Obrick’s Colt
According to ‘Haunted Churches (1939)’ by Elliott O’Donnell (27 February 1872 – 8 May 1965), ‘Cuthery Hollow and a near-by church-cemetery by a phantom in the form of a colt. According to a tradition, a titled lady was buried with some of her most valuable jewels in a vault of Fitz church. Obrick, the parish clerk, knowing this, broke open the tomb and robbed the corpse. This is one version; according to another, finding the lady had been buried alive he murdered her; and, according to yet another version, he was so terrified at finding her alive that he dropped the jewels and fled. Whatever Obrick did, nothing prospered with him afterwards. “He niver no pace atter,” the local villagers used to say. “A was sadly troubled in his yed and mithered.” All versions agree that after he robbed, or attempted to rob, the tomb, Cuthery Hollow, and some say Fitz churchyard too, was haunted by a ghost in the form of a colt. The villagers named it “Obrick’s Colt” and declared it was the phantom of the lady whose jewels the wicked Obrick had so coveted. ‘
Re: Obrick’s Colt
THE GHOST WORLD BY T. F. THISELTON DYER (1893)
A Shropshire story tells – how two or three generations back there was a lady buried in her jewels at Fitz, and afterwards the clerk robbed her ; and she used to walk Cuthery Hollow in the form of a colt. They called it Obrick’s Colt, and one night the clerk met it, and fell on his knees, saying, "Abide, Satan! abide! I am a righteous man, and a psalm singer." ‘ The ghost was known as Obrick’s Colt from the name of the thief, who, as the peasantry were wont to say, ‘had niver no pace atter ; a was sadly troubled in his yed, and mithered.’