I took a little trespass off the path yesterday, to explore a valley where a 19th century source claimed there was once an illicit whisky still hidden in a cave.

Hidden whisky stills are often associated with the Scottish Highlands, where archaeologists believe thousands lie undiscovered. However it's also well known that there were a number up remote valleys in the Cheviot Hills, here in Northumberland. This location is much less remote and close to several villages; it's also, as far as I know, completely unknown locally.

I didn't find the cave. It was a little hard going due to the lack of paths through the woods, the steep banks, and the marshy patches. But it was also obvious that the banks are very crumbly and there have been multiple rockfall and earth slips in the last two centuries, so the cave is probably long gone. Wonder what happened to the still.

#Northumberland #History #histodons #FolkHistory #WaterfallWednesday

RSS link to the Library of congress Folklife Today blog: https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/feed/ #folklore #Folkmusic #folkhistory

I'm reading a biography of Moe Asch, the founder of Folkways Records, so found this wonderful little tour. https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2022/08/guthries-lomaxes-and-seegers/ #FolkMusic #FolkHistory #folklore

Pancakes have been made and consumed, although I'm one of those people who does Pancake Day without doing Lent, because I'm non-religious but I just like sweet food. Although I do like the folk tradition too!

A record of Northumbrian folkways collected in the 1920s claims that pancakes are eaten here on Shrove Tuesday, "and always have been", a bold claim that I love for what it says about folk memory.

Other customs for the day included the ringing of the "Pancake Bell"(otherwise known as the Shriving Bell), a holiday for apprentices, and the playing of football matches - one of which is still famously played on the Pastures at Alnwick on Shrove Tuesday.

#Folklore #Folkways #PancakeDay #ShroveTuesday #Northumberland #FolkHistory @folklore

Imbolc. St Brigid's Day. 1st of February.

Imbolc is recorded in early medieval Irish sources and was also historically celebrated in Scotland and the Isle of Man. It's generally believed that the origin is older, pre-Christian, and the date is important to many modern pagans as the start of spring. It's also the feast day of St Brigid, mother saint of Ireland, and traditions included the weaving of Brigid's Crosses from rushes. Many believe that Brigid is a Christianised version of a pre-Christian goddess, although she is also recorded as a real historic figure who founded the Abbey of Kildare. It may be that two figures have been conflated.

Imbolc is not recorded as ever being celebrated here in Northumberland, but the reasons for celebrating it as an agricultural festival would have been just as important here. The season for sowing, the start of the lambing, the return of the light, and the promise of warmer, less lean days to come.

#Imbolc #SaintBrigid #StBrigidsDay #folklore #folkways #FolkHistory #SaintsDays #history #spring #February #Pagan #RuralLife #OldWays #sunshine #nature #wildflowers #northumberland #aconites #snowdrops #landscape #landscapephotography

These stone steps beside the gates of Ford Church date to the days when many people rode ponies to church from the outlying farms and hamlets of this rural parish.The steps allowed a rider to step down from the pony easily, particularly used by women in their Sunday dresses.

#Northumberland #History #LocalHistory #RuralHistory #FolkHistory

Free download: Five issues of Wisht Maen #Devon Earth Mysteries and #Folklore small press magazine produced by Tracey Ramsbottom in the mid 90s. Articles by Cheryl Straffon, Andy Norfolk, Jeremy Harte, Paul Broadhurst, Pete Glastonbury and many more. Issue 3 stands out as a beautiful example of pre-DTP cut and paste production. More details and download links at https://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146414153
#FolkloreThursday #FolkloreNerd #Mythology #WorldFolklore #Pagan #FolkHistory #Witchcraft #Archives

@Cthol quick mastodon tip for ya, sorry if I’m teaching you to suck eggs… hashtags are *way* bigger here than on Twitter. Just looking at your profile and feed I see you’re not using them much so I just wanted to recommend them. it’s a really great way to find people and get conversations going, since there’s no algorithm to randomly show stuff to people who might not be following you.

Start by hashtagging any major nouns in your toot like eg. #DungeonsAndDragons for one of your recent ones. Also locations, and of course there are lots of tags like for photography and things like that. Also, accessibility tip: using CapitalisationLikeThis for each word within a tag really helps people who use screen readers.

Also did you know you can follow hashtags like say #FolkHistory or #ballarat or #FederationUni or whatever you are interested in. Then all that stuff will show up in your timeline.

A 'Lost' Christmas Custom of the North:

"They haven't gone guising here for a long time," said the old folk of Cambo in 1922.

"There was no 'guisering' at Christmas 1903," wrote Hastings Neville in Ford in his notes of that year.

'Guising' (apparently derived from 'disguising', referring to the costumes and masks worn) was the local version of the Mummers Plays that exist elsewhere.

In both Ford, in the far north of the county, and Cambo, 40 miles to the south, we have records of the old custom, which happened in the days leading up to Christmas. Both apparently involved the key character of a doctor, but in Ford, Revd Neville has preserved the entirety of the script, including 'King George', a young hero, Goliath, and a battle, and finishing with the rhyme:

"Your bottles are full of whisky,
Your barrels are full of beer,
I wish you a Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year."

