FOLKLORE ON FRIDAY - The Brawny Beasts of County Durham Part II

Last week, we uncovered a tangled legend from Bishop Auckland about a brave knight who slew either a dragon or a monstrous wild boar. And this tale of Sir Pollard and the Brawn shared many similarities with the legend of the Sockburn Worm, a story hailing from a few miles south in County Durham. A highly suspect coincidence to be sure. However stranger still, even closer to Bishop Auckland, the virtually neighbouring town of Ferryhill has its own legend of a monster hog.

The tale is found in The History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham: Volume 3, Stockton and Darlington Wards by Robert Surtees published in 1823. While detailing the history of the area, and noting the various historical traces and relics left by one Sir Roger de Fery, Surtees' recounts this 13th century knight's great claim to fame - the slaying of the Brawn of Brancepeth. He writes - 

The Boar or Brawn of Brancepath was a formidable animal, which made his lair on Brandon-hill, and walked the forest in ancient undisputed sovereignty from the Wear to the Gaunless. The marshy, and then woody vale, extending from Croxdale to Ferry-wood, was one of the brawn's favourite haunts, affording roots and mast, and the luxurious pleasure of volutation. Near Cleves-cross, Hodge, of Ferry, after carefully marking the boar's track, dug a pitfall, slightly covered with boughs and turf, and then toling on his victim by some bait to the treacherous spot, stood armed with his good sword across the pitfall,— “At once with hope and fear his heart rebounds.” At length the gallant brute came trotting on his onward path, and seeing the passage barred, rushed headlong on the vile pitfall. 

Now according to local historians this is the earliest record of the story of the slaying of the beast by Roger/Hodge of Fery. However is it curious that Surtees includes a quote in this recounting of the tale - “At once with hope and fear his heart rebounds” - and quite where this line comes from is unclear. I can find no trace of it anywhere else. Is it a quote from Surtees' source for the tale?

Some digging on my part turned up what appears to be an earlier version, told in verse, although annoyingly lacking Surtee's mystery quote. In another old tome The History of the Urban District of Spennymoor published in 1893, by author James J Dodd relates the Ferryhill legend, often almost quoting some of Surtees' phrasing. However deviating from his predecessor's account, he includes the following verse- 

He feared not ye loute with hys stalfe,
Ne yet for ye knyghte in his mayle;
He cared ne more for ye monke with his boke,
Than ye fiendis in depe Croixdale.
Then out spake Hodge yt wyghte soe bolde,
Yt wous on Fery hye;
And he hathe swome by Seynct Cudberte hys rode,
Yt thys horride brawne shall dye;
And he hathe dygged a depe, depe pit,
And strewed it with braunches so grene

Clearly Dodd's quote is but a fragment, and one that tantalizingly cutting off just where the Surtees line might have appeared. And so far, I have been unable to discover either a complete version or a definite origin for it.  Now I have found this old poem appearing with a date of 1208 attached to it, but its actual provenance has been difficult to ascertain. To further muddy the waters, the Victorians, with their passion for heritage and history, recreated a great many old traditions, and hence there is the possibility that this verse, despite being penned in convincing early English, is actually the product of a later century, a Victorian recreation of an imagined lost ballad perhaps.

However the 1208 date does match the historical record, for indeed there was a knight named Roger de Fery in that time. Local tradition has it that the name of the local area 'Brancepeth' is actually derived from 'brawn's path', as this is where the beast reputedly roamed. However scholars in recent times have cast doubt on this, claiming it more likely comes from 'Brant's path', named after a family that made its home in that locale. But as Surtees remarks "The story has nothing very improbable, and something like real evidence still exists", and goes on detail the legacies of Sir Roger that still exist today. These including his alleged tomb in the parish church of Merrington, a twelfth century grave whose slab bears the carved sign of a crossed sword and a spade. As Mr Dodd remarks - 

Seeing that the sword and the spade were the instruments of his famous victory, it needs a very slight stretch of imagination to identify this stone as the actual tombstone of Hodge of Fery. 

