Blackwater

I wrote this piece a few years ago for the online journal 'Panorama'. It was accepted for inclusion, but due to the pandemic, the Roots edition never saw publication. The words reflect a day that I spent in solitary meditation and observation at Heybridge Basin on the Essex coast. I timed my visit so I could contemplate the incoming tide, and use the metaphor to amplify my emotional response to this place of my maternal ancestors.

Blackwater

by Alex Langstone

A vast expanse of tidal power punctuated with mysterious, secretive and impenetrable islands. Here the highest tides bring overspill and nervous excitement. The red ochre sails of traditional barges once plied their trade upon this waterway, which links land, river and sea to generations of my maternal family. The Blackwater estuary, at the heart of the Essex coast, brings me home. It was here, on this eastern shore that in pre-Roman times the Celtic tribe of the Trinovantes held sway. Collaborators of Boudicca and the Iceni, there isn’t much now to show they were here, but the ghosts of this lost British tribe survive deep within the land and on the tides. Later, much later, the Saxons arrived, and the kingdom of the East Saxons was born, from whence the modern county name can be traced.

The main port of Maldon, world famous for harvesting sea salt, with its beacon tower of St Mary’s sitting snug upon a hillock above the quay. Where secret political plotters once met to plan the downfall of Lady Jane Grey and just along the harbour on the Bath Wall, a secretive guild of fishermen held 'The Tin Shed Parliament'. A more distant history recalls that Earl Byrhtnoth lost his battle against Olaf Tryggvason and his Viking army nearby on the causeway to Northey Island and the famous poem The Battle of Maldon, originally written in Old English, chronicles the epic battle. Even more ancient and on the opposite bank of the river, arcane barrows were once excavated on the Goldhanger marshes.

My maternal family’s past feels near here in the old Saxon town of Maldon. The town’s name is from the Old English Maeldun, which translates as ‘monument hill’, and the town is indeed a monument to my own ancestors, where great grandparents were welcomed into the world at the fisherman’s church above Hythe Quay, grandparents married at All Saints in the centre of the town and parents sailing on the Tondeleo in the 1960s.

Maldon waterfront. Image © Alex Langstone

Walking on the sea wall around this stretch of coast where sea and river meet brings the past close and an alchemical fusion of personal history and that of the landscape’s own stories and more ancient lore. Watching the tide rise at Heybridge Basin in the hours before the full moon ascends over the shimmering estuary is a meditation on the liminal folkloric nature of this shore. The peninsula to the south has stories of the mysterious Dengie marsh wizards, with their strange cures and eerie traditions – 

“Break a Lapwing’s egg into a cup of tea”. Country cure from 1950s Tillingham.

Standing by the lock gates, which separate the Chelmer and Blackwater Canal from the tidal river you can view Northey Island on the horizon and beyond towards the sea, lie the two larger islands of Osea (Old English: Ōsgȳþes īeg, ‘Osyth's island’) and to the north, Mersea (Old English: meresig, ‘island of the pool’) . Both of which like to keep their secretive interiors hidden from mainlanders. All three islands have tidal causeways, which can only be crossed at certain times, and this creates an otherworldliness that gives each island its unique identity, the isle of Mersea even has its own ghost infested round barrow, that looms from the tree line as soon as you have crossed over the water.

Mersea barrow. Art © Paul Atlas-Saunders

In this low country, where salt hangs heavy in the air, the old-time smugglers, pirates and wildfowler-poachers mapped out their clandestine routes between the islands and into the narrow silty creeks. Ghostly rumours haunted these places, keeping folk at bay on the dark of the moon.

Causeway to Northey Island. Image © Alex Langstone

Walking out from the sea-lock and along the strand towards Maldon, as the tide reaches her peak, is a magnificent sight. Old wrecks punctuate the shore and crumbling wooden crane mountings stick out of the rising briny mire, as monolithic markers to a former time, where the industrialisation of the river was intense and mechanical. To my right, I can see the canal snaking inland and, in the foreground, impenetrable saltings break up the scene, giving the coast path the feel of the isolation of a lost island. On my left the tide continues to swell and expand, lapping powerfully against the muddy beach. A Thames Barge manoeuvres past, with her russet red sails billowing majestically, and I momentarily drift back to the past, catching a glimpse of a time one hundred and fifty years ago when these barges sailed up and down the Essex coast, moving goods to and from ports large and small. These barges were once the lifeblood of Maldon's prosperity, facilitating trade of straw, bricks, manure, and horse feed with London. Needing only two crewmen to sail, the flat-bottomed hull enabled the vessel to navigate the winding, shallow creeks of the Essex coast with ease.

The dark brooding muddy river feels like a highway that cuts through time, and indeed there are legends that persist on this shoreline that may attest to this reality. One tale is told about the barge Elizabeth, which was sailing back to Maldon’s Hythe Quay on Christmas Eve 1640, when it became stuck in the mud on the receding tide. The barge was marooned for several hours and during this time a thick sea mist rolled in. The two-man crew were experienced sailors but became spooked when they heard a strange buzzing noise overhead and shortly afterwards witnessed a humanoid figure floating in the water, close to the barge. They fished him out and placed him on deck but wished they hadn’t as he began making strange sounds and then began to rip the skin from his head, whilst his large round bulbous eyes stared ominously at them. They tipped him back in the water, and before they could do anything about it, the grotesque humanoid had stolen the small dinghy that the barge had been towing. The two sailors eventually sailed back to Hythe Quay under the cover of darkness, with only the beacon fire pot, glowing from the top of St Mary’s tower allowing them to slide safely and softly into the dark and misty port.

A local newspaper report appeared on the 30th December 1940:

Christmas Day, 1940: Thomas Harper, a farmer of the Dengie marshes near Maldon, captured a German pilot on Christmas morning. The pilot, still clad in his flying suit, was found asleep in a small dinghy stuck in the mud. He spoke no English and was taken to the farmers house where he had Christmas dinner with the family before being taken away by the police. It is assumed that he had ditched into the sea and had stolen the dinghy to try and escape.  The dinghy bore the name “Elizabeth” but no vessel in the region is registered as such. Enquiries continue. 

