North Yorkshire Folk Tales (18 page)

Celia Fiennes, an early tourist in North Yorkshire, wrote a description of the Dropping Well in the 1690s, but failed to mention Mother Shipton, so it seems her fame had not yet become widespread. Celia had clearly not read the version of Mother Shipton’s life and prophesies by one Richard Head (1684), which, complete with a description of her hideousness and an imaginative sixteenth-century back-story, was about to become the generally accepted orthodoxy.

It may be that his version is based on folk memories of a real person, but no evidence for her existence has ever been found. However, by the eighteenth century, Head’s account of Ursula Southeil, the hideous but gifted seeress who married a Mr Shipton and prophesied the downfall of Cardinal Wolsey, was firmly ensconced in the public imagination, her prophesies conveniently proved true by all being about events in the past.

Real people sometimes become legends, but imaginary people can also sometimes acquire the status of reality. People wanted Mother Shipton to exist, and so exist she did – and still does, at least in the popular imagination. She has certainly enhanced Knaresborough’s tourist credentials over the centuries. In the xenophobic eighteenth century, Mother Shipton’s big advantage was that she was English, unlike Nostradamus – a genuine visionary – whose prophesies her own were said to rival.

Subsequent editors of Mother Shipton’s prophesies could not resist the opportunity of inventing new ones, all intended to ‘foretell’ topical events of the day. Charles Hindley, for example, admitted that he had added some verses in his 1862 edition, including a supposed prophesy of the Crystal Palace and the Crimean War:

A house of glass shall come to pass

In England, but alas,

War will follow with the work

In the land of the pagan and the Turk.

Whatever Mother Shipton’s existential status, she remains one of Knaresborough’s important tourist attractions, and a visit to her cave and the Dropping Well an interesting, if expensive, experience.

There are many stories told of her but my favourite is the one that follows.

Mother Shipton had become such a celebrity in Knaresborough that people would not leave her alone. She could not stick her long warty nose out of doors without a crowd gathering around her asking ill-mannered questions.

Finally, she could bear it no longer. ‘Time to teach them a lesson,’ she thought.

One of her neighbours, a rich man of the town with a fine house, had invited some local bigwigs to a breakfast party. Mother Shipton watched them in her magic mirror, muttering under her breath.

The party got off to a good start. The tables were laden with chops, steaks, eggs, ham and all the things that the wealthy used to eat for breakfast in those days. The guests seemed to get on well. They ate, drank and chatted merrily. After a while, however, the atmosphere began to get more hectic. One man began to laugh loudly. When asked what the joke was, he pointed to the dignified old gentleman sitting opposite him. Instead of a ruff he appeared suddenly to be wearing a necklace of juicy pork faggots! Everyone began to laugh at him as well, but the first man’s smile was wiped off his face when his hat was whisked off and replaced by a pewter chamber pot. His frantic efforts to remove it made the young lady opposite him laugh so much that she nearly split her stays. Unfortunately for her she soon found that she could not stop laughing but was forced to continue, getting redder and redder. How infectious laughter is! Soon the whole company was laughing so uncontrollably that the tears poured down their cheeks.

The master of the house, who had been in the kitchen getting more ham, came running to see what was causing the hilarity. As he got to the door, he was stopped by a violent blow on the head. Feeling his head with his hands he discovered, with a gasp of horror, that he appeared to have grown a pair of cuckold’s horns so enormous that no matter how hard he tried he could not get them through the door. The effect on his guests was predictable; they were now cackling so hard that some of them actually rolled off their chairs onto the floor, sweaty-faced and howling with merriment.

Now Mother Shipton, sitting in her cave, clapped her hands. Instantly all laughter at the party ceased as if it had been turned off. Hilarity was replaced by total silence. Suddenly no one felt in the least amused. A moment later, they heard the noise of mocking laughter begin again but it was not theirs. They looked around; there was no one in the room but themselves. A hundred invisible people appeared to be finding them hysterically amusing.

Now the guests became frightened. Muttering excuses to their host, they called for their horses and began to run down the stairs to the courtyard. The magic followed them; hard little apples began to pelt them, thrown by invisible hands. The horses were brought, neighing and kicking, by frightened servants. The guests quickly mounted up but their troubles were not yet over for the moment they settled in their saddles ugly little women appeared behind each one, sitting on their cruppers and holding whips in their hands. With these, the women beat the horses so fiercely that they galloped home as though the Devil himself were after them.

No one was hurt, but all were very angry. It did not take them long to work out who to blame.

‘It was the magic of Mother Shipton! We want her summoned to answer for her witchcraft!’ they shouted at the local magistrates.

The punishment for witchcraft in England in those days was death – not by burning (that was only done in Scotland) but by hanging. Still, death by any method is to be avoided! Mother Shipton was summoned before the magistrates and duly appeared. She did not deny her responsibility for the strange happenings, but said that she had merely been demonstrating what it was like to be the subject of continual jokes, insults and unwelcome attention.

‘Just leave me alone or I’ll do it again!’ she threatened.

What judgement the magistrates would have passed on her will never be known, for at that moment she suddenly got bored with the whole thing and cried out at the top of her voice, ‘Updraxi, call Stygician Helluei!’ whereupon a dragon flew through the window and carried her away in a clap of thunder …

York stories could fill a book on their own, especially if you add all the ghost stories for which the town is famous. Here are a selection, starting with one of the oldest.

There was a man living in Denmark called Ragnar. He was big and strong, a great warrior.

There was a powerful king of Denmark called Herrud who had a very beautiful daughter called Thora Fortress-Hart.

One day Herrud gave his daughter a little jewelled snake. He used to give her a present every day because he loved her so much. He had made her a beautiful bower to live in surrounded by a fence. Thora liked the snake and put it in a small box on top of a piece of gold. Next day both the snake and the gold had grown a little; a month later, the snake and the gold had grown a great deal. Soon the snake was too big for the box but curled around it. It went on growing. Eventually it grew so large that it was too big for the bower and it lay encircling it, with its tail in its mouth. The pile of gold on which it slept was huge. Now it became very difficult to deal with as it ate an ox a day and threatened harm to anyone who wanted to go into the bower, except for Thora. People were afraid of it because it had become very poisonous.

The king declared that whoever killed the serpent would marry his daughter and get the big pile of gold as her dowry.

Ragnar heard about this. He had shaggy, hairy clothes made, breeches and a cape. He boiled them in tar. That summer he sailed to the place where King Herrud’s hall stood. He put on the shaggy clothes and rolled on the beach until he was covered all over with sand. Then he went to find the serpent and they fought together. The serpent fought fiercely but it could not bite through the shaggy tarry garments and the sand hurt its mouth. In the end, Ragnar was able to stab it with his spear. The serpent’s boiling poisonous blood spouted out and hit him between the shoulderblades, but the clothes protected him from all harm.

This was how he acquired the name Ragnar Lodbrok (meaning hairy breeches).

King Herrud was very pleased to find such a good warrior. He was happy to honour his promise and so Ragnar married Thora, and received all of the serpent gold. He began to have a great name all around Denmark. His fame even reached as far as England. The gold attracted many warriors to join his war-band.

When the couple had been happily married for some time and had two sons, Thora fell ill and died and Ragnar grieved for her.

There was a beautiful woman called Aslaug. She was the daughter of Sigurd Dragon’sbane and Brynhild the Valkyrie. She was the wisest woman of her day. Ragnar married her and they had five sons. They were called Ivarr the Boneless, Bjorn Ironsides, Hvitserk the Swift, Rognvald and Sigurd Snake-in-the-eye. They grew into fine warriors; as soon as they could wield swords they went off with their men to win gold and conquer towns as far away as Italy. It is said that they even wanted to conquer Rome, but decided the distance was too great.

There was a king called Aelle, who ruled the part of Britain called Northumbria, which in those days ran from the Humber all the way to Scotland. He had a stronghold at Crayke.

Ragnar spent his summers raiding and harrying all around Scandinavia, but when he heard how famous his sons were becoming he grew jealous. He began to pour a huge amount of money into building and fitting out two large transport ships. People realised that he must be planning a big war expedition.

‘What are those ships for?’ asked Aslaug.

‘I have harried in many places but never in England, which is very rich. Those ships will carry all my men there,’ replied Ragnar.

‘I think it would be more sensible to have smaller ships because they are less likely to be wrecked. The coast of England is treacherous.’

‘No one has ever conquered England with just two ships,’ he objected, ‘I’ll be all the more famous if I pull it off.’

‘You won’t be famous if all your men are drowned or lose their weapons in the sea, because then the king of that land will very quickly beat you. Longships are much easier to steer into harbour and they’re cheaper.’

‘I have never known a pile of gold protect anyone when his enemies were at the gates,’ he retorted, ‘I shall spend my money as I please!’

‘Hmm!’ said Aslaug. She went away and began to weave a magic shirt for him.

The ships were at last ready. Ragnar’s gold attracted many men to sail with him.

On the day they departed, Aslaug came to bid them farewell. She gave Ragnar the shirt. ‘I have woven this shirt from grey hair,’ she said, ‘it will protect you from all wounds. Please wear it for my sake.’

Ragnar thanked her gratefully. She was only ever known to have shed one tear. It was when her stepsons were killed – and it had been red and hard as a hailstone, but people around them could see that she was deeply unhappy as the ships rowed away. Some thought it a bad omen.

As she had predicted, Ragnar’s ships were wrecked in storms on the coast of Yorkshire (then part of Northumbria). Fortunately, however, none of the men drowned and they all managed to keep hold of their weapons. Once they were all gathered together again, they set off to raid towns and villages.

King Aelle had already been warned about Ragnar’s sailing from Denmark. He had assembled a great host. Now he spoke to them: ‘Make sure that you do not kill old Hairy Breeches. Try to work out which one he is and then capture him. He has five fierce sons who will not spare any of us if we kill him!’

Ragnar and his men prepared for battle. He wore Aslaug’s shirt over his mail and had his great serpent-killing spear in his hand.

The two hosts came together, but Ragnar’s was much smaller than Aelle’s. Ragnar did great deeds of arms, slaughtering many of Aelle’s best men, but in the end, his army was destroyed. He himself fought so well that no one would attack him anymore, but pressed him down with shields so that he could be captured.