A Devon Motto

Early Aller Vale mottoware, c. 1885-1900 (also Longpark)

"The journey's long from A to Z
And puzzles many a curly head,
But leads to books, Red, Green or Blue,
Which brings the fairy land in view."

Torquay Mottowares  Torquay Pottery Collectors' Society

(P.S. "May you never find a mouse in your cupboard, With tears in its eyes.")

bocstafas

"Liberal of song, they travel in groups, they sing loudly."
Exeter Book Riddle 57
(translated from the Anglo-Saxon by Patrick J. Murphy)

"We are little airy creatures,
All of different Voice and Features.
One of us in Glass is set,
One of us you'll find in Jet,
T'other you may see in Tin,
And the fourth a Box within,
If the fifth you should pursue,
It can never fly from you."

Miscellanies  Jonathan Swift.

Sourced from Unriddling the Exeter Riddles by Patrick J. Murphy

A greedy Alphabet

 "To the enjoyment of the pictures, appreciation of the text was soon added, as thanks to the brilliant educational methods of my mother I learned to read at a very tender age.  Her system, simple as it was effective, was based on a chocolate alphabet.  This was spread out twice a week on the dining-room table and such letters as I recognised I was allowed to eat; later, when my knowledge of this alphabet was faultless, I was entitled to such letters as I could form into a new word.   Although never strong in arithmetic I soon grasped the simple fact that the longer the word the more the chocolate, and by the time I could spell 'suffragette' without an error this branch of my education was deemed complete and a tendency to biliousness had become increasingly apparent.

Once  my ability was firmly established I read everything on which I could lay my hands,  from The Times leaders to the Preface to the Book of Common Prayer."

All Done from Memory  Osbert Lancaster