Jeanie o' Biggersdale and other Yorkshire stories ... Preface by the Rev. J. C. Atkinson

Preface

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. Having been requested by the author of the following pages to write an introductory pre face to the volume, it is almost imperative on me to remark at the outset that I was totally unacquainted with any of the stories comprised (one only excepted) until they had been printed and made ready to take the book form. Having no alternative, then, but to disclaim any share in their origination, their form, or their substance, I have thought that it might not be quite unadvisable to submit the following remarks upon some of the folklore topics either introduced or adverted to in more than one of the tales themselves, and almost as much in the expectation as in the hope merely that the said remarks may prove to be not totally without interest to some, at least, among the readers of the book. VI

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. In an appendix towards the close of his second volume, the Historian of Whitby gives, in what he entitles "A Statistical Survey," a short section to " Superstitions relating to par ticular places." Of the said " superstitions," he says that " many of them may be regarded as obsolete," and yet that " some of them are too curious to be wholly omitted." Judging from the specimens of them given, and know ing how very far, even now — three-quarters of a century after the date of his book — such matters are from being really " obsolete," we can only lament the prejudiced or ignorant short-sightedness which influenced him not only in saving so few, but in being content with saving such scanty shreds even of them. This is eminently the case with one which furnishes the principal member of the title to this book, and the full title to one of the stories contained in it.

At the outset he calls Jeanie " a very mischievous fairy." But it is obvious that he must have possessed details, although he does not mention them, on which to found such a sketch of her characteristics, or such a charge against her conduct. A few lines lower,

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. VII he terms her "a sprite," and then ends by accrediting her with certain incapacities which Burns, quite correctly, attributes to the witch proper, and to her exclusively. Jeanie could not cross a running stream. Yet Biggersdale, like other similarly named localities, had, and has, a stream running along its lowest part : and thus poor Jeanie must have had her limits uncomfortably circumscribed ; which, situated as Biggersdale is, was a little unfortunate for her. But the inference or outcome from this feature in the snatch of legend we thus get from the good Doctor, combined with the notice of her " mischievous propensities " as well as with his uncertain and inconsistent nomenclature, is quite enough to show that he had a variety of details within his grasp, such as to assure a modern folklorist that there were legends then or lately extant, involving divers entities and agents of various characters and characteristics, and all of great and, possibly, instructive interest.

I have myself met with the vestiges — scarcely more than rags and tatters — of a story in which were commingled surviving traces of the William Tell and Robin Hood legend ;

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. VIII and, just in the same way, there can be little doubt that Young had got hold of some of the " makings " and " mountings " of two or three legendary tellings all confused together, in the tales he had heard of Jeanie and her doings. Many years ago I came on a shred or remnant of what had once been a feature or factor in Jeanie's fuller presentment. It was in the customary rude and rhyming jingle — a supposed invocation addressed to her in her secret haunt : Biggersdale Jeanie ! where is thoo ? ' — Ah's nobbut tying my left-foot shoo ; Bide ! and Ah'll be wi' thee— NOO ! • " But sudden and flashing as was Jeanie's out rush, it was unavailing ; the invocant took care not to wait for it. Yet it was to be noted that there was no thought in the teller's mind of the close-at-hand running-water refuge available in the immediate vicinity of Jeanie's Biggersdale haunt.

But still : Whence, and why, the invoca tion ? Why the " left-foot shoe " ? Why the pause over tying it ? There is enough to excite curiosity — eager curiosity and inquiry ■but nothing whatever to satisfy it. The

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. IX present-day pursuit and investigation of Com parative Folklore may, probably will, throw light on even such seemingly trivial matters as these ; and then perhaps other features may become more apparent, and the resolution of the whole into a survival or an aspect of ancient folk-faith may be effected. It is more than possible that very much of the same kind might be said of the main incident in the " Modern Jael " story, below. Grotesque and almost absurdly impossible as more than one or two of the details actually are, yet, after all, they are neither more grotesque or less reconcilable with common or actual experience than the destruction, as re corded in the story of the Forty Thieves, in the "Arabian Nights," of the concealed robbers. In that case, the simple expedient of pouring a small quantity of boiling oil into the big jars which held the ambushed thieves was sufficient for the purpose of putting them out of the way.

