THERE WERE A old Goody as lived down to Coleford Water, and she used to come into Crowcombe market wi’ ’er bits and ’er pieces, but she were a very stout old body, and ’er pony old Smart ’e were getting on in years now—reckon ’e were nearly forty—and so they used to get ready quite early in the morning, round about four o’clock, and start on. Well, one time, old Goody she mistook the time; she got up, she got ’er things ready, put in the stockings, and the apples, and the eggses into the pannier, and she loaded ’er old Smart, and then she gets up ’erself on upping stock, and on to ’is back, and away they goes afore midnight.
Well, bye and bye, old Goody she began to feel a bit sleepy-like. Old Smart ’e were a-plodding on as ’e’d done all these years, and ’er began to nod, and must ’ave slept a bit, ’cos, when she woke up—summat waked she, and there were old Smart, a-standing in the middle o’ sixty-acre, and ’e were a-trembling with fear. Ah! Sweat were be’ind ’is ears, and ’is mane and ’is tail they were stiff with fright; and Granny, she look around like and there she saw a little white rabbit hopping towards she, all terrified, and there come the sound of ’ounds be’ind. But they wasn’t real ’ounds, oh! no, they dogs as do come across there, they ain’t no real ’ounds; best not say too much about they. Well, when Granny see this little white rabbit, she were that sorry for ’er, she forgot white rabbits was witch-souls, and ’er took off lid o’ the pannier, and white rabbit ’en ’opped in, and Granny clapped down the lid tight. Then she tried to get old Smart to move on, but ’e wasn’t doing no moving, not ’e; ’e kept ’is eyes on a bit o’ grass did old Smart—’e knowed a bit—’e wasn’t going to look up. When Granny see that, she remembered, and she got out her knitting-needles, see, and went on with ’er stocking, and ’er ’eard they there dogs coming nearer and a clatter o’ hoofs, and a girt fine black rider ’e come up alongside she. ’Is ’orse ’ad ’orns, and there was a green light round ’en, and they ther dogs ’ad green fire coming out o’ their mouths.
“’Ave ’e seen a rabbit go by?” say the rider.
Well! Granny knew better than to answer ’en, so she just shook ’er ’ead; and that weren’t wrong neither, ’cos rabbit were in pannier! And away the whole hunt went up towards Will’s Neck. You could ’ear their ’owls on the wind. And then old Smart, ’e get up, and ’e lumber up at a canter—a thing ’e ’adn’t done for about twenty year, and ’e never stopped till ’e come to Roebuck Ford, and then ’e do stop. I said ’e knowed a thing or two, ’cos nothing can’t ’arm ’ee if you be in the middle of running water. No witches nor devils nor nothing. Then Granny she lift up the lid o’ ’er pannier, and out come the most beautiful lady.
“Oh!” says she, “how can I thank ’ee? When I were young, I were a witch, and when I died, I were condemned to be hunted forever by the Devil and ’is pack of Yeth-hounds, until I could get be’ind ’em. And now you’ve saved my soul.”
And then she gave a most beautiful smile, all lit up like sunlight, and then she were gone. Well, Granny and old Smart, they made their way up along to Crowcombe. When they got to Butter Cross, church clock were striking three! So they set theirselves down by the Cross, and they finished their sleep. It ’ad been a ’ard night for old folks, but they dogs couldn’t ’arm they, on account the ’orse was shod, see?
19
The Sea Morgan and the Conger Eels
Recorded from Ruth L. Tongue, September 29, 1963, who first heard the Somerset tradition mentioned in 1960 by an old man in Taunton Red Cross Disabled Club, and after hearing snatches of it, later secured the full account from a Stolford woman in Eddington Women’s Institute.
Motifs here are F420.1.2.1, “Water-maidens are of unusual beauty”; F420.5.2.1, “Water-spirits lure mortal into water”; and D1273.1.5, “Twelve as a magic number.” The Sunday child unharmed by spirits appears also in No. 17 (this volume), “Why the Donkey is Safe.” Here he is also deaf; we recall that Ulysses temporarily deafened his sailors so that they could pass the sirens’ rock without succumbing to their song. Rudyard Kipling in his story “Dymchurch Flit” (Puck of Pook’s Hill) employs the folk theme of disability as an aid to a mortal dealing with supernatural beings.
