Northamptonshire Folk Tales E-Book

Kevan Manwaring

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

Seitenzahl: 245

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Take a walk through this county in the heart of England in the entertaining company of a local storyteller. Kevan Manwaring, born and raised in Northampton, regales you with tales ancient and modern. Learn how the farmer outwitted the bogle; how a Queen who lost her head; the Great Fire of Northampton; and the last execution of witches in England. Along the way you will meet incredible characters from history and myth: Boudicca, St Patrick, Robin Hood and Hereward the Wake, Captain Slash, Dionysia the female knight, beasts and angels, cobblers and kings. From fairies to wolves, these illustrated tales are ideal to be read out loud or used as a source book for your own performances. Northamptonshire Folk Tales is a great companion for any visit to the area, for fascinating days out and for discovering exciting treasures on your doorstep. The 'Rose of the Shires' will open before you!

Leseprobe

Dedicated to all my friends and family in Northamptonshire.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to Northampton Central Library; The History Press; Justin and Penny; Jimtom; Robert Goodman; and the good folk of Northamptonshire, past and present.

All illustrations are by the author.

CONTENTS

Title

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Poem: The Green Abbey

1

The Grey Lady of Delapré

2

The Glass Fort

3

The Legend of Ragener

4

The Great Fire of Northampton

5

The Last Witches

6

The Ghostly Lover of Boughton Green

7

The Mistletoe Bride

8

The Woodman and the Three Wishes

9

Fairy Jip and Witch One-eye

10

Meal for the Little Redman

11

The Farmer and the Bogle

12

Jack the Wolf Killer

13

The Dun Cow of Stanion

14

The Treasure of Silverstone

15

The Haunted Battlefield

16

I Am Not Yet Ready

17

The Restless Ghost

18

Dionysia, the Female Knight

19

The Far-Travelled Fiddler

20

The Navvy’s Tiffin

21

Captain Slash on Christmas Eve

22

Robyne Hode of Rockingham

23

Hereward in Hiding

24

Captain Pouch

25

Boudicca’s Last Stand

26

St Patrick of Banneventa

27

The Saint and the Geese

28

The Beast of Nine Churches

29

The Angel and the Cross

30

The Blessed Stream

31

The Chalice and the Heart

32

The Drummer Boy

33

The Strange Forest

34

The Monk’s Revenge

35

The Castle of Death

36

The Dutch Doll

37

The Chapel Out of Time

38

The Enclosed Poet

Appendices

Bibliography

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

As a young man growing up in Northampton, the town of my birth felt, on the surface, to be the most disenchanted place on Earth. Of course, with my limited experience of the world I had little to compare it to (there are, undoubtedly, worse places, and there are better) but as a young man it felt pretty grim. A rundown post-industrial town in the 1980s was not a happy place to be. However, this was as much to do with my adolescent angst as it was to do with the state of the nation.

Yet, as a child I found enchantment in my neck of the woods. I had grown up on the doorstep of Delapré Abbey, a twelfth-century Clunaic nunnery, a former family home, and, at that time, the County Record Office. I visited its wilderness gardens every day, taking my dog and my imagination for a walk. It was here, daydreaming amongst the oaks, that my storytelling started, stirred by tales of witches and gypsies, grey ladies and ghostly queens.

Surrounding the abbey were woods, fields and a lake known as ‘The Gravel Pits’. These too were assimilated into my fledgling mythic landscape. Queen Eleanor’s Cross stood at the top of the London Road, and beyond that were the edges of my world: Hardingstone, Wootton, Milton Malsor, Stoke Bruene, and further, Salcey Forest – places I explored on cycle rides with my brother.

An Iron-Age hill fort, Hunsbury Hill, loomed large on the horizon – another important borderplace, and my first taste of the prehistoric. It thrilled me that in such a prosaic, colonised, cement-smothered place, a remnant of the ancient world survived. But there were other rags and tatters of the distant past – fragments of bigger stories, hiding in plain sight.

I remember playing amongst the excavation of a Roman villa by my grandparents’ house on Briar Hill (where, it turns out, a Neolithic settlement was discovered). St Peters, by the train station, is a Saxon church made of exquisite corbel-stones with a mysterious carved slab inside. The railway station itself used to be called Castle Station, but all that remains of Northampton Castle (the setting for Shakespeare’s King John) is the postern gate and some ramparts. St Seps, as we called The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, an eleventh-century church on the north side of town, is one of four remaining round churches built by the Knights Templar, the powerful Crusaders, on their return from the Holy Land.

Other quiet wonders of the town’s past waited to be discovered, but these were what I was aware of growing up in the town. The old fleapit on the Market Square, then later, the ABC Cinema, at the top of the high street, were just as important; as were obscure newsagents, tucked away in backstreets, where I would trek on foot in the hope of finding American comic books that my local shop didn’t stock. My burgeoning imagination was like a pyre that needed feeding. It consumed stories in any form it could find – TV serials, movie tie-ins, cartoons, superhero comics, paperbacks. Ravenous for narrative, I started to create my own, first in comic strips with friends, then ‘scenarios’ for roleplaying games. I enjoyed writing short stories in English. My Secondary School English teacher, Mr Alsop, was a great orator, and would proclaim on his favourite subjects of Bruce Springsteen and Rugby at the drop of a hat. He ran Tunnels and Trolls gaming sessions at lunchtime. Through his avuncular manner and enthusiasm, he made his classes popular and the study of English Literature enjoyable. I recall vividly the reaction of a story I wrote on the subject of ‘School Reunion’, which was read out in class by Mr Alsop. It made everyone laugh and for the first time I realised my stories could entertain, that perhaps I had a gift worth nurturing (until then I had hid in the art room, where my drawing skills enabled me to shine amid the thuggish delinquency of a sinkschool comprehensive).

I was shy and awkward and a bit solitary – happier in my own company, although never ‘alone’ in nature, for my imagination populated it with the stuff of my dreams.

It wasn’t until Art College (initially Nene College, as it was called then, St George’s Campus on the Racecourse) that I began to find myself and grow into my skin, a skin that had felt ill-fitting until then. I had felt out of place in my home, my neighbourhood, my school, my era. Who was I and where did I belong? It took me most of my twenties to work that out – I was drawn to the West Country, to a brighter land of stone circles and summer festivals. I made my home in Bath, where I became Bard of the City after winning a local contest. I had found myself and somewhere I belonged – a community I could be myself in.

Yet, I kept my connection to Northampton, honouring old friendships. I started an annual gathering in a local woodland, to bring my old and new friends together – mingling old and new stories.

After graduating from art college, I returned to Northampton and, for a couple of years, I worked on my first novel, about a haunted tree – an ancient beech tree hidden in a corner of a car park – set over a thousand years of the town’s dark history. I undertook extensive research for this, spending many hours in the Local Studies Section of the Central Library. I was partly motivated by wanting to understand why the town was the way it was (‘The dark heart of England’, as I termed it at the time). Learning its story I broke free of it – I was no longer controlled by its narrative. I discovered many hidden treasures in the process of writing that book (still unpublished). I learnt to appreciate my old hometown and mourn for its former glory, what it once was, and what it could have been. I stumbled on the legend of Ragener (whose name means ‘born of the people’s strength’) and I imagined a sleeping giant, the dormant potential of the town, the king-in-the-land waiting to wake up. I found that king in Bath, in the form of legendary Bladud. In a way, it was my own latent ‘kingliness’. Northampton had kept him slumbering, as though spellbound. The town was like a kingdom placed under a spell and enshrouded in thorns. In truth, they were my own as much as anything.

When I returned there years later it felt like the town had finally ‘woken up’. There was a new energy in the place. It seemed to me as though the locals had found their civic pride, and were appreciating what they had under their feet.

Shoe Town had found its soul.

Some friends of mine started the Bardic Picnic at Delapré Abbey, after consulting me about the Bardic Chair of Bath, which I had become part of, and I was invited to judge the contest and perform there. It felt like I was coming full circle. Something healed. I was delighted to see local storytellers, poets and musicians step up and shine. There was a great local scene, encouraged by regular open mic nights (e.g. Raising the Awen). The town had never looked or felt better. It was being re-enchanted by those who live there.

The process of collecting and writing these folk tales has been a moving experience. It has made me revisit my old haunts with new eyes; as well as explore nooks and crannies of the county that had so far eluded me, on my Triumph Legend motorbike, wearing my ‘folk tale goggles’. Northamptonshire is a beautiful county, which justly deserves its name as the ‘Rose of the Shires’. In sleepy villages, legends have wandered – figures from myth and history: Boudicca; St Patrick; Robin Hood; Mary Queen of Scots; Eleanor of Aquitaine; Thomas a Becket; Hereward the Wake; Oliver Cromwell; Captain Slash; Crick and Watson. Although I knew a few of the tales, I was impressed by the many more I found. I was spoilt for choice, and have included only a selection – fuller narratives, as opposed to the countless scraps of folklore to be found in old tomes. I have opted for tales that will ‘work’ in the oral fashion, and have shaped them to this end. As a young man I was disheartened that there seemed, on the surface, to be no ‘good stories’ about the county. Anything interesting seemed to happen elsewhere. Nothing famous or successful or beautiful seemed to come out of the town. Now I know that’s not to be true. I have rediscovered a county filled with magic and wonders and rattling yarns. Such tales mythologise a landscape – as I did as a child in my neck of the woods – and ultimately can help re-enchant it, by shifting perceptions. If a local tale helps people feel that where they live is special, then they will appreciate it even more.

When a place finds its story again, it finds its soul.

Northamptonshire is an amazing county, filled to the brim with heritage and a remarkable history. There are many hidden gems to be found amid its quiet charms. I hope this collection whets your appetite and encourages you to go looking for them.

Kevan Manwaring, 2013

THE GREEN ABBEY

By salmon wisdom I am ever returning

along that avenue of gothic oaks,

towards the white clock tower, still,

above the bolted coach-house.

Perambulating about

this accumulation of architecture:

the sandstone hourglass

of my memory mansion.

The crackle of gravel

my favourite track

of this old record office –

familiar grooves spiralling inward.

Into the dog-eared garden,

passed the gravestones of pets:

the ghost of my hound leading me on –

playing with me still in his paradise.

So many times he brought me here,

teaching me to follow my instincts,

to listen to nature,

nurturing my fledgling wild-self –

the boypuppy who became a wolf.

Here in a personal wilderness

I found solace

from the pain of passion,

first and lost loves,

alienation and aloneness.

Discovering solitude

but unable to share its bliss.

In make-believe I found my beloved;

playmates in hide-and-seek with passers-by:

a Jack-in-the-Green, without knowing why.

In this nursery of my imagination

I learnt the alphabet of trees, an Adam

naming them octopus heart monkey.

By a foetid pond with broken maw

I cast a witch in shadowy hut;

and gypsy lights winked

in the gloaming;

and grey ladies drifted

in the undead night –

the phantom nuns

who left a legacy of peace

as they paced their sanctuary:

every step a prayer.

And here I repair when I grow weary of the world

for their healing grace –

a taste of the grail

that restores my wasteland

with the memory of summer,

of sunfat days of timeless youth,

of picnics for virgin palates,

of blind kisses beneath staring stars,

and shadowdancing

under champagne moons.

Where goddesses of fish and cat

enticed from their fastnesses

I gleaned an inkling of the Muse.

And in the grove of my Lord and Lady

I silently communed, vertebrae to bark.

Above, tall and strong,

how they watched me grow –

their heartwood my Axis Mundi:

spine of my history.

Each ring witnessing my full circle –

as past and future pilgrims

rendezvoused with déjà vu

beneath the trysting tree.

O, the oaks of my Arcadia,

archive of my life,

endure always –

keep the world at bay.

As in amber be the bowers

of blessed Delapré.

ONE

THE GREY LADYOF DELAPRÉ

She always appears at dusk. Walking the grounds in a long grey robe, or is it only the colour-sapping moonlight that makes it appear so? For others would swear it was blue. And is that white, or an unearthly light about her? She looks sad – though that is gauged more from posture than expression. Those unfortunate enough to have glimpsed her face – a vision that paralysed them with fear – said her eyes were orbless pits of shadow. Did she make a sound? No, she was as silent as the grave, gliding noiselessly over the gravel paths. A smudge of grey against grey, caught in the corner of your eye. A trick of the moonlight, surely? Your imagination running away with you, as you take the dog for an evening walk around the abbey grounds, not a soul in sight. Then, there she is – at the end of the path. Waiting. But, by the time you are there – nothing. Sometimes, she has been glimpsed inside the house – when it used to be a Records Office; or, before that, used by the War Office. A soft figure at the foot of the stairs: a sudden coolness. If the last owners of the house knew of her, they kept it to themselves. Miss Mary Bouverie lived there for twenty-six years before being ousted by the War Office. She moved back after a two-year exile in Duston on the other side of town. She moved to a room above the stable block but died within a year. What had she known? Perhaps seeing her beloved Delapré overrun with servicemen and women was the death of her? Or maybe it made someone else turn in the grave? Someone used to conflict – to seeing its harsh realities up close hand …

‘O God, by whose grace thy servants, the Holy Abbots of Cluny, enkindled with the fire of thy love, became burning and shining lights in thy Church: Grant that we also may be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline, and may ever walk before thee as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, liveth and reigneth, one God, now and forever.’

The nun finished her orisons and got to her feet – a little more nimbly than some of the elder sisters. At seventeen she was the youngest of them. While some were in the autumn or winter of their years, she was in the bloom of life – as brimming with beauty as the grounds of the abbey on a glorious morning in July, a swoon of flowers swaying in the light warm breeze – pollen slowly spiralling in the shards of sun that penetrated the bowers that no man may ever walk: a paradise for bees. The Abbey of Mary of the Meadow was walled off from the world of men – a sanctuary, a refuge, an oasis of calm sanity in a kingdom turned mad with war, a war between, of all things, roses.

And now the tide of madness had come to them; was lapping at their door.

She did not know much of the world, for she was cloistered here at a young age. An unnatural fate for a young woman on the brink of life, perhaps, but it was the only chance of education, of leading a life of mind and spirit, beyond the disease-ridden and back-breaking grind of reality for most in her village. It had been thrown to her like a lifeline but now she regretted it. Prone to hasty actions, which she always seemed to regret later, she was hoping this Clunaic life would curb this tendency – certainly the Abbess did.

Gonora Downghton held no truck with fools, and sniffed out her wayward tendencies straight away: ‘Here at Delapré, there is no place for hasty actions, for rash words, for a young girl’s foolishness – only hard work. The Devil will not find your hands idle.’ And nor did he, what with all the endless prayers, washing, cooking, cleaning, gardening, mending, polishing and so on. And so the diurnal round of prayer, work, and sleep became her world. There were moments of snatched conversations with some of the more gregarious sisters – moments soon hushed by a frosty stare, a finger to the lips, or a stifled snigger as the Abbess or one of her lieutenants passed.

Sometimes the sisters would talk of their lives before taking the cloth, and the young nun would patch together a strange warped map of life beyond the cloisters – a land dominated by cruel and lustful men. She had only known her father and brothers, who were kind enough, in their gruff, cubbish way – but this talk of dark and dangerous figures thrilled her, she was ashamed to realise. Failure to mention it in confession compounded her shame, but made it even more potent. Her dark fantasies possessed her day and night, but now her shadowy desires were about to burst into daylight.

Something heavy crashed through the foliage towards her. Lost in her dreaming world, she was unable to react in time – freezing instead as a mangled, mailed body erupted from the bushes and landed splayed at her feet. The stench of blood, piss and sweat rose to her nostrils. The shredded tunic he wore over his coat of chain-mail was soaked in mud, obscuring the colours beneath. A rusty sword had fallen by his side, buckled by warfare. He twitched in agony, gargling a crimson froth; his body mottled by the spiked signatures of morning stars.

A soldier! One of the dark and dangerous!

Yet the truth was far uglier than her fantasy. His helmet, a battered bowl-shaped affair, had fallen off in his writhing, to reveal a pug-nosed, gap-toothed man, face smeared with the grime of battle. Between each rasp of breath, he seemed to call out the name of someone, barely discernible.

She could feel no desire for this alien figure prostrate before her, only a curious pity. What kind of world had he come from, to end like this? As if in answer, her ears discerned a foreign sound shattering the deep peace of the abbey gardens.

She could make out the distorted sounds of war cries and the ‘chink’ of steel, unpredictable cannon fire punctuated the proceedings, confirming the scenario and causing her heart to beat wildly. Like a panicked animal, she fled – but in her confusion she ran towards, not away, from the source.

She came to the edge of the gardens, to the rear gate which led out to the adjacent farm. In the distance on the hill sat the town overlooking the winding Nene, which flowed between the town and abbey, as though cutting off her sacred world from the secular. Many a time had she wandered the banks, daydreaming of the life beyond; but today – the sun burning off the mist over the willowed banks and serried ranks of reeds – the peaceful meadows depicted a different scene, which took her breath: towards the river there was a seething phalanx of troops, thousands of them – more men than she reckoned lived in the world.

Amid the havoc she could not tell which side was which: it was a frantic scrimmage of mud-bound psychotics, cap-a-pie in the mortal clay which the water meadow had churned up as the thronging thousands passed over it. White-rosed regiments swarmed down from the ridge south of the abbey – a bristling arsenal held aloft as they charged like trees swept by storm waters – around the nunnery, the tempest’s eye, towards the dug-in enemy, seemingly impenetrable behind a thorn-wall of stakes and ditches. Betwixt mounds of earth, poked the smouldering snouts of cannons, though few of the gunners, it seemed, could light their damp powder as well as their fellow bowmen could shoot their plagues of arrows, which cut heavily into the ranks of attacking horsemen; those that managed to navigate their distraught steeds over the defences dismounted and hacked or were hacked down. Ragged banners rose and fell like sails on a squally sea. The pendants of the red rose flapped in the distance among the tents which backed onto the river – an extravagant marquee, which could only have been the Royal Pavilion, among them.

Now she recalled what one of the sisters had said about this ‘War of the Roses’ in explanation to her naive question: ‘Cousin fights against cousin for the throne.’

Why would anyone do this to one another, let alone cousins?

Soldiers slipped in the churned up mud, fell on their weapons or dropped them in the fray; horses panicked and trampled infantry; men wept for their fallen comrades or cowered in terror. Occasionally, a foot-soldier was ejected from the scrum and was either pushed back in by the sergeant-at-arms or, if too badly injured, gathered up by her fellow nuns in their distinctive blue robes – orbiting the fracas like Valkyries. Two at a time, they helped carry the walking wounded back to Delapré, or administered aid where they fell. The dead, or dying, they lifted with difficulty into carts, which, when full, were trundled back to the abbey. The slaughter assailed her from all sides: bodies clogged the stream; their iron-blood irrigated the flowerbeds; weapons took root where they were plunged into the soft soil; dropped or discarded armour was scattered like scales upon the downy lawn.

She was jolted from her stunned reverie by a sister, who scolded her into action. She joined the others, tending to the wounded.

The day passed in a blur of sweat and blood.

She can’t remember when she fell asleep – like many of her sisters, she had slept on a pew, too dog-tired to care at its hardness; their beds given over to the worst cases.

In the morning, her new nursing duties resumed. The abbey had become a hospital. There was an eerie silence in the fields beyond – she heard that three hundred and fifty thousand men had fought, and that three hundred Lancastrians lay dead. The King was captured and held prisoner overnight in the abbey by the victors. His Queen had fled north, to Scotland. This had been disclosed by the Archbishop of Canterbury no less, who had watched the battle and then her flight from the hill of the Headless Cross. All this was gleaned in breathless exchanges between the exhausting rounds of the makeshift wards. Here, both sides were tended to – though priority and the best beds were offered to the victors. The Lancastrian soldiers were terrified of what would happen to them. The Abbess assured them that while under her roof no harm would come to them. All were God’s children and would receive all the care and comfort that could offer.

There was one who caught the young sister’s eye – a dark-haired Lancastrian. He must have been, what, nineteen? He had been frightened at first, but had tried his best not to show it, yet in his pain he had called out to his mother. She had dabbed his brow with a cool, damp cloth and had cleaned his wounds as best she could. It was the first time she had seen a man’s body up close, beyond her brothers and father – who didn’t count (as familiar to her as her own flesh). She avoided his gaze – those deep, dark orbs – as she tended to him. She could feel his gaze burning into her and it made her cheeks glow.

‘What’s your name?’ His voice, with its tang of the Dales, startled her.

‘Ellie,’ she said quietly. She had been named after Eleanor, the Queen of the Cross, who had lain here in this very abbey on her way to London, and a cross had been raised in her honour. When it had lost its cross, no one knew for certain though everyone had their theory. It was known locally as the Headless Cross. It had been a familiar landmark to her, growing up on the edge of town. And now it felt like she was losing her head!

‘Help me,’ he whispered. He gripped her forearm and forced her to look at him. With. Those. Eyes. ‘They will slaughter us as soon as we leave your walls. As soon as we can walk they will march us to our doom. An execution in some quiet glade. Out of sight, out of mind. Far less expensive than feeding and guarding prisoners. I’ve heard the horrors they commit in the name of their cause. Help me escape – this very night. At least I will have more of a chance than the poor sods who cannot stand.’

She chewed her lip, then nodded.

In her mind flashed a plan – she would flee with him. They would elope – like lovers in a story – and live together as man and woman should, until the end of their days. There would be children and animals; a small farm somewhere. A simple, contented life.

She slipped away and prepared a bag of her few possessions. She managed to scavenge some food – some would say steal – from the kitchens. And then, in the dead of night, when all were asleep, exhausted from the day’s travails, she went to him and quietly, painfully, she helped him out of bed. They carried his boots and his bloodstained tunic, rolled up in a bundle. The ward-sister stirred and turned. They froze. But she resumed her snoring.

And they were out in the gardens – using a secret way through the cellar she knew was unguarded by the Lancastrians. A couple of soldiers played dice around a fire, coarsely laughing.

In the darkness, they sneaked passed and made their way to the back entrance. The moon was half-full and gave them some light, but not too much, so it was easy to hog the shadows. Ellie’s heart beat fast, her knees nearly gave way, but the young soldier held her hand which gave her courage. She couldn’t believe this was happening. It was like a story. She tingled all over. It was as though she had been asleep, but now she had woken up. Awake in the middle of the night. It was like a dream …

Suddenly, there was a sound. Heavy footsteps coming along the path. They turned to hide – to dart into the undergrowth – but it was too late. Two guards were before them, blocking their way. The farm gate was just behind them. So close. But it might as well be another world.

‘Halt! Who goes there?’

‘It’s one of the Lancastrian dogs, doing a moonlight flit. Taking one of the nuns with him too, the cur!’ They thrust their pikes forward – lunged at the soldier.

It all happened so slowly, so fast. Ellie screamed and leapt in front of him. Rash. It would be her undoing.

It was. She looked down and a pike stuck through her belly – impregnating her with death. The soldier cried out, reached for her, but was butted to the ground. Her gaze rolled upwards to the half-moon. It turned crimson, like a cup of dark wine.

His name. She didn’t even know his name.

Ellie was buried outside the nuns’ burial ground – the inner garden; a little plot on one corner of the abbey grounds, a sad dismal spot underneath a yew tree. There her mortal remains rested, but not her soul – tormented by the brutal nature of her death and her lost love, she took to wandering the grounds in search of him. Sometimes, she would go to the bottom of the stairs – hoping he would appear and take her away.

But he never came.

He had met his fate, with the rest.

The War of the Roses ended. Others conflicts swept the land as the centuries past. The abbey was handed over to Henry VIII by the last Abbess, Clementina Stock. The next year, 1539, the Tate Family bought it and their descendants lived there for two centuries. Other owners came and went. Time passed, yet the peacefulness of Delapré remained – a green sanctuary still in a chaotic world. Something of the atmosphere of the nunnery lingers – an odour of sanctity. A phantom trace of the past.

And Eleanor, the Grey Lady of Delapré, walks the grounds of the abbey to this day.