Folklore of Yorkshire

by Kai Roberts

  The old man told him of the dream, to which the Quaker replied that he too had been subject to a recurring dream, in which he was told that a great treasure was buried beneath a particular bush in Upsall Castle yard. However, as he did not know where Upsall was, he had been unable to act upon it. Craftily, the old man denied any knowledge of Upsall, but as soon as he returned to the village, he set about digging beneath bushes in the castle yard until his spade hit upon the treasure.

  The hoard of gold proved to be contained in a pot which bore an inscription that nobody in the area could translate. Content with his new fortune, the old man showed little curiosity regarding its meaning and donated the vessel to the village inn, where it was placed on display. One day, a bearded Jewish stranger stopped at the hostelry and told the villagers that the inscription read,

  Look lower – where this stood

  Is another twice as good.

  On further investigation, not only did the villagers discover a second, much larger hoard, but yet another one below that, double its value again!

  Whilst many of the narratives of buried treasure related in this chapter are clearly migratory legends – found with minor local variations at numerous locations across the north of England – none are quite so widely spread as that associated with Upsall. Not only are similar stories told about Swaffham Church in Norfolk and Dundonald Castle in South Ayrshire, but the earliest recorded example is found in a poem by the thirteenth-century Persian poet, Rumi, and a prose version was included in the famed collection of Arabian folktales, One Thousand and One Nights. However, this is only true of the first part of the narrative; the coda pertaining to the inscription on the pot and the further two hoards seems to be unique to Upsall.

  Where dreams were not available to reveal the whereabouts of hidden treasure, sorcerous assistance was frequently called upon. Grimoires from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries often contain instructions for the creation of a divination device referred to as a ‘Mosaical Rod’ for the purposes of treasure-hunting. Indeed, the use of forbidden magic in pursuit of treasure was clearly such a common phenomenon that in his statute of 1542, Henry VIII specifically condemns ‘Invocacons and conjuracons of Sprites, ptending by such meanes to understande and get Knowledge for their owne lucre in what place treasure of golde and Silver shulde or mought be founde or had in the earthe or other secrete places.’

  In 1509-10, this connection between magic and treasure-hunting led to one of the most extraordinary episodes in the folklore and social history of Yorkshire, all recorded for posterity in the Archiepiscopal Registers of York. Nine men of various social backgrounds came together to seek a legendary treasure said to be buried on Soil Hill, between Halifax and Bingley. Not only does the whole affair once again vividly illustrate how seriously such legends were once taken by educated men, but how seriously the authorities treated the matter, especially where suggestions of witchcraft were involved.

  The conspirators were a motley crew. The matter seems to have been raised by a twenty-eight-year-old servant, William Wilson, to his master, a Bingley yeoman named William Otewell and a local priest called John Wilkinson. They enlisted two further priests, Richard Greenwood of Heptonstall and James Richardson of York, along with Knaresborough cunning-man, John Stewart, for magical assistance. The party was completed by Thomas Jameson, a wealthy merchant who had previously served as both Sheriff and Lord Mayor of York, along with two commoners by the names of Thomas Wood and Laurence Knolles.

  Wilson had described the treasure as ‘a chest of gold … and every noble (coin) as thick as five and upon the same chest a sword of maintenance and a book covered with black leather.’ However, the expedition was clearly perceived by those involved as a dangerous venture. Richard Greenwood’s father, Edward, claimed to have known men who had seen the treasure but failed to acquire it. A man called Leventhorp had allegedly found the chest guarded by a demon, who snapped the adventurer’s sword ‘as it had been a rush’. Even a monk from Sawley Abbey had been unable to overcome it. Meanwhile, John Wilkinson had suggested the treasure could not be obtain without sacrificing a human soul.

