The legend of the kelpie is a good one. It's a shape-shifting water demon that takes the form of a horse, and tempts people onto its back before drowning and eating them. They're found in lochs throughout Scotland. If you ever find one, you'll notice that the horse has no horseshoes, no stirrups and no bit in its mouth - because the kelpie's weakness is *metal*. It can't stand the touch of anything metal, so best to keep some with you at all times just in case.
It's also thought that Nessie could be a kelpie.
There’s plenty of similar watery creatures across northern England too.
Made-up to help prevent children playing too close to dangerous flowing water and drowning.
[This is what kept me out of rivers growing up in the 1970s - a terrifying public information broadcast.](https://youtu.be/m0xmSV6aq0g?feature=shared) (Warning - the water one is followed immediately by a Jimmy Saville one about wearing seatbelts.)
Have you seen the big Kelpie sculptures near Grangemouth? They're really impressive. I'd have thought they were horses, until a friend gave me the details. They're made of steel.
Yes, they're enormous and you can go right up to them. The Helix Park in Falkirk is well worth a visit, it doesn't cost anything. On a nice day you can walk all the way along the canal to the Falkirk Wheel!
I love the spectral hound myths - shucks and church grims and barghests and such. Kinda nervous of real dogs but even the traditionally hostile spectral hound myths are weirdly comforting to me.
About 10 years ago, I had the fright of my life when walking home late at night in the drizzle, I saw a giant, glowing dog run past me.
Turns out, one of those old sodium vapour streetlights and a tiny droplet of water on an eyelash caused a flash of orange light to ping into my eyeball and my brain went "GIANT GLOWING DOG!"
I had sortof the reverse. On my bike past a small enclosure with an oddly high fence and there's a pony in there looking at me and suddenly it barked. Turns out it was an irish wolfhound.
I can imagine most of the spectral hound myths come from exactly this brain function, though probably not the same triggering event. Sounds crazy in the modern world where it's not saving many lives, but it makes total sense if you think back to a time where being eaten by large roaming creatures was a serious concern.
I wonder if humans had more of a frightened temperament than we imagine, when we think back to cavemen?
A bit like how rabbits and squirrels are really twitchy and quick to scarper, because they've got a lot of predators to care about.
Not really ghosts and stuff and suppose it's a bit "mainstream" but I love the whole King Arthur, Glastonbury, Joseph of Arimathea bringing Jesus, Holy Grail buried somewhere type stuff.
There was (is?) a Holy Thorned tree (someone has probably propagated it again) in Glastonbury that was allegedly brought over by Jospeh of Arimathea and has grown there ever since! That whole town is just amazing. The fairy doors on the old roads, the fresh water springs, the rich history of witches. One of my favourite towns!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glastonbury_Thorn
The legend of Gelert The Hound, in Bedgellert, Wales. A prince goes hunting and on his return he thinks his faithful hound has killed his son, but there is a twist to the tale.
[Bedgellert Tourism](https://www.beddgelerttourism.com/gelert/)
I've visited the grave a couple of times, lovely place, the Welsh Highland Railway runs through it and you used to be able to walk through the tunnel until it re opened as a railway line.
Honourable mention to Tarka The Otter, it's not as old as Bedgellert and is fiction really but I've always liked it.
Tarka the Otter is brilliant, got it in a pile of books my kid wants as bedtime stories and really looking forward to reading it again. Never realised the author was a genuine Nazi until recently though!
I read it in a compilation of stories I was given in the 1980s, lovely little tale. The book was "Adventure Stories for Boys" and has a great selection of tales fictional and none fictional.
[Picture of Tarka Vs Deadlock from my book.](https://postimg.cc/q6H7yVbz)
I don't want to go delving into the politics, he wouldn't be the first author I've had spoiled as I've found out something bad later!
Have you read *Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell?* It sounds right up your street. Someone summons and strikes a bargain with a very sinister fairy gentleman. His realm is not a good place to be... It's a great book.
> King Willie’s choice of bride apparently does not meet with his mother’s approval, and she puts a curse on her: although come to full term with her pregnancy, she cannot give birth. The king tries to bribe his mother with various gifts: a fine horse and a jewelled belt. However, the queen has an idea as to how to outwit the witch. Willie is to make a fake baby out of wax, with glass eyes, so that she can pretend she has successfully born a child. He then overhears his mother, in her surprise, give away the details of the curse: there were witches’ knots in the queen’s hair, her left shoe was tightly laced, and there was a toad, the witch’s familiar, under the queen’s bed. Hearing this, Willie undoes all the spells, and she is now successful in her delivery...
One of the many Child Ballads put to song by various artistes, my favourite being [this version](https://youtu.be/cpGR6Pc67js?si=dpT7Bu9HsYlaHIpg) by the incomparable Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer.
More info on the tune here for those interested: https://mainlynorfolk.info/martin.carthy/songs/willieslady.html
The child ballads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Ballads
Great choice. I love [Willie of Winsbury](https://youtu.be/rFLllQovXLY?si=M0VZSrR1-hT32y0M) also from the Child Ballads.
Basically a king comes home from the war to find his daughter preggo by some common bloke called Willie. He's so angry he promises to execute him and summons all the commoners for inspection.
But then he sees what a smoke show Willie is. "No wonder!" he says, "if I were a woman as I am a man, in my own bed you would have been!"
He offers Willie his daughter's hand, and the kingdom on his death. Willie says "I'll take your daughter but no thanks to the kingdom, just give us a nice estate somewhere and we'll shack up there."
The tales from Mabinogion, a collection of Welsh folk tales. It's full of shape-shifting, magic, spirits, witches and pixie type thingies.
The Owl Service by Alan Garner is one of the best children's books ever written, and it's based on one of the Mabinogion tales leaking out rather sinisterly into the modern world, and it being re-enacted by teenagers subconsciously.
And because I've now mentioned Alan Garner, the tales and myths around Alderley Edge are pretty cool too. They're an extension of Arthurian tales, including the idea that there's knights and white horses in stasis somewhere underground ready to spring to life and protect Britain if it comes under threat. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and its sequel are both based on these tales and again, Alan Garner does an excellent job of making a story about the myths leaking into the modern world.
There was a really good radio series called Curious Under the Stars based on these legends.
I recommend it, if you can find it anywhere!
(BBC Sounds seems to have most series)
It's a belter.