I first heard this story from an old friend in the 1980s, and I often recall the eeriness of the tale when walking the lonely footpaths around the estuary. 

Weirdness abounds in this place, and you don’t have to go far to find it. Just a couple of miles to the south of Maldon, you can witness an ancient and petrified Oak grove, reputed to be 900 years old, and which was said to once have been a sacred enclosure of local druids, and to the north beyond Salcott Creek and Cobmarsh Island, where in the summer the saltings are purple with sea lavender, many folk have witnessed a ghostly Roman centurion walking across the Strood, an ancient tidal causeway, which links Mersea Island to the mainland. 

This swampy coast also contains a barge graveyard, a melancholy site where many old Thames barges were sunk at the end of their useful lives, and if you travel out to the furthest extremity of the southern bank of the river, you will come to the unique and atmospheric seventh century chapel of St Peter’s at Bradwell-Juxta-Mare. This early medieval church is still in use and holds special Celtic style services in honour of the religious settlements founder, St Cedd of Lindisfarne. Cedd (pronounced Keth) was a prominent member of the old-style Celtic church, which eventually lost its power to Rome at the Synod of Whitby, where Cedd held the role of interpreter. 

This small and isolated church, standing like a sentinel at the mouth of the Blackwater seeps both history and mystery. This is where Cedd converted the pagan East Saxons. Folklore ebbs and flows on the tide here, with mysterious lights, demonic entities, equine ghosts and shimmering spirits of Centurions from the scant remains of the Roman shore fort of Othona. Personal memories linger here in this lonely land, where the strange plaintive cry of the Curlew and the squeaking cacophony of the Oystercatcher are the songs of the saline shore. Fleeting memories flood back of family days out exploring the old church, picnicking by the saltmarsh and sometimes on the sandy beach beyond. The old church was built from the stone remains of Othona, and for centuries was used variously as a barn, cattle shed, and coast guard look out. It was also secretly used as a store for the illicit cargoes of the eighteenth and nineteenth century Essex smugglers. 

An early nineteenth century haunted cottage hides in a wooded copse just beyond the sea wall, where wildfowler and fisherman Walter Linnet once lived with his family, harvesting the Dengie Flats in true Victorian hunter gatherer style.  Living close to the harsh frill of the land in his traditional Essex weatherboard cottage, he and his wife raised a family in this tiny abode.  These days it is a bird hide, where folk come to watch the wildfowl, rather than shoot them. As a child this spot intrigued me. As a young man I came back here numerous times to investigate the ghostly activity and to enter the folkloric magical realms of the land itself. I even heard the invisible ghostly galloping horse one moonlit night. 

The Bradwell shoreline also contains a relic from the recent past. The nuclear power station still looms large on the very edge of the estuary. The station began generating electricity in 1962, and I can recall the first time I was consciously aware of the site. It was one of those moments at school that many of my generation would have witnessed, where the conversation turned to the end of the world, and one lad said that his father had told him that Bradwell nuclear power station would kill us all instantly when it was blown up. A couple of years later I watched the BBC TV apocalyptic nuclear war drama Threads. This incredibly bleak story terrified me, but I kept watching right to the end, with a mixture of dread, horror and fascination. Bradwell power station remained an apocalyptic cold war nightmare in my life for many years. The station began decommissioning in 2002 and has recently been clothed in a huge bright white weatherproof cladding, which has apparently made it safe. However, it has also bestowed the landscape with a brutalist dystopian monument, which ironically, perfectly enshrines the insanity of humanity in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

On the opposite side of the wide estuary lies Mersea Island, and a particularly personal chapter of unfolding horror. During my childhood and into my youth I read a lot of books about ghosts and ghost sightings, and one of my favourites was a little book, published in 1973, called Essex Ghosts by James Wentworth Day. The book contains a wealth of folklore and traditional Essex dialect from Mersea Island and the surrounding coast, and this small work led me to some of Wentworth Day’s other works, and these were among the first books that introduced me to folklore, natural history, witchcraft, and a sense of place. Wentworth Day’s prose was sublime – 

As for the islands of the Essex coast, the long, luminous marshes, 

the saltings purple with sea lavender, these, the lonely places of sea-mystery…

However, Wentworth Day was a High Tory, with extreme racist and homophobic views. As a teenager coming to terms with my own sexuality, I found this both shocking and unhelpful, to say the least. He once described himself as ‘an antediluvian, a reactionary, an out-of-date ’.

My personal teenage folklore narrative had taken a very sinister turn. Nuclear annihilation, the dystopian future of Threads and rural fascism, all within the confines of one beautifully small and peaceful Essex estuary. 

Wentworth Day was very much a social product of his time and class. I still read his books with fascination, as they truly offer a poetic glimpse into his world of wildfowling and ghost hunting, alongside the folklore, dialect and mystery of the Essex shore (plus many other areas of Britain). However, I believe that we need to call out discrimination in all its ugly forms, and unfortunately Wentworth Day had some of the most extreme views about race and homosexuality, which have no place in a civilised society. 

I believe that the antidote to all this teenage angst was, and will always be the peace and stark beauty of these lonely and isolated landscapes, such as the Blackwater estuary. Where the grey sea laps at the wild edge of a land of immense diversity. Essex has received a mixed review over recent years, often misunderstood, the stereotypes are well known in popular culture. However, the new towns and sprawl of London’s suburbia contrast superbly with the lonely saltmarsh, muddy creeks and the rivers which cut the land deeply. Each incoming tide can bring fresh perspectives, the perennial ebb and flow, reflecting life, death and rebirth, and maybe the wisdom and inspiration to re-discover the past, and our place within it.

For more eerie tales, click the book cover below

"Thoroughly steeped in a sense of place...all in all it's a cracking book, and a must be for would-be marsh wizards, psych geographers and folklorists alike" The Enquiring Eye

“This book will be read in the decades to come, still delivering stabs of  wonder and delight”  David Southwell. @HooklandGuide

"Highly recommended - a very good and informative read"  Nigel G Pearson

Photographs and words © Alex Langstone. Illustrations © Paul Atlas-Saunders.

The Occult Library Interview, December 2024.

I recently gave an interview with the guys at The Occult Library, and they have kindly published it to coincide with the winter solstice. It was great fun chatting to them about my younger days, and my first foray into occult publishing back in the 1980s, alongside my more recent efforts. Click link below to view. Enjoy!

https://www.occultlibrary.org/blog/december-24-1

ASH magazine, first issue. 

Click image to go to the ASH archive

Please see below for some of the promotional videos that my publisher has produced

Book launch for The Liminal Shore

From Granite to sea promotional video

The Liminal Shore promotional video

Three new editions of Spirit Chaser released today!

 

Friday 8th November, 2024

Yesterday marked the feast of St Bega, and today heralds the release of the brand-new edition of Spirit Chaser: The Quest for Bega. Published by Troy Books, this version is available in both a resplendent dark blue, limited-edition hardback, and both an unlimited edition paperback and dust-jacketed hardback The special edition hardback is richly embossed in copper, depicting a triple ring and ouroboros motif. This motif, which shines and glistens upon the deep blue background, is one of the central symbols of the veneration of Bega and is often used in the folk-magic surrounding her cult of healing and visionary enchantment. 

Spirit Chaser is the true story of a spiritual quest that turned into an inspirational occult pilgrimage. In June 1989, the author began following a series of psychic messages and significant synchronicity that led him to discover the enigmatic mystery of St Bega, the sacredness of the British landscape and ultimately to experience the divine reality of the Celtic tradition of mysticism, miracles, and magic. Spirit Chaser takes us on a magnificent journey into the twilight past of seventh century Britain and Ireland, and on a contemporary expedition of re-enchantment. This ultimately led into the heart of a modern-day quest, which uncovered the mystery that is the Sancta Bega, the sacred ring at the mystical centre of the British Isles.

Originally published in 2012, this new edition of Spirit Chaser features a foreword by renowned Ogham Grove author and prolific Glastonbury artist, Yuri Leitch. Plus, a brand-new preface, some amendments and new information by the Author. 

The spectacular front cover art, (above) is by Paul Atlas-Saunders. Based upon a stained-glass window in St Bees Priory, it illuminates St Bega’s moment of arrival upon the beach below the adjacent headland. As her boat lands, she purposefully places her foot on the sacred spot at the very epicentre of the archipelago, which constitutes modern Britain and Ireland.

Copies can be ordered from Troy Books

Words © Alex Langstone. Art © Paul Atlas-Saunders.

Witchcraft and Cunning of St Osyth

The Witchcraft and Cunning of St Osyth, Essex

Alex Langstone

Sixteenth century witchcraft features to the fore in the history of the coastal parish of St Osyth in north-east Essex. The history of Mother Kemp and her contemporaries is well documented and for the most part is typical of the way sixteenth century witchcraft cases were recorded, with hearings and evidence from all and sundry who had any grievance. However, Ursula Kemp did have a reputation as a cunning woman, nursemaid and midwife in St Osyth before the rumours of more malevolent practice were presented. She was often called on for her services, which included removing spells, helping young mothers, midwifery, and healing. All these practises were very risky in an age of high infant mortality, superstition, and paranoia. One healing charm she is known to have used is one that she was taught by a local cunning woman called Mother Cocke.(1)  This particular arthritis charm used a piece of hog dung and a bunch of chervil. These were mixed and then held in the left hand whilst the mix was pricked three times with a knife held in the right hand. The mix was then thrown on the fire.   The knife was then used to make three cuts under the kitchen table and was left there until the arthritis went away. Meanwhile, a jug was then filled with ale, three sage leaves and some yellow flowers of the St John’s Wort. A sip was drunk early morning and before bed until it was all consumed. (2)   The arthritis would then be cured permanently. Ursula used this remedy to cure her first recorded clients, Mr and Mrs Page, who had consulted Kemp to cure their lameness. Ironically, the lameness was believed to have been caused by another witch in the village, and this shows that Ursula Kemp was consulted to provide counter-witchcraft charms and cures as a service to the village. Many other villagers were involved in this business of cunning versus sorcery and were subsequently accused of witchcraft. These were Alice Hunt, Alice Newman, Elizabeth Bennet, Margery Sammon, Joan Pechey, Agnes Glascock, Cicely Celles, Anne Swallow, Anis Herd, Joan Turner, Alice Manfield, Margaret Grevell, Mother Ewstace and Mother Barnes. Kemp reported some of them herself during her trial, as did others. 

Ursula’s downfall seemed to start when she was consulted to help Grace Thurlow’s son Davy recover from an illness. Mother Kemp was successful in helping Davy, and Grace later consulted Ursula to help cure her arthritis, and Kemp used the old charm that she had learned from Cunning Cocke, the wise woman she had once known, and from whom she had learned much of her cunning craft. However, Grace Thurlow fell out with Ursula Kemp when she was charged a shilling for her services and refused to pay. Grace then started to make witchcraft accusations against Ursula and was apparently advised to do this by another (unnamed) village wise woman. Kemp also worked with cunning woman Alice Newman, and both were charged with bewitching Edna Starron. The trial at Chelmsford on 29th March 1582 saw fourteen women from St Osyth on a charge of witchcraft in front of local magistrate, Bryan D‘Arcy. During the trial most of the women blamed each other or made accusations amid a complicated web of deceit, where the witches’ familiars seemed to have been kept remarkably busy with lots of ungodly misdemeanours going on. The familiars included satanic cats, dogs with horns, evil toads, and lambs of Lucifer. The grand finale seems to have been at Michaelmas 1581, where several spirits (familiars) were conjured and raised by various St Osyth witches and were instructed to take a trip out one dark night to burn down the barn belonging to local farmer Richard Ross. 