  To this end, considerable magical preparation was necessary. Cunning-man, John Stewart, had already been censured by the ecclesiastical courts for having ‘used false and damnable conjurations, invocations and divinations’, whilst despite being a priest, James Richardson was ‘publicly notorious for heresy and divination’. The expedition was further equipped with sacramental wafers; an incense censer; a sceptre; two stoles; a holy-water sprinkler; several books; a magic circle made from virgin parchment; and a ‘lamen’ – a talisman of metal inscribed with magical formulae for the desired outcome.

  In this case, the lamen was a square of lead with a name on each side and a crude figure in the centre labelled ‘Oberon’. Oberon was commonly mentioned in fifteenth-century grimoires and was typically portrayed as a trustworthy spirit who would lend assistance to humans in return for due respect. The party also seems to have planned to summon the Enochian demon Belphares, who, according to one later source, was known for his harmless nature and ability to locate and carry treasure.

  However, the expedition was plagued by misfortune and never reached the stage where such invocations were necessary. The party set out on Tuesday, 29 January 1510, leaving from different directions and at different times to prevent such a large and incongruous group raising suspicion in the neighbourhood. Richardson, Jameson, Stewart and Otewell set off from one side of Bingley; Wilkinson, Wilson and Knolles from another. Meanwhile, Greenwood and Wood were travelling from Heptonstall and had arranged to rendezvous with the others at a wayside cross at the west end of Soil Hill, in the township of Northowram.

  The seven men from Bingley assembled first at a farm near Wilsden, before proceeding to Soil Hill. Although it was night, there was an almost full moon and the hill should have been easily visible to them. Yet at this point, a thick mist descended and the party lost their way so badly that they found themselves in the village of Clayton, some distance to the east, and then proceeded to stumble in Mickle Moss, a tract of peat bog to the west of Queensbury. Eventually, they found a cross but it turned out to be the wrong one. Wilkinson, Otewell and Knolles volunteered to form an advance party and return for the others, but despite encountering a local who they paid 2d to lead them to the correct cross, they failed once more.

  As the folklorist John Billingsley notes of the party, ‘If they had any superstitious feelings at all … they must have felt that fate, or something else, was not on their side.’ Consequently, hungry and exhausted after their many defeats, the party eventually abandoned the mission for that night and returned to Bingley. On the journey back, they resolved to gather the following day to summon Belphares in Harden Wood and hope he could lead them to the treasure from there.

  However, the plans must have been hastily made for John Wilkinson failed to appear at the meeting and without his assistance the invocation could not proceed. The assembled men turned to discussing how they should split the treasure, despite not yet being in possession of it, and perhaps inevitably, acrimony arose. Thomas Jameson argued that as a gentleman, he should have the largest share. Wilson and others unsurprisingly disagreed, lobbying for the spoils to be divided equally, which angered Jameson to such an extent, that he threatened to report the whole venture to the authorities.

  Whether Jameson went ahead with his threat, or whether word got out some other way, is not recorded, but on 5 May 1510, the Vicar-General of the Archbishop of York called him before the ecclesiastical court and over the following month, the other eight men were summoned to appear on charges of heresy and sorcery. Having been found guilty on 11 June, they were commanded to assemble outside York Minster the following Sunday, where they were whipped and ordered to process barefoot along a prescribed route, whilst carrying banners representing their crimes and stopping at certain points for further whipping. The punishment was repeated in Bingley some weeks later.

  TWELVE
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  ROBIN HOOD

  Whilst Robin Hood is irrevocably associated with Sherwood Forest in the popular consciousness, the earliest sources for the legend suggest that the outlaw was as much at home in Yorkshire as Nottinghamshire. These sources show that the activities of Robin and his men were centred around an area of South Yorkshire known as Barnsdale, and although they are shown ranging across much of northern England and the north Midlands, no other location is described with such topographic detail. The area is so integral to the original ballads that many scholars suspect the legend was born in Barnsdale, and only migrated outwards over subsequent centuries as travelling balladeers sought to add local colour to their material.

