The Book of English Folk Tales

by Sybil Marshall

  The spokesman of the thieves, first threatening and then cajoling, said that if the Hand of Glory was returned to them, they would go away quietly, never to trouble that inn again, ‘and no harm done’. But the honest innkeeper and his family had had too good a proof of its power, and had no wish to submit others to the depredations of its gang of owners. So he refused to give it up and great clamour broke out again as the gang prepared to rush the door to retrieve their treasure.

  At this, however, the innkeeper’s son lost patience and discharged his gun among them. Faced with such a practical demonstration of the opposition they were likely to encounter, they made off towards the moor.

  Next morning, a trail of blood leading a considerable distance out on to the moor proved the effectiveness of the shot; but the law for either side was a long way away, and the gang of thieves were certainly not disposed to invoke it on their own behalf. So that is the end of the story, and what happened afterwards to that particular Hand of Glory, there is now no knowing.

  The Religious

  As distinct from those who were either saints or martyrs, or concerned with the honour and glory of their abbeys, there are many tales which show monks and nuns in a different light.

  O Horrid Dede!

  The folk had little respect for the way some monks behaved, but probably even less for a boorish knight. In this story the crudity of the knight and the crafty avarice of the abbot probably cancelled each other out, though the greedy brother was the unlucky one.

  Delaval was out hunting, and as his steward knew, he would come home ravenous, and call for a meal to be set before him at once. So a young hog was prepared, and stretched out on the spit before a roasting fire in the great kitchen at Seaton Delaval. As the afternoon wore on, the appetizing smell of roast pork and crispy crackling began to fill the kitchen, and even to waft out of doors to the very noses of hungry wayfarers.

  Among those passing by was a monk of Tynemouth Priory – used to living well, but not always on the things he liked most; and one of the things he liked most was roast pig, especially the head, which was regarded as a great delicacy.

  Drawn by the savoury odour, the monk went up to the kitchen door, and looked in. The cook was at that moment basting the roasting pig, pouring huge ladles full of its own fat over it, while it spurtled and spat, and the fat ran down again into the huge pan below the jack. The monk’s mouth watered more than ever.

  ‘Pax vobiscum,’ said the monk, stepping inside. The cook inclined his head, and mumbled, but went on basting. He had very little time for the brothers, and didn’t care for uninvited company in his kitchen.

  ‘That is a noble roast,’ said the monk.

  ‘It is for the master, when he comes in from the chase.’

  ‘All of it? Surely he would not miss the head!’

  ‘All of it!’ said the laconic cook, ‘but especially the head. That is his favourite morsel.’

  The monk sighed, and waited around. The cook made the impossibility of his request utterly clear to him, but still he lingered. Then the time came when the cook, perforce, had to leave the kitchen for a minute or two, and worldly temptation entirely overcame the holy brother. Seizing the cook’s knife, which he had carelessly left on the board, the monk neatly sliced off the pig’s head, crackling and all, and made off with his prize, wrapping it, hot and greasy, in a kitchen cloth that also lay handy. His plan was to get it back to the priory, six miles away, and there share it with one or two other brothers whose tastes matched his own. He went as fast as he could, but his burden was a difficult one, and he was already tired. He could not help but stop and rest once on the way, which he did – and that place has ever since gone by the name of Monkseaton. But his rest proved his undoing, for by this time Delaval had returned from his sport, and was demanding to be fed.

  When the trembling cook set the hog before him, he exploded in anger that his most enjoyable titbit was missing from the roast.

  ‘The head!’ he roared. ‘Where is the head? Bring it this instant, or I’ll make you dance!’

  The cook hastened to explain. He had not seen the holy brother take the head, but it had been there one minute, and gone the next – and so had the monk.

  ‘How long ago was this?’ asked Delaval.

  ‘Less than an hour,’ was the answer, ‘for the hog was by then already well cooked.’