By the end of the trial, only two of the women were convicted to hang: Ursula Kemp and Elizabeth Bennet. (3) Of the others, it is not known what happened to them, but there are some interesting descriptions of some of the imps and familiars that were used in their magic. Anis Heard kept rats that had horns and were red and white and looked more like miniature cows, (4)  and she also had some blackbirds which assisted her and were housed in a box lined with black and white wool. Margery Sammon had two spirit toads, their names were Tom and Robyn, which she inherited from her mother, who was known as Mother Barnes. Another of the St Osyth witches was Alice Hunt, who was Margery Sammon’s sister. Ursula Kemp had also seen one of Elizabeth Bennet’s imps, a ferret, lifting a cloth which was lying over a pot. (5)  Ursula eventually confessed to have kept four imps of her own. Tyffin and Jack were used to kill, and Pigine and Tyttie to cause lameness and other minor afflictions. Bryan D‘Arcy continued to deceive  Ursula by saying that he would treat her with clemency if she continued to help him with his inquiries. She was locked up for the night in the village cage and the following morning, D‘Arcy continued to question her. It is at this point that Ursula Kemp begins to reveal the identity of the rest of the village cunning women and witches, still believing that she would be set free. From this point D’Arcy was in full-on mania mode, questioning children as young as eight years old, to get the results he both required and desired. (6)

It is impossible to think about all these women of St Osyth without wondering what was really going on here. There is a theory about a Catholic plot at the time of D’Arcy’s investigations. Queen Elizabeth’s government were getting paranoid, and D’Arcy had already investigated a previous case of sorcery, where in 1580, several conjurors had been rounded up in Essex (7) and sent to London to be examined by the Privy Council. Catholic plotters John Lee, Thomas Glascocke and Nicholas Johnson were thought to have been responsible.  Around the same time D’Arcy had investigated a local thirteen-year-old boy named Thomas Lever, who was imprisoned in the county jail in Colchester, accused of being a sorcerer’s apprentice to William Randall. Randall was a magician from Ipswich who worked in Essex as an occultist treasure-hunter, who used magic to find buried artefacts. Randall had been one of the conspirators sent to London and was thought to be one of the leading members of a group of magicians who met in Halstead. This group was accused of raising spirits to guide them to lost treasures and other rich pickings. Of course, Lever’s mother was terrified for her teenage son, and contacted the Privy Council, whereupon Thomas Lever was released without charge. (8)

In 1921 two skeletons were unearthed in St Osyth by local resident Mr Brooker, who was digging in his garden in Mill Street. The burials were orientated north-south, rather than the more usual east-west. Rumours quickly spread that it was the remains of Ursula and Elizabeth. Local newspapers reported on the finds and told of how the bones were impaled into the ground with iron spikes and chains. The skeletal remains became a paid for side show in an early attempt at encouraging dark tourism to the area, and a stream of visitors came to view Ursula Kemp’s remains for sixpence a view. One skeleton was well preserved, the other was in an extremely poor condition. Eleven years later the cottage adjoining the grave site mysteriously burned down, and the graves were filled in. Then, in 1963, the famous Museum of Witchcraft based in Boscastle, Cornwall heard that the bones of Ursula Kemp had been exhumed and contacted Mr Brooker’s son-in-law. The owner of the Witchcraft Museum, Cecil Williamson, purchased the skeleton, and recalled that when he went to lift the bones, he noticed the iron spikes or nails that had been driven through her body. Below are the original words written by Cecil Williamson that accompanied her display in the museum. 

Having been executed as a condemned witch, Ursula Kemp was denied burial by the church in consecrated ground. So, her body was returned from the place of execution to her native village of St. Osyth and buried in common land. While digging for gravel, in 1921, her body was unearthed, identified, and put on public show at the spot where she was found. In 1932, the cottage tea-room adjoining the grave site was burnt down and the grave filled in. In 1963 the museum was asked to take over and remove her remains in order to make way for a sewage scheme. This was done, after first obtaining a ruling from the home office of undertaking. It is of interest to note that when I came to lift the bones, I discovered that iron spikes had been driven through her body in order to hold her down in the grave and so prevent her from haunting the village. Such was the fear of witches in those days. Some of the iron spikes are to be seen beside the coffin. (9) 

But Ursula Kemp’s story did not end there. In 1999, Plymouth artist Robert Lenkiewicz purchased the skeleton from Cecil Williamson to add to his already huge collection of artefacts and library of occult books. Lenkiewicz died in 2002 aged 60, and his library, many of his paintings and the remains of Ursula Kemp remained in his St Saviour’s studio in Plymouth, whilst the lengthy process of probate was conducted. Eventually, with the permission of The Lenkiewicz Foundation, an archaeological investigation and appraisal of the skeleton was undertaken by Jaqueline McKinley of Wessex Archaeology. Through this investigation much information has come to light. 

These discoveries were interesting, though they did not concur with the historic narrative.  It is highly likely that the iron spikes were driven into the bones in 1921, when the skeleton was discovered by Mr Brooker. More importantly it is now known that the skeleton was that of a male in his early twenties. Interestingly, his remains have been dated to the same period of the sixteenth century as Ursula Kemp. Did he know Ursula? More importantly why was he buried in un-consecrated ground on a north-south axis. There are rumours of other skulls and bones that were discovered in the 1963 exhumation, (10) including a skull with the head of a spear embedded in it.  (11)

The bones that were once thought to be the remains of Ursula Kemp have now been buried in a quiet corner of St Osyth village cemetery by the junction of Clay Lane, just a short walk from the site in Mill Street, where the remains were first discovered by Mr Brooker in 1921.

A newspaper report from the Clacton and Frinton Gazette, dated 22nd January 2016, finally puts more information in place surrounding the myth and lore of the Ursula Kemp story. Paul Scolding, the grandson of Mr Brooker tells his tale, and shares his memories of the events surrounding the remains and confesses that his grandfather did indeed add the iron nails to the burial, to give more credence to it being the grave of a witch. Paul goes on to say that he was the person who eventually uncovered her before she was sold to the Museum of Witchcraft. He describes the burial place, as he uncovered it in 1963.