Sea morgan is the name for a mermaid round the Severn Sea. The dangerous and alluring qualities of mermaids, known from classical times, are exemplified in the ballad of “Clerk Colvil” (Child No. 42), and Robert Chambers, “Lorntie and the Mermaid” (The Popular Rhymes of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1826), pp. 279–80.
A “steart-horse” is a mud-sledge.
THERE WAS A sea morgan with a beautiful vace, and she’d sing on autumn evenings and anyone who heard her had to go, and they’d wade out further and further to reach her till the quicksands got them, and the conger eels got a feast. They always knew when the eels barked she would be about that low tide, so something was done to end her wicked ways.
There was a gifted woman had a deaf son, and he was born on a Sunday, so she sent him to drive away the morgan. He couldn’t hear her voice, and as her hair was green, he didn’t think much of her. He got out his Steart Horse, and went out over the flats with his eel-spear, and all the while she was singing, he was getting a fine haul of congers, and the sled kept him from sinking in the quicksands. When he’d speared twelve of them, she gave a skreek, and took herself off—and she never come back. All Stolford and Steart had Conger-pie that week.
20
Tarr Ball and the Farmer
Recorded from Ruth L. Tongue, September 28, 1963, as she heard the tale in Somerset in 1942, from John Ash, a carter, aged 70.
The belief that “Fairies lead travelers astray” (Motif F369.7) is common in England, Ireland, Wales, Canada, and the United States. Other motifs present are F361.14, “Fairy punishes servant girl who fails to leave food for him,” and F234.1.1, “Fairy in form of cow (bull).”
Shakespeare’s Puck is thoroughly in this folk tradition. See K. M. Briggs, The Anatomy of Puck (London, 1959), chap. 4, “Shakespeare’s Fairies.” For examples in Great Britain see S. O. Addy, Household Tales with Other Traditional Remains, p. 134; Mrs. Bray, The Borders of the Tamar and the Tavy, Letter X; Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, p. 300; James MacDougall and George Calder, Folk Tales and Fairy Lore in Gaelic and English (Edinburgh, 1910), pp. 281–83, 291–93. An Ozark variant is in Vance Randolph, ‘Who Blowed Up the Church House?’ pp. 123–24.
“Barton” is byre or cowshed. “Unket” is uncanny.
THERE WAS AN old curmudgeon of a fellow who lived down to Allerford, and he bought a farm at Lucott. He hadn’t been there a night when he stopped servants setting out clean water and a dish of cream for the pixies. And the next day they just couldn’t catch up with all there was to do in the house and stables. When next night came he went out to drive in four fine young heifers from Top Lawns, and off they galloped down rocky lane past Lucott hill, over Nutscale Ford and up onto Tarr Ball. Nobody heard the old man shout. He couldn’t make a soul hear, not a soul! He couldn’t make anyone hear at the Mill, nor the Shepherd’s cottage, nor Little Combe, though he yelled hisself hoarse. So all down and over Nutscale Ford he had to go, with the pixies laughing in every hole and every rock up that unket cleeve. When he came out on Tarr Ball there right up ahead he saw the heifers, but when he gave chase the mist came down all round ’en.
And so it went on all night. He went down to Nutscale Brakes and out over Babe Hill and back again through the gorsey patch, and he couldn’t get up with ’em. At last he gave up, and dragged himself home, all a-bruised and a-tore and soaked to the bare skin, and when he looked in over the barton door, there lay his four fine heifers fed and comfortable—and what’s more they’d been there all night.
21
The Four-Eyed Cat
Collected by Ruth L. Tongue in 1955 from N. Marchant, 12, daughter of a lightship sailor from Harwich and Dovercourt in Essex County. The girl heard the account from her grandparents.
