A comeback to ward off the gremlins.

(Story: Neil Churchman)

Superstitious managers at Hinkley Point Nuclear power station are hoping a 2 1/2 foot pixie will stamp out gremlins at the plant. Problems have plagued Hinkley Point for some time and last month the station was put out of action by floods. Part of the station was once a Bronze Age burial site and a mysterious mound, known as Pixie Mount has been left there overgrown and untouched.

A model pixie handed over when the plant was opened in 1966 was removed when Prince Charles toured the station 18 months ago. But now officials have decided the pixie should be brought back - just in case he was responsible for the floods on December 13. "Pixies don't like to be moved," said station manager Mr John Outram. "I don't think we will be moving him again."

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.

I wonder if you can throw any light on the following experience I had some 12 or 14 years ago? I had taken my family on Mendip Top, somewhere near Castle of Comfort, and we were picnicking, having boiled our kettle with pine chips, I remember, when a roughish man, driving a rougher horse, attached to a vehicle, half cart, half trap, harness mainly rope, made me feel a foot taller by suddenly asking, 'Would you like to rent a couple of hundred acres of shooting?'

I was a town dweller then, and renting that enormous-sounding acreage of shooting associated itself in my mind with house parties, keepers, and beaters and 'bags.' But I remember the description or specification of this 200 acres included 'They do say there be a king of the Romans buried there, buried in a golden coffin.' What do you know of this, or have you unearthed it? Is it popular legend? I cannot believe the individual who uttered it originated the story.

Yours faithfully, E.A. Davies, Portbury.

A Quantock Hills Ghost Story.

"Miss Williams, of Over Stowey, was returning home from Watchet late in the evening, and near .... her pony fell and hurt his knees so badly that she was obliged to walk. After proceeding some distance, finding it was growing dark, and still seven or eight miles from home, she engaged a young countryman at Putsham to accompany her. It soon became very dark, and as they were passing through a thick wood and the ground was very wet, and she felt very tired, she again mounted her pony. They had not gone far thus, when she found her pony become suddenly very restive, trembling exceedingly and trying to push sideways through the hedge as if to avoid something. Every effort to make him go on was useless.

After a little while a crashing sound was heard, lasting only a second or two (a kind of clatter like the trucks in Bristol loaded with iron rods). After a few minutes the noise was repeated, still more loudly. The pony was now so ungovernable that Miss W was obliged to ask the man to hold him by the head. On being asked what the noise was the man seemed much frightened, and said he had never heard anything like it. The noise was repeated a third time, and with such an overwhelming crash that Miss W felt unable to bear it, and stopped her ears. The man was perfectly overpowered with alarm, and sunk on the earth in an agony of fear.

Miss W then observed something black approaching, which passed close to her, having the appearance of a hearse drawn by four horses, but no one with them and not the slightest sound. On Miss W. asking the man what he had seen, he described exactly the same.

After this they neither heard nor saw anything, and the pony went on freely, indeed seemed to hurry homewards. In about half a mile they came to the public-house, called the 'Castle of Comfort,' where several men were sitting outside the house smoking. Miss W asked if they had seen anything pass. They said they had not, though they had been sitting there for more than an hour, and that there was no other way through the wood. They reached Over Stowey about eleven, and the young man declared nothing should induce him to pass through that wood again at night, so he remained till morning.

The story soon got wind, and some of the older people of the neighbourhood 'wondered how Miss W. could venture to pass through that wood at night'; it was so noted for extraordinary noises, etc., ever since a dreadful murder of a woman by her husband, who was hung on a gibbet near the spot. This happened about ten or twelve years since."

The above is the copy of a MS. to which there is no date; nor do I remember the handwriting so as to recollect who wrote it out, but, judging from the time I have had it, Miss W.'s adventure must have occurred about 1850. There are places on the map called 'Walford's Gibbet' near or in 'Skerage Wood', not very far from Danesborought Camp; possibly that is the gibbet and wood referred to. Perhaps some of your readers may be able to afford more accurate information. The Somersetshire hills are not unassociated with such stories. There is one in connection with Cutcombe-hill, also about a hearse, and a headless dog; perhaps someone will relate it, so as to help preserve these stories and traditions. - C.H. Sp. B. in 'Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries.'

Miss Lock may be interested to know that the Rev. C.W. Whistler, a former vicar of Stockland, Bristol, and one of the greatest authorities upon the traditions and folk-lore of the Quantock country, recorded the local tradition that Rodway Hill, between Cannington village and the "Park" near Combwich, is so named from the rood erected on it to protect villagers from the Devil's hunt. He recorded, too, the story of a man who was said to have met a great black spectral hound on this hill, and that it brushed up against him in passing and that he was paralysed ever after.