Folklore of Lincolnshire

by Susanna O'Neill

  One spring day, when the birds were singing and the sun was shining down on the flowers, they shone even more brightly than before, the blue dazzling the beautiful lady, until she begged her sweetheart to fetch some for her. The noble knight loved his lady dearly and dutifully waded into the water to pick her the flowers. However, there was much deep, soft mud on the river bottom and his armour was very heavy in the water. He carried on regardless and made it to the island where he picked her the finest bunch of the blue flowers he could find. Then, holding them high above the water, he began to make his way back to her. He found the way back much harder, his feet, ankles and knees swallowed up in the mud. The current was tearing at his tiring legs and his armour was now so heavy that each step seemed like a thousand. He struggled to get back to her but was sinking rapidly and he realised he would not make it. Holding his head high and the flowers even higher, he called out to her, ‘Forget me not, forget me not, forget me not!’16 Then he was gone, sinking beneath the water, and the last thing she saw was her posy of blue flowers disappearing along with her lover. It is said that even now, on certain spring days, you can hear the sound of a lady crying and her brave knight calling to her.

  Christopher Marlow tells of the story of a Louth girl, Fanny, known as Fan o’ the Fens.17 She was apparently renowned for her beauty and she lived in a cottage with her old widowed mother, near the moor. Her mother had been complaining of being harassed by a magpie that supposedly followed her everywhere, all through the day, repeating every word she said and generally tormenting her. Eventually, she was so perturbed that she asked the Wiseman of Louth to help her. He believed someone had placed a spell on her and called a meeting in her house, in front of the neighbours. He made everyone sit round in a circle and then said that the guilty person would be shown to them when the sleeping cat by the fire awoke and went to sit on their shoulder. Everyone watched with bated breath as, when the cat awoke, it circled round the group and then climbed up Fan’s lap and then onto her shoulder, where it settled, purring contentedly. She was immediately branded a witch and the cat was labelled as her witch’s familiar, sure evidence of her dark arts. Poor Fan o’ the Fens was shunned by all the villagers and even her sweetheart, Simon Girsby, left her for another woman, Rose Hipkin. The lad, however, began to put on weight and everyone noticed that since leaving Fan, he was becoming fatter and fatter. He consulted a white wizard, who told him he was under the spell of a witch and that the witch would be revealed to him that very day, burning.

  On the way home, Simon had to pass by Fan’s house and as he did so, she ran out, covered in flames and screaming for help. She nearly died and was badly burnt but still protested her innocence. The spell seemed to have been lifted from Simon, however, and he was soon as slim as he had ever been.

  People began to notice that Fan’s temperament started to change and she began to play neighbours off against each other, causing trouble and seeming to hate the villagers as much as they hated her. One such neighbour was Thomas Friskney, who had to pass her house every day, but each time his horses refused to go past the cottage, until one day he was so fed up that he shouted a curse on all witches. Fan was seen to overhear him and some time later, Thomas was taken ill with great pain in his chest. It was discovered he had a live snake inside him and the villagers had to use an old method of tempting the snake out with a bowl of fresh milk, as that is the only way to lure a snake out, if you should ever accidentally swallow one, tail first!

  The ruins of Monks Abbey, Lincoln. Found along Monks Road, the abbey once stood beside a leafy lane in open fields, above the deep River Witham. Now the ruins are situated within a housing estate, having being swallowed up by the city.

