North Yorkshire Folk Tales

by Ingrid Barton

  Potter Thompson’s hand went out to grasp it, but it seemed so magical that he did not quite dare. Surely, these treasures were not for a poor man like himself? And, more importantly, surely they were guarded by someone or something? He looked around fearful of some unseen threat and as his eyes passed over the rock-strewn floor, he realised that the stones were not rocks at all, but men, huge sleeping men in armour. The strange sound was their soft rhythmic breathing.

  In a sudden flash Potter knew who they were. His grandmother had often told him how, after the Battle of Camlann, King Arthur and his men had been put into a magic sleep inside a cave to await the day when they would arise to help Britain in the hour of her greatest need. He could remember clearly the firelight flickering on his grandmother’s face and hear her soft old voice respond when he asked the location of the cave. ‘Why, some folk think it were right here in Richmond! In a big cavern under the castle!’

  He was so excited that he actually laughed, but so alarmingly the sound echoed off the walls that he was afraid it would wake the sleepers. Instinctively, he knew that if there was one thing he must not do, it was to awaken them. Their breathing was soft, but it was the only soft thing about them for it was clear that they were men of war. Each man was at least seven feet tall. They were wearing coats of mail with their swords laid to their hands and their shields under their heads. Helmets, some ornamented with boars’ tusks and some with horse tails, lay nearby. Their hands were the scarred fists of warriors and their faces, though relaxed in sleep, were stern. The magic in which they were wrapped was so strong that Potter Thompson could feel it prickling his skin, making him shiver.

  Lying in the centre of the men was another, larger and older than the rest. He was clean-shaven, and had such an air of sorrow about him that Potter Thompson felt his own eyes filling with tears as he looked at him. On the man’s head was a golden crown. There was no mistaking him.

  ‘King Arthur his very self!’ breathed Potter Thompson. ‘And me, Potter Thompson! I’ve seen him! Me, who’s never done aught before! Just think of it! So much for your opinion!’ he said, thinking of his wife. ‘You can keep your great flapping trap shut from now on!’ He began to imagine telling her of his discovery and straight away his joy diminished. ‘She’ll never credit it,’ he thought. ‘No more will the others.’ He could almost hear the jeering of his drinking mates. ‘I’ll have to take something back with me as proof.’ But what?

  The obvious choice lay on the table. ‘Excalibur!’ he gasped. ‘I’ll take ‘em Excalibur!’

  He turned again to the table, holding his breath as he put out his hand. As he grasped the hilt, it was as though all the years of his adulthood flowed backwards and he was a daring schoolboy again. To draw Excalibur! What an adventure!

  As he began to ease the sword out of its scabbard, all of the sleepers began to stir and breathe more quickly. In terror, he thrust it back again. After a brief, horrible moment, the sleepers relaxed again and the regular breathing filled the cavern once more.

  Reluctantly Potter Thompson realised that he would have to abandon Excalibur. ‘I’ll take that horn at any rate,’ he said to himself, reaching out for it. This time it was worse. As soon as he touched it, the warriors began to stir again. Some muttered in their sleep and one or two even began to sit up and fumble for their swords.

  It was too much for Potter Thompson. He dropped the horn, turned and ran. Down the long tunnel he crashed, blundering into walls and banging his head. As he ran he heard a voice singing, though whether it was behind him or in the walls themselves he could not tell. The words remained burned into his memory:

  Potter Thompson, Potter Thompson

  If thou hadst either drawn

  The sword or wound the horn

  Then thou hadst been the luckiest man

  That ever yet was born!

  His wife was amazed when he came home shaking and bleeding from a hundred scrapes and scratches. For once she did not scold him but put him to bed with a hot brick at his feet. He slept like a log for a whole day.

  His wife’s kindness proved just a temporary lapse, but Potter Thompson himself was never quite the same man again, though his life seemed to go back to its normal dull routine. His friends did not exactly believe his story, but they could not help feeling a little proud of him and there were few weeks when he was not to be found sitting in the alehouse, a free pint in his fist, being encouraged to tell his tale to wondering strangers.

