Norfolk Folklore Society - January Newsletter
A note from our founder
Hello my dear folklore friends, I hope you all had wonderful Yule and Christmas celebrations.
Stacia and I went along to Arminghall Henge to leave an offering and watch the sun set. Usually it’s just us and one other person, but this year there were quite a few visitors. Stacia shared her homemade Solstice cakes as far as she could stretch them!
As we watched the sun set we chatted about the recent dig at the site and why we still love it, even though the massive pylons are somewhat annoying. I feel like next year we should have an unofficial gathering there.
After all the feasting and celebrations of December, January can feel a little, well, meh. Everyone deals with this feeling in a different way. My way is to try and get out of the house as much as possible. A walk on a bleak January day can be surprisingly mood-lifting.
Previously my go-to place was Rosary Cemetery in Norwich, but the addition of a small dog to my little family has encouraged me to go adventuring further a field on a more regular basis. And speaking of adventuring a little further a field, that moves me nicely on to this months theme….
Regular readers will know by now that I like to theme the newsletter around the month’s talk (I hope you are all impressed with my seamless transition there). So, this month, in the spirit of adventuring a little further a field, we are sharing some tales from the town of Wisbech.
Wisbech is a Cambridgeshire town right on the border of Norfolk. Having worked at the local paper for many years, county boundaries are a little flexible in my head. Wisbech fell in our patch, as did Bungay and Lowestoft, so I will always consider them part of Norfolk.
I've not had the opportunity to visit the town yet, but after curating this little collection of tales, I feel like a day trip out that way is on the cards. It would give me another chance to adventure out to Stow Bardolph to visit the mysterious Sarah Hare. I suspect I will share more about Sarah another time, but I’ve included a picture from my last meeting, just to get introductions out of the way.
I also just want to add a massive thank you to Stacia, who wrote pretty much all of this newsletter. I literally just give her the topics I’m thinking about including and away she goes. If you like what she does her, you’ll love her Substack.
Siofra 💚
Our next Norfolk Folklore Society talk
Myth and Mysteries in Black & White: Paranormal Wisbech
Wednesday 18 January 2023
£4.50+ Eventbrite fee
Doors open 6.45pm / talk starts at 7.30pm
Arboretum, 43 St. Benedicts St, Norwich NR2 4PG
Eddie and Josh from Myth and Mysteries in Black & White podcast join us to share tales of paranormal Wisbech. They will be focusing on the creepy history of Wisbech Castle and some of the spirits said to haunt the surrounding area.
Myths and mysteries In Black & White is a podcast where friends Eddie and Josh discuss all things creepy and weird.
Their recent episodes have covered cryptids, conspiracy theories and serial killers.
Eddie is currently training to be a cryptozoologist and has an interest in folklore and how it relates to modern day sightings of these creatures. Josh’s areas of expertise are conspiracy theories and the paranormal. He looks to explore these topics thoroughly to try and understand why and how these events and experiences happen.
I’m extremely excited to have Eddie and Josh speak for us this month and I can’t wait to learn all about paranormal Wisbech. I didn’t even know Wisbech had a castle until putting this newsletter together!
The curious tale of the Wisbech shoe shop haunted by a one-legged poltergeist
By Stacia Briggs for Weird Norfolk / Eastern Daily Press
Flickering lights, radios and lights switching themselves on and off, impossible footprints and spectral snatching…something very strange was happening at Continental Shoe Repairs.
It was December 1963 – long before films such as The Exorcist and Poltergeist popularised mischievous or demonic earth-bound spirits – but the boundary between the known and the unknown was thin on Wisbech High Street.
There, something was making its presence very clear: a one-legged poltergeist that scratched, snatched and switched appliances on and off, even when there was no power supply.
“I don’t mind admitting that I am scared stiff…” shop manager Bill Hyam told the EDP.
We tend to think of hauntings taking place in crumbling old manor houses or castles with creaking stairs, or romantic ruins: but this took place in a shoe repair shop in the Fens.
For a wonderful step back in Fenland time, visit highstreetwisbech.org.uk, a Fenland District Council Heritage Lottery Fund project which has documented the history of the street since 2013.
