The Book of English Folk Tales

by Sybil Marshall

  His discomfiture was great, and not made any better by the fact that his fellow guests were having great difficulty in restraining their mirth. When the desire to laugh became so great that he could no longer contain it, the man next to the first unfortunate burst into a bellow of guffaws. His laughter was short-lived, however, for suddenly his own hat was whipped from his head, and replaced in the wink of an eye with a pewter utensil more often than not kept under a bed.

  At this, a young lady sitting opposite at the table let forth a shriek of high-pitched laughter – and another – and another, till it became evident that she could not stop. She grew breathless, and her eyes streamed with water, but still she went on laughing. All eyes turned towards her, but still the peals of laughter went on, until gradually all the other ladies present began to titter at her predicament, and one by one they burst into giggles as loud and uncontrollable as her own; at which the men started to guffaw, and then to roar with paroxysms that bent them double, and made their breathless sides ache in an agony of laughter which it seemed would be the death of them. For a full quarter of an hour they rocked and roared, shrieked and guffawed, and the noise they made was well-nigh unbelievable.

  Now all this was happening in the upstairs room of an inn, but the noise of such uncontrollable laughter going on for so long penetrated to the kitchens below, and at last the landlord thought he ought to go upstairs and find out what was going on. As his steps sounded outside the door, the noise within suddenly ceased, and he opened the door to complete silence as everyone turned their eyes towards him. Next moment, pandemonium broke out anew, as they took in what they saw. The landlord was wearing on his forehead the biggest pair of cuckold’s horns that any of them had ever imagined even in his wildest cups!

  Then, without warning, all witchery ceased, though the sound of demonic laughter seemed to surround them. Exhausted and frightened, they agreed that it was time to break up the gathering, and go home. They descended into the yard, and called for their horses; but before they could be brought, a rain of well-aimed rotten apples descended on them, directed from nowhere or everywhere at once, by unseen hands.

  They set foot in stirrup, and spurred fast to get away from the bewitched inn, but no sooner were they in the saddles than every rider discovered to his dismay that he had a pillion passenger – a bent and deformed old hag with a whip in her hand. With this whip she cut and stung the horse until the poor maddened beast travelled as if it had wings, and by the time horse and rider arrived in town both were covered with sweat, foaming at the mouth, and utterly exhausted. The hag on the pillion had gone.

  Next day, some of the more sober of the victims felt it their duty to make a report of these events to the magistrates in Knaresborough. They named Agatha as the most probable cause of their discomfiture, and in due course she was summoned to appear in court.

  She did so, in a frame of mind that boded no good. Asked if she had bewitched the breakfast party, she admitted it at once. Told what punishment could be handed out to witches, she broke into ironic laughter; spoken to even more sternly, she scoffed openly, and replied that if they threatened her with punishment, she could do more by far than she had already done. The case against her dragged on with all the normal tedium of the law, while she yawned and snoozed and showed by everything about her that she found the proceedings utterly boring and pointless. And when she felt that she had had enough, she shouted loudly, ‘Up draxi, call Stygician Helluei!’

  Before the words were out of her mouth, the thunderstruck people saw above their heads the most terrible, ferocious black dragon, whose lurid green-tinted scales and fiery red eyes transfixed them all with horror. It spread its dreadful wings and hovered while Agatha climbed on its back, and then carried her clean away and out of their reach.

  Now it had been noticed by many a practised eye at the trial that Agatha appeared to be with child; and there were many who thought that the father of her child could be none other than Old Nick himself. Be that as it may, she was brought to bed a few months later of a girl, among such ‘strange and terrible noises’ that once again the whole neighbourhood was affrighted; but of this particular witch they had not much more to fear. She lived only long enough to name her child Ursula, and then died.

  The Witch’s Child

  Agatha’s child, Ursula Southeil, became a charge upon the town, and was given into the care of a worthy townswoman till she should be of an age to look after herself. However, from the very beginning, she proved more than a difficult handful for her nurse.

  In the first place, she was exceedingly ugly, even as a baby. She was misshapen in body, and hideous of face, but from the first, she was extremely forward and ‘knowing’, always seeming to get the better of her adult attendants.

  One day, it is told, she was left alone in her cradle while her nurse went out for a gossip with her neighbours. While out, she told her neighbours some of the extraordinary things the child had recently done, and they expressed a wish to see the strange infant for themselves. So they returned in a body, with the nurse, to her house. On entering, they looked around for Ursula’s cradle, but it was nowhere to be seen. While they were looking for it, all sorts of extraordinary things began to happen. There appeared above their heads a beam of wood, from which a strange woman was hanging by her toes, and as the beam with its burden turned and twisted in the air up above the astounded people, it passed close to one of the men. Immediately, he felt himself rising upwards towards it, as if lifted by an unseen hand; and in less time than it takes to tell, he found himself strapped securely to the beam, which then pursued every other man present till all of them were yoked to the floating beam from which the strange woman still hung among them, upside down.

