Lambert Chris de author - Tales from the Black Meadow

Tales from the Black Meadow

Chris Lambert

With illustrations by Nigel Wilson

Firstpublished in Great Britain in 2013 by Exiled Publishing, South Street ArtsCentre, 21 South Street, Reading, RG1 4QU

Copyright Chris Lambert July2013

Illustrations Copyright Nigel Wilson July2013

The moral right of the author has beenasserted

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may bereproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying orotherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book isavailable from the British Library

ISBN-13:978-1484171738

ISBN-10:148417173X

lambertthewriter.blogspot.co.uk

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For RogerMullins and all those others lost in the mists.

Contents

Listof Illustrations

Introduction

Canyou tell me Maiden Fair?

TheRag and Bone Man

TheShining Apples

TheHorsemen

InHer Arms of Mist

OurFair Land

Childrenof the Black Meadow

NovoInventus

TheStanding Stone

TheWatcher from the Village

Fieldsof Blackberry

TheLand Spheres

Beyondthe Moor

APhenomenal Occurrence

TheFog House

Whenthe Mist Spreads

TheDevil and the Yoked Man

TheLong Walk to Scarry Wood

TheScarry Wood Lament

The StoneSteps

TheSeventh Child

TheMeadow Hag

TheCry of the Coalman

TheCoalman and the Creature

TheBlack Dog

Listof Illustrations

Map of the Black Meadow

Can you tell me if or whereI shall see my child again?

It is said there is a manwho looks as though he is made of rag and bone.

He rose up and put his feettogether. His toes stretched, bursting out of his worn out shoes and dugthemselves into the ground. He thrust his arms above his head, screaming asthey stretched and split into branches.

and they danced now theseHorsemen, they danced and danced wildly; their faces joyous and their eyesbright and full of life

The brambles started to growin thick clumps on the pillars, long straight clumps at each side, two littleclumps at the base and a round clump on the top.

There, silhouetted in the sunlightwas the mother and four figures clad in her childrens torn Sunday best

There is a standing stone inthe centre of Black Meadow.

On the same day a labourerreported a strange feeling as though someone was with him in the plough shed.Over the following days the vicar felt spied upon through the vestry window,the milkmaid felt watched in the meadow, the butchers child in the heather, askipping girl in her own yard

The first sphere divertedfrom its straight line as it passed the church and floated towards the lantern.

And the gentleman his eyesthey flashed

As he spied her from hishide

The house was white andseemed, at first glance to be an image of a house formed from smoke or mist

When the mist spreads

Like an unspoolingball of wool

Threading over theland

And it was thisgentleman that the Devil decided to meet one Saturday evening.

He was shocked to see thatwhere the dwellings of workers once stood that young trees burst through theshattered rooftops.

His choice of subject remainedthe same; the standing stone in the centre of the meadow.

The old woman stoodoutside, behind the gate, looking at the house.

in the distance, bythe well, he saw a figure with black oil dripping skin

He looked up from where helay and saw at the window the dark black head with its shining eyes glaringin.

Roger Mullins

On the borders of the Black Meadow

(North Yorkshire Moors Near RAF Fylingdales)

October 14th 1969

Photographreprinted with the permission of Professor Philip Hull University of York

Introduction

When Professor R.Mullins of the University of York went missing in 1972 in an area of NorthYorkshire known as Black Meadow, he left behind an extensive body of work thatprovided a great insight into the folklore of this mysterious place.

Mullins, a classicsprofessor, had a great interest in Black Meadow folklore and spent many yearsdocumenting the tales that were part of the local oral tradition.

In his office, hiscolleagues found over twenty thick notebooks crammed with stories andinterviews from the villages around Black Meadow. Some of these stories seemedto be from the legendary disappearing village itself and provided some vitalclues as to how the phenomena was interpreted and explained by the localpopulace.

These stories, poemsand songs have been gathered together to capture the unsettling nature of theBlack Meadow.

Do not read this onyour own at night and make sure you shut your windows. Listen for the stampingfeet of the horsemen, avoid the gaze of the Watcher in the village and do notwalk into the mist.

Chris Lambert

Can you tell me if or where I shall see mychild again?

Can you tell me maiden fair?

Can you tell me, maiden fair

Can you tell me if or where

I shall see my child again

Walk upon the fields of men?

Will she ever stumble back

From the meadow all ablack?

Will she sit upon her chair?

Will I hear her on the stair?

Tell me now, my spirits fall

I cannot hear my daughter call.

(Traditional)

It is said there is a man who looks as thoughhe is made of rag and bone.

The Rag and Bone Man

It is said there is a man who looks asthough he is made of rag and bone.

It is said that he is seven feet tall,thin and brittle as a dry old stick, with a face so thin that his grey skinlooks as though it is stretched over the skull of a giant rat. He wears a darkcoat that trails down to the floor wrapped around his skeletal frame. The coatis held closed by a ruby clasp which never opens unless he is given cause toscream.

Some say he was once a handsome farmerwho owned thirty acres at the centre of Black Meadow. He grew grain and keptcows and sheep. He had a beautiful wife and six darling children. He was happy,they were happy, even the cows and sheep were happy.

That all changed when one day the localsquire visited the farm. The Squire coveted the land and the farmers wife. Heoffered to buy it and her for a meagre price. When the farmer refused, thesquire ordered four of his strongest men to take the children to the carriageoutside. The farmer tried to stop them, but the four men battered him down,beat his skull with stones from the old wall until it was thin, brittle,elongated and misshapen like the skull of a rat. They tied his feet to the oldiron boot-scraper that was bolted to the doorstep and his hands to the carriage. With his childrens screams ringing in his ears, they commanded the horses tocharge away. And all the time the farmer could hear his lovely wife, inside hishouse, begging the squire to stop. When the farmer was quiet and stretched andthe children were quietly sobbing, the squire dragged the farmers wife out ofthe bedroom whilst his men set fire to the house. The four men threw thebattered body into the burning building. All that was found were the rags andbones of the poor farmer.