I got my version from H. Gee’s Folk Tales of Yorkshire.
Robin Hood and the Knight
This story is found in ‘A Geste of Robyn Hode’, one of the first printed accounts of the outlaw, probably produced at the beginning of the sixteenth century. However, his origins can be traced back as far as the thirteenth century.
The tales seem to have been transmitted by the oral storytellers and entertainers employed by noble houses throughout the country. Robin was included in plays and Christmas revels and was so well known that impersonating him on special occasions was popular – even on one occasion at St Mary’s Abbey! (See J.C. Holt’s Robin Hood, Thames and Hudson, 1989.)
Dick Turpin
The truth of any criminal’s life is difficult to verify, but Dick Turpin’s certainly appears to have been rather squalid. His old romantic image probably came from a completely different man named John ‘Swift Nick’ Nevinson, who lived before Turpin was born. It is from ‘Swift Nick’ that the myth of Turpin’s ride from London to York was stolen. One morning in 1676 Nevinson robbed a homeward-bound sailor on the road outside Gads Hill, Kent and, deciding that he needed to establish an alibi, he set off on a ride that took him more than 190 miles in about fifteen hours. William Harrison Ainsworth included the exploit and attributed it to Turpin in his 1834 novel Rookwood (London: Richard Bentley, 1834). It is his particular version of the heroic highwayman that has endured when the pockmarked horse stealer has been forgotten.
There are trial accounts of so many of Turpin’s associates that it is possible to follow his evil and violent exploits in considerable detail should one wish to do so – I have simplified the story somewhat, especially the convoluted way in which he was finally brought to trial.
There are a few thieves’ cant words in the story, such as yellowboys. No doubt the real Turpin would have used a lot more.
There are many books on this horrible man and you can even see a version of him singing his (factually correct) song on YouTube.
The Pirate Archbishop
This highly coloured and clearly mythical version of the life of Lancelot Blackburne comes from Old Yorkshire by William Smith (Morely: issued yearly from 1881). Almost everything in it is untrue (starting with his university, he went to Oxford, not Cambridge) but it is a genuine folk version of a well-loved celebrity of his day. He almost certainly was not a pirate, and he certainly was never called Muggins, but he does seem to have been employed as a spy by Charles II.
Horace Walpole, who knew him, wrote a description to a friend which shows that, pirate or not, he was definitely a character!
The Death Pact
From Old Yorkshire Series I by William Smith.
Further Reading
Ghosts and Legends of Yorkshire by Andy Roberts (Norwich: Jarrold Publishing, 1992)
Folk Stories from the Yorkshire Dales by Peter N. Walker (London: Robert Hale Ltd, 1991)
Folk Tales from the North York Moors by Peter N. Walker (London: Robert Hale Ltd, 1990)
Yorkshire Legends and Traditions by Revd Thomas Parkinson (London: E. Stock, 1888)
The Hand of Glory and Further Grandfather’s Tales by R. Blakeborough and John Fairfax-Blakeborough (London: H. Frowde, 1924)
COPYRIGHT
First published in 2014
The History Press
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North Yorkshire Folk Tales Page 19
