The spelling of "broad Yorkshire" will always be one of the problems
which the dialect-writer has to face. At best he can only hope for a
broadly accurate representation of his mode of speech, but he can take
comfort in the thought that most of those who read his verses know by
habit how the words should be pronounced far better than he can teach
them by adopting strange phonetic devices. A recognition of this fact
has guided me in fixing the text of this anthology, and every spelling
device which seemed to me unnecessary, or clumsy, or pedantic, I have
ruthlessly discarded. On the other hand, where the dialect-writer has
chosen the Standard English spelling of any word, I have as a rule not
thought fit to alter its form and spell it as it would be pronounced in
his dialect.

I am afraid I may have given offence to those whom I should most of all
like to please--the living contributors to this anthology--by
tampering in this way with the text of their poems. In defence of what I
have done, I must put forward the plea of consistency. If I had
preserved every poet's text as I found it, I should have reduced my
readers to despair.

In conclusion, I should--like to thank the contributors to this volume,
and also their publishers, for the permission to reproduce copyright
work. Special thanks are due to Mr. Richard Blakeborough, who has placed
Yorkshiremen under a debt, by the great service which he has rendered in
recovering much of the traditional poetry of Yorkshire and in giving it
the permanence of the printed page. In compiling the so-called
traditional poems at the end of this volume, I have largely drawn upon
his Wit, Character, Folklore, and Customs of the North Riding.

F. W. Moorman

1. Thus in the south-west fool and soon are pronounced fooil
and sooin, in the north-east feeal and seean. Both the
south-west and the north-east have a word praad--with a
vowel--sound like the a in father--but whereas in the south-
west it stands for proud, in the north-east it stands for
pride,

Preface (To the Second Edition)

The demand for a second edition of this anthology of Yorkshire dialect
verse gives me an opportunity of correcting two rather serious error's
which crept into the first edition. The poem entitled "Hunting Song" on
page 86, which I attributed to Mr. Richard Blakeborough, is the work of
Mr. Malham-Dembleby", whose poem, "A