Where Dragons Soar: And Other Animal Folk Tales of the British Isles

by Castle, Pete;

  When they had eaten every scrap of food the pixies played games with the bones, tossing them to each other and playing five-stones and dice. One little bone flew through the air and landed just outside the cupboard where the farmer was hiding. He was frightened that the pixies might find him if they came to retrieve it and he hated to think what punishment they would mete out to him if they did, so he reached out a hand and took in the bone.

  The farmer continued hiding in the cupboard and the pixies continued their revels until the first faint glimmer of dawn appeared at the window. ‘Morning is coming, gather up the bones!’ called the chief pixie, and they rushed around and picked up every one. Then they assembled them into the skeleton of a cow, all in their proper places, and they draped the skin of Beauty over it. Then the chief pixie tapped it with his wand and the cow gave a great sigh, staggered to her feet and lowed in a melancholy tone. The pixies led her back to her stall, but she limped on one hind foot because there was one tiny bone missing.

  ‘The cock crew

  Away they flew’

  … and the farmer crept trembling to bed.

  THE DUN COW OF DURHAM

  This story brings together a major figure from British ecclesiastical history and an animal very common in English folklore. St Cuthbert, one of the earliest British saints, is still revered in the North of England, and the dun cow crops up all over the country. I have no idea how many Dun Cow pubs there are, but it must be a lot, and many stories mention a dun cow as a very minor ‘character’. No one seems to know quite what a ‘dun cow’ was – it’s usually just defined as ‘a brown-coloured cow’ but they seem to have been a specific type of cow, perhaps not a breed as we would now define it but something distinct, and they were, apparently, famous for their milk and for their quiet character – rather like a Jersey or Guernsey.

  St Cuthbert lived in Northumbria (northern England/southern Scotland) in the seventh century CE, a time when Christianity in Britain was deciding whether to follow the rules of the old Celtic Church or to go with Rome. Cuthbert followed Rome and was made Prior of Lindisfarne, but he continued to do missionary work throughout Britain. The incident with the dun cow happened after his death.

  Cuthbert died in 687 and was buried at Lindisfarne, but at that time all the monasteries along the north-east coast were being raided by Vikings so it was decided to move his coffin to a safer place inland. A group of monks, with a long procession of followers, set out to do this. They were not sure where they were heading but were aiming for Chester-le-Street as a first stop. When they reached the hill of Warden Law, near Sunderland, the bier carrying the coffin stopped and could not be made to move a fraction of an inch in any direction. For three days they waited and prayed, hoping for a miracle, or directions from above. At last St Cuthbert appeared to one of the monks, called Eadmer, and told him that the coffin should be taken to a place called Dun Holm.

  After that the bier moved with no trouble, but no one knew where Dun Holm was. They continued their way along the road asking for Dun Holm but with no luck. Later that day, when they were at a place called Mount Joy, a milkmaid approached the procession. She said that she had lost her dun cow and asked whether anyone had seen it. The only clue she had as to where it might be was that she had last seen it at Dun Holm. The monks suggested that she return there to see if it had made its way back home and they followed after her. They found themselves on a rise or island in a tight meander on the River Wear. There they buried St Cuthbert and built the first church on the site, which now houses the magnificent Durham Cathedral.

  Durham is probably my favourite British cathedral and a city I like a lot, too. If you visit and explore it you will see a panel on the north facade of the cathedral depicting the milkmaid and her cow and, not far from the cathedral, down Dun Cow Lane, you will find the Dun Cow pub.

  The name Durham comes from Old English meaning an island with a hill. Whether or not the milkmaid was reunited with her cow is not recorded.

  FOUR ANIMALS SEEK THEIR FORTUNE

  One day a bull, a tup, a cock and a gander, having grown tired of life in the farmyard, set out to seek their fortune. (They’d probably heard the farmer’s wife reading her children stories of Jack and other young men – and women! – who did similar things.) They walked off down the road and, as night began to fall, they came to a house. They knocked on the door and asked for a bed for the night. The people in the house said they didn’t have any spare beds – they were only poor people – but the four animals could sleep in the kitchen where it would be warmer than outside in the barn. The four friends thanked them.

