A Sheaf of Gleanings (Part One)

Giants, Divination and Witchcraft! Welcome to part one of Charlotte Sophia Burne's 1883 collection, A Sheaf of Gleanings.

'Lasses still use it to discover true lovers, thus, place a key in a Bible at the text Ruth 15–16, tie it firmly with the inquirer's left garter, let two persons rest the projecting ends of the key on their forefingers, and both book and key will turn over when the name of the right man is spoken.'

Tales From Antiquaria is a podcast dedicated to exploring the legacy of work published regarding folklore and local history during the golden age of antiquarian writing in the nineteenth century.

For show notes and links, visit the episodes page at thelocalmythstorian.com

Episode written, produced and presented by Eli Lewis-Lycett. All source material taken directly from the stated publication. Main theme music by Humanoid Media. Incidental music from Restum-Anoush. 

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Transcript

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Giants, divination, and witchcraft. My name is Eli, and this is Tales from Antiquaria. Folklore, local history, and curious legends spoken directly from the pages of the past. And this is the first of two episodes we'll be spending exploring the work of Charlotte Sophia Byrne and her collection A Sheaf of Gleanings, which is something of a legendary work, no pun intended, in the canon of nineteenth century folklore. Charlotte was born in Staffordshire in 1850, but her love for the law of her adopted county of Shropshire was abundant and she brings all manner of comparative folklore into play from European cultures too. A very modern work by the fashion of the day and it marks her out quite distinctly from her contemporaries in that respect. This shouldn't be a surprise really, Charlotte was the first female president of the folklore society, and she was a driving force behind the second edition of the Society's official handbook of folklore. A Sheaf of Gleanings was published by Minsel and Hughes of Chester in 1883, and its genesis was the collection of a friend, Georgina F. Jackson, and Charlotte will enlighten us as to how that came about in her intro to the book. It will be best, I think, once more to tell the story of this book from the beginning. My own connection with it is entirely accidental and form no part of the original plan. It was in the year 1870 that Miss Jackson first conceived the idea of the Shropshire Word book. She gathered up together with the words and sounds a mass of old world stories and ideas sufficient to give the rise to the prospect of following up her first book by another which should deal with the subject of Shropshire folklore. This project was the means of my becoming acquainted with her. In 1872, I made some notes of local folklore for the Seven Valley Naturalist Field Club, which the then secretary of the club asked me to allow Miss Jackson to see. From this our friendship, as I am proud to call it, grew, and at length, when increasing illness made Miss Jackson fear she may not be able to finish her double task, she placed her folklore gleanings in my hands. These gleanings form the nucleus of the present volume. It's a genuine treasure trove, this. Let's get stuck in. Long long ago, in the days where there were giants in the land, two of them were turned out by the rest and forced to go and live by themselves. So they set to work to build themselves a hill to live in. In a very short time they had dug out the earth from the bed of the seven, which runs in the trench they made to the present time, and with it they piled up the reeking, intending to make it their home. Those bare patches on the turf between the bladder stone and the top of the hill are the marks of their feet, where from that day to this the grass has never grown. But they had not been there long before they quarrelled, and one of them struck the other with his spade but failed to hit him, and the spade descending to the ground cleft the sod rock and made the needle's eye. Then they began to fight, and the giant with the spade, for they seemed to have had only one between them, was getting the best of it at first, but a raven flew up and pecked at his eyes, and the pain made him shed such a mighty tear that it hollowed out the little basin in the rock which we now call the raven's bowl, a hollow that has never been dry since and is always full of water even in the hottest summers. And now you may suppose that it was very easy for the other giant to master the one who had the spade, and when he had done so he determined to put him where he could never trouble anyone again. And so he very built up the hill beside the Rikin and imprisoned his fallen foe within it. There the poor blind giant remains until this day. The funeral garlands of Schraden The funeral garlands which some forty years ago still hung in Schraden Church were believed by the villagers to be the work of giants. This is particularly curious, as the practice of carrying such garlands at funerals was still kept up in that part of Shropshire less than a hundred years before, so that belief of giants must have sprung up within two or three generations. The Bible and Key The Bible and Key, says our friend and correspondent, writing in 1871 from a village in Corvedale, has come to be chiefly used for detecting dishonest servants or children in farmhouses. The culprit generally confesses at once and receives some slight punishment when all is well. Not