Legends and Customs of Dorset - Including Legends and Superstitions, Witchcraft and Charms, Birth, Death, Marriage Customs, and Local Customs (Folklore History Series)

By John Symonds Udal

A captivating volume that’s brimming with traditional Dorsetshire folktales and superstitions.

John Symonds Udal provides enthralling insight into the rich history of folktales, legends, and superstitions in Dorset. Detailing many of the county’s traditional customs, including those surrounding birth, marriage, and death, this volume is a fantastic read for those interested in English folklore.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pierides Press
• Release date: Dec 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781528762830

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LOCAL LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS

Bagley House: (Baglake?) (Bridport).

Ghost Story.—I take the following rather weird story from a review in the Dorset County Chronicle in August, 1883, of Miss M. F. Billington’s paper on Dorsetshire Ghosts contributed to Merry England for that month.

"Bagley House, near Bridport, has very gloomy legends attaching to it. Tradition (for the stories are traced back to the last century) says that ’Squire Lighte, who then owned the place, had been hunting one day, and after returning home had gone away again and drowned himself. His groom had followed him with a presentiment that something was wrong, and arrived at the pond in time to see the end of the tragedy. As he returned he was accosted by the spirit of his drowned master, which unhorsed him. He soon fell violently ill, and never recovered, one of the consequences of this illness being that his skin peeled entirely off. Shortly after ’Squire Lighte’s suicide his old house was troubled by noisy disturbances, which were at once associated with the evil deed of self-destruction. It was suggested that the spirit should be formally and duly ‘laid’ or exorcised. A number of the clergy went therefore for that purpose, and succeeded in inducing the ghost to confine itself to a chimney in the house for a certain number of years,—it is not known exactly now for how long.

For many years after this, however, the place remained at peace; but on the expiration of the power of the charm very much worse disturbances broke out again. Raps would be heard at the front door; steps in the passage and on the stairs; doors opening and closing. The rustle of ladies dressed in silk was audible in the drawing-room, and from that room the sound was traced into a summer-house in the garden. The crockery would all be violently moved, and at certain rare intervals a male figure, dressed in old-fashioned costume, is said to have made itself visible and walked about the house. The neighbours say that these extraordinary occurrences continued for many years. They believe in them most fervently; and are of opinion that as long as the house stands it will be thus troubled. An element worthy of notice in this story is the time-honoured faith in the power of the clergy over evil spirits.

Batcombe.

Batcombe Down Cross.—The following account of the legend attaching to the monolith or cross on Batcombe Down was furnished to the Folk-Lore Journal, vii, 25 (1889), by the late Mr. H. J. Moule, Curator of the Dorset County Museum at Dorchester, and by him subsequently sent to the Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries, vol. i, p. 247 (1889):—

"On Batcombe Down, Dorset, is a stone about three feet high, evidently part of a cross, and called Cross Hand Stone. Why should a cross be set up, away there on the down? Well, this ‘be teäle twold o’t’. Back in the middle ages, one dark, wild winter night, Batcombe priest was sent for to take the viaticum to a dying man, two or three miles off. Taking pyx and service-book, he sallied out with a brave heart on his dark, lonely way over Batcombe Down, and safely reached the sick man’s house. But on getting in, and producing what was needed for his ministration—where was the pyx? It was lost. He had dropped it on the way, and its fall on the turf of Batcombe Down—in the howling wind too!—had not been heard. Back he toiled, into the darkness and the storm, on his almost hopeless quest. Hopeless? The easiest search ever made. Up on Batcombe Down there was a pillar of fire, reaching from heaven to earth, and steadily shining in the storm. What could this be? He struggled on faster and faster, with strange, half-formed hopes. He came near to the spot over which stood the calm beam in the gale. He saw numbers of cattle of various kinds, gathered in a circle—kneeling—kneeling round the pyx.

"Well, this seemed to me to be the mediæval legend, rendering a reason for Batcombe Cross being set up there, away on the down, where, though time-worn, it yet remains. But (me judice) in the last century a rider was added, as follows:

The priest was much astounded at what he saw, yet not so much so but that he observed among the live-stock a black horse, kneeling, indeed, like the rest, but only on one knee. The priest said to this lukewarm beast, ‘Why don’t you kneel on both knees, like the rest?’ ‘Wouldn’t kneel at all if I could help it.’ ‘Who, then, are you?’ ‘The devil.’ ‘Why do you take the form of a horse?’ ‘So that men may steal me and get hung, and I get hold of them. Got three or four already.’

Mr. Moule added that he was indebted to the late Rev. C. R. Baskett for this legend, who also told him of a pinnacle belonging, indeed, to Batcombe church tower, but which by no means could be made to stand in its place thereon since conjuror Minterne’s horse kicked it off. Two vain attempts to erect the pinnacle had been made of late years.

Mr. Thomas Hardy gives the legend of The Lost Pyx¹ in much the same terms as Mr. Moule had done, and, in a letter to which I have referred later in this chapter (s.v. Wool), agrees with his fellow-townsman that the incident of the black-hooved animal, which declined to kneel with the rest of the cattle, is an accretion to the mediæval legend.

