This fortnight I am delighted to welcome Melanie Warren to The Witch, The Weird, and The Wonderful. In advance of the publication of her book Lancashire Folk in November, Melanie shares with us some tales of what the Devil has been up to in Lancashire.
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Somewhere near Greens
Moor Quarry, close to the Lancashire town of Bacup, there is a large
cairn of stones which was known locally as Hell Clough. As
you’d expect, there’s a legend which explains how this came to
be.
Close
to this cairn there was once a natural pool which the devil was fond
of using for bathing. One day a terrific storm swept over the
moorland and the heavy rain so over-filled the devil’s favourite
pool that the edge of it was in danger of giving way. If that
happened, the pool would empty itself entirely down the hillside. The
devil realised that he needed to construct some sort of dam to
prevent this calamity, but how?
The
devil looked around for an answer and down in the valley he saw a
hayrick covered with thick sheeting for protection. This gave him an
idea. He flew quickly down to the valley, took the sheeting and
wrapped it round his waist, like an apron. Then he returned to his
pool at a more leisurely pace, gathering boulders as he went along
and carrying them in his apron. It was a good plan, but sadly his
apron could not hold the weight he expected of it. Before he reached
the pool, his apron gave way and all the boulders tumbled out to land
in one huge pile on the moorland. It is this pile which later became
known as Hell Clough.
As
for the devil’s bathing pool, well, as he had feared, the edge of
his pool did indeed give way and the whole of the contents poured
away down the hillside. The handy bathing-pool was gone forever and
the devil would have to find somewhere else to wash.
Hell Clough is not the
only natural feature in Lancashire to be linked with the devil. On
Pendle Hill there is another cairn, now rather smaller than it once
was, which (coincidentally) has the name of the Devil’s Apronful.
This is where the devil stood when he flung rocks at Clitheroe
Castle, making a new window in its side – the window can still be
seen. The devil also used to walk the streets
of Clitheroe, trying to persuade people to sell him their souls for
three wishes. However, he was beaten, defeated by cleverness and
trickery, and flew to a bridge, a mile to the south, where he
disappeared. Ever since that day, the bridge has been known as Hell
Hole Bridge.
On Parlick Pike, there
is a well of spring water known as Old Nick’s
Watering Pot. The fabled ‘Old Dun Cow’ was reputed to frequent
this place and give freely of her milk to anyone who asked, without
ever running dry – until she was bewitched. (But that’s another
story…)
On Rivington
Pike, a
ghostly horseman haunts the moors and is sometimes identified as the
devil himself. One day, some men out hunting took shelter from a
storm in a ruined tower. As they waited for the storm to pass, a
horseman galloped past and one of the men, Mr Norton, recognised the
rider as a missing uncle, so he quickly mounted his own horse and set
off in pursuit. The rest would have followed, if not for the
intervention of one of their servants, who insisted that this was not
Norton’s uncle, but the spectral horseman long feared in the area.
The
servant then explained that his father had been out poaching one
night when a similar man on a huge black horse had asked to be taken
to the stones known as the Two Lads. When they arrived there, the
stranger asked that one of the stones should be lifted and beneath it
the servant’s father had seen a large pit, wherein lived the devil,
and the smell of the pit was so terrible it had caused him to faint.
When he woke up, the stranger was gone and the stone was as it had
been before.
Once
the storm abated, the rest of the hunting party went at once to the
Two Lads, and found Norton unconscious on the ground, looking as if
he had been in a terrible fight. When he eventually regained
consciousness, he explained that the horseman had indeed been his
uncle, at least in part. He had been claimed by the devil and allowed
to return to earth only on condition that someone else could be found
for the devil’s spirit to possess. As Norton had refused to submit,
even to save his uncle, the devil would have to hunt for another
victim.
A less terrifying tale
comes from Fulwood, near Preston. Two Roman
roads cross each other at Fulwood, one being Watling Street, and it
was said that these roads stretched from sea to sea in every
direction, north, south, east and west. The crossroads might well be
at the place known locally as Withy Trees – a very old name which
indicates that here was once a grove of willows. Here, Watling Street
Road crosses Garstang Road. The former leads to Ribchester, the
latter to Lancaster, both of which are Roman sites. Locally,
however, the Romans were given no credit for these fantastic roads.
Instead, it was said that the devil made them and, what’s more, he
made them in just one night.