  ‘You wait,’ he used to say to his friends, ‘one day I’ll go back in there and bring you proof!’ But he could never find the entrance again and they are all still waiting …

  THE DRUMMER BOY

  Swaledale

  On top of Richmond rock stands not just the town of Richmond but a fine medieval castle, built, it is said, by William the Conqueror. Long after it ceased to be used to guard the city it got a new lease of life as the home of the local militia. A barracks was built inside the curtain walls and the echoes of trumpets were once again thrown back by the ancient stone.

  Everyone knew Potter Thompson’s story by this time, though he himself was long dead. Children told each other about it and spent the summer (as my own children did 200 years later) searching for the entrance to his wonderful cave. His was not the only story they told each other, though – there was said to be a treasure hidden beneath the Gold Hole tower and the secret tunnel that leads to Easby Abbey. If only you could get into the castle itself, they thought, who knows what you might find? If only the soldiers were not there …

  The soldiers heard these stories too and were just as keen as the children to search for some way into the secret places of the rock. One day a group of soldiers was sent down to the dungeons to clear space for the storage of gunpowder. The opportunity to explore was too good to miss: they had plenty of candles with them and, once they had moved some of the rubbish accumulated over centuries, they started to search in good earnest for secret passages.

  ‘What would you do if we found the cave? Take the sword or blow the horn?’Fred asked Bill.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said Bill, ‘as long we wake up some decent soldiers. Happen they’ll fight the French instead of us.’

  ‘Well, I hope those old fellers down there know how to fire a musket, then!’ laughed Fred.

  ‘I don’t want to wake the old knights,’ chipped in the twelve-year-old drummer boy named Georgie, who was searching with them. ‘I just want to become the luckiest person that ever was born!’ They went from cellar to cellar, dungeon to dungeon, lower and lower until they could go no further.

  ‘I reckon we’ve had it now,’ said another of the soldiers. ‘There’s no more doors. Let’s get back. It’s almost muster time.’

  ‘What’s that behind that old pillar?’ said another. They held their candles closer.

  ‘Damn me if it isn’t a hole!’ said Bill. ‘And look, you can just see that it’s living rock beyond, not squared stones!’ They all knelt and jostled for a good view.

  Fred whistled. ‘I think it widens out. This is it, lads. We’ve found the way in!’

  ‘And how do you think we’re going to explore it, mate?’ Fred said, gloomily. ‘You’ll never squeeze your fat belly in there, and neither will I!’ The men all looked at each other in dismay. One or two lay down and tried to edge themselves through the narrow hole, but it was a tight fit and no one dared take the risk of ending up in the dark, unable to squeeze back out.

  ‘Who’s the smallest of us?’ asked Fred. All eyes slowly turned to Georgie. He was certainly smaller than any of the adults, and rather puny for his age.

  ‘Now’s your chance, lad!’ said Bill. ‘Go in and bring us back some treasure!’

  Georgie looked at the black hole and gulped. ‘Isn’t that the trumpet for muster?’ he stammered. ‘I’ll go tomorrow.’

  ‘Nay, lad,’ the others said. ‘Tomorrow’ll be too late. We’ll never be let down here again. It’s now or never. Where’s your courage?’

  ‘
Where’s your courage!’ he retorted, but at the same time he was becoming more excited, for it was true, he was the only one small enough to squeeze through the hole. What a story to tell his mates! He’d be a hero. ‘Well, all right,’ he said, ‘but I need some snap and some candles.’

  A soldier ran to fetch what he needed, sneaking a loaf of bread and a black bottle of beer from the quartermaster’s stores. The others added whatever candles they had left. Soon Georgie’s feet slithered out of sight and the men pushed the pack after him.

  ‘What’s it like?’ they asked.

  ‘I can stand up,’ came the muffled reply. ‘Wait while I light the candle.’ They heard him striking his flint and steel, and a few minutes later they all heard him say, ‘There’s a tunnel goes right on, horrible and dark. I’m frit though. I’m coming back.’ The soldiers groaned.

