London Folk Tales

by Helen East

  As the battle began, it was instantly clear to Boudicca that, unlike her, the Romans were leaving nothing to chance. First came the legionnaires, the front liners, each had a gladii, a short sword of around 30cm, and a smaller dagger; behind them came the infantry with their 3m javelins, followed by the cavalry on horseback with long lances. The Britons fell like corn, crushed by the threshing shields and swords of an army carefully orchestrated by Seutonius, marching ever forward, thrusting and slashing, using the dead as their pavement.

  As Boudicca saw her people falling to the left and to the right, she found herself thinking of the hare that had promised them victory. It had run to the left, but who knew what twists and turns it took when it got to the forest? That was the trouble with divination – it never saw quite far enough. With her impeccable timing, she threw her tartan cloak round the shoulders of her daughters and they disappeared into the forest. From her belt she took a leather pouch containing a combination of hemlock, yew, bryony, buttercup, belladonna and thorn apple. She shook back her own rough hair, smoothed the soft curls of her daughter’s and urged them to take the powder, rather than be at the mercy of their enemies.

  ‘Live by your own rules and die by your own hand!’ The poison threw them against the trees and on to the grass with such violence that they danced like maddened dryads in a grove.

  The Romans had a final piece of luck. The families of the Britons who had come to watch the downfall of their hated invaders, had lined up their wagons behind their own soldiers and had been cracking nuts and suckling their babies, watching the show. As the bloodbath commenced, the warriors found themselves hemmed in by line upon line of wagons. There was no escape for fighters or audience. Boudicca’s war cloth was trampled into the mud, soaked and reddened with blood. Nearly 80,000 Britons died in the final battle, compared to 400 Romans. The general hunted down any survivors and exacted such a terrible retribution that Rome hardly celebrated the victory, fearing it might stir up another revolt.

  In a very short time, a bigger and better Londinium was rebuilt and Romanisation continued apace. The city they created covered roughly the same region as the City of London district today. If you walk through it now, you may happen upon a market, with fresh, brightly coloured fruit displayed on fake green grass. Maybe some of the market hawkers might catch your eye. Their timeless faces that have been folded into deep creases by the cold, early starts, snappy jokes and the constant packing and unpacking of their ripening and decaying produce, could have come from AD 70.

  But despite the rebuilding, Boudicca’s feisty spirit remains as much a part of London as that layer of burnt red earth. Some feel it strongest in the Kings Cross area, the part once known as Battle Bridges. It was there, so they say, that the Battle of Watling Street took place – the Britons’ terrible defeat. Some even claim that the queen was buried under Kings Cross Station, platform 10. And you can see her ghost there now and again.

  But to my mind, if you really want to sense her ancient presence, turn your back on the bustle, and your feet from the streets of the city. Walk north until you’re deep in the peace of Epping Forest. Take a mossy path up through a line of giant beeches, until you reach Cobbins Brook. There, beyond the reach of motor cars and even mobile phones, is a great earthwork known by several different names: Castrum de Eppynghatthe or Ambresbury Banks or, locally, Boudicca’s Last Stand.

  4

  LONDON BRIDGE

  London Bridge is falling down,

  Falling down, falling down.

  London Bridge is falling down,

  My fair lady.

  It was the Romans who built the first London Bridge. They decided that the ford the Britons had used before would be wholly inadequate for the hordes of soldiers and civilians, chariots and carts, horses and donkeys, cattle, sheep, pigs, geese, and all manner of other beasts that they confidently and correctly anticipated would wish to pass over to their new city on the north side of the river. The Britons’ old ‘settlement’ was barely worthy of the name, as far as they were concerned; just a poor cluster of huts and a wooden fortress. And it was only defended by a simple timber palisade. That was the first thing the Romans replaced, and in good solid stone, too. Proper city walls. They were built to last. And they did.

  They did find one thing of interest. In the middle of the old encampment, there was a fine menhir, presumably a marker stone of some sort. It was not local stone. One very old man told them that his father remembered hearing that the stone had come from Troy long ago. Although that was clearly nonsense, the Romans left the menhir standing where it was, and decided they would use it as the central milestone for their new city, from which roads would lead in all directions. So they called it after their name for the city, the Stone of Londinium.

  As for the bridge itself, that was built in wood, resting on a heavy bed of clay and small stones, which had to be built up very high into an embankment on the southern side because it was so marshy. They called that part the South work, which eventually became the name of the poor settlement that grew up there, on the south side of the bridge.

  Build it up with wood and clay,

  Wood and clay, wood and clay,

  Build it up with wood and clay,

  My fair lady.

  But even the Romans, experts in construction, must surely have underestimated the power of the Thames’ tides. Or perhaps they were relying on other ways to strengthen the bridge. ‘Giving it a bit of spirit’ you might call it. In time-honoured fashion that was done by choosing a living creature and burying it within the structure, thereby ensuring that its ghost or essence would always remain there to protect it. It might involve an animal, particularly a black dog, or sometimes a child, or sometimes a woman.

