Badbury Rings Hillfort View all content for Badbury Rings

"Some years ago archaeological students, camping on the summit, were disturbed by the clash of metal, the sound of marching men and shouted military orders in a strange tongue. The camp is reported to have been abandoned in panic and one of the students suffered a nervous breakdown" (Wilks 1978, p66). There seems to be a stray member of this company, an old warrior with a twisted leathery face, gashed with wounds, who creeps up on people after dark, with a preference for scaring courting couples. The last sighting was in the autumn of 1977 (Coaster 12p5). There is also a milder ghost, somewhat out of place amongst this archaic barbarity. The Dorset Evening Echo of 19 January 1979 interviewed a woman who had been walking on the site in the afternoon with her husband; he looked back and saw, standing on top of one of the banks, an old lady. "She wore a long blavk coat buttoned up the front and finishing in a little stand up collar. She wore one of those hats like Queen Mary used to wear". The husband turned round to say that they should help her down the slope, but when he and his wife returned to the area they found no such lady. These ghosts are interesting in view of the popularity of the Rings among the Blandford and Wimborne people as a centre for day outings, picnics and so on. The warrior ghosts who frighten the modern visitor are in part a projection of historical musings on the fort, comparing its bloody origins with present tameness:the past is scary. The black lady, by contrast, is a realistic ghost, since little old ladies are quite common at the site on a warm afternoon." Cuckoo Pounds and Singing Barrows - Jeremy Harte

Posted by texlahoma 13th June 2009ce

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