"Many there be who yet do grace their dead with a salt platter putten upon
the breast of the corpse, and all those friends who do view the dead and
it be the common custom for all so to do, do first touch the corpse on the
face or hands and then lay their own hands upon the platter first having
full and free forgiven the dead any fault or ill-feeling they had in life
held as a grudge again the dead.
"In some spots it is a common thing for the wake wail to be sung over the
boddy each night it be in the house as also for a rushlight to be kept
alight from sunset to sunrise and for the death watchers for to tend the
dead throw the night owther in the same room or in one so held that those
watching could see the corpse, and they due at this day deggle the quilt
and floor with rue water.
"It be always most carefull seen to that no four-footed thing come nigh
hand, for it would be a despert ill thing if such by any mishap did run
just across or loup over the corpse.
"There be always a great arval feast after the funeral to which all
friends are bidden."
The remedies of this period were not greatly superior to those of the
seventeenth century if one may judge from the gruesome concoction the
details of which were given to Calvert by William Ness of Kirby Moorside.
"For the certain cure of a cancer take a pound of brown honey when the
bees be sad from a death in ye house, which you shall take from the hive
just turned of midnight at the full of the moon.
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