Perhaps this illustrates how lore survived in pockets around the moors.
It was written by John Walker Ord in his book The History and Antiquities of Cleveland, published in 1846

"The fishermen, although hardy, brave and adventurous, are nevertheless, strongly tinctured with superstition, to an extent scarcely credible in these days of enlightenment..........
Although Staithes contains considerably more than a thousand inhabitants, no regular system of national religious instruction has even been afforded them, and they are permitted to wallow in gross ignorance.......
Whilst the Hindoos, Africans, Chinese, and other distant lands are liberally supplied with Christian ministers, twelve hundred of our own white brethren, close at hand, on the centre of a wealthy dioscese, and in the midst of civilisation, are actually without a church."