I love this little story about a hob. These seem to have dozens of names depending on where you are in the country, hobs being creatures that can be helpful, but that you really don’t want to offend. I like the cheekiness of the hob in this story.
In days past, when fairy folk were more commonly found than today, a farmer called Jennifer lived in Farndale with her husband.
One night she was fast asleep in her bed, when a thumping sound woke her. At first she felt she must be dreaming, but the thumping continued, and she became convinced it was coming from the barn.
The whole family gathered downstairs, unsure what to do, but there was such a racket coming from the barn, no-one dared investigate. Instead they made sure the doors were all locked securely and waited until the morning, so they could check in daylight.
Dawn broke, and the family cautiously opened the doors. Jennifer tiptoed up to the barn and carefully peered through a crack in the door. She was amazed at what she saw! The thumping noise was corn being threshed. In one night, more corn had been threshed than they could have done in a week.
The next night the noise started again, but they felt a little safer after seeing what had happened the night before and slept a little better too. By the morning, all the corn they’d harvested had been threshed.
The helper returned again a while later, shearing all the sheep in one night the next summer, and mowing the hay another time. The family got used this, and felt thankful that a hob had moved in to offer his unseen help. They didn’t know how to show their thanks, however, as hobs and fairies can be a tad funny in their dealings with people, especially if offered clothes to wear.
So they tried leaving a bowl of cream out at night for the hob, as a treat to show him how much they appreciated him. Sure enough, the cream was gone the next morning and the bowl was clean. For the price of a bowl of cream each night, Jennifer and her farm had gained the best farm worker they’d ever had.
The good times didn’t last forever though. One winter, her husband became sick of the fever and died. She remarried after a while, but her new husband was a mean and jealous man. He resented the best cream being left out for the hob each night and told her she was wasting it on cats and rats who would be helping themselves to it each night.
One day, Jennifer knew she’d be working late, so asked her new husband to put the cream out for the hob in case she didn’t return in time. Instead of the cream, however, he put out the thin whey left over cheesemaking instead.
For the first time in years, the farm was silent that night. No corn was threshed, no sheep sheared, no spinning done. There was to be no help any night from then on. Instead, everything started to go wrong on the farm. The butter wouldn’t churn, the cheese went black with mould, and foxes killed the chickens. Every week, there were new disasters on the farm, and they struggled to make ends meet.
Strange noises and screams were heard at night, and things moved mysteriously around the farm, scaring the rest of the farm workers away. Gates were left open, allowing animals to wander off, and candles blew out at the darkest point of night.
With the farm going to rack and ruin, Jennifer decided they must move on and leave the angry hob behind. They loaded all their possessions onto a cart and said goodbye to the farm.
As they road along the lane, one of their neighbours came out to see what was happening.
‘How do, Jennifer. Has it really come to this?’, he asked.
‘Aye, George’, she replied. ‘It really has come to it, we’re flitting’.
At that point they heard another voice…
‘Aye, we’ve flitting.’
Sat there top of their cart was the strangest, hairiest little creature you’ve ever seen. He chuckled as they turned to him
Jennifer knew she was beaten and turned the cart around to head back to the farm. ‘We were flitting, but if you’re flitting with us we may as well flit back. For I see now that for us there is no hope.’
Sad to say, she was right. So if you hear strange noises in the night and think you may have a hob living with you, make sure you reward it well and don’t annoy him, otherwise, you’ll always regret it.
Adapted slightly (mainly cutting out dialect words!) from Moorman, “More tales from the Ridings”, a story based in a gorgeous bit of countryside near Malham.
Well, I reckon I’ve told this story before, Grannie began, but when I was a lass I lived up Malham way. My father had a farm close by Gordale Scar, and it’s a strange country around there. Great rocks on all sides where only goats can climb, becks flowing underground and then bubbling up in the fields.
On the other side of our steading, was a cove that folks called Janet’s Cove. They told all sorts of tales about it and reckoned it was plagued by boggarts. But they couldn’t keep me away from it, it was the prettiest spot in the dale, and I never got bored wandering around by the water and among the rowans. There was a waterfall in the cove, with a dark cave behind it, and it was overhung with ash and hazel trees.
