Myths Of Great Britain.

[guohua]

 That is a Big Sword! 

[BIAD]

 That is a Big Sword! 

I can find very little about the actual weapon in the display case. Usually in folklore, the sword has a history
that hints of magic and reliance. For many of my young years, I thought the above sword was called 'The Falchion'
and didn't consider the moniker as a style of weapon.

Maybe others could shed some light on the type of sword?

[putnam6]

Just bookmarked this thread gonna want to read it completely...it's gonna look weird though if I disappear to the office bathroom for 45 minutes with my IPad

[BIAD]

Just bookmarked this thread gonna want to read it completely...it's gonna look weird though if I disappear to the office bathroom for 45 minutes with my IPad

There's some good stuff and I researched the topics enough that others before me sold books on the information!

[BIAD]

After my posting of Ireland's reports on strange animals living in the small lakes (loughs -pronounced 'Lock'), I found myself
pondering on this creature, a four-legged otter-like animal that doesn't fall into the 'water-monster' category as we usually
accept it.


The enigmatic Dobharchú.

It's called by the locals of Lough Mask (Lake Mask) the 'Dobharchú', their term for 'Water Hound' and despite the traditional
harmless aspects of the sightings we usually hear about, this beastie holds a feature that should make most monster-hunters
think twice before venturing out onto those remote bodies of water.

Just over the border of Northern Ireland, County Leitrim holds one of these -seemingly forsaken loughs known as Glendale Lake.
The narrow roads struggle to give an adventurous person a clear view due to the tangled and twisted trees that border the lough.
But just off the R280 road, there's a paved track that offers a scenic view of the cold peaty habitat of a monster that mad its way
into a ballad and a legend involving murder.
................................................................

On a bleak September morning of 1722, Grainne Ni Conalai (Grace Ni Conalai) was said to have went down to the lough's shore
to wash some clothes or as the old song suggests, bathe. After some time passed, Grace's husband -Traolach Mac Lochlainn,
went to see what was keeping his wife from returning to make their noon dinner and arriving at her usual place near the water,
found a ghastly sight before him.

Horrified at discovering Grace's mutilated body, Traolach was even more appaulled by what was lying on top of his beloved's torn
and bloody form. The beast lying asleep on her mangled breast was the Dobharchú and one of the few versions of this tale is that
Mr Mac Lochlainn drew a knife and stabbed the slumbering beast in the heart. In its death-throes, it is said that the creature cried
out in a forlorn whistle that caused its mate to emerge from the lough.

Not satisfied with the carnage at the water's edge, Traolach chased after the second Dobharchú until cornering it and delivering the
same rage its fellow-Water Hound had accepted for the killing of the man's wife. A chilling story, no...? but like many of these yarns,
there's always another way of telling it.

An alternative ending says that after Mr Mac Lochlainn returned to his home to retrieve a knife, several neighbours from the nearby
cottages came out and observed the slain Dobharchú's partner climbing out of its watery lair. With the small horrified  community
advising Traolach to flee the scene, he and a unnamed Blacksmith took to horseback and rode away with the inflamed Water Hound
in hot pursuit. 

Across the countryside they fled and realising the Dobharchú was not about to let-up on the chase, Traolach and his neighbour
devised a scheme as they arrived at the stone-remains of Cashelgarron stone fort, a ruin that still stands today nestled on a height
under the sheltering prow of Ben Bulben. Placing their horses across the doorway, the beast attempted to reach its prey by rushing
underneath the legs of their mounts, only to find the two men waiting with drawn daggers. The Dobharchú fell beneath the blows and
the lough of Glendale became the empty home of the fabled Water Hound.

Somewhere below that wind-swept rock formation lies the body of the Dobharchú alongside one of the horses killed during the attack.

Proof you say...?! Well, in the quiet Leitrim cemetery of Conwell, there's a well-worn moss-encrusted gravestone where Grainne Ni Conalai's
body lies that portrays her husband's vengeful act upon the beast.


Grainne Ni Conalai final resting place and the depiction of her husband's revenge. (Right) Ben Bulben.
...................................................................

'By Glenade lake tradition tells, two hundred years ago
A thrilling scene enacted was to which, as years unflow,
Old men and women still relate, and while relating dread,
Some demon of its kind may yet be found within its bed.

It happened one McGloughlan lived close by the neighbouring shore,
A lovely spot, where fairies oft in rivalry wandered o'er,
A beauteous dell where prince and chief oft met in revelry
With Frenchmen bold and warriors old to hunt the wild boar, free.

He and his wife, Grace Connolly, lived there unknown to fame,
There, years in peace, until one day from out the lakes there came
What brought a change in all their home and prospects too.
The water fiend, the enchanted being, the dreaded Dobharchú.

It was on a bright September morn, the sun scarce mountain high,
No chill or damp was in the air, all nature seemed to vie
As if to render homage proud the cloudless sky above;
A day for mortals to discourse in luxury and love.

And whilst this gorgeous way of life in beauty did abound,
From out the vastness of the lake stole forth the water hound,
And seized for victim her who shared McGloughlan's bed and board;
His loving wife, his more than life, whom almost he adored.

