Folklore of Lincolnshire

by Susanna O'Neill

  It was a very common belief that witches could take the shape of different animals; hares, hedgehogs, cats, toads, magpies…even an ox. The certainty that they could shape-shift in this manner was illustrated by many tales across the county and even appeared in superstition. For example, there used to be a conviction in Kirton-in-Lindsey that eggshells should always be fully burnt or broken, so as to stop witches using them as boats to cross the sea. Quite which animal form they took to accomplish this is unclear, but presumably one quite small.

  Daniel Codd mentions the tale of a witch from Dorrington, who used to cause mischief in her village and scared all the locals due to her shape-shifting abilities.8 She was, however, found one day beaten and bloody in her home and the people believed she had been kicked whilst in the shape of a rat.

  There are many stories about witches being hurt whilst in the shape of some animal or other, then when they are seen again in their human form they appear to have the same wound as the animal. Codd uses a witch from Rowston as an example. She was known to use the appearance of a hare to travel around but was one day shot by a local farmer whilst in this disguise. She managed to reach her home, but soon died, in human form, from a gunshot wound in her side.

  The church at Tetford, where a gypsy was supposedly struck by lightning on the church steps. She is said to be buried in the churchyard.

  Another well-known witch from Tetford met a similar fate, as she strayed from her house disguised also as a hare. She was shot at, escaped, but later as a human she was discovered with a gunshot wound.

  Gutch and Peacock tell of a farmer who was having trouble with his pigs, so one day he took a red-hot poker and scored one pig’s back with it.9 Not long after this incident, a woman in the parish apparently died of a sore back.

  On another occasion, a man and his son saw a cat walking in front of them, near Kirton Lindsey. The father knew it to be a witch and so threw a rock at it. The next day, the face of the local witch was heavily bandaged and she died soon after.

  Johnny O’ The Grass was a famous Wise Man who lived near Louth. His powers of shape shifting extended beyond himself to others as well. It is said that one day he was nearing the toll road, near Girsby Hall and was asked to pay a toll for the donkey he was riding. Men went free. Apparently Johnny dismounted and muttered a few words, upon which his donkey turned into a man, and both men walked the toll road free of charge.

  One unusual shape shifter is mentioned in the Lincolnshire Life magazine.10 Set in the days when the Roman Empire was marching its way across Britain, the tale tells of a mounted centurion who was leading his men towards Newport when his horse suddenly stopped for no apparent reason. He dismounted, searching for a cause, checking the horse’s hooves and the ground around, but all seemed well. While he puzzled over it, he plucked a blade of grass from the ground and absentmindedly began to tie it into knots. He tried everything he could think to get his horse moving again but it would not budge and his men were getting restless behind him. Infuriated, he threw the blade of grass onto the ground but when he looked down he was astounded to see, not a blade of grass, but a witch with her hands and feet knotted behind her back.

  Gutch and Peacock mention an old lame man, who was well known in the area around Northorpe for being a wizard.11 The shape he would take was a large black dog. Unfortunately, whilst in this guise, he had the habit of biting farmers’ cattle. One man was said to have seen him doing this and went to shoo him away, only to see the dog transform into the wizard before his very eyes.

  Codd mentions another occasion when a witch at Ludford took a particular dislike to one farm worker, Bob. She was often seen as a white hare, but also a cat and it was this cat that he encountered whilst feeding his horses. She so scared the beasts with her hissing and spitting that they were unable to eat and Bob thought this trouble would earn him a dismissal. His boss, however, believed him and allowed him to place some wicken over the stable door. This tree was often used to ward off or deflect witch’s curses and it appeared to have worked on this occasion too.

  There is a well-known story of the witch who lived in Scamblesby, who was said to attack and curse anyone who disturbed her. One day, three riders passed too closely by her house and out she rushed ready to curse them. She cast a spell on both the first two horses but the third rider was prepared with a branch of wicken. He was thus protected and could carry on his way, unharmed.

