Latest Folklore

Babcary Tout or Wimble Toot.

A question with regard to the traditional battle of Babcary was asked [in this newspaper] in February 1934 by a reader, who said it was believed that a battle was fought in the valley around Babcary where the trenches and a burial mound are still to be seen.

Nothing definite with regard to any such battle appears to be known, but one reader replied that “two fields at Foddington are called ‘Peace’ for there the peace was signed.

“The burial mound, 45 yards by 25 by 3 yards high, has fourteen large trees on it. One has fallen, but the wood is not alllowed to be used by order of the Graves Commission. Within the memory of residents there was an iron fence and gate, but they have been somehow mislaid. This big mound... has the name of ‘Wimbletout.’ ”

[...] the word ‘piece’ frequently enters into field names. Is it not more than possible that the name of the fields at Foddington is ‘Piece’ and that this has become confused with ‘Peace’ and so given rise to the tradition mentioned by the correspondent quoted above? – M.

In the Taunton Courier, 30th October 1937.

T.M. Murchison was minister of Glenelg in the 1930s, and his mother’s people had been shepherds in the area for many generations. His parish history was compiled partly from oral tradition gleaned from older relatives and older parishioners. ‘The most famous antiquities in Glenelg’ he records, ‘are the two brochs or “Pictish towers” in Glenbeg.’ At one time apparently there at least two more, but of these only ‘a heap of jumbled boulders and stones’ remained by this time. Dun Telve and Dun Troddan, however, still stand. It is said when the brochs were being built, stones were handed from the quarry along a chain of men.

A broch or ‘brugh’ is an archaeological term for the late prehistoric round towers found chiefly in the Orkney and Shetland islands and the Western Isles and on the adjacent Scottish mainland. They are round stone-built towers, and are often popularly supposed to have been built by the Picts or Pechts. Here, however, the brochs are associated with Fionn mac Cumhaill or Fingal and his followers the Fianna, said to have lived in these brochs and resorted to Skye for their hunting. The women of the band, says Murchison, never took food in the presence of their menfolk, but nevertheless remained healthy and beautiful, and the men wondered how the women managed to live on so little nourishment. One day, therefore, while the other men went to Skye, a warrior named Gairidh (pronounced Gary) pretended to be ill and was left lying on his bed, intending to watch the women.

He fell asleep, however, and the women promptly took strong wooden pegs and fastened Gairidh’s seven locks to the bottom of the bed, to keep him out of the way, and they proceed to feast on the finest food that glen or river could produce. Gairidh suddenly awoke, was irritated to find he was fastened to the bed, leapt to his feet with a mighty effort, and in doing so left every lock of his hair and the skin of his skull on the bed. mad with pain, Gairidh rushed out, gathered brushwood which he placed around the locked door, and set fire to the dwelling with the women inside, so that none escaped.

Over in Skye, Fionn and the hunters saw the smoke rising and knew that some terrible disaster taken place. They hurried back, vaulting on their spears over the narrow channel to the mainland. One of them named Reithe did not leap far enough and was drowned, and the name of the place from which he jumped, Kylerhea, is said to be derived from

Caol Reithe, ‘the Narrows of Reithe’.

Fionn and his men found their women dead and Gairidh missing, but at last he was discovered skulking in a cave and was punished.

An almost identical tradition was reported of Knockfarrel by Hugh Miller in 1835, and used by him to account for the name of Glen Garry, said to be where the murderer was torn to pieces. The tale is a better fir for Glenelg, much nearer to Glen Garry, and Murchison adds further local details: at Kylerhea, he says, you can see the marks made by the warriors’ feet as they jumped the water, and at Bernera nearby is a site called Iomair nam Fear More (’the Ridge of the Big Men’), pointed out as the burial place of the ‘Fingalians’ (the Fianna or Fenians).

It is said that once upon a time a bold man began ploughing up the place, in defiance of local warnings. He turned up a human skull, which was so big that it easily fitted over the biggest man present(alleged to be the Rev. Colin MacIver, minister of Glenelg from 1782 to 1829). Just at that point, however, a terrible storm of thunder and lightning arose, and the ploughing speedily ceased and the skull of ‘Gairidh’ or some other Fingalian was promptly buried again.

The Fianna were commonly said to be of giant size, so the finding of an unusually large skull may have helped to associate them with the site.

The Lore Of Scotland – A Guide To Scottish Legends

Westwood and Kingshill

It is not surprising that the Grenish Stone Circle should be supernaturally protected, if it was truly the crowning place of the Pictish kings. This tradition was reported by Otta Swire in 1963: ‘The last king to be crowned there was King Brude, so the old gardener we had at Kingussie told me.’ He had been told this as a boy by his grannie who came from Aviemore, and she had heard it from her grannie, a noted wise woman or witch. Acording to the gardener’s grannie, when a Pictish king died, all who hoped to succeed him gathered at the circle, where the Druids invoked the spirits who told them which claimant to crown and other things besides. When the spirit was summoned at the death of the forty-eighth king, he told them to cron King Brude but he would be the last they crowned. Thinking this meant the downfall of the Pictish kingdom, they asked more questions but only got an enigmatic answer:

Living die, Dying live

When the king was crowned it was customary to raise three spirits, and for the King to ask each a question, the first of which must be:

What of my reign?

When Brude asked this question, he couldn’t understand the reply: the spirit was that of an Irish champion who spoke only Gaelic, while Brude only spoke the Pictish language. Fortunately a bilingual Druid was on hand to translate, telling Brude that one greater than he would come out of the sea, rule in his kingdom above him, and make him great. The prophecy referred to the coming of St Columba and his conversion of King Brude to Christianity.

As with a number of Otta Swire’s stories, it is uncertain if this is a popular tradition or a romantic fiction. In some respects it sounds suspiciously like the revelation in Macbeth of Banquo’s royal descendants, although it is of course entirely possible that Shakespeare based his scene on a report of ancient Scottish custom.

Stones from religious sites whether ancient or modern should not be removed. Such is the prevalent , recorded at Fyvie Castle (near Turriff) and the Hill O’ many Stanes (Northern Highlands) among other places. C. G. Nash, in 1906, recorded that a stone taken from the circle at Grenish was once taken to be used as a lintel over the doorway of a byre, but when it was in place the cattle were afraid of entering. Consequently it was taken back to the circle and an ordinary slab used, which the cattle were happy to pass.

The Lore Of Scotland – A Guide To Scottish Legends

Westwood & Kingshill

The Iron Age hill-fort at the summit of this prominent dome-shaped hill is said to have been the ancient capital of Lothian. From it in 1919 was unearthed the Traprain Treasure, about 160 pieces of mainly of mainly fifth-century Roman silver, probably the buried loot of a robber, now in the Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.

The Lore Of Scotland – A Guide To Sottish Legend

Westwood & Kingshill

By the shore of Loch Scridain in Ardmeanach is Dun Bhuirg (the name combines the Gaelic and Norse words for fort). Like other prehistoric forts, it was thought to be inhabited by fairies. One day a woman living nearby was at her weaving and exclaimed, ‘it is about time the people of the hill were coming along to give me a hand.’ Suddenly she was overrun with fairies from the dun who swiftly turned all the wool into cloth. When they asked for payment for their work, she shouted, ‘Dun Bhuirg is on fire!’ The fairies rushed off and were not seen again, but surprisingly did not punish her for the mean trick she had played on them.

This story from P.A. McNab’s Isle of Mull (1970) is a variant on an earlier tale repeated all over the Highlands, set in similar places with similar names. In around 1860, John MacLean of Tarbert in Argyllshire supplied John Francis Campbell with a version very like the one above, although the Argyllshire woman is not trying to avoid paying but is overwhelmed by the fairies’ eagerness for work, like wizard at Creag Mhor and Creag Bheag (Northern Highlands). macLean adds a verse spoken by the fairies while at their work and another when they depart in haste, mourning their possessions lost in the supposed fire, the latter translated by Campbell as:

My mould of cheese, my hammer, and anvil,

My wife and my child, and my butter crock;

My cow and my goat, and my little meal kist;

Och, och ochone, how wretched am I!

A slightly different tale was told of the hill of Dunvuilg in Craignish, Argyllshire, where the call of fire is given by an envious neighbour of the woman whom the fairies are helping, and Campbell heard yet another version in Lewis ‘from a medical gentleman, who got it from an old woman, who told it as a fact, with some curious variations unfit for printing’. these unprintable details may possibly have concerned throwing urine at the fairies, a technique adopted, for instance, at Dunvegan Castle.

The Lore Of Scotland – A Guide To Scottish Legends

Westwood & Kingshill

The Bean-nigh or Nigheag (’washer-woman or ‘little washer’) is a spirit who presides over those about to die, and washes their shrouds in lakes or rivers while singing a dirge. She may be so absorbed in her task that she can be taken unawares, and will then grant her captor three wishes: it used to be said of anyone particularly successful that he had got the better of the washerwoman.

A follower of Clanranald of the Isles was going home alone one night to Dun Bhuidhe when he saw the washerwoman by a ford, ‘washing and rinsing, moaning and lamenting’. Creeping up unseen and unheard, he seized her:

‘Let me go,’ said ‘nigheag,’ ‘and give me the freedom of my feet, and that the breeze of reek coming from thy grizzled tawny beard is anear putting a stop to the breath of my throat’. Much more would my nose prefer, and much rather my heart desire, the air of fragrant incense of the mist of the mountains.‘

He said he would let her go in return for his three wishes: for the creek of his home town to have plenty of seaweed (used as fertiliser), for himself to get his chosen wife, and to know who the washerwoman’s shroud was for. For Clanranald was the answer. The man took the shroud on the point of his spear and threw into the loch, then ran to his chief. Hearing the news, Clanranald ordered a cow to be killed and a coracle made from its hide, and when the boat was prepared he embarked on the waves, and never returned to Benbecula.

The man who brought the news was named Lad Of The Wet Foot, because, explains Alasdair Alpin MacGregor, retelling the story in 1937 from an earlier version, his duty was to walk in front of his chief and take the dew or rain off the grass. In this tale the Lad ‘walked in front’ in a more symbolic sense: his warning gave Clanranald the chance to prepare for his end with dignity, although death, once foretold, could not be escaped.

The Lore Of Scotland – A Guide To Scottish Legends

Westwood & Kingshill

Once when the River Don was in flood, a man needed to cross it to attend a relative’s deathbed. The river had a resident Kelpie, a dangerous water-spirit which could, however, appear helpless or even helpful. This creature appeared and offered to carry the traveller across the swollen stream; the man agreed, but when they got to the middle of the river the Kelpie tried to drown him. Luckily he managed to escape and scrambled up onto the riverbank. Baulked of his prey, the angry Kelpie threw a large boulder after him, which still rests on the bank and is still known as the Kelpie’s Stane.

The Lore of Scotland : A Guide To Scottish Legends

Westwood & Kingshill

West of Stornoway an avenue of stones leads across the moors to a circle of thirteen pillars around a chambered cairn about 4,000 years old. Fir Bhreig, ‘The False Men, is the gaelic name for the group. In Ireland, many standing stones are known as far-bhreaga or ‘false man’, these are usually being solitary menhirs which from a distance look like people, their ‘falseness’ lies in their not being human as they appear.

the Lewis pillars are said to be giants who refused to build a church for St Keiran and were therefore turned into stone. Such retributory legends are common in folk tradition, and the meta-morphosed beings may be believed to recover their power of motion at certain times, becoming able to walk or even to dance. The sin which they were petrified is often that of having danced on the Sabbath.

A second account of Callanish is that the stones were brought to Lewis in ships by a priest-king and set up there by black men under the guidance of priests in feathered robes, and another belief was that ‘The Shining One’ appeared there on mid-summer morning to walk the length of the avenue, heralded by the cry of the cuckoo, the bird of the Celtic land of youth Tir-nan-Og. It used to be the custom for local families to visit the stones on that day and on May Day at first openly and then in secret when such practices were condemned by the Kirk.

It is said that once during famine on the island a woman was so desperate that she went to sea intending to drown herself, but saw a white cow which appeared from the waves and told her that she and all her neighbours should bring their milk pails to the stones of Callanish that night. When they did so, the cow provided them with a pailful of milk, and this bounty continued until a witch brought a sieve instead of a pail. as the cow could not fill it however hard she tried, she was milked dry, and was never seen again on the island. The power of witches to get abnormal supplies of milk from cows, whether ordinary animals or magical ones, was well know.

The Lore Of Scotland : A Guide To Scottish Legends

Westwood & Kingshill

The barrow gets it’s alternative name of Cromwell’s Grave from the local tradition that one of Cromwell’s Roundheads was captured, killed and buried there. (Source: Internet)

Imagine an ancient time at Rubh’ an Dùnain around 3000 years ago.

A small procession winds its way towards a stone cairn overlooking Loch Brittle to the north, and behind them to the south, their own little settlement of stone and turf.

They circle the lochan and make their way up a sacred path, leaving the shelter of the natural dip in the terrain to face the chilling wind that blows across the ridge and the entrance to the House of the Dead.

The bier that carries the dead body is lowered at the doorway of the burial chamber and bowls of offerings are placed on the ground. Then the ritual begins, ending with shifting the body and bowls inside the chambered cairn to lie beside the human bones of those who have gone before.

Such an event is part of the story of Rubh’ an Dùnain. The House of the Dead – a chambered cairn known as a Barpa in Gaelic – remains in ruins to bear testimony to such ancient rituals.

Archaeologists say the chamber is one of many on the Atlantic coastline from Spain to the Shetlands with some evidence that those who lived in this hidden headland were not only fishermen, but farmers too.

Skye’s Hidden Heritage

“Bervie Brow,” so called, is a promontory on the north side of the Bervie stream, and its very existence seems to bar any extension of the railway to the north. Another name of the “Brow” is “Craig Davie,” based on the tradition that King David II landed here from France under shipwreck. This King turned the hamlet into a Royal Burgh in virtue of a charter granted in 1362, which charter again was renewed by James VI in 1595. In connection with the King David Charter a rather curious story may be related. The Royal patronage, it is said, was given on account of the kindness the inhabitants extended to the ruling monarch when his vessel struck the rocks referred to above. The tradition is that the King on reaching “terra firma” met a party of fishermen, who were cooking fish on the beach. On soliciting a share of their repast, one of the fishermen gutted a couple of fishes and put these on the fire. Another fisherman shouted out “Gut three.” The King noticing this generosity addressed the former speaker in doggerel rhyme thus:
“Then Gut-three
Your name shall be.”
And henceforth, it is said, the man was known as “Guthrie”, a surnamme now quite common all over N.E. Scotland.

From the Montrose Standard, 22nd April 1921.

mysteriousbritain.co.uk/ancient-sites/weeton-cairn-boggart/

Weeton Cairn probably comes under a “site of disputed antiquity.” Now also under the embankment of the M55. As for the boggart......

Replies To Queries. 496 – The Golden Valley.

The origin of this name goes right back to the days of the Druids – indeed, farther than that. At Upton Cheyney in the Golden Valley may be seen some stones called Druidical stones. Their tops are lichen-covered and the weather of centuries has smoothed their surface here and there, and stunted them, leaving them inviolate and deserted, sole survivors of a pagan temple.

There is a tradition that somewhere near them lies buried a golden calf. Here then is a remnant of the rite of Mithras. My father came from this district and he has told me of several attempts made to discover this golden calf.

I believe the Bath Archaeological Society found some remains here many years ago. The valley where the golden calf was worshipped many centuries ago thus keeps its name in the present name of “The Golden Valley.” – S.W. Hayward, Westmead, N.S.W.

Bath Weekly Chronicle and Herald, 13th February 1937.

The field on which the [annual ploughing match of the Moulin Agricultural Association] took place was a nice slope below Baledmund House, on Pitfourie Farm, kindly granted for the occasion by Mr Charles McLauchlan, tenant of the farm. At the south end of the field stands an old monolith which has long been an object of historic interest and conjecture. This large upright block is believed to be a very old Druidical stone, which probably marked the burial ground of some ancient Pictish chief.

The ground in the neighbourhood of the stone was at one time the site of Moulin Market, which lasted for a week, and this stone was known in Gaelic as “The stone of the bargains,” as when a bargain was concluded it was usual to shake hands across the stone, no doubt following some custom that has been lost in the mists of antiquity.

A little to the west of the stone is a knoll on which a few larch trees are growing, and which is known in Gaelic as “The knoll of the cattle,” where the cattle were herded on the occasion of a market. An examination of this knoll, however, a few years ago showed that it was chiefly artificial, and that it had formed the site of an old fortified dwelling. The artificial mound is about ten feet high, having a breadth of about forty feet, and the top had at one time been surrounded by a palisade.

