The Book of English Folk Tales

by Sybil Marshall

  Superstitious as the country folk were, they could not but regard this as some further omen that all was not as it should be. The young lady concerned retired from the case, however, so Joan and Richard were re-buried and eventually the gossip dwindled to subdued muttering. The tragic tale was at last relegated to a yarn for the winter firelight, or with which to regale strangers who asked about the presence of the gibbet on Broadway Hill.

  And so two years passed. Then, one evening in the autumn dusk as the widow of William Harrison was preparing for her evening meal, the door of her house opened – and in walked her husband, large as life.

  Like grass rippling before an east wind the news of his return swept from house to house and from village to village, till it reached Gloucester, where, as it happened. Sir Robert Hyde was once again in session at the assizes. The rumour reached the judge’s ears. He was told that it had been brought to town by a man who had actually seen the resurrected steward with his own eyes. The judge flew instantly into the most passionate fury, and calling his servant, sped him to find the witness and bring him to the court at once. The servant was successful in finding the man, who went willingly enough to tell Sir Robert what he knew, but he was given no chance; before he could open his mouth the judge poured down a tirade of wrath upon him for disturbing the peace, and committed him there and then to jail. History does not relate the rest of that innocent participant’s fate.

  William’s return caused excitement and consternation everywhere, it seemed, except on the Campden estate. There he was simply reinstated into his old job, and calmly took on his life again where he had left off. Others – in fact, everybody else – wanted to know where he had been for two whole years. What he told his wife and family, no one will ever know; but the story he put about for public consumpton was colourful to the point of being preposterous, and set tongues wagging again from one end of Gloucestershire to the other.

  What had happened, he said, was as follows. He had been trudging home with Lady Juliana’s rents in his pocket when three horsemen suddenly loomed up out of the dusk, set upon him, bound him, and carried him off on horseback.

  They travelled eastward across the country day and night till they reached the port of Deal, in Kent. There they sold him to a ship’s captain, and left him aboard the ship. (Remembering that he was, at the time, already seventy years of age, one can but wonder why the ship’s captain was ready and willing to pay cash down for such a bargain!)

  The ship put to sea almost at once, and voyaged for about six weeks, during which time, it appears, Harrison made the discovery that other kidnapped prisoners were also on board. Then came the day when their vessel was attacked by Turkish pirates, and after a battle, they were boarded. The Turks seized the kidnapped prisoners, and bore them off to their own ships, where they were stuffed into the hold and had no idea in which direction they were proceeding. However, they came to land at last, where William was sold again, as a slave, to a Turkish physician. This worthy, who lived ‘close to Smyrna’ was already eighty-seven years of age, and had, it seemed, once visited England – which accounted for the fact that he was able to converse with his aged English slave. The new slave was given the task of keeping his Turkish master’s still, and as a reward, was allowed ‘a solid silver bowl, double gilt’ to drink out of.

  In this manner, he passed two years. Then his aged owner died, and the resourceful though aged Harrison took the opportunity to run away. He made his way successfully to the coast, bearing with him his drinking bowl, which turned out to be lucky for him. A vessel lay in port, with sailors from Hamburg standing watch. He approached them, and bribed them with his silver-gilt drinking bowl to stow him away on their ship. (It would be interesting to know in what language this transaction was carried out.) The ship was bound for Lisbon, at which port the stowaway in time duly arrived. He got ashore there without being detected, and almost at once had another extraordinary stroke of luck. He made the acquaintance of a fellow Englishman, whose heart was so wrung with compassion at his tale that he offered at once to pay his passage back to England, and promptly secured it. So from Lisbon back to Dover William came as a free man, and from Dover he set off to walk to Gloucestershire, arriving home two years older but apparently no worse in any other way for his incredible adventure.

  The tale was obviously as full of improbabilities as a colander is full of holes, but his true whereabouts during the two years of his absence never did come to light. No public question of his honesty or credibility was ever raised. He had been a worthy and respected citizen before he disappeared, and once reinstated into the Lady Juliana’s service with no questions asked, he became once more, and continued to be till he died, a worthy and respected citizen. The awful consequences of his absence, whether it was voluntary or forced, seemed never to have been held against him by anybody.

  There were two other consequences of his return, however. One was that the body of poor John Perry was taken down from the gibbet, and what was left of it given a Christian burial, since it had been proved beyond all doubt that he was no murderer after all. The other was that a few days after her husband’s return from the supposed grave, his ‘snotty, covetous, presbyterian wife’ hanged herself in her own kitchen.

  As to why – well, as a man called Wood wrote in his journal when recounting the event at the time, ‘the reader is to judge’. In other words, one man’s guess about the truth of the whole affair is as good as any other’s, but the story has endured, a wonder for three hundred years and more, instead of the nine days proverbially allotted to such disturbances of the rural English peace.

  The Boar of Eskdale

  The association of the ceremony concerning ‘The Penny Hedge’ at Whitby with the huge boar of Eskdale has caused this tale of medieval England to be remembered and known more widely than many others of the same type.