  Gutch and Peacock relate a tale of a witch from Grasby whose lover married another woman. She was so distraught that she cursed his cattle, resulting in him losing many of them. He decided he must do something to stop her and so armed himself with some branches of wicken. Whilst he was at home one day, a cat walked into his house and, knowing it was the witch in another form, he chased it around the house until it climbed up the chimney. Wanting to hurt her as he had been hurt, he lit a fire in the grate and scorched the cat badly. Needless to say, the witch died soon after from terrible burns.

  Katherine Briggs reports an interesting story from around the Saxby area about the ghosts of six sailors who used to be seen after their ship had been wrecked. They were sometimes seen at night, sometimes during the day, and their faces were always turned towards the sea. One day, a lady decided to talk to them and called to the skipper, whom she recognised. When he replied, however, his voice merely boomed, like a thunder clap and so she had to tell him, ‘Moderate your speech, for I’m no ’fit to stand it.’12

  Soon after this, his speech became just as it had been when he was alive and he told the woman that the witch, Madge Coutts, who had some kind of grudge against them, had boarded their ship in order to curse them. They tried to knock her overboard but when they finally succeeded, she dived under and boarded the other side in the shape of a huge black ox. She set her large horns to work on the decking until she splintered the wood and the boat went under. What grudge she held against the men is not clear but she seemed to survive the incident, as eye witnesses apparently remembered seeing her on the day of the wreck, entering her own chimney in the form of a grey cat.

  When discussing their curses, Codd describes the story of a witch mentioned by Rudkin, from the Burton-upon-Stather area.13 Apparently she was rather a nasty witch and if ever anyone were to cross her or even irritate her, she would place a curse upon them. The incident of a farmer who was unable to deliver her some milk is mentioned and the witch in question is said to have cursed his cow, promising that it would turn into a bull. Supposedly this did happen and the bull became feral and dangerous. The beast was eventually put down, after trying to charge people and causing injury to itself and others.

  The witch was said to have also cursed another farmer’s whole herd, plaguing the cows with illness. The farmer, however, had a plan to reverse the effects. He chopped seven strands of hair from one of the cows and burnt them at midnight. When the cow began to show signs of improvement, he repeated the ceremony for the rest of the herd and thus saved them from the witch’s curse.

  Another area of interest in Lincolnshire is that of Byard’s Leap, Cranwell. The story depicts Old Meg, a malicious crone, who lived in a cave nearby. This witch was said to curse people, eat human flesh, cause crops to fail and storms to flood the land. All the locals feared her and, as Gutch and Peacock tell us, ‘The dread of her, which weighed on the whole country-side, was so great that at last no one dared to resist her. It was thought that no weapon could wound her, and every attempt to withstand her spells had failed.’14

  Eventually, a retired soldier, or a shepherd in some accounts, came forward claiming he could kill Old Meg by driving a sword through her heart. He needed a swift horse and chose the one that reacted the fastest when he dropped a stone in the pond where the horses were drinking. This horse was blind, known locally as Blind Byard, but his reactions were all the quicker for it. Jennifer Westwood suggests this was a lucky coincidence, as none of the seeing horses would be brave enough to go near the witch, after catching one glimpse of her hideousness.15 She also propo
ses that the idea of Blind Byard is an old one in folklore, possibly connected to the story of the French hero Renaud de Montauban and his magical horse, Bayard, or is even linked to the early fourteenth-century proverbial saying signifying recklessness. Nevertheless, in the story the champion apparently rode Blind Byard to the witch’s cave and called her out. She called back saying she was busy and he’d have to wait, ‘I must suckle my cubs, I must buckle my shoes, and then I will give you your supper.’

  The horseshoes at Byard’s Leap, Cranwell. These four are easily seen in the car park near the garage, but there are four more hidden in the bushes across the way, similarly presented.

