North Yorkshire Folk Tales

by Ingrid Barton

  ‘It was a fair shot,’ he agrees, ‘but I know a man who could easily better it. A friar, no less – a curtal friar.’ Robin is immediately interested.

  ‘A friar who can shoot! That would be a sight to see. I thought that they just went around begging, seducing women and filling their big bellies.’

  ‘I don’t know about the wives, but he certainly has the belly. He’s a brawler too and as good with the quarterstaff as he is with the bow.’

  ‘Sounds just like the sort of man we could use,’ says Robin. ‘Friars ramble about all over the country. Where can he be found?’

  ‘At the moment he’s staying with the monks at Fountains Abbey. Whether he’d be interested in joining us, I don’t know. Let’s get this deer back to camp and then go and see!’

  Friar Tuck is strolling by the River Skell digesting a venison pasty. He is a fine figure of a man; with a large paunch, certainly, but well-muscled and sturdy with mischievous eyes. He is twirling a long staff and humming a popular tune. Suddenly, from the grass in front of him, a man in Lincoln green rises up.

  ‘Good morrow, Friar!’ says the man. ‘I wonder whether you could help me.’

  ‘Certainly, my son,’ says the friar jovially. ‘Trouble with your love life?’

  Robin smiles. ‘No, something much easier to solve. I need to get to the other side of the river without wetting my feet. Will you oblige me by carrying me over?’

  The friar raises his eyebrows and considers the man in front of him. ‘Why, certainly,’ he says. ‘Jump aboard!’ He kilts up his robe. Robin jumps onto his back and hangs on round his neck. Carefully leaning on his staff the friar descends waist-deep into the river and wades across, making light of his heavy burden. At the other side, he sets Robin down.

  ‘Just before you go –’ he says as Robin seems about to turn away. ‘I’m now on the wrong side of the river. As you can see, the monastery is on the other side. One good turn deserves another, my son. It’s only fair that you carry me back!’

  Robin considers the bulky friar with alarm. ‘But my shoes …’

  ‘Worldly vanity, my son. You can always take them off.’

  Robin does not want to seem a weakling, so he bends forward. ‘Certainly I will carry you, good father. Hop up!’

  Hopping is not what the friar is built to do, but he clambers onto Robin’s back. Robin staggers, hardly able to stand, but he slithers down into the unpleasantly cold water. The friar seems determined to annoy him. He spurs him on with kicks and cries of ‘Gee up Bayard!’

  If it were not for Robin’s own staff, he probably would not be able to get across, but he makes it and heaves himself up onto the bank. He shakes the friar off.

  ‘Well done old nag!’ laughs the friar, slapping him heavily on the back. ‘You’d make a fine plough stot!’ He turns to go.

  ‘Just a moment, Father!’ Robin thumps his quarterstaff menacingly.

  ‘Yes, my son? Do you want me to pray for you?’ Robin grinds his teeth.

  ‘No, thank you. But as you see it is I who am now on the wrong side of the river. Be so good as to carry me back!’ He stares at the friar in a less than friendly manner.

  ‘Wrong side? Oh yes, so you are. Well, my son, we must remedy that immediately. Up you get!’

  Once again, Robin gets on the friar’s back and he wades into the river. This time it is Robin who shouts ‘Gee up!’ He is enjoying himself!

  In the middle of the river his mount stops. ‘Get on, Dobbin!’

  With a wild neigh, the friar bucks him off into the river. Robin goes under and comes up angry and spitting. He is even more angry when he sees his hat gaily floating away down the river and he hears the friar’s loud laughter.

  ‘Right!’ he growls, making a hasty grab for his quarterstaff before it follows his hat. He struggles up the bank, water pouring off him.

  ‘I’m waiting for you, my son!’ chortles the friar, twirling his staff so fast that it is just a blur.

  They come together with a great crash; their quarterstaffs flash and whirl through the air like lightning, splinters and chips of wood fly from them. The woods of Fountains Abbey resound with the noise and disturbed birds flap away. Occasionally there is a thump and a grunt as a blow strikes home.