  It was the latter, they say, who was selected to watch over London Bridge. My Fair Lady indeed, although how fair she was by the time she was through no one knew. Because the point was not to see her, but to be aware she was there, and perhaps, if you needed to, hear her. And though many scoff and say there is no proof, no evidence of the tale to be found in the foundations of the bridge, people have heard and sensed things that are equally hard to explain over the years.

  A reputable man, a beadle of Borough Market, said a colleague had told him about a time when he was working nights there. Borough Market is right under the end of London Bridge, spreading into the street, and they used to patrol the whole area, up and down, all night long. They had to check everywhere then, though not anymore.

  But anyway, that night this other beadle was by the steps up to the bridge. And all of a sudden he heard a girl scream. There is a little alleyway by the side of the church, inside the railings, and it was coming from there. Now he was the sort of man who had no sense of danger, and so he ran up and jumped over the railings and had a look. But he couldn’t see anything. He went all round, but there was no one there. So he came back out and onto the pavement, and while he was walking down the street they call Winchester Walk, he heard it again. ‘He told us, you know, there was nothing. But he heard it. They were laughing at him, the other lads – we all were – but it was serious. He meant it. It makes you think,’ the beadle said to me. It did.

  It has made people think each time they rebuilt the bridge as well. Which they had to do a lot because it was always falling down, just as the songs says.

  Wood and clay will wash away,

  Wash away, wash away,

  Wood and clay will wash away,

  My fair lady.

  London Bridge is falling down …

  It must have been a nuisance for most Londoners. But what is bad news for some is usually good news for others; it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

  In the time of King Edgar the Peaceful, the River Thames refused to take notice of the peace specified by his majesty. It swelled and swirled and rose so high from the gales and sea storms and moon-dragged tides that London Bridge was all but swept away. As it was, and continued to be right until the eighteenth century. Being the o
nly permanent link with the other side of the city, people went to terrible trouble to try to cross the Thames by other means – and usually failed. Others tried to get across the remnants of the now very rickety bridge. And usually failed, too. Frequently fatally.

  King Edgar himself had a flat-bottomed royal barge with at least six men to row it to and fro. He was extremely proud of it, but reluctant to lend it to anyone else. A few well-to-do nobles followed his example, and had barges built. But most individuals could not afford to pay six people to just row one across the river. However, one or two were very canny, and found a way of building something that was in between a boat and a barge, and was large and flat and fairly light, but heavy enough to be steady when several sat inside. And these could be rowed across the river by just one strong man – when the tides were right, of course. Sometimes with ropes tied to the other side for extra support. They called them ferries, and you’d pay a levy to be ferried across. So when times were bad for the bridge, they began to be good for the ferries and the ferrymen.

  One such man was John Over, named after his trade, as everyone was in those days, for he carried passengers over the river to one side, and then back over again. Over and over all day long, and all week too and he started to make money, and from one ferry he’d now got two. And so it went on very nicely. Before long he had a team of ferrymen rowing for him. And a little house, then a bigger house, and then a grand house. On the north side, now. That was where everyone who was anyone lived. And now that he had made a fair bit of money, a fortune in fact, he felt that he was someone too. And it was time to forget about his roots, and Southwark, the place he’d come from, which was the poor side of the river, the poor side of town.

  That might have been fine if he’d been on his own, but he wasn’t. He had lost his wife, but he had a lovely daughter, and her name was Mary. And Mary had been happy in Southwark. Because she had her eye on a nice young man, and he’d had his eye on her. His name was Gerald, and his father was a cobbler, and he was learning to be a cobbler too; and even a shoemaker if he could be, for they are the ones who make, rather than merely mend. And Gerald set his sights high, and meant to do as well as he could.

  But when you’re rich, and getting richer, who wants a cobbler for a son-in-law? Even a good one would never be good enough for John Over. So poor Mary was told that her romance was over, and that she was to settle down on the north side of the river, and learn to be a lady. ‘On no account,’ said her father, ‘are you to see that young man again. I will find a better match for you, never fear.’

  But of course she did fear; in fact she dreaded the future, because she saw the sort of match he was lining up for her. And she saw what being rich was doing to her father. And she was wise enough to see that no good would come of either. For her father couldn’t keep pace with himself. The more money John Over got, the more that he wanted. And the less he wanted to let go of it. He wanted it seen but not spent.

  So he would eke out this, make Mary do without that, snitch and pinch from here and there, and the more he saved the more he minded any money going out. There was no doing without servants, or house slaves, not for a man of his station. But there was, he thought, no need for them to eat and drink so much. Enough to ruin him! He kept a close watch on the food supplies and a sharp eye on the cellar stores, and he became certain both were reducing at an alarming and rather suspicious rate. ‘Surely,’ he thought, ‘there must be some way to cut consumption down?’ And to cut out altogether the snacking and sipping and petty theft he suspected. But what on earth could he do? The problem worried and worried at him until he could not sleep and would barely eat, and he grew very thin. In the end Mary had to get a physician in. ‘Because,’ she told her father, in defence of the expense, ‘I don’t want you to die.’