One night I was sitting up for my father until 4 o’clock in the morning. It was the day before Easter Sunday and my father was desperately busy with lambing. He hadn’t taken his shoes and socks off for a week! He’d doze a little by the fire, and then wake up, light the lantern, and go out to check on the sheep. He let me wait up for him, so I could warm him a spot of tea over the fire. But when the clock struck 4, he said I must go to bed. He’d take a turn around the croft, then set off to the barn, to milk the cows.
But I didn’t want to go to bed, I’d been dozing off and on all night, and I wasn’t feeling a little bit tired. So when my father had set off, I went to the door and looked outside. My, it was a grand night! The moon had just turned full, and was lighting up the stones in the meadow, the becks were like sliver, and the old yew-trees that grow on the face of the scar had long shadows as black as pitch. I stood there on the threshold for maybe five minutes, and then said to myself, “I’ll just run down as far as Janet’s Cove before I go to bed.”
It was only two or three minutes walk, and before long I was sat amongst the rocks, and the moon was glistening through the ash trees and onto the water. I must have dropped off to sleep for best part of an hour, because before I knew it the moon was setting, and I could see that dawn wasn’t far off. I reckoned I’d better get back to my bed, but just then I saw something moving on the far side of the beck. At first, I thought it was just a sheep, but when I looked closer I saw I was wrong, it was a lass about the same size as myself.
Strangest thing about the lass was that she was naked, as naked as a hens egg, and that at five o’clock on a frosty April morning! It made me shiver to see her standing there with not even a shawl to warm her back. Well, I crept close to a large stone and kept my eye on her. First of all, she moved down to the water and stood in it, then started splashing water all over herself, like a bird washing itself in the beck. The she climbed to the waterfall and let the water flow all over her face and shoulders. I could see her body shining through the water and her yellow hair streaming out on both sides of her head. After a while she climbed onto a rock in the middle of the beck and grabbed hold of the branch of an ash. She broke off a stick, shaped it into a sort of wand, and started waving it in the air.
Now, up to that point, everything in the cove was a silent as the grave. I could hear the cockerels crowing up at our house, but all the wild birds were still roosting and asleep. But no sooner did this lass start waving her wand, than the larks started singing. The fields had been full of sleeping larks, and they’d all taken flight above our heads, singing their hearts out. She then pointed her wand at the moors, and the curlews started singing. When she heard them, she started laughing, and splashing the water with her foot.
All the while, she kept beating time to the bird song with her wand. Sometimes she pointed it to the curlews on the moor, sometimes to fields, and then, suddenly, to the hazels and rowan bushes by the beck-side. Before I knew what was happening, the blackbirds woke up and started whistling like mad. It sounded like there must be a blackbird for every bush along the beck. The birds kept at it for several minutes, then the lass made a fresh movement with her wand, and the robins began to try and drown out the songs of the blackbirds.
She always seemed to know whose turn was next, and where every type of bird was roosting. One minute she pointed her wand to the top of the trees and I heard “caw, caw”, the next she pointed towards the mossy roots of the trees near the beck and a Jenny wren hopped out and sang as though it was fit to burst.
All the while, it was getting lighter, and lighter, and I could see that the sun was shining on the cliffs above Malham, even though the cove was still in shade. I knew my mother would soon by looking for me in bed, and I started wondering what she’d say when she found it empty. I was a tad afraid when I thought that, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the lass with the wand. I was fair bewitched by her, and I reckon that if she pointed at me, I would have started singing!
However, she never clapped eyes on me sat behind the stone, she was far too busy with the birds, and getting more excited every minute. By now the birdsong was deafening, I’d never heard anything like it before or since.
The sun cleared the top of the fell, and shone down into the cove. Janet saw it, and when it was shining like a great golden ball at the top of the hill, she pointed her wand at it. I looked at her, and looked at the sun too, and was amazed to see the sun was dancing too! I rubbed my eyes to see if I’d made a mistake, but sure enough, there was the little naked lass making the sun dance with her like mad. Then, all of a sudden, I remembered that it was Easter Sunday, and I’d heard tell that the sun always dances on Easter morning.
When she’d danced with the sun a while, she seemed to forget about the birds. She let her wand drop and climbed down the waterfall. Then she sat herself on a rock behind the fall, and clapped her hands together and laughed. I looked at her and I saw the prettiest sight I’d ever set eyes on.