  The bull said he’d lie on the floor and the tup said he’d curl up by his side. The cock was going to lie on the rannel-baulk – the beam over the fireplace where the pots were suspended – because there it would be nice and warm, and the gander said he’d sit by the back door to guard the place.

  The animals lay down in their chosen places and went off to sleep, but at midnight they were woken by scuffles outside and they heard whispering voices. It was two men planning to rob the house. The men decided which of them would climb in and which would keep watch outside.

  After a few minutes a window opened and one of the men clambered through. No sooner had his feet touched the ground than the bull butted him and the tup did likewise. The cock crowed, ‘Bring him here and I’ll peck out his eyes!’ The man beat a hasty retreat out through the door, and as he did so the gander pecked him on his nose and beat him with his wings. When he stumbled out into the yard the other man looked at him in amazement. ‘What have you been doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Me? Doing?’ stuttered the man. ‘Why I did nothing, but don’t go in there. The Devil himself is in there and he knocked me about and then his imps took over and knocked me about a bit more. A thin, shivering creature said, “bring him here and I’ll put out his eyes”, and as I was escaping through the door a blacksmith got me with a pair of tongs and flapped me round the ears with his leather apron!’

  Without more ado the two men beat a hasty retreat and the four travellers settled down to a good sleep.

  This story from Yorkshire is obviously a version of the Grimms’ ‘The Town Musicians of Bremen’.

  6

  BREAD AND CIRCUSES

  Stories of Showmen and Their Animals

  THE FLYING DONKEYS OF DERBY

  Some of you, indeed many of you, may well have visited the storytelling events in Derby which go under the title of ‘The Flying Donkeys’. They’ve been running for more than twenty years. You may have wondered what the title means and how it came about. Here is the true story.

  Back in the 1730s the latest craze from the Continent reached Derby. It was called ‘flying’, although in reality there was no actual flight involved – unless something went very wrong, that is!

  ‘Flying’ was brought to Derby by a travelling French showman, M. Gillinoe. What he actually did was to stretch a rope from the top of the tower of the church of All Saints (now Derby Cathedral) to the nearby, much lower, tower of the chapel of St Mary’s. Then, clad in a metal breastplate, he slid down the rope blowing a trumpet and firing a pistol! The ‘flight’ took about eight seconds. Every day he performed this stunt twice to ever-increasing crowds. The craze caught on and soon daredevils all over the town were sliding down ropes strung from houses, trees and walls. Animals were made to take part and races were held. I would guess that there were many injuries, but possibly no fatalities – at least no record of them has come down to us.

  When M. Gillinoe moved on to take his amusement to other places his mantle as ‘chief flyer’ was taken on by a local lad called Cadman. Cadman used wood rather than a metal breastplate and sometimes his ‘flights’ were so fast that he finished in a cloud of smoke caused by friction! He was a showman and flew on his back, his front, sitting up, laying down, and even standing on one leg!

  Cadman’s superiority was overturned in 1734 when a man arrived with a donkey. He said he’d make the donkey fly! He
started by sliding down the rope himself with a wheelbarrow in which intrepid (foolhardy?) locals could hitch a ride. One passenger was the mayor!

  Then came the time for the donkey. It had been taken to the top of the tower the day before from whence it could be heard braying – perhaps it could foresee what was going to happen! Somehow it was manoeuvred on to the rope with heavy weights attached to its feet to keep it stable. It began to slide, but when it was almost to the ground the rope broke and it toppled on to the crowd. No one was killed but quite a few were injured and the showman and his donkey beat a hasty retreat and were never seen in Derby again.

  That was the end of the ‘flying’ craze and of real ‘flying donkeys’, but the image lingered on.

