West Midlands Folk Tales E-Book

Cath Edwards

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 229

Beschreibung

Woven from the ancient fabric that is the landscape of the West Midlands and passed down through the generations, these stories from a modern county with a rich and varied history are brought together by local storyteller Cath Edwards. Here are mysterious tales and local legends. Here are witches and noodleheads, ghosts and magpies, mines and wishing trees. Retold in an engaging style, and stylishly illustrated with unique line drawings, these humorous, clever and enchanting folk tales are sure to be enjoyed and shared time and again.

Leseprobe

First published 2018

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Cath Edwards, 2018

The right of Cath Edwards 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 8539 0

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed in Great Britain

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

Introduction

Acknowledgements

About the Author

  1   Mining and Miners

  2   Miners, Superstition and the Supernatural

  3   Short Midlands Stories

  4   The Gilbertstone

  5   Magpies, Crows and Other Birds

  6   Guns and Edward Woolley

  7   Aynuk and Ayli

  8   The Bloxwich Bull

  9   Witches

10   Some Black Country Characters

11   Stories of the Unexplained

12   Highwaymen and Highwaywomen

13   Wise Fools

14   Modern and Urban Myths

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

In writing this book of folk tales, I have had the fascinating task of finding the traditional stories that underlie a modern county, and a modern county known for its industry at that.

The West Midlands as a county came into being in 1974, created from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The excellent Staffordshire and Worcestershire Folk Tales books in this series have already been written by The Journeyman (Johnny Gillett) and David Phelps respectively; it is possible to find many stories relating to the West Midlands in those books, and I recommend them to you.

At the time of writing, the Warwickshire Folk Tales book has yet to be written, but I have avoided those stories with a Warwickshire flavour which are no doubt better suited to that volume.

So what’s left? I surprised myself a little by discovering that quite a lot is left! I have made the acquaintance of Midlands witches (Mollie Mogg and Ode Magic to name two), of colourful Black Country characters (Nanny Piggy and Jacky Ding Dong), of various noodleheads (their stories unfairly attributed to Darlaston), several highwaypersons (Rowley Jack and an unnamed woman) and I have renewed my store of stories about those stalwarts of Black Country humour, Aynuk and Ayli. I have found stories of miners and mining, stories with a supernatural or ghostly flavour, and even the modern version of the folk tale, the Urban Myth.

I mention the Black Country; this is a large area of the county with a character all its own. It was once home to the largest coal seam in Europe, much of it on or near the surface. It is believed by some to get its name from that fact; the coal made the ground black. Samuel Sidney, in his 1851 railway guidebook, wrote:

In this Black Country, including West Bromwich, Dudley, Darlaston, Bilston, Wolverhampton and several minor villages, a perpetual twilight reigns during the day, and during the night fires on all sides light up the dark landscape with a fiery glow. The pleasant green of pastures is almost unknown, the streams, in which no fishes swim, are black and unwholesome; the natural dead flat is often broken by high hills of cinders and spoil from the mines; the few trees are stunted and blasted; no birds are to be seen, except a few smoky sparrows; and for miles on miles a black waste spreads around, where furnaces continually smoke, steam engines thud and hiss, and long chains clank.

However it may be described, the Black Country did much to give this county its character. The coal deposits and the iron ore as well as fireclay, which were all to be found in the area, led to the region becoming the cradle of the Industrial Revolution. Although the factories and furnaces whose polluting smoke caused the ‘perpetual twilight’ noted by Sidney are now long gone, and much of the industry is gone too, the people of the Black Country remain. I hope I have reflected their warmth and their humour in this book.

The West Midlands is much more than an industrial county. Much of it is surprisingly rural, and although there used to be a great deal of heavy industry, some of the manufacturing was lighter. Alongside the coal mining, ore mines, chain making and the like was nail making, sword and knife manufacture, gun making, leatherworking, needle making and button making, and I have included stories which weave in and out of the manufacturing and farming history of the county while not in themselves being factually ‘historical’.

I have learnt a lot in researching this book, and I have enjoyed writing it. I hope you get as much pleasure from reading it.

Cath Edwards, 2018

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A number of people have given me stories for this book: thank you very much Taffy Thomas, Graham Langley, Paul Butler, David Blythe and Jenna Catton. A whole host of people helped me with their interest and encouragement. My thanks to all of you, you know who you are.

