High above Alderley village in Cheshire, England, lies The Edge. A sandstone escarpment inhabited since Mesolithic times. Local legend tells of The Wizard – an ageless sorcerer. There beneath stone and soil, an army sleeps. Waiting. Only The Wizard can wake them. 

—–

The Western archetype of the venerable, long-bearded, staff-wielding wizard, wearing a wide-brimmed hat or hood, most likely comes from the Old Norse God Odin in his Wanderer guise. 

The word wizard comes from the Middle English “wysard“, meaning “very wise” (interestingly, an “-ard”  ending on many old words simply means “hard“, as in “very” or “lots of“, which makes words like buzzard quite funny). 

Alderley Edge is a village and civil parish in Cheshire, England, 6 miles (10 km) northwest of the town of Macclesfield, and 12 miles (19 km) south of the city of Manchester. The village lies at the base of a steep and thickly wooded sandstone escarpment known as The Edge. There, carved into the sandstone, is the face of a wizard. Of The Wizard. There a natural spring drips water into a carved stone cyst. The words  “Drink of this and take thy fill – for this water falls by the wizard’s will” are engraved above. 

In 1805 a letter was published in the Manchester Mail newspaper, telling the tale of The Wizard of Alderley Edge. This story, the letter writer stated, had been told often by Parson Shrigley, the former Clerk and Curate of Alderley, before his death in 1776. The piece attracted enough attention that a tourist pamphlet was soon printed – expanding the original text somewhat – entitled The Cheshire Enchanter. Below is an extract from that pamphlet.

A Farmer from Mobberley, mounted on a milk-white steed, arrived on the Heath, which skirts Alderley Edge. He was journeying to Macclesfield, to dispose of the horse he then rode at the fair. Deeply musing on his errand, and reckoning on the advantages which might arise from the sale of the animal, he stooped to stroke its neck, and adjust the flowing mane, which the rude wind of the morning had deranged. 

On lifting up his head, he perceived a figure before him, of more than common height, clad in a sable vest, which enveloped his figure; over his head, he wore a cowl, which bent over his ghastly visage, and screened not hid, the eyes, that sunken and scowling, were now fully bent upon the horseman; in his hand, he held a staff of black wood, this he extended so as to prevent the horse from proceeding until he had addressed the rider. When he essayed to speak his countenance became more spectre-like, and in a hollow yet commanding voice, he said 

“Listen, Cestrian! I know thee, whence thou comest, and what is thy errand to yonder fair! That errand shall be fruitless; thy steed is destined to fulfil a nobler fate than that to which thou doomst him. He shall be mine. Vainly thou wilt seek to sell him; yet go and make the trial. Seest thou that Sun, whose beams just gild the beacon tower? When he shall have sunk beneath the western hills, and the pale moon has risen in his stead, be thou in this place! Nay, fear not! no evil shall betide thee if thou obey. Fare thee well! till night shall close again upon the world. ”

Having said this, he walked away. The Farmer, glad to be re-

leased from his presence, spurred his horse and hastened to Macclesfield. 

Here nothing awaited him but vexation and disappointment.

He boasted of the swiftness of his steed—the High blood of his progenitors—his sweetness Of temper and docility—-the surety of his footstep, and pleasantness of pace; he ranked him above all other animals around him, but in vain—no purchaser appeared willing to give the price required, he reduced it to the half, “but still the horse remained unsold.” He thought on the stranger and his morning salutation. He saw the western sky reflect back the last golden ray of the setting sun.

He viewed the Moon rising above the horizon, and mounting “ his milk-white steed,” resolved, at all events to obey the command of the unknown. 

He hastened to the appointed spot, afraid to trust his mind to dwell on the idea of the meeting. He reached the seven firs and

condemned his eagerness when he saw the same figure reclining on a rock beneath. He checked his rapid pace and began seriously to reflect on the probability of mischance. Who the being was that had thus commanded his presence! — who had thus foretold the events of the day, he knew not! If he were mortal, he strength and figure held a fearful superiority over him, should his intention be to ensnare him, or to take his life. Yet mortal strength he feared not—he was brave and had learned the science of self-defence at the wakes and fairs, where broils were very frequent. He blamed his hesitation, and accused himself of cowardice, muttering the local phrase. “I defy him !” “ I defy him!” and again set forward at his former pace. Presently he arrived on the verge of the heath and then suddenly stopped. The idea of the Stranger being an evil spirit, seized upon his mind, and subdued his courage. He gazed in trembling anxiety on him as he sat on the projection before him. The calm and apparently sleeping posture of the object abated his terror: yet he took the precaution to repeat all he could remember of a potent charm, taught him by his grandmother, to protect him from the influence of such as he feared the Stranger to be (It might have been “St. Oran’s Rhyme,” or “St. Fillan’s prayer.” But the Legend does not mention by name therefore I will not pretend to say what it was.) He however, began to think of returning, could he do it unperceived; but at that moment the Stranger rose and advanced towards him. 

“Tis well,” he said, that thou art come. Follow me, and I will give thee the full price for thine animal.” He then turned down the northern road, the horseman following in silent apprehension. They cross the dreary heath, and enter the Wood—they soon reach the Golden Stone—-then by Stormy Point and Saddle Bole they pass—arrived at this extremity, the horseman seemed ready to exclaim “Speak, I will go no farther.” 

At that instant, from beneath their feet issued distinctly the neigh of a horse. The Stranger paused, again the neigh of a horse was heard—he reared his ebon wand, and hollow sounds, like the murmuring of a distant multitude, mingled with the horse’s neigh, which was again repeated. The Farmer gazed in wild affright, on his guide, and now first perceived that he was a Magician; to his terrified imagination, he, at that moment, appeared to have increased in stature far beyond the height of mortal man—his mantle, which now flowed loosely from his shoulders, added to the commanding air of his figure, and, with his arm and wand extended, he muttered a spell—the earth was immediately in a convulsive tremor, and before the Farmer could recover his breath, which had been suspended in his fright, the ground separated and discovered a ponderous pair of Iron Gates. 

The Magician again waved his wand, and with a noise, as it were of an earthquake, the gates unfold. The animal, terrified at the violent concussion, reared and plunged, and threw his rider to the ground. Soon as he recovered his bewildered thoughts, he kneeled before the Enchanter, and in piteous accents, besought him to have mercy on him, and to remember his promise, that “no evil should betide him if he obeyed.” “Nor shall there,” answered the Enchanter, “enter with me, and I will shew thee what mortal eye hath never yet beheld.”

The Farmer obeyed, and beheld a vast cavern, extending farther than his eye could reach; enlightened only by what appeared to be phosphoric vapours, its high arches were adorned by the distillations from the earth above, which had petrified into innumerable points, and illuminated by the unsteady light of the vapour, seemed, at one moment, to increase in number and beauty, and the next to vanish or recede from the view.—–Ranged on each side were horses, each the colour and figure of his own, tied to stalls formed in the rock. —-Near these lay soldiers, accoutred in the heavy chain mail of the ancient warriors of England—these seemed to increase in number as he advanced. In chasms of the rock he saw large quantities of ore, and piled in vast heaps, coins of various sizes and denominations. In a recess, more enveloped in gloom than the rest, stood a chest; this the Enchanter opened, and took from it the price of the horse, which the Farmer received, and fear being lost in astonishment, he exclaimed, “What can this mean?” “Why are these here?” The Enchanter replied, 

“These are the Caverned Warriors, who are doomed by the good Genius of Britain, to remain thus entombed until that eventful day, when over-run by armies, and distracted by intestine broils, England shall be lost and won three times between sun-rise and eventide. Then we, awakening from our rest, shall rise to turn the fate of Britain, and pour, with resistless fury, on the vales of Cheshire. This shall be when George, the son of George, shall reign—when the forests of Delamere shall wave their long arms in despair, and groan over the slaughtered sons of Albion. Then shall the Eagle drink the blood of Princes from the headless cross. But, no more. These words, and more also, shall be spoken by a Cestrian—be recorded and be believed. Now, haste thee home, for it is not in thy time, these things shall be !” 

He obeyed and left the cavern; he heard the Iron Gates close—he heard the bolts descend—he turned to see them once again, but they were no longer visible! He marked the situation of the place, and with a quick step, he pursued his way to Mobberley. He related his adventure to his neighbours, and about twenty of them agreed to accompany him in search of the Iron Gates. They went—- they searched—but in vain! No trace remained; and though centuries have rolled away since that night, no person has ever beheld the Iron Gates.

Phew! Back to comics!

John has a tweet coming, our current intermission schedule will be a tweet every wednesday with a corresponding comic. Pretty much how we’ve done the foklore thursday, except we’re gonna be a little more free with our subject matter. Join us!

[updated to fix the spelling of Alderley]

Cheating a little bit this week as I’ve got a lot going on. Apologies. 

Instead of a brand new short fiction, I’ve dug out something from 2013 which hopefully you’ll enjoy. 

—-

Some people may think it morbid to take pleasure in a visit to a  graveyard. I was once however, not only one who enjoyed such visits, but  who actively sought them out. As a taphophile the diverse ornamentation  of tombs and stones fascinated me and became a hobby of mine. My  interest took me all around this island and, eventually to a small  ex-mining town in the North.

The pit which had once been the lifeblood of the place had collapsed  disastrously some three decades earlier and the community had never  recovered. The once-bustling town was now a morass of blind-eyed broken  windows and slack-jawed black doorways with only a huddle of the more  ancient buildings still occupied.

There was no priest in this place; its church bearing the same aspect  of dereliction as so much of the surroundings and my examination of the  burial-ground was completed more quickly than anticipated, most of the  more ancient monuments having toppled or crumbled from neglect. Even the  stark, lone, large slab inscribed with the names of those who had lost  their lives in the mining tragedy was, I am ashamed to say, something of  a disappointment.

My return journey not being scheduled until the following morning, I  found myself faced with an evening spent in the under-occupied pub, or  else alone in my dingy room above, and neither scenario appealed. My  hobby had furnished me, almost accidentally, with knowledge of the  folklore surrounding burial places, and I found it interesting to note  that this was the eve of the feast of Saint Mark. I decided it might be  amusing to pass my time observing that old custom which Keats so  famously wrote upon – namely that if one watched over a graveyard on  that night, the spectres of those yet to pass in the coming year would  show themselves.

Seated on the mossy church step as midnight approached, the sight of a  figure walking among the crumbling monuments brought me sharply to my  senses. In the bright, clear moonlight I soon recognised the face of the  pub landlord and fear turned to embarrassment. I began to stammer an  apology but the publican only shook his head slowly and sorrowfully.

“They are coming”, the words spoken softly yet somehow left ringing in my ears as he trudged back into the shadows.

And come they did.

Customs have their purposes, forgotten to many though they may be,  and I am witness to what may happen if such rituals are neglected or  ignored. I had seen the next year’s ghost already. The landlord (as you  have guessed) passed away peacefully enough within the allotted course  and was buried in the old churchyard, but no Saint Marks Eve vigil had  been kept in that ruined parish for many years. Those who came shambling  after the publican – who should have come long, long before – could not  be mistaken for the living; their bodies having been crushed and  mangled in that awful cave-in of thirty years previous.

The beach was loud. Not with music blaring from phone speakers, people having picnics, children squealing with laughter, or any of that kind of thing. It wasn’t that sort of beach. Not today. Today the sky was grey, and so was the sea. The waves were loud, and the wind, and the seagulls.   

Will staggered along the grey sand, half blown by the wind at his back, half dragged by the dog at the other end of the lead he held in his hand. Bobby was a shaggy, toffee-coloured mongrel, who stood almost as tall as him when she reared up on her back legs to lick his face. Will was under strict instructions from Gran not to let Bobby off her lead or else the dog would be straight into the sea and stinking up their caravan when they got back. Bobby strained, but it was only in eagerness to snuffle at the next pile of whatever had been stranded when the sea last retreated. 

A shadow of a great black cloud raced along the beach, turning the grey day instantly to twilight.  A sudden furious gust shoved Will to his knees. The waves seemed to roar now, screaming gulls dragged sideways through the air. Sand stung Will’s eyes as the raging wind changed direction. He threw up his arm to cover his face. Bobby’s lead slipped from his hand. 

A high whistling tone rang painfully in Will’s ears. The wind was gone.  Uncovering his face, he saw Bobby standing still as a statue just ahead of him. Her ears pricked, listening intently. The leads handle was only a few feet away. Will reached for it. The whistling stopped. The lead was dragged from reach as Bobby took off at a gallop. Not towards the sea as Will had feared, but towards the sand-dunes which lay between the beach and the caravan park. 

The dunes were hard to climb. There were a few well-trodden sandy paths through their valleys but, if you wanted to get up higher, there were spiky grasses and brambles to contend with, not to mention the gnarled, half-buried fences which were supposed to stop people straying from the path. For every step Will took he seemed to slide backwards half a stride. Eventually, sweat running down his neck, he reached the summit of the highest dune he could manage. 

The air felt strange now that the wind was gone. It made Will think of the way things felt and sounded in an empty school hall. He shouted for Bobby, but his voice didn’t seem to carry as far as it should. He called again, and again. There was no sign of the dog, but something else caught his attention. Something which shone ever so brightly in the dull afternoon. 

The twisted tree grew deep down in a perfectly circular bowl of sand, surrounded by high dunes. It must have been there for centuries, Will thought. The strange wind which had come and gone so suddenly must have somehow reached this long-sheltered spot because the tree had been wrenched violently to one side. Sand trickled down its newly exposed roots and over the mouth of the hollow which had opened up beneath. Something golden shone within. Treasure. 

Without any thought as to how to get back up, Will was about to begin his slide towards the treasure when something made him hesitate. A low, menacing growl. Will turned and Bobby stood behind him, her teeth bared in a snarl which he’d never seen before. The dog wasn’t looking at him though, she was glaring past him at the opposite dune. A second later Bobby’s growl was answered with a sound which Will felt in the pit of his stomach. A low, bass rumble like an approaching underground train. 

The thing which made that sound was as black as a shadow.  Later, Gran would try to convince him it had been a shadow. A trick of the light, caused by the weird weather. Bobby was a big dog. A shaggy dog. So, naturally, her shadow would look even bigger and shaggier. Yes, even as big as a horse. 

Will didn’t tell Gran that the black dog had spoken. Still, he did as it told him. Will never went looking for the tree again, and he never told a soul about the treasure. 

In 1990 work on the Limerick to Galway motorway halted. A lone tree stood in its way. The Hawthorne, according to tradition, belonged to the Sidhe (Ireland’s Fairies). Disturbing such sites is forbidden. A curve was added. The road snaking around the Thorn Tree. 

—–

“This lore is not dead. People think it’s dead […] and the reason they think it’s dead because it’s not being talked about any more. Why is it not being talked about any more? Because people are ashamed to talk about it. If you talk about the fairies today […] you get nudge nudge, wink wink, ha-ha-ha, but the old people used to call them the fairies. The old people used to call them many sideways names.” [1]

These are the words of Eddie Lenihan “Ireland’s greatest living storyteller”, a folklorist, historian, and expert of traditional Irish fairy lore.

In 1999, Eddie made headlines across the world. The following is an excerpt from an article dated June 15th of that year, which appeared in the New York Times:

LATOON, Ireland — Eddie Lenihan, a smallish man with a dark unkempt beard, a wild head of hair and an intense look in his eyes, pointed to the high white-blossomed hawthorn bush standing alone in a large field in this village in western Ireland and issued, not for the first or last time, a warning to local officials:

“If they bulldoze the bush to make way for a planned highway bypass, the fairies will come. To curse the road and all who use it, to make brakes fail and cars crash, to wreak the kind of mischief fairies are famous for when they are angry, which is often.” [2]

The fairy-thorn (sceach in Gaelic) at Latoon was, according to Eddie, an important marker on an ancient fairy path. Specifically, it was believed to serve as the meeting place for the fairies of Munster whenever they prepared to ride against the fairies of Connacht. Lenihan was informed by a local farmer that he had seen white fairy blood at the spot, proving that the hawthorn was still in use by the fair folk. 

Eddie weaponised his storytelling skills as a form of non-violent protest and activism. Repeating the old tales as loudly and widely as he could, he drew the interest of first the national, and then the international press. And it worked. The route of much-delayed motorway, originally was begun in 1990, was ever-so-slightly altered, to skirt around the sacred tree. 

In a letter published in the Irish Times shortly after work was completed, Clare county engineer Tom Carey, who oversaw the project, claimed that there was no influence of the fair folk, however. It was simply easier to go around the tree. That had always been the plan, he insisted. Nothing to do with fairies at all. [3] Still, there are those who were, and who remain, rather sceptical of this official back-pedalling. We all know that people are often ashamed to admit that they believe in fairies these days, but that doesn’t mean they don’t fear the consequences of upsetting them. 

REFERENCES

1. https://eddielenihan.weebly.com
2. https://eddielenihan.weebly.com/in-the-news.html
3. https://www.soundsofsirius.com/the-fairy-tree-that-moved-a-motorway/

Gav Cross.  Storyteller, Theatre Maker, and Teacher. 

• Twitter twitter.com/gavcross 
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Jen didn’t like the owls. She didn’t like the noise they made. That Jurassic World screech. It was a horrible, greedy sound. A wicked sound. 

“Get some exercise“, meant that Jen should go and wear herself out for an hour while mum had one of her Zoom meetings at her kitchen table office. One hour was ten laps around the block. Fifteen if she really went for it. Cycling around the block had been boring from the start, but after three months it had become really boring.

After a while, Jen realised it didn’t really matter where she went, so long as she was back in sixty minutes. She set herself a challenge to see how much of the local area she could cover. Every road, every side-street, alleyway, and track in the neighbourhood, an hour at a time. Then one day, tyres bumping over gnarled roots on an overgrown track known locally as The Fairy Path, Jen heard the owls. 

Eerie screeches mingled with the squeal of brake-pads as she skidded her bike to a stop. The strange sounds Jen thought she’d heard came again, echoing along the narrow, muddy track. Terrified, she looked all around, searching for the source. Something so white it seemed to glow in the dimness of the tree-lined passage drifted silently over her head. 

The barn owls had made their nest high in the hollow trunk of an ancient elm. Jen stood and watched as the adults took turns flying out, only to return carrying tiny wriggling things with brightly coloured wings. Maybe they were butterflies or dragonflies, maybe they were tiny birds. 

The piercing calls of the owlets, hidden somewhere within the elm never seemed to stop, even as meal after meal arrived. Jen really didn’t like that sound. Not just because it had given her such a shock, but because she felt like there was something wrong about it. Something more than hunger, more than greed. Something wicked, she thought.

She couldn’t remember where she’d read it, but Jen knew that owls coughed up the bones, fur, and feathers of their prey. Pellets, they called them. Searching around the base of the elm, she found them. Half a dozen or so dark, damp looking sausage-shaped things. Jen picked them up in an empty crisp packet, pulling the bag inside out like a dog-walker cleaning up after their pet. 

That evening, mum was chatting on the phone to aunty Anne. Aunty Anne’s husband, uncle Dave, delivered parcels. It turned out that uncle Dave had seen Jen pushing aside brambles round the back of the old boarded-up church, making her way onto the Fairy Path. He’d called out to her from his van, but she hadn’t heard him. Jen was in trouble. Mum was furious. No more rides around the block on her own. She couldn’t be trusted. 

Jen knew she’d done wrong. Knew mum wouldn’t be happy if she found out she’d been going further than she was supposed to. Even so, she was surprised just how upset mum was. It was Jen’s ride along the Fairy Path which seemed to upset her the most. 

Days passed. A week.  Jen’s bike leant untouched against the garden shed. 

Mum was in a meeting in the kitchen, but no hour’s exercise for Jen. She had to occupy herself quietly in the house. That was when she remembered the owl pellets. 

Jen found the old magazine where she’d first read about them. To find out what owls had been eating you needed to soak their pellets in water, then carefully tease them apart. The article included pictures of some of the bones you might find. Tiny delicate jawbones, ribs, and vertebrae of rodents and birds.

What Jen found didn’t match anything in the magazine. Each was no larger than the tip of her finger. The bone – if it was bone – so paper-thin that no sooner had she uncovered one it collapsed in on itself, seeming to melt under the glare of the bathroom light. Skulls. 

Tiny skulls with disproportionately huge sockets, where Jen felt certain great big insect-eyes once sat. She remembered the bright, twitching things she’d seen the owls carrying in their beaks. The insatiable screeching of the hungry owlets. That horrible, wicked sound. 

Jen thought of her ride along the forbidden path.

Then she remembered its name.