Folklore

The Bawdstone stands between Hen Cloud and The Roaches. It is one of many stones around the Peak District that have magical powers, and its curative properties can be compared with those of the Pots and Pans on Saddleworth Moor. Sick people used to crawl under the Bawdstone to be cured; the narrow gap would push the Devil off their backs. Indeed, you might be cured of your ills merely by touching the stone. It was once whitewashed on Beltane (1st May), and until well into the 20th century it was the site of a regular pilgrimage from Leek.

Some people have supposed this stone to be the remains of a Neolithic tomb (a ‘dolmen’). Others suppose it to have been an altar, since the morpheme ‘Bawd’ might be derived from the Welsh for ‘table’. A ley line is alleged to pass through it, and at sunrise on the Spring Equinox it is aligned with the Serpent Stone on Ramshaw Rocks.

[Read more…] about The Bawdstone

The Fairy Holes comprise a complex of gritstone caves near the summit of Alderman’s Hill to the north-west of Dovestone Reservoir. According to legend, a dog pursued a fox into the cavern one Whitsun morning long ago, and neither fox nor dog was ever seen again.

The Pots and Pans rock formation is nearby, but a little further from Greenfield. Pots and Pans sports a long, irregular hole, in which diseased persons could be put so that the spirit of the rock might cure them; compare this with the legend of the Bawdstone on Staffordshire Moorlands. There are also ‘basins’ cut into the rocks, either artificially or naturally, and the water that collects in those basis will cure sore eyes. This superstition could be ancient.

[Read more…] about Fairy Holes and Pots and Pans, Saddleworth

A pedlar trying to reach the inn at Gradbach was benighted in the woods around the Dane valley and sought shelter in an isolated house. He was admitted, seated beside the fire (between two bloodhounds) and given ale. As he dozed, a little girl came out of the kitchen and said “Oh, what plump hands he has, they’ll make lovely pies”. Alarmed, the pedlar retreated to the door and ran, only to be pursued by the family from the house – and the bloodhounds. He took refuge in the river, under a bridge, and escaped towards Gradbach, but the hounds picked up his scent again and he was pursued. He reached Gradbach, his cries for help awakened the villagers, and he was admitted to a house and given a bed. The villagers went to the isolated house, found the property of other travellers who had disappeared –  and several bones – and dragged all the members of the family outside and hanged them; except for the little girl, who escaped through the woods on to the moors, looking for a nice plump adult to take care of her. [Read more…] about The Pedlar and the Cannibals

This folktale from the White Peak is one of many that involves a hob. Hobs are “working class” fairies akin to Scottish Brownies and German Kobolds, part nature spirit and part household spirit. If you get one in your house it will do the chores – provided you reward it every night with ale and porridge. The cave to which the hob in this story runs is called “Thirst House”. We don’t know whether “Thirst” is a corruption of “Hob o’ th’ hurst” (hob of the wood) or whether it derives from the Old English “Thyrst”, meaning giant; hobs were sometimes size-shifters rather than shape-shifters, and on a farm they could do the work of ten men. Elsewhere in the Peak District you’ll find references e.g. to “Hob Hurst’s House”, pointing to the same possible etymologies.

There’s nothing in Chelmorton village itself to reflect this tale, though the village and especially its lovely church merit a visit, but if you’re fit enough to walk down Deep Dale you can see Thirst House cave… allegedly an entrance to the Otherworld where fairy folk dwell. [Read more…] about The Chelmorton Hob