The abbot sat uncomfortably between his two well-upholstered guests making frantic but silent signs with his eyebrows to the monk who was serving him. The monk leaned closer. ‘Where’s the wine?’ hissed the abbot out of the side of his mouth. The monk bowed and disappeared downstairs.
‘I promise that it’ll be worth wait when it comes!’ blustered the abbot.
His guests shrugged. ‘Nous verrons!’ they said. But they never did!
When the serving monk reached the top of the cellar steps he could hear an unholy sound. Somebody was singing.
‘In dulci jubilo-o-o! Up-up-up we go-o-o!’ Brother Jocundus lay beneath the little cask, alternating between singing lustily and catching the last drops of wine on his tongue.
Only one punishment was severe enough for such a betrayal of trust. The abbot decreed that the vile monk should be walled up in the very cellar he had so desecrated. A convenient hole in the wall was discovered with what seemed like an old pantry behind it. Brother Jocundus was unceremoniously pushed into it. A compassionate monk put a loaf of bread hot from the oven and a jug of milk into the hole with him; then he was walled-up and once more left in the dark.
Now it so happened that the prior of St Leonard’s had died a few days before and his funeral had just come to an end. All the monks were about to gather to choose a new prior when someone had the bright idea that a jug of wine might help with their deliberations. As the cellarer was bending over a cask, he heard a sound that froze the blood in his veins.
‘In dulci jubilo-o-o …’
The cellarer ran, wine splashing from the jug. ‘Help! Ghost!’ he cried as he ran. ‘Ghost! The undead!’ His brother monks gathered around.
‘Brother Jocundus’ ghost is haunting the cellar! I heard him! Singing that song!’
They told him not to be silly, patted him on the back and implied that he had been sampling the cellar’s contents. ‘No I haven’t!’ he wept. ‘Come and hear for yourself. It’s Brother Jocundus!’
Laughing, they accompanied him down into the cellar, but the smiles were quickly wiped off their faces. ‘In dulci jubilo-o-o!’ came loud and clear from the other side of the wall. The monks stared at each other wondering what to do. Then one, more organised than the others, ran for a pickaxe. In a short time, the wall was broken down. There lay Brother Jocundus, smiling and waving vaguely.
‘He’s still alive! After a year!’
‘He looks well – in better shape than ever!’
One monk reached into the hole and brought out a loaf of bread. ‘And the bread’s not stale! In fact it’s still warm!’
‘And the water has been changed into milk!’
‘It’s a miracle!’
When Brother Jocundus’ eyes got used to the light, he saw before him a row of kneeling monks. ‘Bless us, O Holy Brother Jocundus!’ they chorused.
And that is how he came to be chosen as the new prior of St Leonards!
I don’t think he was the holiest prior St Leonard’s ever knew, but, with a cellar every bit the rival of St Mary’s, he was certainly the jolliest that ever held the office!
THE BOOK OF FATE
A knight of York is riding home through the city. He is feeling very happy because although (being a knight) he prefers fighting and hunting to reading, he has just fulfilled a secret boyhood dream: he has hunted down a book he has wanted to own since his old tutor told him of it – the Book of Fate. It has cost him a great deal of money but, at last, it is his.
Now, this is no ordinary book and it actually requires very little reading because it is magic. Anyone who owns it can see into the future. All you have to do is to write the name of someone on the middle page, close the book, tap it three times, say the magic word (which is a secret) and when you open the book again, there you will find the person’s future neatly written.
The knight is leaning back in his saddle feeling unusually benevolent when his eye falls upon a miserable man sitting in the doorway of a little shop. He has his head in his hands and is rocking backwards and forwards saying, ‘What are we going to do? What are we going to do?’ The knight, who would not normally even notice the man, reins in his grey stallion and leans down.
‘You there! What are you wailing about?’
The man looks up with tears in his eyes. ‘Oh, sir, my wife has just given birth to another girl!’
‘Well, don’t despair, she may have a boy next time!’ says the knight. The man looks uncomfortable.
‘It isn’t that she’s a girl, my lord, it’s that we already have five children and can’t afford to feed any more! The poor little thing will starve.’