  ‘I’ll head him, if I catch him!’ said Delaval grimly, and calling again for his horse, he set off towards Tynemouth at full speed. He caught up with the culprit a little way from the priory gates, and demanded back that which was his own. The poor monk would willingly now have handed it over, but the lord was not to be mollified. He wanted to seize it himself, and he set about the defenceless monk with the flat and the pommel of his sword till the guilty brother fell senseless in the dust at his feet. Then Delaval grabbed the pig’s head and clattered away, leaving the thief lying where he fell.

  When the monk did not return, other brothers set off to look for him and found him lying bleeding and senseless by the path. So they took him up, and bore him home, where doubtless he confessed to the venial sin of loving the good things of this earth too much; and whether or not he was severely injured or not will now never be known, though certain it is that he died within a year and a day of the assault.

  The prior, who was well versed in the law, and in all the tricks of his trade (which was, of course, to enlarge and enrich the priory’s holding by any legal means at his disposal), seized upon his statutory right, and accused Delaval of the murder of one of his monks. There were plenty of witnesses ready to oblige the prior, and few who cared for Delaval, so the case was soon proved.

  Of course, there can be no absolution for a murderer (especially one who has dared lay hands on a man of the church) who has done no penance and made no proper expiation of his crime. He parted with some very rich lands from his estate before the prior was satisfied; and to make public knowledge of his guilt and repentance, he was ordered to set up a cross at the spot where the monk fell still clutching the tastiest morsel from the worldly flesh-pots. The cross was carved out of a pillar of sandstone (known ever since as the Rode Stane); and on the broad plinth at its base, so they say, were once carved the words

  O horrid dede

  To kill a man for a pigge’s hede.

  Time has worn away the inscription, but not the story. Words last even longer than stone.

  Good Sir Thomas and Friar John

  Apart from being immortalized in this story, good Sir Thomas will be remembered as long as Shakespeare’s ‘Henry V’ is read and played. He is the same good Sir Thomas about whom the king showed concern at Agincourt.

  From the very first, there was no love lost between the monks of Norwich Priory and the people of the city. The monks were an arrogant lot, and scandalized the good folk by their avarice and lawlessness. The honest townspeople, tough, sturdy East Anglians, were also proud in their own way, and very obstinate when it came to defending their ancient rights and privileges, even against the Church.

  The monks laid claim to a piece of open ground called Tombland, on which, since time-out-of-mind, the city’s annual fair had been held. Year after year, when fair day came round again, there would be broken heads on both sides, and the free-for-all skirmishes became part of the fun of the fair. However, in AD 1272, things went from bad to worse. The monks sallied forth in strength, and set about the townsmen with such force that several were left dead on the fair-field when the citizens fled to their homes. Elated with success and inflamed with excitement, the monks followed them, looting their houses and played havoc with the virtue of their wives and daughters. Then, to finish the day off well, they took over the local tavern and helped themselves until they staggered back home to give their prior a boisterous account of their day-long roisterings.

  This was too much for the citizens. The magistrates informed the king of their complaints against the monks, and called a mass meeting of the folk to see how they could best def
end themselves against such happenings in future; but the tempers of the injured townsfolk had not cooled down enough for rational talk and reasoned planning. Acting on the adage that there’s no time like the present, they shouted down their magistrates, armed themselves with whatever happened to be handy, and surged off towards the priory. They burnt down the gates (and with them the nearest church), set fire to as much of the monastery as they could, and carried off every valuable they could lay their hands on. Several of the monks, with their lay brothers, were left dead in the ruins; but the prior himself escaped, and rode as fast as he could go to Yarmouth, where his glib tongue soon raised an army willing to avenge such a reprehensible attack on men of the Church. The prior himself led his army back to Norwich, and caused the enraged citizens much sorrow and distress before withdrawing to his stronghold, to await with complete assurance the outcome of the magistrates’ appeal to the king.

