Folklore of yorkshire

So... I've been pining for the homeland recently...

This intro is tricky as I try to keep this site light and humorous for readers, but I feel I want to write something more personal. And - rather than just delivering a tonne of Yorkshire stereotypes and jokes - whilst making this map, I had some time to explore some feelings about Yorkshire and "home". We don't need to launch into "On Ilkla Mooar Baht 'at" or talk about "Yorkshire born, Yorkshire bred", we don't even need to mention all the great things to come out of Yorkshire, the inventors, musicians, actors, or food, but needless to say life is better for Yorkshire's existence. And it is certainly better for Yorkshire Tea.

When you move away from your home region, it is easy to romanticise a place and a time. And, even though I live somewhere where the wilderness is epic, its people friendly, its ideology aligned with my own, and spend more time than ever in nature, it doesn't always hit the same. There isn't that feeling that permeates the core that you get standing on the top of Malham Cove - maybe some weird sense of ownership, or an old generational connection, that intangible something. Yes, I often have romantic visions in my head of some chocolate box Yorkshire, that I'm not sure exists outside of day trips. But my word it doesn't stop you longing for it.

A friend once told me that Yorkshiremen have elastic souls - we want to wander and explore but we always find ourselves being pulled back. I certainly own a copy of "Rubber Soul" by The Beatles, but whether I have an elastic soul remains to be seen. We as Yorkshire folk are certainly proud of our region though that's for sure, even giving it the title "God's own country". Big claims.

"How do you know if a fella is from Yorkshire?"

"Don't worry he'll tell you."

This certainly rings true and in all my adventures I have had the uncanny ability to meet and befriend my fellow tykes, probably better than when I am actually in Yorkshire. I think we should start setting up outposts, Yorkshiretowns in a similar manner to Chinatowns, where you can get all-you-can-eat roasts, good ale, and have a grump about "if it ain't Yorkshire, it's shite" with other people who understand grumpiness as a subtle art and a form of bonding humour, and not simply being negative. It's a subtle dance. Admittedly, one neither party wants to participate in, but you can point that out to your fellow moody shuffler and now you have common ground.

With these thoughts circling my head I let myself sink into it, to explore it through work, to spend some time immersed in it, bathing in it, potentially wallowing in it even.

I decided to make my first map looking into a region (rather than a whole country) focusing on wonderful Yorkshire, which has one of the country's greatest concentrations of myth and folklore. Initially, it was going to be one of my usual 'Mythical Beasts of...' maps, but I found there were stories I wanted to include that didn't quite fit under that umbrella. It is my most jam-packed map yet, featuring approximately 50 stories - I usually try to cut it off around 35 as it balances better, but I found it hard to cut back that far. These stories are of home and even cutting down to 50 was painful. But when you have many stories competing for space on the page, you have to kill some darlings. Fortunately, Yorkshire is a big slab of a shape which made squeezing so much in possible.

Ok, enough of the nuts and bolts - there's nothing as gip-inducing as a creative talking too much about "the process". Let us get into the stories, and you may want to bookmark this page as I warn you in advance, this is a loooooong post. I was aiming to make a little book/zine to accompany this map but the want to have the map out in time for Yorkshire Day was too great. I may revisit the book/zine idea as I have written a lot of it and I have some ideas for articles exploring themes and places. But for now here is the map.

I'd like to thank everyone for their ongoing support to keep this project going. And if you would like to pick up a copy of this map (or one of our other fine maps) for yourself or that special Yorkshire person in your life, click the button below. Heck if you want to buy one to literally shove how great Yorkshire is in someone else's face, that works too.

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Update- I’m working on book proposals at the moment, so I’ve kept some stories offline to save them for the books (and to stop anyone pinching all the hard work before they’re published!). If you’d like to know when the books are ready, just pop your name on the mailing list.

In the meantime, here are a few of my favourite beasties and legends -

Auld Betty

In the way these things usually start, some chap was feeling unwell and in lieu of access to the NHS by more than a century (which is slightly longer than current waiting times), had made the logical conclusion that he must have been cursed by a witch. It is a similar stream of logic that makes my dog think eating grass will somehow be medically beneficial. It isn't. Though she does end up at the vet and feels better soon after, she simply has the causality muddled. Needless to say, if you're feeling unwell, it is often better to seek professional help than going after witches - or eating grass.

The particular witch that he suspected was known locally as Auld Betty, and his intention to catch her would be made trickier since she was known to shape-shift into the form of a black cat. He knew he would need to trick her into revealing herself. He'd need to be sure; you can't go around accusing innocent cats of being witches, that would be mad. And he wasn't mad, though he wasn't feeling great after eating all that grass.

