Tag: folklore
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Byanna’s Sunday
The sun was being a bit elusive this morning, remaining hidden behind a bank of cloud until I was almost home. A gap through the trees provided this view of the still sleepy village. Tomorrow is the Winter Solstice or Yule, the old pagan celebration. Which means that today, the Sunday before Yule is Byanna’s…
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Whorl Hill
I am on Live Moor and looking across to the conical hump of Whorl Hill, the glacial outlier that is a distinctive landmark on the western fringe of the Cleveland Hills. Behind me is the ditch and ramparts of the pre-historic promontory fort, so this is a view that our Iron Age ancestors would probably…
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Nanny’s Nook
A dull morning for a bike ride, but dry. Just outside Commondale on the Kildale road, there is a small copse. It hides a double right-angled bend in the dry stone wall called Nanny’s Nook, said by Frank Elgee to have been frequented by a witch and the site of an ancient settlement. This may…
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The Sea-Man of Skinningrove
Skinningrove again. Second day in the row. The cool sea breeze was so refreshing after heat of the day. I was reminded of a tale I once read about when the fishermen of Skinningrove found a merman or sea-man on the shingle beach, which would put it below Hummersea Point, the cliff opposite in the…
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Royal Oak Day,twenty nineth of May,if you deean’t give us holiday,We’ll all run away.
If you see someone out wearing a sprig of oak leaves today, May 29th, he, or she, is celebrating Royal Oak Day. The day traditionally commemorating King Charles II‘s return to London and his restoration as King on this day in 1660, which also happened to be his birthday. The oak leaves symbolise his escape…
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Dunnet Bay
What do you call a group of imps or fairies? A herd, a flock, perhaps a mischief? Anyway, Dunnet Bay is the landfall of a bridge across the Pentland Firth that the imps employed by the wizard Donald Duibheal Mackay had been told to build. They wove the main rope out of sand, but when…
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Bamburgh Castle
Or should I say Bebbanburg, the ancestral home of Bernard Cornwell’s Uhtred in the book and film ‘The Last Kingdom‘? An Uhtred the Bold did exist, he was made Earl of Northumbria in 1006. But Cornwell’s Uhtred lived 140 years earlier. A long, long time ago, maybe the time of Uhtred, maybe before or maybe…
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Nan Scaife o’ Spaunton Moor
“Get you of the skull the bone part of a gibbetted man so much as one ounce which you will dry and grind to a powder until when searced it be as fine as wheatenmeal, this you will put away securely sealed in a glass vial for seven years. You will then about the coming…
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Seannabhat
I was last here 20 years ago but I can’t for the life of me remember the 6½ km walk in. But I have the photo to prove it so must have. Sandwood Bay is far more popular today but I wonder if the wild campers that were there know of the ghostly stories associated…
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Oak before ash in for a splash?
So goes the old saying: Oak before ash, in for a splash. Ash before oak, in for a soak. In Cliff Ridge Woods the oak leaves look out to me but the ash buds are only just bursting, so clearly we’re in for just a splash and a dryish summer. But as far as I know…