Somerset Folk Tales for Children E-Book

Sharon Jacksties

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 115

Beschreibung

When you are in Somerset you are never far from mysterious caverns, whispering woods, hidden valleys and places which can't decide whether they are seascapes or landscapes. The ancient Kings Arthur and Alfred hid amongst Somerset's secret waterways, waging the wars and making treaties that forged Britain's history. Outlaws and highwaymen lived on the wildest of moors that plummet into the sea. Ordinary people farmed the land and fished the waters alongside the Little People, the Fair Folk, the fairies and goblins that were as tricksy and unchancy to meet as any smuggler… In this collection, professional storyteller Sharon Jacksties has selected and reworked tales for children aged 7–11 to discover.

Leseprobe

For Sienna and Lucia, for Cash, Theo and Maggie,for Tommy and Darcy, for sand, sea and stories

First published 2018

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Sharon Jacksties, 2018

The right of Sharon Jacksties 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 0 7509 8824 7

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed in Great Britain

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

About the Author and Illustrator

Introduction

Part One: Magical Creatures

The King of the Moles

The Sea Morgan’s Song

Goblin Combe

The Apple Tree Man

The Tree Witch

Part Two: People We Should Know About

A Prince Amongst the Pigs

The Holy Thorn Tree

The Magic Cannonball

Best King, Worst Cook

A Headless Saint (But Not for Long!)

King Arthur and Excalibur

Part Three: How Things Happened

How Hedgehog Became Spiky

The First Christmas Pudding

How the Devil Shaped Somerset

The Devil Digs Cheddar Gorge

The Stone Wedding

The Devil Makes a Splash

Part Four: Here Be Dragons

Blue Ben the Biggest

King Arthur’s Dragon

A Dragon Halved

ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR

SHARON JACKSTIES has been a professional storyteller for over twenty-five years. Passionate about the oral tradition, her interest in places and their stories also finds a voice in her teaching. Sharon runs courses at Halsway Manor in Somerset – England’s only residential centre for the traditional arts – as well as abroad.

In 2016 she co-directed a new festival, the Summerlands Storytelling Festival, which spanned the South West.

Sharon’s work with children started with her specialising in Theatre in Education and working with the Unicorn Children’s Theatre. She lives in Somerset.

INTRODUCTION

I have been a storyteller for a very long time, telling stories from all over the world. Many years ago, I came to live in Somerset. As with any new place, I couldn’t wait to explore. Moving to Somerset was like coming for the first time to an old, old house. An old house whose various rooms were like the different features and scenery in the Somerset landscape – with their own colours, shapes, sizes and even smells. Like the best houses with attics or cellars, I knew that there were secrets to discover, perhaps even treasure. So I went on a treasure hunt. The treasure I found wasn’t what you could hold in your hand, or count like golden coins. It was stories. Like the best treasure, some of these stories are very old. They have been kept bright and shining by re-telling, re-reading and re-writing. Here is a riddle for you:

The more often you give me away, thelonger you keep me. What am I?The answer is at the back of this book.

Here is a treasure map of Somerset and the places these stories come from.

PART ONE

MAGICAL CREATURES

THE KING OF THE MOLES

The River Parrett winds its way through the Somerset Levels like a great lazy snake until the rains come. They can last through autumn and winter and most of spring. Then the river loses its shape and hides beneath the vast lakes created by the floodwaters.

Near the banks of the Parrett is a small church with a chest in a cupboard in the vestry. Inside is an ancient altar cloth made out of moleskins. It is kept to remind people of one of the worst floods.

Not so long ago, the new lord inherited the big estate that sloped down to the river. Now that he was the new owner he wanted to change everything. When he had finished changing the great house, destroying old bits and adding new bits, he turned his attention to the land around it and decided that the avenue of 200-year-old oak trees looked rather untidy. Their branches were twisted in the wrong directions and when autumn came their leaves made a dreadful mess on the grass. As for the meadows, those slopes would look better if they were levelled off down to the river to make everything flat, and as for the river with all its untidy curves – they would have to be evened out.

He sent for the head gardener and gave instructions to chop, level and straighten. The gardener went pale with horror and warned him against it. The lord said that he hadn’t asked for advice, he was giving an order. In time the work was done – there were no untidy trees on the horizon, the grass was completely flat and the riverbanks were as straight as a ruler. At last the lord was content, but only for a day. The next morning when he looked out on his empty landscape it had been spoiled by hundreds of heaps of dirty piles of earth. The moles had arrived, covering everywhere with their molehills. The head gardener had trouble hiding a smirk when the lord summoned him to give the order to get rid of the moles. Again he tried to warn his master, again he was overruled.

It took a long time to kill all those moles. So long, in fact, that all the fabrics on the estate and in the village were now made of mole skins: people slept on moleskin sheets, wore moleskin clothes and even the babies wore moleskin nappies. The local church boasted the only moleskin altar cloth that had ever been known in Britain.

At last the horrible task was over, there were no more molehills, the bare patches of earth had been reseeded with new grass and the lord was content. But only for a day. The next morning there were a few enormous piles of earth, far higher than any man. The head gardener didn’t bother to hide his grin when he explained that the King of the Moles had arrived because he had heard that his people were in trouble. He was ordered to get rid of the King of the Moles but had to explain, whilst disguising his snigger with a cough, that there was only one person with that kind of skill, and as Micky-the-Mole was one of the travelling people, they would just have to wait until he happened to be passing. It was a long wait, during which the King of the Moles took his revenge by raising his massive piles of crumbling earth everywhere.

At last Micky-the-Mole was found sleeping in one of the few ditches that the lord hadn’t ordered to be filled in. He was taken to the great house where the master stared at the strange man with dark velvety hair growing low over his face, a whiskery moustache offsetting huge yellow teeth, little piggy eyes a-blinking, a pink turned up nose a-trembling, and huge blunt hands swinging low like a pair of shovels. He was promised a bag of gold for the capture and killing of the King of the Moles, as long as the lord was able to see his tormentor before the giant mole was put to death.

In no time at all Micky-the-Mole was back, dragging an enormous cage. Inside was a mole the size of a calf. The lord was one of these people who believe that size isn’t everything, but he had to believe the monster mole’s gold crown, set with human teeth. He gave Micky a large bag of gold, told him to kill the beast in the cruellest way possible and come back to describe which method he had chosen. The sound of that cage, further weighed down with the sack of gold, scraping its way down the corridor, made the chimneys crooked and put cracks in the crystal chandeliers. But it was all worth it when Micky-the-Mole returned with the tale of the beast’s death. The lord had spent a few delicious moments imagining the method. Had he been roasted slowly over a fire? Had he been skinned alive? Had he been drowned slowly on the riverbank as the tidal waters of the Parrett had risen? None of these was the case – the King of the Moles had been buried alive. The lord was so pleased at this cruellest of deaths that he gave the killer an extra bag of gold. He was too cruel and too stupid to realise that as moles live underground, you can’t kill one by burying it!

Soon after that the autumn rains came, heavier than before. It rained throughout the winter and the spring. There were no trees to drink it up, no slopes to protect the big house from the swollen river, no curved meanders to slow the flow. There weren’t even any mole tunnels to soak up the extra water. The gardener splashed about with a moleskin umbrella and a huge grin, waiting for what must happen. The day came when the river became a foaming furious torrent, tearing through the first-floor windows of the house. The gardener was ready with a coracle – a small round river boat made with animal skin stretched around a frame made from willow withies. I bet you can guess what kind of skin it was. It also had a rowing boat tied to it. The last of the antique furniture and expensive paintings had been washed away, and the lord was swept along after them. The gardener grabbed him by his collar and hauled him into the coracle. When they were in the middle of the featureless flood, the gardener scrambled into the rowing boat, grabbed the oars and cut the rope. The coracle swirled away towards the sea with the lord still in it. The land had spat him out once and for all.

Sometimes you have to wait for the floodwaters to subside to reach Burrowbridge Mump. It rises like a great molehill in the flatness of the Somerset Levels. Inside, it is honeycombed with passages. Some people say it is a labyrinth, but locals know that these are mole tunnels made by the King of the Moles himself, spiralling around inside his castle. If you lay your ear to its slope when the moon is full, you can hear the chink, chink of gold pieces as Micky and the King share out their treasure.

THE SEA MORGAN’S SONG

If you go to the Somerset coast, there are parts of the shoreline that look like the surface of the moon, apart from all the water of course. Even the sea is strange, and, depending on the tide, seems unable to decide whether it is water or mud. The rocks curve in weird shapes and layers and the beach is joined by a waterfall that plunges down from the cliffs.

You can only reach the waterfall at low tide, which is when the Sea People, the Sea Morgans, pull themselves out onto the rocks, lashing their fishlike tails to help them crawl towards that fall of crystal-clear water. Living in the salty sea, it is a real treat for them to splash about in fresh water. Local people thought it was unlucky to disturb them and would always listen out for their singing, before venturing to that part of the beach themselves.

One night of the full moon, a fisherman was making his way to his boat when he heard them singing. They sounded so beautiful that he decided to stop and listen for a while. As he tiptoed over the moonlit beach, their lovely music wrapped him in their web of sound. The song seemed to become part of him and without realising, he began to hum along with it. Soon he was singing aloud with the Sea Morgans until they stopped abruptly. They had heard a voice they didn’t recognise. Then there was a scrambling and a splashing, as terrified Sea Morgans desperately tried to reach the safety of the retreating tide.

Moments later the only sound was that of the waves. But then came another, so tiny at first that the fisherman wasn’t sure that he had heard it – a wistful cry like a sea bird. It grew stronger and he didn’t know if he was hearing crying or singing. Placed in the cleft of a rock to prevent her from rolling off, was a Sea Morgan’s child. Apart from having too much hair for a human baby, she otherwise looked just like one, as she was still too young to have grown a tail.

She kicked her little legs and held out her arms to him and he picked her up as anybody would. Then he thought of his own baby who had only lived a few days before being buried in the little churchyard near the cliff top. Maybe that was why he didn’t carry her down to the water’s edge and leave her where her own people could reach her. Instead, he carried her home where his wife was overjoyed to have a baby to look after at last.