  ‘Wait, lad,’ said Bill. ‘That’s no good. Don’t you want to know where it goes? Look, I’ll push your drum through. You can play that, marching like, and it’ll stop you being frit. Give us a few minutes to go outside and with any luck, we’ll be able to hear you. That way we can follow you above ground and see where you stop.’ He pushed the drum through the hole and heard it bang against the tunnel wall as Georgie slung it around his neck.

  ‘How can I hold the candle and drum as well?’

  ‘Stick the candle on your hat like a miner,’ someone suggested. ‘Come on, Georgie. We’ll all be so proud of you. Just think, no one has gone inside this rock since the days of Potter Thompson, and he were never as brave and clever as you.’

  ‘Aye, I’ve done that then,’ said Georgie, after a moment. ‘Stuck it on the peak of my cap. I can see better now. Well, I’ll be off. I’ll come back here if I get stuck. I’m going to beat the Advance.’

  He began to drum, playing the call known as the Advance: rat-tat-tat ta-tat rat-tat-tat and the listening soldiers heard him move off down the tunnel. They ran up to the light of the courtyard and listened. Yes! Distantly they could still hear the drum below their feet: rat-tat-tat ta-tat rat-tat-tat. It headed across the yard and through the gate into the town.

  ‘Happen he’s found the tunnel that goes to Easby,’ Bill guessed. But alas, they were all soldiers with duties inside the walls of the castle, not free men who might go wherever they wanted. The sentry on guard at the gate refused to let them leave, despite their pleas, and their officer, coming up, threatened them all with a flogging if they did not get to muster immediately.

  In the evening when they were off duty, they tried to locate the sound of the drum again, wandering about the ancient town, pressing their ears to walls or the ground. Folk stared at them, but they did not care. Every so often, they would hear a rat-tat-tat, always in a different place, as though the boy were wandering round and round. Now it was right next to the castle, now near the town gate or beneath the Buck Inn. Fred sneaked back down to the cellars and shouted himself hoarse down the narrow hole into which the poor lad had disappeared, but there was no response.

  The soldiers tried the next day and the next. The drumming, when they caught the sound of it, seemed still to continue as strongly as before. It was as though Georgie needed no rest. Day after day, they pursued the sound, quite prepared to try digging him out if only he would stop, but he never ceased to beat or to move forward. Georgie the drummer boy was never seen again by anyone in Richmond, nor by his distraught family in Swaledale.

  As the years went by, local folk would hear the sound of the drum from time to time and would put their fingers in their ears as their blood ran cold; surely, the poor little lad must have died of hunger and thirst long ago? It is said that even now on still winter evenings, when the shops are shut and all the visitors and their cars have gone home, you may hear, deep beneath you feet, the sound of a lonely drum playing the Advance: rat-tat-tat ta-tat rat-tat-tat, as Georgie continues his solitary march …

  LAME HAVERAH

  Knaresborough

  Long before the Paralympic games, disabled people had to develop great physical skill and stamina just to survive. With only simple aids, such as crutches, they had to find work, or beg, or starve. There were few alternatives, for life was very hard. It is not surprising, therefore, that when Lame Haverah of Knaresborough met John of Gaunt by chance he grasped his opportunity with both hands.

  John was Duke of Lancaster, and among his many other possessions, owned the Forest of Knaresborough. One windy autumn day when he was hunting there with his men, he came across Lame Haverah hopping along on his crutches. Almost automatically, the duke stopped to give alms to the poor man, but to his surprise Haverah seized his outstretched hand and, kneeling on the ground, begged him for a boon. The huntsmen moved to drive off this upstart, but Duke John stopped them.

  ‘What is it you want? If it is in my power I will grant it,’ he said, thinking that it would be some small thing – food, perhaps – suitable to what he imagined were the needs of a poor cripple. He was taken aback when the young man said, ‘Grant me some land, my lord!’

  The duke’s men shook their heads and murmured at this effrontery, but the sheer nerve of the man amused the great lord.

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Haverah, if it please you, my lord.’

