Norfolk Folklore Society - December 2023 Newsletter
A note from Siofra
Hello Folklore Friends,
Just like that, another year is done. I just want to take this little space to say thank you to each and everyone of you. 2023 has been a pretty exciting year for the Norfolk Folklore Society and Stacia and I literally couldn’t have done it without you. Whether you read this newsletter, listen to the podcast, like an Instagram post, comment on Facebook, come to a talk or visit the website, it all counts and helps the Norfolk Folklore Society grow. I can’t wait to share strange tales and exciting things in 2024 with you all.
Now on to business!
Firstly, you can now book tickets for Chris Spalton’s Norfolk Heritage Centre x Living Knowledge Network talk. This isn’t officially a NFS event, but Chris will be talking about his book Apparitions of East Anglia. The talk he did for us was brilliant, so I’d highly recommend going along. You can go in person or watch online. Free tickets are available HERE and HERE.
Secondly, you can now listen to Laura Cannell’s November Norfolk Folklore Society. Laura’s talk was the first in our series of talks in partnership with Norfolk Heritage Centre x Living Knowledge Network. Laura joined us to share some of the real and imagined folklore of East Anglia. We were also treated to a couple of beautiful tunes. It was a real joy listening back to it when I was editing (not that I had to do much editing!). I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
See you all soon!
Siofra
💚
A note from Stacia
A wintry welcome to you: I am writing this little section of this month’s newsletter in front of the fire, warming up after a walk and thinking about how much I love these final weeks of the year. To be honest, I love every month for one reason or another (as anyone who reads my own Substack knows) but these dark days and midwinter magic are amongst my favourite.
I can’t share my favourite adventure of November with you yet as I am hoping to take Siofra there as a surprise in the next few weeks, but I know she’ll love it, particularly if I time the visit as the sun is about to set. I used to pass it every day when I was a news reporter based at the coast, but had only visited once before: a perfect example of how wisdom (sometimes) comes with age!
This month has brought with it a lot of beauty in the form of perfectly clear nights filled with stars and a chance to see the gently glowing Milky Way from North Norfolk, but also the Plough suspended above my back garden in the heart of Norwich, hanging like celestial fairy lights strung across a ceiling.
I saw the Northern Lights ripple through the night sky like oil on the water, staining the heavens in shades of purple, green and pink and, as I drove home in the early hours, came face to face with a stag on a country lane as big as my car, as beautiful as the stars, just feet from me.
I could almost hear Clannad in the background and feel the brackets around their Robin Hood track (The Hooded Man) – bear with me, decades of being a journalist means that I think in shorthand.
I’ve been writing lots of stories in the past few weeks – winter is the perfect time for tales of the strange, and there are many to share with you as we head towards Yule. Royal ghosts, the most famous ghost photograph ever taken…and I’m working towards a special tale about an eye-witness account of seeing Shuck himself.
I save these stories as treats: like treasure in a jewellery box, I pick through the tales on our long list looking for the one that catches my eye like a magpie collecting sparkle. Then, I gift myself a stretch of time to examine every shiny facet of a story, every rabbit hole it sends me down, every twist and turn that it brings in between the other work or chores (and I am lucky, my ‘other work’ is very often just as glittery) and lose myself in it.
I can’t tell you what a joy it is not to stick to restrictive word counts and rules: we love the new freedom that the Norfolk Folklore Society gives us and we hope you love it too.
Please do make sure that you’re signed up to our socials on Instagram and Facebook and join the conversation about all things strange and wonderful, all creatures great and small.
Today, some wintry tales: a Mistletoe Bride at Brockdish Hall, a story about St Nicholas and children that isn’t QUITE what we would expect, December folklore, And this month ‘J’ is for Jack Valentine. There’s a few months until he pops up in Norfolk, so we’re giving you time to prepare.
