North Yorkshire Folk Tales (20 page)

‘Only right for one who has insulted our monastery by behaving like a drunken tinker!’

Brother Jocundus was still as drunk as a lord and was affectionately telling the prior that he was his very bes’ mate as they laid him on the ground in a handy cellar room and began walling him in. One monk, kinder than the rest, put a jug of water and a loaf of bread beside him as, to the sound of prayers and the clinking of trowels, the wall slowly grew upwards. The last thing the monks heard from Brother Jocundus as they trooped up the cellar stairs was a fading ‘In dulci jubilo-o-o’ that ended in a long snore.

He woke in the dark with a raging headache and a terrible thirst. He thought he was in his cell, but when he flailed around with his arms, he realised that it had shrunk. Why was he on the ground? He found the jug of water and drank, but as alcohol receded, fear took its place. Had he gone blind? Had he ‘died’ and been buried alive? He struck out in terror. Some stones in the wall on his left moved. Filled with a sudden desperation born of terror and hope, he hit and kicked the wall as hard as he could. A stone fell out and light leaked in. With a mighty heave he forced a hole in the wall and squeezed through in a flurry of mortar. He looked around. He was in a cellar, but not one he recognised. He shook the dust off his robe and stood up. Cautiously he crept past rows of barrels towards the light of the staircase. At the top, he heard a familiar sound; the slapping of monkish sandals as brothers headed towards the monastery church for a service. Pulling his cowl down over his face, he nipped out of the doorway and joined the end of the line.

And that was how Brother Jocundus unintentionally joined the monastery of St Mary’s.

Monks are not encouraged to speak and though a few puzzled eyebrows were raised, no one wasted precious words questioning him. He joined in the usual tasks, though he found he had to work harder at St Mary’s as it was a much bigger monastery. Despite what he had heard about its rich food, it seemed that ordinary monks did not see much of it. After a year, he was both fitter and leaner.

His brush with death meant that he was so worried about being caught again he became a model monk, but it was this obedience that brought him to the attention of the abbot.

One day he was summoned to the abbot’s room.

‘Well, Brother – John, is it?’

‘Yes, your reverence.’

‘Brother John, I have noticed that you seem a very modest hard-working monk.’

Brother Jocundus looked modestly at his feet.

‘And so, as Brother James has unfortunately left us to take his heavenly reward, I have decided to make you my cellarer in his place.’

Brother Jocundus stared at him in shock. ‘But–’

‘No need to thank me! Just make sure that my valuable wines are well kept. That is all.’

Poor Brother Jocundus! It was a sentence almost as cruel as being walled up, because the abbot’s cellar was famous. Even the king had been known to visit him unexpectedly just to sample his old burgundy. A cellar full of delicate wines, just sitting there slowly maturing! They sat in their casks, smiling coquettishly at Brother Jocundus, saying ‘Drink me! Drink me!’ With a tremendous effort, he withstood their temptations …

Until …

One day the abbot sent for Brother Jocundus and told him that he wanted a very special wine sent up for dinner. He was entertaining some important French merchants and wanted to show them that he knew his wines.

‘Which wine, my lord Abbot?’

‘The old malmsey in the little cask. It should be just right now. Send up a silver jug of it when you hear grace being sung. The big silver jug, mind you, well scoured. Not a pottery one’.

Brother Jocundus went down into the cellar and soon found the little cask. As was his job, he broached it and hammered in a tap. A very little of it leaked out onto his fingers. He licked it off. ‘Oh, that’s nice! That’s very nice! Well, I’ve been a good boy for a whole year now. It’s time I had a tiny treat!’ He poured a small bowl of the malmsey and drank it off, smacking his lips.

The abbot sat uncomfortably between his two well-upholstered guests making frantic but silent signs with his eyebrows to the monk who was serving him. The monk leaned closer. ‘Where’s the wine?’ hissed the abbot out of the side of his mouth. The monk bowed and disappeared downstairs.

‘I promise that it’ll be worth wait when it comes!’ blustered the abbot.

His guests shrugged. ‘Nous verrons!’ they said. But they never did!

When the serving monk reached the top of the cellar steps he could hear an unholy sound. Somebody was singing.

‘In dulci jubilo-o-o! Up-up-up we go-o-o!’ Brother Jocundus lay beneath the little cask, alternating between singing lustily and catching the last drops of wine on his tongue.

Only one punishment was severe enough for such a betrayal of trust. The abbot decreed that the vile monk should be walled up in the very cellar he had so desecrated. A convenient hole in the wall was discovered with what seemed like an old pantry behind it. Brother Jocundus was unceremoniously pushed into it. A compassionate monk put a loaf of bread hot from the oven and a jug of milk into the hole with him; then he was walled-up and once more left in the dark.

Now it so happened that the prior of St Leonard’s had died a few days before and his funeral had just come to an end. All the monks were about to gather to choose a new prior when someone had the bright idea that a jug of wine might help with their deliberations. As the cellarer was bending over a cask, he heard a sound that froze the blood in his veins.

‘In dulci jubilo-o-o …’

The cellarer ran, wine splashing from the jug. ‘Help! Ghost!’ he cried as he ran. ‘Ghost! The undead!’ His brother monks gathered around.

‘Brother Jocundus’ ghost is haunting the cellar! I heard him! Singing
that
song!’

They told him not to be silly, patted him on the back and implied that he had been sampling the cellar’s contents. ‘No I haven’t!’ he wept. ‘Come and hear for yourself. It’s Brother Jocundus!’

Laughing, they accompanied him down into the cellar, but the smiles were quickly wiped off their faces. ‘In dulci jubilo-o-o!’ came loud and clear from the other side of the wall. The monks stared at each other wondering what to do. Then one, more organised than the others, ran for a pickaxe. In a short time, the wall was broken down. There lay Brother Jocundus, smiling and waving vaguely.

‘He’s still alive! After a year!’

‘He looks well – in better shape than ever!’

One monk reached into the hole and brought out a loaf of bread. ‘And the bread’s not stale! In fact it’s still warm!’

‘And the water has been changed into milk!’

‘It’s a miracle!’

When Brother Jocundus’ eyes got used to the light, he saw before him a row of kneeling monks. ‘Bless us, O Holy Brother Jocundus!’ they chorused.

And that is how he came to be chosen as the new prior of St Leonards!

I don’t think he was the holiest prior St Leonard’s ever knew, but, with a cellar every bit the rival of St Mary’s, he was certainly the jolliest that ever held the office!

A knight of York is riding home through the city. He is feeling very happy because although (being a knight) he prefers fighting and hunting to reading, he has just fulfilled a secret boyhood dream: he has hunted down a book he has wanted to own since his old tutor told him of it – the
Book of Fate
. It has cost him a great deal of money but, at last, it is his.

Now, this is no ordinary book and it actually requires very little reading because it is magic. Anyone who owns it can see into the future. All you have to do is to write the name of someone on the middle page, close the book, tap it three times, say the magic word (which is a secret) and when you open the book again, there you will find the person’s future neatly written.

The knight is leaning back in his saddle feeling unusually benevolent when his eye falls upon a miserable man sitting in the doorway of a little shop. He has his head in his hands and is rocking backwards and forwards saying, ‘What are we going to do? What are we going to do?’ The knight, who would not normally even notice the man, reins in his grey stallion and leans down.

‘You there! What are you wailing about?’

The man looks up with tears in his eyes. ‘Oh, sir, my wife has just given birth to another girl!’

‘Well, don’t despair, she may have a boy next time!’ says the knight. The man looks uncomfortable.

‘It isn’t that she’s a girl, my lord, it’s that we already have five children and can’t afford to feed any more! The poor little thing will starve.’

The knight is about to throw the man some small change when he remembers his new book. He has not tried it out yet. ‘Perhaps her future isn’t as dark as you think,’ he says, ‘Wouldn’t you like to find out what it’s going to be? I have here the famous
Book of Fate
, of which you may have heard. Bring her out and I will tell her fortune!’

Now the man is frightened, but he does not dare argue with the knight – especially as he seems to be a magician as well. He goes into his little shop and after a time comes out again with a tiny bundle in his arms. The knight glances at the baby who screws up her face and howls. He carefully gets out his book and unwraps it from its silken cloth. He is really quite excited. ‘What is her name?’ he asks.

‘Alice Sidebottom,’ says the man. (All girls are called Alice in the Middle Ages.) The knight opens the book to the middle page and writes down the name. Then he closes the book, taps it three times and says the magic word (which is
still
secret). Then, his hands shaking a little, he opens the book again. Sure enough, there is some writing that was not there before. The knight reads it and reads it again. The smile fades from his face, which begins to grow red with anger. This is what he has just read: ‘Little Alice will marry your son!’

He has to think quickly because the father is looking at him hopefully.

‘Ah, hmm, yes, it says that your daughter will - er - be adopted by a knight!’ he stammers.

The man’s eyes widen. ‘Will she, my lord? How wonderful! Wait till I tell my wife!’ and he is turning to go into the shop when the knight stops him.

‘Yes, and do you know, I’ve taken such a shine to the little lass that I’d like that knight to be me. Just what I need; I’ve not got any girls, only boys. She’ll want for nothing, marry a lord, eat three meals a day, have rings and all that stuff,’ he says. ‘Just hand her over and I’ll be on my way.’

Well, the man and his wife are delighted – their daughter will now have a far better life than they could provide. The mother puts the baby in a little wooden box to act as a carry-cot and kisses it goodbye. She cries a little as she hands the baby up to the knight. ‘Look after her well, my lord,’ she says. The knight waves to them gaily as he rides off down the street with baby Alice in her little box tucked under his arm.

When he gets to the bridge over the River Ouze, he pauses. ‘No son of mine is going to marry a Sidebottom!’ he snarls, tosses the box and its contents over the parapet and spurs his horse forward.

Sixteen years later, the same knight is once more returning home, along the river, this time, with a group of his friends. They have been hunting and are all in a jolly mood. As they approach a humble cottage that stands a little way back from the river bank, the knight suddenly pulls his horse up. ‘God’s bones!’ he exclaims. ‘My wife wants to feast you all tonight and I’ve forgotten the fine fish I promised to bring her.’

‘But isn’t this is a fisherman’s cottage?’ says one of his friends. ‘Why don’t you try here?’

The knight leaps off his horse and bangs loudly on the door. To his surprise, it is opened by a very pretty girl who curtsies politely and asks him whether he would like to buy some fish. The knight and his friends are greatly taken with her. They talk and joke with her, and tease her to make her blush.

‘Well, my pretty,’ the knight says, curling his moustache, ‘I’ll certainly buy that big fish I see there on the table, but tell me, wouldn’t you like to know your fortune?’

‘My father tells me that my face is my only fortune,’ the lass replies.

‘And a very pretty face it is. But I have here a certain way of discovering your real fortune,’ the knight insists, ‘For I have here the
Book of Fate
, which is never wrong!’ He unwraps the book – which he carries everywhere with him – and shows it to the girl. (His friends stifle a sigh.)

The girl is a little nervous, fearing that the book is evil witchcraft, but in the end she cannot resist the fascination of knowing her fortune.

‘What is your name, maiden?’

‘Alice Fish, my lord.’ (I told you all girls were called Alice in the Middle Ages.)

The knight opens the book at the middle and writes Alice’s name in it. Then he closes the book, taps it three times and says the magic word (never to be revealed). Then he opens the book and looks at what is written there:

‘Even though you tried to drown her, she is
still
going to marry your son!’