Lincolnshire Folk Tales E-Book

Maureen James

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 237

Beschreibung

Lincolnshire, a county with many variations in the dialect, once nurtured many folk tales and though these stories may no longer be told as often as they once were, they still resonate within the rural landscape. From the dark tales of the 'Buried Moon', 'The Lincoln Imp', and the 'Werewolf of Langrick Fen', to the humorous tales of 'Ten-Pint Smith', 'The Lad that went to look for Fools' and the 'Farmer and the Boggart', so many of these tales are rooted in the county and take us back to a time when the people would huddle around the fire in the mud and stud cottages to while away the long winter evenings. Such nights would also inspire the telling of tales of witches, fairies, ghosts, giants and dragons. All the stories in Lincolnshire Folk Tales have been thoroughly researched and will be of interest to modern readers (and storytellers), both within the county and elsewhere.

Leseprobe

For all the Yellowbellies, who I hope will appreciate and enjoy this book.

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Map of Lincolnshire

1 Of Significant Stones

2 Of Fools and Farming

3 Of Strange Creatures

4 Of Water, Wind and Weather

5 Of Witches, Wizards, Wraiths and Werewolves

6 Of People and Places

7 Of Kings and Monks and Hermits

8 Lincolnshire Riddles

Bibliography

Select Glossary of Lincolnshire Words

About the Author

Copyright

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book would not have been possible without the initial spark that lit the fire of my passion for history back in 1985, and for this I am grateful to both Barbara Johnson and Heather Falvey. I am also indebted to Liz Wright for persuading me that I could write professionally; Paul Jackson for showing me the power of the spoken story, and Del Reid for being a tower of strength for so many storytellers. I would also like to thank Rex Russell for inspiring not just me but many, many others in their love of local history, and Maureen Sutton for her tireless collection of Lincolnshire folklore. Numerous other storytellers and historians have also inspired me on my journey; these include Hugh Lupton, Malcolm Busby, Polly Howat, Graham Langley, Tim Davies, Ruairidh Greig, Mike Scott and Anne-Marie Taylor. Finally, I need to thank my husband Stuart, for helping with the illustrations, and he and the rest of my family for their patience and understanding.

INTRODUCTION

Like the other books within this series, this volume is a collection of folk tales linked to the landscape and to a specific county. The county in this case is Lincolnshire, which is one of the largest counties in England, and displays varied landscapes as a result of its diverse geology: the clay, silt and peat of the rivers flood plains Ancholme and Trent and the Fenland of the south; the limestone that forms the Lincoln Cliff in the west; the chalk and sandstone Wolds and finally the marshes to the east.

THE WATER

Predominantly surrounded by water, the county has been heavily influenced by the river Trent to the west and the Humber to the north, the long coastline to the east, which bounds the North Sea, and the extensive Fen and Marshlands. The east coast ports and the Humber Estuary encouraged trading opportunities with Northern European countries, with the rivers providing the main communication links into and out of the area.

THE MARSHES

The boundary between Lincolnshire and the North Sea is protected by a coastal margin of magnificent sands which hold a peculiar charm. Moving inland, the long sand dunes, with their covering of marram grass and other plants, provide shelter for many species. Even further inland is the band of marshland, averaging about ten miles wide, from the Humber in the north to the Wash in the south. The Outmarsh, once subject to coastal erosion, has seen continual changes, and where once salt making was a major industry, recently the land has become eroded by ploughing. Now, farmers are being encouraged to abandon the arable crops in favour of grazing herds of cattle and haymaking in the small irregular fields bounded by dykes or drains. The Middle Marsh, a gently undulating platform that runs from the foot of the Lincolnshire Wolds to the Outmarsh, is characterised by rectilinear fields and occasional hedgerows.

THE WOLDS

Moving westwards, the limestone Wolds, a southern continuation of the Yorkshire Wolds, run for forty miles in a south-easterly direction from the Humber down to Spilsby on the eastern side of the county. The Wolds are about as wide as the level Marshland belt in most places, but north of Caistor the band reduces to less than five miles across. It also drops by Bametby-le-Wold to 150ft, to rise again near Elsham, so that by Saxby it reaches a height of 330ft, and remains at over 200ft until it reaches South Ferriby. Designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Wolds shelter many villages and small towns within its folds or on the fringes.

THE CLIFF

In the west of the county and to the south of the city of Lincoln, the Lincoln Cliff, also known as the Lincolnshire Edge or Lincoln Heath, stretches for about seventy miles from the upper Humber at Winteringham down to Grantham and then to Stamford, breaking only where the River Witham carves its way through the limestone at Lincoln. The Cliff is much narrower than the Wolds it runs parallel to, and rises from Bottesford to Scunthorpe, reaching a height of 220ft near Burton-on-Stather, to descend dramatically by Alkborough to the Humber at Whitton.

THE CARRS

Between the Wolds and the Cliff lie the Carrs, a belt of flatland that was once subject to frequent inundation. During the last ice age, twenty thousand years ago, this area was a glacial lake. After the ice sheet receded the area developed into a marshland with peat, in which ancient fallen trees, commonly known as bog oaks, have been found. As the sea level rose, the valley became a tidal estuary a few miles wide. The Romans chose the edge of this valley as the route for the great Ermine Street (now the A15), which ran from Newport Arch, at the north gate of Lincoln, arrow-straight to the Humber, near Winteringham. Once continuing on the other side of the Humber, the Lincolnshire stretch has now been diverted around Scampton and Broughton.

THE FENS

The flat landscape of the Fens in the south of the county has a special kind of beauty, with extended views, magnificent sunsets and ‘big’ skies. Fed by river floods and waters from the hills, the Fens were drained, with varying degrees of success, from medieval times. This enabled the area to raise cattle and sheep on summer pastures, and for the locals to become extremely wealthy. Successful year-round drainage did not occur until the nineteenth century, with the introduction of steam pumping engines. Now the land has been tilled to provide rich, flat farming land, with big straight-edged fields bounded by drainage ditches, or ‘dykes’, small and big, all interconnected and all carrying water to and from the bigger drains or rivers and thence to the sea. The soil, fine black peat and virtually free from stones, enables the growing of crops, particularly root vegetables, potatoes and sugar beet, in the abundant harvests.

THE ISLE OF AXHOLME

The Isle of Axholme can be found in the far north-west of the county. The name means ‘The Island of Haxey’, and it was the principal settlement in the area, and also the town made famous by the Haxey Hood Game. Originally, the landscape was one of wetlands, with villages and small towns sited on the higher ground. Today, the largely reclaimed area, like the fens further south, is dominated by a complex network of dykes, bridges and pumping stations.

BUT WHAT OF THE PEOPLE WHO TOLD THESE STORIES IN THE PAST, AND THE PEOPLE WHO COLLECTED THEM?

In the days before the invention of effective lighting, which led to longer working hours and the widespread availability of education, lessons would be taught, reminiscences would be shared and news would be spread by word of mouth. The long winter evenings would be times for sharing such tales whilst indoor tasks such as basketmaking, knitting, weaving and carding wool were carried out.

A Roger Ekirch noted that though many people could play a tune, often on a fiddle, it was found that storytelling was the night’s principal entertainment; ‘Legends, fables and tales of evils spirits, eternal stories recounted again and again by seasoned narrators with well-trained memories.’

The people would tell stories of things they believed in. Fred Kitchen, in his biography, reminisced about listening to the tales of a Lincolnshire man when he was a young boy living and working on farms in Nottinghamshire:

Harry would tell stories of witches. He was a ‘Lincy’, and his county seemed noted for witches and boggarts … if anyone had expressed a doubt about the truth of them, the whole company would have verified the truth by saying, ‘I’ve eered my dad tell of ‘im mony a time’, or ‘My grandfeyther ewsed to work on t’vary same plaice!’ Indeed it was impossible to doubt, there were so many people who knew these people or ‘knew people who knew these people’. It made a great impression on me, especially the witches and boggarts. Whenever I had to go along the dark lane to the village I thought of them. The conclusion I came to was that Yorkshire was a land of giants and blue-devils, Lincolnshire was over-run with witches and boggarts …

While living at Redbourne Vicarage, Marie Clothilde Balfour, who collected some of the stories included in this book in the late nineteenth century, described the setting for such storytelling within her novel The Fall of the Sparrow:

There were always people coming and going in the kitchen: women to fetch soup or wine for their sick, men smoking on the settle or drinking beer, the groom sleepily hissing as he polished an odd bit of harness, or a passing tramp warming himself at the fire, with a full plate balanced upon his knees, for there was beef and beer in plenty … And with the rattle of pewter and the steam rising fragrantly from the great pot … the voice of some old man monotonously crooning one of the ancient tales as it had been handed down to him from his fathers, tales of the strange things that walked in the Cars; amid the mists, in the evil hours of darkness.

As people became literate they began to regard the traditional popular pastimes as belonging to a different world than that of their own, and the schoolmasters, HM Inspectors of Schools and the clergy openly discouraged superstitious beliefs. Thankfully, many people recognised that these actions could lead to a complete loss of an important part of the cultural history of this land and they diligently recorded (and also transformed or even suppressed) the old stories ‘according to personal tastes and circumstances’.

The folktale collectors who recorded the songs, stories and traditions that have been passed down to us in fairy tales, nursery rhymes and playground games also discovered ‘that the inhabitants of rural England had not abandoned their faith in healing wells, divination, cunning folk, witchcraft, omens or ghosts’.

Whilst the collectors went about their business within the communities, the competition from newspapers and books containing informative accounts of current affairs began to eclipse storytelling in importance, particularly in the more populated areas. Storytelling was seen as the entertainment for the very old, or the very young, but at what loss?

Author Beverley Nichols noted in 1934 that ‘the mysteries have gone. We know what lies on the other side of the hill. The scientists have long ago puffed out, scornfully, the golden lamp of the night … leaving us in the utmost darkness …’

Fortunately, many of the ancient stories were preserved and there has recently been a resurgence of interest in stories and storytelling. Simon Heywood, well-known folklorist and scholar of traditional storytelling, noted a number of loosely coherent movements in England and Wales ‘in the arts, education, and culture at all levels … wherein the ever present but resurgent appetite for the many forms of spoken story can be focused, fed and stimulated’.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

This re-emergence of interest in one of the oldest art forms has directly influenced this series by The History Press. For their authors they have requested people who tell stories rather than read them, and those who have a deep interest in their respective counties.

I hope that I fulfil this aim within this volume, but I don’t want to be the only one to take credit for passing these tales on to you. I would also like to follow the example of the folk tale collectors in the past, and give you some background information of these people, and also, where possible, information on the actual tellers.

Gervase Holles (1607–1675) was collecting popular antiquities, later to be known as folklore, long before the latter word was even devised. Born in Grimsby, he was a prominent Royalist and a lawyer. He served as Mayor of Grimsby and MP for the town before and after the English Civil War.

Abraham de la Pryme (1671–1704) was also an antiquarian. Born in Hatfield, on the Levels near Doncaster, he became a curate in Broughton and then Hull. He kept a diary – Ephemeri Vitae: A Diary of My Own Life – from the age of twelve until his death, in which he recorded items of interest.

George Stovin (1696–1780) was born at Tetley Hall, in the parish of Crowle, and lived the life of a country gentleman. His main interest was research of the topography and antiquities of the area of his birth. He was particularly interested in the drainage of the Level of Hatfield Chase, where he had inherited estates. It was said that he rarely left the Levels, regarding ‘No part of England comparable to the Isle of Axholme, and no town equal to Crowle’. Later in life, however, he did cross the Trent and took up residence in Winterton, ‘In a little cottage which he had made Arcadian with honeysuckles and other flowers, where he was to be seen with his pipe every morning at five, and where he was accustomed to amuse his neighbours with the variety of anecdote with which his memory supplied him.’

Henry Evan Smith (1828–1908) was a local correspondent for the Stamford Mercury, North Lincolnshire Star and other papers. He left numerous manuscript notes, many of which are now in the Lincolnshire Archives.

James Conway Walter (1831–1913), the eldest son of a Lincolnshire clergyman, was born in Langton near Horncastle. He went to Cambridge University and became vicar of St Andrews, Langton (Woodhall Spa) and Kirkstead, Lincolnshire, in 1869. After twenty-one years he relinquished the latter position and became rector at Langton. During his career he became a highly respected Lincolnshire historian, and wrote a number of books and papers on Lincolnshire history, including ‘The Legend of Bayards Leap’ which was included in Bygone Lincolnshire (1891). He also contributed various items on folklore to Mabel Peacock, including the script to a rather bawdy Lincolnshire plough play that had been performed in the kitchen of his rectory about the year 1889.

Edward Peacock (1831–1915) was the only son of Edward Shaw Peacock, a wealthy Lincolnshire landowner and agriculturalist. The young Edward was educated at home and developed an interest in history and archaeology. He lived at Bottesford Manor House, situated on the outskirts of modern Scunthorpe. He married Lucy Anne Wetherell from America and the couple had six children. After the death of his wife in 1887, and due to financial pressures, Edward and his daughter Mabel moved to Dunstan House, Kirton in Lindsey. He was an avid collector of folklore, which he sent to various publications, including local newspapers. He was also collecting evidence for The Folklore of Lincolnshire, a task that was eventually completed by his daughter. Throughout his life, Edward researched the Lincolnshire dialect, and he continued submitting short items to Folklore until 1908. He also wrote four novels, none of which were particularly successful.

Mabel Geraldine Woodruffe Peacock (1856–1920) followed on from the work of her father in submitting papers and notes to Folklore between 1887 and 1917, quite a number of which were based on Lincolnshire folklore. She published three collections of stories and verse, Tales and Rhymes in Lindsey Folk-Speech (1886), Taales fra Linkisheere (1889) and Lincolnshire Tales: The Recollections of Eli Twigg (1897), which include a number of Lincolnshire versions of traditional tales and rhymes telling stories of boggarts, fairies and fools. In 1902, she commenced correspondence with the Folklore Society on the subject of taking over from her father in the collection of Lincolnshire folklore. This work, which was carried out with Mrs Gutch, was completed and published in 1908. Mabel did not collect folklore in the field; indeed, a neighbour is recorded as saying that she rarely left her house, but gleaned information from friends and acquaintances.

Robert Marshall Heanley (1848–1915), the eldest son of a wealthy farmer, was born in Croft in the south-east of the county. He entered the Church in 1875 and became assistant curate at Burgh-le-Marsh before becoming rector of Wainfleet All Saints and perpetual curate of Wainfleet St Thomas until 1889. His parishes were close to the place of his birth, which, along with boyhood memories, he drew on to produce pieces on Marshland folklore for Lincolnshire Notes and Queries (1891), for Folklore (1898) and for an article on ‘The Vikings: Traces of their Folklore in Marshland’ for the Saga Book of the Viking Club (1903).

James Alpass Penny (1855–1944) was born in Crewkerne, Somerset, where his father was headmaster of the grammar school. He became the vicar of Stixwould, a village near Horncastle, in 1888. Seven years later he moved five miles to become the vicar of Wispington. Suffering from blindness, he spent his later years at Woodhall Spa, also in the Horncastle area. He produced two collections of folklore from around the locality, which also included popular memories and incidents from his own experience as a parish clergyman.

Willingham Franklin Rawnsley (1845–1927), born in Hertfordshire, was the eldest son of the rector of Halton Holgate, Lincolnshire. William’s brother, Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley, was one of the founders of the National Trust, and it was through this connection that Willingham developed an interest in the environment. Though he was the proprietor of Winton House, a private school in Winchester, for a number of years and spent his retirement in Guildford, he kept his interest in the county of his ancestors, as evidenced in his travel book The Highways and Byways of Lincolnshire (1914). He was also related by marriage to Tennyson, and was an expert on his poems.

Sidney Oldall Addy (1848–1933) was an antiquary and man of letters. Born at Norton, Derbyshire, he was the son of a colliery owner, and studied Classics at Lincoln College, Oxford. He became a solicitor and spent much of his life in Sheffield, combining his work with his other interests. He wrote a number of books, including a collection of tales from Household Tales with other Traditional Remains Collected in the Counties of York, Lincoln, and Derby, in the introduction to which he noted that ‘The ancient stories, beautiful or highly humorous even in their decay, linger with us here and there in England, and, like rare plants, may be found by those who seek them’. He collected all the tales from the oral tradition rather than printed sources, and wrote them up using the words of the narrator, but without the dialect and with the exception of obsolete words.

Marie Clothilde Balfour (1862–1931) was born in Edinburgh, but spent some of her childhood in New Zealand. She was a cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson, and in 1885 she married another of her cousins, James Craig Balfour, a physician and surgeon. Between 1887 and 1889 the couple lived in the vicarage at Redbourne, North Lincolnshire, where Marie collected a number of stories from the local people. A description of this experience was included in a semi-biographical novel and outlined earlier in this introduction.

The first of the tales collected by Marie was included by Andrew Lang in both Longman’s Magazine and Folklore, the journal of the Folklore Society. This received a favourable reaction and probably prompted her to send the collection of ‘Legends of the Carrs’ to the society. They were included in Folklore in three parts in 1891, but sadly, Marie was not skilled in dialect though she attempted to record the tales accurately. This misguided attempt probably led to later criticism of the authenticity of the stories, but an investigation by myself, into their content, and the views of people from the area, leads me to conclude that they were indeed from the Lincolnshire Carrs. I have included eight of the stories collected by Marie, in this book. For each I have ‘translated’ them from the original dialect and carried out a minimum amount of editing.

Leland Lewis Duncan (1862–1923) was born in Kent and became a life member of the Kent Archaeological Society. He was made a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in London in 1890.

Ethel H. Rudkin (1893–1985) followed in the footsteps of Mabel Peacock. Indeed, she recalled visits made as a child with her parents to Kirton in Lindsey, home of the Peacocks. Born Ethel Hutchinson in Willoughton, Lincolnshire, her mother’s family were the Pickthalls of Suffolk. An only child, she was educated in Scarborough before gaining employment as a governess. In 1914, whilst at a point-to-point meeting at Burton near Lincoln, she met George Rudkin, who she married three years later. George served in the war, firstly in the Yeomanry and then as a Lieutenant in the Machine Gun Corps. Sadly, he died on 28 October 1918 from the influenza epidemic that is believed to have killed 250,000 people in Britain and millions worldwide. His mother died on the same day. As his widow, Ethel gained George’s share in the Rudkin family farm and for a time she helped in this venture. By 1927, she had returned to live with her parents in Willoughton, where she stayed to look after them in their old age. A devoted, and lifelong collector of Lincolnshire oral history and folklore, she travelled up and down the county in the 1920s and ’30s, in a bull-nosed Morris car, collecting evidence directly from the rural villagers on a broad range of topics. She submitted a number of articles to Folklore and produced a book, Lincolnshire Folklore, which was published at her own expense in 1936. The preface to the book stated that everything in it was ‘authentic and collected between World War One and Two from people not books’. Ethel also had a keen interest in archaeology, local and social history and dialect, and eventually became an acknowledged expert in all these subjects within the county. Her home became a place of pilgrimage for researchers wishing to view an enormous quantity of books, manuscripts, artefacts, memorabilia and farm implements, and to also enjoy a cup of tea with the lively lady herself. In the 1970s, Ethel moved to a cottage in Toynton All Saints where she spent the remaining years of her life. She was instrumental in cataloguing the vast collection of artefacts that formed the core of the Museum of Lincolnshire Life and much of her personal collection was donated to the Lincolnshire Museum Service after her death.

Ruth Lyndall Tongue (1898–1981) is normally regarded as a Somerset folklorist, though she was born in Staffordshire. Her mother, Betsy Mabel Jones, was from Whitchurch, Shropshire, but her father, a Congregational Minster, had been born in Louth, Lincolnshire, and both of his parents and grandparents were natives of the county. Ruth recalled hearing stories from her aunt, Annie Tongue, in Alkborough, and from her great-aunt, Hetty Carr of Blyton Farm, near Gainsborough. Annie Tongue, Ruth said, had heard stories from her female ancestors who were also born and raised in Lincolnshire.

So why are Lincolnshire people called Yellowbellies? The subject is being continually debated, and a number of conclusions have been reached, the most popular being the following: the officers of the Royal North Lincolnshire Militia and the old Lincolnshire Regiment wore yellow as part of their uniform; opium taken for the marsh fever (or ague), and the fever itself, would turn the skin yellow; a creature, such as a frog or eel, commonly found in the county had a yellow underbelly, and finally that the Lincolnshire mail coaches used to have yellow bodywork.

Maureen James, 2013

1

OF SIGNIFICANT STONES

There are many stories found in Lincolnshire relating to specific stones and this section includes just a few of them. The first is the tale of Grim and Boundel, and the two stones they stole from the Danes to help the people of Lindsey to prosper. The tale is told, more or less, as it was collected in the first half of the nineteenth century by Henry Evan Smith of Caistor, ‘from conversations with several old residents, rustics of the neighbourhood’. The second explores the many tales of William the Hermit of Lindholme and Tommy Lindum of Wroot. Both names are interchangeable, though the former site is just over the border in Yorkshire. This is followed by the tale of ‘Yallery Brown’, which is less well known, probably because it does not relate to a specific site, though it has been set within the landscape of the north of the county. The tales of the ‘Fonaby Sack Stone’ and the ‘Anwick Drake Stone(s)’ complete the section, both being accounts of the origins of real stones.

GRIM AND BOUNDEL

A long time ago, they say it was before the Danes first came to Lindsey, there was a man they called Little Grim, but a big man he was, and a great sea captain like his forefathers. This Grim used to sail about to foreign parts and sometimes fought and sometimes traded with the foreign folks. It was on one of his voyages that he heard tell of two magic stones belonging to the King of the Danes, and how, whenever they were beaten with hazel rods, this would make the rain fall and the grass grow and cows prosper and everything be plentiful. At that time there was a drought and almost famine in this country.

So Grim thought to himself that he would steal these stones and bring them home with him. He and his best man, Boundel, who was as big as he was, went ashore after dark, and shouldering a stone each, carried them off to his ship. Then a strange thing happened – the ship began sinking as soon as the stones were on board, and they had to throw everything overboard to keep afloat. And so, with water up to the gunwale, they made the voyage home.

They say it was at Tetney that Grim landed, and from there he wanted to send the stones to King Lud, but then nobody but him and his man Boundel could lift them. So they shouldered them again and set off for the royal town.

The stones seemed to get heavier and heavier until they got to Grainsby Bridge, which broke under Grim and he began to sink into the mud (there was little water in the Old Fleet then). Boundel had gone over first and was resting in Thoresby, so he went back and helped Grim out with his load. Grim went on till he came to Audleby, where he stayed to rest, but the stones never went further, for neither Grim nor Boundel could ever lift them again.

So much the better for the men of the Wolds and the Marsh. Boundel told them the secret of the magic the stones possessed, and the stones were beaten – Boundel’s for rain, and Grim’s to make the corn grow – till there was plenty in the land. Every year for a long while after, folks came from far and wide to eat a grand feast around the stones, which were whipped till everybody prospered. But then the Devil came and flew away with Grim’s stone.

When asked about the truth of the legend of Grim and Boundel, the local people would point out that there were places in the locality called Grim’s Croft and Boundel’s Croft at which the stones were once seen. It has also been noted that the custom of ‘Beating the Bounds’, during which the parish boundary would be walked to check that all was in order, included the beating of stones with a stick or stripped willow wands.

Researchers have theorised that Grim’s Stone was located at North Thoresby and for a time separated the parish of Clee from the borough of Grimsby. Today, it sits alongside the Havelok Stone, which used to separate the parish of Wellow from the borough of Grimsby, outside the Welholme Galleries.

WILLIAM THE HERMIT OF LINDHOLME AND TOMMY LINDUM OF WROOT