A Sheaf of Gleanings (Part Two)

Goblins, fairies and haunted Tudor manors! This is part two of Charlotte Sophia Burne's 1883 collection, A Sheaf of Gleanings.

'Dun you mean little things as come in the night-time, and sing, and whistle, and make music, and dance on the commons and such places? Fairies, they call 'em. I’ve heard o’them, but I never knew any one see ’em.'

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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Goblins, fairies, haunted Tudor manners, it's just another week in the world of folklore. My name is Eli, and this is Tales from Antiquaria, Episode 5: A Shef Gleanings, Part Two. This is episode 5, a second part on Charlotte Sophia Burns' 1883 work, A Sheaf of Gleanings. And if you've not heard our last episode, part one of this title, I'd recommend giving it a listen first, but it's not crucial. If you're enjoying the podcast so far and want as many episodes as possible in the future, like I do, then please consider a like, subscribe, and review on your podcast platform. I can't tell you how much it helps support the show. But that aside, let's get straight into it Willow the Wisp. The following story of Jack O'Lantern is given with a certain amount of reserve, inasmuch as I cannot say for certain how far it may be called a popular tradition of Shropshire. But as I have succeeded in finding at least one local lady who could relate having heard so much of the story in her youth, I have decided to let it appear here. Once upon a time there came to a blacksmith shop late one night a traveller, whose horse had cast a shoe, and he wanted the blacksmith to put it back on for him. So Will, that was the man's name, was very ready, and he soon had it on again all right. Now the traveller was none other than the apostle Saint Peter himself, going about to preach the gospel, and before he went away he told the blacksmith to wish a wish, and whatever he chose would be granted to him. I wish, said Will, that I might live my life over again, and so it was granted, and he lived his life over again, spending it drinking and gambling and all manner of wild pranks. At last his time came and he was forced to set out for the other world, thinking of course to find a place in Hal made ready for him. But when he came to the gates, the devil would not let him in. The devil said no, because by this time Will had learnt so much wickedness that he would become more than a match for him, and he dared not let him come in. So away went the Smith to heaven, to see if Saint Peter, who had been a good friend to him before, will find him a place there. But Saint Peter would not, and Will was forced to go back to the old lad again and began to pray for a place in hell. But the devil would still not be persuaded. Will had spent two lifetimes in learning wickedness, and now he knew too much to be welcome anywhere. All that the devil would do for him was to give him a lighted coal from hellfire to keep himself warm. And that is how he comes to be called Will of the Wisp. And so he goes wandering up and down the moors and mosses, wherever he may find folks to lose their way and bring them to a bad end. For he is no less wicked and deceitful now than he was when he was a blacksmith. The white cow of Mitchell's Fold. On the Corndon Hill, a bare moorland in the extreme west of Shropshire, stands a half-ruined stone circle known as Mitchell's Fold, and there too hangs a tale. In times gone by before anyone living now can remember, there was once a dreadful famine all about this country, and the people had liked to have been clemed. And all they had to depend upon was that there used to come a fairy cow up on the hill up at Mitchell's Fold, night and morning to be milked. A beautiful pure white cow she was, and no matter how many came to milk her, there was always enough for all. So long as everyone that came took only one pailful. If anyone was to milk her dry, she would go away and never come back again. But so long as everybody only took a pailful apiece, she would never be dry. It might take whatever sort of vessel they liked to milk her into, so long as it was only one apiece, and she would always fill it. At last they came an old witch, Mitchell her name was, a bad old woman she was, and did a deal of harm, and had a spite against everybody. She brought a riddle and milked the cow into it, and of course the poor thing couldn't fill it. And the old woman milked her and milked her, and at last she milked her dry, and the cow was never seen there again. Folks say she went off into Warwickshire like a crazy thing, and turned into the wild dung cow that Guy Earl of Warwick killed. But anyhow they say she was sadly missed in this country, and her many died after she was gone, and there was never to be so many living about here since. But the old woman got her punishment. She was turned into one of those stones on the hillside, and all the other stones were put up around her to keep her in, and that's how the place came to be called Mitchell's Fold. It's best not to meddle with such places. There was a farmer who lived by there, and he blew up some of them and took away the pieces of the rock to put around his horse pond, but he never did any good after. The Boogies and the Sort Box. A nursemaid from Worthing in West Shropshire used about the year 1840 to amuse her charges with the following story of the Boogies and the Sort Box, which has thus been recorded by Miss Jackson in the dialect of the Werthen district. Maybe you never heard the tale about the salt box. Well you see there was once some folks in the name of Reynold, who lived at the Gorsey Bank, and they had a rare good farm. The house was a good one, only it was an ancient old place, which had been a fine mansion or something in the king's reign. But the worst of it was that they were haunted by spirits or bogeys, or whatever you call them. They were like a little old man and woman, and the Reynolds were plagued to death with them, for they were always prancing about the house and the farmyard and the fields and everywhere, and nothing could either stand or rest for them, and they were on for everlasting. They fetched the parson to them once, but they didn't mind him, and made all manner of game of him, and I think he was frightened of them. At last they got so bad that the Reynolds could not put up with them any longer, so they made up their minds to go and live at another smaller farm they had a good way off. So they got their things away a few at a time as they could, unknown to the old man and woman, till at last one night they got right clear off and left the boggies in the empty house. So after they were come to the new place they felt fine and glad that they had got a quiet of them so well, and they began to unload and tidy up a bit. And everything was come all right but for an old salt box that they were very fond of, and my word if they hadn't left that behind. They were desperately vexed, and told the cowman to go and fetch it. But he was to be very careful that the boggies did not see him, or goodness knows what might happen. So he set out, but he didn't like the job at all. They sent young Edward with him, and if you'll believe me, they had not gone so far when who should they see coming along the other way sprightly but the old man and woman. They saw the cowman and Edward in a minute, and so it was no use for them to try and turn back, and they said, We've brought your salt box. So then they all went to the house, and the Reynolds were dreadfully put out when they saw the boggies coming. But they pretended to know nothing about it, and made out that they were right glad to see them again, and asked them to come in and have some food and drink. So they went into the best parlour, and while they were there the Reynoldsys got a lot of chumps from the wood pile and made a roaring fire in the brew house, taking a truss of straw and putting it in front of the fire, and made the cowman lie down there, and covered him all over with the straw, and then they asked the boggies to come and warm themselves. So they gave them some beef and a can of beer, and came and talked to them, and told them the news, and suddenly up jumps the cowman and tumbles right over them into the fire, straw and all, and then they set to work, poking them with pitchforks and brooms and kept them in the blaze till they were shrivelled up and burnt to ashes. They never saw anything more of them after that, but went back to the gauzey bank and had some peace and quietness. He a note on mischievous goblins. Grimm remarks that while the hard working brownie is a solitary being, the mischievous goblins usually appear in numbers, disturbing the rest of the household by their nightly pranks. So far we have not found this to be the case, but I may perhaps be permitted to give an example from it from a country village in Staffordshire, a few miles from the boundary of Shropshire. In this village there stood, within the memory of persons living in 1881, a beautiful old motive mansion of Henry VIII's time, called Norbury Manor. In the middle of the eighteenth century it was deserted by its owners, and after a time sold and turned into a farmhouse. At length, sometime during the first twenty years of the present century, it was pulled down because, said the old people of the neighbourhood, it was so badly haunted. And the fine old squared stones of which it was partly built were then used to erect a new farmhouse, about a hundred yards from the old site. But the ghosts have flitted with the stones. Night after night they might be heard deporting themselves into the ante rooms and passages. Whenever brewing was to be done, and the brewing vessels were put out overnight in readiness for the beginning of work in the morning, all night long the smell and sounds of brewing might be perceived, though nothing could be seen. And in the morning the vessels were always found clean and empty, just that they had been left the evening before. All of this was believed to be still going on during the tenancy of a farmer who held the farm between eighteen sixty and seventy or thereabouts. One day a friend came to see the farmer and was asked to stay and spend the evening there, so the pair sat together and had something to drink and enjoyed themselves very much. At last it was time to leave, and the farmer took a lantern and went with him to the Thackery stable to get his horse. But instead of finding it alone as they left it, there was another horse beside it, a beautiful grey, which started and fidgeted as they came in. That's a nice looking nag you've got there, said the visitor to the farmer, suspecting nothing. But the farmer said nothing, for he knew what it was. And sure enough in the morning the other horse was gone. The Seven Whistlers In June 1881, a kind friend took me to see an old man, John Thomas by name, living at crosshouses near Shrewsbury. He was full of old world stories and recollections of his boyhood near Bishop's Castle over fifty years ago. There, when still very young, he was put prentice to a shoemaker farmer at the Bishop's Moat near Bishop's Castle, and with seven other lads lived in his master's house, making shoes and working on the farm by turns as might be needed. I happened to ask him if he had ever heard of the seven whistlers, and he, not understanding my question, replied Don't you mean the little things that come in the night time and sing and whistle and make music? Them that dance on the commons and such places. Fairies they call them, I've heard of them, but I never knew anyone see em. Further inquiry a few days later produced a little more. About the fairies, it's only what I've heard folks say. I never did saw none myself. There used to be great talk of 'em fiddling and dancing on boggy ground and places in the middle of the night. But I canna tell nothing about them 'cause I never saw them. I never heard nothing about 'em since I've been in this country, but there used to be a great talk about 'em when I was a boy. Of the underground realm where they issued to perform their nightly gambles, he could say nothing. But the entrance to Fairyland is still pointed out elsewhere in Shropshire, namely the Oggo Hole, a cavern on the English side of Clanminar Hill, not far from Oswestry. Once the mouth it is supposed of a copper mine worked by the Romans. The Dragon of Bromfield. There is but little on this head to be found among the Shropshire legends of the present day. For a really complete local story of the kind, we must go back to the fourteenth century and the chronicle of Thomas of Walsingham. In the year 1344, he says, a certain Saracen physician came to Earl Warren to ask permission to kill a serpent or dragon which had its den at Bromfield near Ludlow, and was committing great ravages in the Earl's lands in the borders of Wales. The Earl consented, and the dragon was overcome by the incantations of the Arab. But certain words which he had dropped led to the belief that a large treasure lay hid in the dragon's den. Some men of Herefordshire, learning of this, went by night at the insistence of a lombard named Peter Picard to dig for the gold, and they had just reached it when the retainers of Earl Warren, having discovered what was going on, fell suddenly upon them, threw them into prison, and took possession of the hoard for the Earl. Further down the line, a whole lot of ghost lore we've not touched upon yet, so do keep an ear out for that. You know, it's becoming apparent to me that actually, such as the size of most folklore collections from the 19th century, multi-part episodes are likely going to become more common than one-offs as we go along. I hope you've enjoyed our jaunt through Shropshire though on these last two episodes. I know I have.com.