  When all the men had been so hoisted into the air, the women were compelled to form themselves into a circle, and dance. They danced till they were breathless and exhausted, but they could not stop. Their legs ached and they panted with the excruciating pain of ‘the stitch’ in their sides, but they danced on and on, while the helpless men tethered to the twirling beam above them shared their frightened bewilderment and apprehension. When, finally, one after another of the women began to slow up out of sheer exhaustion, they discovered amongst them a little black imp in the form of a monkey, armed with a sharp pin. As soon as they flagged, he chased them and literally pricked them on, till they were all sobbing with pain and misery.

  Then, without warning, the beam disappeared, the men fell heavily into a huddled heap, and the women collapsed gasping on the floor. Of the little black imp there was no sign, but sounds from the huge chimney above the hearth caused them to investigate it. Suspended in mid-air, nine feet up the chimney, was the missing cradle, and in it the unprepossessing infant, Ursula.

  She grew to womanhood as unlovely as she had been as a baby, with an overlarge body, a huge head, and a hooked nose and chin that showed, so the people said, her family likeness to the Devil. Wherever she went, there was trouble of a supernatural kind. In the cottage where she lived, it was nothing to see the furniture move from place to place, even up and down the tiny stairway, of its own accord. Plates and mugs took themselves from shelves, and hurled themselves at walls, or twirled on edge till they crashed to the floor. Kettles boiled over on dead fires, and food disappeared from plates set before hungry people.

  It might have been expected that with form and face so lacking beauty, and a reputation for mischief so dubious as that of Ursula Southeil, a suitor would be hard to find, but it proved otherwise. Whether or not she ‘witched herself a husband’, the fact remained that in 1512, at the age of twenty-five, or thereabouts, she married one Tony Shipton. It was after that that she became renowned, most of all, for her ability to see both into the near, and into the still-distant future.

  Mother Shipton and Cardinal Wolsey

  News was abroad that the great cardinal, second in importance only to the king himself, was to pay a visit to York. On being told this. Mother Shipton at once gave voice to a prop
hecy.

  ‘He may plan to do so,’ she said, ‘but set foot in York he never will.’

  Now by this time people in the neighbourhood had received a good deal of evidence that Ursula’s prophecies were likely to prove accurate. Word of mouth quickly carried her presentiment about Wolsey’s visit to York to the great man’s ears. He was angry, and sent orders for her to be interviewed with regard to her statement about his proposed visit. He dispatched northwards, immediately, three noblemen, to question her – the Duke of Suffolk, Lord Percy, and Lord Darcy. They came to York, where they sought out a gentleman called Besley, and put their case to him. He said he could take them to the witch’s house, and after arranging heavy disguise in case they should be recognized, they set off. Led by Besley, they approached her door, and knocked. A voice from the inside called out at once.

  ‘Come in, Master Besley. Bring the honourable lords with you!’

  Astounded, they dropped back, and Master Besley motioned them to precede him, as their station in life dictated that they should; but while they hesitated Mother Shipton called out again.

  ‘Come your way in. Master Besley, and let the noble lords follow. You know the way, and they don’t.’

  Staggered by her foreknowledge of who her visitors were, they ventured in. Mother Shipton was sitting by the fire. She welcomed each one by his name, in spite of his disguise, and sent for refreshments with as much poise as if she were a great lady, instead of a humble cottager with the reputation of being a witch.

  The noble Duke of Suffolk was embarrassed, for he could not help feeling he was being entertained under false pretences.

  ‘My good woman,’ said the duke, ‘when you know what we have come for, you will not be so lavish of your hospitality. You have prophesied that Cardinal Wolsey shall never see York!’

  ‘Nay man, that I did not,’ she replied tartly. ‘What I said was that he might see York, but would never set foot in it!’

  ‘It is the same thing,’ said the duke, losing his temper. ‘I tell you, woman, that prophecy is an evil thing. When the cardinal does come, you shall be burned at the stake for the witch you undoubtedly are.’

  ‘Shall I indeed?’ she cackled, and to their astonishment she pulled off the kerchief that covered her head, and threw it into the heart of the fire. The flames rose and licked all round it, but the kerchief did not even show signs of scorching. After a few minutes, she leaned forward and picked the head-covering up again, replacing it on her head just as before.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ asked the startled duke. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Do you not understand? If my kerchief had burned in the fire, then I might have burned at the stake. But as the one did not burn, neither will the other!’

  ‘We shall see,’ said the angry duke menacingly, and without waiting for further proof of her powers, he made off, followed by the others.

  Soon afterwards, Cardinal Wolsey set out, and on his way visited Cawood, which is a mere eight miles or so distant from York.

  ‘I am on my way to York,’ he told his hosts. ‘But I hear that some crazed old woman has said that I am never to see it.’

  The host, who lived in Cawood and knew not only of the prophecy, but of the uncanny way Mother Shipton’s words had of coming true, was careful to put him right as to the exact wording of the prophecy.

  ‘Nay my Lord,’ he said. ‘Her words were that you should see it, but not set foot inside its walls.’

  ‘You can see it from here,’ said another in his retinue. ‘Look, there are its walls, clearly to be seen.’