And in that case also the victims neither shrieked, struggled, or did any other thing inconsistent with the story-teller's end and object, or inconvenient to the accommodating

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. X faith of the receptive audience. They calmly and unresistingly died of a spoonful of oil, and the proper denouement is happily attained. Going no further than this, is would be open to surmise that there is either collateral con nection or hereditary descent involved in this country-side story of the administration of a modicum of boiling lard and its readily ensuing fatal result ; and also that the connection or the descent is with, or from, the folk-tale in which the story of Ali Baba originated. Either way the story is notable, while the accompaniment of the customary doggerel couplet or rhyme almost shows the time and the manner of its adaptation. Certainly one can with difficulty picture the " farm-lass " heroine composing and delivering from the chamber-window even such verse as that.

But there is no difficulty about listening to it as it falls from the professional story-teller's lips. " The Professional Story-teller ! " But I don't think his existence is allowed for, or his epoch assumed as a real one, by the chief collectors and retailers of our divers modern series of local folk-tales, legends, or myths.

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. XI They repeat or reproduce, with a sort of non conscious indifference which would be laughable if it were less detrimental to the interests of the scientific folklorist, a series of incongruities, inconsistencies, anachronisms, impossibilities, which form a fine illustration of license, and in which they add to the conse quences of the exercise of the like license on the part of the professional story-teller. And indeed the traces of this personage's being and his action, and the manner of it, are extant and evident all about us. One sees them in nine out of ten of the stories current in the district in which the scenes of the tales which are told in the present book are laid. The so-called Penny-hedge legend at Whitby ; the Henry the Eighth and Stormy Hall story at Danby ; the Beggar's Bridge fancy (or fancies) at Glaisdale ; the muddled mingling of William Tell and Robin Hood referred to above ; the telling of one part of an old and ac credited story to the exclusion of another part, as in the boiling lard fable — all are cases in point. What in them is not "transmitted," is invented or added, and almost always with

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. a local or personal application that discloses the approximate date of the tampering with the original story, even if it does not reveal the evident, because the appropriate, motive for the alteration or insertion. Thus the " render ing" of the fat of a pig — that is, melting it down till all that can become fluid is in a state to assume, on cooling, the consistency of lard — is, in its way, as significant as is the sus piciously rapid and easy, as well as fatal, effect of a small portion of the heated fluid. The one points to a country-side inspiration of no very ancient or unfamiliar date, as pointedly as does the other to transmission from older times and different surroundings. And again, although the former part of the accustomed setting forth of the incidents is entirely wanting in the story which furnishes the feature in question, that is precisely what is observable in divers analogous folk-tales, or versions of them, current in the West.

In Italian and Eastern folk-tales, the Cave, the Treasure, the Password parts of the tale precede the slaying of the thieves. And possibly this is by no means without its interest. Indeed, as

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. XIII Mr. E. Sidney Hartland has very kindly mentioned to me, there are various analogues quoted in Cosquin's " Contes Populaires de Lorraine," in one of which the heroine cuts the thief's arm off. In this connection it is well worth observing that in the Mabinogi of Branwen — the story is given at some length in Professor Rhys's "Arthurian Legend" (p. 150) — a similar in cident is presented to our notice. Bran the Blessed invades Ireland for the purpose of delivering his sister Branwen. The Irish pretend to make friends with him, and build a house for him. " But the Irish planned a crafty device ; and the craft was that they should put brackets on each side of each of the hundred pillars that were in the house, and should place a leathern bag on each bracket, and an armed man in each one of them.