The ‘Carn a’ Mheanbh-Cruidh’ is marked on Canmore’s map, though there’s no recent investigation of it to fix a date to it. I’d like to think the origin of the name is a bit more ancient and romantic than just sticking cows on it on market day (surely a trickier plan than popping them in a pen on flat ground). Mentioned in the Perthshire Advertiser, March 4th 1914.

From all I have seen myself of that kind, or read, or heard of, I know not a more singular [Rocking Stone] than that which I am describing. It stands at Castle Treryn, a promontory, consisting of three distinct piles of rocks, near the southermost part of the Land’s End. On the western side of the middle pile, in a very elevated situation, lies this immense stone, so evenly poised, that a hand, nay a finger, may move it.

And what is still more singular, not any force, however applied in any mechanical way, can remove it from its present situation. It was on a holiday, not long ago, that a vast number of miners and peasants assembled together, for the purpose of hurling this prodigious rock into the sea. Every effort was exerted, and all their force applied to no purpose. The vast orb moved as if to mock their toil, but still retained its equilibrium. The people beheld it with astonishment: they concluded it was retained by superanatural agency, and returned venerating the stone.

Those who are hereafter to visit this place, and have not yet beheld this almost miraculous spectacle, will rejoice that it still keeps its centre, and resists every effort to move it. Yet if it was to fall, I much wish to be a witness of its overthrow. So huge a mass precipitated, like the stone of Sisyphus, and rolling with prodigious ruin from precipice to precipice, over rocks into the sea, must afford a very striking spectacle.

As my favourite podcaster says, “Be careful what you wish for.” I’m glad they put it back up though; I think very fondly of my visit to see it and would recommend it to anyone. From E.D. Clarke’s ‘Tour through England and Wales in 1791.‘

Near Steeple Barton is another ruined cromlech, also called the “Hoar Stone,” which is now only a confused heap of small stones, having been broken up by an ignorant farmer. Some fifty years ago it was much more perfect, and two of the side stones were standing about four feet out of the ground.

“They used to say that whenever they tried to drag them two pebbles away with horses, they would roll back of their own accord. Them two pebbles growed out of little uns; at least that’s my way of thinking.”

- From George Nevill, of Yarnton, aged 74, March 1901.

Stray Notes on Oxfordshire Folklore by Percy Manning, in Folklore v13 (September 1902).

As country folk will tell you, that bird called the oystercatcher, boldly dressed in black and white with a long straight bright red bill, has largely taken the place of the once-common lapwing, or “peesie-weep” in our fields. It’s a bird with several names – sea pie, mussel-picker, and “the bird of St Bride.”

A reader tells me that when he was up Kingennie way recenty he noticed a small flock of oystercatchers busily feeding in a newly-ploughed field. ‘I thought it was something of a coincidence that what are called ‘the birds of St Bride’ should be so near that ancient structure near Kingennie house called St Bride’s Ring. The name St Bride’s Ring suggests a religious site, but this is in fact a strongly-built circular hill-fort, defended on three sides by steep rocks, and I have often wondered how it came to be associated with St Bride.‘

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Replying to a query about St Bride’s Ring (Kingennie), our Diarist says it is not known how St Bride became associated with what is really a hill or a headland fort. In its earliest form Kingennie is given as Kingaltenyne, and translated from the Gaelic this means “headland enclosure.”

The fort, with its ring of ponderous stones, has steep rocks on three sides, and a small stream at its base. This, incidentally, is the Monifieth Burn, which has its source in a nearby quarry.

Dundee Courier, 1st March 1988 / 15th June 1992.

There’s lots of tales about St Bride on Brigit’s Sparkling Flame including that when someone was after her on the Hebrides, some oystercatchers kindly covered her with seaweed to hide her (and since then they are ‘Gille-Bhride’, servants of Bride, and even call her name). She was imprisoned by the Cailleach in Ben Nevis, and was rescued on February 1st, releasing Spring. There are many features in the Scottish landscape named after her.

A legend survives in connection with the storming of Entons Castle [at Capel], which relates that the Danes, having captured the stronghold, carried away the castle gates and bell to Anstiebury Camp, whither they also took the female captives accumulated in the course of their victorious progress through the Hundred of Wotton.