  As it happened, the king’s officers chose to take a very serious view of the whole affair, calling in high dignitaries from the Church to help with the investigation. As a result, punishment fell heavily on both sides. The ringleaders of the townsfolk were summarily hanged, or dragged about on hurdles through the town until they died. Others, with some of the monks, suffered excommunication. The prior was imprisoned, both for his shortcomings before the riots and for his part in them; and on all the citizens left fell the burden of raising the huge sum of 3,000 marks to build a new church to replace the one that had been burned down.

  So much is recorded history; but after that the bitterness could neither be forgotten nor forgiven, especially as the behaviour of the monks seemed no better for the lessons they had been given. Tales of their doings, inside and out of the priory, were passed from tongue to tongue and from generation to generation for a hundred years or more. In particular, the worthies of Norwich found it necessary to warn their pretty daughters of the dangers that stalked them everywhere, hidden under cowls and habits; and when a knight was called to the service of his king in the wars against the French, it was not of his envious neighbours that he warned his wife, but of the lecherous monks.

  So it happened that good Sir Thomas Erpingham, before leaving his demesne in charge of his beautiful but virtuous wife, bade her beware. After much campaigning, and bringing much honour upon himself and his house by his valour on the field of Agincourt, Sir Thomas returned once more to his native Norfolk, and to his loving dame. She had, she said, been lately pestered by the attentions of one Friar John, but had so far kept him at bay. Now that her lord was back, however, she felt she need have no further anxiety on that score.

  As it happens, she was wrong. Brother John had got himself so entangled in the web of his own amorousness that the return of his lady’s husband had not the slightest dampening effect on his ardour. After many foiled attempts at coming, somehow or other, into her presence, he committed the indiscretion of putting his desires onto parchment – always a most dangerous and foolish course to take! He wrote Dame Erpingham a letter, declaring once again his passion for her, and begging her to set the time and place for a meeting between them.

  This letter the lady showed to her lord, who, to say the least of it, was extremely wroth at the blatant insolence of the monkish lover. Taking the missive from his dutiful wife, he bade her forget it, saying he would deal with it in his own fashion.

  Sending for his scribe, he dictated a reply in the most agreeable terms, coyly accepting the suggested assignation, and fixing place and time. Flushed with success, the amorous friar went happily to the meeting place, only to find a highly enraged Sir Thomas awaiting him instead of the charming lady. Sir Thomas was newly back from his hard campaigning, and his sword arm was in fine fettle. He laid about the monk with a stout stick, and gave him the belabouring he deserved. The excitement of the encounter, and the sight of the lecherous monk, however, so outraged him that he, too, lost sight of the bounds of discretion. When Brother John finally fell at his feet, he took one last savage blow at him, which caught him on the head, and knocked the life out of him.

  Now Sir Thomas was indeed in a quandary. Calling to his faithful servant, who was waiting for him at a discreet distance, he took counsel with him as to what they should do with the body.

  The groom, being a Norwich man, had no love for any monk, and held that Brother John had merely got what he deserved. He suggested that he should heave the body over the wall of the monastery, and there let it lie; but Sir Thomas thought it would be better to carry it to one of the outbuildings, place it in a sitting position, and make it appear that Friar John had died where he sat. The latter plan being agreed on, they lost no time in carrying it out, and by dawn Brother John was seated, as if asleep after a drunken debauch, on a bench in one of the monastery’s outer buildings.

  Out into the early morning came the clerks whose duties lay in the more menial tasks of monastic life. Brother Richard was an old enemy of Brother John, and much strife had passed between them in the years they had spent together as brothers-in-God. Richard’s heart rose when he caught sight of his detested fellow asleep on the bench, exposed at last by the depth of his folly. Looking round for a suitable missile with which to cause John a rude awakening, he seized a brick from a pile of rubble and heaved it with all his might at the sleeping monk, hopping nimbly behind a pillar to watch the effect on his erring brother. The brick caught Friar John fairly and squarely on the temple, and without a sound he swayed forward, and fell with a thud onto the floor.