Then Bran's brother came in before the host of the Island of the Mighty, and scanned the house with fierce and savage looks, and descried the leathern bags which were around the pillars. 'What is in this bag ? ' asked he of one of the Irish. ' Meal,

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. XIV good soul,' said he. And Bran's brother felt about it until he came to the man's head ; and he squeezed the head until he felt his fingers meet together in the brain through the bone. And he left that one and put his hand upon another ; and so on, until he had killed them all. Then the host came into the house to make peace " (Lady Charlotte Guest's " Mabinogion," second edition, p. 379). As to the assize trial which is tacked on in our Cleveland version of so old and so familiar a story, there can be no doubt that it, too, like the boiling down of the fat to " saim," is a purely modern addition, analogous to the funny impromptu rhyme attributed to the servant-girl, or farm-lass, who enacts the role of heroine in the drama. It is a pity to think what a wealth of interest ing folklore has been lost in this district of Cleveland for want of careful and intelligent collectors.

CONTENTS PAGE JEANIE O' BIGGERSDALE .... I A JAEL OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY . . 53 THE BRIDESTONES . . . . . 107 THE WITCH OF WINTERGILL . . . 1 53 HONOR BLAKE — Part I.— St. Mark's Eve . . . .221 Part. II. — Ash-Riddling . . . 242 Part III. — Links in the Chain . . . 249 Part IV.— The Doom Fulfilled . . . JEANIE 0' BIGGERSDALE. It was five o'clock one afternoon in November, and very nearly dark. John Brewster, the miller, was busy removing. The road to his new abode, Biggersdale Mill, was a very rough one, and at last his waggon stuck fast in the mud with a broken axle-tree. "Billy Eglon! Billy Eglon ! " he shouted, "wheer is thoo wi' t' lantern. Ah say, Billy, leuk sharp, or I'll mak thee back wark (ache) wi' t' stick yance Ah ketches thee." No answer came, save a peal of mocking laughter, "Ho! ho! ho!— ha! ha! ha!"

" Is't thoo, wife," growled the miller, " who's mak'in' gam' o' me ? Ah'll be even wi' ye yance we're safe at the mill." " John, John, for goodness sake hold your tongue," wailed a pitiful voice in the rear of the JEANIE 0' BIGGERSDALE. 2 waggon. "I've tumbled with my basket and broken half of my best china tea-set. I am much more inclined to cry than to laugh." Mrs. Brewster was not a native of Yorkshire, and ever since she had married and settled there she had grumbled at the wild, desolate district in which her lot was cast ; this removal to Biggersdale was the crowning point to her grievances on this score. " Billy, Billy, coom on," shouted the miller, quite ignoring his wife's misfortune, as he caught a glimpse of the light of the lantern down in the hollow of the road. " I'm coming, maister, as fast as I dare, but I'm mains flaid (much afraid) o' Jeanie o' Big gersdale."

" What balderdash are ye talkin' noo ? " shouted the miller. " Ah'll warm ye if ye doant look slippy. Gie us a han' wi t' rope ; we mun fettle t' waggon oop t' best we can." With a great deal of difficulty the axle-tree was mended in a temporary manner, and the waggon extricated from the deep ruts in the road. At last the load of furniture reached its destination, the mill-house, which was only a JEANIE O' BIGGERSDALE. 3 hundred yards distant from the spot where the accident had happened. Later that evening Billy Eglon explained to his master and mistress how they ought to attribute all their misfortunes to the proper cause, which could be no other than Jeanie o' Biggersdale. She was the wicked sprite, or bogle, that haunted the mill and glen. Was it not well known that her mocking laugh was never heard but as the forerunner, or accom paniment, of accident and calamity.