  ‘Very well, Haverah,’ said Lord John. ‘Listen to what I vow! I, John of Gaunt, Do give and grant, To thee Haverah, As much of my ground, As thou canst hop around, In a long summer’s day! Next St Bartholomew’s Day I will return and we shall see how well you can hop!’ Lord John said, whilst thinking to himself that ‘He’ll at least get enough for a little house and vegetable plot, and we’ll all have a good laugh at his antics as well!’

  Haverah thanked him effusively with tears in his eyes and hopped away to plan how to make the most of his good fortune.

  There were no gyms or personal trainers in those days (at least not for anyone lower than the rank of knight), but in the months that followed Haverah tried as hard as he could to prepare himself for the ordeal. His wooden crutches were just a stick of wood and a rough crosspiece to fit under his shoulder. The crutches gave him blisters on his hands and in his armpits. Haverah scoured the forest for two branches that forked comfortably at the end and wadded them well with sheep’s wool gathered from the hedges and made into pads by his mother. He strengthened his arms by pulling himself up on doorframes or beams. By the following June, he was as ready as he would ever be.

  His whole village turned out just before dawn on St Bartholomew’s Day (24 June). The news had spread to other villages and, even though it was so early, there was a sizeable crowd to witness the extraordinary event. Duke John, as he had promised, was there with some of his friends. He also brought plenty of food and servants to serve it.

  The day dawned bright and hot and as soon as the sun began to peep over the hills, Haverah began his hop, swinging along on the new crutches.

  Those watching were amazed at how swiftly he moved, covering the ground almost as fast as an able-bodied man could run. The villagers, always on the side of the underdog, cheered him on; Duke John’s friends began to lay bets on how long he would last.

  ‘Surely he can’t keep that up,’ muttered Duke John, looking worried.

  By midday, Haverah was panting and the sweat was dripping into his eyes, but he did not stop to wipe it away. He was still moving fast and had already covered a surprisingly large distance.

  Duke John’s friends were slapping the great lord’s back and laughing at him instead of Haverah now. He emptied his goblet of wine gloomily. ‘He’s sped his bolt,’ he said. ‘He can’t last much longer.’

  The duke was wrong. Though the pain of his shoulders and hands was almost unbearable, though his legs burned like fire and his breath came in great gasps, Haverah kept going all afternoon and into the early evening. The sun was sinking low as, surrounded by cheering villagers – some of whom had run all the way with him – Haverah staggered towards the place where he had started. As the sun slipped beneath the horizon, he collapsed on t
he ground. He was too exhausted to laugh, but he smiled.

  ‘So how much land are you really going to give him?’ drawled one of Duke John’s friends. ‘Surely not the whole amount? It’s big enough to make a knight a fine deer park!’

  ‘I’m a knight and I made him a promise! We have our standards, damn it!’ growled the duke. ‘Well, let him have the land. He’s earned it – but let us never speak of this matter again!’ So they never did.

  Thus Haverah acquired the great parcel of land now called Haverah Park, and it brought him and his mother enough money to live as wealthy people for the rest of their lives.

  ROBIN HOOD AND THE CURTAL FRIAR

  Harrogate area

  These days Robin Hood is usually connected with Sherwood Forest, but in older stories he is more often to be found in Barnsdale, West Yorkshire. However, as the number of wells, stones and caves (not to mention Robin Hood’s Bay near Whitby) named after him shows, there were also occasions when he ventured into the North and East Ridings.

  Imagine the greenwood: a forest of huge craggy oak trees. Imagine them covered in the pale-green leaves of spring. Imagine deer stealthily appearing and disappearing among their shadows or standing still with one foot delicately raised. See there, a large buck silently crosses a grassy track; its hide flashing a rich brown in a little pool of sunlight. Listen, there is a whirring sound, the buck leaps and falls dead with an arrow in its heart. There are hunters in the greenwood.

  Far down the track, two men come loping towards its body.

  ‘That was a mighty shot, John!’ says Robin Hood. ‘I don’t remember ever seeing a better!’ Little John smiles.