GHOSTS AND LEGENDS OF THE LAKE DISTRICT - Book review

 

The author J.A. Brooks has written a number of books similar to this one, covering the Cotswolds, London, Wales and even railway ghosts. My copy was published in 1988.

I’d picked up this slim volume (144pp) a while ago and since Jen and I were visiting the Lake District for the fourth or fifth time, it seemed appropriate to begin reading it, at last! Certainly, a number of familiar place-names cropped up.

Apparently, near Lindeth there was the Scout Dobbie, a headless woman who guarded a cave; often these scare stories were put about by smugglers and moonshiners to deter the inquisitive and excise men. Here’s a quotation: ‘Dobbies are just one of the colloquial forms of ghost native to Cumbria. They were a comparatively friendly type of ghost (more of a household fairy or hobgoblin) compared with the more fearsome boggle or boggart…’ (p9).

‘When visible, a boggart was seen to be half man – the half spirit was his unseen self – no more than knee high, his face wizened, his neck scrawny like an old man’s, his arms thin, his legs looking incapable of supporting his corpulent body. In bad mood his face was contorted as in a rage: when indulging in pranks he grinned with impish glee; in good mood his mien was benevolent’ (p11).

The above two passages rang bells with me, having read J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series of books and watched the movies! Bringing to mind the house-elf Dobbie. One of the references Brooks refers to is The Folklore of the Lake District by Marjorie Rowling…

Apparently, ‘early in the Middle Ages the last wolf was killed in the Lake District’ (p29). Needless to say, there is a legend involving a Sir John Harrington, a wolf terrorising the Cartmel district, and Adela, a young girl, would be promised to him if he could slay the animal.

In June 1921 a Londoner named Crump set out to walk from Coniston to Wasdale Head. Lost in mist, he fell, badly hurt and ended up trapped in Piers Gill, a great chasm. As chance would have it, a climber found him some twenty days later. He had survived on a small piece of gingerbread and a sandwich, and trickles of water; (p47). I include this snippet simply because Melvyn Bragg uses the name Crump in his novel The Maid of Buttermere! (qv).

Before 1890 there were just two small lakes occupying the lovely valley that Thirlmere covers today. Wordsworth used to picnic there. However, in 1894 Manchester Corporation flooded the valley to create the Thirlmere reservoir. The waters covered Armboth House and subsequently hauntings were reported: ‘Lights at night, bells ring, and as all are set off ringing a large black dog is seen swimming across the lake. Plates and dishes clatter, and a table is spread by unseen hands preparing for a ghostly wedding feast of a murdered bride about to rise from her watery grave to keep her terrible nuptials… There is something remarkable, like witchery, about the house’ (p52). It was believed that ‘the sight of a black dog presaged a fatal accident’ (p94).

‘At the summit of Helvellyn there is a monument commemorating an accident that occurred on Striding Edge in 1803, when Charles Gough fell and was killed while on a walk with his yellow terrier Foxey. His body lay undiscovered for three months, and when it was found his faithful dog sat close by, still guarding him, rather like Greyfriars’ Bobby’ ’ (p56). There was some suspicion that the dog survived by taking occasional bites of his master’s body…

Mention is made of the Luck of Muncaster Castle – a piece of ancient glassware. It was said to have been presented to Sir John Pennington by Henry VI in gratitude for hiding the defeated Lancastrian king. ‘The castle is said to be haunted by the ghost of Thomas Skelton, the “late fool of Muncaster”, who died c1600’ (p134). [See also WRITEALOT: Visit to The Lake District, Cumbria (nik-writealot.blogspot.com) ]

‘A swarth is a supernatural being akin to the fairies. It performed the same function in the North of England as a banshee does in Ireland – foretelling death’ (p88). Superstition was rife: ‘All the mirrors in the house were covered while a dead person was lying in a house, for it was considered to be extremely unlucky should the spirit catch sight of a reflected image of itself. People visiting the house for the lying-in used to touch the body. This served two purposes: if the corpse had been murdered and it was touched by the guilty part, then it would begin to bleed; also if the hand laid on the body felt cold to one’s own flesh it meant that that person would die within the year’ (p90).

At Greystoke (the family name Edgar Rice Burroughs gave to Tarzan) there are supposed to be two ghosts. ‘One is a monk who is said to have been bricked up in a secret passage. He appears in a disused room occasionally’ (p112). The second concerns a local beauty who falls to her death at Aira Force waterfall.

‘At the foot of Kirkstone Pass just into Ambleside there is a large house that had been a hotel. A fire in the topmost bedrooms killed several staff. ‘The hotel was forced to close because the terrible smell of burning flesh would sometimes, and for no apparent reason, pervade the building’ (p113).

Egremont has a ghost of a pony and rider that only appears on Christmas Eve; he may have been a fell-farmer who imbibed too much ale and left on his horse, and neither were ‘seen again in earthly form’ (p135).

‘Wigton has the reputation of being the most haunted town in Cumbria. Its ghosts have intriguing names, such as the Church Street Phantom, the Clinic Ghost, the Burnfoot Spirit, the Water Street Boggle, the New Street Headless Horror’ (p140).

A fascinating little book which seems to dwell more on local legends rather than ghosts; however, for variety there is also mention of a vampire in the village of Croglin, and it is quite a classic scary tale (p115).

Editorial comment

The book would have benefitted by having a map or two. And a small number of the old illustrations are without any caption so it is not clear what part of the text they are referencing.