Apropos of conjuror Minterne, Hutchins (iv, 423) speaks of the half of an old tomb which formerly touched the outer wall of the Minterne aisle in Batcombe church. The village legend says that it covers the grave of Conjuring Minterne, who vowed that he would be buried neither in the church nor out of it. Hence the position and shape of the monument.

Beaminster.

Ghost Story.—The following account of the legend or ghost-story attaching to Beaminster school, which originally appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1774, is given in J. H. Ingram’s Haunted Homes (First Series), 1884, p. 10, and was also reprinted in the Bridport News on 4th September, 1891.

"In 1774 the Gentleman’s Magazine printed the following narrative, prefacing it with these words: ‘The following very singular story comes well authenticated.’ In many respects the story may be deemed unique in the history of the supernatural. The apparition appears in broad daylight, and is seen of five children, one of whom did not even know the individual it represented when alive, and yet proved its identity by a wonderful piece of circumstantial evidence. The intense pathos of the unfortunate and evidently murdered lad, reappearing amidst the scenes of his childish occupations, and where he had been wont to play with those boys who now could only look upon him as a passing shadow, is most suggestive.

"The school of Beminster, says the account, is held in a gallery of the parish church to which there is a distinct entrance from the churchyard. Every Saturday the key of it is delivered to the clerk of the parish by one or other of the schoolboys. On Saturday, June 27th, 1728, the master had dismissed his lads as usual. Twelve of them loitered about in the churchyard to play at ball. It was just about noon. After a short space four of the lads returned into the school to search for old pens, and were startled by hearing in the church a noise which they described as that produced by striking a brass pan. They immediately ran to their playfellows in the churchyard and told them of it. They came to the conclusion that some one was in hiding in order to frighten them, and they all went back in the school together to discover who it was, but could not find anyone. As they were returning to their sport, on the stairs that lead in to the churchyard they heard in the school a second noise. Terrified at that, they ran round the church, and when at the belfry, or west door, they heard what seemed to them the sound of some one preaching, which was succeeded by another sound as of a congregation singing psalms. Both of these noises lasted but a short time.

"With the thoughtlessness of youth the lads soon resumed their sport, and after a short time one of them went into the school for his book, when he saw a coffin lying on one of the benches, only about six feet away. Surprised at this, he ran off and told his playfellows what he had seen, on which they all thronged to the school-door, whence five of the twelve saw the apparition of John Daniel, who had been dead more than seven weeks, sitting at some distance from the coffin, further in the school. All of them saw the coffin, and it was conjectured why all did not see the apparition was because the door was so narrow they could not all approach it together. The first who knew it to be the apparition of their deceased schoolfellow was Daniel’s half-brother; and he, on seeing it, cried out ‘There sits our John, with such a coat on as I have’ (in the lifetime of the deceased boy the half-brothers were usually clothed alike) ‘with a pen in his hand and a book before him, and a coffin by him. I’ll throw a stone at him.’ The other boys tried to stop him, but he threw the stone—as he did so, saying, ‘Take it’—upon which the apparition immediately disappeared.

The immense excitement this created in the place may be imagined. The lads, whose ages ranged between nine and twelve, were all magisterially examined by Colonel Broadrepp, and all agreed in their relation of the circumstance, even to the hinges of the coffin; whilst their description of the coffin tallied exactly with that the deceased lad had been buried in. One of the lads who saw the apparition was quite twelve years of age; he entered the school after the deceased boy had left it (on account of illness about a fortnight before his death,) and had never seen Daniel in his lifetime. This lad, on examination, gave an exact description of the person of the deceased, and took especial notice of one thing about the apparition which the other boys had not observed, and that was, it had a white cloth or rag bound round one of its hands. The woman who laid out the corpse of John Daniel for interment deposed on oath that she took such a white cloth from its hand, it having been put on the boy’s hand (he being lame of it) about four days or so before his death. Daniel’s body had been found in an obscure place in a field, at about a furlong distant from his mother’s house, and had been buried without an inquest in consequence of his mother alleging that the lad had been subject to fits. After the appearance of the apparition the body was disinterred, a coroner’s inquest was held, and a verdict returned to the effect that the body had been ‘strangled’. This verdict appears to have been mainly arrived at in consequence of the depositions of two women ‘of good repute’ that two days after the corpse was found they saw it, and discovered a ‘black list’ round its neck; and likewise of the joiner who put the body in the coffin, and who had an opportunity of observing it, as the shroud was not put on in the usual way, but was in two pieces, one laid under and the other over the body. A ‘chirurgeon’ who gave evidence could not, or would not, positively affirm to the jury that there was any dislocation of the neck. So far as can be learnt, no steps were taken to bring anyone to justice on account of the suggested death by violence of the lad.

Bettiscombe.

Skull Superstition.—Although the legend or tradition attaching to The Bettiscombe Skull is now, perhaps, as widely known as any piece of West Dorset folk-lore, and has from time to time excited considerable interest among folk-lorists and others, yet so unobtrusive was its first introduction to public notice that no mention at all was made in it of its