The Book of English Folk Tales Read online

  ‘ ’Nation hard docks these be!’ said the bogle. ‘ ’Nation hard docks! ’Nation hard docks!’

  And every time his scythe caught a rod, it took the edge off the blade till the bogle might as well have been trying to mow with a wooden stack-peg. When his blade got so blunt that it would hardly have cut hot butter, the bogle straightened his back and looked across the field to where Jack was getting on with his half like a house afire.

  ‘Hi, mate!’ called the bogle. ‘When do we stop for a wiffle-waffle?’ – by which he meant, ‘When do we stop to sharpen our scythes?’

  ‘Wiffle-waffle?’ says Jack, as if in surprise. ‘Why – in four hours from now, about noon time,’ answers Jack, and bends to his swing again.

  But the bogle looked at his notched and blunted blade, and knew the game was up as far as he was concerned. So he shouldered his scythe and slipped out of the field, and Jack never set eyes on him again – well, so the tale goes.

  Jeanie, the Bogle of Mulgrave Wood

  Jeanie is one of the few female bogles on record, and attests well the truth of Kipling’s line that ‘the female of the species is more deadly than the male’!

  Just north of Whitby lies the village of Sandsend, and close to Sandsend is Mulgrave Castle, and Mulgrave Wood which in the past was the home of a family of bogles. How many of them there were, nobody seems to know; but there were certainly several, because the noise they made when laundering their linen in Claymore Well used to echo far and wide; and when the noise of the clashing of their ‘bittles’ sounded down the dales, it was a brave man or woman that would have turned out of his cottage to see what they were about. ‘Best leave yon bogles alone,’ they said, and wisely acted upon their own advice.

  Well – all but one man, that is – a farmer who found out to his cost what came of meddling with the bogles. The chief bogle, it seemed, was one called Jeanie, a very virago of a bogle, who seemed to have none of the saving graces such as some others had, such as the hob who would cure the chin-cough if you went and asked him nicely.

  History does not relate why the farmer wished to make the acquaintance of Jeanie. Perhaps he did not really believe in her, and wanted to settle the matter of her existence for himself, once and for all. Or perhaps, being pot-valiant one night, he had taken a wager to visit the female bogle in her den; or it may even be that he had a problem he could not solve, and being a canny Yorkshireman, decided that help comes best to them who help themselves, and that happen Jeanie was the one with the answer. Whichever way it was, he saddled his horse one day and set out to visit Jeanie on her own ground.

  Once into Mulgrave Wood, he sought out her dwelling, which was a cave set in a rocky slope. Leaning from his saddle, he called her loudly by name.

  ‘Jeanie!’ he called. ‘Jeanie! Art’ a theer? Coom out, lass. I want a word wi’ thee!’

  There was a noise from the inside of the cave like a couple of wild cats fighting, and Jeanie answered his summons. He really had no time to look at her well enough to be able to describe her afterwards. She was about the size of most bogles, old and a bit wizened, and ferociously ugly, with her snarling lips pulled back from a set of yellowing teeth, he thought, though it was only a fleeting impression he got; but she came out of her hole like a whirlwind, brandishing in her hand her magic wand. And if the farmer himself would have stood firm before that wand, his horse wouldn’t. The poor beast laid back its ears, rolled its eyes, neighed loud in terror, spun round on its hindquarters and set off towards home at a furious gallop. Not that there is any record of the farmer trying to prevent it, once he had caught sight of Jeanie the Bogle, and understood that his attentions towards her were not welcome.

  The horse was a good sturdy cob, and fear lent it wings. It galloped through the trees as if all the devils in hell were behind it, instead of only one female bogle. But that was enough. Gallop as he might, the farmer could not gain ground on her, and spur as he might, the hindquarters of his mount were only just out of reach of the thrashing wand, which she wielded with passionate ferocity while issuing the most bloodcurdling shrieks and yells.