  Then she crept up behind him and sunk her long nails into the horse’s rump. The poor beast leapt 60 feet into the air, with the soldier clinging to his back. The horse bounded off but the soldier managed to regain control near the pond where he first chose him. The witch chased them all the way there but he was ready for her and when she reached them, he managed to thrust his sword right through her heart, whereby she fell into the pond, dead. There was much rejoicing in the villages and from thenceforth the place where Blind Byard landed from his gigantic leap was named after him and commemorated with four posts in the ground, adorned by horseshoes. The horseshoes are still visible today.

  Finally, when reflecting on witchcraft of the past in Lincolnshire and elsewhere, one has to take into consideration all the sociological and psychological influences of that particular time to understand why people believed in ideas which we now think to be dangerous ignorance. Widespread superstition can be seen operating in this old Lincolnshire charm, used when the butter did not come as soon as desired:

  Churn, butter, dash,

  Cow’s gone to th’ marsh,

  Peter stands at th’ toll-gate,

  Beggin’ butter for his cake;

  Come, butter, come.

  Three white hairs from a black cat’s tail, put into the churn, is another means of insuring that butter will come. The most common method, however, is to take a pinch of salt and put one half in the churn and throw the other half into the fire.16

  SEVEN

  YELLOWBELLY SAYINGS

  AND SUPERSTITIONS

  Old George from Holton cum Beckering had left his ancient horse and trap outside the local pub whilst he attended to a little fluid business. After an hour or so’s sojourn a young lad popped his head round the door and called out ‘Hey up, George! That hoss o’ yourn’s just fallen down dead in the shafts!’ George looked flabbergasted, with his pot half-way to his mouth: ‘Well dash my buttons,’ he said. ‘Do you know, Matey, ’e’s niver done that afore!’1

  We are all guilty of it at some time in our lives – whether we look at the red sky in the evening and expect good weather the next day or think it is a good sign if a black cat crosses our path. The folk of Lincolnshire are no different and the county is home to a whole wealth of humorous sayings, family remedies, strange superstitions, traditions, beliefs, rituals, luck and weather lore, with the inhabitants being known by the delightful nickname of Yellowbellies.

  Stories linked to nicknames proliferate – whether it be school boys making fun of each other, politicians trying to undermine one another, counties insulting or giving a fond name to another, or even countries nicknaming each other’s inhabitants. In Britain we hear of the Tykes of Yorkshire, the Wiltshire Moonrakers, the Black Army of Llantrisant and, of course, the Lincolnshire Yellowbellies. Mystery surrounds this particular nickname, the exact source being highly debated, and there are variant explanations, even amongst the natives, as to exactly why they have adopted this nickname.

  One is that there is a yellow-bellied frog that is native to the Lincolnshire Fens, but there is also a special eel which lives in the wetlands, which has a particular shade of yellow along its stomach. Some say the name derives from here. Alternatively, Lincolnshire, well known for its sheep farming, is renowned for its yellow-bellied sheep, which graze in the mustard fields and get their coats a dirty shade of yellow. The term could have originated because the waistcoat of the Lincolnshire Regiment’s uniform was yellow and the fastenings, also yellow, were called frogs; a reference to the native Fen frogs perhaps. It was also said that when farm workers were labouring in the sun and stripped off their shirts, that although their backs turned a nice shade of brown their tummies went yellow.

  Another theory concerning the colour of the skin stemmed from the fact that ague (a form of malaria) was prevalent in the Fen country and that the medicine, extracted from poppy heads, turned the skin a yellowy colour. Also, it is said that women trading at market stalls had two pockets in their leather aprons, one pocket for the silver coins and one for gold. If they declared they had a ‘yellow belly’ at the end of the day, it was a sign they had taken plenty of gold. Similarly, it could be that the wealthier farmers would carry gold in a bag around their waists as they travelled to market.

  The Lincolnshire Life magazine suggests the idea could have come from the Coningsby tradition,2 whereby men were served a feast of bacon, ‘tates’, swede, turnip etc, upon an oval-shaped plate with blue edging. Copious amounts of butter adorned the meal and the whole thing was apparently known as ‘a Lincolnshire Yellowbelly on a blue-edged plate’. Whether the saying or the meal came first is unclear.

