Being from Yorkshire is as much a state of mind as a geographical fact

I'm trying to trace the origin of this quote (any help welcome) because it forms the germ of an idea.  An idea for an RPG, naturally, and one which was inspired by a conversation with Fabian at Bladesharp.

We were talking about characters we'd rolled in the past for a game that never happened and something evolved from that.  The notion of an older, stranger, England where the wilder places were wilder and things hadn't really been remembered for the right reasons.  An England where the Tudors never happened and the rumours that the Plantagenets had formed pacts with the fey were true.  An England where the fey were kept at bay by half-recalled rituals.  The harvest festival, the village fete, the walking of boundaries were all vital defences but nobody really knew why.

I slept on it and woke this morning to the sure and certain knowledge that Yorkshire was the key.  My adopted county is at the centre of a hard fought battle between good and evil, chaos and order.  The notorious hard-headedness of the Dalesmen is a natural defense against such things.

This is going somewhere, but I'm not sure where yet.