Norfolk Folklore Society - March 2024 Newsletter
A note from Siofra
Hello Folklore Friends,
Blimey, this month has flown by. Sadly I’ve not been on any folklore adventures since our last newsletter, so I don’t have any nice pictures to share or interesting stories to tell. But, although I haven’t been on any adventures, Stacia and I have been making some fun plans for the Norfolk Folklore Society for the rest of the year.
I think most of you will know by now, but in May we will be collaborating with Laura Cannell on an even for the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. We were so shocked when tickets sold out within seven minutes of going on general sale. I’m not sure how many of you lovely lot managed to get tickets, but I hope some of you did. It would be very comforting to see some familiar faces in the audience.
Very annoyingly, I can’t tell you about the other things we are planning as they are only half formed plan at the moment and I wouldn’t want to get hopes up. All this planning does mean that we are going to take a little break from the monthly talks. Just for a couple of months so we free up some brain space for planning. I’d love to hear from you if you’d like to do a talk or if the are any topics or speakers you’d like to hear about / from.
Speak to you all soon!
Siofra 💚
A note from Stacia
Last year it snowed on my birthday, so I have high hopes for March bringing us a last flurry before spring arrives in force. Siofra, our former colleague Rowan and I have a WhatsApp group imaginatively called ‘Snow Patrol’ which sees us post at our first sight of a snowflake. Whatever the time of day, wherever we are, all of us rush outside like children to catch the first flakes on our cameras and on our tongues.
I am also looking forward to wild garlic season (I made scones last year that were delicious, if pretty pungent) and the cherry blossom along with the violets that grow in my garden. “When wake the violets, the winter dies,” as the old saying goes, but until I stop having fires at night, I am going to have to let the violets welcome spring before I do.
I’ve had a few little trips out in the last few weeks (this is always such a busy time of year, work-wise) including to Pakefield’s All Saints and St Margaret’s Church, which is may be just across the border, but is so filled with treats that it’s worth the passport fee to visit Suffolk.
Siofra went at the end of last year and I’ve had it on my list since then, so when I had to go and pick something up at a distinctly less magical Lowestoft retail park next door, I jumped at the chance of adding some weirdness to the day.
This stunner of a church is on the edge of the land with the gorgeous sea crashing below it: as Simon Knott says on suffolkchurches.co.uk: “At the start of the 20th Century a new pier was built to the south of Lowestoft docks which altered the movement of the tides to such an extent that, over the next 30 years, Pakefield lost dozens of houses and several whole streets. The churchyard of All Saints and St Margaret, which now stands precipitously above the beach, was then several hundred yards from the wave’s reach. Look at it now, only time and a fragile sea wall separate this church from its ultimate watery destiny.”
You’ll find stocks and a whipping post outside, a daisy wheel ritual protection or apotropaic mark inside, very friendly volunteers, toilets (!) and the graveyard of dreams, patrolled by sheep. I’ve added a bonus ghost story about Pakefield below, brilliantly entitled ‘Crazy Mary’s Hole’.
Have a lovely month, love Stacia X
Norfolk Folklore Society - February Talk
February’s talk was given by the wonderful Helen JR Bruce who shared all sorts of tales of Black Dogs. Helen really was a great speaker and her talk threw up some really interesting discussion points. I’m looking forward to seeing her again at this year’s Bungay Black Shuck Festival.
You can find out more about Helen HERE.
Cover illustration: Shuck Zine / Matt Willis
Website highlights
There are lots of new strange tales to get your fangs into on our website this month including a strange little tale about the four skulls discovered during building work in Wainford and an old favourite, the story of the ghost of a murderer left hanging in a gibbet in Bacton Woods. Find all our stories HERE.
Our What’s On page of things to do in Norfolk is HERE.
The interactive Norfolk Folklore Society Map of the Strange is HERE.
The many ghosts of Holme Hale
An Easter ghost or two for you this week that lead us to investigate the many other spirits that haunt this Breckland village close to Swaffham.
It is at this time of year that the ghosts of two lost souls have been seen in one of the rooms at the village’s stately home: a priest and a young girl. Legend has it the priest was believed to have been killed on Good Friday by Cromwellian soldiers – the same ghost is said to appear with his throat slit.
There are fewer details in regards to the young girl seen by his side. Author Alec Hunt has written a beautiful account of life in Holme Hale throughout the ages, and some of his tales concern the village’s ghosts.