  There was a time, way back in years past, when all the Forest of Eskdale belonged to the monks who lived in St Hilda’s monastery at Whitby. The abbot there was a proud and powerful man, so they say – one who kept his monks in order, and who wouldn’t put up with any trespassing on his lands or his rights. He was a friend of the king of that time, and he ruled his own bit of Yorkshire as if he were a king himself.

  But the hunting in Eskdale Forest was good, and the knights who lived thereabouts couldn’t see why it should all belong to the abbot. They very often had good sport there, with nobody much the wiser.

  Then tales began to get about concerning a huge old boar that had given a lot of them a good chase and several nasty injuries before giving them the slip as well. It was bigger than any wild boar they’d ever set eyes on before, so clever and so ferocious that even to see it was nearly enough to put a man off his aim; and try as they might, nobody had ever succeeded in wounding it, let alone being able to claim the credit of killing it. It was a challenge Yorkshire men of spirit simply could not resist.

  The forest was wide, and apart from the few peasants tending their swine on the outskirts of it, and the huntsmen engaged in the chase now and again, few people were to be seen there. So when one of the monks of Whitby decided to become a hermit, and spend the rest of his life by himself praying and praising God, he begged the abbot to let him leave the monastery and set himself up with nothing but a little hut of his own among the trees in the depths of the forest. The abbot gave his consent, and away the monk went. He built himself the simple little dwelling he had dreamed of, and added to it a tiny chapel, so that he could kneel at the altar hour after hour to say his offices and pour out his prayers.

  One October day, when the trees were gold and the sunlight was golden and men felt it was good to be alive, three local knights set out on the chase, and decided to go after the boar in Eskdale forest. There was William de Bruce and Ralph de Piercie, but the third must have been a man of less importance, because nobody has bothered to remember his name.

  They had good sport, and very soon had the luck to rouse the famous boar from its lair. Experienced
huntsmen they were, all three, and they pursued it with all the skill and courage they could muster. The sound of their horns rang loud through the trees, and their hounds baying with excitement made a real uproar. Several times the men came within striking distance of the beast, and at last they managed to stick it with their spears; they could see the boar was severely wounded, but it still managed to get away, and ran squealing among the trees.

  The hullabaloo of men shouting, dogs baying, horns sounding and the boar squealing reached the ears of the hermit, where he was kneeling before his altar in the tiny chapel. Getting up from his knees, he went to the door of the chapel and opened it wide, to see what was causing the racket. Coming straight towards him was the most horrible beast he had ever seen – the great old boar, enraged with pain, with blood streaming from its sides and dripping from its mouth and nostrils. Its blood-shot eyes were fixed right on him, and its huge tusks were lowered as if it were going to charge. The poor old hermit retreated inside his chapel and ran towards the altar, but he wasn’t quick enough to shut the door. He was standing with his back to the altar when the breast crashed through the door, and rushed towards him. When it reached him, it stopped in its tracks and stood gazing up at him as if it were pleading with him, and then sank down at his feet as quiet as a backyard pig might have done. The hermit could hear the huntsmen getting closer. The hoofbeats of their horses, and their yells told him they were nearly upon him. He leapt over the panting animal, and ran to the door just as the huntsmen reined in their horses, while the hounds stood pointing and baying their heads off at the scent of their quarry coming from the chapel.

  The huntsmen, sweating and angry, asked if he had seen the boar.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘It has taken sanctuary in here, in the Lord’s house.’

  ‘Get out of the way then, and give us leave to finish it off,’ said one of them.

  The hermit shook his head. ‘You cannot break the laws of sanctuary in God’s house,’ he said. ‘I’ll have no killing here.’

  ‘Sanctuary,’ said another, scornfully. ‘It isn’t a man in there! It’s only a beast. It is ours, anyway, because we know we wounded it. Out of the way, baldhead!’

  The hermit stood firm. ‘Beast it may be, but it is not yours. It is God’s creature, and has yielded itself to His, and my protection. You shall not come in!’

  ‘Out on you, for a prating old fool,’ said another one of the knights, scarlet with rage, and raising his spear in threat.

  ‘Out on you for cruel, heedless sinners!’ replied the priest, and stretched out his arms across the door to bar their way.

  Then the three men lost their tempers altogether and their reason as well and began to strike furiously at the helpless hermit. They cut him down where he stood, till he was only a bloodstained heap at the door of his own little cell, and then they rushed inside. The boar was dead. They had been cheated of their kill after all.

  They cursed and stamped with fury, until suddenly their passion cooled, and it came over them just what they had done. Their quarry was dead, but so was the hermit. They were in a mort of trouble themselves now, because they knew they could expect no mercy from the Abbot of Whitby.

  ‘Sanctuary!’ gasped one of them, wheeling his horse.

  ‘Where?’ asked the others.

  ‘Scarborough!’ And away they went, as fast as ever they had followed the chase, towards Scarborough, where, if they could but get into the church, they would be safe for forty days. After that, they would either have to submit to the king’s justice, or abjure the realm, according to whatever the coroner decided; but there would perhaps be time in forty days for powerful friends to help.

  The noise of the chase had, it seems, reached other folk’s ears, and it was not long before the brothers at Whitby were told what had happened to the hermit. They went out to bring in his body, and found that though he was mortally wounded, he was not yet dead. So they carried him back to the monastery, where he told his story.

