North Yorkshire Folk Tales

by Ingrid Barton

The White Doe

  I struggled with this story. Its only folk tale element is the white doe which appears at the church. It was Wordsworth who linked the doe’s appearance with Emily Norton in his romantic ballad ‘The White Doe of Rylstone’. Local people seem to have had all sorts of rival ghostly candidates!

  Victorian invention or not, the story, with its merry inattention to dates, is now an accepted North Yorkshire tale, which is why I’ve included it. It also gave me the chance to tell a little of the story of the Pilgrimage of Grace, an event that was extremely important across Yorkshire but, like the much earlier Harrying of the North, little known.

  I must admit to playing about with the history a little. The Pilgrimage of Grace took place in 1536, but the Rising of the North, after which Richard Norton and his eldest son were executed, was not until 1569, thirty years later. The white dear would have been very elderly by then.

  A couple of the sons really did go abroad, ending up in America.

  Potter Thompson

  There are many stories of the man who stumbles into King Arthur’s Cave (located in various places around the country). Should the day ever come when we require that king’s services it will be interesting to see where he emerges …

  The Drummer Boy

  The theme of the mysterious disappearance of someone who has set off underground playing a musical instrument of some sort is fairly common. Folk music people will know the song ‘Fiddler’s Hill’ with its ‘dark way, the deep way, the way beneath the ground’.

  The Gold Hole tower’s supposed treasure is a misunderstanding of a medieval joke: it was the tower where all the toilets were.

  The tale of a secret tunnel between monasteries, big houses and churches is to be found in every county (and, as I can attest, is one of the banes of parents’ lives!). In Sheffield, one is supposed to have been found as recently as the 1960s. What no one can ever explain is why anyone would want to go to the bother …

  Lame Haverah

  Alas, history does not bear out this story! The park, which is just outside Harrogate and well worth a visit, did and does indeed belong to the Duchy of Lancaster. There is a John O’Gaunt’s tower there, but the name Haverah is thought to come not from a personal name but from the old words for Roe (deer) Hedge. The park was once a royal chase used sometimes for deer and sometimes for raising horses for the king. More recently it was used as the site for air shower arrays, tracking cosmic rays.

  Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar

  I do not know why Friar Tuck was at Fountains Abbey, which was not a friary but a monastery. Friars belonged to begging orders. Unlike monks, who were supposed to stay for life in one particular monastery, friars worked among lay people and were supported by the community. The country was divided into areas called provinces, to one of which each friar was attached. There were various friary houses in their province where they could stay, but travelling, begging and preaching were supposedly their main occupations. Friar Tuck could thus join up with Robin’s band from time to time while still theoretically doing his friarly duty.

  The good friar does not appear in the very earliest recorded tales of Robin Hood. The ballad of this particular story is found in the seventeenth-century manuscript called the Percy Folio and is dated to the mid-fifteenth century, but his prior existence is known from a dramatic fragment from the beginning of the fifteenth century. He later became a popular figure in the May Games (the only place where Maid Marion appears).

  In the original ballad, he and Robin fight with swords but I have given them quarterstaves, not just because those in holy orders were forbidden edged weapons, but also because they seem rather more suitable to the combatants’ stations. (J.C. Holt’s Robin Hood offers further debate.)

  The Giant of Dalton Mill

  A Yorkshire reworking of the Ulysses story.

  Wade and His Wife Bell

  The story of Wade’s Causeway confuses two – or maybe three – people: the demi-god Wade, the historical Wada and, just possibly, General Wade, the great eighteenth-century road builder.

  The obscure Germanic god Wade was much better known in the Middle Ages than he is now. Chaucer refers to him twice but as no one wrote down the popular stories in which Wade appeared, we do not know what they were. We know that he was connected with the sea and was the father of the more famous Weyland Smith, but little more. His presence in Yorkshire probably is due to the Scandinavian influence there, but any road-building credentials are missing.

  The historical Wada was an ealdorman involved in the murder of King Aethelred of Northumbria in 794. He seems to have been remembered as a local hero who may actually have lived at Mulgrave.

  General Wade (1673–1748) was a soldier and a road builder. He was connected with the subduing of the Highlands. As chief of the army in North Britain (as Scotland was renamed after the Act of Union) he built 240 miles of military roads.

  If you had seen this road before it was made

  You would lift up your hands and bless General Wade.

  His fame as a road-builder was very widespread and I believe it is possible that it filtered through to Yorkshire folk (who had no cause to love the Scots), becoming entangled with and enhancing their own local story.

  The road is, of course, Roman. Probably built to join the Roman camp at Malton with Whitby. It is one of the best preserved examples in the country.

  The Devil’s Arrows

  Retold somewhere in nearly every book on Yorkshire! I’m afraid I do not know the origin of the story; there is a very different one in Robert Mortimer’s The Great Monoliths of Boroughbridge (London: ‘The Geologist’, 1860).