Have a wonderful December, friends, love Stacia x
The Mistletoe Bride of Brockdish Hall
It’s a chilling story for a winter’s night: a Christmas wedding, a flirtatious game that ends in tragedy, a skeleton found in a forgotten attic wearing a long white gown.
The Mistletoe Bough is, essentially, a horror story, but thanks to a popular poem written by Thomas Haynes Bayly in the 1830s, became a song which was regularly sung at Christmas time in Victorian households – the Victorians did love to cast a shadow over even the most joyous of occasions.
Bayly’s poem tells the story of a wedding held in a grand hall decked with holly and mistletoe, a Baron’s daughter marrying a Lord in a lavish ceremony filled with feasting and dancing.
“I’m weary of dancing now’, she cried, ‘here, tarry a moment, I’ll hide, I’ll hide. And Lovell, be sure you’re the first to trace, the clue to my secret hiding place’.
“Away she ran and her friends began each tower to search and each nook to scan. And young Lovell cried ‘oh, where do you hide? I’m lonesome without you, my own fair bride.’”
Many grand houses across the land have laid claim to the Mistletoe Bride, including Brockdish Hall six miles east of Diss in Norfolk, which was built in the 17th century in Elizabethan style with distinctive stepped gables. It stands close to the site of a far earlier moated manor house which had served the parish since medieval times.
“They sought her that night and they sought her next day and they sought her in vain while a week passed away; in the highest, the lowest, the loneliest spot, Young Lovell sought wildly, but found her not. And years flew by and their grief at last, was told as a sorrowful tale long past.”
At around the time when the Mistletoe Bough was set, it was common for rich merchants to offer a marriage chest, or cassone, as part of a bride’s dowry – the intricate chests, often ornately carved or painted, were given to couples on their wedding night. There is one such painted chest from the mid-15th century at Blickling Hall, somewhat coffin-like in appearance.
Was it such a chest that the mischievous young bride clambered into, little realising that when she shut the heavy oak lid she was imprisoning herself in what would become her tomb?
In a remote corner of the hall, she waited to be found. And she waited. And waited. Realising that no one was coming, she decided to relinquish her clever hiding place, at which point she realised that a hidden spring in the chest’s lid had effectively locked it firmly shut. Her screams for help fell on deaf ears, muffled by the thick wood, her fingernails tore at the wood in vain.
Some believe her new husband believed that she had developed cold feet about their union and, on the pretext of playing a game, had escaped into the night. Lovell, the poem recalls, continued to pine for his lost wife even as he grew old, weeping for ‘his fairy bride’.
Fifty years had passed and then, finally, the mystery was solved.
“At length an oak chest, that had long lain hid, was found in the castle — they raised the lid and a skeleton form lay mouldering there in the bridal wreath of that lady fair!”
Some say the skeleton was found clasping a sprig of mistletoe, perhaps to claim a kiss from her new husband.
Listen to us talking about this story on the NFS podcast here:
Find out all about the folklore of mistletoe HERE.
Read James Frazer’s classic book The Golden Bough, a classic study of the beliefs and institutions of mankind and the progress through magic and religion to scientific thought HERE.
Did you know that werewolves hate mistletoe? Read about it and find out lots of fascinating facts HERE.
Try this simple mistletoe spell for good luck HERE.
A festive story about St Nicholas: the butchered boys in the pickling tub
One of the most common images of St Nicholas, dear old Father Christmas, is of him standing over three young children in a wooden tub. It’s a tale that has changed a great deal over the centuries, but you can see an example of the story told in stained glass at St Mary’s Church in Erpingham (also worth visiting to see the font which was transported from the bombed ruin of St Benedict’s Church in Norwich to this lovely country preaching house).
The story began as the story of three innocent men who St Nicholas saved from execution but by the 13th century the tale had shifted and the men had become students en route to Athens to study.
The men were robbed by an innkeeper as they slept but restored to life by St Nicholas who was informed what had happened in a dream: as the murderer prayed for forgiveness, the students began to breathe again.