Motifs here are G283.1.2.3, “Witch raises wind to sink ships of people who have injured her” and G211.1.7, “Witch in form of cat.” Kittredge in Witchcraft in Old and New England, chap. 8, “Wind and Weather,” discusses witch powers to control the weather and call up storms.
It is a general belief of fishermen all round the British Isles that it is unlucky to take a woman to the fishing grounds, and even unlucky to meet one on the way to sea. In some places the taboo extends to even mentioning a woman. Witch superstitions were rampant in Essex, and it is interesting to find them still surviving. The reference to “swimming” a witch is to a folk practice which found its way into witch trials in Scotland and England.
THERE WAS A gentleman had a beautiful daughter who was bad at heart, and they said she knew more than a Christian should, and they wanted to swim her, but no one dared because of her father. She drew a spell on a poor fisherman, and he followed for love of her wherever she went. He deserted his troth-plight maid, though he was to be married in a week, and he ran away to sea with the gentleman’s daughter and unbeknown to all the rest (that is, the rest of the fleet) took her out with them to the fishing. She did it to spite her father’s pride, but he thought himself well rid of her.
A storm blew up and the whole fishing fleet were lost to a man for they had on board a woman with them at sea, though none knew of it but her lover. It was she that had whistled up the storm that had drowned her own lover, for she hated everyone. She was turned into a four-eyed cat, and ever after she haunted the fishing fleet.
So that is why even now fishermen won’t cast their nets before half-past three (cock-crow)—my uncles won’t—and they always throw a bit back into the sea for the cat.
22
The Witch’s Purse
Recorded from Mrs. Falconer, over 80, a lifelong resident of Leafield, Oxfordshire, August 8, 1962. The story was more lively and dramatic when she was not recording it on the tape, but even in the recording the old witch’s speeches were in more pronounced dialect, and some attempt at dramatic impersonation appeared in the telling.
Motifs present are B733.2, “Dog’s howling ominous of death,” discussed with classical references by T. F. Thiselton-Dyer, English Folk-Lore (London, 1880), pp. 101–102; and G275.1, “Devil carries off witch,” treated by Kittredge, Witchcraft in Old and New England, p. 43 and notes 164–67.
WHEN I WAS a little girl, my mother had a new baby, and of course I was in the bedroom when this old lady came up in the bedroom, and was talking to my mother, and then the dog belonging to her began to howl. My mother was very concerned, and she said, “Oh! do make that dog stop his noise. I hate to hear a dog howl.” Then this old lady said, “Let ’en ’owl, let ’en ’owl. ’E’s ’owling arter that child.” And ’er said, “Is anything the matter with that child?” “No, not that I know, except that it’s going to die.” And my mother was very concerned about it, and it did die, it died when it was height days old. And of course my mother was very concerned about it, and main frightened, and she wouldn’t let anyone go anywhere near for days, for fear they’d tell her something to hurt this baby what was the matter.
They went to Charlbury, which is ever so far, about four or five miles, to fetch the doctor, to see if there was anything the matter, and he said, “No, there’s nothing the matter with it. No earthly reason why it should die.” But it did die, and that’s all I can tell you.
And some years after that, or some time after that, this old lady did die, and my mother went in to look after her from next door, and she said, “Rhoda, bring my purse off the table.” And my mother said, “Why do you want the purse for? You can’t spend money. You aren’t able to get up.”
“I wants my purse. You give it me. I can’t open it. You open it for me, and then I can manage.” My mother opens this purse, and there was a quantity of sovereigns in it. My mother saw them quite plain, but she never counted ’em to know the quantity.
And she says, “Oh! That’s all right. I shan’t be here many more days.” She counted ’em up. “My money’ll last till then, and when that’s gone,” she says, “I shall go, because I’m not able to go to fetch any more.”
And she did die, and when the daughter that belonged to this poor lady, the daughter, my mother said to her, “You’d better take care of that purse, because,” she said, “I don’t like being left alone with that purse. Because,” she said, “your mother had it to look at, there’s a lot of money in it. You take care of it.”