  The Giant of Penhill

  The best-known version of this story is found in R. and J. Fairfax-Blakeborough’s Grandfather’s Tales. In the original, the old man who appears to help the people is a hermit, but this did not ring true to me, which is why I have taken one possible origin of Wensleydale’s name – Woden’s Wood Dale – literally and turned him into the Scandinavian version, Odin. His ravens were already there in the story as well as his fellow god Thor. There are plenty of Norse connections in the Dales (the very word ‘dale’ is Norse), so it is not too farfetched, though the animals connected with Thor were goats, not pigs, which were sacred to the god Freyr.

  Those keen on earth mysteries may be interested in the following. Ian Taylor’s The Giant of Penhill (Northern Lights, 1987) believes that the slopes of Penhill reveal an ancient hill figure, forgotten in all but local folklore. There is a Neolithic burial mound at the top of Pen Hill and many named springs around it, making it, possibly, an ancient ritual place. There may also be a connection with nearby West Witton and its ‘Burning of the Bartle’ ceremony. I couldn’t possibly comment.

  Loschy Hill Dragon

  All Saints Nunnington does indeed have an effigy of a knight, though the animal at his feet is a stylised lion, not a dog. The knight is actually not Peter Loschy, but Sir Walter de Teyes, Lord of Stonegrave Manor. He was buried in the church in 1325.

  The dragon’s ability to renew itself is a theme that probably comes from Greek mythology where the Titan Alcyoneus cannot be killed as long as he falls on the earth of his own land. Athene tells Heracles to take him to another land where he cannot be renewed and so he is killed.

  The Barguest

  William Hone (1780–1842) was a rather rackety writer and political journalist who was a friend of many of the great radical figures of his day. He survived numerous failed financial ventures – and debtors’ prison – caused as much by his outspoken political views as by bad management. One of his numerous literary creations was The Table Book, a collection of odds and ends, factual, poetic and descriptive from which two of the most famous Dales’ stories come; The Barguest of Trollers’ Gill and the Wise Woman of Littondale. There is another barguest story in the book, apparently told by a man who had seen the creature with his own eyes. It only ran away when it saw his wife!

  The barguest is one of the types of death dog f
ound across the country.

  The Felon Sow

  Rokeby is now just over the border in County Durham, but it was part of Yorkshire for centuries so I think the story belongs here. The poem first appears in print in Whitaker’s History of Craven, but it was written in the fifteenth century, possibly in Richmond. Its mock-heroic style pokes fun at friars, common butts for humour at the time. ‘Felon’ here means ‘evil’.

  The Gytrash

  Goathland, near Whitby, is probably the most visited place on the North York Moors, partly because of the steam railway nearby, partly because of the TV series ‘Heartbeat’, which was filmed there. Tourists visiting the Mallyon Spout waterfall or avoiding the aggressive sheep (which will get into your car uninvited if there’s a sandwich to be had) have no idea of the dark story connected with the village,

  Gytrashes are usually dogs, or occasionally horses. They are mentioned by Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre:

  As this horse approached, and as I watched for it to appear through the dusk, I remembered certain of Bessie’s tales, wherein figured a North-of-England spirit called a ‘Gytrash,’ which, in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and sometimes came upon belated travellers, as this horse was now coming upon me.

  Why this one happens to be a goat is unexplained; it may be because the name Goathland was popularly thought to have something to do with goats.

  Hobs

  Richard Blakeborough’s Wit, Character, Folklore and Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire contains much more information on different hobs in the area. They were very widely believed in. The Farndale hob story is the most commonly told and variants appear in different districts. Hob also appears in many names: Hob Cross, Hob Green, Hob Moor etc. They seem to have got everywhere!

  Occasionally instead of being helpful hobs took on the character of boggarts, haunting roads to frighten people and being general nuisances.

  Elbolton Hill

  It is one of the mysteries of folklore that fairies appear to prefer prehistoric sites. Whether that is because of some sort of folk memory, or whether the places themselves have a numinous quality that humans respond to is debateable. At any rate, the Elbolton fairies could not have chosen a more ancient place, because in the late nineteenth century an excavation in the oddly named Navvy Noodle Hole found the remains of eleven burials and one cremation. Pottery found with them was dated to the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age (3,000–2,000 BC). The whole area has many stones, tumuli, circles etc., from that period. Beneath the burials were older layers containing bones from cold-weather animals: reindeer, arctic fox, mountain hare, ptarmigan and bear.

  For non-gardeners: fairy rings are rings of darker grass that appear in lawns and which were considered to be caused by the dancing of fairies. (I have one in my own garden.) They are in fact caused by many different types of toadstool and can be dated by their size. According to Wikipedia, one of the largest rings ever found is in France. It is about 600 metres (2,000 feet) in diameter and over 700 years old.

  The White Birds

  This story comes from H.I. Gee’s Folk Tales of Yorkshire.

  The Loaf of Bread

  From Parkinsons Folk tales of Yorkshire, Vol 1.

  Semer Water

  There are many versions of this popular tale. In some, the beggar is a holy hermit but the result is always the same. Classically minded readers may recall the selfish city turned into a lake by Zeus and Mercury, only in that case the aged couple with whom they have stayed persuade the gods to restore it.