She, having gone to bathe, it seems, within the water clear,
And not having returned when she might, her husband, fraught with fear,
Hasting to where he her might find, when oh, to his surprise,
Her mangled form, still bleeding warm, lay stretched before his eyes.

Upon her bosom, snow white once, but now besmeared with gore,
The Dobharchú reposing was, his surfeiting being o'er.
Her bowels and entrails all around tinged with a reddish hue:
'Oh, God', he cried, 'tis hard to bear but what am I to do?'

He prayed for strength, the fiend lay still, he tottered like a child,
The blood of life within his veins surged rapidly and wild.
One long lost glance at her he loved, then fast his footstps turned
To home, while all his pent up rage and passion fiercely burned.

He reached his house, he grasped his gun, which clenched with nerves of steel,
He backwards sped, upraising his arm and then one piercing, dying, squeal
Was heard upon the balmy air.  But hark!  What's that that came
One moment next from out of its depth as if revenge to claim!

The comrade of the dying fiend with whistles long and loud
Came nigh and nigher to the spot.  McGloughlin, growing cowed
Rushed to his home.  His neighbours called, their counsel asked,
And flight was what they bade him do at once, and not to wait till night.

He and his brother, a sturdy pair, as brothers true when tried,
Their horses took, their homes forsook and westward fast they did ride.
One dagger sharp and long each man had for protection too
Fast pursued by that fierce brute, the Whistling Dobharchú.

The rocks and dells rang with its yells, the eagles screamed in dread.
The ploughman left his horses alone, the fishes too, 'tis said,
Away from the mountain streams though far, went rushing to the sea;
And nature's laws did almost pause, for death or victory.

For twenty miles the gallant steeds the riders proudly bore
With mighty strain o'er hill and dale that ne'er was seen before.
The fiend, fast closing on their tracks, his dreaded cry more shrill;
'Twas brothers try, we'll do or die on Cashelgarron Hill.

Dismounting from their panting steeds they placed them one by one
Across the path in lengthways formed within the ancient dún,
And standing by the outermost horse awaiting for their foe
Their daggers raised, their nerves they braced to strike that fatal blow.

Not long to wait, for nose on trail the scenting hound arrived
And through the horses with a plunge to force himself he tried,
And just as through the outermost horse he plunged his head and foremost part,
Mc Gloughlans dagger to the hilt lay buried in his heart.

"Thank God, thank God", the brothers cried in wildness and delight,
Our humble home by Glenade lake shall shelter us tonight.
Be any doubt to what I write, go visit old Conwell,
There see the grave where sleeps the brave whose epitaph can tell.'
...................................................................

[BIAD]

If the UK is respected for its love of pets, then the canine variety will surely be in the top-two of the list of animals that
are enjoyed within a home-setting. However, there's a certain dog that is known around the British Isles that might be
the type not have visit one's fire-side, the mythical hell-hound called 'Black Shuck'.

Set in stone on a wall of a street in my own town, a carved rendering of Shuck is there to commemorate a lesser-known
account of the large black howling beast that dwelled in a thicket only a few hundred yards from where I live. Some say
the glowing-eyed fiend portends misfortune to those who see its passing, others believe the brute is a ghost that cannot
rest until it finds its master.



Black Shuck roams the land and in certain areas, he is as intransigent in their folklore as he is in that block of weathered
masonry. East Anglia, a region above the capital of England holds so many tales about the strange ghostly dog, that it
warranted its own 'special' title. 'The Norfolk Shuck, Salthouse Shuck' and even became a brand for a particular gin.
(£37.50/$46.85 per 70cl)
.......................................................................

On the same east coast area of England, there is the ceremonial county of Suffolk. Leiston Abbey fell foul to flooding in
1363 and a fire in 1379. But in modern times, the ruins of the Abbey is the location for another head-shaking incident,
a skeleton some suggest is the bones of the legendary Black Shuck.



In 2014, archeologists unearthed -what they suggested were the remains of a seven foot-long dog that was probably
a Great Dane and 'DigVentures' managing director Lisa Westcott Wilkins said: “We’re still waiting for results from
specialists but we believe the bones are from when the abbey was active - so they could be medieval."

Others believe it is Shuck... or at least the earthly body of the Hell hound with flaming eyes.
.......................................................................

Inland and slightly north of Leiston Abbey is the town of Bungay. Legend has it that on 4th August 1577, a large black dog
burst in through the doors of St Mary's Church in Bungay to a clap of thunder. It ran up the nave, past a large congregation,
killing a man and boy and causing the church steeple to collapse through the roof, before moving on to Blythburgh Church
where it mauled and killed more people. In fact a poem was written to remind people not to take Black Shuck lightly.



"A straunge, and terrible Wunder wrought very late in the parish church of Bungay:
a town of no great distance from the citie of Norwich, namely the fourth of this August,
in the yeere of our Lord 1577.

In a great tempest of violent raine, lightning, and thunder, the like wherof hath been seldome
seene. With the appeerance of an horrible shaped thing, sensibly perceiued of the people
then and there assembled.

Drawen into a plain method according to the written copye. by Abraham Fleming."

On the northern edge of the once-marshy region is the coastal village of Blakeney. A quaint area that smacks of another
time when fishermen worked the inlets of the River Glaven for their livelihood and in the Middle Ages, was a busy shipping
point for imports via the North Sea. Yet even here in the serene vista of the Anglican coast, Black Shuck is a regular to
those who live there.