One night, he lit his fire, set a cake to cook on it, pulled up a chair, grabbed the fire poker and waited. As if waking from a daydream, he snapped back to reality, aware of the pops, crackles and fragrant smoke from the fire. There sat the cat silhouetted by the gentle flames and smoke.

"Cake burns," said the cat.

Knowing he had to be patient, that he had to frustrate the witch; that if made anxious and transfixed enough, she would revert to her human form and turn the cake. Then he'd have his proof.

"Turn it then," he replied.

"Cake burns," said the cat.

"Turn it then," he replied.

"Cake burns," said the cat. The man offered the same response.

It was late and, after a long day, he grew less patient, though he knew he had not to shout at the cat or to use any whole names. The stand-off continued; every calm response riled him until he lost his composure and jumped up swearing and cursing the witch's name. The cat sprang up and began to scamper up the chimney. He leapt after her and managed to get a good strike, though receiving a fierce scratch himself in the process.

The next day, Auld Betty had become ill and remained home in her bed for several days. Meanwhile, he felt great - like the curse had been lifted. So it worked. Either that or the grass had - it's hard to be sure, causality can get messy.

Just a footnote here: it was common in witch beliefs that to break the curse you had to cause the witch to bleed - you were supposed to "draw above the breath" i.e. scratch on the cheek. This belief was widely practised and accepted up until the Victorian era when it did become legally recognised as assault, though the practice persisted into the 19th century. Alarming. It was viewed as a counter-spell which could remove a witch's power as well as heal the cursed individual.

Barguest / Padfoot

So there are a few things to say here, firstly is that for the most part these two are pretty much the same thing. Barguest/barghest is the more common term you will encounter but south of Leeds you will start to hear the name Padfoot being used. I could have just included a single black dog in the map of Yorkshire, but it is one of our most popular motifs and it has many variations across the region.

In Grassington, you may hear of black dogs with shimmering rainbow eyes. In Wakefield, they may be more muscular, appearing bear or ox-like. In Whitby, you will hear of the Barguest Coach - a coach loaded with the skeletons of dead sailors pulled by headless horses that go out to pay their respects to fellow deceased sailors. The most famous barghest is the one that resides in Trollers Gill.

The tales are a bit more varied than in other regions, but usually they serve as a death omen - howling to indicate an impending death, or laying across the threshold of a house. To maintain its credibility as a furry Nostradamus, it may well kill you itself. Maybe just to make sure people still believe its omens. Or maybe just to satisfy its own impostor syndrome; "See, you said he'd die and he did. You did it buddy, well done! You got this, don't let the haters tell you that you can't predict the future. You said he'd die, and that dude is definitely dead."

Bradford Boar

If you've been to Bradford, you may have noticed boars heads adorning various things across the city - the most impressive being the giant golden boar on top of the "Ye Olde Crown" pub. It is part of the city's heritage, and the story goes way back to the 1300s.

Much of Bradford was once a dense medieval hunting forest, and much of that land was owned by a chap called John of Gaunt. Johnny boy should have been pretty happy with his lot in life, but, unfortunately for him, he was pestered relentlessly by the locals' selfish request for safe access to drinking water - the cheek of it. You see the water was on John's land and there happened to be a slightly concerning obstacle in accessing it, namely, a giant boar that would attack any parched fellow trying to access it.

Now John - unlike most hunt loving elites of yore - didn't go after the boar himself yelling something as predictable as, "For glory!" before stuffing the things head and mounting it on his walls as a trophy so he could look back in later life and contentedly think to himself, "Yeah, I killed that, go me! How strong and virile a man I once was. I mean, am. What a big, big man I am." He worked much more like the modern elite and outsourced that work, offering a sizeable reward to anyone who could bring him the boar's head and save him the inconvenience of having to do absolutely bloody anything.

Many tried to hunt the boar but got charged and injured in the process. Enter the hero of the hour - a man named Northrop. He manages to kill the boar but finds himself with a challenge on his hands as that pig's head is absolutely huge. Thinking on his feet, he cuts the thing's tongue out - which looks way less impressive as a hunting trophy - and assumes John has some knowledge of how to estimate the size and identity of a boar by its removed tongue.

