The Norfolk Garland

Black Shuck, witchcraft and the galloping ghost of Sir Thomas Boleyn! Its The Norfolk Garland, John Glyde's 1872 collection of Norfolk folklore.

'The spectre of this gentle­man is believed by the vulgar to be doomed on a certain night in every year for a period of 1000 years, to drive a coach drawn by four headless horses, over a circuit of twelve bridges. Sir Thomas carries his head under his arm, and flames issue from his mouth. Few rustics are hardy enough to be found loitering on or near these bridges on that night, and the man who spoke of this belief says that he was on one occasion hailed by this fiendish apparition, and asked to open a gate, but "he warn't such a fool as to turn his head, and well a' didn't, for Sir Thomas passed me at full gallop.'

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.

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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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Black Shock, Witchcraft, and the Galloping Ghost of Sir Thomas Berlin. My name is Eli, and this is Tales from Antiquaria, the Norfolk Garland. And tonight we're over in East Anglia for the first time as we explore John Glyde's 1872 collection, The Norfolk Garland, or Deep Breath. The Norfolk Garland, a collection of the superstitions, beliefs and practices, proverbs, curious customs, ballads and songs, as well as antidotes illustrative of the genius or peculiarities of Norfolk celebrities. No wonder that title didn't quite catch on. Published by Gerald and Sons of London, Glide has been described by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as a social commentator and antiquary. Something of a racantur of the age he was by turns a bookseller, the proprietor of an agency for domestic servants, a sociologist, a librarian, he worked on the founding of a library in the town of Ipswich, and of course, a writer. He's best remembered now as a folklorist for both his native Suffolk and evidently the neighbouring county of Norfolk too. The first insight of which he gives in the introduction to the collection. Norfolk is rich in legendary lore and has often been mentioned with regret that no general attempt has ever been made to note down those legends, beliefs and practices that have been transmitted to us from remote antiquity. I have endeavoured in this volume to present in a collective form a mass of those traditions that have from time immemorial been floating amongst the peasantry of this county. This folklore, as it has been aptly termed, will often be found to exhibit beautiful touches of a loving nature as well as fine poetic feeling, and will go far to illustrate the habits and manners of our forefathers. So to the east of England we go and into the law of the Norfolk Garland. In our rural villages, it's thought particularly disgraceful to cross the highway after childbirth and before being churched. Now some people say that a mother must not go into a neighbour's house till after she has been churched. The principle of this is a good one, but in practice it sometimes degenerates in this district into mere superstition. Many people hold that it is unlucky to weigh newborn children. If weighed they will probably die, or at any rate will not thrive. One nursery practice common here exists also in the north and the extreme west of England, that of not cutting a baby's nails until it is a year old. They are generally bitten off by the mother or the nurse. The reason assigned here is if they are cut, the child will become a thief. When children first leave their mother's room, they ought, it is said, to be carried upstairs before they go downstairs, or they will never rise to riches and distinction in their life after. And accordingly when, as is often the case, the mother's room is the highest in the house, and there is no upstairs for the nurse to climb, she will get over the difficulty by placing a chair near the door, and then she will step upon that with the babe in her arms as she leaves the room. It is affirmed that cats suck the breath of infants and so kill them. This extremely unphilosophical notion of cats preferring exhausted to pure air is frequently a cause of great annoyance to poor Pussy, when after having established herself close to baby in a snug warm cradle, she finds herself hustled out under suspicion of compassing the child's end. Courtship The Reverend Robert Formy says that young women keep vigil on Saint Mark's Eve for the purpose of discerning who their future husbands will be. Precisely at midnight the husband seeker must go alone into the garden, taking with her some hemp seed which she is to sow, repeating at the same time these following lines. It is believed that if this is done with full faith in the efficacy of the charm, the figure of the future husband will appear with a scythe and in the act of mowing. Love divination by means of dumb cake is known to have been practiced in this district on St. Mark's Eve. Dum cake, so called from the rigid silence which attends its manufacturer, is a species of dreaming bread, prepared by unmarried females with ingredients traditionally suggested in witches dog roll. An eggshell full of salt, an eggshell full of wheat meal, an eggshell full of barley meal. It must be baked before the fire a little before twelve o'clock at night. The maker of the cake must be quite alone, must be fasting, and not a word must be spoken. By some girls it is believed that exactly at twelve o'clock the sweetheart will come and turn the cake. But the more general formula is to cut the mystic viand when baked into three divisions, a part of each to be eaten and the remainder to be put under the pillow. When the clock strikes twelve, the damsels must go upstairs backwards and jump into bed, keeping a profound silence whatever may happen. Those who are to be married or are full of hope fancy they see visions of their future husbands hurrying after them, while those who are to live and die old maids see nothing at all. It's considered that if a young woman fill an egg with salt and eat it before going to bed, her future husband will bring her drink during the night. While another superstition asserts that the sweetheart or future husband is dreamed of, if wedding cake drawn through the ring be laid under the pillow and slept upon. Death and burial. The croaking of a raven flying over the house is an omen of a death in it. And the howling of a dog at night under the window of a room in which a sick person is lying is looked upon as a warning of death being near. This omen of the howling of a dog is known not only in nearly all parts of England, but also in France, Germany, and even in Constantinople. But Mrs. Lubbock, a great authority on superstitions, had a remedy for it. She said when asked about the howling dog, pull off your left foot shoe and turn it, and it will quiet him. I always used to do so when I was at service. A dog won't howl three times after. A lighted candle left in an unoccupied room, the doors being shut, is believed to presage the death of one of the family. It's also believed if you overturn a loaf of bread in the oven that you will have a death in the house. If you was brought into the house at Christmas amongst the evergreens used to dress it, it is held that a death will occur in the family. An octagian inhabitant of another village has recently told me that in his younger days a flight of ravens settling and croaking on the village church, which adjoins the parsonage, was considered by the villagers to be an omen of the death of the clergyman, which occurred soon after. Witches. The eastern counties of England were during the 16th and 17th centuries remarkably distinguished by the very prevalent belief in witchcraft. The cruelties that were practiced and the executions that resulted from the influence of this superstition are at the present day distressing even to contemplate. When such a man as the learned Dr. Thomas Brown of Norwich is found to give us testimony in favour of the opinion that the devil cooperates with the malice of these which we term witches, we cannot expect that the mass of the people of the same era would be free from the superstition. I shall adduce proofs of the prevalence of this belief in Norfolk in past ages and offer evidence that a belief in the power of witches prevails in this district at the present day. Where the power of witches is generally acknowledged, it is natural to suppose that some precaution will be adopted to prevent its exercise. From inquiries that have been made, it does not appear that any other preventative has of late years been known to be in use in Norfolk than the very general one of nailing a horseshoe to the threshold. The belief is that a witch cannot pass over the threshold on which a horseshoe is nailed with the open part upwards. Or at least that she cannot perform her diabolical feats within the house to which it belongs. That this belief is very prevalent in East Norfolk is evidenced by the number of horseshoes which, even during the last twenty years, have been seen attached to doors and wells and fishing boats. The Reverend John Gunn, writing in 1847, says, applications have often been made to me for advice by persons feeling themselves aggrieved by the imputation of sorcery. In one instance, a labour asked me what steps he should take to protect his wife from being called a witch. I persuaded him to let her treat the matter with contempt, and he resolved to do so. But a few days after he came to me in great agitation of mind, and declared that he could bear it no longer, for they now called his children devilings. I've also known people, a farmer, to complain of an old woman having an evil eye, and of her having fatally bewitched some of his horses and pigs as they passed her on the road. In Robert's Treatise on Witchcraft, London 1616, there is an account of Norfolk witches and the mode of making a witchcake to the according prescription of a cunning man. It is believed that Elizabeth Hancock, a widow, was bewitched by Maria Smith. Her father, Edward Drake, unable to bear any longer the sight of his daughter in pain and torment, determined to go and consult a cunning man. The cunning man told Edward Drake as soon as he saw him that he was coming to seek help for his daughter, and added that she was so far spent that if he had stayed but one day longer, the woman that had wronged her would have placed her past recovery. He also showed Drake the face of his daughter in a glass and told him that the witch had accused his daughter of stealing her hen, of which fact Drake was not previously aware. He then gave him the following directions, which, if strictly complied with, would be the means of giving the desired relief to his daughter. Make a cake with flour from the baker's, and mix with the same the patient's urine instead of other liquor and bake it on the hearth. One half of this cake is to be laid upon the patient about the region of her heart, and the other half to be applied to the back directly opposite. He also gave a box of ointment like treacle, which must be spread upon that cake and a powder to be cast upon the same and certain words written in a paper to be laid on the cake. He further told Edward Drake that if his daughter did not exhibit signs of improvement within six hours of the adoption of this remedy, then there was no health or recovery to be looked for. He also wished that silence should be kept. The widow, it is said, was by this means freed from the languishing torments that she had endured for six weeks. It was generally believed that a witch or wizard, whatever might be his size or corpulence, could not weigh down the church Bible. And the Reverend Robert Forby says many instances might be cited of persons who had been accused of witchcraft, applying to the clergyman of the parish to be allowed to prove their innocence by this ordeal. Towards the middle of the last century, a test of much more honourable kind was occasionally resorted to, which was supposed to bring upon the witch herself the sufferings of her victim. If an animal was supposed to be bewitched and to be past hope of recovery, it was suspended by its four feet over a large fire and burnt to ashes, and it was firmly believed that the witch herself would consume away at the same time in exact proportion with the poor animal she had tormented. Sometimes as soon as the fire was applied, the suspected sorceress would come to the door of the house in the utmost agony and alarm, and if she was admitted and allowed to extinguish the fire, she would escape with no other injuries than a few kicks or curses, the natural consequence of detection. If the animal, however, was consumed in the fire, so was the witch also, at whatever distance she might be by a sympathetic combustion. It was believed that witches had the power of transforming themselves into the shape of certain animals. The cat, the hare, the mole, and the toad have generally been selected for that purpose. The hare is the most common disguise of a witch in all the northern countries of Europe, and is well known in the northern counties of England. But I have not met with an account of such belief in these eastern counties. At the trial of the lowest off witches in 1664, one of the witnesses said that believing her child to be bewitched by Amy Dunney, she, the witness, went to a man called Dr. Jacob, who lived in Yarmouth, who had the reputation in the country to help children who were bewitched. He advised her to hang up the child's blanket in the chimney corner all day, and at night when she put the child to bed, to put it into the said blanket, and if she found anything in it, she was sure to throw it into the fire. The witness acted according to his directions, and at night when she took down the blanket with an intent to put a child therein, there fell out the same a great toad, which ran up and down the hearth, and she, having only a youth with her in the house, desired him to catch the toad and throw it into the fire, which the youth did accordingly and held it there with the tongs. As soon as in the fire it made a great and terrible noise, and after a space there was a flashing in the fire like gunpowder, making a noise like the discharge of a pistol, and thereupon the toad was no more seen nor heard. The next day there came a young woman and told the witness that her aunt, the said Amy, was in a most lamentable condition, having her face all scorched with fire. The witness in consequence went into the house to see Amy Dunny, and found her in the condition just stated. Her face, her legs and thighs appeared to be very much scorched and burnt. The witness asked the said Amy how she came into that sad condition, and Amy replied that she might thank her for it, for that she, the witness, was the cause of it. The witness further stated that after the burning of the said toad, her child recovered and was well again. At first he thought the dog belonged to Dick Allard, whose dog had snapped and snarled at him several times. He said, You have upset me two or three times, so I will upset you now. You will not turn out of the road for me, and I will not turn out of the road for you. Along came the dog straight in the middle of the road, and Finch kicked at him, but his foot went through him as though through a sheet of paper. He could compare it to nothing else. He was quite astounded and nearly fell backwards from the force of the kick. The ordinary form which spirits are said to assume in East Norfolk is that of the phantom dog. A headless dog with sorcerer eyes is said to pass nightly over Coltis Hall Bridge, while Old Shook travels between another by Beeston and Overstrand. A lane in the latter parish is called after him Shook's Lane. The late Reverend Tyler said that many persons in East Norfolk declare that they have seen a phantom in the shape of a black, shaggy dog, with fiery eyes and of immense size that visits churchyards at midnight. One witness nearly fainted away at seeing it, and on bringing his neighbours to see the place where he saw it, he found a large spot as if gunpowder had been exploded. Sir Thomas Boleyn's Spectre. Sir Thomas Boleyn, the father of the unfortunate queen of Henry VIII, resided at Blickling, distant about fourteen miles from Norwich, and now the residence of the most noble Marquis of Lothian. The spectre of this gentleman is believed by the Vulgar to be doomed on a certain night in every year for a period of thousand years to drive a coach drawn by four headless horses over a circuit of twelve bridges in that vicinity. Sir Thomas carries his head under his arm and flames issue from his mouth. Few rustics are hardy enough to be found loitering on or near these bridges on that night. And the man who spoke of this belief says that he was on one occasion hailed by this fiendish apparition and asked to open a gate. But he says he weren't such a fool as to turn his head and while he didn't, for Sir Thomas passed him at full gallop. This tradition is well known among aged persons. But it's very seldom that you meet anybody who has actually seen the Phantom. The heart in the hand The elder portion of the peasantry in or about Wickhampton are familiar with a strange legend. It's said that two brothers, who owned respectively two adjoining parishes, disputed so strongly about their respective boundaries that they quarrelled and fought until they tore each other's hearts out. The divine being manifested in his displeasure at such cruel conduct by turning them both into stone, and with their hearts in their hands they were placed in the church as monuments of divine vengeance. A splendid monument in Wickhampton Church to the memory of a knight and his lady is pointed at in confirmation of the legendary tale. As until the last few years the effigy of the knight held a small piece of stone in his hand that was shaped like a heart, and it is said in addition that after the death of the brothers one parish was called Wicked Hampton, since contracted into Wickhampton, and the other Halfire Gate, now known as Halvergate. The treasure of Callow Pit. Among the older inhabitants of the neighbourhood of Southwood, a small village between Yarmouth and Norwich, there still lingers a curious tradition respecting a golden treasure that lies at the bottom of Callow Pit, an old cavernous opening on the boundary of the parish that has evidently been in existence for many centuries. To ascertain for me the providence of this legend, a clergyman at the cottage of an old shepherd, one of thirty-nine inhabitants of the parish, and his daughter, a middle-aged woman, immediately give him all she heard from childhood about the callow pit and its golden treasure. It may be as well to promise that the pit is in a secluded district, and was formerly a place that was avoided by young people at night time, as it was reported that a headless horseman was to be seen riding in its vicinity. But the clue to the mystery attached to this spot may be found in the fact that it was formerly used by a gang of desperate men as a place of deposit for smuggled goods. The tale current in the neighbourhood is that a large quantity of gold is enclosed in an iron chest that lay submerged at the bottom of callow pits. For although the pit is at the present day always dry, it was formerly filled with water. Once upon a time two daring men, filled with a firm belief in the legend, determined to try and obtain this wonderful chest. Having, with due regard to secrecy, made all the necessary preparations for the adventure, they one night took advantage of a low state of the water to put their scheme into execution. Accordingly they placed ladders across the pit to form a bridge. By means of a strong staff with an iron hook, they caught hold of the ring in the lid of the chest, and with great exertion drew up the golden treasure to their temporary platform. The staff was then put through the ring and placed on their shoulders, in preparation to carry it off in triumph. Whether dealing with fairies or demons, the popular belief is that silence is essential to success, and in this case, unfortunately, one of the men was so elated at the possession of the much coveted prize that he cried out, We've got it safe, and old Nick himself can't get it from us. The pit was in a moment filled by a dense vapour, having a strong sulfurous smell, and a black hand and arm, supposed to belong to his satanic majesty, was thrust through the water and seized the chest. A desperate struggle between the archfiend and the bold adventurers ensured for the possession of the chest, the result of which was that the chest, unable to withstand the supernatural grasp, separated from the rings, And sunk into the water to be seen no more. The Wishing Wells at Walsingham. I close my collection of the superstitious beliefs of the peasantry by a notice of the wishing wells at Walsingham. Amongst the slender remains of Walsingham, once a celebrated seat of superstitious devotion, are two small circular basins of stone, a little to the northeast of the site of the conventual church. The water of these wells had at the time of Erasmus a miraculous efficacy in curing disorders of the head and stomach, the special gift, no doubt of the Holy Virgin, who has probably since that time resumed it, for the waters have no such quality now. She has substituted, however, another of far more comprehensive virtue. This is nothing less than the power of accomplishing all human wishes, which miraculous property the water is still believed to possess. In order to attain this desirable end, the votry, with a due qualification of faith and pious awe, must apply the right knee bare to a stone placed for that purpose between the wells. They must then plunge to the wrist, each hand bare also, into the water of the wells, which are near enough to admit of this immersion. A wish must then be formed, but not uttered with the lips, either at the time or afterwards, even in the confidential communication of the dearest friend. The hands are then to be withdrawn, and as much of the water as can be contained in the hollow of each is swallowed. This silent wish will certainly be accomplished within twelve months, if the efficacy of the solemn rite be not frustrated by the incredulity of some or other force of the votary It was interesting, wasn't it? The idea of the uh the howling dogs as a death omen, but how pulling off a shoe and shaking it at the dog can silence him as though that's some kind of magical characteristic, and not just a howling dog suddenly being terrified that he's gonna get hit by a slipper. Horseshoes being nailed to doors in Norfolk really interested me because Norfolk's a long way from some of the regions where uh the collections we covered so far on the podcast have also included this kind of protection, this magical protection of nailing horseshoes to thresholds and doors. So having that been such a common widespread belief right across um England in this case, you know, where does that central hub, the origin of that belief as a protection against witchcraft come from? We've heard in earlier episodes how maybe the belief isn't actually about a horseshoe, but old iron. And how horseshoes are probably the form which a lot of old iron takes in communities. So if you're gonna get some old iron and protect yourself against witches, it's probably gonna be in the shape of a horseshoe. I don't know. Now I might be mistaken, but I think it's the first time we've had a collection which has had these references to midnight being a kind of magical hour. Baking the dum cake at midnight, sowing the hemp seed at midnight, and it was mentioned maybe two or three other times as well. So that's interesting. We've not come across that before. And something else we haven't come across for an awfully long time is any mention of headless horsemen, and we've got two here. Uh Thomas Boleyn taking the figure of a more traditional headless horseman, uh the Irish Dulahan, carrying his head under his arm, riding about the landscape. And then of course a headless horseman mentioned in reference to Callow Pitt, which sounds a lot to me like that was a story maybe the smugglers made up to keep people away from the place where they were lording all their booty. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed tonight's show over in Norfolk. We'll be back soon with the next episode. Until next time, take care and may a God go with you. You can find out more about the show and about my other projects at the local mythstorian.com.