In 1953, a lady called Iris Portal wrote to Eastern Daily Press newspaper after an article was published about the roaming
beast. Miss Portal explained that Shuck had been spotted several times in Little Lane in Blakeney as he runs between Wells
and Sheringham She also added that the huge dog regularly ran past her garden wall in Long Lane. As if the woman had hit
a nerve with readers, a few days later, Geoffrey Booty of West Runton dispatched a letter to the newspaper to state:

'He travels between Blakeney, Sheringham and Overstrand and is supposed to be searching for his master
who was shipwrecked on the coast. ‘Shuck’ is a large black retriever with a chain attached to his neck.'

Moving closer to our times, Shuck has been seen on the B1388 at Blakeney where, in a letter to a website dedicated to such
folklore -'Hidden East Anglia', J Wallace wrote in 1983, that Black Shuck is described as having two heads, noted because
when the marauding hound catches a rat, it escapes through his other mouth.


And in another letter to Ivan Bunn, editor of the Borderline Science Investigation Group’s Lantern, a Mrs AP Marcucci recalled
hearing something strange on the A149 between Cley and Blakeney at around midnight in the summer of 1968. Mrs Marcucci
remarked that she heard the “light dragging and tinkling of a chain” but could see nothing. However, she believed Shuck was
following her.

Arriving at a crossroads, where there was a street light, she paused to see if whatever was behind her would pass by, but
saw nothing. Then, suddenly, she was aware that her invisible walking partner had passed and made its way down Back Lane.
Fearing for her sanity and her life, Mrs Marcucci realised he would be making his way to the marsh banks and so she fled home
down the High Street and away from the beast that was so frequently believed to foretell disaster.

There are those who believe Shuck has only one glowing eye, and fiery breath, a sight guaranteed to evoke the curse that anyone
who sees Old Shuck is sure to die within twelve month. Such dread of the beast was rampant along the eastern coast of England
that it's said that Norfolk smugglers took advantage of the gullibility of the villagers and tied a lantern round the neck of a black ram,
sending it running off to frighten nosey locals when a run was due.

Maybe the legend of Black Shuck was born from the love of pet dogs and on some nights, maybe one of these darlings of the rug
in front of the fire took a walk along unlit footpaths and ran with a salty breeze caressing its muzzle. Imagination and the dark can
turn a family pet into a flame-eyed Hound from Hell and makes a fine tale to tell the grandchildren.

Or... or maybe Shuck is out there and no mountain, ocean or modern street-lighting will sway its from its journey. Just make sure
that destination of the shaggy creature of the ethereal isn't your door.

[Ninurta]

My direct paternal ancestry comes from an area of Essex, around Kelvedon Hatch and Wrightsbridge, but we've been on this side of the ocean for nigh on to 400 years now. Still, your mention of no ocean nor mountain being a barrier to Black Shuck's nightly forays struck a cord.

A tale is told of my paternal grand dad having a meeting with a mystery mutt in the wildernesss of West Virginia. Walking home on a moonlit night, he had occasion to cross a bridge that ran across a fork of the Little Kanawha River, but when he set foot on the near end of the bridge, a large black dog with glowing red eyes suddenly appeared at the far end of the bridge, blocking his way, snapping and snarling.

Now gramps was not one to brook any bullshit. He once whipped the sheriff of the adjoining county, bare knuckles and boot heels, for trying to delay his journey homeward. If he was willing to fire up the constabulary, a grouchy-assed mutt was all in a day's work for him. So, with curses and imprecations upon his lips notifying the hound in no uncertain terms that it's day was about done, and casting aspersions on it's parentage and whatnot, gramps sallied forth across the bridge intent on doing battle with the beast.

As he neared the red-eyed cur, and had almost reached striking distance, the dog suddenly vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. Some say that a puff of acrid smoke was involved, but who knows now, all these years later.

So has my paternal lineage brought our own pet Shuck across the ocean from the Old Country, in the same way that the O'Brien branch brought the Banshee Eibhlinne with them? I will note here that according to the paternal DNA ("Y-DNA"), the line originated somewhere in the Balkans millennia ago, a place sort of famed for it's irascible magical canines. Or was gramps just too deep into his cups and possibly hallucinating in an alcohol induced haze?

I reckon everyone will have to reach their own decision in the matter, to their own satisfaction.

.

[Ninurta]

 That is a Big Sword! 

I can find very little about the actual weapon in the display case. Usually in folklore, the sword has a history
that hints of magic and reliance. For many of my young years, I thought the above sword was called 'The Falchion'
and didn't consider the moniker as a style of weapon.

Maybe others could shed some light on the type of sword?

Yessir, it's a falchion of sorts in all particulars other than the back of the blade.

In his epic tome "A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration, and Use of Arms and Armor in All Countries and in All Times Together with Some Closely Related Subjects", George Cameron Stone has this to say of the falchion:

FALCHION, FAUCHION. A sword of the Middle Ages. We have no very positive knowledge of it, but it is usually represented with a broad curved blade widest near the point, and in which the back joins the edge in a concave curve. (Planche 184).