Indeed it was considered that she took a special delight in bringing all kinds of misfortune on the unlucky people who dared to inhabit Biggers dale Mill. The fairy had resented its erection, being angry that mortals should dare to intrude within the bounds of her special domain. The history of the building of the mill was told to John Brewster in disjointed fragments of gossip, partly by Billy Eglon, and partly by the neighbours, who were all interested in the unfortunate man who had been, as they con sidered, beguiled into becoming the tenant of such an ill-omened place. The small estate which included Biggersdale BLGGERSDALE. 4 glen in its boundaries had formerly belonged to a family of the name of Pierce. A Wise Man living in the district had foretold that the pro perty should remain in the hands of the Pierces so long as they were careful not to offend the fairy who reigned in Biggersdale glen.

Tradition told how Jonathan Pierce, when drinking with some boon companions, made a foolish bet that he would face the bogle and defy her, he, above all men, being certainly not afraid. He mounted his horse and rode up the glen, which was supposed to be the habitation of the sprite, and called to the fairy in a mocking, defiant manner. This rashness, however, nearly cost Jonathan his life, for Jeanie was said to have pursued him and overtaken him when he was half-way across the stream of running water on which the mill afterwards stood. Jonathan's horse was supposed to have been cut in two ; luckily the rider fell on to the horse's neck, the stream of running water divided him from his pursuer, and he escaped out of reach of the fairy. It has been averred that from this time the luck of the Pierces made itself wings.

Money, BIGGERSDALE. 5 health, friends failed them ; they seemed as if they were at the mercy of an evil genius. Facilis est descensus Averni ; never was any deterioration more rapid than that which dragged poor old Jonathan Pierce from his respectable position as a farmer and land owner, down to the level of the most wretched, abject pauper in all the country around. Notwithstanding its evil name, and the misfortunes said to accompany its possession, the Biggersdale glen had always been coveted by the Stapletons, who owned an adjacent castle and most of the surrounding land. Randolph, Earl of Stapleton, above all things earnestly desired to add Biggersdale to his vast estates. It was provoking beyond measure to know that his fair expanse of park and woodland was intersected by a strip of territory which did not belong to him.

It was still more vexatious to discover that a deep-rooted superstition prevented his servants from crossing the Biggers dale glen. It was useless for the Earl to storm and rave ; his foresters and woodmen would rather walk a mile further than brave its imaginary dangers. JEANIE O ' BIGGERSDALE. 6 At last the Earl of Stapleton obtained what he coveted. Jonathan Pierce died, and as his small estate was mortgaged to its full value it was put up for sale, and the Earl found no difficulty in buying it. When the deeds were handed over to the purchaser, there was only one spot in the whole estate that he found any difficulty in taking possession of; that was a ruined dwelling-house at the higher end of the Biggersdale ravine, close to the edge of the moor. Mrs. Pierce, the widow of the deceased owner of Biggersdale, still inhabited this house, and the Earl of Stapleton sent his steward to inform his tenant that he gave her leave to drag out the remainder of her existence within the broken-down walls which she called home ; but solely on one condition, which was that she was not to intimidate his workmen in the con struction of a mill which he had determined to build in the glen.

The country people had for some time past been wont to chaunt a doggerel rhyme. I rede ye beware of the Biggersdale glen, Trespass not in it, ye Stapleton men, For darkest of curse and blackest of ban Shall prick thy flesh to the very bane, If ye touch but a tree, or a stick, or a stane, So trespass not in it, ye Stapleton men. Beware then of Jeanie o' Biggersdale glen. Old Allison Pierce bore such an evil reputa tion in the district, that now they were beginning to alter the last line, and to say, " Beware of the witch o' Biggersdale glen." The dread of witchcraft being at that time very potent in the minds of men, the presence of a reputed witch formed a decided hindrance to the Earl's projected plan for utilising his newly acquired property. At last the masons began their work. Under the force of much persuasion, and some threats, a band of work men had at length been gathered together who had consented to drive the stone-waggons into the unhallowed region of the glen ; others toiled at the foundations of the mill, which was to be built on the solid rock at the side of the stream.