My thanks too to Rhys Jenkins, who helped with collating research, making the task easier.

Last but by no stretch of the imagination least my love and huge appreciation to my lovely partner Paul Fisher, who has been supportive in all kinds of ways.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CATH EDWARDS has told stories for over forty years, first as a teacher to children and, in the last ten years or so, to adult audiences. She tells at festivals, in museums, in schools, at storytelling clubs and a host of other venues. Her repertoire is based on traditional folk tales, particularly from the British Isles, and she very much enjoys finding and telling stories that she has heard no one else tell. She runs occasional storytelling training workshops and coaching sessions for less experienced storytellers. She lives in Walsall in the West Midlands and is co-host of Lichfield Storytelling Club, a monthly club for adults. Cath is the Society for Storytelling Midlands representative.

Visit Cath’s website at: www.storytellingforall.co.uk

1

MININGAND MINERS

Around the turn of the eighteenth century, many of the poor working people in the Midlands were close to starvation. The price of wheat and many other basic foods had risen sharply in the preceding decades, such that it was becoming impossible to live. In many areas, Birmingham and Wolverhampton included, food riots broke out, with those suspected of profiteering at the expense of the poor coming in for threats of violence and more.

The threats were occasionally put into writing. A letter sent to a miller included the words:

Your family I know not, But the whole shall be inveloped in flames. Your Carkase if any such should be found will be given to the Dogs if it Contains any Moisture for the annimals to devour it.

In surprising public-spiritedness, local magistrates would often ensure that farmers and millers sold wheat and other foods at an affordable rate, especially at times of shortage. So, the indignation that led a farmer who was also a magistrate to receive the following is perhaps understandable:

We right to let you know that if you do not medetley [immediately] make bread cheaper you may and all your nebern [neighbouring] farmers expect your houses rickes barns all fiered and bournd down to the ground. You are a gestes [justice] and see all your felley cretyrs [fellow creatures] starved to death. Pray see som alterreshon [alteration] in a mounth or you shall see what shall be the matter.

These are desperate words from desperate people, and the situation was no better for the Black Country colliers. There is a story of the Bilston colliers who staged a more peaceful demonstration of their plight; it involves Edward Woolley, who also appears in the chapter ‘Guns and Edward Woolley’.

EDWARD WOOLLEYANDTHEMINERS

Bilston was located on the South Staffordshire Coalfield (as the county boundaries then were), and while large areas of the coalfield were near to the surface, in Bilston the coal was deeper within the earth, and so the Bilston miners had a harder and more dangerous job to extract it. The perils were real and sometimes fatal: fire, flooding, choke damp, tunnel collapse and unhealthy conditions.

The challenges of the work were only moderately rewarded and with the price of food being as high for the miners as for everyone else, the men, as no one was doing anything to help them, felt driven to help themselves. In the circumstances their chosen action, at least in this story, seems very restrained. They decided to fill a wagon with coal and drag it the 130 miles to Westminster, to the Houses of Commons, to draw attention to their plight and to plead their case.

The miners, with their wagon load of coal, were setting out on their journey, making their way through the streets of Bilston in the hope of attracting help and support from the local people in whatever form it might be offered. Instead, they attracted the attentions of Mr Woolley, local businessman and busybody. He was driving in his old-fashioned low carriage, when he caught sight of the ragged procession approaching him. He stood up, reins and whip in hand, and drew himself up to his full, not at all impressive, height, and began to hurl abuse, well peppered with the sort of choice language which the miners may well have heard before but which they were not accustomed to hearing shouted in the street for everyone to hear. For the time being abandoning their wagon, the miners as one man advanced on Woolley; as they neared, he began laying about him with his whip, insulting the men and swearing, if anything, worse than before.

One miner caught hold of the whip and, twisting it out of Woolley’s grip, flung it up and over his shoulder, where it flew behind him, skittering along the street and coming to rest some 50 yards away. Woolley turned pale as the men surrounded his carriage. He sat down abruptly and gripped the edge of his seat with white knuckles, as if that would save him. With something that could have been courage or stupidity, he began to threaten the miners, telling them what he would do to them if only he had his old yeomanry sword with him.

