the ordinary processes of law and modes of legal punishment would not reach, the most striking were riding the stang and ringing the pan. ”

“ Natural phenomena never fail to arrest the attention of an ignorant population; and their effects are always attributed to causes, which, so far as they can judge, appear sufficient for their production. Unaccustomed to reason, it is enough for them, when one circumstance frequently follows another, to suggest that some occult relation exists between them; and hence the omens and auguries, the spells and incantations, the weather-wisdom and the medical lore, which prevail in the undisturbed nooks and corners of our county. ”