  The present Derby Cathedral building dates from 1725, so it was new when the above happened, although the tower is older, dating back to the early 1500s. It is 212 feet high and houses the oldest ring of ten bells in the country. The tenor bell is even older than the tower. A carillon uses the bells to play tunes – one of which is the ‘Derby Ram’, although it is the slow march of the Sherwood Forester Regiment, not the famous folk song.

  It seems that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Britain was full of foreign showmen and their animals – not just donkeys, but bears and monkeys and even elephants and tigers! Being an animal showman seems to have been a precarious occupation, though, and they and their animals definitely weren’t always treated well.

  At Wirksworth, in Derbyshire, there was an Italian showman who had a monkey. He used to send this monkey down into the lead mines carrying food and messages for the miners, but one day it didn’t come back. There is a plaque commemorating this on the High Peak Trail near the National Stone Centre. I wonder if there is a ghostly monkey still living in the caves under Wirksworth …

  A little further north a pair of ‘Royal Bengal Tigers’ escaped from a menagerie in Sheffield in 1789. They made their way across the countryside into Derbyshire where they killed a child. The impressively named Sir Sitwell Sitwell, of Renshaw Hall, leapt at the opportunity to hunt and kill the tigers, for he was a great sportsman and kept racehorses and hounds as well as indulging in fishing and shooting. It made a nice change to have tigers to shoot at instead of the usual pheasants and hares.

  WHO KILLED THE BEARS?

  A Story from the Forest of Dean

  In April 1889 four Frenchmen with two dancing bears arrived in the Forest of Dean and performed at Cinderford. The bears were Russian black bears and they were muzzled and chained, but they delighted their audiences by ‘dancing’ through the streets to the music played by their keepers. The bears were very popular and it was a profitable day for the Frenchmen.

  However, after they’d left town word went around that the bears were fed on human flesh and that a local child had been killed and a woman mauled. When this rumour reached the local pubs a mob of nearly 200 drunken, angry foresters gathered and went out looking for the Frenchmen. When they were caught they were badly beaten with sticks and stones. Two of them hid in the woods, while the other two were given shelter by local householders in Ruardean. One of the bears was killed then and there and the other was later shot near Ross-on-Wye.

  Later that evening when the police investigated, it became obvious that neither the bears nor their keepers had committed any crime whatsoever, so fourteen men were arrested and charged with attacking the Frenchmen and killing the bears. They were fined a total of £85, which was a huge amount for those times. Although all the culprits were from Cinderford, the story somehow attached itself to Ruardean and the inhabitants of that town were teased about it mercilessly. In fact, even 150 years later, it is still very unwise to ask in the town, ‘Who killed the bears?’

  THE CONGLETON BEAR

  One of the first things I did in preparation for this book was to post a question on Facebook asking my followers if they knew of any animals associated with their town or county. The most popular ones were ‘The Derby Ram’ and ‘The Hartlepool Monkey’. There were lots of others, but they were mainly the mascots of the local football team and there was very little actual story to them. ‘The Congleton Bear’ was a story which many people knew – it’s another one about travelling showmen and what they get up to.

  Back in the 1620s one of the most popular sights at the Wakes, in the Cheshire town of Congleton, was the dancing bear. (Other popular events, besides freak shows and wrestling, were bear-baiting, cockfighting and dogfighting!) In this particular year though, Congleton had no dancing bear. One version of the story says that the bear had become too old to dance, another says that it had died, but whatever the reason Congleton needed a new bear. And they couldn’t afford it.

  Then one of the town councillors remembered that they had a sum of money put aside to buy a new Bible for the parish church. He suggested that they should borrow that money and pay it back from the profits generated by their new bear, which they did.