By now, a crowd of amused onlookers was starting to gather. They watched as some of the men lined themselves up at either shaft; the pony standing between them rolled its eyes and tossed its head. The other men positioned themselves on each side of the body of the carriage; several hands grasped each wheel. On an unseen signal – the men were after all used to working as a team – the carriage was lifted a little off the ground, and the men at the shafts began to swing them round with the pony shuffling sideways to keep up. To the delight of the crowd, Woolley, with a mixture of rage and fear, was scarlet-faced and raving, shouting to be put down, screaming for his yeomanry sword, bawling now at the audience for not helping him. An old woman stepped forward. She rummaged in the pocket of her apron and found what she was searching for. She turned to hold the grubby handkerchief aloft, showing it to the assembled townsfolk, then, with grandly affected concern and courtesy, she offered it to Woolley ‘to dry your eyes’.

Soon the manoeuvre was complete; Woolley’s carriage was set down undamaged, its occupant unharmed, but facing in the opposite direction. One of the men slapped the pony’s rump and, accompanied by hoots and shrieks of laughter from the crowd, it trotted smartly back in the direction from whence it and its owner had come.

From that time onwards unkempt street urchins would shout at Woolley when he appeared in the streets: ‘Where’s your sword, Mr ’Oolley?’ At least, that’s what they would shout when they weren’t shouting the other thing, as related in another story, later in this book.

The miners, sadly, on that occasion found that their project to take coal to Westminster, there to plead their case, was a failure.

There is an old song, ‘The Brave Collier Lads’, which, as well as exhorting young women to marry miners, contains this verse:

Come all you noble gentlemen, wherever you may be,

Do not pull down their wages, nor break their unity;

You see they hold like brothers, like sailors on the sea,

They do their best endeavours for their wives and family.

In happier times, it was the custom of the miners and other workers to mark the turning of the year with various traditional celebrations. May was a particularly active time, with the warmer weather and promise of summer. May Day, the first Monday of May, was the occasion for a variety of customs and celebrations. Industrial workers would decorate their places of work with branches of May blossom, or hawthorn, which must have been an incongruous sight: pitheads, chimneystacks, foundries, factories and engine houses all wreathed with frothy creamy-white flowers. The buildings of villages and towns, too, would be decorated. Parties of May-gatherers would make off to the nearest woods or even hedgerows, where they cut and collected armfuls of May blossom; returning to the village green or town square, they placed their trophies on the ground for communal use. When all the parties had returned, the branches were shared out and used to decorate the doorways of houses, inns and the church porch.

Some of the boughs gathered must have been quite sizeable; the largest would be chosen to serve as the maypole, and, decorated with ribbons, streamers and garlands, it was propped firmly up on the green to be the focal point of the festivities. The maypole might be ‘christened’ by the local crier, who, armed with a pot of ‘humming ale’, would pour part of it over the maypole and then drink the rest. As ‘humming ale’ is described as ‘strong liquor that froths well and causes a humming in the head of the drinker’, one might wonder what proportion of the pot was poured, and how much retained to be drunk.

G.T. Lawley collected the following rhyme which describes the christening ceremony from an old resident of Bilston in the mid-nineteenth century:

Up with the maypole, high let it be,If none say me ‘Nay!’, I’ll now christen thee,The maypole, the maypole, thy name it shall be,Now all you good folk, come shout with me,Hurrah! Hurrah!

Those who had not collected and distributed the May boughs would have been busy with preparations for a shared feast and the construction of the bower for the Queen of the May. The girl chosen to be May Queen was carrying on an ancient folk tradition, but one that might also have been recognised in some way in the local church. In the words of an anonymous hymn:

Bring flowers of the rarestBring blossoms of the fairestFrom garden and woodland and hillside and daleOur full hearts are swelling,Our glad voices tellingThe praise of the loveliest flower of the vale.

O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today,Queen of the angels and Queen of the May

O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today,Queen of the angels and Queen of the May

Their lady they name theeTheir mistress proclaim theeOh, grant that thy children on earth be as trueAs long as the bowersAre radiant with flowersAs long as the azure shall keep its bright blue

O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today,Queen of the angels and Queen of the MayO Mary we crown thee with blossoms today,Queen of the angels and Queen of the May

The maypole dance is described in a rhyme from Wolverhampton:

All round the maypole we will trot,From the very bottom to the very top,Now I’ve got my Nancy to trundle on my knee.Oh! My lovely Nancy she’s the girl for me.She hops and she skips while the tabors play,It’s well for the shepherds on the first of May.First come the buttercups then come the daisies,Then come the gentles, then come the ladies.So all around the maypole here we trotFrom the very bottom to the very top.

