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East Yorkshire is ripe with tales of fairy gold and illusive characters. The county's folklore is engrained in every port, cliff and bridge, passed on through whispered accounts of witches long dead, legends of strange creatures or the bawdy tales of adventuring heroes. Filey Brigg was once a dragon, the people of Skinningrove held a merman captive, and Eskdale's Beggar's Bridge holds a love story in its history. By night a mysterious traveller stalked Bowes Moor, with a shrivelled Hand of Glory in his grasp … These engaging stories, brought to life with charming illustrations, will be enjoyed by readers time and again.
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Seitenzahl: 256
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
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I would like to thank all my supportive friends, including Dr Charles Kightly and my partner Chris, who was forced to listen to me telling the stories.
Title
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 ANIMALS
How Filey Got its Brig
The Witch Hare
The Drain Frog
The Hare and the Prickly Backed Urchin
2 THESEA
Sea Folk
The Staithes Mermaids
Robin Hood Turns Fisherman
Beggar’s Bridge
The Press Gang
3 HOLYFOLK
King Edwin and the Temple of Woden
Hild and the Snakes
Caedmon
A Miracle Too Far?
4 ODDITIES
Good Vittles
Saltersgate Inn
The Flying Man
The White Powder
Village Stereotypes
5 THEOTHERSIDE
Medieval Ghost Stories
The Baby in a Shoe
The Tailor and the Wayside Ghost
The Three Roses
Five White Pebbles
The Fairy Cup
The Screaming Skull
Jeannie o’ Biggersdale
The Drumming Well
6 VILLAINY
The Babe in the Wood
The Penny Hedge
The Milking Stool
Peggy Flaunders
The Hand of Glory
Cruel Peg Fyfe
Regin the False-Hearted
About the Author
Copyright
Yorkshire is a huge county that, like Caesar’s Gaul, was once divided into three parts (Thridings → Thirdings → Ridings). The traditional ridings were eliminated in one of the twentieth century’s infamous boundary changes, but though there is once again an East Riding of Yorkshire – an heroic tale in itself – I have chosen to include stories from the whole East Yorkshire coastal strip (parts of which are now technically in North Yorkshire), as they seem to belong together. If you have read North Yorkshire Folk Tales and missed tales from Whitby or Scarborough, you will find them here.
East Yorkshire has borne the brunt of a lot of English history: Anglo-Saxon and Viking invasions, the Harrying of the North, the Pilgrimage of Grace, press gangs, pirates and the Luftwaffe. Its people are tough, unsentimental and independent, its stories downbeat and unromantic, often with a sly, bubble-pricking humour.
As readers may be more familiar with York and the Dales, a very brief description of East Yorkshire might be useful. First there are the Wolds, high areas of chalk, similar to the South Downs. It was mostly rough grazing until the nineteenth century, so there are few villages and even fewer traditional stories, though the landscape is full of prehistoric burial mounds and dykes.
To the south-east of the Wolds is Holderness, flat, rich, agricultural land, much of which has been reclaimed from the huge Humber Estuary. It includes Spurn Point at the mouth of the Humber, ever-changing as storms and the laying down of river silt modify its shape.
The east coast, which stretches from the Humber up to the Tees, was once a place of little fishing villages (with some alum mining near Whitby), but its inhabitants have mostly given up the struggle of making a living from fish and now rely on a healthy tourist industry which exploits their stormy smuggling past.
NB: Translations of the Anglo-Saxon verses and the illustrations were done by myself.
Ingrid Barton, 2015
The seaside town of Filey once straddled the boundaries of the East and North Ridings. They joined at the edge of a small ravine. The church at the top of the north side was in the North Riding and the town to the south in the East Riding. (It was a local joke to say that someone had moved to the North Riding when they had, in fact, died.) It must have been in this very gully that the dragon in the following story lived.
Once there was a dragon who lived in a deep ravine in Filey. Few people cared to live anywhere near him except an old woman, Mrs Greenaway, who inhabited a cottage in the woods above. She was what people called a ‘gifted’ woman – a white witch – so the dragon didn’t bother her, even though he was becoming hungrier and hungrier all the time because the local farmers had moved their sheep a long way back from the sea coast so that he couldn’t get them.