By now the sun was high in the sky, and was shining straight up the beck onto the waterfall. Water was spraying up as it fell onto the rocks, and a rainbow formed across the fall. There, plain as life, was Janet sat on a rock right in the middle of the rainbow, with all the colours shining on her hair.
I fair lost track of time, sat there, wrapped in my shawl, staring at Janet, at the sun, at the waterfall, until I heard someone calling me. It was my father, and then I knew that folks had missed me up at the farm and were looking for me. When I realised that, I shot off like a rabbit, straight to my father who was stood between the cove and our house, shouting for me as loud as he could.
I’m pulling together old folk / fairy tales on this blog that I’ve slowly compiled from various sources… but can anyone point me towards (or tell me!) any old Yorkshire folk tales I might have missed?
Particularly interested in Huddersfield and locality as that’s where I’m based these days. There are lots of fragments of lore (E.g. in Hudderfield: Castle Hill tunnels, golden cradle, etc.) that don’t seem to have (old) stories associated with them. Anyone told a local (anywhere in Yorkshire) fairy story when they were young?
A story about an army hidden in tunnels near Richmond Castle!
There were legends that tunnels ran under the countryside near Richmond Castle, but no-one knew where the entrances were. That is, until a group of soldiers, stationed nearby, found what looked like a tunnel entrance while on patrol in the area.
The entrance was tiny though, and none of the soldiers could squeeze through. Rather than trying to dig it out, they sent for the Regimental Drummer Boy instead. They gave him a lantern, his drum, and helped him wiggle through the tiny entrance.
Once in, he played his drum as he moved along the tunnel, with the soldiers following the sound of the drum from above ground. It worked for a while, and the soldiers followed the drumming towards the abbey, which used to have close links with the Norman castle.
Suddenly, however, the sound of the drumming changed, as the drummer boy had entered a large chamber. A large group of knights were in an enchanted sleep, along with King Arthur and his mighty sword Excalibur. A knight raised his hand to silence the loud drumming, and above ground the soldiers heard instead the faint whispers of a conversation taking place.
‘Is England in danger?’, the knight asked. ‘No’, the boy replied. ‘Then now is not the time to awaken King Arthur’, said the knight. ‘Will you stay with us, and sleep until we are needed?’. In great excitement and pride, the boy agreed, and still lies there to this day.
This is a story directly from Parkinson, I’ve not tweaked this one at all. It tells the origin of Devil’s Bridge in North Yorkshire…
The highway between Pateley Bridge and Grassington crosses, in the parish of Burnsall, the deep dell in which runs the small river Dibb, or Dibble, by a bridge known in legend as the Devil’s Bridge. It might reasonably be supposed that Deep -dell Bridge, or Dibble Bridge, was the correct and desirable designation, but legend and local tradition will by no means have it so, and account for the less pleasant name in the following manner.
In the days when Fountain’s Abbey was in its prime, a shoemaker and small tenant of part of the Abbeylands, named Ralph Calvert, resided at Thorp-sub- Montem, and journeyed twice a year along this road to pay his rent to the Abbot, dispose of the fruits of his six months’ handiwork, and return the shoes entrusted to him on his previous visit for repair, and bring back with him, on his return, a bag well filled with others that needed his attention.
The night before setting out, on one of these occasions, he had a fearful dream, in which he struggled with the devil, who, in this wild, rocky ravine, amid unpleasant surroundings, endeavoured to thrust Ralph into a bag, similar to the one in which he carried his stock-in-trade. This he and his wife feared boded no good. In the morning, however, he started on his journey, and duly reached the abbey, assisted at the service, did his business with the abbot and brethren, and then started, with his well-filled bag, on his return homewards. When he arrived near home, in the deep ravine, where on previous occasions he had found but a small brook which he could easily ford, he now found a mountain torrent, through which he only with difficulty and some danger made his way. Having accomplished the passage, he sat down to rest and to dry his wetted garments. As he sat and contemplated the place, he could not but recall how exactly it corresponded with the spot seen in his dream, and at which the author of evil had tried to bag him. Dwelling on this brought anything but pleasant thoughts, and to drive them away, and to divert his mind, he struck up a familiar song, in which the name of the enemy finds frequent mention, and the refrain of which was :
“Sing luck-a-down heigh down,
Ho, down derry ”
He was unaware of any presence but his own ; but, to his alarm another voice than his added a further line :
“Tol lol derol, darel del, dolde deny.’