The knight is about to throw the man some small change when he remembers his new book. He has not tried it out yet. ‘Perhaps her future isn’t as dark as you think,’ he says, ‘Wouldn’t you like to find out what it’s going to be? I have here the famous Book of Fate, of which you may have heard. Bring her out and I will tell her fortune!’
Now the man is frightened, but he does not dare argue with the knight – especially as he seems to be a magician as well. He goes into his little shop and after a time comes out again with a tiny bundle in his arms. The knight glances at the baby who screws up her face and howls. He carefully gets out his book and unwraps it from its silken cloth. He is really quite excited. ‘What is her name?’ he asks.
‘Alice Sidebottom,’ says the man. (All girls are called Alice in the Middle Ages.) The knight opens the book to the middle page and writes down the name. Then he closes the book, taps it three times and says the magic word (which is still secret). Then, his hands shaking a little, he opens the book again. Sure enough, there is some writing that was not there before. The knight reads it and reads it again. The smile fades from his face, which begins to grow red with anger. This is what he has just read: ‘Little Alice will marry your son!’
He has to think quickly because the father is looking at him hopefully.
‘Ah, hmm, yes, it says that your daughter will - er - be adopted by a knight!’ he stammers.
The man’s eyes widen. ‘Will she, my lord? How wonderful! Wait till I tell my wife!’ and he is turning to go into the shop when the knight stops him.
‘Yes, and do you know, I’ve taken such a shine to the little lass that I’d like that knight to be me. Just what I need; I’ve not got any girls, only boys. She’ll want for nothing, marry a lord, eat three meals a day, have rings and all that stuff,’ he says. ‘Just hand her over and I’ll be on my way.’
Well, the man and his wife are delighted – their daughter will now have a far better life than they could provide. The mother puts the baby in a little wooden box to act as a carry-cot and kisses it goodbye. She cries a little as she hands the baby up to the knight. ‘Look after her well, my lord,’ she says. The knight waves to them gaily as he rides off down the street with baby Alice in her little box tucked under his arm.
When he gets to the bridge over the River Ouze, he pauses. ‘No son of mine is going to marry a Sidebottom!’ he snarls, tosses the box and its contents over the parapet and spurs his horse forward.
Sixteen years later, the same knight is once more returning home, along the river, this time, with a group of his friends. They have been hunting and are all in a jolly mood. As they approach a humble cottage that stands a little way back from the river bank, the knight suddenly pulls his horse up. ‘God’s bones!’ he exclaims. ‘My wife wants to feast you all tonight and I’ve forgotten the fine fish I promised to bring her.’
‘But isn’t this is a fisherman’s cottage?’ says one of his friends. ‘Why don’t you try here?’
The knight leaps off his horse and bangs loudly on the door. To his surprise, it is opened by a very pretty girl who curtsies politely and asks him whether he would like to buy some fish. The knight and his friends are greatly taken with her. They talk and joke with her, and tease her to make her blush.
‘Well, my pretty,’ the knight says, curling his moustache, ‘I’ll certainly buy that big fish I
see there on the table, but tell me, wouldn’t you like to know your fortune?’
‘My father tells me that my face is my only fortune,’ the lass replies.
‘And a very pretty face it is. But I have here a certain way of discovering your real fortune,’ the knight insists, ‘For I have here the Book of Fate, which is never wrong!’ He unwraps the book – which he carries everywhere with him – and shows it to the girl. (His friends stifle a sigh.)
The girl is a little nervous, fearing that the book is evil witchcraft, but in the end she cannot resist the fascination of knowing her fortune.
‘What is your name, maiden?’
‘Alice Fish, my lord.’ (I told you all girls were called Alice in the Middle Ages.)
The knight opens the book at the middle and writes Alice’s name in it. Then he closes the book, taps it three times and says the magic word (never to be revealed). Then he opens the book and looks at what is written there:
‘Even though you tried to drown her, she is still going to marry your son!’
Immediately the knight is shaken with a bout of coughing and spluttering.
