Originally prepared for textual analysis during his PhD research on the 'Origins and Development of English Folk Plays' by Peter Millington (2002).
Original spelling and typography is retained, except that superscripts, long s and ligatured forms are not encoded.
Line identifiers are those used for line types in the Folk Play Scripts Explorer.
" The next dialogue was repeated to Miss Fowler at Winterton, by Mrs. I., who gave it as used on 'the hillside" (the western slope of the wolds in North Lincolnshire) some twenty-five years ago. It is to be noticed that in this version, as in the one from Hibaldstow, the hobby-horse can 'hotch' - whatever pace that word may mean - while a long-legged crane is again referred to in 'Jane's' speech. It may be tbat the heron, not the true crane, has suggested the line. The latter bird is now only a chance visitor, while the former is, or was till lately, sometimes called the crane, its more common name being heronsew. The 'Doctor's' part includes an allusion to bagpipes (here possibly a comic name for the lungs), which were once well-known instruments of music in the county. An old man who could play the Lincolnshire pipes was still living in the neighbourhood of Kirton-in-Lindsey in the earlier part of the nineteenth century, but both the player and his pipes have now vanished."