Post by Graveyardbride on Jun 21, 2023 10:03:55 GMT -5
Legends and Lore of England’s Northeast
Even today, the wildness of England’s northeastern border takes hold of the imagination in the most dramatic sense. It is almost impossible to depict, through the written word, the barrenness of the northern moorlands (above) in winter as the bracken and heather are raked by icy winds. Environment and history have both left their indelible marks upon the characters of northeastern folk, for here were fought those bloody border battles, resulting in massacres which
Spairt neither man nor wife
Young or old, or of manhood that bore life.
Like wild wolves in furiosite
Baith brunt and slewe with great crueltie.
Folk traditions in this part of the country have a strong Scandinavian influence, understandable in view of the invasions from Europe into the region. The occult lore has a melancholy quality and even the elemental spirits seem to be foreign to the general run of British beliefs.
Northumberland. A famous character in north country folklore was the Hedley Kow, a sprite that distracted the villagers of Hedley in Northumberland with insane pranks reminiscent of the poltergeist. Following a mad bout in which kitchen utensils were tossed about and domestic life rendered impossible, the Kow obligingly transformed itself into a horse and madly galloped away.
The hamlet of Black Heddon near Stanfordham suffered considerably from the pranks of another visitor, a spirit known as Silky that leapt onto the backs of passing horsemen. Perhaps it was the strong ale of the north that afforded these curious specters such a long run in popular tradition. The advent of the big breweries and corresponding reduction in consumption of real ale likely had a significant effect on their activities.
As one would probably anticipate in a community where the way of life had remained unchanged for centuries, a number of historical tragedies have been preserved in popular tradition in the form of ghost stories. Typical of these is the haunting of a farm near Haltwhistle by the revenant of a thief who was done to death in this location well over 600 years ago.
On the grounds of Featherstone Castle in the same district, the ghosts of members of a long-dead wedding party murdered centuries ago have been seen. The loud groans of Sir Reginald Fitzurze, a phantom of baronial times who was starved to death centuries ago also are heard on occasion.
Some truly frightening monsters have ravaged England in their time but none so disturbing perhaps as the Laidley Worm, which had its lair near Bamburgh. This creature terrorized the entire region until it was finally overcome by the local knight errant, the Childe of Wynde, who banished it once and for all from the abodes of man. It is possible the story represents some fragment of European mythology brought to the British Isles by Scandinavian invaders, the Worm being another name for the dragon, the evil spirit of the skies who brings tragedy and death to humankind.
Fantasies of this sort were for centuries the stock in trade of the traveling tale-teller, who in return for gracious hospitality, entertained those who lived in remote locales with gruesome legends of the past. These folk earned their keep and our gratitude and we are indebted to them for keeping alive many strange old tales which might otherwise have been forgotten. In one of these, we are told of a host of phantom huntsmen who rode furiously through the night sky in the district around Hadrian’s Wall. These spectral hunters crop up time and time again in the mythology of European peasants and are believed to represent a folk memory of the Scandinavian Wode, the god of death, and his fearsome companions who flew through the storm-racked heavens in search of human souls. Some believed if one cried out, “Share your spoils!” as the riders thundered overhead, a corpse was likely to descend, amid a shower of soot, into the hearth.
Curious reminders of the pagan practices of our ancestors occasionally crop up in Northumberland. At Elsdon, for example, the relics of horse sacrifices have been discovered: skulls exposed by the excavator or spade. Similar skulls found in other parts of England link us folk-wise to the Tartars of Central Asia who continued to sacrifice horses until around a hundred years ago.
Wallington Hall (above), known for the four impressive dragon heads on its front lawn, is a late 17th-century mansion constructed on the site of an old castle. The house is haunted by an as yet unidentified monster that flaps its wings against the window panes and awakens sleepers with its heavy asthmatic breathing. Blenkinsop Castle at Haltwhistle is haunted by one of the most persistent specters of the British Isles, a white lady whose presence is a portent of death. There is a psychic kinship between the white lady and the spectral man in grey who haunts Bellister Castle, one of the Border fortresses, for in folklore, greyness is the symbol of grief.
Visitors to Holy Island are well-advised to keep a sharp lookout for the ghost of St. Cuthbert, the 17th-century Scottish monk who sits alone making beads, using a rock as an anvil. He also gathers small-holed stones from the beaches to convert into lucky charms known as St. Cuthbert’s Beads. There are many specters in Northumberland, but relatively few of them bear a saintly character, most being earthbound spirits condemned to live indefinitely, as the vampire, until released from their miseries by the prayers of the compassionate.
County Durham can be summarized in one word – industrialism. It was here in the early 19th century that the cultural pattern of rural life was transformed with such speed that a mode of existence which had survived unchanged for centuries disappeared virtually overnight. Much of the county’s occult traditions were overwhelmed by the avalanche of industrialization, but a sufficient amount has survived to remind subsequent generations of its noteworthy heritage of monsters and dragons.