  Some local historians – most notably Hallamshire antiquarian Reverend Joseph Hunter in the nineteenth century, and President of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, J.W. Walker, in the twentieth – have even attempted to identify an historical model for the character in the region. Their favoured candidate is a fourteenth-century citizen of Wakefield by the name of Robert Hood; but whilst the hypothesis has attracted a great deal of support within the county, the argument is largely circumstantial and there is a body of contradictory evidence to weigh against it. Indeed, many historians studying the legend now argue that it may be impossible to uncover an ‘historical Robin’. The available data from the period is simply too slender to construct a compelling case and many attempts succumb to what J.C. Holt refers to as ‘pseudo-history expressing local patriotism’.

  It may simply be that there is no historical model for the legend. ‘Robin Hood’ perhaps began as a generic term for an outlaw – much as ‘Jack Straw’ was used in the late medieval period to signify any political agitator – and this archetype was then fleshed out by the balladeers’ imagination. Indeed, some have contended that a focus on the character’s historical existence is overly reductive and misses the symbolic richness of the legend itself. The earliest narratives tell us much about the concerns of late medieval society in England, whilst their subsequent development reveals how those concerns have changed over the centuries and demonstrates the versatility of the legend, as it has adapted to express them.

  As a book primarily concerned with county folklore, this chapter will not deal extensively with the historical debate. Rather, the focus will remain on the legendary narratives themselves and the extent to which they are related to the topography of Yorkshire. For not only do the early ballads establish Barnsdale as Robin’s primary stomping ground, as the legend migrated, later works placed him in numerous other locations across the county and local folklore developed a variety of apocryphal connections, expressed through tall tales, popular idioms and countless toponyms. Whilst Nottinghamshire might be able to boast Sherwood Forest, it is doubtful that any other county can claim as many sites associated with Robin’s name as Yorkshire.

  The legend was well established by 1377, as a reference to the ‘rhymes of Robin Hood’ in William Langland’s allegorical poem ‘William’s Vision of Piers Plowman’ attests. But whilst there are a number of tantalising textual allusions over the next 100 years, it is not until the mid to late fifteenth century that any complete narratives survive. The bulk of this material takes the form of ballads; these had doubtless been widely sung throughout the late medieval period, but could only be recorded for posterity by the emerging technology of the printing press. A few fragments of plays also survive and it is possible that the stories were transmitted in such dramatic forms long before they formalised into ballads.

  Anybody accustomed to the legend as it is told today is likely to be surprised by the content of the ballads. Popular characters such as Maid Marian and Friar Tuck are missing, whilst as much emphasis is placed on Little John and Will Scarlett as Robin himself. Furthermore, many familiar themes are conspicuous by their absence. There is no suggestion that Robin was a Saxon peasant fighting Norman oppressors; instead he is repeatedly described as a yeoman, and doubtless the legend’s popularity was aided by the growing influence of that class during the late Middle Ages. Similarly, the pagan overtones imputed by Victorian folklorists and emphasised in some modern adaptations are negligible. Although Robin is opposed to the Church as an institution, he remains personally faithful, especially to the Virgin Mary.

  Perhaps most noticeably, Robin’s redistributive tendencies are barely hinted at in the early ballads. Although he is presented as an honest thief who only robs from the rich, there is little evidence of him giving to the poor. This aspect of the legend does not seem to have emerged until the seventeenth century. Nonetheless, the medieval sources still portray Robin as something of an anti-authoritarian figure, with the principle targets of their ire being corrupt institutions, including the Church and regional authorities such as the Sheriff of Nottingham. The persistence of the legend through the late Middle Ages suggests that there was widespread hostility towards such bodies during that period, and the ballads ably reflected such sentiments.