  ‘Holy Jesu! I have killed him!’ exclaimed Brother Richard in terror. ‘Santa Maria, mercy!’ Richard fell to his knees in a panic of guilt, until fear of the consequences of his deed drove him to more practical action. Very few of the monks were yet abroad. No one else had witnessed the incident. Richard’s one thought was that he must get rid of the corpse before anyone else should find it and begin to make inquiries. Summoning all his strength, he laid hold of Friar John’s body, and without further ado hoisted it to the top of the priory boundary, and let it fall, sprawled out, where it lay between the footpath to Sir Thomas Erpingham’s manor and the wall.

  A few minutes later. Sir Thomas Erpingham’s groom came along that path on his way to his master’s stables. He was completely astounded by the grisly sight before him, and crossed himself with superstitious fear, for one glance had told him that the body was none other than the one he himself had lifted over the wall and set to rest on a bench in the outbuildings only a short time before.

  Somehow or other he must dispose of the corpse again, before any breath of suspicion fell upon him or his master. He racked his brains, and fear lent him ideas. He turned in his tracks and made off back to Sir Thomas’s manor as fast as he could. There he took from the storehouse an old suit of rusty mail, hauberk, hose and camail, together with an outdated great helm. Returning with his burden to the body, he swiftly dressed it in the all-enveloping mail, hiding cowl and habit to be disposed of later. Then he took from a nearby pasture a poor, worn-out old horse that was peacefully grazing there, and set the mailed body on its back, twisting the stiffening fingers into its mane and tethering the body firmly so that it should not fall off. Then he slapped the old horse on its rump to send it off, while he himself went on to work again, saying nothing to anybody.

  Meanwhile, inside the priory, Brother Richard was in an ecstasy of fear, awaiting the dreaded moment when Friar John’s absence should be noted, or the alarm raised that his dead body had been discovered. As the hours passed and nothing happened, the strain of waiting and the heavy curse of guilt packed such a load on him that he could bear it no longer. He must escape somehow from the monastery, and then get away and lie hidden until the hue and cry for him had died down. The first difficulty to be overcome was to get out of the priory and the city without rousing suspicion. He worked out a plan, and put it into practice straight away. The monks, as it happened, were out of meal. Brother Richard volunteered to go to the mill, and was given permission. He selected a sturdy horse, and ostentatiously c
arried two empty meal bags before him, though he had no intention of ever returning, meal or no meal, once free of the city.

  The priory gates were opened for him, and out he went; but he had barely gone a quarter of a mile, when he heard the sound of other hoofs behind him. He urged his horse to a trot, and from a trot to a canter, but still the hoofbeats behind him kept pace. Summoning all his courage, he looked round at last to see who his unwelcome fellow traveller might be. It was an armed knight, clad in mail except for the great helm that covered his face. There was something strange and unreal about the figure, for even a monk could see that the mail was rusty with neglect and disuse, and the helm of an outdated fashion. Guilt, fear and superstitious dread swept through Friar Richard, and he beat his horse with his heels, whipping it also to faster and faster gait. At last the beast broke into a headlong gallop, and the monk clung as best he could to its back, urging it on and on – but in vain. Every time he dared look back, the mailed figure behind him was still there. Indeed, do what Friar Richard might, his pursuer was gaining on him, till at last he drew level. Then they rushed along, side by side, the horses with their heads stretched out before them, both lathering with sweat. The monk clung on for dear life, for he was no horseman; but the mailed figure sat stiffly upright, and the helmed head turned neither to right nor left. After racing side by side for what seemed to Brother Richard mile upon mile, his own tired mount staggered, and cannoned into the steed at his side. Then the knight keeled over and fell with a dreadful thud to the ground. The helm flew off, and revealed the dead face of Brother John.

  Now Friar Richard’s courage melted like dew against the morning sun. He was convinced that only supernatural agency could have devised this terrible way of bringing his guilt to light, and that by no further actions of his own could he escape the consequences of his deed. He turned his own horse back to the city, found a magistrate, and falling on his knees, confessed to the murder of Friar John.