Loremen Podcast - S1 Ep1: Loremen S1 Ep1 - Parcy Reed and Poppa Bayliss

Episode Date: December 21, 2017

In this episode, Alasdair and James meet a band of border reivers and a dubious cotswolds ghost. Loreboys nether say die! Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen @loremenpod www.twitch.tv/loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod

Welcome to Lawmen, the podcast where I, Alastair Beckett-King, and he, James Shapeshift, explore local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. The premise is simple. I, Alastair Beckett-King, or he, James Shapeshift, presents a piece of forgotten folklore, and at the end of the tale, either I, Alastair Beckett-King, or he, James Shap, presents a piece of forgotten folklore and at the end of the tale either I, Alistair Pickett King, or he, James Shakespeare, judges the legend in a number, usually four, of categories. Was it scary? Were the names funny? Plus a couple of bespoke ones unique to each yard. So, whether you believe in old wives tales, magic, with a cat, fairies, with an e, ghosts, goblins, spiders. Spiders definitely do do exist Please join us on our quest for the truth Or if not the truth, an entertaining lie

First up in this episode we have a tale that will shiver the cockles Of anyone who's ever struggled to change a duvet cover Oh, I've just noticed that my handwritten notes at the top Which two weeks ago when I wrote them made loads of sense Now in context don't make a lot of sense. I can't really read your handwriting, but I think I can see the words Scottish people bull****. That says English and Scottish popular ballads. That's what that says. Not Scottish people bull****. That's not how I feel about Scottish people at all.

So from the book Scottish People Bull... My book. From the book I wrote. Alice Rebecca King's classic Scottish People Bull... This is what I genuinely believe. I'm not being ironic. This is The Death of Parsi Reid. Parsi is an abbreviation of the name Percy.

So it's just sort of Percy but said in a sort of Geordie kind of accent like Parsi Reid. Parsi is an abbreviation of the name Percy, so it's just sort of Percy, but said in a sort of Geordie kind of accent, like Parsi, like that. Parsi? Parsi? Oh. So this is The Death of Parsi Reid, recorded in a border ballad,

because it's about border reavers. I guess the border reavers aren't famous. No. Around the whole country. Not one bit. Well. What border? Well, well, well.

The border between England and Scotland, where the bulls**t begins. Right. Yeah. So the border reavers were basically a series of sort of warring families who would go around reaving, you know, raiding and killing and committing all kinds of crimes. So it was a sort of lawless area. So in this story, we have a border reaving family called Crozier. Our hero, Parsi Reid of Reedsdale,

basically a local lawman responsible for catching ne'er-do-wells and that sort of thing, and he arrested one of the Croziers and handed them over to the authorities. Unsurprisingly, the Croziers were none too pleased about this. Meanwhile, there was a third family called the Halls, who often referred to as just the Halls with no L which makes sense in a Geordie accent slash a Scottish accent Haw Haw

Haw Haw yeah Haw and where are the Halls what are the Halls yeah this is where the Halls come into it

because the Croziers enlist the Halls who hate Reed but are still friendly with him and they go out hunting together so the Hall brothers and Parsi go out hunting

and then they wait until Parsi's asleep. This is where I need to get to the ballad and read what happens in the ballad. What follows is a tale of bloodthirsty revenge befitting a Quentin Tarantino film. So let me see if I can find it here. Are you mispronouncing it on purpose so you can get away with all the other mispronunciations?

Yeah, I am really worried about the pronunciation, so I am deliberately mispronouncing. Quentin Tarantino. Okay. So they hunted high... I'm doing a jolly accent. Can't stop me. They hunted high in Battinghorpe,

when as the sun was sinking low, says Parsi then, Car off the dogs, we'll beat our steeds and homeward go. They lighted high in Battinghope, when, as the sun was sinking low, says Parsi then, