Avoiding eye-contact with those huge beasts that await on one's doorstep, I'll attempt
to give an account of 'Demon Dogs' from my locale. (Gulps at the cat staring through the glass!)
..........................
There's a place nearby that in it's heyday, was the home of the wealthy with cast iron balconies
for the gentry to disport themselves on. But today it looks rather forlorn, as if it has fallen on hard
times - and the bottom has certainly fallen out of its balconies.
A hulking, forbidding terrace, unlike anything else in this town, rears up out of nowhere.
The terrace is protected from the full view of the public by tall, forbidding trees.
They were once part of a large pleasure garden around which the wealthy would perambulate.
But today a couple of trees lie fallen; the ornate path is overgrown and covered by wind-blown
leaves.
The current generation knows only too well of the gruesome, cannibalistic murder that took place
here a few years ago. The Cannibal killer David Harker confided to a psychiatrist that he chopped
up his victim and ate part of her body with pasta and cheese.
Cheese.
This horror of a man that had the words "Subhuman" and "Disorder" tattooed on his scalp and is
now languishing in prison for the rest of his life. Treatment that I for one, thought was far too lenient.
But previous generations would have told of headless gentlemen, ghostly dogs and spooky apparitions
that stalked the area in the dead of night. These apparitions arose because of the boggy nature of the
land. Locals would avoid passage at night and the malodorous aroma of the swampy ground would
whisper-up images of devils and ghouls.
Sulphur.
A stream called Glassensikes ('glassen' meant blue or grey; a 'sike' was a small beck/stream) sprung
from a pond in the vicinity where the tall Victorian dwellings now sit.
When this pond flooded and the surplus water gushed it's way onto the main thoroughfares, the roads
seemed impassable to the fair ladies and gents who wished to traverse it. So badly did it spill that in
1679 "stippin stones" were laid (at a cost of 2d) so that travellers could pass along the road without
getting their feet wet.
But as anyone 'in-the-know' can vouch, where marshy areas and mist abound, lurking ethereal creatures
also dwell.
One Victorian writer imagined the full "terror of the neighbourhood".
"How horrible to be balanced on a stippin stone, a waterlogged marsh on either side and a hobgoblin
barring your way," he wrote.
The Victorian local historian, William Longstaffe, went further.
"Glassensikes has goblins as grim as any river-demons," he said. "Headless gentlemen, who disappeared
in flame, headless ladies, white cats, white rabbits, white dogs, black dogs; shapes that walk at dead of night,
and clank their chains. In fact, all the characteristics of the Northern Barguest were to be seen in full perfection
at Glassensikes."
The barguest was a huge, black dog - "as black as a hound of hell" - which was last seen more than 200 years
ago when it appeared at the marsh one midnight to a traveller returning from a nearby village.
"Of late years..." reports Longstaffe, "...this harmless sprite has seemingly become disgusted with the increased
traffic and has become a very well-behaved, domestic creature."
The taming of the Barguests and Hobgoblins of this area lay in the arrival of gaslights and in the improvements
to the marshy land. Glassensikes was culverted. Today, the only sign of this spooky stream is the eccentric house
with the huge marble porch opposite the gas station. Now apartments, and with a metal brace hugging its porch,
this extraordinary building was originally Glassensikes.
The marsh was drained for building. The Allan family had owned the area since the 17th Century. In the early 19th
Century, when the banker Jonathan Backhouse was buying up the south end of this town, the Allans sold him the
marsh for construction purposes.
..........................
So life goes on and practicality, level-headedness and rationality become the police of our streets. The Barguests
no longer prowls the marsh in search of supper and the Hobgoblins left the town for a more quieter existence.
Glassensikes is dry, real structures command respect as you walk through the tall glade and the modern electric
street lamps assure travellers that no shadows hold cunning midnight monsters.
But... you must sleep sometime, you must close those heavy eyelids and purchase a ticket for dreamland.
That's when the Barguest steps out of the night and begins his own patrol, that's when the lost marsh deep
underground bubbles and shambling shapes of ugly visage set forth across this fragile thing we call reality.
to give an account of 'Demon Dogs' from my locale. (Gulps at the cat staring through the glass!)
