The wind, the demons, and the ghost

Is it true that every pleasure has its price? Certainly, it’s not unusual for people to assume that if you live in Cumbria, your life out-of-season must be made a misery by the weather. It’s true, it rains a lot – that’s where the lakes come from! – but up here on the east Fellside (the Cumbrian side of the Pennines), we have another little trial. The Helm Wind.

Helm bar over Cross Fell c.D McIlmoyle

Whilst plenty of folks across eastern Cumbria claim to get the Helm Wind, in fact, they don’t. The whole area can get a fairly strong north-east wind, but only a little strip about 20 miles long and two or three miles wide, extending from about Renwick to Warcop, actually gets it. This is a wind that roars incessantly for two or three days at a time, blowing over walkers and sheep, ripping roofs off, tearing up trees and burning leaves into blackened, scorched rolls.

Cumbria’s oldest cat

I’ve been a bit remiss in keeping you updated recently, so I thought I’d dash in and offer this picture.

Dessicated cat from Keswick Museum

This dessicated cat, now in Keswick museum, was found in the rafters of St. Cuthbert’s Church in Clifton, near Penrith, in 1842. I’m afraid that you will often see it described as a 666-year-old cat¹, because the media has decided that this number suits an animal associated with witchcraft. Fortunately, I can assure you that they’ve been saying that for several years now, we don’t actually know the cat’s birth date and hence it’s probably just a poor old cat with a bad reputation.

Michael Scot and Ulfo’s Adventure

The Alchemist by Fettes Douglas, 1853

It’s a shame that people don’t generally know much about Michael Scot. Scratch around a bit and you might find someone who can drum up fantastical tales about turning witches into stone at Long Meg stone circle, raising a church overnight, or casting down mountains. Historians will tell you that he was a translator, alchemist, astronomer and early scientist, who lived around the turn of the 13^th century.

Scot was probably born in the Borders, but he spent most of his life abroad, retiring to Holme Cultram Abbey in northern Cumbria¹. There are 17^th-century reports that he was buried there, and  that some of his works were kept in Wolsty Castle.

Faeries, spectral lights and October beer… Lamplugh’s 17thc troubles

Lamplugh register

According to a document from the village of Lamplugh, in west Cumbria, mid 17^th- century parishioners were battling a plague of faeries, witches, will ‘o the wisps, man-eating dogs, fatally strong beer and spontaneous brawling. The document describes itself as a register of deaths for the period 1656 to 1663, and includes the following causes of death:

Two duels, fought with a frying pan and pitchforks – 1

Crost in love – 1¹

Mrs Lamplugh’s cordial water – 2

Frighted to death by faries – 4²

Of strong October at the hall – 14³

Bewitched – 7

Old women drowned upon the trial for witchcraft – 3⁴

Led into a horse pond by a will of the whisp – 1⁵

Vagrant beggars worried by Esquire Lamplugh’s housedog – 2

The Stainmore Hand of Glory

The Spital Inn at Stainmore was in an interesting location. A completely wild part of the country even now, it was for centuries the main route into the Eden Valley and northern Cumbria. During the eighteenth century, the Spital Inn was a crucial part of the long-distance coaching route, and was the place where the national mail coach changed horses before heading down the hill in either direction.

At some point at the end of the eighteenth century – possibly 1797 – the innkeeper, George Alderson, was preparing to settle for the night when an old lady appeared at the door and asked if she could sleep by the fire. Alderson was not a man to turn the needy away, so he assented but asked his maid Bella to sleep downstairs, too.

Long Meg & her daughters

I confess to a great liking for Long Meg. For one, I live very near to it and being handy for one of this land’s ancient monuments really tickles my historian’s cockles. It’s enormous – some say the third biggest in the country, but frankly, I’ve also heard second, fourth, fifth and sixth – so let’s just agree that, at a diameter of 109m, it is really big.

The largest of the stones in the circle is 3.3m high and estimated to weigh 28 tons. There are 27 stones still standing in the circle, with a whole load of others reclining. ‘Long Meg’ herself is an outlyer, made from local sandstone, and is 3.7m high. The pink stone has a strange quality in certain lights – it ‘glitters’ – and it’s then that you catch sight of the faint, eerily ancient, spiral carvings.

Michael Scot, wizard or genius? (c.1175-1235)

I feel there should probably be something of a drum roll here. Scot was an extraordinary man – it’s even been said that he was the leading intellectual of his generation. His story deserves a much longer telling (and I promise to add more), but here’s the synopsis.

Michael Scot lived in the 13^th century. He is said to have built a church in a single night; thrown rocks on to Carrock Fell, and turned a coven of witches to stone to create Long Meg stone circle. He could summon demons, and command the sea; he cured the illnesses of the Holy Roman Emperor, and measured the distance to the stars.