  The abbot was more than angry. He made up his mind that there should be no question of mercy for the three knights huddled in the church at Scarborough, once the days of sanctuary were over. They were murderers, and what is more, murderers of a holy man of God. There could be only one penalty, and that was death. The abbot appealed to the king, whose ‘crowner’ would hear their case. He demanded that the crowner’s decree should be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a death for a death.

  But the hermit, in spite of all the skill of the monks, was dying. He asked to see the abbot, and with his last breath pleaded for mercy and forgiveness for his killers.

  ‘I follow my Master,’ he said. ‘Didn’t He say, on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?” Grant me the lives of these three; but make a condition that they do a yearly penance, for the rest of their lives, so that they don’t forget.’ The abbot agreed to please the dying man, and the hermit died content.

  So the penance was fixed, in this way. Every year, at Ascensiontide, while they lived (and their successors for all time after them) they had to enter the forest at sunrise, and receive from a servant of the abbey ten stakes, ten stout poles (stowers) and ten branches (yedders) apiece, all cut with a penny knife. Then each had to take the load upon his own back to the sands at Whitby, and there at low water each had to build a hedge. Each stake had to be a yard from the next, and they had to yedder them with yedders (that is, intertwine them with branches), and so stake each side of the hedge with stout stowers that the hedges would stand firm for three tides without being washed away.

  ‘This they, and their successors, shall do for ever in memory of their crime; and the better to call this deed to remembrance, one shall sound a horn, and another cry, “Out on you, out on you, out on you!” And if they, or their successors, fail thus to build a hedge that shall withstand three tides, the lands they now hold shall be forfeit to the Abbey of Whitby.’

  Such was the abbot’s penance, and so it was performed.

  Fabulous Beasts

  Fabulous Beasts

  Dragons are a part of folklore that over the years have been allotted more and more to children’s books and stories. There is no doubt, however, that they were once both believed in and mightily feared by grown-up people. One medieval source seriously promulgates the theory that dragons were responsible for outbreaks of plague by polluting water supplies with their sperm as they flew over the lakes and rivers at night! To class a mermaid as a ‘fabulous beast’ is perhaps unfair – but into what other category could she go?

  The Devil’s Own

  A story from Hertfordshire of a more than usually ferocious dragon that had the distinction of being Old Nick’s pet.

  Jack o’ Pelham (in Hertfordshire) was one of those who could never quite tell his neighbours’ belongings from his own. It wasn’t exactly that he was a thief, but when he saw that somebody else had something he could find a good use for, he’d turn it over in his mind till he could make himself believe he had as much right to it as the next; and after that, it was only for lack of a good opportunity if he didn’t soon come by it somehow. There’s a good many folks like that. There was a chap once who took a fancy to a cat he saw one day in a pub where he’d called. Not even any special sort of cat, it wasn’t, but for some reason he liked it. And the more he thought about it, the more it seemed to him that nobody ought to be able to lay claim to a common thing like an old cat. He went to no end of trouble to set up a reason for going that way again with his pony and trap – about thirty miles each way, it would be. Then when the landlady of the pub had gone out the back, he stuffed the too-friendly pussy into a sack, and made off with it. When he got home, his wife was anything but pleased, and kept telling him that one of these days he’d be found out, and serve him right. The cat didn’t like its new quarters, or its new owner, either, and led them all a proper old dance before the police arrived to take it home. Fined, he was, that time, and the magistrate had to admit he couldn’t understand why anyb
ody would be such a fool as to lose his reputation by stealing a cat! Not that that particular fellow had much of a character left to lose, as it happened. Perhaps Jack o’ Pelham hadn’t, either.

  Anyway, one bright moonlight night, when he was right out of firing for his hearth, he remembered seeing some lovely faggots of wood, all cut and tied up ready to carry, in one of his neighbour’s fields a little way away. And he couldn’t see that it was right for him to be cold when it was plain that his neighbour had more firing than he wanted, else why should it be left lying where it was? So off he went, though the moon was as bright as day, and helped himself to the biggest faggot. All God-fearing folk by this time were in bed, so he wasn’t afraid of meeting anybody.

  He’d nearly got home, when he began to feel the weight of the bundle on his back, though he’d been used to carrying things that way all his life. It got so heavy that more than once he had to stop for a breather; and at last it felt like a ton weight, and he just couldn’t hold it another minute. In fact, it knocked him down, and he fell flat on his face with the faggot on top of him. And when he struggled to get up again, he could see that he wasn’t alone any longer. There, in front of him, was another man, leaning right over him, so that Jack could have touched him. A great big man this was, with huge, broad shoulders and hair hanging down around them. In the bright moonlight, Jack could see the sword in the big fellow’s hand; but the look on the chap’s face was so fierce and fiery that Jack swooned right away, and when he came to, he left the faggot lying where it was and legged it home as fast as his nimble pair of heels would carry him.

  ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘I knowed who it was the minute I see him. Ol’ Piercy Shonkey, that was, come back to get me, as if I were another o’ the Devil’s own!’