Bands of colliers took part in a traditional May Day dance; one of their number carried a long stick, on the end of which was a collecting box, which he would shake to keep time with the music and to encourage the spectators to make a contribution. All decorated their clothes with ribbons, and the dancers carried stout staves. They were accompanied by a musician, perhaps a fiddler. The dance as described by Lawley sounds like Morris dancing, with rows of four men facing each other, striking each other’s staves in time with the music while changing sides. When the miners were on strike and times were particularly hard, the Morris dancing would be a means of raising funds. The miners composed songs that explained their plight; the chorus of one, sung in the mid-nineteenth century, went:

O, the shilling!O, the shilling!We’d sooner starveThan go to workAt a shilling a day!

The May Day celebrations would be completed by groups of colliers, ironworkers and other labourers making their way in to the countryside, where they would enjoy cups of the customary whey drink. The ingredients were simple: milk, which was bought from local farmhouses, and rum, which the workers took with them. They drank toasts to the day with such great enthusiasm that it seems they often made a nuisance of themselves, romping through the lanes and fields, running impromptu races and engaging in equally impromptu pitched battles, their good sense no doubt disappearing at the same rate as the contents of their rum bottles.

THE COLLIERSANDTHE BISHOP

One late afternoon, a group of Black Country colliers, all friends, were walking home from the pit along a country lane when they saw ahead a travelling pedlar, riding on his donkey cart. The cart was laden with a great variety of wares: bolts of cloth, metal pans, crock pots, cutlery, scissors, shears, bundles of ribbons, boxes of buttons, nails, tools, farm implements, combs, brushes and what seemed to be an endless variety of other things.

As the friends watched, the pedlar drove his cart over a particularly bumpy stretch; the contents bounced and rattled and when the wheels hit an exceptionally deep rut, a kettle jumped out and landed on the soft grass at the side of the road. The pedlar hadn’t noticed, and he continued on his way.

The colliers strolled over to the kettle, and one of them picked it up. It was a perfectly good kettle, and a debate started as to which of them should have it. An important decision should not be hurried, so they repaired to a convenient wall and sat on it to continue their discussion. At length, one of them suggested that they have a tall-tale-telling contest, with the man who told the most implausible story winning the kettle.

John offered to start.

‘I was walking through a field last Sunday, on the way to visit my girl. All of a sudden the sky grew dark. I looked up and I saw purple clouds covering the sun and stretching from one horizon to another. The clouds changed colour, from purple to dark green to red to purple again, and then it came on to rain. But it didn’t rain ordinary rain made of water. This rain was made of gold and silver nails. Well, it hurt, having gold and silver falling on me out of the sky, so I looked around for somewhere to shelter. I saw a little house and ran towards it. The door opened when I got close so I ran in, and as soon as I was inside the door slammed, the house flew into the air and landed in the village. And that’s why I’ve got a new house.’

John’s friends gave this story their fullest consideration, and they agreed that none of it was believable. Then it was George’s turn.

‘I was in that field last Sunday as well, and I can tell you that everything that John has just told you is absolutely true.’

John at that point had the good grace to laugh. George went on.

‘And I walked out of the field and went back to the village where I felt thirsty so I went into the inn. The landlord looked just as he normally did, and he was wearing what he always wears and the inn was exactly the same as it always is. And the landlord says to me, “All right George? What would you like to drink? Have anything you want because all drinks are free today.”’

This time, all of George’s friends laughed, and they were still laughing when a man on a horse approached. It was the Bishop from the big town. He reined in his horse, bid the men a good afternoon, and asked them what they were doing. They explained that they were having a tall tales contest and that two of them had already had a go, and the rest of them were going to take their turn.

The Bishop frowned.

‘So you are all, in fact, telling lies?’

None of them knew quite how to answer that. It wasn’t lying, not proper lying, but they didn’t know how to say that to a Bishop. He saved them the trouble of replying.

‘I am deeply concerned about this. You must understand that lying in any form is wrong, and you must not do it. Why, I myself was brought up not to tell lies from a very young age, as soon as I was old enough to understand, and I can honestly say that I have never lied, not once in my life.’

The colliers tried to keep their faces straight. Then one of them snorted, another sniggered, a third chortled, and soon they had all slipped off the wall and were laughing so hard that they struggled to stand up. The Bishop looked on with undisguised anger at their disrespectful behaviour. John was the first to regain the power of speech.

‘Oh, your honour, that’s a good one. Here, you better take it!’ And he handed the kettle to the Bishop.

2

MINERS, SUPERSTITIONANDTHE SUPERNATURAL

The job of a miner was fraught with dangers and sadly accidents, injury and deaths were not uncommon. The folk of the Black Country, where the mining took place, were known for being superstitious, and how understandable that miners would be more superstitious than most.

In the Cockfighter’s Arms in Old Moxley there used to be a large board in the taproom, above the fireplace, clearly painted with a list of warnings to colliers. Amy Lyons, in her 1901 book Black Country Sketches, records the contents:

YE COLLIERS’ GUIDE OF SIGNES AND WARNING.

1st – To dream of a broken shoe, a sure sign of danger.2nd – If you mete a woman at the rising of ye sun turne again from ye pit, a sure sign of death.3rd – To dream of a fire is a sign of danger.4th – To see a bright light in ye mine is a warning to flee away.5th – If Gabriel’s hounds ben about, doe no worke that day.6th – When foul smells be about ye pit, a sure sign that ye imps ben annear.7th – To charme away ghosts and ye like: Take a Bible and a key, hold both in ye right hand, and saye ye Lord’s Prayer, and they will right speedily get farre away.

In the same vein as dreaming of a broken shoe is a superstition that to find an old shoe on the way to the pit signifies bad luck; but if the finder can hide the shoe, without being observed, the bad luck is averted. Meeting a woman at sunrise is modified by some into ‘meeting a cross-eyed woman’, but G.T. Lawley records the following story from 1711:

Some colliers going to work in Mr Peroehouse’s Colliery at Moorfield, near Ettingshall, met a woman. As it was sunrise they became alarmed, and some of them turned back. Several others went to work laughing at such fears. In less than two hours an explosion of fire-damp occurred, and a man was killed.

With such an experience, it is quite understandable that there would be a great fear of breaking a taboo.

The Gabriel Hounds were an invisible air-borne pack of dogs, whose baying could be heard from the skies. Hearing the Hounds on the way to work would make miners turn for home, because it would mean sure disaster. Some sceptics noted that a skein of wild geese taking flight at dawn or dusk and calling to each other across their accustomed arrow-head flight formation, sounded very like the baying of hounds. Similarly, the Seven Whistlers, who made bird-like cries overhead or at the pithead, caused miners to refuse to work. It seems that all seven have never been heard whistling at once. Up to six have been counted; the belief is that if all seven whistle at once, then the world will come to an end.

THE DEAD MAN’S JACKET

In the Black Country, as in many other places, there was a belief that the dead should go to the grave as whole as possible, that is, with all their body parts and with their immediate earthly possessions. To deprive a corpse of a personal item after death was a very serious transgression and would result in the spirit of the dead person walking abroad in search of their property, trying to have it returned.

Two miners, Toby and Edward, were working together in a cramped part of the mine off the main tunnel. With barely room to swing a pickaxe, they found themselves having to work in single file, Edward in front and Toby behind him, each man in turn carrying a load of the coal they had hewn to the skip. So they worked for hours, until it was time for a break. Edward took off his jacket and hung it on a nail in one of the pit props, remarking how warm it was getting. The two men sat down side by side, took the lids off their snap tins and began to eat their sandwiches. Toby was the younger man, as yet unmarried, and he looked up to Edward, who had that calm steadiness of personality that inspires confidence.

Toby unscrewed the top of his water canister. ‘How long have you been a miner, Ed?’ he asked.

Edward thought for a moment. ‘Fifteen year come Michaelmas.’

‘Will I be earning like you do one day, Ed?’ Toby had to give his parents much of what he did earn, and it didn’t leave him a lot for savings or for buying warm clothes.