Time passed and the men in the story became lost boys who had wandered away from their parents and asked a butcher to give them a meal and shelter for the night when they found themselves adrift in a nearby city. The butcher killed the children in the night, packing their bodies into a pickling barrel.
Seven years later, St Nicholas was travelling through the city and stopped at the same butcher’s shop, asking for a meal and shelter. The butcher welcomed him, offering him ham and veal but the Saint refused both, insisting he wanted whatever was packed in the barrel in the shop.
Terrified, the butcher ran away as St Nicholas shouted after him that if he would repent, God would forgive him. Touching the barrel with three fingers, the boys’ bodies burst back to life and they opened their eyes.
They told St Nicholas they had been sleeping and had dreamt they were in paradise. Presumably they then handed over their Christmas lists and asked for a Playstation 5 and a lifetime supply of Prime in crates.
December folklore
If you bring yew into the house at Christmas amongst the other evergreens, you will have a death in the family before the end of the year
At Christmas Eve, at midnight, animals rise and turn to the east. The horse will stay some time on his knees and move his head about and blow his head over the
manger
Rosemary is believed to be “the Christmas herb” – one legend says that Mary
washed Jesus’s clothes in a stream and dried them over an aromatic rosemary bush and once the clothes had dried, the white flowers had forever changed to the soft blue of Mary’s cloak
The traditional way to mark Advent was not to open a window on a box and get a
miniature bottle of gin, it was to chalk a line on your front door. So we have made
some progress
St Barbara’s Day is on December 4: if a small branch taken from a cherry tree and
placed in water today shows blossom on Christmas Day, you will have good fortune all year long
Placing evergreens at the entrances and exits of your house will bring prosperity to your home and also repel evil spirits
On Lucy’s Eve, December 12, do NOT go to bed before supper or you will be beset by witches and fairies (and not in a good way)
Tie a bunch of mint around your wrist to stave off pre-Christmas colds
Bread baked on Christmas Eve has magical properties - if you let it go stale and then grind it to a powder it can be used in spells for the rest of the year
NFS A-Z: J is for Jack Valentine
Once upon a time, Valentine’s Day Eve was just as enchanting to the children of Norfolk as Christmas Eve, filled with anticipation for the visit of Jack Valentine.
Whether your family knew him as Jack, Father or Mother Valentine, the arrival of Valentine’s Day meant one thing for Norfolk children: a sprinkle of magic and gifts. A tradition still observed by many Norfolk families, the Jack Valentine ritual would see the elusive Jack disappear into thin air after knocking at the door and dropping off gifts.
Like Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny, the role of Jack was (spoiler alert) a role often taken by parents to bring a little enchantment to their children on Valentine’s Day. Sometimes Jack would simply knock and disappear, sometimes parcels were attached to a piece of string, and twitched out of children’s grasp as they reached for them.
East Anglia is at the heart of St Valentine’s Day. The earliest-known Valentine was sent from Norfolk, in 1477, from Topcroft, near Bungay: it worked, as Margaret Brews wrote to her ‘right well-beloved Valentine’ John Paston, who later became her husband.
Jack Valentine has been leaving gifts for East Anglian children for centuries but, unlike Father Christmas, Jack never went global and generally only strays outside the region when summoned by ex-pats. He has, however, made it to just across the border in Suffolk.
In The Folklore of East Anglia written in 1974 by Enid Porter, the author noted: “In Lowestoft, and in many places too, the gifts were left on the recipients’ doorsteps and were preceded by ‘mock’ presents such as boxes filled with nothing but paper, a custom which encouraged mischievous boys to leave such offerings as dead herrings and other unsavoury objects.” No one ever said that love was easy.
The arrival of a mysterious man called Jack to the home isn’t confined to our county and the outer reaches of Suffolk, but the East Anglian version of the doorstep visitor is far more welcome than most. Stories drifted through the smog in 1830s London of a terrifying supernatural creature that knocked on doors at night before attacking them.
