A Dictionary Of The Sussex Dialect - online book

A Collection Of Provincialisms In Use In The County Of Sussex.

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32                       A Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect.
Croft, m. [Croft, Ang. Sax., a small enclosed field.] A small piece of pasture land near to a house.
Cross-ways. A place where four roads meet.
Crownation. Coronation.
" I was married the day the Crownation was, when there was a bullock roasted whole up at Furrel (Firle) Park. I ddant know as ever I eat anything so purty in all my life; but I never got no further than Furrel cross-ways all night, no more didn't a good many."
Crowsfoot. The butter-cup. Ranunculus bulbosus and allied
species. Crummy. Fat; fleshy.
" He aint near so crummy as what he was afore he went
to Lewes jail." Crutches, e. [Cruche, French, a pitcher.] Broken pieces of
crockery.
Cry, e. Several dogs of all kinds.
"I knew it was Miss Jane, by reason she'd got the cry with her."
Cuckoo's Bread and Cheese Tree, m. The whitethorn.
" When the cuckoo comes to the bare thorn, Sell your cow and buy your corn." —Old Proverb.
It is very remarkable that this name should be given to the whitethorn, as among all Aryan nations this tree is associated with the lightning, while the cuckoo is intimately connected with the lightning gods, Zeus and Thor.
Cuckoo-fair. Heathfield fair, held on April 14th. The tradi­tion in East Sussex is that an old woman goes to Heathfield fair, and there lets the cuckoo out of a bag.
In Worcestershire the saying is that the cuckoo is never heard before Tenbury fair (April 21st), or after Pershore fair (June 26th).
With this may be compared the following German legend, given by Grimm in his "Deutsche Mythologie," p. 691:— " Our Lord was one day passing a baker's shop, when, feeling hungry, He sent in one of His disciples to ask for a loaf; the baker refused it, but his wife, who with his six daughters was standing at a little distance, gave him the loaf secretly, for which good deed they were placed in heaven as seven stars—the Pleiades; but the bakerwas changed into a cuckoo, which sings from St. Tiburtius' Day (April 14) to St. John the Baptist's Day (June 24), that is, as long as the seven stars are visible."
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