  It was rumoured that Fan o’ the Fens would regularly fly out on a stick to meet the Devil in the dark marshes when there was a full moon and the people decided to try and catch her in the act. The only drawback was that if one were to see this Devil worshipping on the night of a full moon, it was certain the watcher would die within the year – only a wiseman was exempt from the rule. So, the local wiseman was appointed the task of watching Fan’s house and settled himself in the bushes opposite on the night in question. After a while, he heard voices and chanting coming from an upstairs room, then a window opened and he watched Fan fly out on a broom, followed by numerous other witches. He entered the house and searched her room, finding evidence of Devil worship, and then went back to hide in the bushes. When Fan and the others arrived back at dawn, the wiseman knocked loudly on her door. He pushed past her when she opened it and stormed to her room to catch the others, but the room was empty and all signs of Devil worship had disappeared. Only Fan was left, so he caught her and took her to the local constable. The girl was put on trial, where many gave evidence against her, including the wiseman and Simon Girsby, but it was deemed that there was not sufficient proof to condemn her. She was freed, but some of the villagers and the wiseman were so outraged that they forced their way into her house and took the poor girl to the local pond. There they gave her the ultimatum of either confessing to being a witch, or being plunged into the river. Of course, the girl confessed and said all the allegations against her were true but the villagers were in such a frenzy now that they submerged Fan into the river anyway and nearly drowned her. Then they beat her with sticks and drove her out of the village with warnings never to return. The locals celebrated the expulsion of the witch and Fan o’ the Fens was never seen in those parts again.

  The River Lud, which runs through Louth.

  It was not just the Fens and Marshes that were the source of such treacherous tales. The extensive Lincolnshire coast had its fair share of stories too. Fishing was at one point a huge industry in Lincolnshire. Grimsby was once the largest fish dock in the country and in 1923 it boasted that eight complete train loads of fish were dispatched every day. Some say it was arguably the largest fishing port in the world.

  Being a fisherman was a hard life and there are numerous tragic stories concerning fishermen who have been lost at sea, whole ships never returning and families and widows left behind to mourn the drowned crew.

  A fisherman is a man with the sky

  in his eyes and saltwater in his veins.

  A man who knows that every time

  he leaves his home harbour, he might

  never see it again.

  In tiny vessels they defy,

  the perils of the deep,

  and scan the water’s dreary wastes,

  With eyes that never sleep.18

  One story, however, related in ‘Fish ‘n’ Ships’, tells of Fred Lambert’s close shaves with death at the hands of the monstrous sea. He was only a young lad of sixteen when he began the life of a fisherman. He says it was Christmas morning and their ship was out in a cold North Sea storm and he could see some huge waves coming at him. He didn’t have much time to react and the next thing he knew, the sea had washed him over the side of the ship. Luckily, as he says often happens, the sea washed him back again, whereby the skipper was able to grab him and push him to safety before he went overboard again. He had the courage to go to sea again and, amazingly, the same thing happened to him twice more in the span of his fishing career, again in rough seas and the same skipper hauled him to safety! His wife, Christine told her reaction: ‘Horrified. I was horrified. Though he didn’t tell me for ages. But you get to the stage where if they go over three times they say the sea doesn’t want them…That helps to keep me sane.’

  There are numerous superstitions connected with the fishing life. Christine Lambert was told never to do any washing the day her husband set sail because if she did, it was like washing him away. Another belief was that one should always give silver to a baby. If the baby gripped the coin it meant the fisherman would have a good trip. Dutchy Holland took his three-year-old daughter down to the docks while he went to collect his pay. When they were ready to leave, his daughter began to cry and said she couldn’t walk. Thinking she wanted to be carried, Dutchy went to pick h
er up and found that he could hardly lift the child; her pockets were so full of coins that the fishermen round about had given her.

  Fishermen’s wives believed that it was all right to go and meet their husbands when they came into dock, but it was unlucky to see them off. It was also unlucky for them to wear green. Deep Sea Voices tells of one wife who spent a long time knitting her husband a beautiful green sweater, which he downright refused to take with him for fear of bad luck. Many fishermen’s wives believed it was bad luck to knit at all when their husbands were at sea, as it was believed that in doing so they would snag his net. His catch would then be lost and their livelihood badly affected.

  The Lincolnshire Life magazine tells us that there were quite a few taboo words within the fishing community, which fishermen should not speak whilst they were out at sea.19 Rats were referred to as long tails, rabbits were bob tails and pigs were curly tails. The men also believed it was unlucky to whistle whilst at sea, as it would whistle up a dangerous wind. It was fine to whistle on dry land, or to use the word pig, and this is one theory as to why there are so many pubs named the ‘Pig and Whistle’ along the coast.

  Folklorists Gutch and Peacock talk of a number of superstitions concerning water. In the neighbourhood of Kirton-in-Lindsey, it was believed that no washing ought to be done on Ascension Day, since, if clothes are hung out to dry on Holy Thursday, some member of the family concerned would die. They also state that whenever water is drawn from a well, a little should be thrown back into it. There are many instances throughout Lincolnshire of wells that have healing properties. In Lower Burnham, on the festival of the Ascension, the water in the well was supposed to cure all sorts of deformities and diseases, especially in children. A spring at Burnham was also thought to be able to cure sterility in married women. Another spring at Lincoln was said to cure bad legs and many physical ailments. There are numerous wells that are believed to have the beneficial properties of being able to heal the eyes. A well near Stamford apparently had powers to restore sight to the blind; one near Caistor was supposed to heal diseased eyes. Bathing in the waters of a now-vanished spring at Bottesford healed blindness and other physical complaints, and another at Barnetby-le-Wold healed the diseased eyes of children. My favourite belief is that drinking from the wells at Kirton had the quality of ‘… giving those who drink of it an irresistible desire to live in its neighbourhood.’20

  Fishermen might not agree – after inhaling lung fulls of the stuff out in stormy waters – but the drinking of seawater was once recommended for medicinal purposes. Dubbed ‘Neptune’s Ale’, it was first suggested in the 1600s and still considered beneficial during the late 1700s. Reverend John Wesley himself vowed it was invaluable to help cure swollen glands and recommended drinking seawater every day for a week to help treat shingles. I am not sure how many would want to try it now…

  It was not just the treacherous conditions of the storms and bad weather at sea that fishermen feared. People have been drowned in the mud banks and dangerously soft sand around Mablethorpe, and the stealthy speed of the incoming tide at the Wash has claimed its share of victims too.

  The Wash mud is clammy and cold

  Here King John lost his riches of old –

  This may happen again

  It’s increasingly plain,

  Only this time it’s your and my gold.21

  The legend of King John losing his treasure in the sudden turn of the waters in the Wash is well known. He supposedly misjudged the time of the high tide and had to flee the clutches of the quicksand and treacherous undercurrents, abandoning his gold to the muddy depths. Charles Dickens refers to this unfortunate incident in his A Child’s History of England: ‘Looking back from the shore when he was safe, he saw the roaring water sweep down in a torrent, overturn the wagons, horses, and men, that carried his treasure, and engulf them in a raging whirlpool from which nothing could be delivered.’

  The Wash, where King John is said to have lost his treasure.

  However, beware when searching for the lost treasure, as there is also a story about a beast that dwelt in the deeps off the coast of Mablethorpe. Some kind of sea creature had been spotted off the Brigg at Filey and many thought it then made its way to the Lincolnshire coast. Its appearance has been reported on occasion for numerous years and its description is slightly akin to that of the Loch Ness Monster. Locals tell of a ‘thing’ with a humped back and swift movement through the water.

  Daniel Codd reports another monster that was seen in 1743 in the Fossdyke Wash. Some fishermen apparently caught it, stating that it was 8 feet long, with webbed feet. Ethel Rudkin apparently also mentioned the story of a beast spotted in 1936 in the River Trent. It had large eyes, long shaggy hair and walrus-like tusks!

  Like many other areas of the country, smuggling was, of course, rife for a time along the Lincolnshire coast, as was ship-wrecking. Polly Howat retells the story of the Mary Rose, which set sail from Scotland in 1629, bound for Plymouth.22 When the ship was near the Lincolnshire coast the weather turned stormy. Poor visibility developed, coupled with fierce winds and lashing rain, which was unfortunate for the crew, but just the conditions that some of the inhabitants of Burgh-le-Marsh were waiting for. They had a beacon upon Marsh Hill, which they often lit to lure ships into danger, in order to loot them. However, they decided that on this night, the light would be construed as a warning, so it was better to leave the ship alone in the dark to face the inevitable disaster which would befall it in such a storm.