  Little John has been right about the friar’s skill. Both men are well matched: Robin is quicker on his feet, but the friar has the advantage of extra weight in his blows and soon weight begins to tell. They draw back now to regain their breath, leaning panting on their staffs. Robin knows that it is only a matter of time before the friar beats him. He is only just able to deflect strikes that would crack his skull if they landed.

  ‘Friar!’ he calls. ‘Grant me a request! Let me just blow three blasts on my horn!’

  The friar laughs. ‘Blow till your eyes pop out! Much good may it do you!’

  Robin blows three blasts and before the valley has ceased echoing, fifty men in Lincoln green come running from their hiding places in trees and bushes. They all have bows with arrows on the string.

  ‘O ho! That’s how it is, is it?’ exclaims the friar. ‘In that case grant me a request! Let me whistle three times!’

  ‘Whistle till your cheeks burst!’

  The friar puts his fingers to his lips and whistles. From the abbey grounds on the third whistle come fifty great dogs, baying as they run. They charge down upon the outlaws who immediately begin to shoot at them.

  Now here is a strange sight! The dogs are so clever that they dodge the arrows and bring them back to the friar in their mouths. The outlaws are amazed. Soon they will have no more arrows.

  ‘Stop! Enough!’ shouts Robin, laughing in spite of himself. ‘My men need their arrows! What a man you are, Friar! My respect to you!’

  The friar mops his sweating face with his robe. ‘It was a good fight,’ he says. ‘My guess is that you are Robin Hood! I was hoping to stumble across you.’ Robin bows. ‘I am indeed and I would like to offer you a place in my band if you would like it. I’ve never seen such a fighter – and I’m sure the dogs would come in handy.’

  The friar considers. ‘Come to the greenwood, eh? Well, we friars are supposed to preach to the poor. I might be able to bring some smattering of holy learning to you poor benighted souls. But tell me first, do you have venison pasties in the forest?’

  ‘Of course! What else are the king’s deer for?’

  The friar smiles broadly. ‘Then Friar Tuck is your man. Lead on!’

  2

  GIANTS

  ON GIANTS

  In the days before Darwin, people imagined their ancestors to have been much bigger than themselves; after all they were closer to the hand of God than we dwellers in degenerate times. Surely they must have been giants of men and women, not just larger but stronger, braver and more skilled than their feeble descendants! When King Arthur’s bones were conveniently discovered by the monks of Glastonbury in the twelfth century, no one was surprised that they were of giant size, indeed, that was considered proof that they really were Arthur’s bones.

  After the collapse of Rome, much technology was lost along with knowledge of the past. The ruins of Bath became the work of giants, Stonehenge their temple and long barrows their graves. Only lightly converted to Christianity, people knew that their ancestors had worshipped other gods, had perhaps been descended from those huge gods, mountain-crushers, sea-drinkers.

  The half-forgotten gods were regarded as devils by the new Christian Church, which took every opportunity to vilify them. Eventually old gods, ancestors and the Devil became gloriously confused. This explains why there is sometimes uncertainty in European folk tales as to whether the villain of a story is a giant or the Devil (See The Devil’s Arrows).

  As folk tales get closer to our own time, belief in real giants waned. No longer terrifying, they seem to become increasingly stupid; often tricked, as in ‘Jack the Giant Killer’, by the sort of thing a baby would see straight through. However, the four Yorkshire giants in this chapter are still power
ful: one is a kind road-builder and three are, let’s face it, pretty seriously nasty.

  THE GIANT OF DALTON MILL

  Western Moors

  Jack was a lad full of mischief. He skived off any work whenever he could, not because he was lazy exactly, but because he was more interested in the things going on around him. He loved to wander the wild moorland at Pilmore near Topcliffe where he lived. There he collected birds’ eggs and set snares for rabbits, as was commonly done by lads in those days, but as well as eking out the family’s food, he also liked to watch things. There was plenty to entertain him: not just dragonflies, tadpoles or frogs, but deer, foxes and badgers as well.

  One day he was lying on his front peering into a pool when a huge shadow fell across him. He looked up: it was a giant, a very big giant with only one eye.

  Jack immediately knew who he was; everyone did. His mother had warned him only that morning, ‘Don’t go on the moor, Jack, or the giant of Dalton Mill might get you!’ He had, naturally, ignored her. Now he was realising, too late, that not everything your mother tells you is rubbish.

  The giant reached down and picked up Jack as easily as if he had been a stick. Jack kicked, struggled and shouted, but, of course, no one came to help him.

  The giant carried him up hill and down dale until they came to the mill. Dalton Mill has been rebuilt several times over the years, but when the giant lived there, it was a terrible place. You could smell it from miles away, and when you got closer clouds of flies would rise up, buzzing, from its gloomy walls. You see, the giant did not mill wheat – he ground human bones. Every couple of days he went off hunting for people, dragged them back to his mill, butchered them and then ground their bones into flour. The meat he would either cook into a nasty stew, or just eat raw and dripping. The bone flour he would mix with blood and bake into loaves of bread. They were a bit on the heavy side but the giant enjoyed them. After dinner, he would lie on the floor or in his chair by the fire and sleep, his big knife clasped firmly in his hand.

  Jack thought that he was going to die as the giant strode up to his horrible mill. He was carried through the door and thrown carelessly onto the bloodstained floor. He waited, frozen with terror, for the giant to get out his famous knife, long as a scythe blade, so people said – but to his surprise the giant bent awkwardly down to him, and said ‘I’ll not eat tha if thoo’l work for me.’

  It seems that the giant was getting old and a bit rheumaticky. He found it hard to do all the things that a mill requires to keep working properly; cogs need oiling and grindstones need dressing – especially when you use them to grind bones!

  Jack grabbed the chance of survival with both hands, even if it meant that he was now the giant’s prisoner. There was only one door to the mill, which the giant always carefully locked when he went out.

  He began to learn something of the miller’s art whether he wanted to or not: there was absolutely nothing else to do and he knew better than to ignore the giant’s instructions. He also learned to make himself scarce and put his fingers in his ears when the giant brought his victims home.

  What did he eat? Don’t ask!

  The giant had a truly nasty dog called Truncheon, who was a smelly, scurvy- and flea-ridden snappy dog who delighted in making Jack’s life a misery, nipping his ankles and lifting its leg on him when he was sleeping. Jack did not dare do anything to Truncheon in revenge, because the dog was the giant’s best mate. Their eating habits were very similar; sometimes Jack felt quite sick hearing them both gobbling down their dinners, growling when one thought the other had got too close.

  Seven months – or was it seven years? – went by. Jack worked for the giant, fettling the machinery, fetching and carrying, doing an occasional mop up. He kept looking for a chance of escape but he never found one. The giant slept very lightly and that one eye was always half open.

  One day Jack was idly looking out of the window, feeling more than usually homesick and miserable. It was sunny and hot outside. The moors would be full of life, he thought, and here he was shut up away from everything. It must almost be time for Topcliffe Fair, he realised with a pang. He loved Topcliffe Fair.

  That afternoon when the giant had eaten his dinner and was stretched out on the floor, his head on a sack, looking as relaxed as he ever did, Jack asked if he might go to Topcliffe Fair as he had not had a single day off yet.

  ‘I’ll come straight back afterwards,’ he said, looking at the giant as innocently as he could.

  The one eye opened with a snap. ‘What sort of gobshite do you think I am?’ he said.

  So that was that.

  ‘Right,’ thought Jack to himself, ‘this means war, thoo mean great naff-head, thoo vicious, ungrateful old – old –’ but he couldn’t think of a bad enough word.

  Jack laid his plans – well, he would have if he could have thought of any plans to lay. The giant’s eye followed him more often than ever now and when its owner was not around the horrible dog was always there, scratching and drooling and waiting to give him a nasty nip.

  The weather grew hotter and the mill smellier. Jack watched the giant after dinner hoping that the warmth would make him sleep more deeply. Several times he managed to make it to the door before that big eye opened and looked around for him.