The site gives a detailed history of number 23 High Street, a four-storey Grade II building which dates from the early 18th century, but was given a new façade in the 19th century. Previous residents include a silversmith, grocers and by the 1960s it was Continental Shoe Repairs: floors one and two were stock rooms, the ground floor was a workshop and the basement was the reception and sales area.
Run by manager Mr Hyam, 31 with two staff, Margaret Roper, 20, and Patrick Lee, 17, the shop was preparing for a last-minute rush before Christmas. But the silent partner in the business wasn’t keen on offering a helping hand.
An EDP report from December 21 read: “…behind a window which looks down on the lights, tinsel and Christmas trees there have been happenings so strange and inexplicable that the staff of the shop below have become very frightened people.
“It was several months ago that those working on the premises of Continental Shoe Repairs first began to hear unusual noises in the shop.
“There were footsteps on stairs at the rear of the premises which are never used and in rooms above the shop.
“When the staff went to investigate, they could find no one there…”
Mr Hyam initially put the noises down to working in an old building: but age does not cause radios and lights to switch themselves on and off. Wisbech shopkeepers in the 1960s were made of stern stuff: Mr Hyam unplugged the lights in order to stop the needless waste of electricity. The lights still flicked on and off, regardless of the fact there was no power.
“Even when this was happening, I still tended to make a joke out of it,” Mr Hyam told the EDP, “but I ceased to think it was funny when a drill was torn out of my hands”.
The incident with the drill was so unsettling that Mr Hyam closed his shop and went home.
“I never used to believe in poltergeists, but I am convinced that we have one here” he said.
After staff were sent home early, the assistants in the shop next door heard the sound of footsteps coming from inside Continental Shoe Repairs.
Looking back over his notes, Mr Hyam noted that the worst of the activity was when there was a full moon – paranormal investigators have long thought that ghostly activity increases during a lunar cycle.
In a move that the Scooby Doo team would have applauded, Mr Hyam sprinkled flour on the floor of the top floor room – at which point something even stranger happened.
The report says: “Within a few days of the flour being put down, there appeared in it five footprints, well away from the door, leading from a window to a fireplace.
“All of the prints are of a bare right foot belonging to either a child, or more probably, a small woman. There was not a single left footprint. In addition to the prints there are parallel scratch marks in the flour.
“Yesterday My Hyam found two stockings, both right foot, in the chimney.”
Another member of staff, Margaret Roper, said that although she had managed to get used to hearing footsteps, the discovery of footprints had really frightened her.
“All the back doors to the premises are barred and the windows at the front are securely locked and I don’t mind admitting that I am scared stiff” Mr Hyam said.
The other member of the staff, Patrick Lee, was so disturbed that he would no longer venture up the stairs while Colin Cook, who owned the butchers’ shop next door, said he had seen the shop’s lights switching on and off throughout the night.
Keen to see an end to the ghostly goings-on, Mr Hyam contacted the Rev T.F Butler, assistant curate of St Augustine’s to see if he could help.
“I don’t know enough about it yet to give my views on what is causing this,” Mr Butler said, “but Mr Hyam and his staff are obviously genuinely frightened people and I intend to have another talk with them before deciding what to do”.
Tony Cornell, an investigator from the Cambridge University Society for Psychical Research, arranged to visit the shop in December for the first of several visits.
Knowing the area was riddled with underground tunnels, his initial thoughts were that the blocked-up tunnels could be causing the knocking noises due to water pressure from the nearby River Nene.
By this time, the national newspapers had picked up in the story. On December 22, the Daily Mirror’s headline was: “One-legged ghost told to hop it.”
Cornell said the report was “unqualified idiocy”.
Returning on Valentine’s Day, Mr Cornell was given a list of new phenomena that had occurred at the shop: workshop doors slammed and toilets flushed by their own accord, lights flickered, boxes moved, and most concerningly of all, two witnesses reporting seeing or feeling an entity.
James Goodrum, Margaret’s boyfriend, claimed to have seen an apparition on the staircase while Mr Hyam said he’d had “a vivid impression of something jumping on his back in January”.
Additionally, other witnesses spoke of how during a town-wide power cut, the only building to be illuminated was the shoe repair shop.
A full and thorough investigation was held: all windows were sealed, tape recorders were set up on each floor along with thermometers and strain gauges and expansion gauges to check if low or high tide effected the building.