  And that’s what gave John Over his brilliant idea: how to save enough money to pay for a physician twenty times over. For in those days, when somebody died, of course you’d have a wake, for one or two or even three days, and naturally, to show proper respect, the family and household would abstain from all indulgences. That meant, as far as possible, and in accordance with the wishes of the deceased, to a greater or lesser extent, that they would fast. John realised with delight that the whole household fasting to its greatest extent would save him a great deal of money. Especially if he specified his wake must last three days. And what was more, he began to think, if the servants thought he was dead and gone, and looking at his maker now, and not watching them at all, why then it would be the perfect chance for him to see exactly what they got up to secretly.

  So when the physician arrived, John was very pleased to see him, for he had plenty to discuss with the good man, to the advantage of them both. So the two soon made a deal, and the physician put a grave face on, and said John was very ill. And next thing he was dying, and then the priest was rushing in for the last rites, and then the word was given out that he was dead.

  Poor Mary. Before she had time to know what was what, they were having the wake. And she had loved her father, mean though he’d been. So she was weeping and wailing, and all in black, top to toe, even her hair, even her head, covered up entirely. And their mirror was too – even though it was special to own one of them, then, so you’d normally have them on show. But now it was John Over who was the centrepiece. He was lying in his coffin, laid out in state in the middle of the great hall, dressed in his best and looking rather grand, with candles around, and the onion in the coffin (in case the corpse got whiffy), decently hidden from view.

  Now some people take wakes seriously, and some people think they need a bit of lightness and laughter too, just to help people get through them. But there was no respite at John Over’s wake. It was a grave and a glum affair. Apart from Mary, it was mainly the household, plus a few of the ferrymen who’d worked for him. The notables of the town had been and gone, as swiftly as they could politely do. His friends had all been left behind in Southwark.

  So everyone was sitting round, hoping someone else would speak. But no one knew quite what to say. To be honest, no one had been that fond of him. Except for his daughter, but then she had had no choice. And after all she’d been through – weeping and wailing, and before that watching over him, and worrying about him – well she was worn out, and she’d fallen asleep in a corner. So she wasn’t saying anything either.

  In all that silence, the only thing you could hear was the rumbling of stomachs. Only natural, really, they’d been fasting for a day and a night already. The ferrymen in particular were used to eating a big ‘noon-meat’, essential fuel if they were to pull their weight across the water. The slaves and the servants too had been up since dawn the day before, for they had had to fit the housework in as well. It didn’t feel healthy to be going on empty. And once Mary’s womanservant put her foot down, ‘she must have a rest, poor thing, she’s so done in’, and made two strong ferrymen help carry Mary off to bed – well, there was no one there who might care the if the fast didn’t last.

  Anyway, not everyone thought thirst a required part, so now they all agreed that some small ale wouldn’t count. So the serving woman went to the cellars for some pots, and the head man hurried after because now they were kept locked. As he was waiting with the keys, he noticed how much wine there was. A shame if it went to waste, for Mary never did touch much. Wouldn’t it be the right thing done, if they all had a cup just to toast the old man? And after all, he thought, he won’t miss it now he’s gone. But upstairs and down with a jug was such trouble, he thought he’d be wise and bring up a barrel.

  The mourners did mean to take just one cup of course. Only enough to drink the toast. But you know what wine does on an empty stomach. It goes straight to the head. So one drink led on to another, to another, and before they knew what they’d done, the whole of the barrel was gone. But then there was another one. And plenty more to come. Then everything was coming out, all restraint gone, the cook was bringing dishes up, the servants laying out the best, and everyone a
mongst them was having a fine feast. Except, of course, for John.

  John Over, he was lying there, gritting his teeth. But they were all so merry drunk now, no one looked to see. And the party was still getting louder and louder, each person trying to outdo the other, until John’s personal manservant capped the lot. ‘There’s still the best yet!’ he cried, ‘Look what I’ve got!’ and he waved the only key to the master’s treasure box.

  John held his breath, for he guessed what was next. The man ran out, and soon came back carrying, very carefully, an almost priceless glass bottle of old French brandy. It was the most impressive gift John Over had ever been given. He’d kept it for years, for the ultimate occasion. And when he saw his servant with that bottle in his hand, it was far too much for John Over to stand. Up he leapt and over he ran to wrest his treasure back.

  Well when that servant saw his master, who had so sadly died, suddenly and most unnaturally deciding to arise, he did what anyone would do if threatened by such an unexpected and alarming apparition. He defended himself with whatever he had to hand. Thwack! Down it came, and crack! It met its master’s head. Sad to say, the bottle was broken, wasting all that was inside. And John Over’s head was broken too, equally wasting all within. For that was the death of him.

  So now the wake had to happen all over again. This time it had a proper corpse, although perhaps not looking quite as grand as it had done before. And this time there was no pretence of abstinence. Everyone needed a drink.

  After the wake, John Over was duly buried, despite initial objections from the physician. And it was when that was over, that Mary realised she was very wealthy indeed – and alone. But there was no need to be lonely. For now she was both rich and free, she could marry who she pleased.