In the meantime, some absolute chancer stumbles across the dead boar and decides to try claim the reward for himself. He removes the head and mounts it to his horse, arriving back at John's before Northrop can on foot. He would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for that meddling Northrop who turned up just in time with the boar's tongue. On investigation, John saw that the tongue had been cut from the head, realised that Northrop must be the actual hunter, told the chancer to sling his hook and rewarded Northrop as promised.

Dragon of Wantley

Here is a wonderful dragon story with a literal arse-kicking knight. It features your classic dragon, roaming around being a general pain the butt, however this one was particularly large and was not a fussy eater; apart from a dragon's regular diet of villagers and livestock, this one also enjoyed a munch on trees and buildings too. After a while, a local knight by the name of Moore decided enough was enough, you can't just go around chewing on people's drain pipes and gable ends. He acquired a special suit of armour from Sheffield that was covered in spikes.

Note: spiked armour is a common feature in Yorkshire dragon stories, though usually it plays more of a role in the dragon's demise than it does in this tale.

Nope, the Dragon of Wantley met a much more undignified end by receiving a sharp kick in its (and I quote) "arse-gut". Upon receiving this fatal blow, the dragon explains to the knight, with his dying breath, how this is his only vulnerable spot - in what must be the least noble last words, or dragon death ever; "Ooft me arse-gut, tis me only vulnerable spot. It's right delicate ya know, ya absolute bastard ye." I mean, there's no dignity to be found there and I imagine it took the sense of victory right out of Moore. What do you do with that? Wash your spiky boots, I guess.

Hand of Glory

Hands of Glory are a particularly gruesome item in folk history and appear across Europe. Though the only known surviving one is at Whitby Museum, there are also a couple of famous tales of their use in Yorkshire - notably 'The Spital Inn' in Stainmore and 'The Oak Tree Inn' in Leeming. The Hand of Glory was a tool used by thieves to put the owners of a house into a deep sleep. To make a Hand of Glory, you will need to find a man who has been hanged for the crime of murder, and whilst he is still strung up you cut off his right hand (the hand that did the deed) and then pickle it. There are additional steps and variations - some have you making a candle from the fat of a gibbeted felon or using their hair to make the wick - but you get it; it's a grim mummified hand from various bits of a strung up wrong'un.

The hand sometimes appeared as a clenched fist which you would use to hold the felon-fat candle but the one in Whitby is an open hand; with these ones you would light each finger and, if one refused to light, it showed that someone was still awake in the house. To extinguish the flames, you would need to use blood or milk - more often milk, for obvious reasons, but if you've gone this far then a bit of blood isn't that much of a stretch.

Janet

Now this one is a bit close to my heart as I love Malham. I think a lot of us Yorkshire folk do, and if you can get there on a day when it's not busy, it is a truly magical place. For some reason or another, the place centres me more than any other place I have been. I know those hills and those views mean something deeper to me than I can rationally explain; there's just something about the place, the tree-lined streams, the view from the top of the cove and, of course, Janet's Foss.

Janet's Foss is named after the fairy queen said to reside in the small cave behind the waterfall. Janet gets a little bit confused and not too much is ever said of her. Some say there are simply benevolent and beautiful fairies living in the cave who come out to dance - lovely. Taking a step away from lovely, others hypothesise that it was a witch who resided there. Taking it a step further, you get accounts of the wraith. Now the wraith is a different thing entirely, described as a plume of green mist rising from the water that will dart around the water's surface. Accounts tell of people bathing in the water when the green mist appears and chases them. Those it has caught have all told the same story: that they saw something truly horrifying in the mist that they can't explain. Quite often, this is followed by misfortune or even death. I'll take the pretty fairies please.

My theory is that these aren't separate things. In more recent times, we have viewed fairies as Disney-fied Tinkerbells - in no small part due to another Yorkshire story, or rather hoax, 'The Cottingley Fairies'. However, traditionally and for centuries, fairies were viewed as a scary thing: they walked through different worlds, viewed humans as things to be played with, and delighted in tricking or cursing people. Our ancestors knew not to trust them, and they developed a whole litany of rituals to appease or baffle them. From leaving milk and bread for them, not cutting down special trees, staying clear of fairy forts, not building downhill from a fairy tree, carrying iron, turning your clothes inside out - the solutions are numerous but they let us know how seriously they were taken. So my thoughts are that both forms of Janet are congruent with fairy lore and that it isn't necessarily Janet the wraith or Janet the fairy queen - they could be one and the same.