  There is some dispute over the antiquity of many of the ballads. Whilst several can be securely dated to the late fifteenth century, their venerability is very much an artefact of preservation. It is possible that some ballads which do not survive in print before the seventeenth century, were actually contemporary with or predated the fifteenth-century examples. For instance, the earliest surviving manuscript of the ballad ‘Robin Hood and Guy of Gisbourne’ comes from the mid-seventeenth century, but its similarities to a fragment of a play dated to 1475 indicate that it had probably been in circulation since that period at least. Conversely, one of the most significant early ballads, ‘A Gest of Robyn Hode’ – the earliest printings of which date to the 1490s – shows evidence of having been compiled from shorter ballads, individual versions of which do not survive in print until much later.

  The ‘Gest’ is distinctive amongst the early ballads in that it has an epic structure and appears to attempt to relate a complete ‘life’ of Robin Hood. Where most ballads simply narrate single episodes, the ‘Gest’ features a number of instalments concluding with the death of the hero. It is also one of the most notable sources to locate Robin’s activities in Barnsdale. Whilst the early ballads ‘Robin Hood and the Potter’ (c. 1500) and ‘Robin Hood & Guy of Gisbourne’ both refer to the region, the ‘Gest’ includes a wealth of topographic description which corresponds exactly with the actual geography; and even though action is divided between Barnsdale and Sherwood, as J.C. Holt observes, ‘The legendary Barnsdale is by far the most detailed … Barnsdale seems real. Sherwood is somewhat like “the wood near Athens” of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’

  The area referred to as Barnsdale is roughly defined and the title largely redundant today. Unlike Sherwood, it was not a royal hunting forest and the ‘greenwood’ aspects of the Robin Hood legend do not feature in the episodes set there. Generally speaking, however, the term refers to an area between Pontefract and Doncaster, defined by the River Aire at Ferrybridge to the north and the Doncaster-Wakefield Road to the south. It is bisected west-east by the River Went and north-south by the Great North Road. This highway originated with the Romans and its route has remained one of England’s primary cross-country thoroughfares – today the A1 substantially follows its former course.

  In the ‘Gest’ the Great North Road is referred to by the colloquial term ‘Watling Street’, and Robin and his men are described waylaying travellers upon it. Reference is also made to their lookout at ‘Saylis’, which has been identified by Professors Dobson and Taylor as a spot named Sayles Plantation on seventeenth-century maps of the area. This wooded hilltop overlooks a steep valley where the Great North Road once crossed the River Went, and it would undoubtedly have been a favourable position for outlaws to operate from. The place at which the road crosses the river has since developed into the town of Wentbridge, where today a blue plaque commemorates the legendary outlaw’s association with the area.

  One of the most substantial episodes of the ‘Gest’ moves from this base at Barnsdale to the city of York, a
nd exemplifies many of the principle themes of the early ballads. After intercepting a knight on the Great North Road and inviting him to eat with them, the outlaws demand to know how much money he is carrying. The knight says only ten shillings and a search by Little John confirms this. Robin inquires how his penury came about and the knight explains that his son killed two men, forcing him to spend all of his money and mortgage his land to St Mary’s Abbey in York, in order to save his boy from the gallows.

  At hearing of such injustice, Robin loans the knight the £400 he needs to recover his land and sends Little John to York with him. Upon reaching St Mary’s, the knight feigns that he does not have the funds and begs the abbot’s mercy. The abbot refuses, at which the knight reveals his ruse and pays the abbot, with the admonishment that had the priest been more lenient, he would have been further rewarded. After the knight obtains money with which to repay Robin, he is delayed on his journey by his effort to save a yeoman who is in danger of being harmed by an angry crowd.

  Meanwhile, back in Barnsdale, Robin has waylaid a monk from St Mary’s and again demands to know how much his guest is carrying. The monk, however, lies and claims that he only has twenty marks, when he actually has £800. Robin discovers his deception and claims it all, declaring that as he had not yet been repaid by the knight, St Mary’s owed him the £400 he had lent and must have courteously doubled it! The dishonest monk is sent on his way penniless, and when the knight finally arrives to repay Robin, the outlaw refuses to take it on the grounds that anybody who helps a yeoman is a friend.