  One baking hot afternoon, the giant did indeed fall into a deeper sleep than usual. As Jack watched, he saw the grasp on the terrible knife slacken. The huge fingers uncurled a little. Jack held his breath and gently eased the knife out of the giant’s fist. He gripped its handle tightly and looked at the sleeping monster; there was only one thing to do. Taking a deep breath Jack stabbed the knife with all his force into that one evil eye.

  The giant uttered a terrible scream and, as Jack leapt away, he struggled to his feet fumbling with both hands at his wounded eye.

  ‘I’m blind! I’m blind! That miserable little worm has blinded me! Get him, Truncheon!’

  He lunged, shouting and swearing around the room, thrusting his hands here and there to catch Jack. ‘I’ll catch thoo! I’ll squash thoo!’ He threatened Jack with every terrible death he could think of – and they were many! Eventually he realised that he would never catch Jack that way, so he went to the door and stood with his back to it.

  ‘I’ll stand here while I brak thah neck! I will! I’ll never rest! Thoo’ll never get out!’

  This was an unforeseen setback. Jack looked around. The horrible dog was barking and jumping about showing its yellow teeth, though it did not attack. (It was, basically, a coward.) Jack had a sudden idea – or perhaps he remembered an old tale his mother had once told him – he caught Truncheon by the scruff of the neck and, before the dog knew what he was doing, he had cut its throat with the giant’s knife.

  Then he skinned it.

  It took time because his hands were shaking so much and because all the while the giant was moaning and howling so loudly he could hardly think. When the skin was ready, he pulled it over his head and back. He had left the head on and, supporting it with one hand, he crawled towards the giant, whining. He butted the giant’s leg with the head and barked in quite a good imitation of Truncheon. The giant reached down a hand and felt the dog’s head. Jack waggled it a bit and whined again.

  ‘Tha’s sorry for me, Truncheon. Good dog, faithful dog!’ He patted the dog’s back. (Jack was nearly knocked over!) Another urgent whine. ‘Want to go out for a piss, does tha?’

  Slowly the giant unfastened the great lock and slid back the huge bolts. The door swung open. Freedom! Jack scuttled out as fast as his legs could carry him into the beautiful summer sunlight. Throwing off the dog’s skin, he ran and ran and ran until he was safely back home.

  Later that evening Jack, thoroughly washed and with his joyful parents, was to be seen at Topcliffe Fair telling his story to anyone who would listen.

  ‘A likely tale!’ some said, but others wondered if there might be some truth in it.

  Time went by and nothing more was heard of the giant. No more
unwary travellers or lonely shepherds disappeared. People began to think Jack’s tale might be true, however unlikely. Soon a well-armed band of brave folk ventured to Dalton Mill. There, right in front of the door they found the giant, dead and covered with a veritable mountain of buzzing flies. Jack’s blow had obviously done more damage than he had thought and pierced the giant’s brain.

  They buried the giant in front of his house – the big mound is still there. The knife was kept inside the mill and shown to visitors as proof of the story well into our own time.

  Jack recovered quickly from his adventure. Thanks to his stay with the giant, he was so skilled in the miller’s art that a few years later he actually got a job in that very trade (as far away from Dalton Mill as he could get), but to the end of his days he could never stand dogs!

  WADE AND HIS WIFE BELL

  Western Moors

  Not all giants are evil. Clumsy they may be but grinding bones for flour is a deviant practice pursued by only a very few – in Yorkshire, at any rate. Most Yorkshire giants employ themselves in changing the landscape or throwing stones about.

  Wade and his wife Bell were both giants. He had once been a Germanic sea-god (related to Woden) famous for owning a magic boat, but he liked it so much in North Yorkshire that he decided to settle there with his wife and his son, Weyland. There not being many giants’ houses available, they first had to build a nice castle to live in. Wade wanted to live at Mulgrave near Sandsend where he could keep an eye on his boat, but Bell wanted to live further west near the moors at Pickering, where there was better grazing for their giant cow. They argued about it for a while, but in the end they decided to build two castles and split their time between them.

  They each began to build in their chosen place, lugging huge stones from the moors. However, they had only one giant hammer between them (human hammers were not nearly big enough of course), so they had to share it.