In Lancashire of old,
it was definitely not acceptable to play games on a Sunday. It may
have been a day of rest, but that didn’t give licence to have fun,
especially if that fun involved any kind of gambling. Three men
playing cards in the Three Lane Ends pub in Chipping one Sunday were
joined by a stranger, who they accepted quite
happily, until they began to notice that he wasn’t like other men.
There seemed to be horns on his head, though he wore a hat to hide
them, and when they looked down they saw that his feet were actually
cloven hooves. One can only imagine the speed at which the
panic-stricken men vacated the pub. A shame for the devil, who only
wanted to play a game of cards!
Crawshawbooth, Copyright Richard Spencer.
One
Sunday morning, the boys of Crawshawbooth were indulging in a game of
football, despite the remonstrations of the vicar who warned against
playing such games on the Lord’s Day. They paid no heed to his
warnings but perhaps they should have done – because the devil
himself came along to join in the game. He waited until the ball came
in his direction and then he kicked the ball so high into the sky
that it vanished and so did he, in an explosion of fire. And that was
the last time the lads played football on a Sunday!
On
another Sunday, some local men were playing a gambling game at a
disused church in Haslingden – on a Sunday! One of them threw a
halfpenny up in the air and all were puzzled when it did not come
down again. All was explained, though, when they looked up to see the
devil grinning down at them from the beams.
All Hallow's Church, Great Mitton,
Copyright Rude Heath.
The devil in a church?
Certainly. He was not averse to churches and their ceremonies – one
day he even hitched a lift on a coffin being
carried to Brindle Church, the weight of him stopping the funeral
procession in its tracks. The Vicar was forced to deal with him by
reciting a prayer and ordering him to leave – and the funeral
continued unhindered. He was also said to be responsible for
moving one church, at Great Mitton, entirely. All Hallows Church was
deposited in its current location by the devil, stone by stone, in a
single night.
He
was even - sometimes – beneficent in his own way, although there
was always a price to pay. In Chatburn, he offered three wishes to a
tailor who was feeling very unhappy with his life. Three wishes –
in return for his soul, to be collected in seven years’ time. The
tailor agreed, and so excited was he to have three wishes that he
asked immediately for a side of bacon, a delicacy he hadn’t tasted
for years. His wish was granted at once. Next, the tailor stupidly
wished to be rid of his nagging wife and at once, it was done. He was
immediately sorry he had made such a silly wish – who would bake
his bread now, and knit his stockings? “I wish I had never said
that,” he said and at once, his wife was returned to her place by
the fire.
The
tailor, having used all his three wishes and effectively sold his
soul for a side of bacon, had seven years to reconsider what he had
done and by the time the devil came back, he was ready for him. He
talked the devil into giving him just one more wish, as he had sold
his soul so cheaply. Foolishly, the devil agreed. “I wish,” said
the tailor, “that you were on the back of the dun horse in that
field over there, riding back to where you came from, and that you’re
never able to bother me or any other mortals again.” At once, the
devil was swept out of the house and set upon the dun horse, which
galloped away, never to be seen again.
The
story of the tailor’s great success against the devil spread across
the county and people came from far and wide to meet the man who
tricked the devil... and the poor tailor finally found a prosperous
life by turning his home into an ale-house, for the use of his
visitors. It became known as the Dule Upon Dun.
This
same story is told about a tailor in Sawley, Nicholas Gosford by
name, although in Nicholas’ case he was given twenty years, not
seven, and his wishes were different. His first wish was used up
quickly when he went home expecting a meal and there was only oatcake
and butter to be had. His wife said, “Well, I wish I had a
backstone for the fire, so that I could bake.” At once, a backstone
appeared on the fire and Nicholas was so angered by this waste of a
wish that he shouted, “I wish that backstone was smashed to
pieces!” And so it was. The third wish was similarly thrown away
next morning, when Nicholas wished he had some hot water for his
shave.
The
rest of the story is the same as that in Chatburn; Nicholas bartered
for one more wish, which he used in wishing the devil on the back of
a horse which would take him back where he came from, never to
return. And Nicholas opened an Inn, and people came from far and near
to meet the man who had tricked the devil.
Another old Lancashire
story is claimed by at least three towns; firstly, Burnley. The story
here tells of some boys at Burnley Grammar School who had
discovered a method of raising the devil by reciting the Lord’s
Prayer backwards. Late one night, they decided to see if this spell
would actually work and, indeed, the devil dutifully began to appear,
rising up through one of the flagstones in the schoolroom. The boys
were so scared by their success that they immediately began to beat
him back into the earth with a hammer. A black scorch-mark left by
the devil on the flagstones remained visible for many years, until
the floor was boarded over.
This
same story is told about Clitheroe Grammar School. Here, the hapless
boys were rescued by their Schoolmaster, who struck a deal with the
devil - he must complete one task and if he succeeded, he could stay.
The devil agreed and the schoolteacher ordered him to knit a rope of
sand – which was, of course, impossible even for a supernatural
being. Furious at being tricked this way, the devil disappeared
again, beneath the hearthstone.
A
third story comes from Blackburn, where the devil was raised by two
men threshing corn in a barn. They were naturally horrified
when the ritual worked and the devil began to appear, rising between
them through the floor of the barn. They had little alternative but
to beat him back down with their threshing flails.
The motif of ‘knitting
a rope of sand’ recurs in another devil-tale, this time from
Cockerham. Here, the devil had taken up residence in the village,
much to the dismay of the residents, and once again it was the
schoolmaster (the most intelligent man in the village) who came up
with a way of banishing him. He set the devil not just one, but
three, tasks.
The
first task was to count the number of dewdrops on a hedge. This the
devil found too easy, for when he went to the hedge to count, the
wild wind caused by his arrival blew the hedge dry and there were
only thirteen dewdrops left to count.
The
second task was to count the number of stalks in a cornfield.
Unfortunately, when the devil gave his answer, the schoolteacher
realised he had no way of checking whether he was correct!
The
third task was to make a rope of sand which would withstand washing
in the river Cocker. The devil vanished, but in just a few moments he
proudly reappeared with a beautifully woven rope of sand. His
confidence soon faded, however, when he and the schoolteacher went to
the river to wash the rope, which promptly dissolved away.
The
devil was furious, but a bargain was a bargain and, accepting that he
was beaten, the devil flew away to Pilling Moss and was never seen in
Cockerham again. In Pilling, it is said that he landed on Broadfleet
Bridge – and his angry footprint can still be seen there, stamped
into the stonework.
Devil's Hoofprint on Broadfleet Bridge
Copyright Bob Jenkins.
How
easy it was to trick the devil in the old days! All it took was a
clever man; a schoolteacher or a priest, with a bit of common sense
and intelligence – for the devil, as we can see, at least in
Lancashire, is not as clever as he thinks.
Incidentally,
there is another story about the devil in Cockerham – but this time
the devil was one unwittingly carved on a rood-screen by a singularly
inept craftsman. The church’s original rood had been destroyed by
order of Henry VIII, but when Henry’s daughter Mary came to the
throne the churchwardens were obliged under law to find the money to
provide a new one. They employed a man who was alleged to be skilled
at carving to decorate the rood-screen with an image of the
crucifixion. The image, when it was completed, was just terrible. The
churchwardens refused to pay the bill, preferring instead to appear
in court at Lancaster to explain their actions.
The
Mayor of Lancaster, presiding over the case, was told that the image
was so ugly and frightening that children were scared to come near
it. The Mayor dismissed that argument, saying that the man deserved
to be paid for his work, whatever their opinion of it. He then
advised them to ‘clap a pair of horns on his head, and so he will
make an excellent devil."
This
last story is no legend, for it appeared in local newspapers – one
wonders what effect it had on the business of the hapless woodcarver!
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This
article is based on entries from the forthcoming book ‘Lancashire
Folk: Ghostly Legends and Folklore from Ancient to Modern’ which
will be available in January 2016. (Schiffer Publishing, ISBN13:
9780764349836 £16.99
Melanie
Warren has collected British folk tales and ghost stories for almost
four decades. For many years, she was a paranormal investigator and
took part in innumerable ghost-hunts but never saw a ghost, although
she did have several experiences she finds hard to explain… She was
also BBC Radio Lancashire’s resident “paranormal expert” and
co-authored two collections of ghost stories, which were broadcast on
BBC local radio stations. Melanie is now concentrating on turning her
extensive collection of stories and tales into a series of books, one
county at a time. Melanie lives in Lancashire and has done so all her
life.
Read more at www.lancashirefolk.com
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