The women one night contrived to admit a number of Saxon warriors, who overcame the garrison and afterwards hung the recovered castle-bell in Capel church steeple.

Walter Moore in the Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser, 24th June 1905.

No I don’t know if this happened at the Round. But if local military pixies were going to live anywhere, you’d think it would be here. I suppose he might have meant they were wearing red clothes, like soldiers – this is a comparison you read elsewhere.

An old man at Newquay told me that a Farmer Lane, who lived near Colan about forty or fifty years ago, was riding his horse one night to his farm, when numbers of soldiers sprang up on the horse, all over it. The man said they were very small. I forgot to ask how they were known to be soldiers. – Miss Barbara C. Spooner.

The Cornish Guardian quoting the journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, 28th May 1915.

There is a way up from the beach to the mainland part of Trevelgue Island earthworks that is like a ship’s gangway, between walls of rock. Up this, Bill Pierce said, the invaders drove the cattle they stole. They pastured them on the island, waiting for the ships to come that were attacking other parts of the coast. When the ships came they embarked the cattle and sailed off. I asked where he got this from, and he said, “Old history books.” – Miss Barbara C. Spooner, Coombe Bank, Kingston-on-Thames.

The Cornish Guardian quoting the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, 28th May 1915.

[Bill Pierce of St Columb Minor] said that there is another Piskey Ring near the barrows in the Newquay fields. The men who fought there took their last stand fighting in a circle, back to back, and their blood, falling to the ground, formed the Piskey Ring. I asked Pierce why it was called Piskey Ring, hoping to hear more, but he didn’t know! I remember hearing, about six years ago, though I do not remember if the source was reliable, that people had seen the battle fought in the air, over the Newquay fields.

The same man, Pierce, told me that if anything was thrown into a Piskey Ring at or after midnight, it would be found flung on to the grass outside before daybreak.

Barrow Fields, Newquay. My uncle says he has heard that a headless horseman rides through the air over these fields at midnight, carrying his head under his arm. He did not know who the horseman was, nor that he had even been seen as well as heard. Horses are also heard rushing over head.

Miss Barbara C. Spooner.

The Cornish Guardian, quoting the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, 28rh May 1915.

I [spoke with] an old man of St Columb Minor, called Bill Pierce, who saw Copeland Borlase open the Trevelgue barrows. On the high cliffs, at an equal distance from each of the two Trevelgue tumuli, is a Piskey Ring, with thistles growing here and there on the outer edge. Of this ring he said that it was always there no matter how much the cattle trampled on it. Indeed, I do not remember a year in which I did not notice that Piskey Ring in the same place; I certainly have seen it each summer of ten consecutive years.

The same man, Pierce, told me that if anything was thrown into a Piskey Ring at or after midnight, it would be found flung on to the grass outside before daybreak.

Miss Barbara C. Spencer, Coombe Bank, Kingston-on-Thames.

The Cornish Guardian (quoting the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall), 28th May 1915.

It is surprising what interesting things one may come across in the countryside. I was talking to a farmer acquaintance, Lionel Smart, who, apart from a brief spell as a Fleet Street journalist, has farmed all his life in the Stanton Drew area. A few days before meeting Lionel, I had been in the village and decided to walk round the lanes and across the fields. Near the end of my walk I turned right at the quaint, thatched tollhouse and noticed the sign indicating the stone circles, or the Druids’ Stones, as we have always called them. [...] Lionel then told me a strange story. No matter what time of year you pass by the stones, whether it is the hottest or coldest day, or night, one always encounters a cool breeze. Of course this could have been happening even before the stone circles were put there, but, there again, it could be due to the mystery behind them, of forces there beyond our comprehension.

Brian Woodham reports sceptically in the Somerset Standard, 15th November 1974.

In the same district, near to what must be the most delightfully situated racecourse in the land is the Trundle Hill, Goodwood, which takes its name from an ancient British earthwork on the summit, where is buried Aaron’s golden calf, upon which His Satanic Majesty keeps a paternal eye. To quote Clare Jerrold:

“People know very well where it is – I could show you the place any day.”
“Why don’t you dig it up then?”
“Oh, that is not allowed; He would not let me.”
“Well, has any one ever tried?”
“Oh, yes: but it is never there when you look; He moves it away.”

Hastings and St Leonard’s Observer, 1st August 1936.