Weighted wire was stretched across the second floor to which a pencil was attached which reached a piece of paper on the ground, granulated sugar was left on the steps, handrails dusted with soot and there were cameras on all floors.
Persistent taps and dull noises heard at 2.10am and 3.45am could not be explained and caused two of the party to hastily say they would not go to the top floor alone.
Cornell’s findings were few, but he did point out that hauntings are often sporadic while also sharply adding that if there are attention-seeking entities, what better time to show themselves than when the press and TV cameras are in situ?
Reports came to a swift close after this last investigation: poltergeist activity is typically short-lived, with manifestations lasting an average of five months and no more than a few years. To almost quote horror film Poltergeist, yes they were here, but where are they now?
The ‘witch’ of Wisbech
by Stacia Briggs
Accused witch Joan Pigge from Wisbech was one of 13 accused sorcerers who played a part in the very last trial that Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins’ henchman led. The trial at Ely on September 23 1647 was the last act of John Stearne’s career and came a little more than a month after the death of Hopkins: it was the beginning of his end.
Wisbech woman Joan Pigge worked for Thomas Anthony of Walsoken and had recently suffered two devastating losses: her daughter was killed in an alehouse fight in 1643 and shortly afterwards, her husband Henry had died. For reasons unknown, it was around this time that Joan found herself considered to be “a woman of evil fame”: possibly because tragedy had visited her twice in quick succession.
In the autumn of 1647, Stearne – now working alone after the death of Hopkins in August of the same year - visited Chatteris, Wimblington, March and Wisbech. During his visit, Pigge was accused by two witnesses, John Cuthbert and John Scrymshaw, of placing a spell on the former’s horses and causing them to sicken. Cuthbert accused and threatened Pigge and his wife viciously scratched her.
Calling Joan to her husband’s stables, she set upon her, viciously scratching her with sharp fingernails as she accused her of placing enchantments upon the family’s horses. Scratching was a common test to ‘reveal’ a supernatural sign which would prove that someone was using dark arts: if a bewitched victim enjoyed temporary relief from symptoms, it meant they had uncovered a witch.
Joan was then pinned down in the stables and attacked: but despite continuing to claim her innocence, she was detained on suspicion of witchcraft. Sent to Ely gaol, she joined a dozen other men and women accused of sorcery.
On September 23 1647, the prisoners were put on trial at Ely Shire Hall and Stearne’s prepared testimony of their ‘crimes’ was read out in court. Thirteen people were accused of witchcraft, eight women and five men and amongst them was Joan Pigge: we know that at least five were acquitted of all crimes, but Joan’s fate was not recorded. If she was convicted, her life would have ended on the public gallows in the marketplace.
Stearne soon returned home to work on A Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft, a defence of his actions, but his career was over. He wrote: “And so I leave myself to the censure of the world, yet desire it might be left to the Almighty, who knows the secrets of all hearts.”
Tom Hickathrift, giant of the Fens
by Stacia Briggs
When the giant from the marshes met the ogre from the Fens, the ensuing battle was brutal and bloody and led to the creation of a legend passed down by families for hundreds of years.
He was the marshland giant who battled the Ogre of Smeeth and who chose his final resting place by hurling a stone football. The story of Tom Hickathrift stretches back through English folklore to before the Puritan times when many such tales were lost – first written down in the 1631, it was passed down through generations via chapbooks, little paper pamphlets sold by travelling peddlers for a penny or sixpence.
It is believed the story, shown on Marshland St James village sign, is based in fact and that Tom may well have been a real person, possibly one who lived before the Norman invasion, when locals were arguing with new lords of the manors who were riding roughshod over the rights of the people to use common land.
During the fight, Tom, who was outlandishly and unusually tall, took a cart-wheel as a shield and an axle for a sword to help fight off the overlords - in the words of John Weever, who recounted the tale in Ancient Funerall Monuments of 1631: “…perceiving that his neighbours were faint-hearted and ready to take flight, he shooke the Axell-tree from the cart, which he used instead of a sword and tooke one of the cart wheeles which he held as a buckler; with these weapons…he set upon the…adversaries of the Common, encouraged his neighbours to go forward, and fight valiantly in defence of their liberties.”