Ralph thought of his dream. Then he fancied he saw the shadow of a man on the road; then from a projecting comer of a rock he heard a voice reading over a list of delinquents in the neighbourhood, with whom he must remonstrate— Ralph’s own name among the rest. Not to be caught eavesdropping Ralph feigned sleep ; but after a time was aroused by the stranger, and a long conversation ensued, the upshot of which was, after they had entered into a compact of friendship, that Satan informed the shoemaker who he was, and inquired of the alarmed man if there was anything that he could do for him.
Ralph looked at the swollen torrent, and thought of the danger he had lately incurred in crossing it, and of his future journeys that way to the abbey ; and then he said, “I have heard that you are an able architect; I should wish you to build a bridge across this stream; I know you can do it.”
“Yes”, replied his visitant, “I can and will do it. At the fourth day from this time, come to this spot and you will be astonished, and you can bring the whole countryside with you, if you like.”
At nightfall Ralph reached his home at Thorpe, and related his adventure to his wife, and added, “In spite of all that is said against him, the Evil One is an honest gentleman, and I have made him promise to build a bridge at the Gill Ford on the road to Pateley. If he fulfils his promise, St. Crispin bless him.”
The news of Ralph’s adventure and of the promise soon spread among the neighbours, and he had no small amount of village chaff and ridicule to meet before the eventful Saturday — the fourth day — arrived. At last it came. Accompanied by thirty or forty of the villagers, Ralph made his way to the dell, where, on arrival, picture their astonishment at the sight ! Lo, a beautiful and substantial bridge spanned the abyss. A Surveyor, and mason, and priest pronounced it to be perfect.
The latter sprinkled it with holy water, caused a cross to be placed at each approach to it, and then declared it to be safe for all Christian people to use. So it remained until the Puritan Minister of Pateley, in the time of the Commonwealth, discerning the story to be a Popish legend, caused the protecting crosses to be removed as idolatrous. After. that time, neither the original builder, nor any other person, seems to have thought fit to keep the bridge in “good and tenantable” repair, and in time it fell into so disreputable and dangerous a condition, that the liberal, and almost magic -working, native of the parish — Sir William Craven, Lord Mayor of London in the reign of the ist James — took the matter in hand, and built upon the old foundations a more terrestrial, but not less substantial and enduring, structure.
Melch (or Melsh) Dick is new to me, I only came across this one recently, though the name appears in some old lists of fairy folk. He’s a creature that lives in (often ancient) woodland and guards against people picking unripe hazelnuts. The phrase that keeps coming up is “Melch Dick’ll catch thee lad!” as a warning against picking unripe nuts. Churn-milk Peg seems much the same character. Melch or Melsh is a word that means unripe, and churn-milk represents the mushy pale interior of an unripe nut too. The story was full of dialect, which I’ve largely removed while keeping most of the story intact. This is (lightly tweaked) from “More Tales of the Ridings”, by F.W. Moorman.
What I’m going to tell you now is what I’ve heard my mother say, scores of times, so you’ll know it’s true. It was the back end of the year, and the lads had gone into the woods to gather hazelnuts and acorns. There were two or three big lads amongst them, but most were little ‘uns, and one was lame in the leg. They called him Doed of Billy’s of Claypit Lane.
Well, the lads had gotten a load of the nuts, and the they set off home as fast as they could go, as it were getting a bit dusky in the wood. But little Doed couldn’t keep up with the other lads on account of his dodgy leg. So the lads kept hollering back to him to look sharp and get a shift on, or he’d get left behind.
So Doed loped along as fast as he was able, but he couldn’t keep up with the other lads, try as he might, and all the time the light was slowly fading. At long length he thought he saw one of the lads waiting for him under an oak tree, but when he drew closer he realised it was someone that he’d never clapped eyes on before. He was no bigger than Doed, but it was hard to tell how old he was, and he had a weird smell about him – as though he’d taken the essence of all the trees from the wood and smeared them over his body. But what capped it all off were the clothes he was dressed in, covered in green moss, and on his head was a cap of red fur.
Well, when Doed saw him he was a bit afraid, but the lad looked a him in a friendly way and said, “Now then Doed, where are you going?”
“I’m off home”, says Doed, and his teeth started to chatter with fright.