..........................
There's a place nearby that in it's heyday, was the home of the wealthy with cast iron balconies
for the gentry to disport themselves on. But today it looks rather forlorn, as if it has fallen on hard
times - and the bottom has certainly fallen out of its balconies.
A hulking, forbidding terrace, unlike anything else in this town, rears up out of nowhere.
The terrace is protected from the full view of the public by tall, forbidding trees.
They were once part of a large pleasure garden around which the wealthy would perambulate.
But today a couple of trees lie fallen; the ornate path is overgrown and covered by wind-blown
leaves.
The current generation knows only too well of the gruesome, cannibalistic murder that took place
here a few years ago. The Cannibal killer David Harker confided to a psychiatrist that he chopped
up his victim and ate part of her body with pasta and cheese.
Cheese.
This horror of a man that had the words "Subhuman" and "Disorder" tattooed on his scalp and is
now languishing in prison for the rest of his life. Treatment that I for one, thought was far too lenient.
But previous generations would have told of headless gentlemen, ghostly dogs and spooky apparitions
that stalked the area in the dead of night. These apparitions arose because of the boggy nature of the
land. Locals would avoid passage at night and the malodorous aroma of the swampy ground would
whisper-up images of devils and ghouls.
Sulphur.
A stream called Glassensikes ('glassen' meant blue or grey; a 'sike' was a small beck/stream) sprung
from a pond in the vicinity where the tall Victorian dwellings now sit.
When this pond flooded and the surplus water gushed it's way onto the main thoroughfares, the roads
seemed impassable to the fair ladies and gents who wished to traverse it. So badly did it spill that in
1679 "stippin stones" were laid (at a cost of 2d) so that travellers could pass along the road without
getting their feet wet.
But as anyone 'in-the-know' can vouch, where marshy areas and mist abound, lurking ethereal creatures
also dwell.
One Victorian writer imagined the full "terror of the neighbourhood".
"How horrible to be balanced on a stippin stone, a waterlogged marsh on either side and a hobgoblin
barring your way," he wrote.
The Victorian local historian, William Longstaffe, went further.
"Glassensikes has goblins as grim as any river-demons," he said. "Headless gentlemen, who disappeared
in flame, headless ladies, white cats, white rabbits, white dogs, black dogs; shapes that walk at dead of night,
and clank their chains. In fact, all the characteristics of the Northern Barguest were to be seen in full perfection
at Glassensikes."
The barguest was a huge, black dog - "as black as a hound of hell" - which was last seen more than 200 years
ago when it appeared at the marsh one midnight to a traveller returning from a nearby village.
"Of late years..." reports Longstaffe, "...this harmless sprite has seemingly become disgusted with the increased
traffic and has become a very well-behaved, domestic creature."
The taming of the Barguests and Hobgoblins of this area lay in the arrival of gaslights and in the improvements
to the marshy land. Glassensikes was culverted. Today, the only sign of this spooky stream is the eccentric house
with the huge marble porch opposite the gas station. Now apartments, and with a metal brace hugging its porch,
this extraordinary building was originally Glassensikes.
The marsh was drained for building. The Allan family had owned the area since the 17th Century. In the early 19th
Century, when the banker Jonathan Backhouse was buying up the south end of this town, the Allans sold him the
marsh for construction purposes.
..........................
So life goes on and practicality, level-headedness and rationality become the police of our streets. The Barguests
no longer prowls the marsh in search of supper and the Hobgoblins left the town for a more quieter existence.
Glassensikes is dry, real structures command respect as you walk through the tall glade and the modern electric
street lamps assure travellers that no shadows hold cunning midnight monsters.
But... you must sleep sometime, you must close those heavy eyelids and purchase a ticket for dreamland.
That's when the Barguest steps out of the night and begins his own patrol, that's when the lost marsh deep
underground bubbles and shambling shapes of ugly visage set forth across this fragile thing we call reality.
Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe.