This is from the “Yorkshire Folklore Journal” (Vol I, 1888, p.115) which states it came from “a very old chapbook”. The image above is stated to be from a woodcut in that chapbook! I’ve rephrased it slightly, but not by a massive amount…
In the town on Beverley, in Yorkshire, about 2 years ago (1703). there lived a squire called Somers, who was a very honest gentleman with a good income. He lived with his wife and two year old daughter. Unfortunately, after a short illness, his wife died, leaving him heartbroken. He found he couldn’t enjoy life at all after his loss, and soon fell ill, took to his bed and died after just a fortnight of illness himself.
While ill, he sent for his brother, who lived about 14 miles away, and begged him to take care of his daughter in case he didn’t recover. “Brother”, he said, “I leave with you the dearest thing that I have in the world, my little daughter. Together with her, I entrust my whole estate. Manage it for her use, and take care of her education and upbringing. Look after her as if she was your own, and for my sake, see her married to an honest country gentleman.” His brother faithfully promised to do this should he not recover, so when the gentleman died, the brother takes the little girl home and looked after her kindly for some time.
But it didn’t take long before he became jealous of the fortune that he was looking after for her. He plotted many different ways in which he could take the estate for himself, and eventually decided to abandon her in the woods. He couldn’t bring himself to murder her outright, so took her to a hollow tree, gagged her mouth so she couldn’t be heard crying, and left her inside the hollow. To conceal the crime, he had commissioned a wax model of a child to be made. Once the child was abandoned in the hollow tree, he dressed the wax effigy in a shroud, laid it in a coffin, and held a great funeral for the girl. The wax model was buried, and no one suspected anything but an illness and a sad, young death, all too common in young children.
At the same time this was happening, a neighbouring gentleman dreamed that the following day he would see something that would astonish him. He told it to his wife, who tried to persuade him to stay at home, but he took no notice and went out hunting instead. As he rode through the woods that morning, his horse was startled and nearly knocked him from his saddle. He turned around, looking for what had disturbed his horse, and saw something move in a dark hole. Worried now that his dream was coming true, he told one of his servants to check the hole – it was the same hollow in a tree that the little girl had been abandoned in, and they pulled her out, barely still alive.
He took her home, looking after her as her strength returned, but she was too young to be able to tell them where she had come from. This remained a mystery until Christmas, and they held a feast and a singing at his house. One of his guests recognised the little girl and told them she was supposedly dead and buried. Shocked, the gentleman went to the parish minister and persuaded him to have the grave dug up, discovering the wax model inside the coffin.
The cruel Uncle was arrested and convicted of abandoning the child and attempting to steal her inheritance, and the court decided that the gentleman who found her should be allowed to look after her as if she was his own. This pleased him and his wife greatly, as they had no other children, and had already grown fond of the little girl, looking after her from then onwards as if she was their own.
This does feel very Norse like to me! Quite a dark story you can imagine the viking settlers telling…
Large cairn near Penhill Beacon by Roger Templeman (cc-by-sa licence)
When the Norsemen settled in Yorkshire in the old days, they brought some of their gods too, and more importantly to this tale, some of the descendants of their gods stayed on.
Near where Bolton Castle still stands today, and terrorising the countryside all around, lived a giant who was a descendant of Thor, the god of storms and thunder. All he cared about was his vast herd of pigs, and Wolfhead the boarhound that he kept to help him with them. He lived in the time before the Normans came to these shores, and all were scared of him.
Every day the giant drove his swineherd through the gate of his castle on Penhill. He’d count them out and feel proud of how fat and valuable they were.
One day, walking out with his loyal Wolfhead, he saw a small flock of sheep on the hillside. ‘Look at those stupid sheep’, he said to Wolfhead. ‘They are nothing compared to our great pigs, go and have some fun with them.’
So his hound pounced on the first sheep and tore it apart. ‘Another one!’ laughed the giant. So Wolfhead slaughtered one after another of the defenceless sheep, while the wicked giant laughed his socks off.
A beautiful young girl, Gunda, rushed up to him and flung herself at his feet and begged him to make his hound stop. ‘Please Sir’, she implored, ‘this is my father’s flock and all that he has, please call off your beast’.
This only made the giant laugh even more, delighting in the fear she showed as another sheep was ripped to pieces in front of them. ‘Perhaps I will stop him, if you make it worth my while’, he leered at her, then grabbed her and tried to tear her clothes from her body.
She squirmed, and wriggled, and slipped from his grasp, leaving him with nothing but a small piece of cloth torn from her jacket. This made him furious, and he roared with anger while she ran away as fast as she could.