On the other side of the ravine lived Billy Biter. He was a travelling tailor. When his mother had been alive, his little cottage had been the most welcoming in the area, with a kettle on the boil over a good fire, old Tom Puss washing himself in the chimney corner, and a warm welcome for anyone who cared to drop in for a gossip. In those days folk would fetch water and chop logs for Mrs Biter when Billy was away on his tailoring work, and Mrs Greenaway kept an eye on her as well.
But when Mrs Biter died everything changed for the worse.
Poor old Billy! He didn’t have time to cook or keep house for himself – even if his mother had bothered teaching him. He was run off his little legs with work, travelling to farms and big houses making clothes for weddings or funerals. Coming home to the cold dark cottage made him miserable; he missed his mum more and more.
In those days there was only one sure solution recommended for improving this state of affairs: marriage. Encouraged by his neighbours, Billy, whose knowledge of women was decidedly limited, jumped into the matrimonial state with both feet, and his eyes shut. He married the first woman who would have him: Hepzibah. She was six foot if she was an inch, broad in the beam as a Filey coble and the village drunk to boot. She was a mean, slovenly, bullying sort of woman; a slattern who always carried a huge tarred leather mug called a blackjack, which could be used for hitting people as well as holding gin or beer or whatever she could get. If Billy had expected her to turn magically into his mother, one week of living with her must have taught him his mistake. No food, no fire, just a great lump of a wife sprawled out drunk over the threshold.
Folk were sorry, of course, because Billy was well liked. ‘I reckon Hepzibah married ’im because his cottage is only half a mile from t’pub,’ they said, shaking their heads. Too late to warn him now and anyway none of them was up for interfering: they feared the blackjack!
Every day Hepzibah would stagger down the hill to the pub, and every evening Billy would came home to a cold and cheerless house. He would then have to chop firewood and light the fire to boil water. He’d have a bit of a sweep around while old Tom Puss had a few minutes warm in the chimney corner and then he’d fetch the wheelbarrow and go to look for his wife. He’d find her somewhere on the path, asleep on the ground with the blackjack empty next to her. She was a big weight for a tired little man to push back up the hill, but it was just as bad if she actually made it home because she would fall asleep in Billy’s mother’s old chair, skirt up round her knees, drool coming out of her mouth, and Billy would have to tiptoe around trying not to wake her. He and Tom Puss, who also kept a watchful eye on her, knew that if she woke up she’d most likely be after them both with the broom, and she could run – even when drunk – much faster than Billy with his weak little tailor’s legs. On those nights they’d be out of the door and up on the roof faster than you could say ‘misery’ as soon as they saw her stirring.
One cold windy night, old Mrs Greenaway was in her little house in the wood, looking out of her window, when she saw Billy and Tom Puss up on the roof, huddling around the chimney pot for warmth. She shook her head. (Down in the gully the dragon gave a great groan of hunger, though he didn’t stir out.)
The next night was the same. Hepzibah was sprawled over the threshold this time, so, rather than risk stepping over her, Billy and Tom Puss went up on to the roof and sat there in the rain. Mrs Greenaway frowned. (The dragon groaned again, louder this time; a great groan that shook the ground.)
On the third night – it was a cold foggy one – the folk at the farm where Billy was making clothes gave him a good Yorkshire tea and he put a bit in his pocket for Puss. The farmer’s wife, seeing him with a face as long as a fiddle, felt sorry for him because he’d always been such a merry little soul who sang at his work, laughed often and danced well, so she made him up a nice pack of food to take home. The famer bound a dry faggot of wood on top to save him work when he got home.
‘If Hepzibah can’t be bothered to cook, tha’ll have to find time to do it thasen,’ said the farmer. ‘So think on, lad. Now, the pack’s a bit heavy, but still it’s lighter than the wheelbarrow, eh?’
Billy thanked them and, with the pack on his back, trudged off into the fog, wondering with dread what sort of mood Hepzibah would be in. Her kind moments were just as alarming as her angry ones. She would take him on her knee and bounce him like a baby, saying that he was her darling little man, and giving him beery kisses.
Billy was thinking about this when he smelt the most delicious smell wafting through the trees (he was walking through Mrs Greenaway’s wood at the time). The smell was so rich and sweet that he found himself drawn out of his way, right up to her door.