“Well, I’m going your way”, says the lad, “so if you like you can come along with me. You’ll not recognise me, but I can tell who you are by the way you favour your mother. You’ll have heard tell of your uncle, Ned Bowker, that lives over by Sally Abbey? He’s my father, so I reckon we’re cousins.”
Now, Doed had heard his mother tell him about his Uncle Ned, so he calmed down a little, but still wasn’t keen on the look of this lad. However, they carried on talking and Doed let on that he was keen on squirrels. You see, he loved to collect animals and kept linnets, and magpies, in cages, and a box full of hedgehogs. But he’d never caught a squirrel, they were too quick for him, and he wanted one more than anything in the world.
When Melch Dick heard that – for of course the lad was Melch Dick himself – he said that if Doed came with him, he’d soon give him what he wanted. He’d been climbing trees and caught a squirrel, putting it in the basket he’d carried his dinner in.
Well, little Doed hardly knew what to do. It was getting late, and there was something about this lad that worried him. But then he thought of the squirrel and how much he wanted him. So he said to Melch Dick that he’d go with to fetch the squirrel, but he musn’t stop long or folks would know that he’d lost his way and would come looking for him.
When Melch Dick heard him say he’d come with him, his eyes glistened, and he set off through the wood with Doed following him. The wood was full of great oak trees, with birch set amongst them that there just beginning to change colour.
After a while they got to a pool in the middle of the wood. It was no bigger than a duck pond, but the water was deep, and all around the pond was a ring of Aspen trees with their boughs hanging over the water. The sky had been overcast earlier, but the wind had cleared the clouds, and the moon was shining in a way that lit up the trees and made the water glisten like silver.
Melch Dick settled down by the water and Doed did the same, as they started talking again, with Doed asking him why he was covered in green moss.
“If you were to climb trees the same as I have”, answered Melch Dick, “then you’d be covered with moss too, I’d say.”
“And why do you wear a cap of red fur?”
“Why shouldn’t I wear a fur cap, I’d like to know? My mother makes them from squirrel skins, and they’re fearful warm in winter time.”
When little Doed heard mention of squirrels again, it reminded him to ask for the squirrel in the basket.
“Wait a while”, said Melch Dick, “and I’ll show you more squirrels than you’ve ever seen in all your life.”
With that, he takes a penny whistle out of his pocket, obviously made by Melch Dick himself, whittled from a slim ash branch. He put it to his mouth, and blew two or three notes, and sure enough, there was some noise from nearby and in no time at all, half a dozen squirrels were sat on the branches of the aspens. When Doed saw the squirrels in the moonlight, he was beside himself with excitement. He looked at them, they looked at him, and their eyes were as bright as glow-worms.
All the while Melch Dick playing his whistle, and the squirrels kept coming through the trees. You could hardly see the branches for the squirrels now. It was as though all the squirrels in the forest had heard the tune and been forced to follow the sound. They mad no noise or fuss, but sat down on the branches, pricked up their ears, cocked their tails over their backs, and kept their eyes fixed on Melch Dick.
Well, when Melch Dick decided he’d gathered enough squirrels, he changed his tune, and it was a rough tune too. Sometimes it was like the howling of the wind down a chimney, sometimes like the curlews and lapwings up on the moors. But when the squirrels heard the tune, they lined up twelve to a branch. They jumped from tree to tree, right around the pool, with their tails set straight out behind them. They were that close together, it was like a great coil of rope spinning around the water, all the time their faces turned to Melch Dick, and their eyes were blazing like burning coals. Round and round they went, with little Doed just holding his breath and watching them. He’d seen horses riding around a ring at a fair, but that was nothing compared to the squirrels spinning around the pool.
After a while, Doed thought that Melch Dick would stop playing, but he did nothing of the sort. Instead, he played ever faster keeping one eye on the squirrels and one on little Doed. The faster he played, the faster the squirrels jumped, and before long the tune was more like a shriek than a dance tune. Doed had heard nothing like it before, it was as though all the devils in hell and had loose and were being blown through the sky above. It was a strange sound, and a strange sight too, and little Doed’s teeth started chattering and every limb on his body was shaking like the aspen leaves on the trees around the pool.
