Excerpt from An Exmoor Scolding: In the Propriety and Decency of Exmoor Language, Between Two Sisters, Wilmot Moreman and Thomasin Moreman, as They Were Spinning, Also, an Exmoor Courtship The following collection was originally made, aboutthe beginning of the present century, by a blind itinerant fidler, (one Peter Lock, of North Moulton, or its neighbourhood, who was a man of some humour, and though his skill and dexterity as a musician is said to have recommended him to the notice of the great, his more common converse with the lower class of people gave him frequent Opportunities. Of hearing and observing their phrases and diction; and as persons deprived of sight have generally a good memory, he was thereby the better enabled to retain and repeat them. This attracted the notice ofa neighbouring clergy man, who by the fidler's assistance put the Ex moor Scolding into the form in which we now have it, and before his death (which happened soon after the year communicated it to the editor of the first and subsequent editions, who perfected the Courtship; but copies of the Scold ing were, for some time before and after this, handed about in manuscript, of which the writer hereof has seen one near 40 years since, which was then taken to be the original composition of the clergyman aforesaid few being then apprehensive of its having any other author, or how far the person who furnished the materials might claim title thereto, though his fame as a fidler was not yet extinct. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.