The giant, with his great heavy boots, couldn’t keep up, and sent Wolfhead to catch her. She couldn’t run faster than the hound, and tripped and fell in her rush to get away. As the dog jumped onto her to pin her to the ground for his master, she grabbed a rock and slammed it into the hound’s nose. It howled in pain and jumped away, whining for its master. This made the giant even angrier, so he raised his club and killed the poor shepherdess on the spot.
The wicked giant had done so many evil deeds, and so terrified the locals, that he thought nothing of this terrible assault and murder, but simply returned to his castle with Wolfhead.
A few weeks later, bringing the swine out on the morning, he noticed he was missing a young boar. He kicked his only friend, the hound Wolfhead, and ordered him to go and find the missing boar. ‘Go on, you lazy old hound. Find that boar or I will whip you senseless with Thor’s own belt I still wear, and leave you in the woods for the wild wolves to kill.’
The hound wasn’t happy at this treatment, and growled as followed his nose on the boar’s trail. He soon found the missing boar, dead with an arrow through its heart.
The giant swore to take the hand of whoever had dared to kill his boar, and ordered his steward to make everyone within the dale who could draw a bow, come to the top of Penhill. Any man not waiting at the top of the cliff by sunset in a week’s time would be thrown into the castle dungeons to rot.
In the meantime, Wolfhead had not returned. Remembering the kick and the giant’s words, he stayed in the forest away from his master. The giant had his men search for him, and even though they found him, he would not return when called. The giant’s temper got the better of him again, and he took out his bow, and killed the only creature that had ever been his friend.
The following day, the local men were lined up waiting for him on Penhill. The giant was still angry after killing Wolfhead, and in no mood to deal gently with anyone. He demanded they told him who had shot the boar. None of them could meet his eye, and none spoke up, as they didn’t know who had shot the arrow.
‘You dare defy me!’, the giant roared so loudly that the stones on the ground shook. ‘Then out of my sight! I swear by my ancestor Thor, that I will make you speak. Tomorrow at sunset, every father shall stand here with his youngest child in his arms, and if you defy me again, I will show you what I am really capable of doing.’
As the men ran away, the giant was amazed to hear a quiet voice. One old man had stayed, leaning on his staff for support, and looking straight at the giant without showing a hint of fear. ‘What will happen tomorrow, when the men don’t give you the answer you seek?’, asked the old man.
‘I have the power of life and death over these men’, the giant laughed, ‘and you had better remember that and speak to me with respect’.
‘Is that your answer? If so, take heed of my words. Tomorrow is Thor’s day, and if you spill one drop of blood, or cause one of the children to cry out in pain or fear, you will not enter your castle again, dead or alive’, the old man warned the giant.
The wicked giant was too amazed by the actions of the old man to do much more than laugh again. ‘You’re just an old hermit, and you think to speak to me like that! Get back to your cave and you’ll see tomorrow what I do to the likes of you’.
As the sun dipped low in the sky the following day, the local men all returned to the hillside. Slowly and sadly, they climbed the slope, each with a young child in their arms. As they got close to the top, the old hermit met them, reassuring each of them that the giant would not harm any child.
The giant watched the local men from a window in his castle, in a better mood than he’d been in for a long time. He couldn’t wait to make them suffer and get a confession for the killing of his boar. A servant interrupted him as he watched, and tried to warn him of a dream he had last night, and how the ravens and crows circling the castle that day were a bad omen. The giant didn’t let him finish. Angry his pleasant fantasies of torturing the locals had been interrupted, he kicked the servant across the room and left him for dead.
This was the last straw for the long suffering servant, and struggling to his feet, he dragged basket after basket of straw, wood, and peat into the main hall and set them alight.
The giant, striding out to men the local men and their children, was shocked to see nine dead boars across his path. Another nine steps and he found nine more. Every nine steps towards the meeting place this was repeated, and the giant was incandescent with rage.
As he rounded the last corner, with the peasants stood in front of him, shouted ‘By the great god Thor, not only your babies, but the blood of every living soul here shall stain the hillside red tonight and the ravens shall feast themselves fat on your flesh’.
Then he noticed the old hermit smiling at him and demanded he come and kneel in front of him immediately.
‘I’m no servant of yours, if you want to speak with me, you come here. You are a braggart. Look behind you, and you shall see that I speak the truth’ replied the old man.
The giant turned and saw his castle alight, with a vast cloud of smoke rising from it. He stood transfixed for a few moments, then raised his club and strode towards the hermit. Before he could strike him, however, he stopped once more, the club dropping from his hands, the colour draining from his face, and his body shook with fear.
Behind the hermit stood Gunda, the shepherdess, and Wolfhead, the hound, held back by her on a long rope. The giant stepped back further, getting close to the edge of Penhill cliff. Gunda looked at the giant, then released Wolfhead, who sprang straight at the giant’s throat, the two toppling over the edge of the cliff, never to return.
This is a story about a Boggart (or Hob) from The London literary gazette and journal of belles lettres, arts, sciences, etc., 1825, no. 430, pages 252,253. It has similarities at the end with another Boggart / Hob story I have, but the rest is quite different!
One day, a Boggart took up residence (why and how, I never discovered) in the house of a quiet, inoffensive farmer, George Gilbertson. Once there, it seemed to decide that it was the rightful owner and caused a good deal of annoyance. They never saw it of course, as a Boggart is rarely visible to the human eye, though it is frequently seen by cattle and horses. (A Yorkshire term for a ‘shying horse’ is one that has ‘taken the boggle’.)
It seemed to take a particular dislike to the children, tormenting them in various ways. Sometimes their bread and butter would be snatched away, or their porringers of bread and milk be capsized by an invisible hand; at other times, the curtains of their beds would be shaken backwards and forwards, or a heavy weight would press on and nearly suffocate them. The parents had often, on hearing their cries, to fly to their aid.
There was a kind of closet, formed by a wooden partition on the kitchen-stairs, and a large knot having been driven out of one of the deal-boards of which it was made, there remained a hole. Into this one day the farmer’s youngest boy stuck the shoe-horn with which he was amusing himself, when immediately it was thrown out again, and struck the boy on the head. The agent was of course the Boggart, and though the first time was terrifying, it soon became their amusement (which they called laikin’wi’ Boggart) to put the shoe-horn into the hole and have it shot back at them. This seemed to goad the Boggart into more disruptive behaviour.
At night, heavy steps were heard clattering down the stairs, like someone wearing clogs. Sounds like earthernware and pewter dishes smashing against the kitchen floor were heard, though the dishes were intact on their shelves in the morning.
The Boggart at length proved such a torment that the farmer and his wife resolved to quit the house and let him have it all to himself. This was put into execution, and the farmer and his family were following the last loads of furniture, when a neighbour named John Marshall came up—”Well, Georgey,” said he, “and soa you’re leaving t’ould hoose at last?”—”Heigh, Johnny, my lad, I’m forced tull it; for that damned Boggart torments us soa, we can neither rest neet nor day for’t. It seems loike to have such a malice again t’poor bairns, it ommost kills my poor dame here at thoughts on’t, and soa, ye see, we’re forced to flitt loike.” He scarce had uttered the words when a voice from a deep upright churn cried out, “Aye, aye, Georgey, we’re flitting ye see.”—”‘Od damn thee,” cried the poor farmer, “if I’d known thou’d been there, I wadn’t ha’ stirred a peg. Nay, nay, it’s no use, Mally,” turning to his wife, “we may as weel turn back again to t’ould hoose as be tormented in another that’s not so convenient.”
I believe they did turn back, and seemed to come to a better understanding with the Boggart, though it continued it’s trick of firing the horn from the knot-hole. I remember an old tailor, who used to visit the farmhouse on his rounds, told me the horn was frequently pitched at his head, many years after this first took place.
I’m not sure how King Arthur ended up there, but there are at least a couple of stories that suggest there are tunnels under Richmond, hiding a secret army.
Once upon a time, in the town of Richmond, lived a man called Potter Thompson. Generally a cherry soul, and well-liked by most people, but his wife was not ‘most people’. She rarely had a good word to say to him, scolding him whatever he did, or didn’t, do.
One evening, after a long and tiring day making pots, his wife was in a particularly bad mood. Potter was in no mood to spend any time in his own house, but instead wandered off down to the river, even considering throwing himself into the waters below the castle.
As he walked along the bank of the river, he spotted an opening in the cliffs that somehow he had never seen before, and, his wife forgotten, climbed into it. He went slowly and cautiously down the passage revealed, with the darkness slowly swallowing him, until a faint glow appeared ahead.
Turning a corner, this faint light revealed itself as a vast lamp, hung in the centre of a huge chamber. Immediately below the lamp was a stone table, with a great sword within its scabbard and a richly decorated horn.
Coming up to the table, he spotted statues lining the far side of the chamber. They looked like mighty stone warriors, lying on the floor in a row, with one wearing a simple crown of gold. Increasingly nervous now, Potter Thompson walked closer to them and realised they were not made of stone, but were sleeping men, breathing heavily and more slowly than normal men normally do.
Nervously he returned to the table, his hands attracted remorselessly towards the sword and horn. He put the horn around his neck and picked up the sword. As he started to draw the sword from its scabbard, the knights stirred slightly in their magical sleep. He lifted the horn to his lips, and again they stirred before he could blow.
This so terrified him, that he dropped them straight back onto the stone table and turned to run from the secret chamber. Immediately a strong wind rushed through, as though speeding him on his way, and an unearthly cry sounded around him:
‘ If thou hadst either drawn
The sword or sound that horn,
Thou hadst been the luckiest man
That ever was born.’
Thus the King Arthur and his nights were allowed to fall back into their long sleep, and the day when they would rise again and come to England’s aid was delayed. Perhaps one day soon a bolder man shall find again the gloomy vault, and draw the sword and sound the horn, still laid up, and awaiting, beneath Richmond’s historic keep.
I’ve just launched a little Kickstarter to help fund a book of 50 Yorkshire Fairy & Folk tales. The book itself is available as a reward, as is a little chapbook of stories (image above are my draft versions, not the finished ones).
Please take a look and back if you’re interested!!
This was a little “add-on” to a story about a Boggart in “The London literary gazette and journal of belles lettres, arts, sciences, etc.”, 1825, no. 430, page 253. You may think that fairies haven’t been seen in living history, but this was a response to that…
A respectable female, from a village in the East Riding of Yorkshire, who is nearly related to the writer of this, beheld, when she was a little girl, a troop of fairies, “deftly footing a roundel dance” in her mother’s large old wainscotted parlour, even in the “garish eye of day.” I have frequently heard it related by her venerable mother, and subsequently by herself. I shall give the tale as I received it from the old lady:
“My eldest daughter, Betsy, was about four years old; I remember it was on a fine summer’s afternoon, or rather evening, I was seated on this chair which I now occupy; the child had been in the garden, she came into that entry or passage from the kitchen (on the right side of the entry was the old parlour door, on the left the door of the common sitting-room, the mother of the child was in a line with both the doors); the child, instead of turning towards the sitting-room, made a pause at the parlour door, which was open: I observed her to stand, and look in very attentively; she stood several minutes, quite still. At last I saw her draw her hand quickly towards her body, she set up a loud shriek, and ran, or rather flew, to me, crying out, ‘Oh, mammy, green man will heb me, green man will heb me!’ It was a long time before I could pacify her; I then asked her why she was so frightened. ‘Oh, mammy,” she said, “all t’parlour is full of addlers and menters:’ elves and fairies, I suppose she meant. She said they were dancing, and a little man in a green coat, with a gold-laced cock’d hat on his head, offered to take her hand, as if he would have her as his partner in the dance.”
The mother, upon hearing this, went and looked into the old parlour, but the fairy pageant, like Prospero’s spirits, had melted into thin air. Such is the account I heard of this vision of fairies: the person is still alive who witnessed, or supposed she saw it, and, though a well-informed person, still positively asserts the relation to be strictly true. I cannot say how the truth may be, I tell the tale as ’twas told to me.
This is one of mine… taking little bits of local lore (Dragon on Castle Hill, tunnels under it, etc, etc) and tying them together into a story.
One cold morning, right at the start of February, not so long ago, George woke up early. It was still dark and George didn’t need to be anywhere that morning, but he couldn’t get back to sleep. So up he got, checked on his sheep, and took Stanley the dog out for a walk.
Up Castle Hill he went, on that cold, foggy morning. On top of the hill, it was as if they were on an island, with the rest of the area hidden by the fog.
Stanley suddenly stopped chasing imaginary rabbits and stood still, barking at something George couldn’t see. As George got closer to him, he saw a stone staircase spiralling down into the hill, a staircase he was sure he hadn’t seen before. Intrigued, he told Stanley to stay put while he took a look. Down the staircase he went, dark for a moment, and then lighter as a faint glow came from moss covering the staircase walls.
The stairs ended in a wide cavern, and George’s attention was drawn to a golden object in the centre of the space. He walked towards it and found a small cradle, like a newborn baby would sleep in, made of gold. He reached out to touch it, but before he could, a voice sounded out. A rich, powerful, old voice.