  On they went, and the foolhardy farmer suddenly bethought him of the knowledge that none of the fairy kind can cross water. His heart rose within him, then, because in front of him lay a brook, and he had every faith in his horse to take the water with one leap, especially in its present state of terror. Stealing a hurried look behind him, he saw that Jeanie was almost upon him – but there in front of him was the welcome brook. So he put his horse to the leap, though not quite in time. As the horse rose on to its back legs to spring, Jeanie’s wand descended. It fell upon the horse just behind the saddle, at the very instant of the leap. Next moment, the farmer and the front half of the horse were safe on the homeward side of the water. The back half lay at the feet of the frustrated shrieking bogle, for her wand had sliced the poor creature in two as clean as a whistle.

  Needless to say, the farmer never bothered that particular lady with his unwanted attentions again!

  Visions of Fairies

  As with ghosts, sightings of fairies, though numerous and widespread, often do not have enough detail to constitute a story, mainly because the fairies usually disappear at once if intruded upon. These three sightings are interesting because it is difficult to disbelieve them.

  The first is William Blake’s own account of a sighting at Felpham, Sussex; and while it has to be admitted that he was a visionary and a mystic who as a child saw angels everywhere, the unadorned simplicity of this account gives it an undeniable air of credibility. William Butterfield, on the other hand, was certainly no ‘visionary’, and is hardly likely to have been drunk so early in the morning; nor can one credit with extraordinary imagination a man, who, faced with such a sight as he describes, can think of nothing better than to bellow ‘Hello there!’ at the top of his voice! The third tale is recounted in all seriousness, by the monk known as ‘William of Newburgh’.

  I

  Did you ever see a fairy funeral? I have! I was walking alone in my garden; there was a great stillness in the air; I heard a low and pleasant sound, and I knew not whence it came. At last I saw the broad leaf of a flower move, and underneath it I saw a procession of creatures, of the size and colour of green and grey grasshoppers, bearing a body laid out on a roseleaf, which they buried with songs, and then disappeared. It was a fairy’s funeral.

  II

  It was a glorious summer morning, very early, when William Butterfield walked to his daily task of opening up the doors of the bath-house at the wells on the hillside just above Ilkley, in Wharfedale. Looking back on the morning in the light of what happened, he said he had noticed at the time how still it was, and with what extraordinary loudness and sweetness the birds were filling the valley with song, because he had never before heard the linnets and thrushes performing with quite such gay abandon.

  When he came to the wells, he took from his pocket the great iron key to the bath-house, and fitted it in the lock, as he had done so many mornings before. This time, it didn’t work. Instead of lifting the lever, the key just twisted round and round. So he put his foot against the door, to try and push it open. It gave a fraction – but the next moment, it was pushed with considerable force from the other side, and firmly closed again. This was repeated once or twice, before he set his shoulder against it, and forced it open with a rush.

  What a sight met his eyes! The bath was occupied. From end to end and side to side the water was alive with little people dressed in green from head to foot. They were, apparently, taking a bath with all their clothes on, for they were in the water and on the water, jumping and skipping about it, and dipping into it with joy, and very merry into the bargain. They were about eighteen inches high, and all the time they were gambolling in and out of the water, they chattered and jabbered to each other in high-pitched, unintelligible language. William stood watching them in wonderment, and one or two of them, becoming aware of him, made off over the walls with the grace and agility o
f squirrels. This seemed to upset the rest and they began to make preparations as if to depart. Butterfield did not want them to go till he’d found out a bit more about them, and felt that he’d like a word with them, if possible. So he bawled at them, in his ordinary voice, as if he were greeting a group of his cronies from across the river.

  ‘Hello, there!’ he hollered – and away they all went, tumbling over each other and bundling head over heels in their haste to get away, squeaking, as the intruder said afterwards, ‘for all t’world like a nest o’ partridges when it’s been disturbed!’

  In a moment the water was as clear and still as it had been every other morning when he’d unlocked the door. He ran outside, to see where they’d gone, but there was neither sight nor sound of them anywhere. Nor was a trace of them left lying in the bath to show that they’d ever been there.

  So he shrugged his shoulders, recognizing the inevitable, that they had gone and that he’d missed the chance of a lifetime, and set stolidly about his work again.

  III

  In Suffolk, the village of Woolpit has a tradition that the name, which was given in the Domesday Book as Wolfpeta, is a corruption of Wolfpit; and a number of ancient trenches near the village were called ‘the Wolf Pits’. It is supposed that in the Dark Ages and before, wolves were common in East Anglia (as in other parts of the country), and that the trenches were indeed just that, pits to entrap wolves.

  One day (the date is not specified, but it was probably in the Middle Ages) some labourers in ‘the Woolpit fields’ were reaping the corn; and to their astonishment they suddenly saw, coming out of the old Wolf Pits, a couple of very strange children. From a distance they appeared to be a boy and a girl, but their general appearance was so queer that the reapers laid down their sickles and ran to look at them closer. It was then seen that their flesh – wherever it was visible, and not covered by clothes of some material utterly unknown to the reapers – was bright green. Hands, faces, bodies – all were of a vivid green colour. They were silent, and looked unhappy, but at the end of the day’s work they allowed the reapers to lead them to the village.

  Much interest and sympathy for the queer waifs was generated among the honest and hospitable village folk, and homes were soon found for them. Their hosts, however, soon grew very worried because they could find nothing to give them to eat that seemed to suit their palates. In fact, for a long time they subsisted on a diet of beans, and nothing else. However, little by little they ventured to taste other food, and when they began to eat a fairly normal, balanced country diet, their skins gradually lost the green colouring, and they became very much like ordinary children to look at.

  At first there was no chance of questioning them or finding who (or what) they were, because they spoke no word of English, or of any other language that could be understood. But with the usual resilience of children, and their normal aptitude for language at an early age, they began to pick up what they heard around them, until they could converse with their hosts, and told a very strange tale. They came, they declared, from ‘The Land of St Martin’ – but no amount of questioning could discover where that was. It was a Christian land, and had a great number of churches in it. There was a wide river that separated it from a neighbouring country. On their own side of the river, they never saw the sun at all, but lived in a kind of gloomy, perpetual twilight. Across the river, however, their neighbours were bathed in light. At home, they had spent most of their time tending their father’s sheep, and it was while they were engaged on this that they heard a great noise, ‘like the ringing of St Edmundsbury’s bells’. This had so confused their senses that they had lost consciousness, and when they came to again, they had found themselves in the Wolf Pits, and had seen the reapers busy round them.

  As time went by, they settled down happily in Woolpit, and lived normal lives; but the boy sickened and died before he grew to be a man. The girl, however, grew up to womanhood, and married a man from Lynn – after which public interest in them seems to have died away completely, for nothing further is recorded of them.

  The Weardale Fairies

  Here is yet another example of the fairies’ dislike of being spied upon, and the vindictiveness with which they will be revenged. It is also another example of the countryman’s determination to help himself in the face of adversity. In this story he is rewarded, too, for offering help to others in trouble, in spite of his own distress.

  Everyone knew there were fairies in the dale, though few had ever seen them. Spread out over the hill slopes were little outcrops of rock that you could see at a glance were their strongholds – towers, keeps, battlements and all. Among these were little caves that ran back into the hillside, where the fairies met at night to hold their revels of music and laughter, singing and dancing. People coming home late at night said they had heard their silvery voices, and caught the sound of their laughter borne on the breeze; but it was well known that they were not always as pleasant as they sounded, for they were touchy, jealous little folk who could not bear to be spied on, and had their own ways of punishing any humans who trespassed on their grounds.

  Close by the town of Stanhope lived a farmer, the joy of whose life was his one child, a little girl who was pretty and dainty enough almost to be a fairy herself. One day, the little girl went out to play, and wandered down to the river, along whose banks the primroses were then in full blow. After gathering as many as her little hands would hold, she set off up the hillside; but as she passed one of the little caves, she heard the sound of music, and of tiny voices raised in jollity and laughter. Drawn by the sounds that reached her, she bent down and looked in. The sight of fairies dancing and playing filled her with delight, and fascinated by the tiny creatures she ventured further into the cave. At once the fairies disappeared, so away she ran home, agog to tell her father of her wonderful experience.

  The father listened to her tale in petrified terror, for he knew such intrusion would be punished, and he was also well aware of the form the punishment would take. Once a mortal had caught sight of them, that mortal knew their secrets, and this they could not bear. The only way to silence the mortal was to spirit him away, so that his own kind never set eyes on him again.

  The farmer knew he had no time to waste, for the fairies might strike at any moment, and whisk his little girl away from him for ever. He said nothing of his fears to the child, but set out at once to the only person who had ever been known to outwit the fairies, a wise woman in the next village.

  She listened gravely, and did her best to help.

  ‘They will surely come to fetch her,’ said the wise woman, ‘and they will come soon. Tonight, about midnight, is the time to be feared, and there is only one way to stop them from carrying her off. They cannot work their magic where there is no sound at all. If you can manage to keep your house in perfect silence around midnight, all may yet be well.’

  The farmer hurried home, turning over in his mind as he went all the things about the house and buildings that might break the stillness of the night. Then, as soon as his little girl was asleep in her bed, he made his preparations.

  First he went to his farmyard, lest anything there should break the silence. He cooped up all the poultry in the dark, barring every door and shutter to keep out a single ray of moonlight that might rouse them to a flutter of wings or a sleepy squawk. Horses were tethered to their stalls with halters, and thick straw spread round their great hoofs to muffle any sound of movement. In the cowbyre, the metal chains were unloosed, and everything that could be knocked or kicked over removed; then all doors were closed tight to stifle the sound of any gentle lowing from the cattle. Next, the farm dogs were fed as they were rarely fed, on meat and milk, till they could eat no more. Then they were kennelled close, to sleep off their heavy meal. Gates and doors were fastened and wedged, lest the breeze should make them rattle, and pig-sties strawed till the pigs and their troughs alike were buried beneath it.

  The farmer next turned his attention to the hous
e, stopping all the clocks to silence their ticking and striking, and covering the little caged bird his daughter loved with a heavy cloth to prevent its singing. As midnight drew near, he extinguished his fire lest a log should fall or a brand spit and crack, and took off his own shoes lest his feet shuffle on the hearthstone. The time wore on.

  When the last stroke of midnight had fallen from the church clock in the nearby town, he heard them coming, and it was as if his very heart stood still. He heard the tiny clatter of the hoofs of their tiny ponies as they rode over the cobbles up to his door. He sensed their bewilderment as the deathly silence in house and farmyard threatened to wreck their plans; but even as he began to hope that all might yet be well, the yapping of a dog fell on his ears like doom. He had forgotten his little girl’s own pet dog, which slept always on the foot of her bed, and detecting a strange presence, had warned of danger. The farmer leapt to his feet, and raced up the stairs. The bed was empty, and the child was gone.

  Grief-stricken and bereft, he sat to watch for the dawn, and as soon as it broke he set off again to the home of the wise woman. Perhaps even now, there was some way he could win his darling back, if only he knew how to go about it. The wise woman was full of sympathy, and commended him for his courage in not accepting defeat without at least another try at getting even with the fairies.

  ‘Nought is easy,’ she said ‘and the task will be more than difficult, but there is a way. You must go yourself to the cave where your daughter first saw the fairies, and you must take with you these things. Wear a sprig of rowan on your smock, for rowan is a sovereign charm against harm of any kind. Then you must carry three things – something that gives light without burning; a live chicken without a bone in its body; and a limb of a living animal that has been given to you without the loss of a single drop of blood. If you give these things to the King of the Fairies, he must and will return your daughter to you.’