Folklore of Lincolnshire E-Book

Susanna O'Neill

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Folklore
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 343

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

The county of Lincolnshire is a beautiful mixture of low-lying marshy fen land, modest hills and the steep valleys of the rolling Wolds. It is also home to a wealth of folklore, legend and intrigue. With one of the most interesting dialects in the country, this vast region is also rich in superstitions, songs and traditional games. A study of the daily life, lore and customs of Lincolnshire are here interspersed with stories of monstrous black hounds, dragon lairs, witches, Tiddy Mun, mischievous imps and tales of the people known as Yellowbellies. This fully illustrated book explores the origins and meanings of Lincolnshire's traditions and shows how the customs of the past have influenced the ways of the present.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Title Page

Acknowledgements

Introduction

one The Devil and his Serpent

two The Wet and Wilds

three Black Dogs and Strange Encounters

four Giants and Heroes

five Things that go Bump in the Lincolnshire Night

six Witchcraft and Cunning

seven Yellowbelly Sayings and Superstitions

eight A Lincolnshire Year

Bibliography

Notes

Copyright

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I extend my thanks to everyone who has helped and supported me during the writing of this book. I have met and talked to many interesting people along my journey and wish to name a few here.

Mrs Rose Cole, Caister, was especially welcoming and I would like to thank her for her kind hospitality and useful information.

I would like to thank the Boston Grammar School for their tour of the library and Beast Yard, especially Rowan Druce who was kind enough to show me around and supply me with interesting information, and also Paul Marsh, the head teacher, for allowing me to take photographs and use them in this publication.

I wish to thank Mr Arthur Franks for his help and wonderful collection of photographs and videos of the Haxey Hood game, which he kindly let me use in this book.

I am very grateful to the staff at Lincoln’s Museum of Lincolnshire Life, who gave me their time, and to Lincolnshire County Council who allowed me to photograph and publish the pictures of the witch artefacts they house at the museum.

Roger John Crisp deserves my thanks and a mention for the marvellous tour he conducted for me around the grounds of RAF Scampton. It was very informative and a lot of fun! Thank you also for allowing me to publish the photographs I took there.

The staff at Grimsby Central Library were very helpful and friendly, as were the staff at Lincoln Cathedral, especially Anne James, who helped me with dates and festivals. Kath Brown kindly sent me information concerning the Lincolnshire Stuff Ball, for which I was most grateful.

Thank you to Mrs Rogers from the Captain’s Table at Dogdyke for your stories and the gentleman from Beesby Cottages for your time and information.

Thank you also to the owner of the Abbey House at Swineshead for your directions and help, the gentleman at Horsington, the lady at Tealby who showed me where to find the Devil’s Chair, and the gentleman at Lower Burnham for his information about the well.

I would like to thank The History Press for allowing me to write for them and especially Beth Amphlett and Matilda Richards, who have patiently led me through the process.

Thank you to my brother James for his support and patience at being dragged round various historical sites. Also thank you to my friend Yann, for his continued encouragement, help and company along the way.

Most of all, thank you to Judy and Arthur O’Neill, without whom this book would never have been completed. Thank you for all your time, your proofreading, your ideas and input and, of course, your company through many trips around Lincolnshire. You are invaluable!

INTRODUCTION

When I was bound apprentice in famous Lincolnshire

Full well I served my master, for more than seven year,

Till I took up to poaching as you shall quickly hear,

Oh, ’tis my delight on a shiny night

In the season of the year.

As me and my companions were setting of a snare,

‘Twas then we spied the gamekeeper, for him we did not care,

For we can wrestle and fight, my boys, and jump o’er anywhere.

Oh, ’tis my delight on a shiny night

In the season of the year.

As me and my companions were setting four or five,

And taking on ’em up again, we caught a hare alive,

We took the hare alive, my boys, although the wood did steer.

Oh, ’tis my delight on a shiny night

In the season of the year.

I threw him on my shoulder and then we all trudged home,

We took him to a neighbour’s house and sold him for a crown,

We sold him for a crown, my boys, but I need not tell you where!

Oh, ‘tis my delight on a shiny night

In the season of the year.

Success to every gentleman that lives in Lincolnshire,

Success to every poacher that wants to sell a hare.

Bad luck to every gamekeeper that will not sell his deer.