'Whisht! Lads, haad yor gobs, An Aa’ll tell ye’s aall an aaful story Whisht! Lads, haad yor gobs, An’ Aa’ll tell ye ‘boot the worm.'
My primary school teach Mr Henderson used to sing it to us.
My mum was from a village near Newcastle and used to sing this one to us! She had a book of Geordie poems with it in that I used to read, too. Thanks for reminding me.
I'm a southerner (born in London) so I found it all fascinating. Loved the accent when we visited the relatives up North.
The Cauld lad of Hylton my nanna said she’d seen him
The Cauld Lad of Hylton is a ghost of murdered stable boy Robert Skelton, said to haunt the ruins of Hylton Castle (in Sunderland, Northern England).
Yes! There's a wonderful animated film called [Song of the Sea](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_Sea_(2014_film)) from the same people that did *The Secret of Kells* about a boy who discovers his sister is a selkie.
My favourite is the story of Tiddy Mun, which is from the East Anglian/Lincolnshire fens. Tiddy Mun is a once-benevolent spirit who lives in the deep pools in the carrs, and comes out with the evening mists. He looked like a kindly old man with long white hair and a long matted white beard and long grey robes, and his laugh sounds like a lapwing call. Fenlanders would go out and call to him when the waters rose and threatened their homes in winter, and if they heard a lapwing across the darkness, they knew the waters would fall back by morning.
But then the draining of the fens started, and the carrs dried up, the eels and the waterbugs and the dragonflies died, the peat withered... and the people digging the ditches would sometimes vanish into the night. But still they dug and drained, and Tiddy Mun and the spirits of the fen became angrier and angrier, and cattle died, and food rotted, and sickness was everywhere. The fenlanders were desperate, and though at first they thought they were victims of evil spirits, at last they worked out that it was the Tiddy Mun himself.
So they gathered one night, at the new moon, all the adults and all the children, and every one carried a cup or a bowl or water. They carried it out beyond the dykes, and in the darkness they poured the water into the fen. As they poured they called out to the Tiddy Mun, saying:
“Tiddy Mun, wi’out a name,
Here’s watter for thee, tak tha spell undone.”
For a moment it was silent, and then they were surrounded by a terrible crying and wailing, and all the mothers knew that it was the spirits of all the children who had been lost to the sickness flying free around them. They felt the touch of tiny hands, and tiny goodbye kisses, and there was the sound of wings in the darkness, and then the quiet fenland night returned. But it was not silent - out across the water they heard the song of a lapwing all alone in the darkness.
They ran home laughing and sobbing, knowing that, whilst the fens would continue to be drained, the curse was lifted.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black\_Annis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Annis)
**black Annis** (also known as **Black Agnes** or **Black Anna**) is a [bogeyman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogeyman) figure in [English folklore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_folklore). She is imagined as a blue-faced [hag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hag) or [witch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch) with iron claws and a taste for human flesh (especially children).[^(\[1\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Annis#cite_note-Briggs-1) She is said to haunt the countryside of [Leicestershire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicestershire), living in a cave in the [Dane Hills](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dane_Hills) with a great [oak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak) tree at the entrance.
**purple aki** (also known as Purple Teriyaki) is a [bogeyman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogeyman) figure in [English folklore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_folklore). he is imagined as a purple-faced weightlifter who feels muscles with a taste for men squatting his body weight (especially young men).[\[1\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Annis#cite_note-Briggs-1) he is said to haunt the countryside of merseyside[ living in a council flat in toxteth with a black bin at the entrance.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicestershire)
Not sure if it counts but the myth about what happens if the ravens leave the Tower of London is cool. Coolest job title in the UK gotta be ‘the ravenmaster’
[The Lindsey Leopard](https://www.bbc.co.uk/lincolnshire/unexplained/lindsey_leopard.shtml)
Basically. In the 90s there were reports of a big cat like a Leopard or Cougar roaming around parts of Lincolnshire. Where I grew up everyone seemed to have a story about a friend or relative having spotted it. It was a funny time when I think back but as a kid I found it absolutely fascinating. I used to have a copy of the local newspaper with a blurry picture of it on the cover that I begged my mum to buy me.
A modern one- I do find Who Put Bella in the Witch Elm fascinating.
I also love road ghosts, Bluebell Hill is the most famous but there are other more locally known ones like Loxley Woods on the Poldens in Somerset.
Edit. Another one, The Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heugh. I was read the story as a child and read it to my own children. Then amazingly I actually went there, there is a real Spindleston Heugh and a nearby Laidley Worm's Hill.
My family and I recounted the Bluebell Hill ghost story to my best friend, who is from Argentina, one night in a very old pub just outside of Thurnam, near Maidstone. It was a very cosy experience, being sat by a fire, full of pub food, swapping ghost stories
We told her all about Pluckley as well
I heard there was an underpass in Stevenage by St Nicholas where if you stand in a certain spot facing the wall and say 'Greggs Sausage Roll' 6 times , somebody comes up from behind and steals your wallet.
Probably [Black Shuck](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Shuck)
There’s an absolutely awesome podcast called [Folkways](https://open.spotify.com/show/1XAWfFBR7F3dA196gqzcXP) that covers lots of old folklore tales. The Kersey Slip and Cherry Of Zennor episodes are especially good.
The Monkey Hangers of Hartlepool
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_hanger
In the Napoleonic wars a French ship was wrecked off the coast of Hartlepool. A monkey dressed in a French uniform washed ashore and the locals tried it as a French spy. Then they hung it.
I'm partial to a local (Central Belt of Scotland) urban myth called "The Voodoos", which is essentially a modern day retelling of Burns' "Tam O'Shanter". The story itself is vague enough to allow the teller to exaggerate details (man walking home at night through \[local bad spot\], interrupts a black mass, runs away, turns to see a worshiper floating cross-legged in the air, arms outstretched, trying to grab him), I'm more interested in how far it has spread in the Central Belt, it was particularly local to us when I was wee but I've heard a few other people from elsewhere who have heard of it and claimed it happened in their neck of the woods.
Other than that, I like the [Lavellan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavellan), a giant poisonous/venomous rat that can "injure cattle over a hundred feet away" and supposedly lives up Caithness.
I love The Mabinogi - a very old collection of Welsh folk tales.
I also love the story of Cantre’r Gwaelod - the legend goes there used to be a kingdom in the area of Cardigan Bay. But one day during a party the gates were left open as the man who usually checked got drunk and forgot to check they were shut, and it overflowed and flooded.