These include the Reeve family of The Old Smithy in the village hearing the sounds of horses and clashing weapons from the direction of Lower Road towards Watton and a story about St Andrew’s Church being the final resting place of Edward Winter, “the Holme Hale Giant”.
He also tells a story about The Nag’s Head pub, which his great-grandparents Charles and Elizabeth Hunt ran from 1858 to 1884. An early 16th century timber-framed thatched farmhouse on Church Road, the building was used as an inn from 1854 until 1912. Tragically, it was badly damaged by fire in 1994.
Mr Hunt describes how his ancestors started to grow herbs for use in medicine while living at the pub. He writes: “Two or three times a year gipsy caravans would come to sell various herbs collected from different parts of England.
“These visits were highly welcomed by the village children who looked forward to a free supply of rock. Fanny Clark, the gipsy, became famous for her Holme Hale rock.
“On one such visit an old gipsy man was taken ill. He was given medical care by Charles and Elizabeth, who advised him to stay longer - but the caravans had to leave for the next call on time, and, on arriving at Necton, the old man was taken ill again.”
Necton is just over a mile from Holme Hale and would have taken just a few minutes to travel to.
“The vans pulled into Ramms Lane and there the gipsy died. The next evening at 7pm, the other gipsies burnt his caravan: the blaze could be seen from Holme Hale and was watched by the villagers,” continued Mr Hunt. Among some Traveller groups there has been a ritual of burning the belongings or the caravans of a person who has died.
Mr Hunt’s story continued: “The ghost of the old gipsy still haunts Ramms Lane to this day. A husband and wife upon a motorcycle rode straight through him.
“A police car driver thought that he had hit a man walking along the road, but a search of the surrounding fields, ditches and hedges failed to find anyone.
“Recently I was travelling very slowly in a car with Mr Melvin Baldwin of Bradenham. Walking down the road we saw an old man, about five feet four inches tall, wearing a Norfolk Jacket and a bowler hat - the kind of man to be seen in Munnings’ horse paintings.
“Suddenly he vanished into thin air on the exact spot that the caravan had been burnt. We had seen the ghost of the gipsy.”
And this small village in the heart of Breckland boasts other spectral residents. Mr Hunt added: “This seems the place to include two more ghosts which haunt the area. Firstly, there is the ghostly priest which protects the ancient Iceni shrine of oak trees near the River Erne. I, and other local inhabitants, have seen him on moonlit nights.
“The second concerns Holme Hale Dale. Many years ago a carriage drawn by a pair of horses started out from Scants Corner Farm to go to Watton.
“On reaching Top Cross the reigns broke. Faster and faster the horses raced down the dale and at the bottom the carriage turned over, breaking the driver’s neck in the accident.
“Now, on certain nights of the year as the clock is striking midnight, the phantom coach is still to be seen: drawn by two headless horses and driven by a headless coachman who gives out the most unearthly scream as the coach turns over - a sight and sound that will strike fear into the bravest heart.”
Ostara
Ostara marks the true beginning of Spring when the land turns green and light and darkness are of equal length: this year, Spring officially begins at 3.06am on March 20.
Commonly thought of as the origin of the Christian Easter, Ostara is the festival of the Spring Equinox, a time to celebrate the moment between darkest winter and the height of summer. Ostara comes between Imbolc and Beltane, and is the second spring festival on the Wiccan/Neo-Pagan Wheel of The Year.
Six easy ways to celebrate Ostara
Light fire at Ostara, a ritual whose roots are in Germanic paganism and which was thought to drive out the winter and greet the sun and springtime. Whether it’s a campfire or an open fire, a woodburner or a candle, fire is an important way to mark this festival.
Rise early and greet the sun and honour its growing strength.
Collect sticks from a local woodland which have fallen and then at home, wrap coloured wool around them, tying in all your hopes and intentions for the year. If you have a fire, offer your stick to it and send your wishes into the atmosphere.
Make a flag to carry your wishes with the wind. Place outside so that it can transport your intentions.
Burn lavender to welcome spring and cleanse your space.
Place flowers, plants or something bright in the Eastern-facing area of where you live.