So the sword in question qualified generally as a falchion, with the exception of having a straight rather than curved back to the blade. However, back in the days when all weaponry was hand-forged, multitudes of variants occurred in each and every weapon type, as befit the whims of the maker, so I would not consider that detail to ban it from the ranks of falchionry.

The blade is shaped much like  many modern-day machetes, and so I would think it to be just the ticket for chopping and lopping off the head of a wayward Wyvern, and disassembling it's body to be tossed into any nearby convenient river.

.

[BIAD]

If one desires to visit Gordie's domain of Scotland from England, there's county on our shared-border called Northumberland
that stretches from the centre of northern England to the coast of the North Sea. In the middle of this county, lies Elsdon, a small
village and civil parish that sits on the south-eastern end of -what now is, the Northumberland National Park.

The bleak surrounding moors are fantastic if a person requires solitude. But in past years it provided great cover for the Border
Raiders -or 'Reivers', who plundered villages in the 13th century, regardless of their nationality. Elsdon holds another piece of
intriguing history that can still be seen today, a type of gallows known as a Gibbet can be still seen when travelling those lonely
heathlands.


The Gibbet.


The stone marker of Steng Cross.


The current gibbet stands on the exact spot where the old gibbet had resided and an etched stone at its foot is the base
of a Saxon cross (Steng Cross) which marked the highest point of this ancient drover's road down which cattle were brought
from Scotland to the English markets. In the past, the dead body of a criminal would be placed in a suspended cage or set of
chains hanging from the gallows with the intention of deterring would-be lawbreakers by displaying their ultimate end.

On the night of 29th August 1791, an elderly lady named Margaret Crozier had closed her little drapery shop for the evening
and retired to bed in -what folk called back then, her 'Raw'. A Raw is really titled a Bastle house, a fortified stone farmhouse
deriving from the past need to defend oneself from the Border Reivers.

Being alone in such a remote community, locking the doors was more of a case of habit than concerns of a fellow-Elsdonian
may attempt some type of thievery. But she wasn't alone that night, three pair of eyes were watching the old woman prepare
for sleep and had devilish thoughts on their minds.

William Winter was a big burly man and what they'd call around those parts 'a wrong-un'. For several crimes -including sheep
-stealing, Winter had been transported to Australia in a penal colony. But being ever industrious, had found his way back and
taken up what may have been a family tradition.

The Winter family in general could placed under the title of 'wrong-doers' as William Winter's father -John and his other son
Robert Winter, had already been executed on August 6th 1788 for breaking into the home of William Charlton, esqire and
ransacking the place.

Mr Charlton resided in Hesleyside, just a few miles south of where William Winter and his two female cohorts now primed
themselves to raid Mrs Crozier's store. Both men were hanged in Morpeth, just four years prior to William's next crime.

Jane and Eleanor Clark were of Romany stock and after befriending Winters, told him of some kindness Margaret Crozier
had offered when the two women had passed through Elsdon. They believed she was wealthy and along with the felon
who had committed many crimes around this area, plotted to relieve the old lady of this burden.

Sitting in a livestock enclosure on the Whisker-shield Common of Elsdon Moor the day before and eating what foods they
had acquired, the women and Winter honed their scheme and believed their private charting had gone unnoticed.

Entering the house on that fateful night of August, the ungodly trio cruelly murdered Mrs Crozier and pillaged the rooms in
search of a fortune that never existed. But what trinkets there were, they loaded onto a donkey and fled the scene before
dawn arrived.
An unseen crime, yes. But there's many a slip twixt cup and lip.

During their sheep pen-discussion the day before, a young shepherd boy had passed by and warily evaluated the strange
adults hiding in the corral. Being of an attentive age, he took stock of the type and number of nails in the man's boots as
well as the butcher's knife, a 'gully' that Winter was carving-up their meagre fare with.

It was this evidence that painted William Winter, Jane and Eleanor Clark as the culprits due to footprints found at the murder
scene and the weapon used to accomplish the brutal manner Margaret Crozier had been despatched. The sentence by the
court was that Jane and Eleanor Clark were to be hanged along with William Winter at the Westgate of Newcastle Upon Tyne
on the 10th of August, 1792.

The women's bodies were given over for medical dissection, whilst Winter's corpse had an appointment with the wooden
structure at Steng Cross.

Winter’s rotting corpse hung for many years on his gallows. After it fell apart, the structure was dismantled -but in 1867 the
English naturalist Walter Trevelyan, now landlord of the site, had a replica erected with a wooden mannequin. That figure was
in its turn stolen, and over the years only the often-stolen and -replaced wooden head has remained; even the gallows itself
was torn down at least once. But it has weathered the years and borne the dim memory of William Winter down to the present
day.
..........................................................

To visit this lonely sight of a villain's final look towards the community he'd ravaged, one can use the A696 out of Otterburn and
take the B6341 road about two or three miles, the Gibbet will be on your right. There will be a Northumberland National Park
marker where you can park, the Gibbet is across the road.

[BIAD]

It was 1926, John Logie Baird was beginning the journey that would bring the world the television set and Martial law was being declared in Great Britain
because of a national general strike. The United States Congress would be passing the Air Commerce Act that sought pilots and planes to be licensed and
Al Capone would dodge another attempt on his life from his rivals.

But in a quiet region of England, a young man was digging amongst the peat bogs around where he lived and searching for that find that would enhance
his place in the field of archaeology. Langrick Fen -a small village in Lincolnshire on the east coast and not far from the hamlet Dogdyke, was where this
keen archaeologist ferreted through the damp earth seeking the ancient remains of the Viking community that had once inhabited the region.

With his trowel striking something harder that the damp organic material that the Fens are known for, the unnamed digger may have dreamt of a jewelled
sword or a chest of riches taken by the marauding seafarers. However, it was a bone and carefully moving the peat from around the water-stained ossein,
he discovered a whole human skeleton with a unique difference to the other remains sometimes unearthed in the Lincolnshire marshes.
This one had a wolf's skull.

Gathering up his peat-sullied revelation, the young archaeologist took them to his cottage and placed it on a table for further examination. Perusing the
odd make-up of the skeleton in a little room where he kept his excavated finds, he looked for signs of chicanery where the head met the neck and found
none. It didn't make sense and yet here it was, a grotesque monster that should belong on one of those garish posters at the carnivals that sometimes
passed through Langrick Fen.

He was certain the lupine skull belonged to the human skeleton and even though he was well aware of the Cardiff Stone Giant ruse back in 1869, this
discovery seemed perfectly random without any cajoling from exterior forces. Confounded with the weird puzzle on his table, the young chap decided
to call it a day and retire to bed.

But sleep didn't arrive to ease his aching back and perplexed thoughts, his recent exhumation seemed to call to him and demand he solved this riddle.
Then, a noise from the room where he kept his archaeological cache drew his slumber-avoiding introspections from his concern and not bothering to light
a candle, the young man got up to investigate.

Surreptitiously moving through the darkness of his house, the wary amateur-archaeologist passed a window on his route to his hobby room and as he did
so, something rat-tat-tatted on the thin pane beside him. There was no interior illumination to cause a reflection and maybe -for the wide-eyed digger, that
was a good sign, but through the slim sheet of glass he saw a dark being looking at him and the shaggy features told him it was a tall wolf knocking on his
window. As his strength drained, the young man gazed at the ferocious beast staring at him and it was only when the wolfen-faced monster snarled and
raised an arm to smash the fragile barrier between them, did his ability to move return and he fled to the kitchen.

A crash sounded behind him and he wasted no time in locking and barring the door and erecting a barricade of furniture against it. Alone in the dark and
with an otherworldly creature softly padding the floor outside his kitchen, the archaeologist thought again about what he may have really dug out of those
barren fenlands.

Shivering in the cold, the faint harbinger of dawn was a welcoming sight and with the faint light, the sounds of a waiting monster walking around his kitchen
door abated. Cautiously dismantling his makeshift defence, he found the house was just as he'd left it before retiring to bed. Nothing... except the broken
window. However, the room where he'd placed the skeleton was in disarray, the bone fragments were scattered on the floor and the table was on its side.

As the previous night's haunting spurred his weary needs, the young man collected up his unwanted uncanny find and raced out to the spot on the marshes
where he'd first discovered them. Under several layers of peat, the bones of whatever had temporarily guested itself in the archaeologist's home were interred
and the location consciously and intentionally forgotten.

They say there are no wolves that walk upright and we're assured that all the monsters are slain. But if you hear that tippity-tap on your window just before
the Witching Hour, who will you believe?

(Edit: I just noticed that this weird encounter occurred in the same year as The Owlman Of Mawnan incident!)

[Ninurta]

...

But in a quiet region of England, a young man was digging amongst the peat bogs around where he lived and searching for that find that would enhance
his place in the field of archaeology. Langrick Fen -a small village in Lincolnshire on the east coast and not far from the hamlet Dogdyke, was where this
keen archaeologist ferreted through the damp earth seeking the ancient remains of the Viking community that had once inhabited the region.

With his trowel striking something harder that the damp organic material that the Fens are known for, the unnamed digger may have dreamt of a jewelled
sword or a chest of riches taken by the marauding seafarers. However, it was a bone and carefully moving the peat from around the water-stained ossein,
he discovered a whole human skeleton with a unique difference to the other remains sometimes unearthed in the Lincolnshire marshes.
This one had a wolf's skull.

...

Clearly, he found what he was looking for, much to his chagrin.

What he unearthed was an "Ulfhednar" - a "Wolfskins" - a Viking warrior similar to a Berserker, but one that transforms into a wolf rather than a bear. They are far less well known than the more widely advertised Berserkers, but back in the day they were just as real and just as dangerous as the Berserker variety of Viking marauder.

I know of them, but did not know that they come back to life in the night time and across centuries. Maybe this one was some peculiar combination of Ulfhednar and Draugr ("zombie" - a corpse of a deceased warrior that arises from it's burial barrow in the night time). Try that, you silly Berserkers out there!

.

[BIAD]

Clearly, he found what he was looking for, much to his chagrin.

What he unearthed was an "Ulfhednar" - a "Wolfskins" - a Viking warrior similar to a Berserker, but one that transforms into a wolf rather than a bear...

Interesting, I've never heard of a Ulfhednar.

[Ninurta]

Clearly, he found what he was looking for, much to his chagrin.