But nothing would induce them to continue their labour after the shades of even ing had begun to creep over the darkening landscape ; they promptly threw down their tools before the last gleam of daylight had faded from the western sky. JEANLE 0' BIGGERSDALE. 8 The Earl of Stapleton hoped that the whirr of a busy mill, and the bustle and stir of human habitation, would be the best means of destroying a superstition which was both annoying and inconvenient to himself ; but from the very commencement the work was hindered by a series of mishaps which the country people did not fail to attribute to the malevolence of Jeanie the bogle. Two storms of unparalleled severity happened within the space of a fortnight. During the first of these a huge tree was struck by lightning, and it fell across the site on which it was proposed to build the mill.

When the second storm occurred, such torrents of rain fell that a great flood ensued which swept away, in one night, the foundations which had been laid with infinite cost and pains. The next week, three of the workmen were seriously injured by an accident that happened to one of the stone waggons. All this time Mrs. Pierce was not silent ; she could not, and would not, understand that her husband's heritage had passed out of her hands for ever, and she looked upon the Earl and his workmen as a band of intruders and thieves who were insulting her, and robbing her of her just rights. Day by day she stood on the dam, which the workmen were constructing for the use of the mill, and cursed them lustily, using a startling string of horrible and alarming impre cations. At length the steward, who had the management of the work, perceived that if this was allowed to go on he would soon have very few labourers left.

It was reported that, with out consulting his master, he proceeded to silence the maledictions of the witch ; on the other hand, some people declared that Earl Stapleton was the instigator of the barbarous cruelties which were practised upon Allison Pierce. The date of these events was early in the seventeenth century. At that period it only needed a few hints to the ignorant people to make them eager to get rid of what was regarded as a great nuisance in the neighbourhood — the presence of any person holding demoniacal power, who could, on the slightest provocation, endanger the lives of those around them or torture them with cruel diseases. JEANIE 0' BIGGERSDALE. 10 So the terrified, shrieking Allison Pierce was bound hand and foot and cast into the newly constructed mill-dam, to see if she would sink, and so save her character by being drowned ; or swim, and thus prove she was assisted by the devil, and therefore worthy of being burnt as a witch.

Innumerable were the iniquities im puted to her by the excited crowd on the banks of the stream, who for once had forgotten the dangers of the neighbourhood they were in, in the excitement of watching a painful struggle for life. Hindering the construction of Earl Staple ton's mill was but one item among the many misdemeanours attributed to the culprit. All the illnesses and accidents in the country around were laid to her charge, also the death of cattle, the failure of a sufficient supply of cream in the dairies or of eggs in the hen houses, the loss of money, and even the break ing of jugs and looking-glasses. This was, alas, only one of the many examples happening constantly all over the country, which showed how little it needed to turn men and women against their neighbours, and even their relations, to make them accuse their victims of the foulest of crimes, as well as the most trivial of offences, and torture them until they avowed anything they were bidden to confess ; the cul mination of the cruel drama usually being to deprive the poor wretches of existence as a piteous kind of scapegoat for the sins and misfortunes of the whole country-side.

It appears doubtful whether old Mrs. Pierce really perished by drowning in the mill-pool. It is difficult to discover the exact truth among the distorted legends of the past. It was averred that she died two days afterwards in her own bed, from the effects of the injuries she received when put to the trial as a witch. Or again, a darker tale is told. It appears that the country people had by this time made the very natural mistake of confusing her in dividuality with that of Jeanie o' the Glen. Therefore it was suggested to the Earl of Stapleton that if he could effectually get rid of the witch, all anxiety as to the future success of his new undertaking would be at an end. It is said that a wicked old retainer whis pered into his master's ear a solution of the difficulty, and that his evil proposition was speedily put in execution.