Oh, ‘tis my delight on a shiny night

In the season of the year.1

You will not meet a Lincolnshire-born native who has never heard of this old folk song, ‘The Lincolnshire Poacher’. Dating from the 1700s or earlier, it has become akin to the National Anthem for Lincolnshire and is still sung and quoted often today. Having a wealth of countryside and open land, coupled with the poor wages labourers received, Lincolnshire was ripe for poaching, even when it was a crime punishable by death! Not quite the happy-go-lucky past time the song suggests but certainly a poignant reminder of days gone by.

Lincolnshire is a fascinating county, rich with history, folklore, character and peculiarities, aptly summed up by John Betjeman:

Lincolnshire is…singularly beautiful and…a separate country. I would like to see it with its own flag and needing passports to get in.2

One of the largest counties in England, Lincolnshire measures nearly 6,000 square kilometres. It is the county with the highest number of bordering counties, which include Leicestershire, Rutland, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, South Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. On the east, the North Sea runs its entire length and to the north it is bounded by the Humber Estuary.

Before 1974 it was divided into three regions: Holland, Lindsey and Kesteven, but after this date these three areas unified. The northern part, however, was given the title Humberside, but this was reversed in 1996 and the area became known as North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire.

Lincolnshire has a reputation for remoteness and mysteriousness, for being somehow semi-detached from the rest of England and not quite in the swing of modern life, a place where old ways are preserved and old secrets kept.3

This book will give the reader a glimpse of these secrets, of the traditions of old and those that remain, of the tales of indigenous giants, battles with dragons and brushes with the Devil himself. We shall walk with witches, bogles, ghosts and the infamous Black Dog, and laugh along at the Yellowbelly humour and curiosities, for there is a veritable feast to gorge upon!

An enquiry after a person’s health is usually one of the opening gambits in a conversation: but have you noticed that Lincolnshire folk will rarely admit to being well? Usually their reply will be ‘I’m really no-matters’ (in indifferent health). On a good day they may answer ‘I’m fair to middlin” or ‘I’m meggerin’ oop now,’ by which they mean they’re getting better. ‘I’ve a bad keal an’ I keb soa much at night and feel reeal al-ovverish’ (a cough, short of breath and shivery); ‘I’ve hed a bad bout of mulleygrubs and can’t git shutten on it’ (stomach ache).4

Typical Lincolnshire countryside.

The Lincolnshire dialect is a wonderfully colourful tongue and, as with any others, once immersed into it, it is as easy to understand as your own.

Katherine Briggs relates as a moral the story of a young cock that crowed too loudly before his time and ended up being fed to the pigs. The fascinating thing about the story is that it is all told in dialect and is fantastic to read.

Yaller-legg’s cock’ril liv’d i’ runt yard wi’ owd white cock ‘at was his feyther, an’ red cock liv’d o’ steäm-hoose side o’ yard. An’ won daay, when owd cock’s sittin’ crawin’ upon crew-yard gaate, cock’ril gets up an’ begins to craw an’ all.

‘Cock-a-doodle-doo.’ Says owd cock. ‘Kick-a-ee-a-ee,’ says cock’ril: he couldn’t craw plain yit, he was ower yung.5

The study of folklore does not usually necessitate the study of dialect, but it can add another dimension to the meanings behind the stories for a deeper understanding. There are many books which list the numerous words, phrases and meanings of the varied Lincolnshire dialect, far too many to list here but as a taster and for interest I include a handful.

Aist: are you?

Albins: perhaps or unable

At-nowt: on no account

Batterfang: a heavy blow

Blash: nonsense

Bo’d: a bird

Bo’n: burn

Chelp: cheek, cheekiness

Dacker-down: slow-down, if someone was going too fast

Darkilings: twilight

Dossent: was to not dare to do something

Eadily: insufficiency

Fogo: a nasty smell

Frangy: lively

Fun: found

Gaain: near

Harr: a sea mist

Kelter: rubbish

Ivey-skivy: to create uproar

Jorum: a large amount

Larum: a worthless story

Mawps: a daft person

Nosker: large

Owd-hunks: a mean person

Pag: to carry another on your back

Quick-sticks: immediately

Raatherly: seldom

Scrudge: to squeeze

Slap: to spill something

Tiddy: small

Upskittle: to knock something over

Vaals: presents offered to servants

Wong: to low land

Wottle-days: working days

Yetten: eaten

Here lies Jimmy Lang

Kilt by Death’s stang,

They brake his boäns

Wi sticks an’ stoänes

His carcas they did mang

We many a batterfang.6

This wonderfully onomatopoeic tongue makes the language of the place come alive and fortunately for us, there are plenty of written samples. For instance, the Lincolnshire Life magazine gives examples of farmer’s dialect which illustrates some of these local words:

Lawks a massey me! Farming has changed since I was a bairn! Few folk these days ‘addle their keep’ as ‘higglers’ (men who keep horses and work them for hire), waggoners or garthmen (who look after and feed animals). ‘Addlings’, not ‘earnings’, were wages; ‘earnings’ or ‘hearings’ was rennet used for cheese making!7

The great poet Alfred Lord Tennyson was born in Lincolnshire, at Somersby, where his father was a rector in 1809. Of the many poems he wrote, here is an extract from one, ’Northern Farmer’, in the Lincolnshire dialect:

Dosn’t thou ‘ear my ‘erse’s legs, as they canters awaäy?

Proputty, proputty, proputty – that’s what I ‘ears ‘em saäy.

Proputty, proputty, proputty – Sam, thou’s an ass for thy paaïns:

Theer’s moor sense i’ one o’is legs nor in all thy braaïns.

Woä – theer’s a craw to pluck wi’ tha, Sam: yon’s parson’s ‘ouse –

Dosn’t thou knaw that a man mun be eäther a man or a mouse?

Time to think on it then; for thou’ll be twenty to weeäk.

Proputty, proputty – woä then woä – let ma ‘ear mysén speäk.’8

Statue of Alfred Lord Tennyson, housed in Lincoln Cathedral gardens.

Statue commemorating John Wesley, situated towards the top of Albion Hill, Epworth.

The content of money making, marriage, love and property is all the better for being read in dialect!

Tennyson is not the only notable to claim a Lincolnshire heritage. John Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1583 to 1604, was born in Grimsby and William Byrd, the composer, was born in Lincoln in 1543. Everyone has heard that Margaret Thatcher’s humble origins stem from an upbringing in Grantham, and the poet Elizabeth Jennings (1926-2001) was born in Boston. King Henry IV was born at Bolingbroke Castle and was often known by the name Henry Bolingbroke.

Other famous names include Hereward the Wake, William Cecil, Sir Isaac Newton, Sir John Franklin, Sir Joseph Banks, Chad Varah, John Wesley, William Stukeley, Jennifer Saunders, Neil McCarthy – just to name a few.

The Lincolnshire Poacher magazine9 quotes a source who talks of a postcard written by the young Winston Churchill in August 1887. He was staying on holiday with his nanny in a boarding house in Skegness. The postcard was addressed to his mother and the lad was asking her for half a crown, but apparently on the reverse the nanny had written a note to the effect that he should not be sent any money as he had already wasted a good deal! This was not the last time Churchill visited Lincolnshire; he was invited many times to speak at different places around the county in the early 1900s, and sources say he had quite an affection for the place.

Lincolnshire even has two claims on King Arthur, according to Marc Alexander. One states that it was at Lincoln that King Arthur came ‘secretly upon Tholdric and fell silently upon the Saxons’.10 The second tells that King Arthur fought a battle in the district of Lindsey, then known as Linnius.

The Lincolnshire Magazine from the 1930s propounds this idea, mentioning a great soldier in Digby, although whether it is actually King Arthur or another is debatable:

At Chestnut Tree Corner, under the little triangle of green grass where the footpath goes off to the station, a great soldier lies buried with all his men. One day a man will come along who can see a silver tree growing there, and he will see this tree as he stands on Canwick Hill, a point twelve miles distant…when he gets to Chestnut Tree Corner he will find steps going down into the ground, which he will descend and there he will find this great soldier and his men asleep. He will awaken them and they will rise all up again and fight for the King at a time when they are sorely needed.11

This story is prevalent all across Britain, most counties claiming the sleeping warriors, such as Craig y Dinas, Glamorgan or Alderly Edge, Cheshire or under Richmond Castle in Yorkshire, but to name a few, and so it is nice to see it included in Lincolnshire’s folklore.

Having been invaded and inhabited by various races throughout the centuries, several of Germanic stock, many of the placenames of Lincolnshire have traceable routes. Professor Stenton12 studied particularly those of Danish origin. He states that the characteristic type of Danish name in Lincolnshire ends in ‘by’, an ancient word meaning ‘settlement’ or ‘village’ which, he explains, is why we have the term ‘bye-law’, originally referring to the local regulation of a village community. He then goes on to say that uncomplimentary nicknames are characteristic in Lincolnshire, for example: Scamblesby, ‘the village of the shameless one’; Scawby, ‘the village of the bald man’; Brocklesby, ‘the village of the man without trousers’; Sloothby, ‘the village of the good-for-nothing rascal’. Not all are uncomplimentary however, such as Somerby, ‘the village of a man who has taken part in a summer army’.

Those places ending in ‘thorpe’, such as Skellingthorpe, referred to a settlement smaller than the nearby village; ‘ing’ denoted low wet grass or pastures; ‘with’ meant a wood; ‘langworth’ was long ford; ‘worth’ referred to a small enclosure. Some examples of Anglo-Saxon endings to place names include ‘stead’, meaning place; ‘staple’, denoting a market; and ‘ley’ a meadow.

Lincoln Cathedral.

Many places were named after certain people or families such as Hagworthingham, which is said to have been the home of the descendents of Hacberd. Similarly Grainthorpe was believed to have been the village of a man named Geirmundr.

The study of place names is a complete project on its own, so will not be delved into further in this book, but it is a vast and fascinating subject to follow for those who are interested. It gives an insight into the history of our land, the peoples who dwelt there, the type of landscape which surrounded them and what importance they placed upon it. To try and view the land as it was in their times gives us a glimpse of what life was like for them and we begin to see how some of the folklore and legends originated.

Traditionally the capital of Lincolnshire, Lincoln, has a population of approximately 81,000 people. It was originally named Lindon, meaning ‘the pool’, as it was a settlement built by a deep pool along the River Witham. Later the Romans re-named it Lindum colonia, ‘Roman colony’, which eventually turned into what we now know as Lincoln. The city is teeming with history. One just has to walk down the main street to see how many interesting old buildings are left, without even mentioning the castle or the cathedral. The third largest in the country, the cathedral towers over the city, dominating the skyline. Legends abound around this colossal structure and ghost stories and folklore of the city are plentiful.

The county had a reputation for its wetlands and fens, as illustrated in this little ditty Mrs Gutch recorded for us for the early 1800s:

Cheshire for men,

Berkshire for dogs,

Bedfordshire for naked flesh,

And Lincolnshire for bogs.13

There is so much more, however, than the legendary boggy landscape. Described perfectly in Brewer’sBritain and Ireland, Lincolnshire is:

…for the most part flat, and much of the south is taken up with the Fens, but it does manage to raise itself at least on to an elbow in two places, the Lincolnshire Edge (known locally as ‘the Heights’ or ‘the Cliff’), a limestone escarpment running east to west on which the city of Lincoln is situated, and the Lincolnshire Wolds, a range of chalk hills running northeast-southwest in the eastern part of the county.14

And according to Jack Yates and Henry Thorold:

The long drainage ditches and narrow roads so characteristic of Lincolnshire.

The landscape is of strongly contrasted kinds – one long and level with two-thirds of every eyeful sky. Wide and splendid cloudscapes and a great expanse of stars at night…The other sort of scenery is hilly, the rolling country of the Wolds, which seem very high by contrast but never rise more than 550 feet and are like the Downs, with beech plantations on their slopes and villages in their hollows and at their feet.15

Well known for its farming, Lincolnshire is ‘overwhelmingly agricultural…the county supplies Britain with a cornucopia of vegetable…its pigs are famous…Lincolnshire sausages…’

Cumbrian and Lincolnshire sausages are two of the best known in the country but there were other farming traditions which made Lincolnshire famous. There is a specific Lincolnshire breed of sheep called Lincoln Longwool, larger and heavier than the Leicester, and also there is the Lincoln Red; a breed of red shorthorn beef and dairy cattle. There was once a breed of pig, the Lincolnshire Curly Coat, aptly named due to its woolly coat, but it has now died out.

Also known for its tremendous fishing industry, the Lincolnshire sailors and their wives have a tale or two to tell about life with the sea.

A community heavily reliant on agriculture, much of the Lincolnshire landscape encompasses fields upon fields of farmland.

We shall begin our journey through Lincolnshire’s store of tales and folklore by introducing the canny nature of the Lincolnshire folk through their shrewd tradition of decoy ducks.16

They say that some Lincolnshire farmers used to breed ducks in a special way, for the specific purpose of betraying their fellow ducks! One source suggests there were up to forty such farms in the county, taking somewhere in the region of 13,000 birds via this method, in one season.

The decoy ducks were bred in specially designed ponds, where they were given much attention and care so that they became tame and fed from the farmer’s hand. When they were ready they were ‘sent’ abroad, possibly to Europe, where they met other ducks and enticed them back to Lincolnshire, in their ducky language, with tales of a wondrous life!

When the decoy ducks returned with flocks of followers, the men began to secretly feed the newcomers handfuls of grain in the shallows of the ponds. The decoy ducks were used to this and happily went to eat and soon their new friends copied, confident in their host’s judgement.

The grain was soon scattered in a wide open place and the ducks went there to eat it. Then it appeared in a narrower area, where the trees hung over like a tent. All the ducks now followed the food, feeling secure but unaware that there had been a large net placed in the foliage above their heads.

The decoy ducks had led their new friends into the netted area and all were feeding greedily, oblivious to the nets gradually lowering down on them with one end nipping into a point.

Suddenly a dog was let out and came towards them barking ferociously. The ducks all attempted to fly away but the net prevented their escape. They were instead driven towards the narrow point of the net where a man was waiting to catch them, one by one.

The decoy ducks were also caught but their fate was not the same as their new companions. They were stroked, calmed and placed back into a safe pond with plenty of food, ready for another flight to Europe. As for the foreign visitors, let us just hope the folk of Lincolnshire are kinder to people than ducks!

ONE

THE DEVIL ANDHIS SERPENT

Fables about the Devil abound all over the British Isles, and Lincolnshire is no exception. Superstition in Lincolnshire would not allow people to use his name: ‘Don’t say the Devil. Say the Owd Lad or he’ll come when he’s called.’1

Ethel Rudkin confirms this notion,2 noting how he goes by many names in Lincolnshire, such as Old Nick, Old Sam, Sammiwell, Old Harry, the Old ‘Un or Old Lad. However, even if he is not referred to directly, his appearances all over Lincolnshire are still rife – or maybe it is because of his regular visits that people try not to attract his attention!

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule and some people like courting trouble. It was believed by such folk that if you were to drop a pin in the keyhole of a church door and then run around the church seven times that the Devil would appear. Quite what they would do then is unclear.

The legend of Dorrington Church boasts a similar belief. On a clear, moon-lit night you can peek through the keyhole to watch the Devil playing with glass marbles across the church floor.

Exactly what Old Nick looks like we are not sure, although there is one story, retold by Rudkin,3 that describes him as a ‘funny little ole man’. He appeared when a young girl at Crosby decided she wanted to become a witch, and so at midnight one time she visited an old woman known locally as a witch. The old woman told the girl that, in order to become one, she must stand up then bend over and touch her toes, saying ‘all that I ‘ave a-tween me finger tips an’ me toes I give to thee’ (meaning the Devil). So the girl did as instructed, but just as she was half-way through her sentence, ‘She see’d a funny little ole man come in an’ sit i’ th’ chair opposite to ‘er.’ This figure frightened the girl, who suddenly ended the sentence with ‘I give to – Almighty God!’ instead of the Devil. ‘Well! – there was a ter-do-ment! The little ole man disappeared in a ‘urry, an’ th’ owd woman was fit ter kill that lass, an’ she was very glad ter escape out th’ ouse.’

A pub sign in Horncastle, an example of the Lincolnshire tradition of never naming the Devil directly.

Folklorists Gutch and Peacock4 relate a tradition used in Lincolnshire to have power over the Devil. They say on St Mark’s Eve at midnight to hold two pewter platters under bracken for the seeds to drop into. The seed will go right through one and be caught in the other held below, whereupon the Devil will appear riding upon a pig and tell you anything you wish to know.

It is upon a huge black pig that the Devil will appear, again on St Mark’s Eve, at Willoughton, but bizarrely only if you attempt to stop the horses and sheep which apparently kneel down and talk on this night. Legend states that whilst waiting in the stables some men did try this, but just before the appointed hour (always midnight) a mighty wind blew open the stable doors with a tremendous bang, whereupon the men fled home, terrified.

Also, a sure way to escape the contract if you have sold your soul to the Old Lad is to say he can amass the debt either inside the house, or outside. Then when the payment time comes, sit astride a windowsill or doorframe and he cannot collect.

If you wanted to see him, he is said to appear when he hears the clock strike twelve at The Devil’s Pulpit stone in Tealby. He is supposed to come down to the stream for a drink. The only problem is you could be waiting a long while, as who knows when the Devil hears the clock strike here?

The church keyhole at Dorrington, through which one can observe the Devil playing marbles across the floor at night.

There is another Devil’s Pulpit in Hemswell – a slab of rock that juts out above the natural spring. At the bottom of the hill here there is another stone which, legend states, children used to visit. They would apparently stick little pins into the holes in the rock, run round and round it very fast, then put their ears to the stone, and allegedly hear the Devil talking. One can understand this practice when observing the stone, as it is an unusual spherical shape.

The most well-known story of the Devil in Lincolnshire has to be connected to Lincoln Cathedral. A carving of him, peering over a witch’s shoulder, can be seen high upon the side of the cathedral. This image gives credence to the old saying, ‘He looks as the Devil over Lincoln’.5 This particular phrase, used when one is jealous or has malicious intent, is said to derive from the displeasure of the Devil when the cathedral was built:

The Devil is the map of malice, and his envy, as God’s mercy, is over all his works. It grieves him whatever is given to God, crying out with that flesh devil, ‘Ut quid hæc perditio’ (what needs this waste?). On which account he is supposed to have overlooked this church, when first finished with a torve and tetric countenance, as maligning men’s costly devotion, and that they should be so expensive in God’s service.6

So annoyed was he at the completion of the building that legend states he decided to pay it a visit with his two little imp friends and have some fun.

I’ll blow up the chapter, and blow up the Dean;

The canons I’ll cannon right over the screen;

I’ll blow up the singers, bass tenor and boy;

And the blower himself shall a blowing enjoy;

The Devil’s Pulpit or Chair, situated on private land at the bottom of Beckhill Road, Tealby

The Devil’s Pulpit in Hemswell. Across a field and up a hill from Brook Street, this juts out of the cliff face, above three small springs.

Spherical rock just below the Devil’s Pulpit stone at Hemswell. A spring runs out around the rock.

The Lincoln Imp, located in Lincoln Cathedral’s Angel Choir, high up on the last but one column.

The organist, too, shall right speedily find

That I’ll go one better in raising the wind;

I’ll blow out the windows, and blow out the lights,

Tear vestments to tatters, put ritual to rights!7

The imps entered the cathedral and began to cause chaos, tearing down tapestries, knocking over pews, pushing the bishop around and generally being very unpleasant and unruly – until an angel appeared and ordered them to stop. Of course they did not stop but carried on with their havoc until the angel had no choice but to make them stop. Just as one imp was throwing a rock at the angel, he was suddenly turned to stone in his tracks. The other, horrified, escaped and left the cathedral well alone but the petrified imp still stays in the cathedral as a reminder that the Devil should not toy with God’s work!

For the tiniest angel, with amethyst eyes

And hair spun like gold, ‘fore the alter did rise,

Pronouncing these words in a dignified tone

‘O impious Imp, be ye turned to stone!’

The petrified imp has become something of an attraction now, with tourists clamouring to get a glimpse of his cross-legged pose and wicked grin, peering down from his high place in the Angel Choir at the east end of the cathedral.

The Devil must have been a regular visitor to the cathedral, as there is a legend connected to the tomb of St Hugh. The belief was that when you closed your eyes to pray, you were in danger of the Devil coming up behind you, unseen, and so when you knelt to pray at St Hugh’s shrine there was a shallow dip containing salt which you could take and throw over your left shoulder to blind his approach! This may have been the origin of the superstition that if one spills some salt accidentally, a pinch of it should be thrown over the left shoulder to blind the Devil.

Also, outside near the Chapter House there once stood a well and the myth ran that on Halloween, if you circled around it three times anticlockwise and then peered into its depths through holes in the walls, you would see the Devil.

A close-up carving depicting the Lincoln Imp. Found in the top Humber Bridge car park area, on the Hull side.

Another popular visitation from the Devil appears in the form of wind. The Lincolnshire Life magazine explains that the residents of Boston have a special name for the footpath which runs between the river and the tower of Boston Stump.8 They call it ‘Windy Corner’ and it seems that in this particular spot there is a constant wind. Even on a calm day there is a ‘stiff breeze which seems to blow from all directions at once’. The legend states that St Botolph, to whom the church is dedicated, had an encounter with Old Nick here. They were engaged in an epic battle but Botolph came out victorious, giving the Devil such a beating that he is there, panting from exhaustion, or anger, to this very day.

St Hugh’s shrine is situated at the east end of the Angel Choir of Lincoln Cathedral, to the north side of the area below the great east window. A shallow depression a little to the left and behind the shrine is where the salt could have been kept.

They say that the buffeting gusts of wind that howl round the south-west side of Lincoln Cathedral are remnants of the great wind that threw back the Devil! This is an alternative version to the Lincoln Imp story – the Devil with a horde of demons came to cause havoc to the beautiful building in 1092. They swirled round the cathedral, intending to lay waste to it but the bishop, Remigius, prayed to the Virgin Mary for aid in defeating these foul beasts. His prayer was answered by a tremendous gust of wind, and the strength of it blew back the devilish crowd, defeating the Old ‘Un and his cronies. However, legend tells that one imp was actually blown inside the cathedral but the stone angels protected their domain by petrifying the imp – hence the stone figure we see today.

These stories and the figure of the imp are so well known that today Lincoln City football team are nicknamed The Imps and the little Devil appears on their crest!

Adrian Grey has a variation on why this corner of the cathedral is so windy.9 He says it was in the days when Lincoln fell into bad ways, with drunks and adulterers roaming the city. The Dean was apparently no better and was actually on good terms with the Devil. One day the Devil was visiting Lincolnshire with his friend, the wind, causing a bit of a stir and blowing up trouble, when he looked upon Lincoln and decided to pop in and see the Dean. They made their way to the cathedral but the Devil told the wind to wait outside for him. The wind waited and waited, blustering around but the Devil never returned and so the wind waits there still.

The Lincolnshire Life magazine tells us of an incident when an angel disrupted another of the Devil’s plans.10 A rich squire named Simon Greenleaf, who owned Nut Hall, Quadring, refused to give alms to the village church, as expected from a man of his standing. His loyalties lay elsewhere and it is said he practised black magic in the tower of his residence. The local priest was irritating him and they had had a few arguments, one of which left Greenleaf with the desire for revenge. Using his black magic he brewed up a potion ‘which would destroy the souls of the infants which it touched’. He broke into the church and swapped the font water for his devilish creation, knowing there was to be a christening the next day. Little did he realise, however, that he was being observed – an angel appeared and commanded him to leave. In his irreverence, he taunted and laughed at the angel who then took up the font and poured the evil mixture all over Greenleaf. He ran from the church screaming and when people came to see what was going on, they found him stone dead in the graveyard.

The Devil is often blamed for people’s misdemeanours, unfortunate events or bad luck. One old belief in Lincolnshire was that every Michaelmas night the Devil would travel around and spit on all the blackberries, and so after this date they were not fit to be eaten. Michaelmas occurs on 29 September, which is naturally towards the end of the blackberry season – a convenient tale to explain their decay. Gutch and Peacock add that when Satan was thrown out of heaven he fell into a bramble bush and was sorely annoyed!11 Thus every year he spoils the very bushes that remind him of his fall and the berries become ‘as hard as the Devil’s forehead’.

Rudkin quotes a Mr Sibsey, who tells of another old belief that helps to explain the supposed power Old Nick has over crops:

In the neighbourhood of Frieston, triangular corners of fields are filled with trees, and the groups were known as ‘Devil’s Holts’. The belief is still current that these were left for the Devil to play in, otherwise he would play in the fields and spoil the crops.

Polly Howat relates an interesting story of the unfortunate farmer John Leech, who got on the wrong side of the Devil.12 The legend says Leech was rather the worse for wear in his local tavern and his friend wanted him to go home. Leech, however, wanted to stay and apparently shouted, ‘Let the Devil take him who goeth out of this house today,’ and they both carried on drinking. Eventually Leech decided to leave, as he wanted to go to the local Whittlesey Fair, near Raveley. His friend was said to remind him of the oath he swore, but the farmer just laughed and started his journey. He was so drunk, however, that he lost his way and ended up riding round in circles until nightfall. Two griffins then appeared and barred the poor man’s way and he heard a dreadful voice remind him of the oath he had broken. Leech was terrified and fell from his horse, whereupon two imps emerged from the bushes and began to beat him. They hauled him up into the sky and flew with him for miles, eventually dropping him and disappearing. The bloodstained farmer was found the next morning and taken to a local house, where a doctor was called. The poor man seemed to have lost his mind and tried to attack the parson, who was summoned after he had narrated his tale. The frightened locals tied him to the bed and locked his door overnight. All seemed very quiet in the morning, so they unlocked the door, but were faced with a horrible sight. Leech’s neck had been broken and his body was black and swollen all over, with every bone pulled out of joint. It was then that his story was believed and all who saw his body realised the awful consequences of making drunken oaths.

What is left of the Melton Ross gallows today, in a field next to a lay-by along the A18, midway between Melton Ross and Wrawby.

Rudkin tells the tale of another man, Tommy Lindrum, who sold his soul to the Devil. As the road was usually so bad between Wroot and Lindholme, he decided one day to make a causeway between the two. The Devil pledged to help his disciple, boasting he would make it faster than a man on a horse could gallop. For some reason, however, the Devil seemed to give up helping Tommy halfway through the job. It has been speculated that Tommy had tricked him somehow and thus escaped with his soul intact. People say there is still evidence of the beginnings of a cobbled causeway there now, although it is mostly grassed over. The legend states it is bad luck to touch the stones, and one farmer, when he tried to move them, lost all his horses in the process – they just dropped down dead!

Another well-known tale13 is that of four boys who were playing at the site of the gallows at Melton Ross in the 1790s. With the thoughtlessness of youth they were playing at ‘hanging’, whereby each one would hang from the gallows with a noose around his neck for as long as possible, then his friends would lift him up and let him breathe again. One of the boys had just started hanging when an injured, three-legged hare was said to have limped past. This caught the attention of the other three who thought they could catch the poor thing. When they went to grab it, however, the hare suddenly ran off into the woods with the boys in hot pursuit, completely forgetting their friend. When they eventually returned after losing the hare in the undergrowth, their friend was dead. Belief was that the hare was in fact the Devil in disguise that fateful day. After all, it was surmised, the Devil is the epitome of evil and desires to destroy anything that is good and pure.

He was also said to have been seen frolicking round Church Hill at Dorrington one night as a white rabbit, before changing back into the figure of the Devil. Hares and rabbits seem to be a popular form of disguise for witches too, who are said to be the Devil’s handmaidens.

Manwar Rings, an overgrown grass-topped plateau surrounded by a deep moat, can be found across a farmer’s field over the road in a westerly direction from the old Swineshead Abbey House. Thought to be an old Danish encampment and the resting place of Hubba the Dane, it was also used in the Second World War as an ammunitions depository. Traces of this can still be found in the undergrowth.

Ghost story writer Polly Howat describes one incident where the Devil rescues a witch from an angry mob of locals intent on killing her. The witch was called Crazy Kate and apparently used to visit the Manwar Rings at Swineshead to commune with her master. There were many unfortunate happenings in the village at that time and the locals began to suspect Kate, especially as she had three cats, which are well known witch familiars. They gave her an ultimatum, to leave town or have her house burnt down, but Kate allegedly cursed them and promised misfortune to any who tried to harm her. More misfortune befell the village and when a baby died there was uproar, even the priest blamed Kate and said more children would die if something was not done. The mob needed no further encouragement and went to Kate’s house to kill her, but she was not there. Eventually they tracked her to Manwar Rings, where she was standing on top of the bank. Just as they were closing in on her, ‘A black cloaked stranger rode up the mound on a powerful black foam-lathered horse, whose hooves thundered and echoed around the encampment.’14 This devilish figure swept her away and she was never seen again.

The ruins of Crowland Abbey, Peterborough, with the parish church fully intact behind.

Thoughout history, the Devil seems to know when there are any actions being performed that display human weakness. His evil radar is alerted and he swoops in to help continue the chaos and corruption. One example of this in Lincolnshire was around 869 at the Benedictine abbey at Crowland. The legend goes that the monks had fallen into sinful ways, drinking heavily and behaving in a manner unbefitting their order. It was rumoured that one monk had even sold his soul to Satan, for the secret of everlasting life. One day, after months of dreadful behaviour, there was a terrible rumbling of thunder which shook the very walls of the monastery.