A random #folklore musing I keep coming back to but have no answer to: where are Northumberland's sea stories?

We have a long and dramatic coastline, and a history of fishing communities, sea trade, and sea smuggling. But no mythical sea creatures, no ghosts of drowned sailors, and the sea itself is incidental even in the few folk stories set on the coast.

I have the odd theory, but no answer. Makes me sad to think that they might have existed but been lost!

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'"Ye canna' die wi' wild feathers."

In the old times in Northumberland (and beyond) it was believed that putting pigeon feathers, or those of any wild bird, in a pillow would prevent death coming at the proper time. A person on a wild feather pillow would linger in pain and suffering and be unable to 'cross over', so these should never be used.

This belief also seems to have held in Yorkshire, as Emily Brontë wrote in Wuthering Heights: "Ah, they put pigeons' feathers in the pillows; no wonder I couldn't die."

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