Old Stinker

There have been werewolf stories based around the Hull area for approximately ten centuries; the most famous of these is known as Old Stinker, on account of his foul breath. I've smelled my dog's breath enough and can only imagine the stank from an eight-foot werewolf who, I assume, isn't eating anything nearly as bougie as the stuff I feed my spoiled little dog. Old Stinker is an enduring legend of the area and has been sighted fairly recently, with a spate of sightings in 2016 - so many saw it that concerned citizens organised a werewolf hunt. Unfortunately, bad weather caused it to be called off, so I guess we'll never know. I hope he got through the pandemic ok - it was hard to adjust after the lockdowns, and maybe he has become a bit socially awkward, and that's why we've not seen him. Or maybe I'm projecting onto a big hairy stinky beast? Have I become the beast? Oh God...

Peg Fyfe

Peg Fyfe is called a witch, but her other moniker, "the demon queen of England," would be more suitable. She didn't conjure and brew; Peg woke up and chose violence. Peg liked to steal things and, if anyone should stand in the way, she also enjoyed killing.

Peg had decided to steal a horse from the local stables and approached the local stable boy to play a quick game of "Guess what you're an accomplice to?" She informed him of her plans and said he had better stay pretty darn quiet about the whole thing or she would skin him alive. Despite Peg's threats, the boy informed his master - which was probably a poor choice on his part. The heist went sideways and Peg laid low for a while, biding her time before she found the boy and did exactly what she had promised to.

Peg was arrested, tried and sentenced to be hung. They strung Peg up, but she refused to die, having placed an item in her throat to prevent the noose from choking her. This would have been a good plan had some knights not been passing and finished the deed with their swords. A violent end to a violent individual.

Semerwater

Lake Semerwater is one of the few natural lakes in the Yorkshire Dales, so most of us are familiar with it. I have spent a great many days up here paddle-boarding and can tell you from experience - that lake ain't right. I love Semerwater but if you are ever fortunate enough to be on the water by yourself in early Autumn, it is a bit creepy. The water is very dark, it is eerily quiet, and the level rises to submerge nearby vegetation whose branches poke out like little dark nobbly fingers. I have definitely freaked myself out on there before.

Semerwater carries with it a couple of folk stories: there is an incident of the devil and a giant having a rock fight, but more famous by far is that there is a sunken town underneath it. The story tells of a hungry hungry hermit who requested somewhere to stay and something to eat all around the town, but was turned away by every single person. The hermit left the town and asked at a nearby cottage, and they obliged him. The good night's sleep did nothing to soothe the frustration of the previous day, so he cursed the town: “Semerwater rise, Semerwater sink and bury the town all save the house where they gave me meat and drink.” And that's precisely what happened - a great flood engulfed the town all the way up to the kind host's house, who had just bagged himself a peaceful lakeside property, score! You just have to try and forget the horrors of all your neighbours drowning, and the nearest shop being a bit further away, but a lakeside property in Yorkshire is pretty rare, so you move on.

Strid Kelpie

Near Bolton Abbey is a stretch of water known as one of the most deadly in the world: the Bolton Strid. The River Wharfe is a winding and gorgeous river but, as it approaches Bolton Abbey, limestone rocks create a pinch point narrow enough to almost stride over - but don't. Just don't. The Strid has no time for bravado, as the river essentially flips onto its side, forming a powerful and deep body of water, that is full of vortexes and underwater caves. No one who has fallen in has ever come out alive.

It is no surprise that an area such as this has acquired a few myths - it is obviously haunted as all heck but, apart from that, it has been said the Strid has a Kelpie. Yes, a Kelpie - the Scottish water horse that will drown you, and possibly eat your innards. It is strange to hear of such a thing so far south of the Scottish border. I have no idea when the word Kelpie became attached to the site, certainly, a water horse would be a suitable beast to attach, but 'Kelpie' is such a Scottish term. Regardless, it fits the theme perfectly and I'm always interested in how myths travel. In the global scheme of things, Scotland to Yorkshire isn't such a leap - heck, I make the trip several times a year. I wonder if the Strid Kelpie is a Scot? Maybe retired down to Yorkshire? Who knows, I'm not getting in the Strid to ask it.

The Golden Ball

Once two lasses saw a chap who caught their eye - indeed, it would have been hard for him not to catch their eye as this chap was dressed in a gold cap, with gold on his fingers, gold on his neck, gold around his waist and a golden ball in each hand. Which I'm sure we can all appreciate is a powerful look; it would certainly qualify as peacocking. He gave a ball to each of the girls with the warning that, if they ever lost it, they'd be hanged. So not really subtle enough to be a Chekhov's gun, but the stage is set and we know where this is going.

