The Book of English Folk Tales Page 10

  ‘Here’s after, too,’ said the boy, and in a jiffy he was lying in his own cot again, with his father and mother and brothers and sisters all mightily glad to see him, though a little inclined to disbelieve his extraordinary account of his adventures during the three days he had been missing. And who can blame them!

  The Devil

  The following group of four tales deals specifically with the Devil, but he can also be found at his evil tricks elsewhere – see ‘The Wild Huntsman’, ‘The Wedding at Stanton Drew’ and ‘The Parson and the Clerk’. His influence is also to be found in such tales as ‘The Phantom Coach’, ‘The Vicar of Germsoe’, ‘The Wrecker of Sennen Cove’, and ‘Herne the Hunter’.

  St Dunstan and the Devil

  When ordinary people meet the Devil they are likely to get the worst of the encounter; when saints take him on, they at least stand a chance of coming out of it victorious. Doughty St Dunstan is a worthy example of a saint with quick reactions and a practical turn of mind.

  Time was when Dunstan had been merely a simple craftsman, skilled in the working of metals, and above all an expert goldsmith. Now he was Archbishop of Canterbury, the most important man of the Church in the whole realm; but sometimes the pomp and the ceremony of his high calling irked his simple soul, and he looked back with longing to his early days, and lived again in his imagination the uplifting moments of creation when a beautiful vessel of gold had taken shape in front of his eyes. Then in contrition he prayed, and thanked God both for his skill, and for the fact that the high position he now held was of more service to his Creator than that of a travelling goldsmith, however skilled he might have been.

  Yet the thought and the longing persisted, that he might once more live a simple life for a while, and know again the gratification of the artist as the precious yellow metal yielded to the persuasion of his clever hands.

  At Mayfield, in Sussex, there was then no church. Dunstan desired that one should be built there, and a tiny wooden one soon arose. Alas, when the archbishop travelled to Mayfield to consecrate the new building, he found to his chagrin that it was out of position, and did not lie true east and west, as churches should. Taking a deep breath and relying on the strength of the Almighty, he applied his shoulder to the church, and gently pushed. The foundations moved, and the next moment the little church was aligned as it had been first intended.

  Pleased with his success, the saint then desired that there should be erected close by the wooden church a tiny cell with a smithy attached. When it was completed, Dunstan took himself off from Canterbury as often as he could, and dwelt as a hermit in his little cell. He set up a forge in the smithy, where he could follow his old craft, both for the glory of God and as solace to his own restless creative spirit. In this way, too, he served his neighbours, because though few there needed gold chalices, many needed horseshoes; and the humble saint saw no reason why his skill as a blacksmith was not as worthy as that of his skill as a goldsmith.

  So it was that one day Dunstan was at work in his forge, making an ordinary horseshoe. The bellows were roaring, the fire was bright and clear, and the iron in the tongs he held glowed almost white hot with the heat. The saint was happy, and sang at his work the age-old song of the blacksmith in time and rhythm with his bellows. But suddenly the song died on his lips as a shadow fell over the smithy, and in spite of the heat of the fire, his blood ran cold with dread.

  Glancing up, he saw before him a figure so strong and so tall, so well-made and so handsome, so pleasant and so beguiling of manner that a lesser man than Dunstan must have been deceived; but Dunstan had striven against the Devil and all his works from the moment when, as a young man, he had first heard and believed the blessed word of Christ. He had no need to look for cloven hoof or forked tail; he knew his Arch-Enemy by instinct on the instant, and waited for no formal introduction.

  Drawing the white-hot tongs from the fire with the rapid dexterity born of long practice, he opened them, leaned forward, and closed them again – one blade on each side of His Satanic Majesty’s large and handsome nose.

  The Devil yelled with pain and anger, but St Dunstan held on tight. The Devil sprang this way and that, roaring vengeance and calling up curses onto the head of the agile saint-archbishop. Still Dunstan held on. Then, with a mighty wrench, the Devil pulled himself free, and leaped, high over forge and smithy, high over church and village, high over the lovely countryside where Kent and Sussex meet, till he came to earth again in the middle of Tunbridge Wells. There, at the foot of the Pantiles, a spring gushes clear and cold, and with a growl of anguish the Devil plunged his burnt nose into the cooling water. Steam and fumes of sulphur rose and hissed as cold water met the scorching flesh; and from that day to this the spring at the Pantiles has had the chalybeate qualities that have made ‘the waters’ of Tunbridge Wells famous the world over.

  As for St Dunstan, he went on working at his forge whenever he could; and the archbishops of Canterbury who succeeded him enlarged his cell from time to time till it became the splendid Mayfield Palace, where they lived in turn until such time as Cranmer exchanged it with the king in return for other property. Sir Thomas Gresham lived there then, and Queen Elizabeth the First in her time slept under its roof.

  People came from far and wide to drink of the sulphurous waters of Tunbridge, and somebody invented the idea of fixing pins into the sides of the drinking cups as measuring points to show how much had been swallowed. Some people even give St Dunstan the credit for that bit of invention, too – but who is there now to know?

  The Black Monk’s Curse

  The Devil in disguise is a constantly recurring theme in folktale – which also acknowledges that the wickedest of all disguises for him is the cloak of piety. In this story he personifies evil in its own right destroying the innocent, the tempter corrupting promising youth, and a kind of Nemesis, never leaving the side of the sinner he has brought low. Even he, however, can be thwarted by love and repentance.

  There is now no fragment to be found to mark the place where the once-proud castle stood, if indeed it ever existed in the reality of solid stone. All that remains is the Castle Rock, at the northern edge of the wild valley called the Valley of the Rocks, and with it, an age-old story of the doom-cursed family to whom castle and valley once belonged.

  Once upon a time, so the story goes, a magnificent castle stood upon this spot, four-square and sturdy as only the Normans knew how to build. The castellan was a knight of great renown, a favourite with the king, and a valiant warrior though proud and avaricious. When his liege lord raised the banner of the cross and set out for the Holy Land to rescue the Holy Places from the clutches of the Infidels, the knight left home and family, castle and demesne to follow. Time passed from months to years, and he did not come home. Meanwhile his lady took his place, and kept the affairs of her husband in good order against his return.

  One evening, as the lady sat in the great hall, word was brought to her that a stranger was at the gate, asking alms and hospitality, which in the ordinary way was usually given, though sometimes grudgingly, by her lord.

  ‘What manner of man is he?’ the lady asked.

  ‘Madam, I like not his looks, though he is a man of the Church,’ replied her steward.

  ‘I will see for myself,’ said the châtelaine, for monks had none too good a reputation in those parts, or anywhere else, just then.

  So she came down to the gate, and saw before her a tall, strong man whose long black habit could not conceal the powerfully built frame, and whose black cowl did not mask his handsome though cruel visage. The steward had been right, she felt. This was not a man to harbour willingly under one’s roof in the absence of the lord and master.

  The stranger begged for alms, in the name of the Blessed St Mary; but the lady stood her ground, and forbade either alms or admittance to him.

  Then the strange monk threw back his sable cowl, while his face grew even darker with anger. He raised his hand above his head, and cursed the lady
and all her brood. His voice shook with fury as he clenched his fist and proclaimed these cryptic words:

  What is thine

  shall be mine,

  and so shall remain,

  till in the porch

  of the Holy Church

  a dame and a child

  stand side by side

  and beckon a sinner in.

  Then he strode away, and the lady and all her household felt a strange foreboding of evil yet to come; but as it happened it was not long before her knight returned, unharmed, from the Holy Wars. All seemed to be well, in spite of the Black Monk’s curse.

  However, the knight had come back hardened and embittered, and more avaricious than ever. Riches and treasure obsessed his thoughts during his waking hours, and at night filled all his dreams. Greed drove him to acts of cruelty and dishonesty that made his name a by-word through the neighbourhood, and troubled much the conscience of his lady.

  He amassed such treasure that he feared for its safety, guarded though it was within his stronghold; and he began to make plans for adding new defences to the castle. But building materials were expensive and hard to come by; so he pulled down the Church of St John, near by, and used the stones to erect new turrets and battlements, new walls and gatehouses. And as if that were not sacrilege enough, he took for himself the church’s treasures of gold and silver, studded all over with precious jewels, and added them to the loot he had brought back from his travels. All this plate was stored together, within a massive iron-bound chest made specially for the purpose.

  Night after night the castellan locked himself in his chamber and gloated over his treasures, while his lady wife grieved and prayed, and did her best to bring up her son and her little daughter in more Christian ways.

  One evening in winter, as the knight knelt before his treasure chest, he was aware of a dark shadow looming above him, cutting off the light of the torch that blazed from the cresset on the wall. Looking up, he beheld a tall, handsome, powerfully built stranger clothed in a long black habit and a monkish cowl. As the knight cringed in awesome dread, the Black Monk pronounced his doom; the time had come when the knight must pay for his evil deeds, as the day of judgment inevitably falls for those who commit the deadly sins of greed and sacrilege.

  Terror-stricken, the knight began to scream for his steward, his guards, his men-at-arms – all those he had housed for years to protect his property and his person. They heard him, and obeyed his urgent summons at once, but even so, they were too late. When they broke down the door of his chamber, they found only his dead body lying across the open chest of treasure, his face still contorted with the terror of his last living moments. The Black Monk had gone.

  Great was the grief of the lady and her children. Her son, the new owner of the castle and all that was in it, was by this time a fine young man. Her only other child was a girl, still an infant, of whom the young knight was particularly fond. To them, the lady told the story of the curse put upon the family by the Black Monk. It seemed to the heir that somehow or other he must expiate the sins of his father, in order to free his mother and sister from the curse. What better way could there be than to take up arms again in the holy cause, and join the new crusade to the Holy Land?

  He armed himself anew with the latest of harness and the most tried of weapons, and all his retinue likewise. Then he bade a loving farewell to his mother and his baby sister, and rode away to do battle for Christ on foreign shores in the East.

  Alas for the hopes and aspirations of youth! He was valiant and brave, intelligent and courageous; but his spirit was neither old enough nor experienced enough to stand against the sense of doom that surrounded him, nor against the worldly temptations placed daily in his way. He fought many a fierce battle against the Saracens, and wrought valiant deeds with his sword; yet always at the moment of triumph over his enemies, he would look up to find the Black Monk at his side, wearing a sardonic grin on his gloomy, swarthy face. When the knight returned to camp with his fellows, and sat feasting while the tales of valour in the field were recounted, he would find the Black Monk seated at his side, still leering from beneath his cowl at the thought of what was to come. Even in the softness of a lady’s bower, when he had laid aside his harness for pleasurable dalliance with his chosen fair one, he would suddenly be aware of the uninvited presence of the Black Monk sneering as always, watching and waiting.

  The knight grew depressed under the constant strain, and began to give up hope. What was the good of knightly chivalry, of valiant deeds, of self-denial, honesty and clean living, if at the end all that was his was to be surrendered to the Black Monk, as the curse had foretold? He grew bitter, and reckless. He indulged in the violent fighting no longer for the cause, but for his own vainglory and reputation as a warrior. He slipped into lascivious ways of greed, gluttony and lust. His besmirched reputation went ahead of him wherever he journeyed, and tales of his wild doings and evil ways of life were brought back to Devon by other returning Crusaders. When his mother and little sister heard them, they could scarcely believe their ears, or credit the truth of the tale-bearers. But as each report confirmed another, and every new tale bore fresh evidence that their loved one was going from bad to worse, they gave way to grief that made the proud castle they lived in seem the veriest Palace of Sorrow.

  The mother’s frail health, weakened by all she had endured, soon failed her, so that she died; and bereft of mother and father, without hope of seeing her beloved brother again as she had remembered him, the little girl, too, lost her grip on life, and very soon let it go. Then the retainers of the castle buried her side by side with her mother in a tomb in the village church.

  At length, however, the time came when the Crusaders turned their steps homewards, and among them was the knight, notorious now both for his valour and his evil reputation. Once landed in England, he made his way towards Devon, with the Black Monk, as ever, at his side. He was weary with travel and satiated with strife as his horse climbed the last hill and he looked down once more on the beautiful valley where he had been born. There stood the castle, sturdy and grim as he had remembered it; there lay the fields he owned, green and fertile in the beautiful light of spring. There stood the little grey church where he had sat by his mother, holding his tiny sister lovingly by the hand. He reined his steed to a halt, while memories of his childhood flooded over him, and remorse filled his heart for all the wrong he had done and the sins he had committed since leaving his mother’s loving care. As grief and sorrow flooded over him, he hung his head to hide the gathering tears. At his side the Black Monk chafed and fidgeted at the delay, and urged him towards the castle at all speed, to take possession at last of all his worldly inheritance. Then, just as the knight was about to yield to his dark companion’s evil counsel, there stole from the church tower the first mellow tones of the evening bells calling in the faithful. The ringing notes, softened by distance, floated clear across the valley and completely melted the heart of the returning knight. He wheeled his horse in the direction of the church, and began to urge it forward, not towards the castle, but to where the bells were calling him home.

  Enraged, the Black Monk clattered by his side, endeavouring still by threat and promise to dissuade him, and to turn him aside from his purpose; but in vain. The knight rode resolutely on, till he was almost at the entrance to the porch; and there, suddenly, framed by the arch of the doorway, stood his mother and little sister, surrounded by a halo of most glorious heavenly light. Then as he gazed, his mother smiled upon him a smile of such loving forgiveness that his heart leapt towards her, while both she and the child at her side began to beckon him to get down and come to them.

  Then the knight shook off the strong restraining hand of the Black Monk, and with a glad cry of ‘Mother! Mother! I come’ he dismounted and ran towards his mother’s outstretched arms; but before he reached them, or entered the church porch, he fell on his knees and cried, ‘May Heaven forgive my sins!’ Then the most glorious music broke all r
ound them, as a radiance of light enwrapped all three figures; and even as it enveloped them, all three were borne upwards till they dissolved to nothing against the blue of the evening sky.

  No sooner had the heavenly radiance faded, and the celestial music trembled into silence, than there came in its stead a flash of terrible lightning and a deafening roar of thunder from directly overhead. The Black Monk had turned his horse in rage, and had just left the churchyard, as the thunder pealed. Then the earth before him opened into a great fissure that ran from side to side of the valley, and the Black Monk, thwarted in his designs by a sinner’s genuine repentance, spurred his horse and leaped right into the middle of it. So the Evil One returned in rage and fury to the depths to which he belonged; and over his head the yawning gap closed again, but not before the castle in all its worldly might had crumbled to dust and slithered with him into the abyss.

  As years passed, the beautiful fertile valley, now neglected, turned into a stretch of wild desolation. So it remains, called the Valley of the Rocks. In it, there is now no trace of a castle ever having been there, nor is there a record of the name of the family so doomed by the curse of the Black Monk. Indeed, nothing remains but this old story, and when or how that began, nobody knows at all.

  The Devil’s Armful

  Another story of the Devil in contention with the Church, and again defeated by virtue, although nearly victorious this time by reason of the Church’s preoccupation with worldly affairs.

  The Devil was jealous. It irked his proud spirit that he had nothing to compare with the wonderful city of Canterbury. Since the murder of that holy man Archbishop Thomas Becket, within his own great church, people had flocked from the four corners of the earth, let alone from every parish in England, to do reverence to his tomb and to seek their own salvation at his hands. Many were the miracles St Thomas had performed, and the reputation of its saint made Canterbury a very rich as well as a very proud place.