The tale of the Lambton Worm imparts a moral lesson, for it combines a solemn warning against fishing on the Sabbath with vestiges of ancient dragon lore. We are told how Sir Lambton, a Crusader of somewhat plebeian tastes, invariably angled in the River Wear, when he should have been at Sunday service, and violently blasphemed if the trout failed to take his bait. One memorable Sunday, there came a violent tug on his line, but instead of the huge trout he expected, a tiny black worm had seized the hook. Disgusted, Lambton tossed the worm into a nearby well and shortly thereafter, set off for the Holy Land in quest of martial glory.
During Sir Lambton’s absence, the worm gradually increased in size until it had grown into a huge dragon which threatened the entire population of the area unless it was provided the milk of nine cows on a daily basis. When the milk supply fell short of the necessary quota, the dragon ravaged any man or beast who happened to be near its lair. Finally, the authorities decided something had to be done, and valiant knights armed with swords sallied forth and cut the dragon into pieces, but invariably, the several parts reunited, and the battle had to be fought all over again.
At last Sir Lambton returned from the wars and promptly decided to tackle the monster once more. On the friendly advice of a priest, he clad himself in a special coat of armor set with razor-sharp blades, but before setting forth, he made a vow that if he were victorious, he would sacrifice the first living creature he met on his return from the fray.
The confrontation took place amid the rushing waters of the River Wear. The dragon coiled itself round the knight, but was cut to pieces by the sharp blades; however, the pieces were unable to reunite because they were swept down river in the current. The dragon, defeated at last, died in mid-stream.
It just so happened that the first living creature Sir Lambton met following his battle with the monster was his own father. Naturally, the knight refused to kill him and as a result of this betrayal of a sacred oath, a curse fell upon the Lambtons and from that day forward, a phenomenal number of tragic deaths have befallen members of this ancient family.
Tales such as this were told in all seriousness and believed with conviction by the Durham peasants of 250 years ago, for they still lived in innocence, in a world in which dream and reality were curiously combined. A similar fusion of old ideas provides the basis for the curious legend of the Cauld Lad of Hilton Castle, a ghost that haunted what was one of England’s most magnificent homes. When the story was first set down by the historian Robert Surtees, the castle was a ruin “hastening to decay.” One of the castle’s rooms was never used for the simple reason that it was haunted by the specter of a shivering child, in fact, a stable boy named Roger Skelton, who had been murdered by Robert Hilton, his master, early in the 17th century, the body having been flung into a well. The ghost, when seen, produced great terror for something of the intense coldness of the child penetrated the bones, while an icy chill pervaded the room and remained long after the apparition departed. Some who encountered this horrifying wraith claimed they continued to shiver for the remainder of their lives.
Even before the murder, there had been strange stories of a brownie or elemental sprite haunting the castle. The atmosphere in the building strongly affected John Ingram, who, in The Haunted Homes and Family Traditions of Great Britain, his famous collection of old ghost stories, remarked, “With such ghastly and such ghostly traditions connected with it, it is no wonder that Hilton Castle is a haunted place.”
Durham has a number of haunted pools, primarily in Teesdale, which are inhabited by some unrecognizable “being” whose cries are heard, although the entity itself is never seen. Similar dismal cries have been reported from Neville Castle, where a bloody battle was fought between the English and Scots in the 14th century.
In the same gruesome theme, we note the last gibbet in England was set up in 1832 at Jarrow Slake, later Tyne Dock. The corpse on display was that of William Jobling, a pitman (coal miner), who murdered a local magistrate. The gibbet was taken down in 1853 and many years later, came into the possession of the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries. Long after the abandonment of the barbarous practice of placing the corpses of executed malefactors in cages and leaving them to rot on lonely heathlands, often in sight of their own homes, their rattling bones in the winter winds served as a constant reminder to passers-by that crime doesn’t pay.
Until the abolition of public executions in the mid-19th century, the hangman’s rope was a marketable commodity because it was believed to possess valuable therapeutic qualities and was frequently used as a bandage for the relief of severe headaches. John Aubrey, the antiquary, recommended keeping a strand of hangman’s rope inside the hat to relieve ague (chills and fever). A length of rope with which a suicide had taken his own life also was a highly recommended remedy for fits.
The best known ghost of Durham is the bloody faced spectral horseman who has been seen riding like the wind through West Auckland only to vanish from view among the trees of Hamsterley Forest. Phantom transport also is represented by the spectral coach pulled by headless horses and guided by the inevitable headless coachman said to haunt the area around Langley Hall to the northwest of the city of Durham.
Witchcraft does not seem to have troubled northeastern England as it did in some locations, although several cases were apparently of sufficient interest to find a place in the records. In 1651, two sorcerers were executed in the city of Durham for some unspecified form of witchcraft, and at the beginning of the same century, there are accounts of the prosecution of a white witch for attempting to heal the sick by inserting the beaks of white ducks into her patient’s mouths. By and large, the county seems to have escaped the full rigors of a regular witch hunt, doubtless because of supernatural influences of the famous Durham Ritual, which pitted the full powers of Heaven against the Satanic forces in the See (location for which a bishop or archbishop is responsible).
Yorkshire. Evil beings and demons of every variety seem to have bypassed the region almost completely during their journey southwards, although as we shall see, they gathered a splendid harvest of lost souls in Yorkshire.
So generally accepted were the principles of magic in Yorkshire that during the 19th century, burglars continued to use a ghoulish illumination known as the Hand of Glory – a dead man’s hand used as a candle, or a candle made of human fat – when breaking into an occupied premises. The most potent Hands of Glory or corpse candles were those cut from a man who died on the gallows, or created from such a fellow’s fat. These items, or so it was believed, rendered those who carried them totally invisible and sent the occupants of the home into a hypnotic sleep in which they remained until the intruder departed. A corpse candle (above) on exhibit in Whitby Museum was previously used as a charm to keep evil spirits from the home.
It was long the practice among witch-fearing Whitby folk to protect their homes from the invasions of witches and devils with upright posts upon which were carved mysterious symbols. Once these were set in place before the hearth, no witch had the power to cross the threshold. Specimen witch posts are on display at Rydale Folk Museum at Hutton-le-Hole.
Fear of witchcraft extends far back into Yorkshire history. In the 17th century, a woman named Isabella Billington was hanged and burned on a pyre at Pocklington for crucifying her own mother and sacrificing a cockerel and cat to Satan. In John Mayhall’s Annals of Yorkshire, published in 1862, there is a reference to the execution of Mary Pannell in 1603 for bewitching to death William Witham at Ledston. The place of her execution continued to bear the name Mary Pannell Hill for more than three centuries thereafter. Even fortunetellers might find themselves hailed into a court of law as suspected witches as happened in 1605 when Ralph Milner, a yeoman, was sentenced to confess his guilt before the congregation of Mewkarr church during Sunday service.
Wherever the fear of the witch has taken root, one finds its effectiveness enhanced. Once Hester Spivey, a Huddersfield servant, became convinced she had been cursed by Hester Frances, the Huddersfield witch, she lost the power of speech. The terror sometimes reached manic proportions as happened in 1654 when Elisabeth Roberts of Beverley transformed herself into a cat before the very eyes of John Greencliffe and struck him violently with her paw. Another witch, Katherine Earle, merely said to a young man she favored, “You are a pretty gentleman. Kiss me,” whereupon he collapsed and very soon died.
The best known of all Yorkshire witches was Mother Shipton, the prophetess whose cave continues to be one of the tourist attractions of Knaresborough. This far-seeing lady, whose vision of the future embraced hundreds of years, lived in the early 16th century and was of so grotesque an appearance that from her earliest years, she was branded the “child of the devil” by those who knew her. Her visage in old age was even less endearing for she was described thus: “Her head was long with fiery eyes, her nose of an incredible and unproportional length and encrusted with luminous pimples.” Mother Shipton has been credited with prophesying the downfall of Thomas Cromwell, the outbreak of the Fire of London and, among other catastrophes, the end of London itself, which she said would take place March 17, 1881. The spirit of the ancient crone must have chuckled into its beard when in that year, vast numbers of English folk, having disposed of all their possessions at rock-bottom prices, waited in vain for the hour of Armageddon.
The time has gone forever when an English publican would shy away from mentioning his resident ghost out of fear that it might adversely affect trade. In fact, the opposite now prevails and the modern hotelier will often stress the presence of a specter when advertising the attractions of a hotel or inn. Jack Hallam refers to an interesting case of this character in Haunted Inns of England, relating to the Fleece Inn (above) at Elland Halton, immediately east of Leeds, which was the scene of a heinous murder in the distant past. Today, not only are ineradicable bloodstains pointed to on the floor, but one is told how the murder victim is occasionally observed driving his spectral coach past the premises and along an adjacent road.
Turning from blood to ghostly skulls, we visit Burton Agnes Hall near Bridlington which claims an honored niche in the annals of the occult. It was here in the 17th century that Anne Griffith was mortally injured by a gang of thieves and before dying, extracted a promise from her family that her head be separated from her body and kept within the house. Inevitably perhaps, the wish was disregarded. The family apparently considered the strange request nothing more than the ravings of a delirious mind, however, they were soon to be disillusioned in a most macabre manner. The ghost put in an appearance and manifested its displeasure by slamming doors and groaning dolefully, whereupon the family opened the grave and brought the skull inside, where it remained until a careless servant tossed it into the garden. The uproar resumed immediately and finally, for the sake of peace, the skull was taken inside again and bricked into a wall, where it remains to this day. The ghost of Anne Griffith still appears in Burton Agnes Hall from time to time, but visitors to the house are reassured they have no reason to be afraid as long as the skull remains in its place.