‘I’m Brigid, and that is my golden cradle. The Brigantes gave it to me when they built the fort on this hill, so I would protect the high ground. Within it they placed their most valued daughter to stay with me within the hill. In return, for nearly 1,000 years I protected them. Even when the Romans came, they didn’t touch the fort, it was safe under my care. Then the new gods came and my people drifted away and stopped worshipping me. Still, I protected them. Until the people thought the new priests might like the gold for their god. They came back to me, within the hill, and tried to steal away my golden cradle, my price for protection. So I sent their daughter back to them, with fire and destruction as their reward. She left their lands scorched and barren, their livestock and stores destroyed, and the stones of their fort melting like wax. Few have dared to return to me since then, with the path only open on my day each year, when they used to feast in my honour. Have you come for the cradle? Perhaps you should meet the Brigante’s daughter?’
The voice faded and a slithering noise came from the steps George had just walked down. He turned to see two red eyes burning in the low light, smoke curling from wide nostrils, and the first coils of a huge serpent coming around the spiral steps.
George panicked. He didn’t know what to do, or where to go. The way he came in was completely blocked. But while he stood frozen in place for those first moments, he heard barking from the side of the cavern. He dashed towards the noise and found a narrow tunnel which he dived into. He wriggled, he crawled, he squirmed. As fast as he could, he made his way towards the barking, fearful that any moment he’d feel the hot breath of the serpent on his feet.
After what seemed like an eternity, but must have been only a few minutes, his head popped out into fresh air and he dropped a few feet onto the hill side. Stanley was there, barking to guide him back to safety.
They rushed back from the hill as fast as they could, and though they’ve been back many times since, George has never found the stone stairs again. That said, he’s made sure never to go back before dawn, and never on the 1st February…
Yorkshire seems to be covered in reservoirs that required the flooding of whole villages to make them!
A long time ago, in the spot where the great lake Semerwater, source of the river Bain, now occupies, was once a fair sized town.
One day an old man came to the town. He was scruffy, his clothes not much more than rags, and dirty from many months spent on the road.
He knocked on the first door he came to and ask for food, but they turned him away. He moved through the town, knocking on every door to ask for a meal and a drink. Each household told him the same. He was not welcome, and they would give him nothing.
As he got to the far end of town, he tried the very last house. It was a small and humble cottage, with an aged and poverty stricken couple. He repeated his request to these, and unlike the others, they invited him in.
They didn’t have much to share, but offered him all they could. A small bowl of stew, some bread, and some freshly drawn water to drink.
What’s more, they invited him to stay the night, dry and safe in their cottage, before continuing on his journey the next day.
When he left in the morning, he stood by the door of the cottage where he’d been welcomed in, and, looking back over the hard-hearted, uncharitable town, lifted up his hands and repeated the following lines:
‘Semerwater rise! Semerwater sink !
And swallow the town, all save this house, where they gave me meat and drink’
No sooner said than done. The waters of the valley rose, the town sunk and the houses disappeared beneath them.
But as they approached the hospitable cottage, the waves stopped short. Even now, you can see a small old house near the lower end of the lake, which is all that is left of the once flourishing town.
On some days, if you look carefully through the waters, you may yet see the roofs and chimneys of the other houses at the bottom of the lake.
A tiny bit of a story about an encounter with faires in East Yorkshire, taken direct from Parkinson, but I feel there must probably be a slightly longer version of this, it seems to be a bit sudden to suddenly say “it was given to Henry I”!
Björn S. [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5DAmong the ancient grave-mounds, or barrows, in the Wold districts of Yorkshire, which were favourite haunts of the fairies, no place was more favoured by them than “Willy Houe”, a large barrow near Wold Newton in the East Riding.
It is related of this spot, by William of Newborough, an Augustinian canon, whose chronicle terminates about the time of the death of Richard I., that as a man was riding, late at night, near Willy Houe, he heard the most soft and delightful music proceeding from it. He carefully approached the place, and then saw, through a door open in the side of the mound, a magnificent hall, with a great company of fairies banqueting therein. Before he could withdraw, an attendant came forth and offered to him drink, from a magnificent cup. He knew the danger of eating, or drinking, with fairies, and resisted the temptation, but seized the cup from the hand of the cup-bearer and succeeded, though hotly pursued by the whole company, in carrying it off in safety. “It was”, says the chronicler, “a vessel of unknown material, of unusual colour and shape”.
The legend as told in the locality now, states that it was of fairy gold, and so of no value. It was given to Henry I., who seems to have thought it of sufficient value, intrinsic or otherwise, to send to his brother-in-law, David, King of Scotland, to whom, it is said, he presented it.
Yorkshire Folk Tales 
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