River Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland E-Book

Lisa Schneidau

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

Seitenzahl: 247

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Rivers and streams sculpt our landscape, and have connected our communities throughout history, from mountain to estuary and to the wide sea beyond. They give us water and food, trade and transport – yet they have a life-force all of their own. In this collection of traditional folk tales from wild rivers, lakes, and streams, Lisa Schneidau retells old stories of danger and transformation, of river goddesses, ghosts and the mysterious creatures that dwell in the watery arteries of Britain and Ireland.

Leseprobe

For my godmother, Moira Houghton,with love

First published 2022

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Lisa Schneidau, 2022

The right of Lisa Schneidau to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 8039 9086 6

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 Sacred Beginnings

Fintan mac Bochra

Tamara, Tavy and Torridge

The Story of Sionnan

The River Daughters

2 Running Deep

Dozmary Pool

The Lady of the Lake

Mire Mischief

3 Enchanted Water

Jan Coo/The Pixy at Ockerry

The White Trout

Muckety Meg

The Stars in the Sky

4 Curious Creatures

Water Horses

The Lambton Worm

The Mermaid of Marden

The Knucker Dragon

5 Metamorphosis

The Fish of Gold

The Wounded Swan

The Pool at the World’s End

6 Breathing Underwater

Fionn and the Salmon of Wisdom

The Fish and the Ring

Appy and the Eel

7 The Ravenous River

Maudlin Misbourne

Lancelot and Elaine

The Devil at Hagberry Pot

Peg O’Nell

8 Flood and Future

Tiddy Mun

The Two Swans

The Afanc

Story Sources and Further Reading

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Schneidau is a professional storyteller, sharing stories that inspire, provoke curiosity and build stronger connections between people and nature. Lisa trained as an ecologist. She has worked with wildlife charities all over Britain to restore nature in the landscape, in roles including farm advisor, river surveyor, political lobbyist and conservation director. She lives on Dartmoor.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Where possible, I have drawn on multiple story sources for every traditional story retold here. I’m grateful to the folklorists and authors whose work has heavily influenced this book, especially Katherine Briggs and Ruth Tongue. My thanks to the ever-generous and wondrous storytelling community; the audiences and school classes who have listened and shared the stories and given feedback; and all the storytellers who have collected and shared these tales in the telling down the generations. I hope that I have honoured their stories well here and added something useful to the tradition.

Thanks to David Wyatt for his beautiful cover artwork and to Nicola Guy at The History Press for all her support in bringing the book together.

Thanks in particular to Moira Houghton, Sharon Jacksties, Katy Lee, Caroline Preston, Karl Schneidau, Nikki Walsh and Adrian Wolfe; and to Tony Whitehead, who has provided support, encouragement and inspiration throughout.

INTRODUCTION

For they were young, and the Thames was old

And this is the tale that River told …

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)

One morning, not so very long ago, I visited a stretch of the upper River Torridge in north Devon. It was a sunny, early autumn day, following two days of heavy rain. As we walked down to the river, the leaves on the trees were just beginning to turn and the robins were tuning up for the winter singing season to come.

I was visiting to see the work done by my Devon Wildlife Trust project team to restore this part of the river channel. In common with most of the country, efficient land drainage to the River Torridge over many decades has led to an increased flow of water, which has scoured out the river bed and carried natural river bed materials downstream. Our work had been to reintroduce many thousands of tonnes of local gravel to the river, recreating a diversity of structure that would benefit many river species. The landowner was proud of the work and excited to see how the river would change over time.

It was an extraordinary sight. The work had only been completed two days before our visit, and the river was already busy with the introduced material, carving meanders and excavating pools into its course. It was a great success; but there was a problem. The river water was brown, and it stank of slurry, rain-washed from the land of the neighbouring farmers upstream.

