Sir Wyville and the Great Serpent of Slingsby

  The village of Slingsby is located on the edge of the Howardian Hills, 15 miles to the north of York.
In the early 1600’s, the antiquarian Roger Dodsworth visited Slingsby church and noted a stone memorial to a knight which had an interesting story connected with it …
“There is in the choir a monument cross legged of one of the Wyvilles, at his feet a Talbot couching (a dog laying), no inscription, a shield on his arm with 3 chevrons and a top band depicted, the colours hard to see. There is in the east end of the towne an old house of stone called Wyville hall.
The tradition is that betwixt Malton and this town there was sometime a serpent that lived upon pray of passengers, which this Wyville and dog did kill, when he received his deaths wound. There is a great hole half a mile from the town, round within and 3 yards broad and more, where this serpent lay in which time the street was turned a mile on the south side, which doth still show itself if any take pains to search it.”

A Shrine of Cocidius ? – Adel Woods (Leeds)

  Up until the early 1900’s Adel was a small village 4 miles to the north of Leeds. Since that time the city has expanded and swallowed up Adel and several other villages, which now form the cities northern suburbs. An area of old woodland still remains on a hillside between Adel and Alwoodley, and near the top of this hill there is a large boulder with the outline of a warrior carved upon it. It is thought that this figure represents the Celtic god Cocidius, and that the carving dates back to the Romano-British period.

Jenny Gallows – Flamborough (part 2)

  The previous post about the Flamborough spirit known as Jenny Gallows (‘Jinny Gallus’) suggested that several pieces of folklore may have merged together over the years to create the story that is known in the village today. This would not be unusual when a story gets told by different people over many years – bits get added or left out, and so it changes over time.

  In more recent times the ghostly Jenny Gallows was used by parents to scare their children, and keep them away from ponds and pools of water in the area, especially the old quarry and the pond near the castle ruins in the village. A similar thing took place in Lancashire, where children were scared by ‘Jenny Greenteeth’ who was said to lurk in rivers and canals waiting to drag them under the water. Elsewhere there are other ‘Jenny’ spirits connected with water, and this perhaps points to them originally being part of much older beliefs about a dangerous type of water spirit.

  An older version of the Jenny Gallows folklore from John Nicholson (1890) has Jenny taking her own life in a … “circular hole, resembling a dry pond … near Flamborough“. Her ghost was then believed to dwell in the hollow, and she could be made to appear by circling around it nine times. On one occasion a local farmer did perform the circling ritual, which caused Jenny’s spirit to appear, and she then chased the terrified farmer back to the village. The farmer was on horseback for this chase so this might suggest that the dry pond was some distance from the village. A current resident of Flamborough remembers Jenny Gallows pond being alongside the road leading up to the lighthouse, and anyone running around it 3 times would cause Jenny to appear. This location fits nicely with the story told by Nicholson, being less than a mile from Flamborough, and a place from where Jenny Gallows could chase the farmer back down the lane to the village. The pond is a “circular hole” and usually dry – only occasionally holding any water, and is now getting overgrown with bushes and brambles.

The Shrine of Saint Gerasimos – Kefalonia

 
  On a recent holiday to Kefalonia we decided to visit Omala – the location of the church of Saint Gerasimos, who is the patron saint of the island. I did not know much about the church, but images on the internet showed that it was richly decorated in the Byzantine style with paintings of saints and religious scenes, and so i thought it would be worth seeing.

The ‘City of Troy’ Turf Maze – Dalby

  The City of Troy is the name of a Turf maze located on the grass verge alongside Bonnygate Lane, 1 mile to the north west of Dalby – a small hamlet on the Howardian Hills, 12 miles to the north of York.

  A previous post looked at the site of the lost turf maze at Asenby near Thirsk, however the maze at Dalby still exists in good condition, and its roadside location means that it can be easily visited. At only 6 metres in diameter it is the smallest surviving turf maze in Britain, although the size is limited by the width of the grass verge where it is located.