There was a very long spine, pure white teeth and nails through the knees and elbows, which turned out to be 18th century. There was a skull beneath Ursula’s feet and to the right there was another skeleton. (12) 

In the centre of the village, in Colchester Road lies The Cage, an historic old village lock up, built of brick with a solid wooden door. It is often cited as an old prison, but in reality, it was a building used to hold suspects whilst they were being questioned or until they could be transported to the courts or be brought in front of a magistrate. The cage would also have been used for holding drunks until they had sobered up. Every village would have had something similar, and further down the coast at Tollesbury, a wooden Cage can still be seen. St Osyth’s cage was in use as a holding cell from the sixteenth century to the early twentieth century. Ursula Kemp and her associates would have been held there whilst they were being questioned by Bryan D’Arcy and before they were sent for trial at Chelmsford.

The cage (pictured above) was closed in 1908, and it became a local curiosity until the 1970s, when it was converted into an extension for the neighbouring cottage. You can still see the old wooden door and the brick surround that was once the village cage for St Osyth, preserved as the ground floor house extension. It remains a private dwelling, though a plaque on the external brick wall tells its story. It is reputed to be haunted and a there is a book available about the paranormal phenomena that a recent owner experienced.  (13)

The above excerpt is taken from my book - The Liminal Shore: Witchcraft, Mystery & Folklore of the Essex Coast, published by Troy Books.  Click on the cover below to buy now.

"Thoroughly steeped in a sense of place..all in all it's a cracking book, and a must be for would-be marsh wizards, psych geographers and folklorists alike"  The Enquiring Eye

“This book will be read in the decades to come, still delivering stabs of  wonder and delight”  David Southwell. @HooklandGuide

"Highly recommended - a very good and informative read"  Nigel G Pearson

Notes.

1. Essex Witches by Glynn H. Morgan, p 25

2. Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History by Owen Davies, p 110

3. Essex Witches by Peter C Brown

4. East Anglian Witches and Wizards by Michael Howard

5. Witchcraft in England by Christina Hole

6. Essex Witches by Peter C Brown, pp 23 - 29

7. Witchcraft in England, 1558-1618 by Barbara Rosen, p 103

8. East Anglian Witches and Wizards by Michael Howard, p 43

9. A typed interpretation panel on card, written by Cecil Williamson, concerning the story of the burial and remains of Ursula Kemp, a condemned and executed witch. Cecil Williamson Object Label Collection, Museum of Witchcraft & Magic collection, Boscastle, Cornwall.

10. Ursula Kemp DVD by John Worland. Fade to Black Television.

11. Letter to This Essex magazine, October 1973 from S. C. Bruce of St Osyth

12. Clacton and Frinton Gazette. 22nd January 2016.

13. Spirits of the Cage: True Accounts of Living in a Haunted Medieval Prison by Richard Estep and Vanessa Mitchell.

© Alex Langstone

Bizarre Beasts of Cornwall

I have decided to republish this article in honour of Tony 'Doc' Shiels; a skilled artist, shaman, surrealist, and trickster, who died on  July 11, 2024. His inspirational work has had an interesting influence on my life, especially after my move to Cornwall in 1994. The photo at the end of the article shows me enjoying his 2019 art exhibition in Penzance.

Bizarre Beasts of Cornwall

Alex Langstone

 

Somewhere between the eldritch realm of Forteana and the conceptual ideas of folk horror lies a peculiar domain of extreme strangeness which has richly inspired the research surrounding this article. The bizarre beasts of Cornwall is a world of weird, where if you expect the unusual and can momentarily leave the world of reason behind, will reveal a rich and wondrous seam of folklore, navigating across a period of three hundred years. From the 1720s in Ladock, through the Victorian era and throughout the twentieth century; and finally bringing us up to date with odd tales still being reported in 2021.

Of course, the Cornish folklore archive is full of sightings of sea serpents, mermaids, and dragons, but there are denizens of other odd creatures to be found, if you seek at the edge.

The most famous of all the modern strange beasts must be the Beast of Bodmin. As I write this, local newspaper The Cornish Guardian has the headline “Big Cat Encounter”, which goes on to describe the most recent of confrontation with the alien big cat of Bodmin Moor, where a creature the size of a giant lurcher was seen on the cycle path known as Walter’s trail on the Lanhydrock estate, near Bodmin. This trail is densely wooded, and deer are often seen in the area. The big cat was described as dark charcoal grey, with a tail around 60 centimetres long and bushy fur. This means the cat would have stood around 76 centimetres in height.  The witness described the incident as odd and surreal but felt that the big cat was out hunting deer, as he had seen several just prior to the cat’s appearance.

There have been around sixty sightings of the Bodmin Beast recorded in the area since 1983, and a spate of recent sightings, such as the one reported above, keeps the tale alive. ‘The phantom cat’ is frequently thought to be a Lynx, Leopard or Panther, and in 1995 a skull was found by the River Fowey, measuring about 10 cm long by 18 cm wide. Although lacking its lower jaw, it possessed two sharp, prominent teeth that suggested that it might have been a leopard. The story hit the national press at about the same time of the official denial of alien big cat evidence on Bodmin Moor. The skull was sent to the Natural History Museum in London for verification. They determined that it was a genuine skull from a young male leopard, but also found that the cat had not died in Britain and that the skull had been imported as part of a leopard-skin rug. 

The legend of the Beast of Bodmin is still commemorated today within the annual folk-tradition of Bodmin Riding. This ancient patronal feast of the old trade guilds was still held each July, until recently. Bodmin continues to promote the tales of the Beast, and there is a recent town centre mural (see below) depicting the folkloric creature, painted by local artist Harry Maddox. 

The Beast of Bodmin street art by Harry Maddox

There is a far stranger account of a mysterious beast that was once sighted in the village of St Mawgan, close to Newquay airport. In the lush and beautiful Vale of Lanherne, where the River Menalhyl (Cornish language: melyn [mill] and heyl [estuary]) persists in her eternal flow towards the Celtic Sea. Here lies a bizarre modern mystery. It is one of those persistent elements from the past that crop up in the local press from time to time. One of those weird things that seem to creep up from the tenacity of a shared cultural memory. The case of the Woodwose of St Mawgan was first recorded by Cryptozoology researcher Deborah Hatswell, and subsequently listed on her British Wildman Sightings map.    The story was later picked up by Cornwall Live on 12th September 2020.  The tale is told by an anonymous estate worker who nervously recounts his memories of the event, which took place just over twenty years ago somewhere in the Vale of Lanherne. This would place the incident sometime during the late 1990s, and it is told something like this:

Bigfoot Spotted in St Mawgan Woods!