What he unearthed was an "Ulfhednar" - a "Wolfskins" - a Viking warrior similar to a Berserker, but one that transforms into a wolf rather than a bear...

Interesting, I've never heard of a Ulfhednar.

First, some mood music to set the stage:

Úlfhéðnar are well beyond Berserkir. They are known as Óðinn's special warriors, and elite Viking forces. They are metaphorically associated with wolf pelts (in contrast to regular Berserkir who are associated with bear pelts), as they are known to be inhabited by the spirit of wolves. Úlfhéðnar are capable of performing feats far beyond the abilities of other warriors. Úlfhéðnar are hamrammir (shape shifters). They don't wear a helmet or a mailcoat, bit their shield in a rage prior to each battle, kill enemies with just one blow, and are immune to fire or iron. Úlfhéðnar are exclusively males.

Source-01

Ulfheðnar – wolf warriors

Wolf warriors appear among the legends of the Indo-Europeans, Turks, Mongols, and Native American cultures.[18] The Germanic wolf-warriors have left their trace through shields and standards that were captured by the Romans and displayed in the armilustrium in Rome.[19][20]
 


Wolf warrior from Migration Age Germany that was part of the same tradition[21]

The frenzy warriors wearing the skins of wolves were called Ulfheðnar ("wolf coat"; singular Ulfheðinn), another term associated with berserkers, mentioned in the Vatnsdæla saga, the Haraldskvæði and the Völsunga saga and are consistently referred to in the sagas as a type of berserkers. The first Norwegian king Harald Fairhair is mentioned in several sagas as followed by an elite guard of ulfheðnar. They were said to wear the pelt of a wolf when they entered battle.[20][22] Ulfheðnar are sometimes described as Odin's special warriors: "[Odin's] men went without their mailcoats and were mad as hounds or wolves, bit their shields...they slew men, but neither fire nor iron had effect upon them. This is called 'going berserk'."[14]: 132  In addition, the helm-plate press from Torslunda depicts a scene of Odin with a berserker with a wolf pelt and a spear as distinguishing features: "a wolf skinned warrior with the apparently one-eyed dancer in the bird-horned helm, which is generally interpreted as showing a scene indicative of a relationship between berserkgang ... and the god Odin".[23][24]

Source-02

Note how the Ulfhedinn or "Wolfskreiger" in the above image from back in the day has a wolf's head, but a human body, just as your story describes -



Another version:



Value-added bonus reel - an explanation from Norse mythology of how an Ulfhedinn might be expected to rise from his bones and walk again among the living - the Draugr:

Draugar live in their graves or royal palaces, often guarding treasure buried with them in their burial mound. They are revenants, or animated corpses with a corporeal body, rather than ghosts which possess intangible spiritual bodies. 

Source-03

So, yeah, I'm gonna go with "he found the Viking he was looking for".


.

[Selbiene_Raveren]

Clearly, he found what he was looking for, much to his chagrin.

What he unearthed was an "Ulfhednar" - a "Wolfskins" - a Viking warrior similar to a Berserker, but one that transforms into a wolf rather than a bear...

Interesting, I've never heard of a Ulfhednar.

Author Bernard Cornwell does a series called the Saxton Tales. (The Last Kingdom tv show on Netflix is based off this series.) The ulfhednar made an appearance in the 11th book titled War of the Wolf.

Wouldn't want to fight one of them on a battlefield... o_o

If you like historical fiction, I highly recommend his books. He tries to stay true to the time periods he writes about. Very good writer.

[BIAD]

This is what makes myths so interesting and I'm sure would cater for those who chunter on about diversity and
multiculturism. In the case of this strange story and what it may've represented, it shows how legends from other
lands get absorbed into other cultures and become moorings that support a certain country's beliefs.

Cultural appropriation...? A way of life throughout history!

[BIAD]

Love the accent!

[BIAD]

Long ago before the invention of Drag-Queen story-hour, the electric car and TikTok, there was a kingdom in the British Isles that has expanded
and decreased as politics by the sword and the written-word dictated its growth. Northumbria (the people or province north of the Humber) has
had many rulers during its time and now is a shadow of it former self.

Hexham is a small market town close to Hadrian's Wall in this diminished region and owns a history that has dripped with the blood of feudal lords,
raids from the Border-Reivers and a murder of their own king. Along with this violent past, whispers of strange mysteries lurched across the wind
-blown moors, riddles that are still pondered on today and in the winter of 1904, one of these conundrums surfaced that could have echoes that
reverberated over sixty years later.


Northumbria, Then & Now.

With the first World War still a decade away, the Hexham Courant newspaper reported in early December of 1904 that a farmer from the nearby
hamlet of Allendale had began to stable his sheep due finding torn-apart remains of his animals in a nearby field. One of the sheep had been
disemboweled and another had been totally eaten leaving only its skull to be found. The terrified remainder of the ewes survived, although many
had been bitten around the neck and legs.

It was generally agreed that wolves had become extinct in England during the reign of Henry VII in 1509, but for the farmer discovering his livestock
on that cold winter's morning, those who had reached this conclusion didn't keep sheep here out in the rurals.

