Category: Legends

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Redesmere, Siddington

A floating island with an attached legend could once be found at Redesmere in the grounds of Capesthorne Hall. The following description by Robert Charles Hope is published in The Legendary Lore of the...

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Why The Wren Flies Close To The Earth

ONE day when the birds were all together, one of them said, “I have been watching men, and I saw that they had a king. Let us too have a king.” “Why?” asked the...

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Easton Wood Devil

In her ‘Nummits and Crummits’ (1900), Sarah Hewett gives the following account. ‘An old man living in South Devon, once told me that as he was one night returning from Starcross to a farm...

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Harry ca Nab

Harry ca Nab (also known as Harry Cannab) is traditionally thought to be the Devil’s Huntsman. This phantom is described as riding a bull or a winged horse and goes out hunting wild boar....

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Barton-upon-Humber Tatter Foal

Barton-upon-Humber, ‘The devil appears to persons there in the shape of a ragged colt called ‘tatter-foal.’ — Thompson, p. 736. [Examples of Printed Folk-lore Concerning Lincolnshire by Eliza Gutch, Mabel Peacock (1908)]

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St Mary’s Church, Broadwater

‘Be careful if you have any plans to go for your evening jog around the churchyard in Broadwater – legend says that if you run around the oldest tomb in the yard, the devil...

Giant’s Cave, Edenhall

At Giant’s Cave, near Eden Hall, it has been the custom from time immemorial for the lads and lasses of the neighbouring villages to collect together on the third Sunday in May, to drink sugar and water, when the lasses give the treat: this is called Sugar-and-Water Sunday. They afterwards adjourn to the public house, and the lads return the compliment in cakes, ale, punch, etc.

Wimbell Pond

Tradition says an iron chest of money is concealed: if any daring person ventures to approach the pond, and throw a stone into the water, it will ring against the chest ; and a small white figure has been heard to cry in accents of distress, ‘That’s mine’. [W Sparrow Simpson from Notes and Queries 1889 & County Folk-Lore: Suffolk (1893) Lady Camilla Gurdon]

Maiden’s Castle, Reeth

The following treasure legend was published in Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders by William Henderson (1879). ‘I learn from Mr. Robinson, of Hill House, Reeth, Yorkshire, that in his neighbourhood as in many others is a place called Maiden’s Castle, in which tradition avers a chest of gold is buried.

Kirkstall Abbey

The following tunnel legend was published in Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders by William Henderson (1879). ’A…..tale is told of Kirkstall Abbey, near Leeds.