Neville puts the dying of the custom down to the reduction of young people in the villages in an age of increased mechanisation and rural depopulation. But when I was growing up in Northumberland in the 1990s, 'guising' was what we called Trick or Treating at Halloween! Maybe it hasn't so much died as shifted.

#FolkHistory #LocalHistory #Folklore #FolkCustoms #Traditions #Christmas #Midwinter #ChristmasTraditions #RuralTradition #History #Northumberland #Mummers

The #Ghosts of St Michael and All Angels:

Situated in the village of Ford, #Northumberland, overlooking the Milfield Plain, a rich area of pre-historic monuments, towards the Cheviot Hills. The oldest parts of the church are 13th Century and would have stood when James IV of Scotland took Ford Castle (behind me as I took the photo) before the Battle of #Flodden in 1513, fought just a few miles to the west.

Both the church and the castle were heavily renovated in the 19th Century.

The old Rectory used to stand between the church and the castle, said to have been a very old house, but now gone without a trace. A guest who stayed there once, in a room in a narrow wing facing the castle to the north, reported being disturbed in the night by a 'violent shaking' of the bed curtains, and a voice in her ear said twice, "This is not a spare room.".

On another occasion in the late 18th Century, two men of the village, one of them the schoolmaster, passed the churchyard after dark and saw the Rector (priest) standing in the moonlight, as if preparing to take a funeral. He then walked away and passed into the church. At the time, the Rector was very ill in bed, and died soon afterwards.

It was a traditional belief in the area that to be buried to the north of the church was a terrible thing, although it was noted that this belief had died out by the end of the 19th Century.

#History #Folklore #Stories #FolkStories #FolkHistory #GhostStories #Haunting #Supernatural @folklore

One time I started a blog that was going to be posts about what I style 'folk history': little essays on the stories I've uncovered in my (entirely hobbyist) researches into folk belief, local history, and the more interesting bits of my family history, against a background of social history of the times.

Typically of me, I set it all up, got one post in, and never wrote anymore. But since people seem to like that sort of thing on here, maybe I'll resurrect it?

For what it's worth, this is that one post, a story of my direct ancestor and the convict transports of the 1830s (which I optimistically styled 'part 1 of 2'): https://pastpathways.wordpress.com/2021/07/12/a-transportation-story-part-1-the-cattle-thief/

#ancestry #genealogy #FamilyHistory #SocialHistory #FolkHistory #EnglishHistory #AustralianHistory #ConvictTransports #CrimeHistory #CrimeAndPunishment #19thCentury #Geneadons #PatrickFamily #Norfolk #NorfolkHistory

A little winter #story to go with this picture.

Some time in the 19th Century, when there were a few more cottages to this farm hamlet than are there now, there was an old stone well, where the cottagers drew their water.

One Christmas Day, a little child named Maggie went with her mother to the well. It was evening, the ground was icy, and Maggie slipped and fell into the well. Her mother rushed to the nearest house, where the family was hosting some Christmas visitors, including a young blacksmith.

The young man ran to the well, jumped onto the rope, and slid down it. Just above the water level, his feet met a wooden beam, and there he found little Maggie clinging, wet and freezing. Between him and the folk above, they were able to tie a rope around her and pull her up. The child recovered, and the young blacksmith, whose name was Ross, was hailed as a hero.

There's no magical twist to this story, because it's a true one (or claimed to be), recorded many years later by the parish vicar. There's no date attached to it, so the identity of the protagonists is a mystery. So is the location of the well, long since covered over and forgotten!

#FolkHistory #LocalHistory #19thCentury #stories #Northumberland #Winter #Storytelling #ChristmasStories

"My father and grandfather had this shop before me, and before them it was kept by a warlock, and people daursn't owe him anything!

"There was a woman lived where our kitchen is now, and she kept a cow, and when she churned she used to lock the door for fear the warlock cast an evil eye on the milk and turned it sour. His shop was upstairs, that's his window that's walled up.

"No, he never did anybody any harm. He lived to be a very old man."

- Mr George Handyside of Cambo, Northumberland, collected by Rosalie E. Bosanquet of the Cambo Women's Institute, in 1922. Included in 'In the Troublesome Times' (ed. R.E.B., published 1929), for entry into the competition for the best book compiled by a Women's Institute on old customs, beliefs, stories, and ancient monuments.

According to Mr Handyside, the warlock was still alive in 1814.

#Northumberland #Folklore #FolkHistory #WitchcraftBeliefs #OldBeliefs #RuralTradition #Stories #Storytelling @folklore

@folklore This is of course just one version of the many 'sleeping knights' stories we have across the British Isles (I know of at least two others locally). This is the only one I know of where the central figure is a woman. Just along the coast from Dunstanburgh is Bamburgh, named after the 6th-7th Century Queen Bebba. I'd like to imagine that there's a connection, although perhaps the sleeping queen of Dunstanburgh is even older.

The ruined fortress was actually built in the 14th Century, but there were older, pre-historic remains on the site.