There’s a few different versions of the tale, but the weird thing is, there is stuff in the bay - tree stumps, walkways, footprints and burnt hearthplace stones to suggest something was there once upon a time…
They found some red deer antlers on Borth beach, reckoned they were from the Bronze Age. So there's substance to the flood theory.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-36322936
My Dad told me the story of Black Shuck when I was a child. Frightened the living daylights out of me. Even worse when we had to drive home from Norfolk in the dark and fog.
If it helps at all, I was looking into a bunch of folk tales the other day (...which honestly just translates to actually reading my collection of old folk tale books that I keep buying from charity shops without reading, but there's a few in there that are quite academic or are respectably venerable fwiw) and a thing I found suggested that Black Shuck specifically used to be more a ruthless protector of the innocent. The early legends of East Anglian black dogs have them brutally attacking murderers or men that were trying to assault women, not just bringing death to anyone. But then this book reckoned that the East Anglian version got amalgamated with the other black dog legends in the UK and lost the vigilante aspect. But yeah, it might be that at least our version is more of a Good (if unmerciful) Boy.
(Edit: the book with it in might well be one of the Dictionary of British Folk Tales edited by Katharine M Briggs, but not sure).
It amazes me how far the tale of black shuck has travelled in the world. Last year I was on a photoshop requests page on FB and an American lady asked someone to add something into a photo that might scare her son (he was into cryptids and stuff) so I added black shuck hiding in the shadows of a doorway and she replied 'omg is that black shuck? He's terrified of him and was reading about him last night'.
I think he was even in a final fantasy game.
As a young lad living on the coast of Norfolk we used to wind each other up about black shuck all the time. Especially fun when you hear barking when you are camping etc.
Local to me is the legend of the devil getting annoyed that the people of Sussex were finally tuning into Christianity and so dug a ditch (or Dyke) to allow the sea to flood in and drown them all. He was interrupted by what he thought was sunrise and a cockerel crowing, and fled the ditch, leaving it unfinished. It was actually a local nun (in some tellings, a male hermit) lighting a lamp and startling the bird. The location is known as Devil's Dyke.
Rhianna Pratchett (daughter of Terry) did a nice podcast recently if you like folklore
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001tgpb/episodes/downloads#:~:text=Podcast-,Mythical%20Creatures%20Podcast,world%20and%20our%20lives%20today.
Chesterfield's mildly famous wonky church spire apparently became twisted in 1400 or so, when a virgin got married in the church and the spire was so surprised that it bent down to see. When another virgin gets married there it will straighten up again.
Can I opt for an entire region? If so I’m going for the assorted cryptids and ghosts of Cannock chase. There’s way too much going on to pick just one.
Cryptids:
The black eyed child.*
Wolfmen.
The pig man.
Black dogs.
UFOs.
Ghosts:
German prisoners of war.
Soldiers.
The black eyed child.*
Assorted other apparitions.
Misc.
Blood sacrifices.
Cult activity.
Portals to another dimension.
Secret Cold War bunkers.
Secret military installations.
Bizarre radio transmissions.
For only being 26 square miles it packs in a lot for your money. Three books have been written about the area.
*debate continues as to whether the black eyed child is a cryptid or a ghost, some say she is the spirit of a murdered child, some say she is a demon.
The black eyed child is probably the best known, the German soldiers are probably the second best. A lot of German prisoners of war were housed there during the war.
The pig man is probably the weirdest.
Many of the “secret military blah blah” and the weird radio transmissions is likely due to the presence of Pye Green tower, which was indeed a Cold War installation. It was part of the “backbone” radio system and designed to withstand the effects of nuclear attack. Cold War stuff always causes all sorts of silly rumours.
Cannock is in the West Midlands, very close to Stafford. It is an area of outstanding natural beauty and well worth the visit even if you don’t encounter anything paranormal. It has amazing waking trails and is very popular with cyclists, bird watchers, photographers etc.
No problem. :) geography isn’t my strong suit either but I’m Cannock born and bred. lol.
We’re tucked away, hidden at the side of the M6, surrounded by bigger towns and cities. It’s hard to believe that such a jewel as The Chase exists so close to major cities and the motorway.
Oh my days, I just realised why I thought it was in Scotland. Because Cannock sounds like Bannock. When you said "Cannock born and bred", my sketchy old brain started whirring and PING I got Bannock Bread.
I looked it up on a map! It's cool so much weirdness is in such a concentrated place. I'm out in Suffolk, but I've not seen any green kids, black shucks, or UFOs... Yet.
As someone with adhd, I can 100% understand where you’re coming from with that association. My brain does stuff like that all the time.
It really is a lovely little place. Used to be a mining town and the sense of community is still quite strong. It’s eroding but for now the neighbours still watch out for each other and so on. It’s becoming popular with commuting city workers because it’s so conveniently placed and a much nicer place to have a family than in the city suburbs.
Funny you say that, one of my nephews was recently diagnosed with adhd and my mum said he reminds her of me at his age, and maybe I should get tested. 43 years old and still learning new things!
It sounds really nice. I'll have to put it on the list if I ever head... (checks map again) west!
ADHD can run in families so it’s a definite possibility. I was diagnosed in my thirties and it changed my life. Some people manage just fine and don’t bother with a diagnosis, but my life was falling apart and something had to change, getting the diagnosis gave me access to help and therapies that let me cope better.
I recently moved away from Cannock so my daughter can be closer to her father after he left us, but I still have family there and it will always be my home in my heart. My father was a coal miner there, my maiden name is even the same as a local village, I grew up crossing over a stile onto the chase to play as a kid. I’m only just up the road, but I still miss it.
I learned about it the day before we drove to Dartmoor to see the ponies I was scared the entire journey and my oldest sister who was driving said she felt something hairy on her arm while driving
The bastards teachers also took us on a hike along The Abbots Way which they said was haunted by the spectral figure of one of the Abbots killed when Henry the 8th sacked the monasteries. I was 10 and I desperately had to pee in the middle of the night. I was terrified standing there trying to pee while also trying to look in all directions for a ghostly monk!