‘Come in! Come in! Billy Biter,’ she said, ‘you and your pack. Hepzibah wouldn’t be wanting them. Hand them over.’
This was a bit of a surprise, but she’d been kind to his mother and she was old herself, so he handed over the pack, thinking with regret of the food in it. Mrs Greenaway didn’t open it though, she just shook something like flour over it and put it down on the floor of the kitchen.
‘I’ve been baking. Can you smell my parkin? I’ll give you a mouthful to warm your way home.’ She cut a huge slice from the big square parkin on the hearth (Oh! That smell!) and gave it to him. Down in the gully the dragon smelt it too, and roared.
‘Now here’s a bit for Tom Puss as well. Look, I’ll wrap it up in clean leaves. And this bit HERE – this bit is for Hepzibah – only Hepzibah, mind you, no one else. I’ll put it in your pack. Now off you go and sleep well tonight.’
Billy went off, full of good food, with his own slice of parkin warming his hands. He fell into a happy dream, imagining that Hepzibah might have decided to cook a hot meal for once. This pleasant fantasy so occupied his mind that he mistook his way in the fog and stepped right over the edge of the dragon’s gully. Down he fell arsey-versey, almost down the dragon’s throat. He landed on his pack, which was just as well because the ground was red-hot where the dragon had been grumbling and roaring. When he looked up there was a big round red light next to him. It blinked.
‘THAT’SMYEYEYOU’REPOKINGYOURWOODINTO!’ said the dragon. ‘LET’SHAVEALOOKATYOU.IALWAYSLIKETOSEEWHATI’MEATING!’ The dragon squirmed around, sniffing poor Billy, who dropped his slice of parkin and put up his hands to ward him off.
‘WHAT’STHAT?’ Out of the dragon’s mouth came a huge, long, hot, red tongue and gallolloped up the parkin. It stuck delightfully to his teeth, and the taste made his scales rattle with pleasure.
‘EEAH!’ said the dragon, dropping sticky saliva all over Billy. ‘WHATDOYOUCALLTHAT?
‘P-p-parkin!’ Billy was still lying on his back like a big beetle. He could smell the wood of the faggot beginning to char.
‘P-P-PARKIN?GETMEMORE!IMUSTHAVEMORE!’ At that very moment a crumb of parkin tickled the dragon’s nose and he sneezed so hard that he blew Billy clean out of the ravine and right on to the top of his own roof, giving Tom Puss a nasty shock. Billy grabbed the chimney pot for balance, but as he did so the charred rope that held his pack broke. Down the chimney tumbled all the food and the faggot as well, landing on the dying ashes of the fire. It narrowly missed the head of Hepzibah who was snoring on the hearth, her shoelaces undone, her greasy skirts all anyhow and her great blackjack still clutched in her hand. The smell of the parkin floated delightfully through the house. It floated up the nose of Hepzibah and her red-rimmed eyes opened. What was that? She hauled herself up and looked around. Stuff had fallen down the chimney. There lay a great big slice of parkin, the one Mrs Greenaway had said was specially for her, its leaf wrappings gaping temptingly open! She grabbed it and stuffed it into her mouth. How delicious it was!
The faggot in the ashes began to crackle and burn up brightly. In its light Hepzibah saw the parcel of food and hauled it out. She stared blankly at it. Where had it come from? Then the penny dropped and she shouted up the flue ‘You come down here, Billy! I know you’re up there! What do you mean by throwing cake at your poor wife? – What sort of cake is it, anyway?’
Billy came down from the roof carefully, but not Tom Puss: he knew when he was well off.
‘It’s p-parkin. Mrs Greenaway made it.’
‘Parkin!’ screamed Hepzibah. ‘You let another woman cook you parkin! I’ll give you parkin, you limp little excuse for a man! What does that old witch know about making parkin? Make parkin for my husband, will she? I’ll show her! Get out the pig trough!’
Billy dragged the old pig trough into the house, terrified of what might happen next. However, after his accidental trip to the dragon’s gully he was so dazed that he did all Hepzibah demanded in a sort of dream. She took a big bag of oatmeal from the storeroom and emptied it all into the trough. Then she rummaged around, knocking things hither and thither, trying to collect together ingredients for a parkin. They didn’t have most of them but she didn’t care, flinging all sorts of stuff into the pig trough. Then she threw off her old muddy shoes, jumped up into the trough and began to knead the dough with her grimy feet.
Billy looked on with his mouth open, and even Tom Puss up on the chimney stared down the flue with his fur all on end. They had seen Hepzibah in a rage before but never such a strange one. She jumped and thumped and paddled and stamped, shouting rude things about Mrs Greenaway all the while, until the dough was well mixed. Then she leapt from the trough and, dragging a huge baking sheet to the fire, she tipped the whole mess of dough out on to it, where it flopped into a sort of round cake as big as a cartwheel.
‘Parkins is allus square,’ Billy muttered, but he took care not to be heard.
Almost immediately something began to happen, something strange. The lump of dough began to rise just as if it had been properly made. It also began to cook at an amazing rate. In five minutes it was completely done and there it lay, big, round and brown, smelling rich and strange.
Hepzibah hauled it off the fire, not a single burn on it, and rolled the enormous thing across the room and pushed it out of the door.
‘I’ll show Mrs Greenaway how to make parkin, the old hag!’ screamed Hepzibah, the light of madness in her eyes. ‘And then I’ll take the broomstick to you, my lad!’
As she crossed the threshold she tripped on one of her discarded shoes and lost her grip on the parkin. It began to roll down the hill.
‘No!’ shrieked Hepzibah, ‘Come back here!’ She picked herself up and ran after it. Her cries brought all the villagers out of their houses to see what was happening. There was the parkin bowling along down towards the ravine with Hepzibah staggering behind. At the edge of the ravine the parkin’s mad career was halted for a moment as it hit a bush, but Hepzibah ran straight on clear over the edge and right into the hopeful dragon’s mouth. GULP!
‘THATWASN’TVERYTASTY!’ remarked the dragon with a cough, but just then the parkin dislodged itself from the bush and rolled into the gully right at the dragon’s feet. ‘COR!’ he said and chomped at it with his big white teeth. Unfortunately they immediately became so stuck fast in it that he couldn’t open his mouth.
Now when the villagers saw that, they thought it was a golden opportunity to get rid of the dragon once and for all. They all ran home and got their knives and axes and scythes and pitchforks and anything else they could lay their hands on. Then they ran back and tried to get down into the dragon’s ravine. It was full of the fire that spurted through the dragon’s teeth as he wrestled with the parkin. Even the rocks were too hot to climb on. But just then the dragon saved them the trouble by deciding to wash the parkin off in the sea. Spreading his wings he suddenly launched himself out of the ravine and kep-plopped himself down into the water. The villagers ran after him and, as soon as his head was underwater, they hit him again and again until he breathed in water and drowned.
When the victorious villagers marched back from the shore singing and rejoicing, they found the door to Billy’s house open, everything clean and bright; a fine fire was burning on the hearth with a nice square parkin baking in front of it. Old Tom Puss was washing himself in the chimney corner and sitting at a scrubbed table with good food in front of him, was Billy. Mrs Greenaway was sitting placidly knitting in old Mrs Biter’s chair by the fire. She nodded at them, but said nothing. From that day on she looked after Billy herself.
Out in the sea the dragon’s body slowly hardened into stone. Folk nowadays call it Filey Brig.
Bad times throw up witches as rotten meat breeds flies. They are everywhere, friends, not kindly nature worshippers but malevolent haters of everything good. Harvests, animals, children, all are vulnerable to the witches’ spite and demonic power. Who are the witches? It is often hard to be certain, but keep an eye on the outsiders, the ones who do not conform, the strange, the deformed, the sharp-tongued. Who else would wish us such harm? Who else would try to destroy so wantonly the wonderful world God has created for us? Watch your neighbours carefully, friends, and you will see the signs, catch the evil glance that brings murrain down on your cattle, hear the muttered spell as you pass.
Above all watch for the familiar spirits who appear in the form of animals: Mother Jenkins has a cat cleverer than any right cat should be; old Toby talks to crows; the hunchback who lives near the wood has a pet toad.
But that is not the worst of it, for witches themselves can turn into animals.
There was once a new plantation in Eskdale that was being destroyed by hares, a great quantity of hares, who nibbled off the tops of the little trees. The owner organised shooting parties to get rid of them, but there was always one that got away and it seemed to the hunters that each time it was the same hare.
The owner laid snares and sat up night after night trying to catch that last one, but without success. She set off the snares unharmed and even dodged bullets. It was clear to him that she must be a witch.
He discussed it with his friends and they all came to the conclusion that they should consult the Wise Man (a holy person, untainted by witchcraft, most thought him, though others felt that he pried too much into God’s secrets).
They took him a present of honey and begged him to help them with a witch hare. He stroked his long white beard. ‘The matter is easy,’ he said. ‘Give me a silver coin.’
He broke the coin into pieces. ‘Load these pieces into your gun and shoot the hare with them. Silver bullets are a sovereign remedy for witches of all sorts.’
The following evening was warm and pleasant as the owner and his friends set off for the plantation with the gun. As they clattered down the main street of the village they passed a tiny cottage at the very end where an ugly old woman sat in her doorway, enjoying the late sun and carding wool. She greeted them and they muttered a reply, not daring to look at her directly, for everyone knows that old women can put the evil eye on you.
‘How goes your plantation?’ she asked the owner.
‘Well enough,’ he replied, walking briskly away. She spat on his shadow as it passed.
‘Courtesy costs nowt!’ she shouted after him.
The men reached the plantation and hid in the bushes to await the hare’s appearance. The moon slowly rose and filled the valley with light. It grew cold, but the men sat patiently, still and silent. It was past midnight when they saw a movement among the little trees. A big grey hare was there, stretching up to nibble the juicy top of one of them.
The owner took careful aim with his silver-loaded gun and fired. The hare leapt and fell dead. The men waited cautiously to see if anything else would happen, but the hare didn’t move. They cheered and slapped each other on the back. Then one of them ran to pick up the body.
‘No! leave it!’ shouted the owner. ‘Who fancies eating a witch hare?’ And so the body was left in the moonlight and the men all went home.
At dawn the next morning a milkmaid going to work was passing the tiny cottage at the end of town when she noticed that the door was open. She looked closer and found the old woman lying there dead in the doorway. Blood had dried around the wound at her heart, but of a bullet there was no sign.
If you were to chop up several well-known fairy tales in a blender you might end up with the following tale, told by a Holderness woman in the late nineteenth century. The collector adds that he had often heard the same story from his nurse. It is a particularly odd local version of the Frog Prince.
There was once a frog who lived in the drain beneath a pump in a Holderness farm wash house. It was a spacious abode and he would have been happy enough but for one thing: whenever the women of the farm emptied dirty water – from washing mucky potatoes, or nappies, for example, or from making blood puddings – his sitting room became filled with unspeakable muck.
Now, the farmer’s wife had died and he had remarried. His new wife already had a daughter the same age as his own, so he had fondly imagined that the two girls would become friends, but, as so often happens in stories, the stepmother thought her own daughter far superior to her stepdaughter and behaved accordingly. Poor Molly had to rise before dawn to light the fires and do the milking, whereas Clarice lay in bed until noon.
One day when she had been cleaning the grate, Molly poured a pailful of mucky water down the drain and began to pump a fresh one. Suddenly up the plughole came a small frog shaking its fist.
‘It’s too much! It really is! Tuesday’s swede water was bad enough, but wet ashes are the last straw!’
The girl was very surprised but she’d been properly brought up.
‘I’m very sorry, Sir, but please could you explain what’s the matter?’
‘Every time you empty dirty water down the drain it ruins my sitting room!’
Molly was very apologetic, explaining that she had no intention of upsetting him.
‘In future,’ she said, ‘I shall empty my pail behind the house.’
The frog was touched. ‘You’re a kind girl! And as you’ve been so reasonable I shall give you a gift. From now on whenever you speak a pearl or a jewel will drop from your kind mouth.’
Well, it didn’t take long for the stepmother to find out about the gift: a big pearl fell – splash! – into Molly’s soup that very evening when she asked for the salt. Molly didn’t want to tell her stepmother about the frog for fear that she would do something nasty to it, but the wretched woman nagged and pried and bullied until at last the girl told her the whole story.
‘We’ll see about that!’ said the stepmother. ‘I don’t see why you should have something that poor Clarice does without.’ She summoned her daughter (who was sitting on a fat cushion in the parlour, eating strawberries and clotted cream) and told her what to do.
‘But Ma, I don’t want to walk about with a nasty pail of dirty water!’
‘Don’t be silly! Don’t you want to spout diamonds and pearls? In any case you don’t have to do the work first. Just take one of the mucky pails off of Molly.’
The lazy daughter yawned, but the next time Molly walked past lugging a big bucket of soapy water Clarice took it off her and dragged it to the wash house (spilling half of it on her own shoes). She tipped it up and began pouring it down the drain. Oh how angry the frog was! It shot up the plughole shaking its little fist and shouting.
‘You wicked girl! I thought we had an agree– Oh! You’re a different one!’
He calmed down a bit then and explained the problem of the sitting room. Now even though the lazy daughter had been carefully told by her mother what she was supposed to say, when push came to shove she just couldn’t bear being told off – especially by a frog.
‘Just who do you think you are, Slimy!’ she shouted angrily. ‘This is my mother’s house and you’re only a nasty, dirty little squatter. If you’re not careful I’ll pour bleach down the drain. That’ll clean you up! Now what about my gift?’
For a moment the frog was too surprised to speak. Then it said, ‘Very well. I’ll give you a gift for your words. You’ll see,’ and it dived down the drain out of her reach.
When the lazy daughter next met her mother she began to complain about the frog’s rudeness, but she hadn’t got very far before a slug and several small snakes fell out of her mouth. The mother and the daughter both screamed, but it was no use: lazy Clarice had to learn to speak seldom and carry a very large handkerchief.
Somehow the stepmother got it into her head that it was all Molly’s fault. She behaved worse and worse to her, cuffing and slapping her, depriving her of food. She probably would have done her some real damage if it hadn’t been for fear of her husband finding out. Molly didn’t bother complaining to her father; it would have just been her word against that of her stepmother and sister. Instead she tried to keep out of the way.
One afternoon, Molly was sitting out in the yard (where she was now banished during mealtimes), eating a small piece of bread and cheese, when she heard a little voice singing:
Come bring me my food
My own, my sweet one!
Come bring me my food, my honey!
It was the frog, hopping across the yard towards her. ‘Can you spare a tiny bit for me?’ it asked, looking up at her with its lively black eyes.
‘Of course!’ she replied (automatically catching in her apron the ruby and pearl that fell from her mouth). She offered it a bit of her bread and cheese and they sat there in the sun nibbling companionably and chatting. It wasn’t long, however, before the stepmother looked out of the window and saw Molly doing nothing.
‘Get on with boiling that pig swill, you lazy slut!’ she shouted.
As Molly regretfully left for the barn she looked back to wave at the frog. It was staring after her with an affectionate look on its green face.
‘How nice to have a friend!’ she thought. ‘Even if it’s only a frog.’
That very night as she (last to bed as usual) was locking the front door, she heard a little voice singing:
Take me to bed
My own, my sweet one,
Take me to bed, my honey!
She opened the door again and there was the frog sitting on the doorstep.
‘Poor thing is lonely,’ she thought. ‘It’s harmless enough.’ She looked around but her stepmother was already safely tucked up in bed so she picked up the frog and popped it into her apron pocket. Then she locked the door and went upstairs to her draughty attic. She put the frog on top of her folded shawl at the end of her little truckle bed. Then she undressed, put on her nightdress and got in.
‘Night, frog!’
‘Night, Molly!’
She was soon asleep, but in the morning she found that the frog seemed to have become a lot heavier in the night, because she couldn’t stretch her legs out. When she opened her eyes, there, sitting at the end of the bed, stark naked but modestly wrapped in her shawl and watching her with lively black eyes, was – yes, you’ve guessed it – a handsome prince!
Explanations, spell broken, stepmother forgiven, tears all round, wedding, happy ending!
It was a lovely morning in summer on Ganton Wold near Scarborough; just the sort of morning to please everyone, with skylarks singing and bees buzzing. The prickly backed urchin (hedgehog) was standing by his door, snuffing the breeze and humming to himself as folks do when they look out on a fine Sunday morning. The idea came into his head that while his wife was doing the washing up he might as well have a stroll out, to see how his turnips were doing. The turnips were in a field next to his house and he and his family used to have a nibble at them from time to time (that was why he called them ‘his’).