One girl lost her ball whilst paling. (And yeah, I have no idea what that is. My best guess is it relates to paling fencing, maybe throwing the ball at the fence and catching it?) Anyway, she stuffed it and the ball went over the paling and towards a house and disappeared inside. Oh bugger. Well, she had lost her ball so there was only one thing for it, hang her. Seems legit.

Now, fortunately for the lass, she had a beau, and she sent him to seek out the ball. He, of course, obliged and so commences the most high-stakes game of "Can I have my ball back?" since you had to go ask your grumpy neighbour if you could retrieve your football after already bashing his car when rollerblading that morning. The young chap approached the house when an old woman appeared out of a ditch - which is not where you usually expect to find old women - so he is understandably a bit startled. She told him that if he wanted the ball back he would have to sleep in the house for 3 nights. This didn't seem like a particularly difficult request so he replied that he would, and she then disappeared - probably cackling, there's usually cackling.

He searched the house but found no ball, so got into his pjs ready to get the first night ticked off. No sooner had his head hit the pillow did he hear a strange noise from outside. Bogles, bloody bogles, and lots of them, making all kinds of racket. Then, he heard loud footsteps coming up the stairwell. He concealed himself and waited. In walked a giant, five times his height, who bent down to look out of the window at the bogles; as he did, the lad cut him in two - his torso falling through the window to land outside with the bogles. At which point, they say, "Oh hey master, say lad, can we have the other bit?" The lad sees no practical use for a pair of giant legs, and they add nothing to the decor, so he obliges and shoves them out the window too. It all goes quiet and he gets some rest.

The second night, another giant appears but the boy is ready and chops him in half as soon as he enters the room. The legs keep walking, they walk straight into the fire and right up the chimney. He turns to the giant's upper body and says, "You might want to go catch up to them." The giant agrees and follows his legs into the fire and out of the chimney.

Night three gets even stabbier, but has fewer giants. In fact, it was all quiet until just before he fell asleep when he heard the sound of a heavy object being rolled to and fro. Peeking under the bed, he saw two bogles rolling the golden ball back and forth. This goes on until one bogle sticks his leg out from under the bed - immediately, the boy chops it off. Not being the brightest creatures, the other bogle sticks his arm out, and the same happens to it. This bizarre experiment of "Oh, I wonder what would happen if I stick my left leg out?" goes on like a grim hokey cokey until the bogles run out of limbs to shake all about. Eventually, they waddle - or potentially roll - off, wailing about the injustice of it all, leaving the golden ball behind. And, for reasons I'll never understand, this never became a level on the Crystal Maze.

There is a lengthy and ultimately pointless part of the story here where we return to our imperilled lass about to be hung. There is a call and response where she tries to delay the hang man by saying,

"Oh, here comes my mum! Mam, have you got my ball?"

"Nope."

This repeats with her sister, father, uncle, aunt, cousin - which does kill a tremendous amount of time, which for her is great but for us as readers, not so much. Anyway, eventually, she spies stabby lad and says, "Ye better have that bloody ball!" to which he replies, "Aye," and they all live happily ever after.

Other folklore featured on the map:

Brimham Rocks

Burning Old Bartle

Child in the Woods

Churnmilk Pe

Crayke Castle

Cuckoo Day

Denby Dale Giant Pie

Dent Vampire

Devils Arrows

Dragon and the Golden Cradle

Brimham Rocks

Burning Old Bartle

Child in the Woods

Churnmilk Pe

Crayke Castle

Cuckoo Day

Denby Dale Giant Pie

Dent Vampire

Devils Arrows

Dragon and the Golden Cradle

Fairy Pin Wells

Felon Sow of Rokeby

Filey Dragon

Gabble Ratchett / Gabriel Ratchett

Gormire Lake

Grindylow

Hail Mary Hill Treasure

Headless Horseman

Hob

Humber Monster

Jeannie Biggersdale

Jenny Gallows

Kilgram Bridge

King Arthur

Long Sword Dance

Loschy Serpent

Mary Bolles

Mother Shipton

Old Tup

Pace Egg Play

Peggy Farrow

Peg Lantern

Penhill Giant

Robin Hood

Robin Roundcap

Ripon Wakeman

Rudston Monolith

Screaming Skull

Serpent of Kellington

Sessay Giant

Sexhow Worm

Slingsby Serpent

Staithes Mermaids

The Ebbing and Flowing well

Tom Dockin

Tommy Knockers

Upsall Castle Treasure

Wade and Bell

WerewolVEsWharram Percy Revenants

William, the hermit of Linholme

Yordas Cave