Another ghostly skull once housed at 400-year-old Bowland Hall belonged to one of the victims of Henry VIII’s fearful massacres in Yorkshire following the failure of the revolt known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Its removal from the hall was followed by a series of deaths in the family accompanied by other disturbing manifestations which ceased only after the skull was returned to the building.
The rationale for maintaining skulls indoors has never been adequately explained. There could possibly be some remote connection with primitive foundation sacrifice or the practice may have had its roots in the Celtic custom of keeping heads as trophies. Folklore offers a number of superstitions associated with skulls for they were once regarded as “seats of the soul” and therefore, fonts of psychic power. In the 17th century, moss which grew on old skulls was used for the treatment of various nervous disorders.
Headlessness is a feature of many hauntings as we find in the story of the Headless Nun of Watton, who was decapitated by a half-mad Roundhead during the English Civil War because of her adherence to Roman Catholic principles. Bearing her murdered babe in her arms, the mournful phantom continues to walk the ruins of Watton Abbey at night.
Elemental spirits seem to have had a long life and great vitality in Yorkshire because they have been reported in Upper Wharfdale by men and women still living in the mid-20th century. Hart Hall in the moorlands of the northeast housed a Hob, a rustic sprite who occasionally lent a hand during harvest time. Other psychic manifestations, sometimes of a curiously modern character, also have been reported from time to time. For example, in the year 1290 at the Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude, a monk observed a large silver disc-shaped object drifting through the clouds above Byland Abbey. This phenomenon was considered a portent of evil at the time, but in hindsight, we recognize it as one of the earliest reports of a flying saucer.
A road between York and Norton is haunted by a protective spirit who guides lost travelers to safety through the dense mists common in this part of Yorkshire. Many locals believe the spirit to be that of a girl who died of exposure a long time ago, but it is far more likely the story incorporates some ancient tradition of a guardian spirit which, over the centuries, has been transformed into a ghost. A less happy sprite, from the wayfarer’s point of view, is a minor devil often held responsible for road accidents in the Whitby area.
Demon dogs crop up time and time again in the study of occult England, but special mention must be made of the Barguest, a canine horror that materializes in many Yorkshire churchyards immediately before an unexpected death in the parish: one of these beasts is still said to haunt Egton, situated above the Esk valley. One writer described the canine horror as “Goblins of frightful appearance which sometimes took the shapes of huge dogs.” According to legend, they favor churchyards and are joined in their graveyard perambulations by an even greater horror as referenced in the following verse:
Grisly ghosts have leave to play
And dead men’s souls with courage brave
Skip from out each several grave
And walk round when the Barguest comes.
Yorkshire also is the haunt of a phenomenon known as the Gabriel Hounds, or Gabriel Ratchets, canine creatures with human heads. Fortunately, few actually see these terrors of the night, but many have been chilled to the bone upon hearing their bloodcurdling yelps as they pass overhead announcing the death of a member of the community.
The Gytrash, another Yorkshire goblin was so well-known in the 19th century that Charlotte Brontë included the superstition in her 1847 novel, Jane Eyre. The Gytrash haunted remote locations and often surprised unwary, solitary travelers. In the book, Miss Eyre is walking from Thornfield Hall to post a letter in the nearby village:
“It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the tramp, tramp, I heard a rush under the hedge, and close down by the hazel stems glided a great dog, whose black and white color made him a distinct object against the trees. It was exactly one form of Bessie’s Gytrash – a lion-like creature with long hair and a huge head: it passed me, however, quietly enough; not staying to look up, with strange pretercanine eyes, in my face, as I half expected it would. The horse followed, – a tall steed, and on its back a rider. The man, the human being, broke the spell at once. Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was always alone; and goblins, to my notions, though they might tenant the dumb carcasses of beasts, could scarce covet shelter in the commonplace human form. No Gytrash was this, – only a traveler taking the shortcut to Millcote.”
In view of the foregoing examples of Yorkshire’s more macabre traditions, we need hardly be surprised at the survival of a very curious custom in the parish of Dewsbury dating to the 13th century. Here, each Christmas Eve, the bell-ringers toll for every year of the Christian era. Unless this ceremony is religiously performed, Satan will surely invade the parish during the coming year.
Sources: Supernatural England by Eric Maple; Britain's Haunted Heritage by J.A. Brooks; "The Lambton Curse," Order of the White Lion; Haunted Inns of England by Jack Hallam; Mimi Matthews, "Jane Eyre and the Legendary Gytrash," October 15, 2015; British History Online, and Oxford Reference.