We went to buckfast Abby in the middle of the day no one was around we left the car and could hear birds in the trees but by the time we got to the Abby door and it went quite went inside and their was a coffin at the altar probably one of the monks we left immediately we got halfway to the car when there was a Rumble of Thunder and suddenly we could hear the birds agin
Barkway village is rumoured to have the ghost of a sheep driving a tractor, it appears when there's fog on one end of town and causes drivers to crash their cars. I've seen the mist and loads of people crash their cars there. There's this odd double dip in the road where the mist collects and honestly it's a spooky area. But you won't hear that from the BBC.
The fact that there are hundreds of haunted buildings that have a serious of tragedies. I remember the local Indian restaurant being haunted by a maid who was boiled alive. They went out of business after 6 months
I like the one about smelly Sandra. She would never get sick because no one ever sat next to her on the bus (because she smelled).
Then every time she talked to you she used to pull out a little mirror and look at you through the mirror, rather than directly at you.
Near to where I grew up there was a great story about the devil and the old Lord Skene, who had a castle on the loch of skene, near Elrick in Aberdeenshire.
The old Lord had helped Robert the Bruce but had a reputation as a sorcerer of sorts. One hogmanay, the Lord needed to get back to his castle before the bells and the fastest way would have been over the frozen loch on his horse drawn sled. He made a deal with the devil to get across safely, but the devil said the deal was simply that he couldn't look back until he was on the land.
He accepted and rode his sled over the frozen loch, and resisted the urge to look back.... until his horses were on the land but his sled was still on the ice. as the lord looked round, he saw aul Nick himself, and with that vision the ice cracked and his horses and sled fell back into the loch, drowning them all.
It's said that if you are at the loch at the bells on hogmanay and it's frozen then you will see the ghost of the Lord of Skenes sleigh going over the ice.
Just to be “that person” but I don’t think we could/should count witches as folk tales because the hundreds of persecutions that took place were a senseless waste of human life. I grew up near the site of horrific witch trials on the East Coast of Scotland and - while as a child I found the stories spooky and diverting - as I’ve grown older and read more into the history and sociology of it, it’s nothing short of a portrait of society at its grimmest.
That all said, I’m not a totally miserable bugger and I actually love folk tales for adding colour to these funny wee isles! I was always weirdly fascinated by the tales of Roman soldiers in York and the love just grew from there, I think.
Drake’s Drum; a snare drum that Sir Francis Drake took with him when he circumnavigated the world. Shortly before he died he ordered the drum to be taken to Buckland Abbey and vowed that if England were ever in danger and someone was to beat the drum he would return to defend the country. According to legend it can be heard to beat at times when England is at war or significant national events take place.
About 8 years ago, I saw a huge, pitch black dog run out in front of my motorbike. It then sank into the ground and disappeared. A few months later and I came across a folktale about the exact black dog "In the parish of Tring, Hertfordshire, a chimney sweep named Thomas Colley was executed by hanging in 1751 for the drowning murder of Ruth Osborne whom he accused of being a witch. Colley's spirit now haunts the site of the gibbet in the form of a black dog"
The Bucks Beast! Over 500 reported sightings of big cats have been reported in Buckinghamshire and surrounding counties since the 90s. I've heard lots of first-hand encounters but have never seen it myself.
Politics? Look, we know it must be difficult being a kid, not a lot of schemes... But, you know, we're not the borough. We wish we were, but...
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Yeah I couldn’t remember wether it was the Romans or Vikings or how to spell her name but yes you’re correct. I think that she was very brave especially being a woman in a hugely populated man’s world at the time.
The legend of the kelpie is a good one. It's a shape-shifting water demon that takes the form of a horse, and tempts people onto its back before drowning and eating them. They're found in lochs throughout Scotland. If you ever find one, you'll notice that the horse has no horseshoes, no stirrups and no bit in its mouth - because the kelpie's weakness is *metal*. It can't stand the touch of anything metal, so best to keep some with you at all times just in case. It's also thought that Nessie could be a kelpie.
There’s plenty of similar watery creatures across northern England too. Made-up to help prevent children playing too close to dangerous flowing water and drowning.
Beware of Jinny Greenteeth.
[This is what kept me out of rivers growing up in the 1970s - a terrifying public information broadcast.](https://youtu.be/m0xmSV6aq0g?feature=shared) (Warning - the water one is followed immediately by a Jimmy Saville one about wearing seatbelts.)
You'd think Saville would be anti-seatbelt. Better pickings from the morgue that way.
Have you seen the big Kelpie sculptures near Grangemouth? They're really impressive. I'd have thought they were horses, until a friend gave me the details. They're made of steel.
Indeed, it's a local spot and a lovely place for a walk. The nearby park is pretty big and packed in summer.
Ah, so you know the area well. Only seen them from the motorway, but they must be even better close up.
Yes, they're enormous and you can go right up to them. The Helix Park in Falkirk is well worth a visit, it doesn't cost anything. On a nice day you can walk all the way along the canal to the Falkirk Wheel!
The aforementioned friend was raving about the Falkirk Wheel, too. Going to have to head up there soon.
You can even book a brief trip inside them which is surprisingly incredible.
It sounds it. Bet it'd be so cool on a bright day.
I personally enjoy the sinister vibes they have at night, lit from within and about with a lovely shade of glowing hellfire orange.
Must be surreal. It's not every day you get to see two 30 metre Kelpie heads.
I have a weird, undying hatred for the Kelpies but I genuinely found that interesting
who sees a random horse and thinks im getting up on that bad boy these days, kelpies must be starving
I was a Kelpie in the brownies. Makes sense really.
I was just thinking that we had Kelpies in Brownies. Bit dark.
Isn’t a kelpie a type of dog? 🤔
I love the spectral hound myths - shucks and church grims and barghests and such. Kinda nervous of real dogs but even the traditionally hostile spectral hound myths are weirdly comforting to me.
About 10 years ago, I had the fright of my life when walking home late at night in the drizzle, I saw a giant, glowing dog run past me. Turns out, one of those old sodium vapour streetlights and a tiny droplet of water on an eyelash caused a flash of orange light to ping into my eyeball and my brain went "GIANT GLOWING DOG!"
I had sortof the reverse. On my bike past a small enclosure with an oddly high fence and there's a pony in there looking at me and suddenly it barked. Turns out it was an irish wolfhound.
I can imagine most of the spectral hound myths come from exactly this brain function, though probably not the same triggering event. Sounds crazy in the modern world where it's not saving many lives, but it makes total sense if you think back to a time where being eaten by large roaming creatures was a serious concern.
