Mysterious Britain & Ireland

Category: English Folktales

Apparitions / English Folktales / Folklore / Folktales / Hauntings

The Smuggler’s Leap

"Near this hamlet (Acol) is a long-disused chalk pit…known by the name of ‘The Smuggler’s Leap.’ The tradition of the parish runs that a riding officer from Sandwich, called Anthony Gill, lost his life here…while in pursuit of a smuggler. A fog coming on, both parties went over the precipice…The spot has, of course, been haunted ever since". [Lewis’s History of Thanet, by the Rev.

English Folktales / Folklore / Folktales

Kentish Longtails

The inhabitants of Strood in Kent were once nicknamed Kentish Longtails. Though this could relate to the belief in medieval mainland Europe that the English had tails, there is a folk tale relating a curse placed on the people of Strood by Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.

English Folktales / Folklore / Folktales

Old Mother Nightshade of Gedney Dyke

Until the middle of the 20th century the villages of the Lincolnshire fens were isolated, insular places. Everyone tended to know everyone else and a stranger in town would be cause for much suspicion and gossip. It was during the early 18th century, that an old fenwoman who lived in the village of Gedney Dyke, became the subject of much gossip and rumour.

English Folktales / Folklore / Folktales

The Mumby Boggart And The Crafty Farmer

A farmer bought a new field, which was inhabited by a squat, hairy boggart, a kind of troll. The boggart refused to allow the farmer to plant anything in the field, claiming it was his and the farmer had no right to it. The farmer, in turn, pointed out that he’d paid good money for the land and by right he ought to be able to use it.

Druidism / English Fairies / English Folktales / Fairies / Featured Sites / Folklore / Folktales / Occult / Occult Traditions

Sedgley’s Beacon Tower

Sedgley Beacon lies some 237 metres (777 feet) above sea level in the heart of the West Midlands. It is said that the top of Beacon Hill is the highest point between Sedgley and the Ural Mountains in Russia. Commanding views were once enjoyed right across the industrial Black Country and beyond to the Clee and Malvern hills and the mountains of Wales.

Anniversary Ghosts / Apparitions / English Folktales / Folklore / Folktales / Hauntings / Legends

The Black Lady of Bradley Woods

Hundreds of years ago there lived a poor woodcutter in Bradley Woods with his pretty young wife and their baby boy. They lived very happily together until the woodcutter was pressed into military service for the local lord.  He was sent to fight in the wars that were then raging in England.

English Fairies / English Folktales / Fairies / Folklore / Folktales

The Lost Child

Robert Hunt in his ‘Popular Romances of the West of England; or, The Drolls, Traditions, and Superstitions of Old Cornwall’ (1865) gives an account of the lost child of Trefonick which was given to him thirty years earlier by an old woman of the parish.

Apparitions / English Folktales / Folklore / Folktales / Hauntings / Occult / Occult Traditions / Witchcraft

Meg Shelton the Fylde Witch

Meg Shelton (Mag Shelton or Margery Hilton) the Fylde Witch (Fylde Hag) who died in 1705 is said to be buried beneath a large boulder in the grounds of St Anne’s Church, Woodplumpton. She was buried in a vertical position, head first with the boulder placed on top to prevent her from digging herself out of the grave, which apparently she had done twice previously.

Apparitions / Black Dogs / English Folktales / Folklore / Folktales / Hauntings

Radcliffe Tower

Radcliffe Tower is all that remains of a fifteenth century (1403) manor house and is a Grade I listed building. At twenty feet high, this ruined remnant of the manors demolition in the nineteenth century is linked to a tragic tale of a stepmother arranging the murder of her husband’s daughter and is reputed to be haunted by a phantom Black Dog.