Spring-Heeled Jack terrorised Victorian England with the story of the razor-clawed creature first appearing in newspapers in 1838, described as “…a ghost, a bear and a devil…”
The report added: “…the unmanly villain has succeeded in depriving seven ladies of their senses.”
With iron claws and a cloak, Spring-Heeled Jack was said to leap from roof-top to roof-top breathing blue and white flames and sporting eyes like balls of fire: he was seen across the country, from London to Liverpool and Lincoln.
Norfolk, as ever, ploughed its own furrow.
The county’s doorstep visitor whose popularity soared in Victorian times was also called Jack, but he left gifts and love rather than terror in his wake – even his darker cousin, Snatch Valentine, was mischievous rather than evil. For centuries, the mysterious Jack Valentine has deftly deposited love tokens on doorsteps without being spotted by the baffled gift recipients.
In Victorian times, Norfolk lovers went to extraordinary lengths to anonymously leave parcels for their sweethearts on the evening of February 13 or on February 14 itself. Often, more money was spent on Valentine’s Day presents than at Christmas. Lovestruck Romeos or Juliets would buy love tokens and cards, knock on the door of the object of their affection and run away before they were seen.
In a BBC4 documentary called Hop, Skip and Jump: The Story of Children’s Play, Edmund Mitchell, then 93, remembered Valentine’s Day in Norfolk being more exciting than Christmas Day.
“We’d go to where the posh people lived and would sing: ‘Old Mother Valentine, draw up your window blind, you be the give, I’ll be the taker’,” he said.
“We’d jazz it up, going quicker and quicker. Then they would heat up ha’pennies on a shovel over the fire and throw them in the road and us kids would scrabble for them. Because they were hot we dropped them, which caused a laugh.”
A version of this rhyme was first recorded in the 1800s when children in the county would leave their warm beds just before dawn in order to sing it outside houses in exchange for sweets, cakes and pennies, a bit like a February trick or treat tradition.
Norfolk folk cleverly built in a deadline to this custom: as soon as the sun rose, the gifts stopped being handed out as it was bad luck to give a present to a “sunburnt” child.
Similarly, there are stories of a somewhat less benevolent Valentine’s Day sprite causing havoc on February 14 rather than spreading love. In some accounts of unusual occurrences in the county on Valentine’s Day, Snatch Valentine makes an appearance – equally as anonymous as Jack Valentine, but with the charm of a Roald Dahl villain rather than a lovestruck gift-giver.
Rather than opening the door after a disembodied knock and finding parcels packed with sweets, children would discover their presents would disappear the moment they reached to pick them up. Attached to a piece of string, the presents would leap about, evading the grasp of a desperate child.
When the youngster finally managed to grab the gift they’d find it was an empty box or a succession of empty boxes. Thankfully, Snatch appears to have given way to Jack, a far more romantic figure.
Illustrator and designer Matthew Willis, whose Shuck zine is a celebration of Norfolk’s folklore, said a previous edition had celebrated Jack and Snatch Valentine.
“We wanted to look at one of Norfolk’s most loved folklore characters who has been part of county life for centuries and who seems to be exclusive to our part of the world,” he said.
“Not everyone knows about Jack – or Father, Mother or Mr – Valentine, but for those that do, Valentine’s Day is still magical. I’m Norwich born and bred and remember presents were left outside when I was a child and I used to really look forward to it every year.
“We delved into Jack’s heritage and looked at the lesser-known Snatch Valentine, who was Jack’s mischievous alter-ego – it’s important to keep these stories alive.
“The subject was so popular that we’ve revisited it this year and will be offering Jack Valentine cards and a wooden decoration so that people can celebrate our heritage and learn a little bit more about Norfolk’s folklore.”
And although the history of Jack Valentine and the origin of the tradition is still unknown, it’s clear that his visits are still very much part of Norfolk life and a tradition which many are keen to continue for many years to come.