  The evil city turned into a lake and the inhabitants becoming fish also appears in The Thousand and One Nights.

  The Devil’s Bridge

  The story is mentioned in Marie Hartley & Ella Pontefract Wharfedale (Skipton: Dalesman Publishing Co. Ltd November, 1988).

  The Wise Woman

  Another story from William Hone’s Table Book (London: Thomas Tegg, 1841). I have used the original words mostly, only leaving out a few rhetorical flourishes (and Latin quotes).

  Hone tells the story according to the literary conventions of his day. He begins by saying he was talking to another traveller in a Craven pub when the subject of the local belief in witchcraft arose. Hone, the eighteenth-century sceptic, does not believe in it, but his companion says that, being a local, he had had personal experience of it. The Wise Woman of Littondale is the story he tells.

  Old Nanny

  This version is from Folk Tales of Yorkshire by H.L. Gee (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1952), but it is widely told.

  Nine of Hearts

  This story and the one that follows it comes from Wit, Character, Folklore and Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire by Richard Blakeborough (London: H. Frowde, 1898). He seems to have had it almost verbatim from local people whose grandparents remembered Molly Cass. She died in the middle of the eighteenth century.

  Why the nine of hearts coming up nine times should result in Old Nick having your soul, I do not know. Nine (3x3) is magic, of course, but not usually evil (unlike ‘666’). In cartomancy (divination by cards) the nine of hearts is called the Wish Card.

  Mother Shipton

  All sorts of information is available about Mother Shipton. She almost certainly did not exist, but her prophesies live on – at least in cyberspace.

  Further reading might include: Richard Head’s The Strange and Wonderful History of Mother Shipton, (London: Richard Lownds, 1686); The Life and Prophecies of Ursula Sontheil: Better Known as Mother Shipton by J.C. Simpson (Knaresborough: Dropping Well booklet); or Mother Shipton: Her Legendary Life, Daniel Parkinson’s online article from the Mysterious Britain site.

  Ragnar Lodbrok

  This story comes from The Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok translated by Ben Waggoner (New Haven, USA: Troth Publications, April 2009); it was written about AD 1400. Ragnar himself as an historical figure is very evasive, he, too, may not have existed at all, although other people in his story including King Aelle and Ivar the Boneless certainly did. It is possible that Ragnar is the same person as the Reginhari who sacked Paris in AD 845.

  The saga includes other exciting deeds of Ragnar and his sons. It incorporates themes from folk tales from all over Europe; his shaggy breeches come from Russia for example and the snake pit probably comes from a similar story in the Völsunga Saga. I have tried to give a flavour of the terse style of the sagas, though leaving out or simplifying the obscure verses Ragnar chants.

  Ivar may have been called Boneless (we do not know why) but he certainly was not spineless. He went on to wreak havoc and destruction throughout England, Scotland and, eventually, Ireland where, known as Imharr, he appears to have gone on a tomb raiding spree in the sacred Boyne Valley breaking open the ancient mounds including New Grange – but that, as they say, is another story!

  Brother Jocundus

  This story has all the signs of being an early Victorian version of a much-travelled story, relocated to York. It certainly is rather ignorant of both monasteries and Medieval York, where St Leonard’s was a hospice for the sick, not a monastery as such. The historically minded might be interested in the following short description of it.

  It was founded, according to tradition, by King Athelstan on his return from the battle of Brunanburgh. He built a small hospital for the poor, to the west of the minster, and generously endowed it with one thrave (twenty sheaves) from every plough being used in the diocese. (The thraves were known as Petercorn.) It was run by a master and chaplains; some ordained monks from the minster, some secular. There were also about eight sisters; some ordained and some secular. They cared for about 180 sick or incapacitated people, who were cared for until they either died or were sufficiently recovered to work. Mothers will be pleased to know that two sisters were assigned to a special room for abandoned babies who were fed with the milk of two cows.

  It is hard for us to realise how strong anti-Catholic feeling was in England in the past – the nearest equivalent would be some people’s attitude to Muslims
. The idea of the walled-up monk or nun, popular in Gothic novels, was a common Protestant theme arising perhaps from anti-Catholic propaganda, perhaps just from ignorance. There are several ghost stories that rely on this idea. In fact, the death penalty was a secular not a religious punishment (although walling-up was never on any statute book). As it happens there are actually punishments specified for St Leonards, of which the most severe appears to be temporary imprisonment in a room at the hospital and penance until ‘signs of amendment’ were seen. Brother Jocundus would have got off lightly.

  The Book of Fate

  This is another story that has been located in York and Scarborough to give it authenticity. It is much closer to a traditional wonder tale than most of the stories in this book. The Book of Fate is an unusual addition. As in the Greek myth of Oedipus, it demonstrates how the attempt to avoid a particular destiny actually results in it being brought about. The finding of the ring in the fish appears in countless tales.

  A version of this story can be found in Richard Blakeborough’s Wit, Character, Folklore and Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire under the chapter Children’s Lore. He points out that it is related to various other European stories including one of the Brothers Grimm. Unfortunately, he does not say where he got it from.