The eyewitness was working in woodland, making wooden pheasant cages, when he saw something which terrified him. It happened towards the end of the working day, whilst waiting for his boss to arrive to take him home. As he waited, he began to hear loud knocks and whistles coming from the surrounding woods. Whilst pondering on what kind of bird could make the noises, he scanned the forest edges, seeking possible origins of the sudden disturbance.  Then suddenly he became aware that something was watching him, and he saw an inexplicable face loom from the undergrowth.  He moved forward to gain a better view and was astonished when a very strange looking creature emerged from the vegetation. He described it as a male humanoid, around 2 metres tall, and almost completely covered with copper coloured fur. 

From the description he gives of the area, it is probable that it was somewhere on the Carnanton Estate, most likely at Carnanton Woods. The eerie tale continues, where the witness describes how his boss duly picked him up, and how he eventually gained enough courage to ask him about the extraordinary sighting. His boss then casually replied “Oh yes, we call them Woodwose here, best to just leave them be”.  

Curiously, at the south-eastern end of the Vale of Lanherne in the parish church at St Columb Major there are bench ends featuring strange creatures and grotesque heads, and close by at St Eval, the church has several green man designs placed on some of the roof bosses. Maybe these old carvings were deliberately positioned nearby to remind us of a lost localised ancient folk narrative of something wild and mysterious; the remnants of which, may still survive today in the nearby woods.

St Eval green man

Taken at face value, this report seems ludicrous. But is it that dissimilar to comparable, more historic tales from the canon of Cornish folklore? It is not the only folk narrative that describes mysterious creatures in St Magwan. In 1827 the Royal Cornwall Gazette ran a report about a group of gruesome looking mermaids that had been observed on the rocks and in the caves at Mawgan Porth. These reports came from various witnesses across several days. Here is the full report:

Mermaids on the Coast of Cornwall - The following is an extract of a letter received on Sunday 1st July from our Correspondent at St. Columb’: "Within these last two or three days there have been several mermaids seen on the rocks at Trenance, in the parish of Mawgan. I will state the particulars at length, as I have been enabled to collect them, and which are from undoubted authority, and you can make what extracts you think proper. One evening this week, a young man from the adjoining the beach at Mawgan Porth, had made an appointment to meet another person on the beach to catch sprats with him. He went out about ten o'clock at night and coming near a point which runs into the sea, he heard a screeching noise proceeding from a large cavern which is left by the tide at low water, but which has some deep pools in it, and communicates with the sea by another outlet. He thought it was the person he had appointed to meet, and called out to him, but his astonishment is not to be described when on going up he saw something in the shape of a human figure staring on him, with long hair hanging all around its body. He then ran away, thinking, as he went, that he had seen the devil. The next day, some men being on the cliffs near this place, saw three creatures of the same description. The following day five were seen. The persons who saw the last five describe them in this manner: The mermaids were about forty feet below the men (who stood on the cliff), and were lying on a rock, separated from the land some yards by deep water; two of them were large, about four feet and a half to five feet long, and these appeared to be sleeping on the rock; the other small ones were swimming about, and went off once to sea and then came back again. The men looked at them for more than an hour, and flung stones at them, but they would not move off. The large ones seemed to be lying on their faces, their upper parts were like those of human beings, and black or dark-coloured, with very long hair hanging around them; their lower parts were of a bluish colour, and terminating in a fin, like fish. The sea would sometimes wash over them, and then leave them dry again. Their movements seemed to be slow. The hair of these mermaids extended to a distance of nine or ten feet.” 

Mawgan Porth, home of monstrous mermaids?

These mermaids do not sound like the usual description of beautiful young maids with fish tails, but rather something more sinister.  Interestingly, there were nine distinct sightings of these creatures over three days. However, the description of the ‘mermaids’ on the rocks would fit the descriptions of seals, and the appearance of wild long hair was more than likely seaweed. However, a fascinating report, and it is easy to imagine the tall tales that were subsequently circulated after a glass or two of strong ale, huddled around the blazing hearth in St Mawgan’s village pub, the Falcon Inn. 

Moving a short distance further along the north coast, there is a curious tale that was once told about the ghost of a dog headed man at Harlyn. This was recorded by surrealist artist and occultist Ithell Colquhoun, whilst on a trip to visit the owners of the historic Harlyn House (below) during the 1950s. Colquhoun was seeking the strange and unusual, and questioned Captain Millar and his family, who had been living in the house since 1946, about any resident ghosts. Amid the cosier tales of a spectral white cat who was reputed to haunt the gardens and that of a former maid who was occasionally seen on the stairs, came the gruesome description of the Dog Headed Man who is sometimes seen at daybreak, where he appears to guard the  front avenue and main entrance of the house during the twilight hours before dawn. A tradesman once reported that he could not bear to work at Harlyn House anymore because each morning, upon his early arrival, he would be greeted by a hideous apparition which had the appearance of a dog/man hybrid.  Interestingly, Harlyn House is also reported as being haunted by a spectral black dog, and this was recounted as residing in the house, probably as the guardian ghost of the Peter family, who had continuously lived in the house between the 1630s and 1856. 

Harlyn House. Home of a ghostly Dog-Headed Man?

Incidentally, the tale of the dog headed man reminds me of one of the first and scariest folkloric narratives that I encountered as an 11-year-old child. Whilst watching the legendary, and now much talked about BBC Nationwide broadcast of 20th February 1976, archaeologist Dr Anne Ross was interviewed about the case of the Northumbrian Hexham Heads.  It was on this programme that she revealed that she had been haunted by sinister visitations of werewolves at her home. She recalled one particular incident  of being awoken from a deep sleep to see several werewolves leaving her bedroom and padding downstairs, leaping over the banister and congregating around the front door before exiting.  Ross described one of the creatures: 

“It was about six feet high, slightly stooping, and was black against the white door. It was half-animal and half-man. The upper part, I would have said, was a wolf, and the lower part was human... It was covered with a very dark fur." 