Doed was scared half to death, but for all that, he couldn’t take his eyes off the squirrels, they’d bewitched him, had the squirrels. He put his hand to his head, and it felt as though he was spinning around and around himself. Now, that was what Melch Dick wanted, and why he’d set the squirrels going. He couldn’t do anything to Doed while he was master of his own senses, but if he was to get giddy enough to drift off into a daydream, then sure enough, Melch Dick would have him in his power and be able to turn him into a squirrel, as he had done to so many lads and lasses before.
As Doed felt his head getting wooly, thinking he was falling asleep and unsure where he was any more, he decided he must be lying in bed at home, drifting off to sleep without saying his prayers. You see, his mother had taught him a prayer to say every night before going to bed. Well, Doed tried to say his prayer, but couldn’t remember the words! That made him uneasy, as he was a good lad and it worried him that he forgotten the words. All that he could call to mind was something that he’d heard the lads and lasses say on their way home from school. He reckoned it was more a bit of fun than a prayer, but he started to say it anyway, as loud as he could:
“Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on.”
He’d no sooner said the words than all of a sudden, Melch Dick stopped playing, the squirrels stopped jumping, the bats stopped flying over the poolm,, the moon hid behind a great thunder clound, and the wood and the water were as black as a boot. Then there came a scuffling and a shrieking all over the wood. The squirrels started spitting and swearing like mad, the wind yowled, and there were all sorts of strange noises overhead. Then, after a minute of chaos, the moon came clear of the cloud, and Doed looked around. But there was nothing to see. Melch Dick was no longer next to him, and there was not a squirrel left in the trees. All that he could see what the aspen leaves blowing in the wind, and tiny waves in the pond lapping against the bank.
Doed was well-nigh starved to death with cold and hunger, and the poor lad started crying as though his heart would break. But then he had enough sense to start shouting for help, and before long there came an answer. His father and the lads from the village had been looking for him all over the wood, and as soon as they found him, they took him home and put him to bed. It was a long while before he was better, and he never set foot in the wood again without a bit of witchwood in his pocket, cut from a rowan-tree on St Helen’s day.
I quite like the Yorkhire dragon stories, mainly because of how different they are to the dragons in stories I heard growing up. They were completely different looking animals, even from the cute dragons from Ivor the Engine…
Dragons from stories I’d heard before were like armoured giant birds – they flew around breathing fire, and were killed with difficulty because of the impenetrable scales that covered them.
Yorkshire dragons were different. The were much more serpent, or wyrm like – killing people (or sinking ships) by wrapping themselves around them, rather than swooping down from the sky and breathing fire. They might drip poison from their heads, or have regenerative powers, but why would you need armoured scales when you’re simply enormous and heal quickly?
Some might breathe fire though, as I’ve always been told a dragon lived on Castle Hill near me. I assume that is said because it’s a rare example of a vitrified iron age hill fort, where a fire raged so fiercely (around 400BC?) that stones were fused together. Sounds like a good excuse for a dragon story to me… especially as there are said to be tunnels under the hill which would make a good home for a sneaky giant serpent.
Another Yorkshire Dragon! I tend to tweak these stories, making sure I keep the core of them the same of course, but whenever I come across unusual names I always make sure they stay the same. I like that the hero in this is called Scaw, as it is apparantly from an old Norse word (Skagi) for a “headland”. Fitting as this is near the coast, AND Yorkshire was settled by vikings for a significant length of time, giving many words to Yorkshire dialects.
A dragon.
Handale is a quiet spot these days, set in lovely countryside, with woods and open fields set around it, but also with the coast nearby.
In ancient times, however, Handale wasn’t so pleasant to live in, as these quiet woods were infested by a huge and powerful dragon, which had the power to control young women. For many years it would bring young maidens under its spell, bewitching them into leaving their homes and entering its lair, where it would feast on their youthful limbs.
A brave young man called Scaw was enraged by this waste of life, and after losing a friend to the vile worm, swore to destroy the dragon, or to perish in the attempt.
Amid the tears and prayers of his friends and family, he buckled on his armour, and made his way to the serpents cave.
He drew his sword, and struck a rock near the entrance to announce his presence. The dragon immediately came out, blasting fire from his nostrils, and rearing high his crested head to display the poisonous sting, which had destroyed many an angry young man before.
Scaw, however, was made of braver stuff, and he held his ground. After a long and exhausting fight, the young hero prevailed, killing the dragon in the entrance to its own cave.