#Folklore #FolkloreThursday #FolkHistory #FolkBelief #Northumberland

2/2

In 1847, Ann Marshall, wife of Richard Marshall, farmer of Heatherslaw, died.

The following year, at Kirknewton Parish Church (some miles and a couple of parishes away - was there some disapproval in their home parish?), Richard Marshall (65) married Jane Lilico (27).

Love? Lust? Prosaic practicality? We'll never know.

Richard Marshall died in 1858 and is buried in Ford Churchyard. He and Jane had no children.

In 1861, however, Jane can be found living at Henlaw, the second, smaller farm that Richard had held. (Heatherslaw Farmhouse was rented out as a gentleman's residence, the land of it and Henlaw presumably farmed by one of the neighbouring farmers.) She is listed as 'fundholder', which is a term I can't find a precise definition for in this context, but implies that she had private income.

She was 41 and a widow, the most independent status for a woman, if she had a little money - which Jane clearly did, as she was able to employ a servant.

As far as I know, Jane never remarried, but I like to think she got her happy ending!

#LocalHistory #WomensHistory #FolkHistory #Northumberland #NorthumberlandHistory #RuralHistory #19thCentury #HistoryInTheLandscape

Another #LocalHistory snippet while the drizzle drips down outside. A shorter and simpler story today.

In 1841, a 20-year-old girl named Jane Lilico lived in the hamlet of Heatherslaw (below), #Northumberland. There was a family of Lilicos (presumably hers) in the village, but Jane lived and worked as a servant at Heatherslaw Farmhouse.

For a girl from a labouring family, this was probably a Good Job. Women in Northumberland worked in the fields alongside the men, although they were paid less, and indeed often had some of the more laborious, unpleasant jobs; cleaning out the cow byres, for example, was women's work. Young, unmarried women, if there was no work for them at home, might become Bondagers: female workers that a hind (male labourer) had to provide as part of his contract, and would hire if he didn't have a wife or daughter to fill the role. Bondagers were the lowest-paid, and often the poorest-treated, workers on the farm.

Jane, then, had done well to find work at the house. Richard Marshall, the 58-year-old farmer, was a prosperous man. In the 1830s, he sat as part of the Ford Prosecution Society (local groups of influential people, ranging from the titled landowners to the more affluent village tradesmen, who banded together to keep law and order, before a rural police force existed), and he farmed both Heatherslaw and the adjoining Henlaw Farm.

But Jane Lilico was not staying a maidservant all her life.

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#History #Histodons #FolkHistory #RuralHistory

Thanks to everyone who followed along and enjoyed that little story I posted! I was going to do a few different snippets, but that one ended up being five posts long, so that'll do for now. 😂

I have a lot of these stories, either local or family history, covering various periods. I like the stories that start personal and/or individual, and lead to explorations of historical context and social history. At one point I thought I'd start a blog of them, but I got one post in and never managed to do any more. If there's interest, I might resurrect that project!

#FolkHistory #LocalHistory #FamilyHistory #SocialHistory

5/5

When I looked up the address (38 Nottingham Place, Marylebone) that Veronica gave as last place of abode on her marriage record in 1896, I found that it was being used as a boarding house of some sort for nurses and trainees. A nice confirmation of her training, but not helpful otherwise!

It was the Worcestershire Chronicle that eventually gave me my final clue. On 15 Aug 1896, the marriage between Veronica and Thomas Badgery is reported. Veronica was the 'only daughter of the late Richard Herbert Maxwell Huntley, of Clonskeagh, county Dublin.'

Clonskeagh is now a suburb of Dublin, and I can't find much history for it, let alone for the Huntley family. The rest of Anne Veronica's early story remains a mystery.

Although her father died before she married, perhaps there was some money or family influence that enabled her to seek the divorce that was denied to many women. Certainly she was fortunate to have a means of earning her own living.

In a little final chapter, Annie Veronica died in Switzerland in 1954, leaving her fairly meagre savings to Veronica Marian Badgery, her granddaughter. Her ex-husband and her son both pre-deceased her.

And that's the strange story of how one inhabitant of this small, northern village led me through the #history of early nursing, divorce, and a little piece of women's rights history!

I hope she found some happiness in the rest of her life.

#WomensHistory #FolkHistory #Storytelling

The dog is walked, I have sourdough bread and coffee, and my cold seems to be on the run with the help of the magic medicine I brought back from Italy (I bought it in a pharmacy, I promise it's all legal), so today I might share a few little #LocalHistory #stories I've come across in my researches.

One of my favourite things is hunting out the stories of ordinary (but still extraordinary) people who don't appear in any history book or local guide book. I'm learning that when something catches my attention as seeming interesting or a little odd/unusual, it's generally worth following up. Sometimes it takes me somewhere amazing!

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#FolkHistory #Northumberland

New instance, new #introduction is needed!

I'm Becca, I come from the borderlands in the far northern corner of England. I'm mostly here to post about #folklore and #FolkHistory of #Northumberland, as well as #stories and #storytelling, if anyone wants to follow along or join me!

Other interests and possible posts about #genealogy #LocalHistory #writing #books #RuralLife #sustainability and general #leftist politics. Always learning.