However local lore identifies two other places linked with the legend. As Dodd relates, in 1867 the remains of a large pit were discovered while repairing a stackyard, which was quickly assumed to be the very trap dug by Sir Roger. This may seem like a leap of logic, but some years earlier on the same farm, a large stone was dug up which is purported to be all that remains of a cross erected to mark the spot where Sir Roger slew the beast. The area where it was discovered is now known as Cleves Cross after it, and there is a plaque set into a nearby wall that claims - 

The large stone just above ye part of Cleves Cross marks the site where by tradition the Brawn of BRANCEPETH was killed by ROGER de FERY about the year 1200

The current plaque is a recent facsimile, but the original can still be seen in Ferryhill town hall (which also sports the gorgeous stained glass window seen at the heading of this piece).

While the stone is definitely the remains of a medieval monument, in truth we cannot be sure the cross does actually commemorate the slaying of the beast. Some historians postulate that the cross was more probably a way point or marker for pilgrims to Durham Cathedral, but to be frank that is unsupported supposition too, and  I suspect is more a product of an attempt to rid history of something embarrassing like a monster legend. But is a 13th knight hunting down a ferocious wild hog really that unlikely?

To begin with wild boar were still to be found in England at that time, although by the start of the 13th century their numbers were falling and they were being considered something of a menace. Furthermore as tales of monster slaying go, the tale of the Brawn of Brancepeth is highly plausible; the legend actually lacks all the mythic touches one would expect. It features a real animal, and there are no charms or magic involved. It is in fact a rather straight forward account of hunting a dangerous animal, with none of the usual narrative embroidery of the boar's ferociousness or size, nor some lavish reward for brave Sir Roger to round it out into a traditional story or folk tale.

More importantly, the historical record has some very strong evidence to back up the old tale. The traditions of heraldry in that period allowed a man to place in his arms the likeness of any notable beast he had slew. And hence, as Surtees' records, the seals of the de Fery family in that era do indeed show a boar - with Sir Roger's own showing the full beast, while his daughter Maude's just the head.

Given these seals and the carved device on Sir Roger's tomb, it is therefore very much looks like we have a story here rooted in fact rather than fiction. And as we shall discover next time, slaying wild boars was a not uncommon feat for brave men of that era, however many such stories are not as well supported as Sir Roger's by the historical record... And returning to the Pollard legend we will discover why having a beast slayer in the family was so desirable.

FOLKLORE ON FRIDAY - The Brawny Beasts of County Durham Part I

While browsing local legends online, I came across a brief mention of a tale of a limbless worm that reputedly made its lair in a wood outside Bishop Auckland, a little country town literally just down the road from my own. Now the North of England has many legends of great wyrms and dragons, but this one was new to me. And so I did some digging, and in The Works of Sir Walter Scott Volume III (1806) I discovered a fuller account. While discussing the border ballad Kempion, Scott talks at length about the tradition of dragons and wyrms in the North; he recounts the tale of another local dragon, the Sockburn Worm which we have discussed before, and tells of how tradition demands that a new Bishop of Durham is presented with the falchion that slew the beast on his first entrance into the diocese at Croft-on-Tees. But then he goes on to mention a knight slaying a worm at at Bishop Auckland. 

Now what was interesting was that Scott relates that this legend inspired a suspiciously similar ritual involving a falchion and the Bishop of Durham too. I say suspiciously similar for what are the odds of having two dragon-slayers, in the same county, within a few miles of each other, who are both  rewarded with lands and commemorated by presenting exactly the same type of weapon to the local bishop? Surely this was but the same tale but mistakenly attributed to the wrong town and noble family. 

Fortunately for us, Scott quotes his sources, an old tome called Ancient Tenures. It was written by one Thomas Blout in the early 17th century, but was later expanded by other scholars. And hence an edition published in 1815 by by S.Brooke for Butterworth & Son of London has the full title - Fragmenta antiquitatis: or, Ancient tenures of land, and jocular customs of manors (Enlarged and corrected by Josiah Beckwith; with considerable additions from authentic sources, by Hercules Malebysse Beckwith) - and in it we find the following passage - 

Now judging by the dates given in the text, the account of the Pollard's Lands falchion rite dates from long after old Thomas Blout had passed away, and hence is clearly a later addition, most likely a new expansion for this 1815 edition. Now as the scholarship of the 18th and 19th century can be sometime a little muddled with its facts, I tried to find other, and preferably earlier, mentions of the Pollards and a serpent. And in an even older tome I found this reference, which although brief, sheds a very different light on the matter -  

