Ladyday to Whitsunday 
has a great many curious local names — Yeldrock, Yorlin, Yite, 
Yeldring, Yowley and Goldie, which last he shares with the 
Goldfinch, Thistlefinch or Gowdspink. These names are 
old, and are to be seen in the antient ballads. They have 
a common origin in the Anglo-Saxon word geole i “ yellow 
ring ” — yellow ring probably from the bird’s colouring. It is 
curious that the poor Yorlin never seems to have had a good 
reputation in Scotland ; he is called a “ Devil’s bird,” and 
there is a local rhyme which runs thus : 
Yellow, yellow yorline 
Drinks a drop of Deil’s bluid. 
Ilka Monday morning, or May morning, according to 
another version. The devil in the shape of a toad was 
supposed to hatch the little yorlins, and there was an old 
saying, 
Quarter Puddock, quarter toad, 
Half a yellow yorlin. 
The devil was further said to fly away with any one 
who shot a yorlin, but even such powerful protection did 
not always avail to save its nest from being harried, and 
its rather melancholy little song is sometimes given thus : 
Deil, deil tak ye 
Me to big a bonny nest an’ ye to tak’ it frae me ; 
though some say he is merely calling for “a little bit of 
bread and no cheese ! ” a humble hedge - beggar. The 
Devonshire version is “ Little bread and no cheese,” by 
which name he sometimes goes. The greenfinches used 
to be called “grene serenes” long ago, and are so termed in 
Lindesay’s “Complaynt of Scotland.” “Green lintie” seems 
the commonest name here. “Grene serene” is probably from 
the French serin , a small finch. An old Scotch term for a 
person in charge of a granary was a Graineter, from the 
old French grenetier , and grain or grane was the Scotch 
word for a twig, so perhaps “grene serene” meant the grain- 
eating finch. Wordsworth has a pretty address to the 
green linnet, calling him brother to the green leaves. I 
33 c 