Interestingly, like the Dog Man of Harlyn, these creatures appeared to congregate around entrances and exits of the buildings they seemed to inhabit. 

Tony 'Doc' Shiels

Indeed, 1976 seems to have been a year of bizarre monster manifestations and we can’t leave the topic without mentioning two of the most notorious modern-day Cornish crypto-monsters; Morgawr and Owlman, and the man at the very epicentre of their mythology; surrealist magician Tony ‘Doc’ Shiels. 

During the hot summer of ‘76 ‘Doc’ Shiels and friends appeared to upturn reality and conjure two of Falmouth’s most arcane spirits, the sea serpent Morgawr and the Owlman of Mawnan.

In the years since there have been sporadic sightings of both creatures, and I have reports and press cuttings from the Summer of 1995, where a spate of rumours suggested that both serpent and Owlman were once again materialising along the Falmouth coastline. Morgawr was witnessed at various locations, including the Helford Passage, Mawnan Church and Portscatho.  

Around the same time the Black Panther of Rame was spotted at Antron Hill, between Long Downs and Mabe Burnthouse. The large black cat was seen in the headlights standing in the road and running along the hedge line, keeping up with the car, before leaping over a fence on the opposite side of the road, where it disappeared into the undergrowth.

The most recent sighting of Morgawr that I have in my archives is from Summer 2005, where a local man was out in a boat on the River Fal at Philleigh. He was just passing Smuggler’s Cottage when he saw what he thought was a seal’s head poking out of the water. He pointed it out to his companion, and they turned the boat towards it. Once they had got close, the head submerged, along with two serpentine humps, which he described as looking like black car tyres. He immediately thought of the Loch Ness Monster, and much later, after discussing the strange experience, he realised that he had witnessed Morgawr.   

Photos of Morgawr, allegedly taken from Rosemullion Head in February of 1976

However, despite the many modern sightings of a sea serpent in Cornish waters, Morgawr does have some history to her many appearances all around Cornwall’s stunningly rugged and atmospheric shore. One of the earliest reports comes from the latter part of the nineteenth century in North Cornwall. On the 11th October 1882 a sea-serpent was seen off the coast at Bude by local vicar, Rev. E Highton, along with several friends. It was mid-afternoon and they were walking along the gloriously sandy Summerleaze beach.  They were stopped in their tracks when they observed a long low dark object skimming across the calm surface of the ocean. They estimated that it was travelling at around 25 mph and never once disappeared from view. On one occasion a greater mass appeared above the water, and they all saw a tail, which looked like it was curling in towards the long thin body of the creature. Its length was reported to be between 50 – 80 feet.  

Meanwhile, whilst many were witnessing a   mid-1990s resurgent Morgawr around the bay, Owlman seemed to make a brief return at Mawnan Woods. Apparently described by a marine-biology student from Chicago, who witnessed the surreal monster whilst holidaying in the area. The Owlman evidently spotted her whilst she was out walking, and she explained how the monster arose and floated towards her.   

She described him as: “a vision from hell, with a ghastly face, a wide mouth, glowing eyes and pointed ears. It also had clawed wings and was covered with silvery-grey feathers. The creature also had large bird legs with huge black claws”

Owlman of Mawnan Woods

There are other, similar tales of strange and sinister birds in the Cornish folklore archive. Sometime during late May 1926, it was reported that two boys from Porthtowan witnessed a huge bird which was described as 6 foot 3 inches from tip of the one wing to the other and was three feet in length. It had a powerful pointed beak, six inches in length with large, webbed feet, striped with green and yellow, and a duck shaped body. The plumage was of cream colour, tinged with brown on the beak, and also on the upper wing coverts, and the tips of the wings were black. The report from the Cornish Echo, went on to recount the strange tale, stating that the two lads saw this striking bird flapping about on the top of a mine burrow. The youngest boy went to investigate and discovered that the bird was severely injured, and he thought it was dead. However, the bird sprang to life and attacked him. The older boy joined him and managing to defend himself with a stick, covered the bird with his coat, trying to subdue it, but the strange avian creature still managed to bite his hand. Many of the villagers came to view the bird, but none recognised the species. The feathered beast appeared to be in a very poor state of health, and due to rapid decay was soon buried.   

Another interesting piece of Porthtowan folklore can be found at the other side of the village at Mile Hill. This tale concerns a fearsome fire-breathing dragon, who once made its lair up on the hilltop, between Chapel Hill and Nancekuke Common. The dragon regularly stalked the area seeking food of sheep and cattle, terrifying the community, and fiercely marking its territory. However, on one particular night on the eve of May and close to midnight, a ghostly black and white spotted dog who haunted the nearby lanes and coombes appeared. He was on the hunt for the dragon and soon found it eating one of the local farmer’s sheep. He squared up to the dragon and let out a long low growl. The dragon started to move in readiness to strike the dog, but the ghost dog sank its teeth into the dragons’ tail, ripping the tip clean off. The monster let out a fiery roar and the dog chased it towards the cliffs and the dragon flew off into the sea, never to be seen again. The black and white ghost dog is still sometimes witnessed in the area. Appearing after dark, he stalks the narrow lanes around Porthtowan, and in particular on the old liminal festive nights of Halloween, Candlemas, May Eve, Midsummer, Midwinter and Lammas, seemingly making him a spectral guardian of the turning tides across the year.

Porthtowan Dog & Dragon by 'Doc' Shiels

There is a curious and historic point of interest worthy of addition to this wonderful folktale. During the early 1970s, Tony ‘Doc’ Sheils’ family owned the Woodland restaurant at Mile Hill and ‘Doc’ persuaded his parents to rename the venue ‘The Dog & Dragon’. It wasn’t long before adverts and signage were sporting his wonderfully imaginative and graphic artwork of the folk narrative, enabling locals and visitors alike to marvel at the intricacies of Porthtowan’s very own otherworldly and spooky folktale. 

Another demon-bird-hybrid appeared in the village of Ladock sometime during the early eighteenth century. The folklore was recorded by William Bottrell and is reproduced below:

A very large bird was spotted atop the tower of Ladock parish church. It was described as having coal black plumage, with fiery-red glowing eyes. None of the Ladock residents could recognise the bird and was seen perched on the tower for several nights in succession, where it remained for hours jumping from one pinnacle to another, and making an unnatural clamour, which was heard for many miles around. The local vicar of the time was the famous ghost-laying exorcist and astrologer Parson Wood. William Wood was rector at Ladock between 1704 and 1749, a time when many Cornish clergy were involved in lavish exorcisms of demons and ghosts. Rev. Wood was a skilled exorcist, astrologer and occultist and he was kept busy keeping many undesirable entities at bay. He quickly set about dispelling this avian-demon, who he was sure had been sent by the witches of nearby St Enoder. Eventually Rev. Wood expelled the beast, sending him back to the St Enoder witches, who could often be seen flying on their ragwort stems during the time of the full moon or heading home after their midnight meetings in the shape of hares.   

Witch Hare and Piskies

There are a few other Cornish strange beastie sightings that are worth mentioning before we close. Menacuddle Well (below) lies on the edge of St Austell in a lush green valley. The baptistery dates to the 14th century and the well’s waters have magical qualities as was reported in Hope’s Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells of England:           

The virtues of these waters are very extraordinary, but the advantages to be derived from them are rather attributed to the sanctity of the fountain than to the natural excellence of its stream. Weak children have frequently been carried here to be bathed; ulcers have also been washed in its sacred water, and people in season of sickness have been recommended by the neighbouring matrons to drink of this salubrious fluid. In most of these cases, instances may be procured of benefits received from the application, but the prevailing opinion is that the advantages enjoyed result rather from some mystical virtue attributed to the waters for ages past, than from the natural qualities. Within the memory of persons now living, this well was a place of general resort for the young and thoughtless. On approaching the margin, each visitor, if he hoped for good luck through life, was expected to throw a crooked pin into the water, and it was presumed that the other pins which had been deposited there by former devotees might be seen rising from their beds, to meet it before it reached the bottom, and though many have gazed with eager expectation, no one has yet been permitted to witness this extraordinary phenomenon.

Modern folklore records an eerie out-of-place creature living near the well, and a few years ago when the well and gardens were being restored, it was spotted. Subsequently described as a large dark and mysterious monster, weirdly shaped, with an eerie and sinister face. The creature is believed to be living nearby in the dense thickets of this deep granite valley. A local resident described the creature as a large black animal which neither looked like a dog or a cat and went on to warn the volunteers to be careful clearing the trees as it had often been glimpsed prowling around at dusk. 

Menacuddle well

There are many other locations where strange and uncanny creatures have been seen over the years. There have been reports of a strange jumping creature, reputed to haunt the coast near Falmouth, between Swanpool and Maenporth. Described as slightly larger than a dog, with cat's face, walking on its hind legs.  The beast of Perrancoombe, which has been described equally as a red eyed creature seen in the woods at night, and as an odd-looking dog-like creature with a human face seen walking along the road after dark.   Also, the Red Cat of Mevagissey, which was blamed for a spate of carcasses of several deer that appeared to have been partially eaten.

So, what are these creatures, and what to make of it all. Are they paranormal manifestations, escaped pets, or something else? The world of Cryptozoology may give some answers. Examples include mis-identification (Beast of Bodmin) and zooform phenomenon (Harlyn Dog Man). 

Nevertheless, I believe that it is of significant value to bring these eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century folkloric narratives together so we can compare and contrast the ‘paranormal contemporary legends’ with the older - and no less outlandish - established folklore.  It is good to remember that legends are as powerful as any truth, and whilst some may find sightings of a Cornish Bigfoot completely untenable, the tale is now out there in the folkloric realm, sitting collectively with the other equally bizarre stories from across the centuries.

"Smiles all round" The author enjoying himself at Tony Shiels' 2019 exhibition in Penzance

Further reading:

The Owlman and Others by Jonathan Downes

Monstrum: A Wizard’s Tale by Tony ‘Doc’ Shiels

Monstermind: The Magical Life and Art of Tony ‘Doc’ Shiels by Rupert White

The Living Stones by Ithell Colquhoun

First published in Lien Gwerin; A Journal of Cornish Folklore. No. 6 (January 2022).

The Holy Wells of Cornwall: Revisited

 

Reviewed by Alex Langstone

There have been many books about Cornish holy wells over the years, and it is great to see a new one. Although this volume is not comprehensive in its study of the vast amount of wells within Cornwall, it does give us a detailed historical analysis of some of the best preserved and most interesting wells in the region. The author has chosen sixty wells to focus on, and the volume gives us a thorough overview of each of them, including their folklore and historic dedications. There are some very popular wells included, such as St Clether, Madron and Sancreed. However, there are also some of the more obscure and little known wells here, which are fascinating and will encourage the reader to seek them out. These include St Piala's well at Phillack, St Indract's at St Dominic and St Pedyr's at Treloy.   

                                                                                     

Some of my favourite wells are included in this collection. Scarlett's Well, Bodmin; St Nun's, Pelynt; St Samson's, Golant and Menacuddle, St Austell. There are also many here that I have yet to visit, and this book will greatly assist in seeking them out. It is great to see that the volume is thoroughly indexed, and the author has thoughtfully reproduced many historic maps and photographs, including a rare photo (left) of St Petroc's holy well (1) at Bodmin,  before it was flooded by the Environment Agency, to help with a flood alleviation scheme!

'The Holy Wells of Cornwall: Revisited' by Rupert White. Published by Antenna Publications in 2024. 332 pages, fully illustrated with index. £12 from Amazon. A must have for holy well enthusiasts, spiritual pilgrims, and explorers of the secret country. You can buy it here

Notes

(1)  Picture from The Holy Wells of Cornwall (1970 edition) by A Lane-Davies