  People like to gossip though, and if they can ‘dig the dirt’, they will. The story which got around, and which has survived to the present day, is that the people of Congleton sold the church Bible to buy a new bear! That story stuck and Congleton is still called ‘Bear Town’ and has a bear as its emblem. They are proud of their bear, just as the inhabitants of Hartlepool are proud of hanging their monkey …

  THE HARTLEPOOL MONKEY

  This is another of the stories which everyone knows and expects to find in this book. It is unusual in that what started as a derogatory joke about the inhabitants of Hartlepool has been transformed into something they are now proud of! The local Rugby Union team, Hartlepool Rovers, are known as the ‘Monkeyhangers’ and the football team, Hartlepool United, have a monkey mascot called ‘H’Angus’. In 2002 Stuart Drummond campaigned for the office of Mayor of Hartlepool dressed in the costume of H’Angus the monkey and won! His election slogan was ‘free bananas for schoolchildren’, a promise he was unable to keep, but he has been re-elected twice since.

  Why a monkey in Hartlepool? It goes back to the times of the Napoleonic Wars. Very few Hartlepudlians would have ever seen a Frenchman and had no idea what one looked like, but they, like everyone else along the coast, were terrified of a French invasion and of French spies. The coast around North Yorkshire and Cleveland is notoriously dangerous, a graveyard for ships that get caught on the ‘lee shore’ – a gale which blows your ship on to the coast. (You may remember that it was down that same coast at Whitby that Dracula came ashore in the shape of a huge, black dog when the ship Demeter was caught in just such a storm.)

  One December day, a French ship called the Chasse Maree was seen struggling just offshore near the Hartlepool headland. A storm was raging and it was hard to see the ship through the rain and waves. It must have been equally hard for the crew of the ship to see where they were, and after a while the ship floundered. Next morning a lot of wreckage and some bodies were washed ashore, but only one survivor – a little man just a foot or two high dressed in a military uniform. Perhaps all Frenchmen were like this? He definitely wasn’t an Englishman, for he had a tail and Englishmen don’t have tails! Also, he didn’t appear to speak English.

  The monkey was captured and a trial was held on the beach, where he was condemned as being a French spy. The punishment for spies was the gallows, so the monkey was hanged from the mast of a fishing boat and the fishermen were then able to return to the more profitable business of collecting useful items from the wreckage.

  Alan Wilkinson of the well-known local folk group, ‘The Teesside Fettlers’, wrote a very popular song about the incident which I’ve heard sung no end of times. The chorus goes:

  Singing old folks, young folks, everyone and each

  Have come to see the Frenchie who’s landed on the beach.

  He’s got long arms and a great long tail and he’s covered down in hair.

  We think that he’s a spy, so we’ll hang him in the square!

  THE MAN, THE BOY AND THE DONKEY

  One day a man and
his young son were on their way to market. They had with them the family donkey which was going to carry their purchases home. As they were going along the way they met a traveller going in the opposite direction and, as he passed, he said, ‘You silly man, why walk when you’ve got a donkey? A donkey is for riding.’ The man saw the sense of this, so he lifted up his son and put him on the donkey’s back.

  They went on a bit further and met a group of people standing by the road side. As they passed the father heard them say, ‘Look at that lazy, young good-for-nothing. He lets his poor old father walk while he rides.’ The man lifted down his son and climbed up on to the donkey himself.

  Soon they passed two women, also going to market. ‘Shame on you,’ they said. ‘To let your poor little boy trudge along while a big, strong man like you rides!’ He didn’t know what to do, so he lifted up his son in front of him and they both rode on.

  Soon though, they were shouted at by some more travellers who said it wasn’t fair for that poor little donkey to have to carry both of them. The man and his son both climbed down and the man tried to think what to do. Then he went and cut a long pole. They tied the donkey’s feet together and slung it under the pole and they set off down the road carrying the donkey between them. Everyone they met burst into gales of laughter when they saw this.

  At last, just as they were approaching the market, the donkey, frightened by all the noise and feeling helpless, got a foot loose and lashed out. This caused the boy to drop the pole and the donkey plunged over the wall, off the bridge and into the river where it was drowned.