always, however, does the matter end so successfully. In December 1878, one Mrs. Martha Cad, living in Ludlow, was missing a sheet and proceeded to turn the key on the Bible to discover who had stolen it. She and a party of friends went to the backyards of several neighbours in succession, and at each they opened the Bible. The injured party crossed their forefingers over it, and a key was balanced on the fingers. Then the name of the person living in the house was mentioned. And as Mrs. Cad, who could not read, her neighbour, Mrs. Mary Ann Collier, repeated for her the sixteenth verse of the first chapter of Ruth, Whither thou goest I will go. The key remained motionless until they reached the yard belonging to Mrs. Elizabeth Oliver, when as soon as her name was mentioned, they declared that both the key and the Bible turned completely out of their hands. They then asked whether the theft was committed by daylight or dusk, and the key turned at the word of daylight. On the twenty seventh of December, Mrs. Collier met Mrs. Oliver and took occasion to inform her with nice derangement of epitaphs that she was a daylight thief. Mrs. Oliver charged her at the Ludlow Borough sessions on the eighth of january eighteen seventy nine, and the whole story came out in court, accompanied by a renewed wrangle between the pair and a great display of interest on the part of many believers in the divination. One believer, being called as a witness, averred that the mention of a thief's name would cause the key to jerk about and no power could keep it still. This was said much to the astonishment of the mayor and his colleagues, who dismissed the case. But exactly the same thing has just happened again. A Mrs. Caroline Pardo of Ludlow lately lost a watch from the room in which her daughter, recently dead, had lain ill and suspected her neighbour, Alan Wall. So she turned the key on the Bible, and when Mrs. Wall's name was called it fell to the ground ten times. She then in no measured terms accused Mrs. Wall of the theft, and on february thirteenth, eighteen eighty three, the latter charged her at the Ludlow Borough Sessions with having used abusive language to her on the preceding twenty seventh of January. Mrs. Pardo, who gave the bench the benefit of her opinions on the subject at great length, took out a cross summons for the same offence against Mrs. Wall's son, and the matter ended with the infliction of a shilling fine on both parties. This divination was known at Worthen fifty years ago, and Staffordshire lasses still use it to discover true lovers thus. Place a key and a Bible at the text of Ruth 15-16, tie it firmly with the inquirer's left garter, let two persons rest the projecting ends of the key on their forefingers, and both book and key will turn over when the name of the right man is spoken. The Stokesy Giants On the banks of the little river Ony, in the valley between Church Streeton and Ludlow and not far from the Craven Arms railway station, stands Stokesay Castle, one of the most perfect specimens in existence of a fortified mansion of the early fourteenth century. On either side of it rise fine bold hills shuttering in the valley. The easternmost of these is crowned by the large and perfect entrenchments of Norton Camp, and that on the southwest called Yo or View Edge, has also earthworks on its summit. Both camps have been raised it as thought to guard the Roman road which once ran along the bottom of the valley. But these various monuments of antiquity, much as they differ from each other in origin, have all been linked together in popular imagination thus. Many years ago, all the country round Stokesay belonged to two giants who lived one up on View Edge and the other at Norton Camp. Most likely they were both brothers, for the land belonged to them both alike, and so did the money. They kept all of their money locked up in a big oak chest in the vaults under Stokesay Castle, and when either of them wanted any of it, he just took out the key and got some out and took the key back with him. And then if the other one wanted it, he shouted to his brother on the other side to throw it to him. And so they went on, throwing the key backwards and forwards just as they happened to want it. But at last one day one of them wanted the key and the other had got it, so he shouted out to him to throw it over as they were used to do. But as he went to throw it, he somehow made a mistake and threw too short and dropped the key into the moat down by the castle. They tried every way to find it, but they never did, and there it lies now at the bottom of the pool somewhere. Many have been to look for it, quite of late years even, but it has never been found. And that chest of treasure stands in the vault still today, so they say, but nobody can get into it. For there's a great big raven always sitting on the top of it, and it won't let anybody try to break it open. So no one will ever be able to get to the giant's treasure until the key is found. The Knight and the Lion On the south aisle of Barrington Church, four miles from Shrewsbury, there is a cross legged effigy representing some unknown knight of the late 14th century. The figure is of wood, not stone, and exhibits the unusual costume of a circa worn over plate armour. Altogether, it's excited a good deal of interest among antiquaries. The Reverend W. A. Leighton visiting the church asked the parish clerk if he had ever heard of who the figure represented. No, said the man, but the people of the neighbourhood have always called him Ode Scriven of Brompton. The story went that once upon a time when Scriven was going from Brompton to visit his lady love at Eatham Mascot, just by the stile at the bottom of the banky piece he met with a great lion, the terror of the neighbourhood. However, Ode Scriven had brought a great sword with him, and he attacked the lion, and in the end he cut the beast in two. And, quoth the clerk, you may see a lion cut in half, just the same lying under the feet of the image of the man. And on the man's face you may see where the lion gave Ode Scriven a terrible scratch with his forepaw and tore away half his cheek. Witchcraft charms of the many charms used to counteract or prevent witchcraft, the favourites are horseshoes, silver, spittle, and the sign of the cross. Horseshoes are still nailed upon stable doors in Shropshire, though not many people knew, or at any rate will own, any reason for it except that it is lucky. But at Edgmond, where in my childhood a stable door was adorned with three rows of horseshoes arranged in a triangular pattern, the grooms avowed plainly that they were hung there to keep the witches out. The cogs or heels of the shoe must be placed uppermost, according to an Oswestrian formant. But I do not think this is invariable. Nor is it only on stable doors that the horseshoe is used. An old horseshoe hung over the door of a house or room will prevent nightmare, according to Sarah Mason of Baschchurch, who also informs us that a horseshoe nailed over the door the wrong way up will cure a haunted house and prevent all evil spirits from entering. This is corroborated by others. Mr Jesse Wood of the Aqueduct of Maidley writes of the horse or ass's shoe nailed over the cottage door as a precaution against witchcraft in common use in that neighbourhood. Even at Shrewsbury, the county town itself, we're assured that horseshoes may be seen fastened above the lintel or to the doorpost inside some of the houses in the lower parts of the town. In Mrs. Bray's time horseshoes were fixed to the minesheds on Dartmoor with the avowed intention of preventing witchcraft. And the explanation was given that the devil always travels in circles, and so he is consequently interrupted when he arrives at either of the heels of the shoe. Whatever the original reason for the use of the horseshoe charm may be, it is certainly not this. I am inclined to think that the virtue originally resided not so much in the horseshoe as in the metal of which it was made. In all the old folk tales, iron and steel have the power of dissolving enchantments. Welsh fairies and goblins vanish at a blow from cold iron. Throughout Scandinavia, trolls of all kinds are rendered harmless and powerless by throwing a knife, hammer, rifle barrel, or any steel weapon over them. Swedish bathers charm the waters by throwing steel into them. In Scotland a piece of cold iron laid in the bed of a newly made mother secures her from being carried away by the fairies. And in Sweden again, some steel instrument is laid in the child's cradle for the same purpose. In agreement with this, we think in Shropshire not only that it is lucky to find a horseshoe, but that it is lucky to find old iron of any kind. The best known metal charm, however, is silver. It was thought that a witch could only be wounded by a silver bullet. A good wife at Morton Say, near Market Trayton, is accustomed to put a silver coin into the churn when the cream swells instead of turning to butter. In Northumberland it must be a crooked sixpence. And my Lancashire kindred were in the habit of using a silver spoon for the same purpose. It's curious that this is almost the only trace I have met with in Shropshire of the ill doings of witches in the dairy, for elsewhere they are known to linger in the dairy and are generally so busy. The Ghost of Ipicin's Rock Further south, between Prestope and Lutwich Hall, the cliff is connected with the story of a more mythical hero, Ipicin, who has left his name to a remarkably bold and picturesque rock jutting out from the edge just above Upper Hilt Farm. Ipicin was a famous robber knight of days gone by who inhabited this cave at the base of the crag, concealed among the trees and brushwood which clothed the face of the hill wherever they can find a footing. There he and his followers lived unharmed for many years and gathered together great quantities of stolen treasure. At last a mass of overhanging rock fell and blocked up the mouth of the cave, imprisoning the robber band forever. But Ipicin's rock is a haunted place still. The mark of the knight's gold chain may yet be traced upon it. And if anyone shall be so hardy as to stand up on the top of the cliff and cry Ippicin, Ipicin, keep away with your long chain. The ghost of the imprisoned robber will instantly appear. Quite recently rumours were current of moving lights seen about the cave by night, showing that the robbers were still on the watch to guard their hidden treasure. Is it too much to suggest that behind the characters of Gentleman Highwayman and Outlaw Knight, which Ipicin has evidently borne by turns in the imagination of different ages, we may discover, in his malevolent nature, his long chin, and his curious diminutive name, some resemblance to the malicious dwarves who guard untold riches in the recesses of the Haas Mountains. Well, that's part one complete. What a collection! And on to part two we go. So until next time, take care and may your God go with you.com.