Alice looks worried and brings him a cup of water. ‘Is my fortune so very dreadful?’ she asks. The knight gets some sort of grip on himself.
‘No, it’s wonderful.You’ll marry a nice young fisherman and have fourteen children. Must go feast. Goodbye!’
Then he jumps on his horse and gallops away, followed by his rather confused friends.
They have not gone far along the river before the knight thinks better of his action. A cunning plan is beginning to form itself in his mind.
‘Damn me if I haven’t left the fish behind!’ he tells his friends. ‘You go on to York Castle and I’ll catch up with you in a minute.’ Then he rides back to the cottage. The girl comes rushing out. ‘My lord, you forgot your fish!’ she cries, holding up a large parcel.
‘Thank you, sweetheart,’ he says, smiling kindly. ‘Do you know, I’m so busy worrying about a problem I have that I’ll forget my own head next!’
‘What problem’s that?’ says Alice, who is a very kind, sympathetic sort of girl.
‘Well, I have to get an urgent message to my brother in Scarborough Castle and I don’t seem to be able to find anyone to take it for me. I don’t suppose you know of anyone?’ He smiles even more kindly.
Alice thinks for a moment. ‘Scarborough Castle is an awful long way away,’ she says, ‘but I suppose I could take it, when my father comes back. It’d take me more than a day to get there, though.’
‘Would you? Would you really? How very sweet you are! Don’t worry about money for your journey. Look! Here’s a gold noble for food and lodging.’ And almost before she realises that she’s agreed to go, Alice is watching the knight sitting at her father’s table writing a letter. He seals it with his ring and gives it to her. ‘Now you really mustn’t read it.’ he says, laughing.
‘Oh, that’s all right. I can’t read,’ she replies.
‘Good! Good! Give it into the hand of my brother Sir William as soon as you can. Well, I must go off with the fish before the fish goes off by itself!’ He laughs heartily and rides away as quickly as he can.
Alice’s father is impressed by the gold noble. ‘You’ll never need all that. Don’t forget to bring the change back with you,’ he says as he waves her goodbye with a fishy hand.
Alice is a good walker and enjoys being able to stroll along the highway without any work to do, for though her parents are kind folk, they are not rich and she still has to work hard cleaning fish or carrying them to market.
A kindly carter gives her a lift for a bit of the way, but night draws near long before she gets to Scarborough. Alice looks around for an inn, feeling very excited for she has never had any money of her own to spend before. At last she comes to a small inn and enters hesitantly. Fortunately for Alice the innkeeper’s wife takes to her immediately. Realising that the pretty girl is very young and inexperienced, she does not charge her more than twice the usual price for her supper and bed. Alice goes to sleep in a fairly clean bed in a nice room. She feels very grand but leaves her candle alight just in case. (After all, it is the first time she has been away from home on her own.)
In the middle of the night, something strange happens. The window catch rattles a little and then the window slowly opens and a burglar creeps in. He jumps silently down onto the floor and looks around in the dim candlelight. What’s this? No luggage? Isn’t this one of the best rooms? He is very disappointed. No, there is nothing except a pretty girl asleep in the bed. She does not even have a pack. There is a letter on the table. The burglar picks it up and shakes it. No money inside. However, he sees that it is addressed to Sir William of Scarborough Castle. Intrigued, he carefully peels the seal up without breaking it and reads the contents. His jaw drops.
‘Dear brother, as soon as you get this letter please kill the bearer. See you next week. Yr affectionate brother, John Kt of Yrk.’
The burglar is shocked. ‘What a horrible trick to play on such a pretty girl!’ he thinks. ‘What a bastard John Kt of Yrk must be! Hmm. I’ll settle his hash for him!’
Very carefully the burglar scrapes a word from the letter with his knife and inserts a few. Smiling, he warms the seal over the bedroom candle and sticks it down again. Then, with a pleasant feeling of having down something good for a change, the burglar slips out of the window and is gone into the night.