Then the sightings of a wolf began to be whispered amongst the communities of Allendale and Hexham. After a large prowling animal was reported to
have been seen lurking around Allenheads Primary School, several hunting parties of both villages took to finding the 'black and tan' sheep-killer, but
found their pursuit fruitless. As the dark cold winter rolled on and the fearful villagers lit lanterns in their windows, the Hexham Wolf Committee was
founded in efforts to bring wolf-trackers to find this spectral beast.

Even after the renowned Bloodhounds of Haydon were called in to find the spoor of the elusive animal and turned up nothing, tales were abound of
sheep and folk being attacked on both sides of the River Tyne in the same night and a rumour that 'The Girt Dog' -a huge hyena-like creature was
committing this foul-play.

As holly wreaths adorned the fire-hearths of the communities for Christmas and carols were sang in Hexham Abbey and Allendale's St Cuthbert's church,
eyes were still watching for the ghostly invader that left no tracks. Then two local men travelling to work witnessed a dog-like animal leaping over a high
wall as they approached and the following day, a wolf was seen attacking a black-faced ewe in a field.

As the short December days raced towards January, the wolf was encountered again by a group of women and children. However, the shouts and screams
of the frightened party drove the daring outremer away and supported the notion that the wolf was becoming more audacious in its actions.

Some thirty miles of Hexham, a dead body of a wolf was found on a railway track in Cumwinton, Cumbria. It was 1905 and the Hexham Courant newspaper
quickly deflated the hopes of its readers by stating on the 7th January that the corpse was not that of the Wolf of Allendale. Since the skinny cadaver didn't
match any of the descriptions from witnesses, it was suggested that there was perhaps an entire family of predators living in the receding surrounding woods
and vigilance should be maintained.

But by the end of January 1905 reports of the wolf began to wane and eventually the sightings and livestock killings ceased altogether. The wolf had died
or gone away and for the little thorps of Allendale and Hexham, that was good enough for them and life could return back to normal.
.............................................................

1971. Hexham.

Eleven year-old Colin Robson was farting around in the front garden of his Hexham home in Rede Avenue with his brother Leslie when he -or as others
have sometimes written, the young boys discovered a strange stone about the size of a tangerine. Casually cleaning the dirt from around a protuberance
on the small rock, Colin found that it was a crudely-carved neck and head of an effigy of some sort. To even the scales in alliance, the pair dug around
until another head-like stone was located and then both items were examined.

Colin Robson's appeared to be a young male face with slash marks on top of the head to perhaps signify hair. The other resembled a hooked-nosed hag-like
female and both heads had nodules protruding from the necks, perhaps eluding to bodies they were once attached to. Fascination is fleeting in the young
and so after showing their find to their parents, they left the two pale -greenish stone heads on a window ledge and Leslie and older brother retired to their
bedroom for the night.

The next morning, the Robson family saw that the heads had moved on the window sill and now faced the location where they'd been excavated. This odd
activity would regularly occur and a foreshadow of what was about to happen next. A couple of nights later, one of the sleeping boys felt his hair tugged at
by an invisible hand, objects would be found broken and one of the Robson sisters discovered shattered glass in their beds.

If one peered out of the window of No.3 Rede Avenue, one would see a glow in the area of the garden where the stone heads were found and the television
set constantly tried to reach a different frequency or channel even though nobody was trying to change it.

The heads still moved when faced away from their burial place, their cold gaze was always found in the morning staring back towards the garden. But the
worst was yet to come, Colin and Leslie's mother would witness a frightful sight that would relegate the poltergeist happenings to commonplace. In the middle
the night, Mrs Robson saw a shambling thing she described as a half-man, half-goat creature in her house... a comical characterization, to say the least!
Staring at the abomination, the terrified woman watched the bestial presence stumble to the front door and leave the semi-detached (duplex) end-street home.

The neighbours who shared the building were not exempt from these weird happenings, the Dodds family -namely Mr Isaac Dodd, Mrs Ellen “Nelly” Dodd and
her sons and daughters, Brian, Carol, Marie, and Trevor also endured strange goings-on. One night, Mrs Dodd was comforting her daughter -Marie, during
an ear-infection and after hearing someone enter the girl's bedroom, happened to look up and see a chimera of a creature standing before the horrified pair.
The 'thing' touched Nelly Dodd and as she screamed, it scampered away on all fours. The distraught mother described the invader as 'half-person, half-sheep'!


(Left-to-Right) No. 3 Rede Avenue, a diagram of the Hexham Heads and Colin & Leslie Robson posing with a later-made head.

The traumatised Dodds assured the Hexham Town Council that they couldn’t live in that house anymore and were rehoused not long after. Around this time,
the enduring Robsons, realising a power beyond their understanding was sharing the corner house in Rede Avenue, gave the troublesome stone heads to a Guide
of Hexham Abbey called Betty Gibson for safekeeping. The national newspapers turned up late, but still managed to sensationalize the 'Evil Heads of Northumbria'
and enticed Colin and Leslie to pose for their cameras with copies of their discovery. But the strange malefactors that had terrorised a quite street in Hexham were
gone and with them, a Werewolf-like apparition from their worst nightmares.
.............................................................