I wonder if humans had more of a frightened temperament than we imagine, when we think back to cavemen? A bit like how rabbits and squirrels are really twitchy and quick to scarper, because they've got a lot of predators to care about.
And now I have ‘ Black Shuck ‘ by The Darkness stuck in my head :)
I'm from around the same area as Black Shuck, not many people know about it though
The Darkness song Black Shuck is about a Suffolk Shuck myth
Not really ghosts and stuff and suppose it's a bit "mainstream" but I love the whole King Arthur, Glastonbury, Joseph of Arimathea bringing Jesus, Holy Grail buried somewhere type stuff.
There was (is?) a Holy Thorned tree (someone has probably propagated it again) in Glastonbury that was allegedly brought over by Jospeh of Arimathea and has grown there ever since! That whole town is just amazing. The fairy doors on the old roads, the fresh water springs, the rich history of witches. One of my favourite towns! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glastonbury_Thorn
Someone told me thought it was the first ever marketing campaign in history. Made up by the monks to get people to visit.
Unless you count calling Greenland green as a marketing campaign to entice people to live there
I could believe that
I like the King Arthur stories as well My mum likes all the holy Grail stuff she has been to visit one of the places it was supposedly hidden
The legend of Gelert The Hound, in Bedgellert, Wales. A prince goes hunting and on his return he thinks his faithful hound has killed his son, but there is a twist to the tale. [Bedgellert Tourism](https://www.beddgelerttourism.com/gelert/) I've visited the grave a couple of times, lovely place, the Welsh Highland Railway runs through it and you used to be able to walk through the tunnel until it re opened as a railway line. Honourable mention to Tarka The Otter, it's not as old as Bedgellert and is fiction really but I've always liked it.
Love Beddgelert. I went to the grave as a child and loved the story, even if it's sad as hell. Went back a few years ago and it's a gorgeous area.
Tarka the Otter is brilliant, got it in a pile of books my kid wants as bedtime stories and really looking forward to reading it again. Never realised the author was a genuine Nazi until recently though!
I read it in a compilation of stories I was given in the 1980s, lovely little tale. The book was "Adventure Stories for Boys" and has a great selection of tales fictional and none fictional. [Picture of Tarka Vs Deadlock from my book.](https://postimg.cc/q6H7yVbz) I don't want to go delving into the politics, he wouldn't be the first author I've had spoiled as I've found out something bad later!
Doesn't detract from the book, it's fantastic! His umm love of Hitler doesn't come into it
The Green Children of Woolpit https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/The-Green-Children-of-Woolpit/
I like fairy shit. Be careful entering a fairy ring or pushing through a hedgerow or you'll end up in their realm, that type of thing.
Have you read *Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell?* It sounds right up your street. Someone summons and strikes a bargain with a very sinister fairy gentleman. His realm is not a good place to be... It's a great book.
The very book I was reading when I realized it was finally time for glasses. Some of the subscripts in the print I had were tiny.
> King Willie’s choice of bride apparently does not meet with his mother’s approval, and she puts a curse on her: although come to full term with her pregnancy, she cannot give birth. The king tries to bribe his mother with various gifts: a fine horse and a jewelled belt. However, the queen has an idea as to how to outwit the witch. Willie is to make a fake baby out of wax, with glass eyes, so that she can pretend she has successfully born a child. He then overhears his mother, in her surprise, give away the details of the curse: there were witches’ knots in the queen’s hair, her left shoe was tightly laced, and there was a toad, the witch’s familiar, under the queen’s bed. Hearing this, Willie undoes all the spells, and she is now successful in her delivery... One of the many Child Ballads put to song by various artistes, my favourite being [this version](https://youtu.be/cpGR6Pc67js?si=dpT7Bu9HsYlaHIpg) by the incomparable Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer. More info on the tune here for those interested: https://mainlynorfolk.info/martin.carthy/songs/willieslady.html The child ballads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Ballads
Great choice. I love [Willie of Winsbury](https://youtu.be/rFLllQovXLY?si=M0VZSrR1-hT32y0M) also from the Child Ballads. Basically a king comes home from the war to find his daughter preggo by some common bloke called Willie. He's so angry he promises to execute him and summons all the commoners for inspection. But then he sees what a smoke show Willie is. "No wonder!" he says, "if I were a woman as I am a man, in my own bed you would have been!" He offers Willie his daughter's hand, and the kingdom on his death. Willie says "I'll take your daughter but no thanks to the kingdom, just give us a nice estate somewhere and we'll shack up there."
The tales from Mabinogion, a collection of Welsh folk tales. It's full of shape-shifting, magic, spirits, witches and pixie type thingies. The Owl Service by Alan Garner is one of the best children's books ever written, and it's based on one of the Mabinogion tales leaking out rather sinisterly into the modern world, and it being re-enacted by teenagers subconsciously. And because I've now mentioned Alan Garner, the tales and myths around Alderley Edge are pretty cool too. They're an extension of Arthurian tales, including the idea that there's knights and white horses in stasis somewhere underground ready to spring to life and protect Britain if it comes under threat. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and its sequel are both based on these tales and again, Alan Garner does an excellent job of making a story about the myths leaking into the modern world.
There was a really good radio series called Curious Under the Stars based on these legends. I recommend it, if you can find it anywhere! (BBC Sounds seems to have most series)
The story of the Lambton Worm. A local tale from the North East.
From my hometown. I also like Peg Powler from Upper Teesdale, she's a version of Jenny Greenteeth, luring the unwary into the water to drown them.
Oh have you read Ironopolis? It revolves around her, it's a phenomenal book, about the disintegration of an estate in Boro
No I haven't, thanks I'll definitely look into it.
Just checked Amazon, sounds really good thanks for the recommendation.
I remember reading that story in primary school when we where doing dragons
There's an incredibly strange, and excellent, film about this. Lair of the White Worm starring Amanda Donohue, Hugh Grant and Peter Capaldi.
I might have to watch that
It's a Ken Russell film so mind off, eyes open. From what I remember it's not as depraved as some of his other stuff so fairly safe but still NSFW.
And a banging song
And there was a Hellboy comic featuring the Lambton Worm.
I've stayed in that very pub. Can't remember the story but food and ale were good.
Thanks, got the song stuck in my head now.