Clambering over the body of the beast, he found an earl’s daughter still alive in the cave, whose family were so pleased with her timely rescue, they signed huge estates over to him.
The wood where he killed the dragon is called Scaw Wood to this day, and the stone coffin in which he was buried can still be found in the grounds of the old Benedictine priory nearby.
In the church of Nunnington, in North Yorkshire, is an ancient tomb. It is topped by the figure of a knight in armour, lying prone, the legs crossed, the feet resting against a dog, the hands apparently clasping a heart, but no inscription to determine to whom the monument belongs.
The locals tell that it is the tomb of Peter Loschy, a famous warrior, whose last exploit was killing a huge serpent, or dragon, which infested the country, and had its den on a wooded landmark now called Loschy Hill.
They say that having determined to free the area from the pest, Peter Loschy asked why no-one else had yet succeeded in destroying the serpent. Even the strongest and bravest warriors had failed, as it seemed able to recover from any wound inflicted upon it, shaking off a strike from a sword like we would a bite from a gnat.
Peter, therefore, made extra plans, getting a suit of armour prepared, with every part of it being covered with razor-blades set with the edges pointing outwards. Thus defended, armed with his sword, and accompanied by a faithful dog, he went forth to seek the dragon, which he quickly found in a thicket on the Hill.
The dragon, glad of another victim, pounced upon the armed man, ignoring a wound from Peter’s sword, and folded itself around his body, intending to squeeze Peter to death, and afterwards to devour him at leisure, but in this it was disappointed.
The razor-blades were sharp, and pierced it all over, so it quickly uncoiled itself again. To the surprise of the knight, as soon as it pulled away from him, and the razor blade coated armour, its wounds instantly healed, and it was strong and vigorous as ever.
A long and desperate fight ensued between the knight and the serpent, without either gaining much advantage over the other.
With Peter tiring, and fearing he could never inflict a fatal injury on the serpent, he swung his sword once more and chopped a segment from the end of the dragon’s tail.
His faithful dog saw his chance and quickly snatched up the beast’s flesh and ran across the valley with it for nearly a mile. He left it on a hill near Nunnington Church, and immediately returned to the scene of combat. Snatching up another fragment, he took it to the same place, and returned again and again for other fragments until they were all removed, the last portion taken being the poisonous head.
The knight, now rejoicing at his victory, stooped to pat and praise his faithful dog, who looked up and licked the knight’s face. Sadly, the poison of the serpent was still on the dog’s tongue, and both fell down dead within an hour of their victory.
The villagers buried the body of the knight in Nunnington Church, and placed a monument over the grave, on which were carved the figures of the knight and his faithful dog, to witness to the truth of the story.
This story crops up in a few places with slight variations, I stuck a couple of them together to make the short tale below. I thought it was appropriate to start with seeing as the first post had a pic of the Yorkshire coast on!
My daughter drowning a dragon in a sandpit (at Wentworth Castle).
A couple of hundred years ago, a huge dragon, nearly a mile long, lived in the waters near Filey. It had a habit of lying in the gulley, a tidal inlet, where it was partly hidden, and making itself a snack of any unsuspecting boats that ventured near.
Ralph Parkin, known as Billy Biter to his friends, for reasons too obscure to go into here, lived in Filey all his life, working as a tailor in the town. One day, he went down to the beach for a breath of fresh air and to eat some of the cake his wife had made him.
The dragon was getting restless, however, and its nostrils flared as the smell of the cake drifted over from Billy’s hand. It was the sticky gingerbread style cake made in Yorkshire from plenty of oatmeal and treacle, and it made the serpent’s stomach growl with hunger.
It heaved its huge bulk up from the water and scared poor Billy half to death. In a panic, he threw the whole cake at the dragon, who chomped down in satisfaction. It was too sticky and rich for the dragon, however, who was used to crunchier and meatier snacks, and its teeth got stuck together. It thrashed around in the water, trying to unstick its jaws, repeatedly dunking its head in the water to wash the cake away.
Billy saw his chance, and jumped onto the dragon’s head while it was just under the surface of the water. He called to his friends to do the same, and their combined weight drowned the dragon.
To this day, the sticky ginger cake is known as Parkin after the family who made the cake that killed the Filey dragon. The bones of the great serpent still lie where he died, jutting out to sea, and are now known as Filey Brigg.
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Yorkshire Folk Tales 
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