In the morning, Alice sets out for Scarborough again and by the evening has arrived. It is a steep climb up to the castle and she is tired, but eventually she finds herself standing before the great doors. The guard on duty takes one look at the address on the letter and allows her to enter. He takes the letter from her, telling her to wait for his master. Time goes by. Alice sits on a mounting block by the gate, waiting. Suddenly there is a great bustle and a man who looks very like the Knight of York comes rushing down some stairs and, taking her by both hands gives her a kiss on the cheek. ‘Welcome!’ he says. ‘It’s a bit of a surprise, I must say. Never thought old John was such a romantic, but you are a pretty girl and I suppose he thinks it is better for his son to be happy rather than rich. Come and meet him.’
Not daring to speak, Alice is hustled upstairs to where a handsome young man is standing. He looks as confused as Alice.
‘I know it’s sudden, but she’s much better looking than that rich old dowager he was thinking of for you, lad.’
‘What?’ stammers the young man. His uncle waves the letter under his nose.
‘It’s all here in black and white! Listen, I’ll read it! “Dear brother, as soon as you get this letter please marry the bearer to my son.” It couldn’t be clearer and you know how angry he’ll get if we don’t do exactly what he says! He’ll be here next week. Call the priest!’
And so, before either of them can do anything other than exchange helpless glances, Alice and the Knight of York’s son, Gregor, are married to each other.
Sudden the marriage may be, but it seems to be successful. Gregor and Alice take to each other straight away and spend the first week of their marriage very happily. Alice loves not having to gut fish and Gregor is very relieved not to be married to an aged dowager.
The following Saturday as they are sitting in a window embrasure merrily cheating each other at chess they hear a great blowing of horns and the sound of many hooves. Servants start running about all over the place. It is the Knight of York.
Sir William fondly embraces his brother but is somewhat surprised when he whispers in his ear, ‘Did you get my letter?’
‘’Course I did!’ says Sir William. ‘Delighted to do what you wanted!’
Sir John glances around in a worried manner. ‘Ssssh!’ he says. ‘Keep your voice down! You did it then?’
‘I did! Great idea! They seem very happy!’
‘What are you babbling about?’
‘Your son and Alice …’
Up in the solar the newly-weds are alarmed to hear the sou
nds of a very loud angry voice coming their way. They jump to their feet just as the Knight of York bursts in with his sword drawn. Before anyone can do anything, he has seizes Alice by her long hair and drags her down the stairs, shouting for his horse. Gregor runs behind his father, begging him to put the sword down, but as soon as the knight reaches the courtyard he throws Alice over the saddle and leaps up behind her. ‘No son of mine is going to wed a wretched pauper!’ he cries and with that he gallops out of the castle, away down the hill with his horse’s hooves striking sparks from the stones as he goes.
Alice is terrified, but she keeps begging the knight to release her as she has done nothing but what he asked. His only reply is to spur his horse even harder.
When they reach the beach, he flings her from the horse and stands over her with that great sword in his hand. Poor Alice’s lip is bleeding and her hair all tangled. She kneels in the sand and, weeping, begs the knight to let her go. ‘I’ll go away forever!’ she cries. ‘I’ll disappear if only you let me live.’
Despite himself the knight is moved; after all she is very pretty even in this state. He lowers his sword. ‘Forever?’
‘Forever! I swear it!’
Forever is just a word to her, thinks the knight. Let us make sure she knows what it means. He takes a heavy silver ring from his finger. ‘This is what forever means, girl!’ he says throwing the ring into the sea. ‘It means that you swear not to come near me or any one of my family until the day you can show me that very ring on your hand!’
Alice swears, crying bitterly. Then, in a swirl of sand and a thudding of hooves, the knight is gone, leaving her to pick up the pieces of her life alone.
For a while, Alice can think of nothing. She wanders down the beach, weeping. Then, as the day wanes, she realises that she is going to have to make a plan. What is she to do? She cannot go back to her family because she has already sent them a message telling them about her marriage. She does not want them to worry about her and anyway, they live too near the knight. She has a little money left over from that gold noble, but that will not keep her for long. She will have to beg her bread to start with and hope to find work in one of the little villages north of Scarborough. Slowly she begins the long walk through the town into the country.
North Yorkshire Folk Tales Page 14