March’s magical full moon
Worm Moon. Plough Moon. Lenten Moon. Crow Moon. Snow Crust Moon. Chaste Moon. Sugar Moon. Sap Moon. Wind Moon. March’s full moon will be at its fullest at 7am on March 25 and takes its many names from the changes in the season which herald changes in nature.
Worm moon from the earthworms that rise to the surface when the soil begins to warm, Lentern Moon from the Germanic word for spring and the Christian Lent period before Easter, Crow Moon from the Native American tribes who noted the return of the crows.
Snow Crust came from observing the crust which forms on top of snow when it melts and then re-freezes and Sap or Sugar Moon for when the maple sap begins to run. The Celts favoured ‘Plough Moon’ or ‘Wind Moon’ to describe the preparation of the fields for growing while the Old English name was ‘Chaste Moon’ which referred to the purity of spring.
The Worm Moon is a time for optimism, hope and new beginnings, a time to collect storm water overnight to use for spells and for hirsute lycanthropes to transform and kill the unsuspecting.
March folklore
Keep your doors and windows closed on March 1, St David’s Day, unless you want to be plagued by fleas throughout the year
Dr Thomas Ignatius, in his Perennial Calendar published in 1824, warned that if there were lots of spiders in your house in March, you could expect it to rain for most of the month
March was once the first month of the year until 1752, when the country changed to the Gregorian calendar and the year began on January 1
If Easter falls on Lady Day (March 25) disaster will follow: “When my Lord Falls in my Lady’s Lap, England beware of some mishap…”
“When March comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb…”
Lady Day was the first day of the new year until 1752 and meant that new debts, including tax on monies earned, land, purchases and so forth, had to be settled on March 25. In 1750, the calendar was advanced by 11 days to April 5 – this is why the tax year in the UK starts on April 6 to this day
In Germany, churches that had a ‘Holy Ghost Hole” (an opening in the roof) would see a boy dressed as St Gabriel lowered to address an actor playing Mary below to tell her she would give birth to Jesus. As children in the congregation looked up in awe, their parents would place sweet treats under the pew benches and tell them the angels had left them as gifts
Swallows are said to return from Europe on Lady Day
Crazy Mary’s Hole in Pakefield
It was a beacon of hope for sailors passing through Pakefield Gateway, the channel between two shifting sandbanks which offered safe passage to Lowestoft harbour. But the lighthouse also beamed across the area said to be haunted by the crazed ghost of a widow waiting for her drowned husband to come home.
At the evocatively (some might say risqué)-named Crazy Mary’s Hole at Pakefield, still marked on maps and close to the disused lighthouse towards the south of the village, it is said that the distressed wife of a man whose ship was lost at sea can still be seen waiting on the cliffs for him to return.
The spirit is seen wringing her hands close to the once deep and rugged ravine in the cliff which was named for the lovesick maiden who has been seen close to it for centuries – ‘Crazy Mary’ had married a Pakefield fisherman who would go to sea from the beach to net the day’s haul. But the sea is a cruel mistress and the sandbanks and shoals around the East coast are renowned by sailors, in particular the dangerous passages close to Lowestoft.
One day, Mary’s husband and his boat failed to return from a fishing trip and, distraught and bereft, she could be found pacing the cliffs every evening at around 9pm in the hope that she would see the sails of her true love’s boat as they approached the beach. Driven mad by grief, some say that she finally joined her beloved husband in the sea, walking into the waves close to Crazy Mary’s Hole.
Today, the gully is a shadow of its former self, but this particular point along the east coast has always been an Achille’s Heel for the UK and as such, the gully marked the place where a World War One sentry was posted in case the enemy chose this exposed spot to launch an invasion.
It is said that soldiers refused to guard alone because they were frightened of the dark shadow they’d seen pacing along the cliff, wailing in despair for her lost love – and the stories continued through the next war and up until the early 1980s, when a Pontin’s employee spotted the solitary figure of a woman close to the lighthouse, a figure that once approached, vanished into thin air.
Pakefield Lighthouse itself is a ghost: built in 1831 in the grounds of Pakefield Hall, the nature of the shifting sands and moving coastline meant it became redundant as an aide to sailors and its fire was finally put out in December 1864.
Derelict for almost 70 years, it then became a bar for Pakefield Hall Holiday came during the 1930s, then a photographic dark room and in 2000, it was renovated by volunteers and became a Coastal Surveillance station. Hidden at the edge of a holiday park, the lighthouse is somewhat of a forgotten part of the village’s heritage to many people, a ghost of a seafaring past.
NFS A-Z: M is for Marham’s Sister Barbara the naughty nun
They seemed like sisters of mercy, but the nuns at Marham were anything but. On starlit November nights, the ghost of a nun can be seen gliding along a West Norfolk hill, her restless spirit patrolling as she looks for weary travellers.
But this bride of God is not looking to offer sanctuary to those in need: quite the opposite. The old saying goes that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar - but at Vinegar Hill in Marham, it was a wicked nun and a web of lies which lured unsuspecting travellers into a trap. Such were the dastardly commands of the Abbess at Marham, Sister Barbara, that she paid for them with her life, leaving her restless spirit staking out the hill she once ruled.
Marham Abbey was built by Isabel, Countess of Arundel, in 1249 for Cistercian nuns. Dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, St Barbara and St Edmund, the abbey stood for almost 300 years until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536 and today, only ruins remain in a private garden.
One of only two Cistercian abbeys for nuns in England, in its heyday, the building would have housed up to 15 nuns who were, in the dying days of the abbey, under the leadership of Sister Barbara who can be seen on Martham’s village sign.
It seems that Sister Barbara had somewhat lost sight of her calling.
Nuns are required to give their worldly possessions to God in the sure knowledge that He will provide for all her needs and love all people equally with His love. Sister Barbara, however, had other plans.
Ambitious and increasingly fond of the finer things in life, she devised a plan to create a sustainable income revenue to fund a lifestyle not entirely befitting of a nun. Her plan involved paying men of ill repute to stop, rob and leave wounded any rich merchant who passed close to the abbey on the narrow, muddy track which passed a hill in Marham known then as Vinegar Hill.
There were tall, dark hedges lining the road which linked Swaffham to King’s Lynn, a perfect place for robbers to hide as they waited to pounce on unsuspecting travellers.
But the plot became far more twisted.
Once the attack had taken place - and after being tipped off by the scoundrels - Sister Barbara and her sisters of mercy would arrive at the scene and as the poor victim awoke from a daze, would see the benevolent faces of nuns staring back at them.
Taken to the abbey to recover and nursed back to health by the nuns, the merchants and their families would be so grateful that they would shower gifts on the abbey and hail Sister Barbara as their saviour.
The plan worked and the abbey grew rich and Sister Barbara’s tastes even richer. After time, the monks at nearby Pentney Abbey caught wind of a series of suspicious events linked to Marham and, tiring of the tales of the nuns; miraculous abilities to predict when they would be needed most on Vinegar Hill, began watching them.
It wasn’t long before the plot was uncovered when a monk caught Sister Barbara paying a scoundrel for his services. Swift action was required.
Just how do you solve a problem like Sister Barbara? After a summary hearing, the wicked nun was told her fate: she would be bricked up alive behind a wall at Marham Abbey and left for God to punish: and so it was.
Shortly after the sister’s terrible end, something strange was seen gliding silently near Vinegar Hill - the spectral figure of a nun, patrolling the road, waiting for rich travellers. A story from Marsham Parish Council claims that Sister Barbara is most likely to be seen on moonlit November nights.
“On a bright November night, don’t go anywhere near the path that leads up to Vinegar Hill, because a ghostly figure is seen walking along it,” reads a story on the council’s website.
“…if you think I’m telling lies, ask a person in our village who, not many years ago, was saying goodnight to her boyfriend near a house built on this path when a bright figure of a nun came gliding across the lawn towards them.
“Standing very still, too scared to move, they watched this glowing figure disappear through the wall of the garage. They didn’t stop to see if it came out the other side. Would you?”
As with all the best ghost stories, there are elements of truth to this fantastical tale of God and greed: in official documents written in 1536, it is alleged that Abbess Barbara and four of her nuns admitted to “grave incontinency”.
The abbey itself was reported to be “in sore decaye”, there were goods in the house which could not be accounted for and 12 other people living in a house meant for just 15 nuns: three of them servants, one of them…a man.
Whatever went on at Marham Abbey in the years immediately before it ceased being used as a convent, something untoward was definitely afoot.
Perhaps if you meet Sister Barbara on a cold, frosty winter’s night in Marham, you can ask her to tell you the whole story - just don’t ask for her help…it comes at a high price.