  The Burgh-le-Marsh beacon, situated next to the church, on a small hill within a field next to the main road.

  The Sexton Guymer, however, felt moved to help the poor wretches and so he took himself off to St Peter’s and locked himself in the belfry. The old man began to ring the great bell, Grandsire Bob, hoping the ship’s crew would hear it and be warned away from the coast. The villagers certainly heard it and ran to the church to stop the old man. They were furious but, hard as they tried, they were unable to break into the church. Guymer pulled and pulled on the bell and managed to keep ringing Grandsire Bob for a whole hour. The warning was heeded by the crew of the Mary Rose and they managed to steer away from the danger. When the villagers finally broke the church door down they found poor Guymer dead, still grasping onto the bell rope as if continuing his mission in death. Legend states that the captain returned to the village the following year to express his thanks for saving his life. When he learnt the truth, he apparently bought an acre of land in Orby Field, which he named Bell String Acre, and with the money he earned in rent he bought a new silken rope for Grandsire Bob.

  As well as ship wreckers and actual monsters, there have been some terrible monster storms which have devastated the coastline along Lincolnshire. One of the worst was the great storm of January 1953, in Mablethorpe, which claimed forty-one lives within just a few short hours. The Book of the Lincolnshire Seaside mentions the sad tale of four elderly people who were amongst the forty-one drowned. Annie Millward had made a prior arrangement with her neighbours that they could ring the bell connected between their houses if they ever needed help. On that fateful day, however, Annie herself was marooned and could only listen in horror as the bell’s insistent ringing grew quiet.

  The sea was not the only water to be feared, as the tragedy of the Louth flood shows. On a rainy day, 29 May 1920, the usually peaceful River Lud broke its banks and caused a catastrophic flood in the town. Meteorologists suggested the cause was a ‘cloud burst’ some six miles away, which had then swept down the valley gathering such momentum that within half an hour of the Lud breaching its banks, it had risen to an unbelievable 15 feet above its usual level. Houses were swept away, bridges toppled, people were trapped and twenty-three died in the flood that day, including children. In one tragic incident a mother was trapped with her four young children. She apparently lifted three of them onto the kitchen dresser then climbed up herself with her baby in her arms. As the water level rose, she hung on to a hook in the ceiling
and the three young ones clung onto her dress, until one by one they could no longer hold on and they were swept out of her grasp, only to drown before her very eyes. The mother and baby were rescued sometime later. There is a memorial stone in the town cemetery to all those who lost their lives, reading, ‘Let not the waterflood overwhelm me, neither let the deep swallow me up.’

  The memorial stone to commemorate those who lost their lives during the Great Flood of Louth, 1920.

  There was a time when the Fens were often flooded and after a few days the area looked as it had before it was drained. It happened so often that there were flood laws that everyone adhered to, which Katherine Briggs relates in Barrett’s Tales of the Fens. The laws stated that anything found floating in the flood waters had to be taken to Stack’s Hill at Southery, where the owners would be able to find it. If it had not been claimed after a certain time then those who had found it could claim it for their own. Also, if anyone was found robbing a house the penalty was quite severe; their boat would be smashed to pieces and the robbers left in the flooded house for a week, starving. They could try and swim away but, if not, a boat would come by in a week to pick them up, if they were still alive: ‘This law was kept so well that a man could leave his watch on the mantelshelf and know it would still be there when he went back for it.’23

  It was also stated that no man should go out alone in a boat and this was a rule created after an unpleasant incident had occurred. A man had been flooded out and rowed back to his house, but when he arrived he disturbed two gypsies robbing his home. His boat was found the next day and when a search for him was organised, he was found sitting in his bedroom with an axe in his skull.