That site visit demonstrated an important fact: rivers are complicated. A river is not just a channel of water, it is part of an entire water system involving the sky, the land and the sea. Rivers reflect back what we put into the water and what we take out. My little story may yet turn out to be a happy ending for a wilder River Torridge, but clearly there is still more work to be done, more demons to be battled and more lessons to be learned, there and in many other places.

Britain and Ireland hold over 4,000 miles of watercourse, depending on how you define a river. From source to babbling brook, down through flood plain to the sea, our rivers are the lifeblood of our landscape, shaping our environment and being shaped in turn.

However, the untamed and changing nature of our rivers has been manipulated by people over many centuries, from the time that water was used to transport the Stonehenge sarsens over 6,000 years ago. Rivers clean, drain, wash and dilute; they transport us, create energy and give us water to irrigate crops. Rivers soothe us, inspire us and give us space to play.

The result is that there are no rivers in Britain and Ireland that can be claimed as completely natural or wild. Some rivers are now no more than large industrial drains, while others are choked with sediment and nutrients from intensive farming, sewage outflow and industry. Stocks of salmon and trout are in sharp decline. Recent monitoring figures from the respective organisations managing rivers in Britain and Ireland are not an encouraging read. A total of 65.7 per cent of water bodies in Scotland, 52.8 per cent in the Republic of Ireland, 40 per cent in Wales, 31 per cent in Northern Ireland and just 16 per cent of water bodies in England were in good ecological status in 2018 and 2019.

We are getting something very wrong with our rivers, and yet they can still bite back. The number of storms and floods will increase as the effects of climate change begin to hit us. As water rushes down through denuded catchments that cannot soak it up, the same voices that want to dredge, engineer and control our rivers will only get louder in response. Happily, there are also many organisations and landowners working hard to restore our rivers and use nature to help us manage flood water and pollution; but, as the project above has shown, they are often constrained and frustrated by the sheer complexity of issues across our watery landscape that need to be tackled.

Perhaps the real culprit, the real missing piece of the jigsaw, is our personal connection to rivers, or lack of it. How many of us spend any time during our daily routine with a river or its wildlife? Cross a river or use a river to transport ourselves from one place to the next? Think about the water that comes out of our taps? Find time in our busy lives to stop and notice?

Yet sogginess seeps through the imaginations and very souls of the people living in the islands of Britain and Ireland. We love to complain about too much rain, and some artists say their creative muse cannot survive without it. We still revere holy wells with their miracle-inducing waters, visit spas, and when we travel we notice our tea tastes different because of a change in the water.

Our culture and language journey with rivers. We talk of a flow of inspiration and imagination, and what might be hidden under the surface. Rivers take away the old and wash us clean. We acknowledge the power of rivers, and walk alongside them to find peace, but we never want to invoke their wrath; we wonder at the river’s journey to the sea, travelling to wide expanse and endless possibility.

I’ve worked in nature conservation of rivers in Britain for twenty-five years now, and so it was inevitable that I became curious about rivers in the myths, fairy tales and folk tales of Britain and Ireland. When I started my own river journey, I wanted to know about the archetypes contained in our river stories. How is our complex relationship with rivers reflected back to us in folk tale form? How connected are these stories with actual places? Is there inspiration to be found here, about how we can meet the challenges of honouring our rivers and the wildlife they support? Is there courage in these stories to provoke action, in the face of a climate and ecological emergency where flood risk is increasing for many?

This book is the result. Here are my own versions of thirty-two traditional tales, about rivers, lakes, bogs and wells, from Britain and Ireland. I have chosen this geography because water doesn’t respect political borders, and because of the ways in which the cultures of our countries share a common heritage.

I am a great believer in re-wilding storytelling, and I have worked to honour these stories while bringing them alive in the context of nature and place. Some stories are more archetypal, and these have provided their own nature connections as I have worked with them.

I have hunted out stories from many different sources: folklore archives and collections, natural history literature, and of course listening to storytellers. Some tales are well known, others more obscure. Like all storytellers, I am grateful to those who have collected and told these stories all down the generations, known and unknown. I have tried wherever possible to pursue a story back to its oldest referenced source. A list of story sources and further reading is provided.

I have told many of these stories to different audiences, indoors and out in the field, sharing ideas and emotions that the stories provoke. Folk tales have their own personalities and idiosyncrasies. Some are darker than others, and the teller will need to decide which stories to share with very young ones.

Dip your toes in the water now, and immerse yourself in these stories of rivers, bogs, lakes, wetlands and wells. I hope they will inspire you and provoke curiosity about this essential aspect of the landscape of Britain and Ireland. They will show you the role of water in our past, and hint at something of our relationship with the water environment in the future.

Enjoy reading these tales, and do try telling them out loud to others. After that, why don’t you go to seek out your local river and its very own version of watery magic?

1

SACRED BEGINNINGS

All was a-shake and a-shiver – glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble.

Kenneth Grahame, from The Wind in the Willows (1908)

Have you ever stopped to wonder where all that river water comes from, flowing through seasons and years and ages, and how many people have stopped and wondered at the same thing?

The water of rivers must begin somewhere, whether it’s bubbling from a spring, oozing from a peatland pool or seeping through a chalk aquifer. From there on, a seemingly endless flow of water makes its way down to the wide ocean, carving out the land as it goes, shifting shape over time.

Of course, rivers are not a linear matter; they are part of the great cycle of water that includes land, sky, the oceans and all living things. But where rivers spring from the land, there is magic to be found.

Similar motifs echo through the folk tales of Britain and Ireland: the coming of a great flood; the direction of giants in shaping the land with water; and feminine wisdom, flowing like emotion and bringing life to the land all around.

FINTAN MAC BOCHRA

Fintan mac Bochra first appears in the Lebor Gabala Erenn (Book of Invasions) from the twelfth century, which attempts to put ancient Irish history into a Biblical context. He is a compelling father figure for Ireland, and the only Irishman to survive the great flood. ‘Bochra’ may refer to his mother, or just to the sea in general, but some suggest that Fintan’s mother was Banba, one of the three ancient land goddesses of Ireland.

The Hill of Tounthinna overlooks the River Shannon, near Portroe, County Tipperary. A kype is the hooked mouthpart of a male salmon at breeding time.

This is my own interpretation of how these snippets of ancient Irish folklore might play out in story form.

Fintan mac Bochra was one of the first people ever to set eyes on the beautiful Emerald Isle, and it was just as well, for he had the eyes, the ears and the heart of a poet. Some say that he was a lucky man to be on the boat that sailed there, because there were only three men but fifty women. Fintan chose Cesair, daughter of Banba, for his wife, but when they all landed and set about making a life for themselves, there was little time to sort out the imbalance between men and women.

It was only the second full moon after they had landed when the tidal wave hit their little settlement, and it showed little mercy. That morning Fintan had travelled inland and uphill to forage. When the water hit, he was in a little cave in the hill that would come to be called Tounthinna. That journey saved his life. Later that afternoon Fintan walked down from the hill and over the brow towards home, but instead of the comforting sight of huts and buildings and home fires, the wide ocean met him far too soon; the sea had eaten the land, and it had swallowed everything. All his companions had perished, and Fintan was alone in a strange place.

He stood at the edge of the water, overwhelmed with sorrow, and tears welled in his eyes. ‘As if there wasn’t enough water already,’ said Fintan mac Bochra. ‘The whole world has turned to water, and I with it.’

There was magic in his words. Fintan’s eyes shifted to the side of his head, his neck folded into silver flaps as his arms became fins and his legs fused into a tail. Fintan leapt into the air and down into the water, a sleek, scaly salmon. And that is how Fintan mac Bochra survived the great flood.

Who knows what Fintan saw of their old settlement under the waves, or whether he ever saw his wife Cesair again? He stayed a salmon for a whole cycle of the sun, flashing silver in the rivers and travelling thousands of miles through the northern seas.

That is how Fintan got to know the life of the rivers of Ireland.

The next summer, Fintan the salmon was leaping a waterfall on the Shannon when, mid-air, his fins broadened and turned tawny, his great kype transformed into a hooked beak, and his eyes became black and beady. Fintan the eagle shook the last beads of river water from his feathers and flew up into the heavens. He soared across the blue skies that day to the mountains of the west.

Fintan the eagle explored the island of Ireland from north to south, and from east to west. He saw all the great rivers of Ireland from his bird’s-eye view. He saw the River Bann, the Barrow, and the Blackwater; the Boyne, the Erne, the Shannon and the Nore; the loughs at the coast and the loughs inland. He learned the play of nature in these great bodies of water, the creatures that needed their gifts and those who could be preyed upon.

That is how Fintan understood the flow of the rivers of Ireland.

The next summer, Fintan the eagle was restless. He was chasing a raven through the valleys one morning when, drawing a deeper breath than normal, he felt his wings shrink back, his body compact, and his skull tighten. Fintan the eagle became Fintan the peregrine falcon, diving for cover; and it was all he could do to escape the mobbing from two very amused ravens that day.

Fintan the falcon roamed the length and breadth of Ireland, his keen eyes observing everything on the land, and how the wild creatures were faring. He noticed more humans settling as the waters receded, and animals kept within fences; he saw wagons and chariots, and great battles between clans, then the crows making their feasts. He observed new clans arriving from across the sea, as old clans made use of some of their magic and forgot the rest.

That is how Fintan learned the stories of the rivers of Ireland.

One morning the next summer, Fintan woke and found himself curled up high in a tree, but without feathers to warm his toes or the wings to reach the ground. Fintan was back in his human form. He had to edge along the branch of the great tree he was in and climb clumsily to safety on the ground.

Fintan, now eighteen years of age, started his new journey as a man. He walked all the ancient paths of Ireland, and he saw many tribes gain power and fall in their turn. He met a great and fearless leader to the north, a hound of men with a hero light around his head. He helped a great leader to the south, a man with fairy blood who led a famous war band and who gained all the knowledge there was to know in the world.

That is how Fintan could tell the fate of the rivers of Ireland.

But something even more magical happened to Fintan: he never seemed to age, as he watched everything birth and live and perish around him. Some say that Fintan lived for many thousands of years, and that he knew the rivers and islands of Ireland and their poetry better than any man alive or dead.

One day, on the island of Achill in the county of Mayo, Fintan met a hawk perching on the low branch of a rowan tree, and he smiled, for he knew what it felt like to be this creature. The hawk’s feathers were battered and scruffy, but his eyes were bright.

‘You made it, then,’ said the Hawk of Achill.

‘If you mean that I have seen many things, then let me tell you, so you may wonder at them,’ replied Fintan with a grin, and he sat down beside the hawk and started to tell his stories.

‘Yes, I was there too,’ said the hawk, when Fintan told of the heroes of Ireland.

‘Yes, I was there too,’ he said when Fintan described the war bands and the tribes and the magic.

‘Yes, I was there too, when they were written,’ he said, after Fintan had recited all of the ancient Irish poetry he had heard (which was to say, all the Irish poetry that ever existed).

‘Yes, I saw that, and it was lucky I could fly,’ said the hawk when Fintan told him of the tidal wave, the great flood, and the death of his wife Cesair.

‘Then we are about the same great age, you and I?’ asked Fintan.

‘About 5,500 years old apiece, I reckon,’ said the hawk. ‘But let me tell you of something now. Have you heard of St Patrick, and of the new religion – that of Christ?’

The hawk told Fintan what he knew.

‘So, our time is done, and our stories must end here,’ said Fintan.

Fintan and the hawk died then, under the shade and the protection of the rowan tree. But they didn’t die completely, because now their stories have travelled to you.

TAMARA, TAVY AND TORRIDGE

The huge granite mass of Dartmoor, in Devon, is sometimes called ‘the mother of rivers’. The moor is full of treacherous peatlands, with few places as bleak as Cranmere Pool, a good 16-mile round trip from where I am writing. Cranmere used to be a deep pool of water, and a wild ghost called Benjie is still said to be working there, doomed for eternity to try and empty the pool with a sieve. The rivers Torridge (East Okement tributary), Tavy and Dart all start near Cranmere Pool. Of the rivers in this story, the Torridge flows north, picking up other parts of the river from the north-west coast of Devon, until it meets the sea at Braunton. The Tavy flows south-west and meets the Tamar at Plymouth Sound. You’ll find a story from the River Dart later in this book.

The River Tamar, or ‘great water’, first recorded by Ptolemy in the second century, begins elsewhere. It rises on Wooley Moor at Morwenstow to the north, with Bodmin Moor in the west and Dartmoor in the east. The Tamar forms part of the boundary between Devon and Cornwall.

This origin tale of Tamara, originally written in Victorian times, is a classic part of every storyteller’s repertoire in Devon and Cornwall. It has been the topic of many a conversation with fellow storytellers, but it has taken me a long time and a lot of trial and error to find a version I like telling! Given I have worked on the Torridge and Taw for many years and live in Dartmoor National Park – and dance ‘Tamara’ with Beltane Border Morris – it would be rude not to.

In the earliest days, the cold days, there were no people in the islands of Britain, and there were no trees. Those were the times when – if you had been there – you could see the bones of the land sticking out, and when giants carved up the landscape and hurled rocks around for fun. But the giants weren’t the only spirits who loved the land. The little, homely earth spirits lived in burrows in the lower, softer ground, and very rarely went above the surface, because it was cold and dangerous. They clung to the security of their earthy caverns and tunnels, dank with peat and thick with magic.

But young spirits always want to explore. That was the case with young Tamara, an earth spirit who was born north-west of the great moor, just as the earth was warming. She was never content with staying underground in safety – there was too much of the world to see.

‘Don’t stay up there for too long,’ Tamara’s father would say. ‘The giants will crush you, and the sun will burn you all away.’

‘Just for a little time, father, I’ll be back soon. It’s all so serious underground,’ she said, and flashed him a smile.

The days came and went. For Tamara, a little time became a longer time, and a longer time became a whole day above ground. She was fascinated with the roof of the sky, the brightness of the sun, and the sparkle it made in the stones; she would make up stories as she danced across the plains. Her father pleaded and scolded, but it made no difference.

One day, Tamara dared to climb to the high rocks, where the stones glittered, and birds of prey screeched high above. She noticed the sun was hanging low in the west, and was just turning to go back, when a huge rock sailed over her head and landed a little way in front of her with a crash.

‘Sorry!’ said a gruff voice. As the ground shook with every step, a young giant ambled towards her, grinning with curiosity. ‘Ain’t you the pretty one!’ he said. ‘Tavy the giant at your service – but you mustn’t tell on me.’

‘Tell on you?’ asked Tamara.

‘Me dad,’ said Tavy. ‘He hates me talking to spirits. Says you’ll fill my head with nonsense.’

Tamara laughed merrily. ‘Perhaps I will! But my dad told me you’d squash me flat.’

Tavy and Tamara became firm friends, and it wasn’t long before another young giant, Torridge, joined them as they roamed across the high moor. Most days, whenever she could get away, Tamara climbed the steep slope to the wide, rocky land, and she danced and joked with the giants up there on the roof of the world. She needed to take five steps to cover each lumbering footfall of the young giants, but she led them a merry chase across the rocks, and she left Tavy and Torridge starry-eyed for their new friend.

Tamara’s father noticed that she was absent from home for longer and longer, and one day he lost his temper with her. ‘You’re staying underground today,’ he shouted. ‘You’re grounded.’

Up on the high moor, Tavy and Torridge waited for Tamara, but she didn’t appear.

‘P’raps she’s getting fed up with you,’ Tavy joked to Torridge.

‘What do you mean?’ cried Torridge. ‘Tamara favours me, I tell you. I’ve been thinking of marriage!’

‘Not if I have anything to do with it!’ roared Tavy. ‘She’s mine!’

A fight between giants is not a pretty sight. Usually, giants try to solve disputes with friendly games, like quoits or hurling; but when they get violent, giants scoop up the rocks with their hands, take aim at each other, and leave the land in ruin behind them. Tavy and Torridge began to fight, and both got bruised quickly, because the rocks of Dartmoor are very, very hard.

‘Stop,’ cried Torridge, nursing a large bump on the top of his head. ‘I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we go to ask Tamara which one of us she prefers?’

‘Good idea,’ growled Tavy. ‘As long as the answer is – me.’

They both strode across the moor to the north-west, where Tamara had told them she lived, until they nearly reached the coast. The ground crashed and rumbled with every step they took, and Tamara, safe underground, could tell there were giants approaching. While her father’s back was turned, she darted out above the ground.

‘Tavy! Torridge!’ she whispered. ‘Go back! Don’t let my father find out you’re here!’

But it was too late. Tamara’s father was already standing behind her. He scattered earth magic on the two young giants, and instantly they were fast asleep and snoring.

‘Now then, my girl,’ said her father. ‘Get back underground while you are safe!’

Tamara took a deep breath. Tears were streaming down her face.

‘Father, these giants are not dangerous,’ she said. ‘They are my friends. I’m staying here above ground with them.’

Her father’s face was as red as molten lava. ‘You dare to disobey me again, daughter? Very well. If you insist on being wilful, I will let you wander the earth above ground forever.’

He raised his hands and muttered a simple incantation, and Tamara disappeared.

At the spot where Tamara had stood, a little spring of water bubbled up out of the ground. The water seeped across the soil, and quickly gathered itself into a little channel of water bubbling between the grassy tussocks and the heather.

Tamara the stream flowed south, widening and deepening, carving her way across the soil and the rock, tumbling and playing with the stones. The sun flashed and shimmered on her water as she broadened into a great river, dancing and running across the land. All manner of creatures ran and slithered and crawled to explore this new wonder of Tamara the river. She flowed south until she met the coast and her water danced with the salt and the great unknown ocean.

It was several hours later that Tavy awoke, cold and hungry, and he saw Tamara the spring in front of him, her father nowhere to be seen. Tavy tried to hold the water of the spring in his hands and watched the beauty of the light on the rippling surface. His friend was transformed, she had found a new game, and he wanted to be with her more than anything in the world.

Tavy ran home to his own family on the high moor, but by the time he got there the news had already spread. Tavy’s father was angry with him for disobeying him, but when he saw how unhappy his son was, and how much he wanted to join Tamara, he took pity, and cast his own magic. Tavy disappeared, and a little spring of water bubbled out of a bog on the high moor, flowing south and west as fast as he could to meet his friend.

Tavy the river met Tamara the river close to the sea, and the friends have been together ever since, playing with the stones and the mud and the sand and the sunlight, their water mingling and gliding out to the endless sea beyond.

But what of Torridge?

Torridge slept for a good while longer than his friend. When he woke alone, and saw Tamara the spring, he also ran back, distraught, to his father on the high moor. After much begging and pleading, his father cast the magic and Torridge also became a little bubbling spring on the moor, trickling, burbling, gurgling, racing across the land.

But poor young Torridge had never had much sense of direction. He didn’t realise at first, but he was flowing north, down from the high moor, across the clay lands, until he met a different sea to the north of the land that would become Devon. Torridge would never see his beloved Tamara again.

That’s how the great rivers Tamar, Tavy and Torridge began.

THE STORY OF SIONNAN