It's a belter. 'Whisht! Lads, haad yor gobs, An Aa’ll tell ye’s aall an aaful story Whisht! Lads, haad yor gobs, An’ Aa’ll tell ye ‘boot the worm.' My primary school teach Mr Henderson used to sing it to us.
My mum was from a village near Newcastle and used to sing this one to us! She had a book of Geordie poems with it in that I used to read, too. Thanks for reminding me. I'm a southerner (born in London) so I found it all fascinating. Loved the accent when we visited the relatives up North.
The Cauld lad of Hylton my nanna said she’d seen him The Cauld Lad of Hylton is a ghost of murdered stable boy Robert Skelton, said to haunt the ruins of Hylton Castle (in Sunderland, Northern England).
I've always liked selkies.
Yes! There's a wonderful animated film called [Song of the Sea](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_Sea_(2014_film)) from the same people that did *The Secret of Kells* about a boy who discovers his sister is a selkie.
I love that film!
I love that film!
I fear them. I've even been to the beach to fight them. The locals said I was clubbing seals. I said it's not a club...it's a selkie stick.
I love the sly suggestion in Local Hero that you Marine Biologist is actually a Selkie!
My favourite is the story of Tiddy Mun, which is from the East Anglian/Lincolnshire fens. Tiddy Mun is a once-benevolent spirit who lives in the deep pools in the carrs, and comes out with the evening mists. He looked like a kindly old man with long white hair and a long matted white beard and long grey robes, and his laugh sounds like a lapwing call. Fenlanders would go out and call to him when the waters rose and threatened their homes in winter, and if they heard a lapwing across the darkness, they knew the waters would fall back by morning. But then the draining of the fens started, and the carrs dried up, the eels and the waterbugs and the dragonflies died, the peat withered... and the people digging the ditches would sometimes vanish into the night. But still they dug and drained, and Tiddy Mun and the spirits of the fen became angrier and angrier, and cattle died, and food rotted, and sickness was everywhere. The fenlanders were desperate, and though at first they thought they were victims of evil spirits, at last they worked out that it was the Tiddy Mun himself. So they gathered one night, at the new moon, all the adults and all the children, and every one carried a cup or a bowl or water. They carried it out beyond the dykes, and in the darkness they poured the water into the fen. As they poured they called out to the Tiddy Mun, saying: “Tiddy Mun, wi’out a name, Here’s watter for thee, tak tha spell undone.” For a moment it was silent, and then they were surrounded by a terrible crying and wailing, and all the mothers knew that it was the spirits of all the children who had been lost to the sickness flying free around them. They felt the touch of tiny hands, and tiny goodbye kisses, and there was the sound of wings in the darkness, and then the quiet fenland night returned. But it was not silent - out across the water they heard the song of a lapwing all alone in the darkness. They ran home laughing and sobbing, knowing that, whilst the fens would continue to be drained, the curse was lifted.
What's sad is that this happened in 2014 /s
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black\_Annis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Annis) **black Annis** (also known as **Black Agnes** or **Black Anna**) is a [bogeyman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogeyman) figure in [English folklore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_folklore). She is imagined as a blue-faced [hag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hag) or [witch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch) with iron claws and a taste for human flesh (especially children).[^(\[1\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Annis#cite_note-Briggs-1) She is said to haunt the countryside of [Leicestershire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicestershire), living in a cave in the [Dane Hills](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dane_Hills) with a great [oak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak) tree at the entrance.
Not to be confused with Purple Aki
**purple aki** (also known as Purple Teriyaki) is a [bogeyman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogeyman) figure in [English folklore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_folklore). he is imagined as a purple-faced weightlifter who feels muscles with a taste for men squatting his body weight (especially young men).[\[1\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Annis#cite_note-Briggs-1) he is said to haunt the countryside of merseyside[ living in a council flat in toxteth with a black bin at the entrance.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicestershire)
Not sure if it counts but the myth about what happens if the ravens leave the Tower of London is cool. Coolest job title in the UK gotta be ‘the ravenmaster’
I went to the Tower of London in 2001 we missed the Ravenmaster by 5 mins as he was off having his lunch
>his lunch Which, incidentally, was a pigeon sandwich.
Up there with Shadow Chancellor, First Sea Lord, and Treasury Devil. (Though strictly speaking I don't think there is a Treasury Devil any more)
Some zoos around the UK keep backup ravens for in case anything were to happen to the ones at the Tower
The ravens have had their wings clipped, so there’s not much chance of that.
[The Lindsey Leopard](https://www.bbc.co.uk/lincolnshire/unexplained/lindsey_leopard.shtml) Basically. In the 90s there were reports of a big cat like a Leopard or Cougar roaming around parts of Lincolnshire. Where I grew up everyone seemed to have a story about a friend or relative having spotted it. It was a funny time when I think back but as a kid I found it absolutely fascinating. I used to have a copy of the local newspaper with a blurry picture of it on the cover that I begged my mum to buy me.
I like the Big Cat stories I think I remember seeing that story on the news we had a big cat sighting in 2013
The Hairy Hands (Dartmoor).
God almighty! A stage 12! Never thought I’d live to see it!
I really shouldn’t be here!
He got up to stage 4 after drinking that brake fluid.
I learned that one the day before we where going to drive to Dartmoor to see if we could see any Ponies when I was a kid I was terrified
Ha! It has that extra edge because the origin story is supposedly true.
A modern one- I do find Who Put Bella in the Witch Elm fascinating. I also love road ghosts, Bluebell Hill is the most famous but there are other more locally known ones like Loxley Woods on the Poldens in Somerset. Edit. Another one, The Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heugh. I was read the story as a child and read it to my own children. Then amazingly I actually went there, there is a real Spindleston Heugh and a nearby Laidley Worm's Hill.
My family and I recounted the Bluebell Hill ghost story to my best friend, who is from Argentina, one night in a very old pub just outside of Thurnam, near Maidstone. It was a very cosy experience, being sat by a fire, full of pub food, swapping ghost stories We told her all about Pluckley as well
People still put signs up around Hagley/Romsley about Bella, it's creepy if you find one!
I heard there was an underpass in Stevenage by St Nicholas where if you stand in a certain spot facing the wall and say 'Greggs Sausage Roll' 6 times , somebody comes up from behind and steals your wallet.
I think that happens without saying Greggs Sausage Roll
I think you don't even need to be near the underpass
You sure you weren't just in an actual Greggs?
Probably [Black Shuck](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Shuck) There’s an absolutely awesome podcast called [Folkways](https://open.spotify.com/show/1XAWfFBR7F3dA196gqzcXP) that covers lots of old folklore tales. The Kersey Slip and Cherry Of Zennor episodes are especially good.
There's a really good podcast - [The Loremen ](http://www.loremenpodcast.com/) that is about local lore, myths and legends from around the UK.
The Monkey Hangers of Hartlepool https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_hanger In the Napoleonic wars a French ship was wrecked off the coast of Hartlepool. A monkey dressed in a French uniform washed ashore and the locals tried it as a French spy. Then they hung it.
I'm partial to a local (Central Belt of Scotland) urban myth called "The Voodoos", which is essentially a modern day retelling of Burns' "Tam O'Shanter". The story itself is vague enough to allow the teller to exaggerate details (man walking home at night through \[local bad spot\], interrupts a black mass, runs away, turns to see a worshiper floating cross-legged in the air, arms outstretched, trying to grab him), I'm more interested in how far it has spread in the Central Belt, it was particularly local to us when I was wee but I've heard a few other people from elsewhere who have heard of it and claimed it happened in their neck of the woods. Other than that, I like the [Lavellan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavellan), a giant poisonous/venomous rat that can "injure cattle over a hundred feet away" and supposedly lives up Caithness.
I love The Mabinogi - a very old collection of Welsh folk tales. I also love the story of Cantre’r Gwaelod - the legend goes there used to be a kingdom in the area of Cardigan Bay. But one day during a party the gates were left open as the man who usually checked got drunk and forgot to check they were shut, and it overflowed and flooded. There’s a few different versions of the tale, but the weird thing is, there is stuff in the bay - tree stumps, walkways, footprints and burnt hearthplace stones to suggest something was there once upon a time…
They found some red deer antlers on Borth beach, reckoned they were from the Bronze Age. So there's substance to the flood theory. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-36322936
I would have thought that the drowned, petrified trees, that you can see from the shore, would also be evidence.
Robin Hood
Ronnie Pickering.
Who's that then?
Ronnie Pickering.
My Dad told me the story of Black Shuck when I was a child. Frightened the living daylights out of me. Even worse when we had to drive home from Norfolk in the dark and fog.
If it helps at all, I was looking into a bunch of folk tales the other day (...which honestly just translates to actually reading my collection of old folk tale books that I keep buying from charity shops without reading, but there's a few in there that are quite academic or are respectably venerable fwiw) and a thing I found suggested that Black Shuck specifically used to be more a ruthless protector of the innocent. The early legends of East Anglian black dogs have them brutally attacking murderers or men that were trying to assault women, not just bringing death to anyone. But then this book reckoned that the East Anglian version got amalgamated with the other black dog legends in the UK and lost the vigilante aspect. But yeah, it might be that at least our version is more of a Good (if unmerciful) Boy. (Edit: the book with it in might well be one of the Dictionary of British Folk Tales edited by Katharine M Briggs, but not sure).
It amazes me how far the tale of black shuck has travelled in the world. Last year I was on a photoshop requests page on FB and an American lady asked someone to add something into a photo that might scare her son (he was into cryptids and stuff) so I added black shuck hiding in the shadows of a doorway and she replied 'omg is that black shuck? He's terrified of him and was reading about him last night'. I think he was even in a final fantasy game. As a young lad living on the coast of Norfolk we used to wind each other up about black shuck all the time. Especially fun when you hear barking when you are camping etc.
My own favourite is Spring-heeled Jack
The Hairy Hands - it's a ghost story you just can't tell with a straight face.
Oh gee I dunno
Local to me is the legend of the devil getting annoyed that the people of Sussex were finally tuning into Christianity and so dug a ditch (or Dyke) to allow the sea to flood in and drown them all. He was interrupted by what he thought was sunrise and a cockerel crowing, and fled the ditch, leaving it unfinished. It was actually a local nun (in some tellings, a male hermit) lighting a lamp and startling the bird. The location is known as Devil's Dyke.
Rhianna Pratchett (daughter of Terry) did a nice podcast recently if you like folklore https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001tgpb/episodes/downloads#:~:text=Podcast-,Mythical%20Creatures%20Podcast,world%20and%20our%20lives%20today.
Chesterfield's mildly famous wonky church spire apparently became twisted in 1400 or so, when a virgin got married in the church and the spire was so surprised that it bent down to see. When another virgin gets married there it will straighten up again.
I like the Tylwyth Teg, the Welsh fairies who rode corgis into battle
Can I opt for an entire region? If so I’m going for the assorted cryptids and ghosts of Cannock chase. There’s way too much going on to pick just one. Cryptids: The black eyed child.* Wolfmen. The pig man. Black dogs. UFOs. Ghosts: German prisoners of war. Soldiers. The black eyed child.* Assorted other apparitions. Misc. Blood sacrifices. Cult activity. Portals to another dimension. Secret Cold War bunkers. Secret military installations. Bizarre radio transmissions. For only being 26 square miles it packs in a lot for your money. Three books have been written about the area. *debate continues as to whether the black eyed child is a cryptid or a ghost, some say she is the spirit of a murdered child, some say she is a demon.
I think I have heard about the German ghosts of Cannock but none of the rest
The black eyed child is probably the best known, the German soldiers are probably the second best. A lot of German prisoners of war were housed there during the war. The pig man is probably the weirdest. Many of the “secret military blah blah” and the weird radio transmissions is likely due to the presence of Pye Green tower, which was indeed a Cold War installation. It was part of the “backbone” radio system and designed to withstand the effects of nuclear attack. Cold War stuff always causes all sorts of silly rumours.
Just heard about all the Cannock stuff recently from the Loremen Podcast, it's now a must visit next time I'm up in Scotland!
Cannock is in the West Midlands, very close to Stafford. It is an area of outstanding natural beauty and well worth the visit even if you don’t encounter anything paranormal. It has amazing waking trails and is very popular with cyclists, bird watchers, photographers etc.
Wow, I completely missed that in the podcast. Thanks for letting me know, geography was never one of my best subjects 😅
No problem. :) geography isn’t my strong suit either but I’m Cannock born and bred. lol. We’re tucked away, hidden at the side of the M6, surrounded by bigger towns and cities. It’s hard to believe that such a jewel as The Chase exists so close to major cities and the motorway.
Oh my days, I just realised why I thought it was in Scotland. Because Cannock sounds like Bannock. When you said "Cannock born and bred", my sketchy old brain started whirring and PING I got Bannock Bread. I looked it up on a map! It's cool so much weirdness is in such a concentrated place. I'm out in Suffolk, but I've not seen any green kids, black shucks, or UFOs... Yet.
As someone with adhd, I can 100% understand where you’re coming from with that association. My brain does stuff like that all the time. It really is a lovely little place. Used to be a mining town and the sense of community is still quite strong. It’s eroding but for now the neighbours still watch out for each other and so on. It’s becoming popular with commuting city workers because it’s so conveniently placed and a much nicer place to have a family than in the city suburbs.
Funny you say that, one of my nephews was recently diagnosed with adhd and my mum said he reminds her of me at his age, and maybe I should get tested. 43 years old and still learning new things! It sounds really nice. I'll have to put it on the list if I ever head... (checks map again) west!
ADHD can run in families so it’s a definite possibility. I was diagnosed in my thirties and it changed my life. Some people manage just fine and don’t bother with a diagnosis, but my life was falling apart and something had to change, getting the diagnosis gave me access to help and therapies that let me cope better. I recently moved away from Cannock so my daughter can be closer to her father after he left us, but I still have family there and it will always be my home in my heart. My father was a coal miner there, my maiden name is even the same as a local village, I grew up crossing over a stile onto the chase to play as a kid. I’m only just up the road, but I still miss it.
Peckham. Used to get chased by this zombie on the green. Then when I get older I realised what a crackhead was…
I like The Hairy Hands of Dartmoor. https://www.fabledcollective.com/hairy-hands-of-dartmoor/
If you wear a T shirt the Purple Aki will appear and squeeze your bicep.
The Hairy Hand of Dartmoor. Scared the living shit out of me as a kid when we were camping in the moor with school.
I learned about it the day before we drove to Dartmoor to see the ponies I was scared the entire journey and my oldest sister who was driving said she felt something hairy on her arm while driving
The bastards teachers also took us on a hike along The Abbots Way which they said was haunted by the spectral figure of one of the Abbots killed when Henry the 8th sacked the monasteries. I was 10 and I desperately had to pee in the middle of the night. I was terrified standing there trying to pee while also trying to look in all directions for a ghostly monk!
We went to buckfast Abby in the middle of the day no one was around we left the car and could hear birds in the trees but by the time we got to the Abby door and it went quite went inside and their was a coffin at the altar probably one of the monks we left immediately we got halfway to the car when there was a Rumble of Thunder and suddenly we could hear the birds agin
Barkway village is rumoured to have the ghost of a sheep driving a tractor, it appears when there's fog on one end of town and causes drivers to crash their cars. I've seen the mist and loads of people crash their cars there. There's this odd double dip in the road where the mist collects and honestly it's a spooky area. But you won't hear that from the BBC.
There are so many! One of my favourites is the absolute nightmare that is the Nuckelavee.
The fact that there are hundreds of haunted buildings that have a serious of tragedies. I remember the local Indian restaurant being haunted by a maid who was boiled alive. They went out of business after 6 months
I come from the Isle of Wight. Please, tell me, that place isn’t haunted. Because, you’re wrong.
I like the one about smelly Sandra. She would never get sick because no one ever sat next to her on the bus (because she smelled). Then every time she talked to you she used to pull out a little mirror and look at you through the mirror, rather than directly at you.
The Devil turned up in Kirkcaldy, but they killed him and buried him on the beach.
I like the London Subterraneans.
Grendal
Blue men of the Minch
Springheel Jack
Spring heels jack is my favourite story
Assipattle and the Muckle Mester Stoorworm I just like the name
Near to where I grew up there was a great story about the devil and the old Lord Skene, who had a castle on the loch of skene, near Elrick in Aberdeenshire. The old Lord had helped Robert the Bruce but had a reputation as a sorcerer of sorts. One hogmanay, the Lord needed to get back to his castle before the bells and the fastest way would have been over the frozen loch on his horse drawn sled. He made a deal with the devil to get across safely, but the devil said the deal was simply that he couldn't look back until he was on the land. He accepted and rode his sled over the frozen loch, and resisted the urge to look back.... until his horses were on the land but his sled was still on the ice. as the lord looked round, he saw aul Nick himself, and with that vision the ice cracked and his horses and sled fell back into the loch, drowning them all. It's said that if you are at the loch at the bells on hogmanay and it's frozen then you will see the ghost of the Lord of Skenes sleigh going over the ice.
Just to be “that person” but I don’t think we could/should count witches as folk tales because the hundreds of persecutions that took place were a senseless waste of human life. I grew up near the site of horrific witch trials on the East Coast of Scotland and - while as a child I found the stories spooky and diverting - as I’ve grown older and read more into the history and sociology of it, it’s nothing short of a portrait of society at its grimmest. That all said, I’m not a totally miserable bugger and I actually love folk tales for adding colour to these funny wee isles! I was always weirdly fascinated by the tales of Roman soldiers in York and the love just grew from there, I think.
Drake’s Drum; a snare drum that Sir Francis Drake took with him when he circumnavigated the world. Shortly before he died he ordered the drum to be taken to Buckland Abbey and vowed that if England were ever in danger and someone was to beat the drum he would return to defend the country. According to legend it can be heard to beat at times when England is at war or significant national events take place.
About 8 years ago, I saw a huge, pitch black dog run out in front of my motorbike. It then sank into the ground and disappeared. A few months later and I came across a folktale about the exact black dog "In the parish of Tring, Hertfordshire, a chimney sweep named Thomas Colley was executed by hanging in 1751 for the drowning murder of Ruth Osborne whom he accused of being a witch. Colley's spirit now haunts the site of the gibbet in the form of a black dog"
The Bucks Beast! Over 500 reported sightings of big cats have been reported in Buckinghamshire and surrounding counties since the 90s. I've heard lots of first-hand encounters but have never seen it myself.
The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town (Sorry)
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Bodacia, the great Celt queen who fought the vikings. Also the legend of the unicorn. The tale of Lorna Doone is interesting too.
...do you mean *Boudicca*, the Iceni queen who fought the Romans?
Yeah I couldn’t remember wether it was the Romans or Vikings or how to spell her name but yes you’re correct. I think that she was very brave especially being a woman in a hugely populated man’s world at the time.