Once more a fearful storm had occurred, though it was the middle of August. Such a tempest in summer had not been known for many years ; this time fully half of the mill, which had at length risen from its ill-fated foundations, was swept away, and the unlucky building was once more level with the ground. The old retainer declared that the only cure for a building plagued with so many hindrances in its construction would be to entomb a living victim into one of the outer walls, and assuredly the rest of the work would become easy of accomplishment. Who so fit a victim as old Allison Pierce, the very ally, so it was reported, of Satan him self? Tradition avers that the unholy deed of burying the witch alive was actually performed, and that Allison Pierce, in company with her familiar, a large black cat, was walled up in the most solid part of the mill, just by the large wooden wheel.

Far from laying the ghost of the glen, it appears, if possible, to have borne a worse name for ghostly, un- JEANLE 0' BIGGERSDALE. 13 natural sounds, the gruesome deed having only added to its phantasmal terrors. John Brewster was wont to tell his friends that even after he settled in Biggersdale, on stormy nights he often heard, and some times actually saw, Jeanie, in the form of an owl, flying over the mill, hooting and shrieking with a weird, mocking sound as she passed backward and forward above her own par ticular haunt ; and that at times a cry seemed to come from the walls below the wheel, which would blend with the one overhead ; this might possibly be the ghost of the witch pining for release, so as to join the bogle in her un holy, malignant glee. The Brewsters had hardly been a month in their new abode when a serious misfortune befell them.

John found that the mill-wheel needed a great deal of repairing, and being wishful to save the expense of a joiner, he thought he would try to mend it himself. While thus employed, his foot slipped on one of the moss-covered spokes of the wheel, and he fell on to the sharp-edged stones in the deep hole below and narrowly escaped with his life. John told his wife afterwards that as he fell, he just had time to think he should certainly be killed, and to hear a mocking "Ha! ha!" mingled with a buzzing sound in his ears, before he became unconscious. This accident was indeed a terrible mis fortune to the miller, who could not afford to leave Biggersdale, as he would still be re sponsible for the rent of the mill. It was, therefore, necessary to hire a man to do the work while John remained an invalid and a cripple.

Mrs. Brewster was a hard-working, active woman, and under her supervision, with the help of a man and the boy, Billy Eglon, the trade of the mill was kept from languish ing till John was convalescent, which was not, however, for many long, weary months. The winter dragged its slow, monotonous length, with its usual accompaniments of rain, wind, and snow ; and the spring followed with its accustomed bitter north-easterly winds, which were always so much to be dreaded on the coast of Yorkshire. Biggersdale Mill was situated rather more than two miles from the sea, in an exceedingly sheltered position, but even that did not save it from its full share of the fierce spring and autumn equinoctial gales. It was difficult to under stand how the wind could whirl up into the secluded glen with such violence.

Jeanie, the bogle, must have been weather-proof, or the stinging easterly breezes would surely have dislodged her long ago. At length the first days of summer came, when the advantages of the Biggersdale sur roundings were most fully apparent. Soft, warm winds from the south blew over the moors and over the far-famed Stapleton pines and larches. The primroses shone like deli cate golden stars among the emerald grass, in company with the curled brown knots of the newly budding ferns. Swallows and martins skimmed gracefully over the wide expanse of the pool above the mill-dam. The young green leaves were budding on the tall elms and beeches. One morning at the beginning of May, on a glorious, warm, sunshiny day, when just to be alive might well seem the most gracious gift that God Himself could give, a stranger came to the door of Biggersdale Mill.

Under his arm he carried a large parcel of artist's materials. He said he was tired and thirsty, and asked for milk and some kind of food. Mrs. Brewster spread out a slight repast in dainty style in her little parlour, for she took no small pride in her housewifely skill. The stranger paid the trifle demanded for the food he had partaken of, and after asking a few questions about the roads in the neigh bourhood, set out again on his travels. But before evening he returned to the mill, saying he had been so charmed by the Biggersdale environs of moor, wood, and water, that he would very willingly stay a few weeks in the neighbourhood, if Mrs. Brewster could accom modate him with rooms. The matter was soon arranged, the miller's wife being delighted to take a lodger, so as to add to the small profits of the mill, of which so much had to be paid in wages to her husband's substitute.