THE YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL: A Mysteriography

By Martin Burroughs from Northern Earth 82

INTRODUCTION

While trawling for info on another subject, I've recently looked through the entire run of the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal- probably the main and most respected source of archaeological and historical information about the county. It's a fascinating journal, widely available in the local interest libraries of Northern England, and well worth a look. Here I've put together summaries of just a few of the less conventional articles that might be of interest.

SUNDIALS, SAXONS AND STARS

'Yorkshire Dials' by D.H.Haigh (any relation to Mike Haigh?), volume 5, pp 134-222.

A real epic piece from a prolific contributor who died not long after. Most of the material in here is Saxon, although Roman, prehistoric and later sundials do get a mention as well. Analyses not just what sundials there are, but how lines are used on them, and more interestingly how the Saxons seem to have used swastikas and runes to show the time when the day started. This was 7.30am apparently: a tad on the early side for me, but there you go.

He goes all mystical for a bit, jumping between Nordic myth, Hebrew, Eastern beliefs and Beowulf and then touching on early navigation techniques and counting systems, before leaving Yorkshire altogether for what for me was the most fascinating section. This is about a remarkable portable 5th or 6th Century stone dial from Cleobury Mortimer, which has a large number of holes bored into the stone. This threw me, as I'd thought of portable sundials as something only seen in The Flintstones, but apparently not. In a deduction that seems years ahead of its time, Haigh proposes that these form a star map of the Great Bear and other stars, which would presumably be used to align the dial.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE MAD TO LIVE IN WAKEFIELD...

'Certificates of Alleged Cures of Lunacy. . .' by Matthew H. Peacock, volume 16, pp 248-255.

An account of a 1615 lunatic-curer (if that's the right term) from Wakefield takes up eight pages. Quite why Wakefield should be a centre for lunatic-curing I wouldn't like to judge.

YORKSHIRE PIRATES

'Paul Jones, Pirate' by T.B. Whitehead, volume 18, pp 310-312.

For some reason it had never occurred to me before that pirates were ever a major problem in Yorkshire, but apparently they were, as these three letters from 1778 on the subject of pirate captain Paul Jones testify. Written by an ancestor of the author, they provide a short but fascinating view. It sounds like the good guys win in the end.

In passing, there is at least one other reference to pirates off Yorkshire, which is a ballad called 'The Noble Fisherman, or, Robin Hood's Preferment' from perhaps the 16th century, in which Robin becomes a fisherman at Scarborough and saves his fleet from French pirates (This should be in Knight & Ohlgren, 1997)

YORKSHIRE AS A MELTING POT

'The Ethnology of West Yorkshire' by John Beddoe & Joseph H. Rowe, volume 19, pp 31-60.

One of the many subjects that Guy Ragland Philips touches upon in 'Brigantia' is the survival of pockets of early peoples, recognisably physically different to those in other areas. Well, this is a study of almost exactly that, in West Yorkshire. The authors went around taking measurements of peoples' faces in different areas, including hundreds of children, and also looked at eye and hair colour. They come to some interesting if tentative conclusions about the survival of native peoples.

It has to be said this is rather technical in places, but worth the trouble if the subject interests you. This piece was printed in 1907, and I imagine it would be almost impossible to conduct such research today as greater mobility will have been destroyed many of the patterns being examined.

There is also an appendix on the Domesday Book in West Yorkshire, with a rather nice map showing the dramatic extent to which parts of the area were laid to waste during the Norman conquest.

TRIAL BY COMBAT

'Trial By Combat' by William Brown, volume 23, pp 300-312

A discussion of, well, trial by combat, particularly in Yorkshire. I was particularly struck by the 1456 judge who insisted that both participants dress symbolically as rams. There may have been some deep-rooted folkloric reason for this, or he may just have been having a laugh; who knows.

CADS AND MAIDENS

'Some Curious Cymro-Celtic Place-Names' by Rev W Kerr Smith, volume 24, pp 338-344

A discussion of 'Cad' and 'Maiden' Celtic place names in the North. A short but interesting piece, which also addresses the existence of no less than five places called Cat Babbleton in Yorkshire, albeit not entirely convincingly for me. Place names are a notoriously treacherous area, but Smith seems to make reasonable sense overall.

FAKE STONE CIRCLES?

'Blubberhouses' by J.T. Fowler, volume 25, p. 128 & facing.

A short discussion on whether 'stone circles' at Blubberhouses are real, fake or 'tarted up'. Looking at the picture, I'd be inclined to say they are rather well preserved bases of circular huts, but then it's hard to tell the scale. This being a piece from 1918, I presume the question has been cleared up by now: can anybody enlighten me?

GHOSTS AND CONJURING

'Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories' by M.R.James (notes) & A.J. Grant (translation), volume 27, pp 363-379.

To those that have read M.R.James' ghost stories, it can be hard to remember that he was first and foremost an academic. In this piece, both aspects combine, as James records twelve early-13th century ghost stories (which Grant translates from Latin.) The stories (which seem to be recounted almost in the way of today's urban myths, with some credulity on the part of the scribe) are all set in East Yorkshire, and provide a real window on to the beliefs of the time.

These ghosts are stranger and at times more substantial than today's white-sheet spirits, and the 'conjuring' of spirits, which would doubtless be frowned upon today, seems to be treated as no bad thing by the church. It's amazing how trivial some of the sins which cause the creation of ghosts actually are. These texts are also good examples of the workings of medieval magic, particularly in the use of a small boy to procure visions which I recall is recorded elsewhere also. James' notes are also well worth reading, particularly his Troll story, which I at least hadn't heard before.

THE KELLINGTON SERPENT STONE

'The Kellington Serpent Stone' by Canon Egbert C. Hudson, volume 33, pp 314-7.

A very striking tombstone from the Selby area, showing a sword-cum-cross, human figure and what does appear to be a 'serpent.' This short piece also recounts all the folklore associated with the stone. Unsurprisingly this includes a serpent-slaying legend (killed by a shepherd and his dog.)

ON ROBIN HOOD

'Robin Hood Identified' by J.W. Walker, volume 36, pp 4-46.

A fairly voluminous article trying to put together documentary evidence of a Yorkshire origin for Robin Hood. I'm left unconvinced by this, but those who already have an interest in the subject may like to check it out for themselves. Anyone new to the subject would do better to check out some of the books I've mentioned at the end.

THE ELAND MURDERS

'The Eland Murders, 1350-1: A Study of The Legend of The Eland Feud' by J.M. Kaye, volume 5 1 , pp 61-80.

Some authentic Yorkshire murders recorded in ballad form are compared to the documentary evidence of what actually happened, which makes quite a contrast. If nothing else this shows just how unreliable ballads are as records, when we tend to assume accuracy, even in poems as old as the Gododdin, which is twice as old as this episode.

A WOODEN HEAD

'A Note on The Hidden Misericord of Swine' by R. Williamson, volume 51, pp 153-155.

Well, I couldn't find any stone heads, but this is a wooden one for a change, and apparently unrecorded elsewhere. Why? It's in a rather odd position, nailed to the underside of a pulpit seat. Quite how somebody spotted it in a position like that I'm not sure: maybe this is a common phenomenon that has simply gone unnoticed elsewhere, although I suspect not.

BRAMHAM MOOR

'Bramham Moor And The Red, White And Brown Battles' by W.Pearson, volume 67, pp 23-50.

A mind-boggling piece which seems to want to ascribe the location of almost every battle in British history from King Arthur onwards to Bramham Moor (somewhat West of York). I exaggerate slightly, but not much. I'd tend to take some of this with a pinch of salt, but it's still worth a look.

1996: A VINTAGE YEAR

Volume 68 has no less than three interesting pieces. First comes

'The Hackness Cross Cryptic Inscriptions' by Richard Sermon, pp 101-112.

This is a cross bearing inscriptions in Latin, Runic and (questionably) Ogham. Sermon attempts to decrypt the 'Ogham' section using a computer program and an apparently fragmentary (and fundamentally flawed in my opinion) understanding of the form. This is probably the most inept piece of cryptography since the Voynich Manuscript had its heyday, almost making 'The Bible Code' look reasonable and rational. It's worth reading just for its very badness, and the fact that although this may not be the most important piece of secret writing in the world, it inevitably has a certain fascination.

Moving on to better things, we have

'Yorkshire And The Great Pyramid' by Philip Atkins, pp 225-230.

This has to be the most implausible title of all time, and left me expecting a network of pyramids around Leeds or something. But no, the link is that several researchers into the Great Pyramid had Yorkshire links (notable Charles Piazzi Smyth) and this is an account of them and their sometimes wild and woolly theories.

And finally

'Yorkshire And The Gododdin Poem' by Craig Cessford, pp 241-243.

The Gododdin is one of the greatest 'Celtic' poems, a tale of a great battle where the Celtic army is slaughtered by a far greater force of Saxon opponents. This is only a short piece on it, but a very worthwhile one which questions the fact that the location of the battle (Catraeth) is referring to Catterick (as is usually thought), and also raises the idea that parts of it may have been later additions. An important piece, although perhaps not the place to start reading on the subject.

SOURCES

The title obviously owes a debt to Guy Ragland Philips' Brigantia: A Mysteriography (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1976). For an excellent selection of Robin Hood ballads and plays from the earliest periods of the legends, try Stephen Knight & Thomas Ohlgren, Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, (Kalamazoo, Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University (for TEAMS), 1997). Good recent commentaries include Stephen Knight's Robin Hood (Blackwell, Oxford, 1994) and J.C.Holt's Robin Hood (such original titles) (Thames & Hudson, London, 1982). For The Gododdin, try K.H. Jackson's The Gododdin: The Oldest Scottish Poem (Edinburgh University Press, 1969) or A.O.H. Jarman's Y Gododdin: Britain's Oldest Heroic Poem (1988, 'Welsh Classics' series). As to whether it's Scottish or Welsh, my answer would be neither! Possibly Cymric is the best term.

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