Over time, the story was embroidered: Tom became a giant and the invaders became an ogre who lived in the dangerous boggy marshland of Smeeth, the area of land between Wisbech and King’s Lynn which historically belonged to the Seven Towns of the Marshland, Clenchwarton, Emneth, Terrington, Tilney, Walpole, Walsoken and West Walton.
In a chapbook printed between 1660 and 1690, The History of Thomas Hickathrift tells how Tom would drive his brewer’s cart between King’s Lynn and Wisbech but, because of a fierce and man-eating ogre that lived in the Marshland, had to make a long detour
Tired of elongating his journey, Tom decided to risk the shorter route and thus incurred the ire of the ogre, who raced to block his path, bellowing: “Do you not see how many heads hang upon yonder tree that have offended my law? But thy head shall hang higher than all the rest for an example!”
Tom gave the ogre a rude answer which sent him running to his lair to find his club, upon which Tom fought the 12-foot beast with the axle and wheel-shield, finally triumphing and slicing off his head, becoming a hero and eventually being knighted for his bravery.
Both tales survived until the beginning of the 20th century until the more thrilling ogre story took prominence.
Many tales surround Tom, from him choosing the spot where he was buried by hurling a stone boulder like a football (his gravestone bears his heraldic emblem, a circle with a line over it which symbolises the axle and wheel he used to kill the dreadful ogre) to him moving the tower away from the church in West Walton.
Some say he became rich from treasure he took from the ogre’s lair and that he shared his wealth with villagers, another that a tinker challenged him to a competition whereby he had to dance with a broom – the tinker won and the pair became firm friends and are shown together on the back of the Marshland St James sign.
Damage at Walpole St Peter’s church is said to have been caused by a game of football held between Satan and Tom and a carving outside the church is said to be Hickathrift.
Nearby, the remnants of a cross found in Tom Hickathrift’s Washbowl, a hollow close to what is now Hickathrift’s Field, are said to be the giant’s candlesticks, two of which can be found at Tilney All Saints’ churchyard while another forms the base of the village sign.
And finally…..Wassailing on January 17
By Stacia Briggs
Held on what used to be Twelfth Night, wassail gets its name from the Old English term “waes hael”, meaning “be well” It was a Saxon custom that, at the start of each year, the Lord of the manor would shout “waes hael” from his door, answered by an assembled crowd with “drinc hael”, meaning “drink and be healthy”.
The tradition grew into one which saw people going from door to door, bearing good wishes and a wassail bowl of hot, spiced ale. In return people in the houses gave them drink, money and Christmas food, believing their generosity would lead to good luck for the year to come.
The contents of the bowl varied in different parts of the country, but a popular one was known as “lambs’ wool”. It consisted of hot ale, roasted crab apples, sugar, spices, eggs, and cream served with little pieces of toast.
Lambswool Recipe
1.5 Litres (3 x 500ml bottles) of traditional real ale – or traditional cider
6 small cooking apples, cored (Bramley apples)
1 nutmeg freshly grated
1 tsp ground ginger
150g brown sugar (demerara)
1. Prepare the apples in advance. Core the apples and place on a lightly-greased baking tray about 6cm apart – they will swell up a little. Bake at 120C for about an hour until they become soft and pulpy and the skins are easy to peel away.
2. In a large thick bottomed saucepan add the sugar. Cover with a small amount of the ale (or cider) and heat gently. Stir until dissolved. Add the ground ginger and grate in the whole of the nutmeg. Stir, and keeping the pan on a gentle simmer, slowly adding the rest of the ale (or cider).
3. Break open the apples and scoop out the baked flesh into a bowl, discarding the skin. Mash the pulp with a fork while it is still warm and create a smooth puree with no lumps. Add thepurée into the ale (or cider) lambswool, mixing it in with a whisk.
4. Warm through for 30 minutes on a gentle heat and then use a stick blender to froth the drink and mix together. The apple will float to the surface like lambs’ wool.
5. Ladle the hot Lambswool into heat-proof mugs or glasses and grate over some nutmeg, or pour the drink into a communal bowl (with several thick pieces of toast in the bottom) to pass around if wassailing.
I hope you enjoyed this month’s offerings. I look forward to seeing some of you at January’s talk. Arboretum may even be able to provide us with some wassail!
Siofra
🖤🖤🖤🖤