1899 - Halliwell, Sutcliffe - By Moor and Fell (2)

Halliwell Sutcliffe / John B. Wordsworth: Halliwell Sutcliffe.

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2013-08-15. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2019-02-21.

Allusion

It suits the flavour of old Bingley, too, this rough-and-tumble recklessness, which wore a grim front and hid something of a laughing heart behind it; and we move again, with no perceptible transition, among the wool-combers who peopled every cottage between the river-bridge and the old church. Hard times they are said to have been; but, measured by happiness rather than by comfort, they were fairer days than ever the working man will see again. Hard times? Nay, not in Haworth parish, nor in Bingley here. Food might be coarse, cottages scantily furnished — but what mattered it when half the men's days were spent out of doors, when sport and laughter and rough revelry brought back for awhile a flavor of old Robin Hood to an age that was so soon to settle into colourless sobriety?

Lists

• Not included in Dobson, R. B., ed.; Taylor, J., ed. Rymes of Robyn Hood: an Introduction to the English Outlaw (London, 1976), pp. 293-11.
• Outside scope of Sussex, Lucy, compil. 'References to Robin Hood up to 1600', in: Knight, Stephen. Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw (Oxford, UK; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1994), pp. 262-88.

Sources

• Sutcliffe, Halliwell. By Moor and Fell: Landscapes and Lang-Settle Lore from West Yorkshire (London, 1899), p. 125.

Notes