The owners of the land are to doe at every Bishop's first coming to be Bishop here to present him with the Falchion with which the Bore was slayne

from Parliamentary Surveys of the Bishopric of Durham 1649-1650

And so, here was the key to the mystery - there was good reason why I hadn't heard of a dragon tale from Bishop Auckland, for the monster in question was actually a vicious wild boar rather than a serpent! And with that important fact uncovered, it was not difficult to uncover many versions of the tale of the Brawn of Bishop Auckland and its slaying by a knight of the Pollard family.

Now Bishop Auckland was once a place of deep forests and wildwoods, indeed it is said that the town grew from a hunting lodge built there by the Bishops of Durham. With the local woodlands and hills providing excellent sporting opportunities, the little town grew and the Bishops of the county built a great hall there, and later a palatial castle. At some point, alleged in the Middle Ages, a monstrous boar appeared in the woods. Reputedly the size of a cow, this gigantic porker terrorized the area, attacking both man and beast. Naturally this dangerous brawn (as such boars were called) was a great menace to the local folk and was putting a serious dent in the nobility's hunting trips too. Therefore the Bishop of Durham placed a bounty on the beast's head in the hope some brave soul would slay go out and slay it.

A knight named Sir Richard Pollard took up the challenge and tracked the dreaded brawn into the woodland lair, and after a long battle he finally slew the monstrous hog. Sir Richard cut out the boar's tongue and then, being extremely fatigued by the mighty and bloody battle, collapsed into a deep sleep by the still cooling carcass of the brawn. However a cunning fellow happened by the sleeping knight and knowing of the bounty on the brawn, spirited its body away and claimed the reward from the bishop. Naturally Richard was horrified when he awoke, and rode with all haste to the Bishop's palace at Bishop Auckland. The trickery was soon revealed when Sir Richard produced the beast's missing tongue, and in recompense the Bishop offered Sir Richard ownership of all the lands he could ride around before the Bishop had finished his meal. The Bishop however was rather shocked when Sir Richard returned mere minutes later, and the clergyman was even more horrified when he discovered the reasons why. For the wily Sir Richard had rode around Auckland itself, which of course included the Bishop's beloved castle, palace and lands. Of course the Bishop would not honour the agreement but was so impressed by Sir Richard's cunning, he awarded him tracts of the most fertile lands in the county, which of course became Pollard's Lands, and which now survive as Pollard's Dene.

A highly entertaining tale no doubt. But how did a monstrous boar become confused with a great serpent? Well it has been suggested that the confusion arises from an old Germanic word Gewurm which referred to any sort of dangerous wild animal, and has the same origin as the English word 'vermin'. It's a nice theory, however it is one that is rather problematic - firstly there is a clear mismatch of several centuries from when it was possible such Germanic words were still readily peppering the developing English language and the period from which this story purportedly dates, for it is a medieval tale not a Saxon one. Furthermore the Oxford English Dictionary has no entry for 'gewurm' which rather suggests the word was never in common currency in  these isles, and likewise lexicons of Old English  fail to include it too.

A more likely explanation in my view is that thanks to the often broad nature of North Eastern accents, somewhere along the line a visitor from Southern England misheard 'brawn' as 'wyrm'. While accents in County Durham might not always be as thick as Tyneside's Geordie, however the different vowel sounds and speaking cadences in the region could very easily result in a visitor to the area confusing 'wyrm' with 'brawn'. And in the realm of folklore it would not be the first time the confusing of a name lead to the birth of a new legend.

So then, that is one possible explanation for Bishop Auckland having twin legends of knights fighting dragons and boars. However this neat wrap-up of the mystery is somewhat unraveled when you learn that the little town of Ferryhill, which lies less than ten miles away, has a suspiciously similar legend of a brave knight slaying a monstrous boar! Clearly there is some chicanery going on here as we now have three separate but over-lapping legends in the same twenty mile area!

If you will pardon the pun, someone somewhere here is telling porkies! And next time we will discover which naughty knight is telling fibs and discover more about the monster brawns of the North East!