  There is the story of a poor lass from Ingham who no-one would marry. In the end, her father was so desperate to be rid of the poor girl that he promised that any man who would take her off his hands would receive enough gold sovereigns as would cover her fat belly! Could this be the origin of the nickname? Some say those Fen slodgers, men who made their livings catching fish and fowl in the wetlands, crept around in the mud so much that it turned their bellies yellow!

  Another story in the folk tales of the past tells of a group of ship wreckers from Cleethorpes who one night lured a ship onto the rocks, only to discover the cargo was solely made up of a yellow-coloured flannel material. Unable to sell it on but not wanting it to go to waste, the villagers and townspeople nearby made undergarments from it, thus becoming known as the yellow bellies.

  On a more historical note, some believe the term stems from Ye Elloe Bellie, which has its roots in the name of the rural deanery for the Lincoln Diocese, and is also linked to a Saxon Wapentake, or meeting place, in the area. Perhaps the term derived from the old Lincolnshire mail coach drivers in the 1700s, who always wore long yellow waistcoats, distinguishing them from the drivers of other parts of the country. Or was it to do with the yellow colour of the coaches themselves?

  The quandary as to the real origin of the phrase is part of the charm of the nickname and thankfully so, as the true meaning may never be discovered.

  As well as having an affinity with yellow, Lincolnshire, famous at one time for its woollen cloth and textile industry, was very well known for its Lincoln Green. This is the bright green colour of dyed woollen cloth, through a mixture of using woad – to create a strong indigo – then over dyeing it with weld root, which gives yellow – creating the Robin Hood green we know well.

  Britain is saturated with superstitions and old beliefs concerning birth, marriage, wealth, death, animals and even the weather. Before the invention of television, the fireside was the centre of every household. At night, the family would gather round to keep warm and stories, tales and wisdom would be told and re-told, passing down from generation to generation. This is where much of the old folklore and knowledge came from and it is a shame times have changed so much that this sort of tradition is not a priority for families nowadays. It was so important then that, as the Lincolnshire Life magazine tells us, people in this county would bury items beneath the hearth when the house was being built to ensure good luck and dispel any bad atmosphere.3 Even the fire itself was the source of superstitions: smoke going straight up the chimney meant rain was on its way; blue flames were a sign of frost; and soot falling onto the fender indicated a visitor was coming. Apparently throwing bread onto the fire in Lincolnshire was a bad idea as it
was seen as feeding the Devil.

  There are many superstitions about marriage up and down the country – some of them particular to certain counties, others holding sway the country over. For instance, the colour of the wedding dress is important to all brides, even today. The colour white is the most commonly used and is thought to denote innocence and purity. Green, however, was seen as ill-advised as it was the fairies’ colour and would attract their unwanted attention. Yellow was unpopular, dating from the Middle Ages when slaves and bankrupts were dressed in the colour. Some say this may be why the Nazis forced the Jews to wear a yellow Star of David. Blue, however, is a lucky colour, signifying heaven and constancy, showing the wife will be an honest woman and a hard worker; thus the old saying, ‘Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.’4

  The day and time of year for a wedding is also shrouded in superstition, with many pithy sayings surviving, such as ‘marry in Lent, live to repent’. Another old saying goes, ‘Change the name and not the letter, change for worse and not for better.’

  One old belief, which nearly all married couples adhere to, even today, is to wear the wedding ring on the fourth finger of the left hand. This is because it was thought that this particular finger had a vein running through it which led straight to the heart.

  The confetti ritual in Lincolnshire originated when wheat was thrown, as a symbol of fertility for the newlywed couple. Also there used to be a tradition of the bride wearing a necklace styled in the form of a corn dolly, placed around her neck by her mother on the wedding morning. The groom often wore a small corn dolly in his button hole, attached by his father. This too was used as a symbol of fertility and contentment, the corn dollies being kept by the married couple all their lives. It is said that later, the carrying of carnations was a replacement for the corn dolly.