The Hell Hound

Another tale from a rare folklore book M. H. James's Bogie Tales of East Anglia (Pawsey & Hayes, Ipswich 1891). The setting is almost certainly Aldeburgh, a coastal town in Suffolk, now somewhat gentrified but still with its fisherman on the beach (and in the bars) some of whom still have dogs…

                      The Hell Hound 

At the north end of the town of A--- lie the salt marshes, which are sometimes full, like a lake, after rains or the prevalence of of certain winds, and of which there was a sunset view exhibited in London not long ago.Here a favourite walk of the inhabitants leads across a sort of common, planted with a fir grove; by one or other of two paths, one of which goes through the pine wood and emerges near the station; the other leaves the pine wood on the left, and skirts the mere, crossing the line, and leading into a sandy lane between more pine trees. At the sea end of this waste is a 'kissing gate'...and here it is quite likely that the presiding bogie will meet you, if you walk there after dark.

The bogie is a large black dog, with fiery eyes, and a fierce appearance. Do not, however, be afraid of him, if you keep in the path that leads across the 'line', for all will be well, he will walk 'to heel' as a good dog should, and will only make you feel rather nervous by his odd silent trot; but if you want to go the other way he will show you what he thinks by an awful growling, he will stand in your path and show his teeth,

A Were-Dog Story

Among Peter Haining's books we found this folklore rarity Bogie tales of East Anglia by M. H. James (Ipswich, 1891) - from it comes this slightly  disturbing tale. What the Italian was doing in Lowestoft is anybody's guess.

This tale, which runs as follows, is still common talk among the beach men at Lowestoft. An Italian gentleman, with curly hair and a very dark complexion, asked a fisher-boy of Lowestoft, to become his page, but this the boy refused, as he did not wish to go forge in parts; whereupon the Italian, far from being angry, asked the boy to look after a dog for him, as he was going ways.

Now, the dog had been seen in the town, and its ownership was well known, though, strange to say, the dog and his master had never been seen together. It was a fine dog, a large, curly black retriever, very long and lean.

When the fisher-boy found the gentleman had really gone away, he began to look after the dog, for which he had been very handsomely paid beforehand. Every morning the boy, who was fourteen years old, went out to swim in the sea, and the dog went with him.

The Legend of the Romsey Nuns

This is from Folklore Legends and Superstitious Customs in Connection with Andover and Neighbourhood  by M Gillett (Andover 1917.) A shortish book with were wolves, ghosts, shadows of the firstborn and the Glastonbury holy thorn. This dramatic tale shows how legends are made...

The following legend I admit is rather hard to believe, but I have heard it from two quite different sources, and I relate it as follows:

 When the Danes ravaged Wessex, they marched up to Romsey Abbey, pillaging as they went. The nuns,  terrified at the barbarous and heathen hordes, fled, and supposing Winchester to have shared the same fate, journeyed on to Wherwell Abbey - now Wherwell Priory. But before they arrived at the nunnery they got lost in the woods, which still remain, and many of them perished from exposure and starvation. Tradition says that the nuns sat down in despair, and  in their hopelessness began to abuse the Almighty  and angered Him to such an extent that when they died their souls became wild cats.

But these are the true facts:-

1. The Danes did ravage Romsey.

2. The nuns did flee to Wherwell Priory.

3. A great number did perish in the woods.

4. Some of the oldest inhabitants of Wherwell Priory remember when wild cats did live in the woods.

This legend is as it was told to me, but I cannot be over-certain as to the foundations for it, except the preceding notes.

Warding off the Evil Eye

According to R.C. Maclagan's Evil Eye in the Western Highlands (Nutt, London 19 02) the Evil Eye superstition was widespread in the area well into the late 1800s. Possibly it still lingers in the Western Highlands of Scotland. The simplest way of telling who had the Evil Eye (the 'diagnostic mark') was to look out for persons with different coloured eyes but as he says 'all the parti-coloured eyes in Scotland would not account for a tenth part of the results accredited to evil eyes.' Atrtractive children were particularly prone and various dress codes are suggested to ward it off:

THINGS THAT SPECIALLY ATTRACT 

A woman of twenty-eight, whose information is quite 
reliable, the daughter of a respectable man in one 
of the inner islands, remembers when young people 
talked a great deal about these things, and many were 
very much afraid of them. "The idea was that it 
was always the best and prettiest of beast or body 
that was most liable to be injured by a bad eye. 
(My) youngest brother was awfully pretty when a child. 
They used to have him dressed in a red frock and 
white pinny, and with his fair skin, fair curly hair, 
and red cheeks, he was the nicest-looking child in 
all the place. Many a time, when my father would 
take him out, the neighbours would be warning him 
to take good care lest some one might do the child 
harm, and some would advise my father to go in and 
take the frock and pinny off him, so that he might not 
draw one's attention so much." 

From Ross-shire we hear the same thing. A 
native "remembers when he was young, people be- 
lieved in the Evil Eye and were afraid of it." It 
was supposed that pretty children were specially 
liable to be injured by it, and it was a common 
device with some mothers, in circumstances where 
there was any suspicion of danger, to take care that 
at-least some article of the child's dress would be at 
fault, either in respect of neatness or cleanness, or 
better still, to have one of the child's stockings turned 
outside in when being worn. These were supposed 
to form a protection to the child against injury.