  Then the great man looked, and sure enough, the walls of York eight miles away were caught by the evening sunlight, and showed up clearly against the surrounding hills.

  ‘Tomorrow I shall come there,’ said His Eminence. ‘And as soon as I am within the gates, this woman shall be brought to execution, and die at the stake. And so shall perish all witches.’

  He had barely finished speaking when the clatter of hooves was heard on the cobbled courtyard, and looking down, he saw men in the livery of King Henry VIII. They had come with orders to arrest him, and take him back to London, to answer charges of treason brought by the monarch against him.

  So he never set foot in York, nor ever saw London again. Worn out with ill-health and sorrow, he died at Leicester soon after. Mother Shipton had proved a true prophetess once again.

  As she grew older and poorer, she was reduced to living in a cave, from which she emerged from time to time to give voice to other prophecies which at the time few people could make head or tail of:

  Carriages without horses shall go

  And accidents fill the world with woe.

  Iron on the water shall float

  As easy as a wooden boat.

  Under the water men shall walk,

  Shall ride, shall sleep, shall eat, shall talk.

  Up in the air men shall be seen

  In white, in black, in red, in green.

  A house of glass shall come to pass

  In England here, but alas!

  War will follow with the work

  In lands of the Pagan, and the Turk.

  Around the world men’s thoughts shall fly

  All in the twinkling of an eye.

  Gold shall be found again, and found

  In a land that is not yet known –

  and much more. Those of us who live in the twentieth century have good reason to believe in her ability to see into the future, if indeed it was she who made the rhymed prophecies. At any rate, nobody can deny that most of them have by now become reality.

  God on Our Side

  The extraordinary exploits of Robert Lyde, of Topsham in Devon

  Robert Lyde made himself a legend in his own time by an extraordinary exploit, only to be utterly disbelieved and discredited by his own people. Perhaps his name has lived on longer just because he was forced into making a deposition to a magistrate, and but for that this nine days’ wonder from Devon might have been forgotten.

  They that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters: these men see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep.

  Robert Lyde was one who went down to the sea in ships, as most of his fellows did when Topsham was the chief centre of Exeter’s trade, with large ships unloading there instead of going further up-river. This was in the seventeenth century, at a time when life at sea meant facing far greater hazards than those occasioned by wind and weather and the storms and typhoons of relatively unknown parts. It was the heyday of the pirates, ‘the Sallee Rovers’ (always said to be Turks) and the privateers, which might come from anywhere or everywhere, including the homeland, but which, as far as Topsham was concerned, were most of all likely to be French.

  To be taken by a Turkish pirate was indeed a fate worse than death, for it often occasioned starvation and many forms of brutal oriental torture, ending as often as not with the starved and mutilated prisoners being forced to ‘walk the plank’. This bit of devilish apparatus consisted of a single plank hinged in the middle upon the bulwarks, with a very gentle slope looking safe and solid, so that even the most terrified or frail could walk up it with little help, till they passed the hinge – when they went down the other side before they had much time to think about it. It was adopted, sad to say, by parties on all sides, and as one English ballad has it:

  Four and twenty Spaniards,

  Mighty men of rank.

  With their signorinas

  Had to walk the plank.

  Little more mercy could be expected from the master or crew of a victorious privateer for those of the defeated and captured vessel, for there were no international rules to be observed with regard to the treatment of prisoners-of-war. Yet in spite of all these hazards, British seamen set out for the ends of the earth with courage and confidence, secure in the knowledge that they were as brave, as strong, as ingenious and as enduring as most, and as seamen second to none. Moreover, the strong puritanism which had
held the country in its sway during the middle of the seventeenth century was still as strong as ever down in the West, and few seamen entered a fight without a prayer and the satisfying conviction that God was on their side. If, in spite of this, a struggle went against them, they averred that this was because God had willed it so, and far from railing at Him for so deserting them, prayed earnestly to know in what way they had offended, and that He might now sustain them in their trials.

  Such a man was Robert Lyde, of Topsham. In February 1689, he shipped aboard a vessel bound for the new colony of Virginia. They had a successful outward voyage, and returned home without serious mishap until they reached the English Channel, when they were set upon by a French privateer. The fight went against them, and they were boarded and carried back by their French conquerors to St Malo. There, at the hands of the French, the English seamen were treated to such privations and indignities that would make the heart of the bravest quail. ‘We were used with such inhumanity and cruelty that if we had been taken by the Turks we could not have been used worse’ said Robert; and to give some example of the food situation, he declared that for twenty-five men, a day’s rations consisted of six pounds of coarse bread and ‘a bullock’s cheek’, adding that a man who got half a bullock’s eye for his share of the meat had done better than most!

  The privations he had to endure made a deep and lasting impression on him, and only served to strengthen both his courage and his faith in God. He made a vow that if once he regained his freedom, he would never be taken alive again by any man, but most of all by a Frenchman; and he called on his God to witness his vow, confirm his resolution at all times, and assist him in keeping it if ever he were put to the test.