The horror-show that newspapers portrayed -but didn't appreciate, was over and after a short time, Mrs Gibson of  Hexham Abbey had handed the stone heads
to Richard Bailey, a Professor who worked at the Museum of Antiquities at Newcastle University. However, it was the media that attached the legend of The Wolf
of Allendale to the modern visitation of the Were-goat/sheep/wolf of Rede Avenue and with this vague connection, came the idea that the heads were Celtic in
origin.

A collector of such ancient objects named Dr Anne Ross eventually took possession of the Hexham heads for analysis at her home in Southampton and
not aware of this supposed kinship between the Wolf of Allendale and the Robson finds over three hundred miles away, had no idea what was to occur
at her Rose Road home on the south coast of England.

A few nights after obtaining the heads from Newcastle's Museum of Antiquities, the woes that the Robsons and Dodds experienced began to manifest in
Dr Ross' home in the form of the strange creature that seemed to enjoy appearing in bedroom doorways. In Dr Ross' own words:

“It was about six feet high, slightly stooping, and it was black, against the white door, and it was half animal and half man.
The upper part, I would have said, was a wolf, and the lower part was human and, I would have again said, that it was covered with a kind of black,
very dark fur.
It went out and I just saw it clearly, and then it disappeared, and something made me run after it, a thing I wouldn’t normally have done, but I felt
compelled to run after it. I got out of bed and I ran, and I could hear it going down the stairs, then it disappeared towards the back of the house.”

Being one of a pragmatic and scientific outlook, Dr Ross accepted that she may have dreamt the whole weird incident. But when arriving home one day
with her husband -Richard Feacham, they found their teenage daughter Berenice in a distressed state. Berenice explained that she had used her key to
unlock the front door and entered the house that afternoon to witness 'a large, black shape rushing down the stairs; halfway downstairs the creature
vaulted the bannister, landing with a soft, heavy thud like a large animal with padded feet.'

Through further research, Dr Ross came to realise that the presence of the stone heads could be responsible for these events and passed on her whole
collection to other collectors. Eventually, the Hexham Heads found their way to the British Museum, although were soon removed from public display and
mothballed amid reports of unsettling events associated with the small relics.
.............................................................

Where the Hexham heads currently reside, nobody knows for sure. But the rumours are abound with where they came from and where they are today.
Des Craigie, a local truck driver in Hexham claimed he made the heads in the 1950's for his daughter -Nancy, to play with and ergo, not of ancient
Celtic origin.

Yet, Frank Hodson, Professor of Geology and Dean of the Faculty of Science at Southampton University dated the stone heads as ancient. But to counter
the claim, Douglas Robson (no relation) a Senior Lecturer in Geology at Newcastle University dated the Hexham heads as modern cement by taking a
sample.

The debate on where the stone heads are at this time still rolls on, Some say that up until 1978, a mysterious London-based individual called Frank Hyde
purportedly became the last custodian of the Hexham Heads after accepting them from a Materials chemist called Don Robins. Mr Hyde is no longer with
us and trail seems to have gone cold... but somewhere out there, two small stone heads are watching and waiting to see the light again and with them,
that shambling escort we can call 'The Other'.

[Minstrel]

Long ago before the invention of Drag-Queen story-hour, the electric car and TikTok, there was a kingdom in the British Isles that has expanded
and decreased as politics by the sword and the written-word dictated its growth. Northumbria (the people or province north of the Humber) has
had many rulers during its time and now is a shadow of it former self.

Hexham is a small market town close to Hadrian's Wall in this diminished region and owns a history that has dripped with the blood of feudal lords,
raids from the Border-Reivers and a murder of their own king. Along with this violent past, whispers of strange mysteries lurched across the wind
-blown moors, riddles that are still pondered on today and in the winter of 1904, one of these conundrums surfaced that could have echoes that
reverberated over sixty years later.


Northumbria, Then & Now.

With the first World War still a decade away, the Hexham Courant newspaper reported in early December of 1904 that a farmer from the nearby
hamlet of Allendale had began to stable his sheep due finding torn-apart remains of his animals in a nearby field. One of the sheep had been
disemboweled and another had been totally eaten leaving only its skull to be found. The terrified remainder of the ewes survived, although many
had been bitten around the neck and legs.

It was generally agreed that wolves had become extinct in England during the reign of Henry VII in 1509, but for the farmer discovering his livestock
on that cold winter's morning, those who had reached this conclusion didn't keep sheep here out in the rurals.

Then the sightings of a wolf began to be whispered amongst the communities of Allendale and Hexham.
...

Excellent story-telling.
Is Northumbria known for a lot of Druidic activity?
...Or any other such religio-cultish history?
Wondering if the stone heads might have been "power objects" of some ancient 'shaman'...

[BIAD]

Excellent story-telling.
Is Northumbria known for a lot of Druidic activity?
...Or any other such religio-cultish history?
Wondering if the stone heads might have been "power objects" of some ancient 'shaman'...

Cheers Minstrel. I'll look into the Druid suggestion.



Edit: It seems most of the information around Druidism is speculative at best. Wales seems to be where this belief-system
tended to be and the Roman Emperor Claudius 'cleansed' the British Isles of Druidism. Their last stronghold was in Anglesey
and eventually the religion was lost. (Druids were forbidden to write down anything about their belief!)

[BIAD]

I wonder what these two ladies saw in Lough Fadda back in 1965?



Link to Interview: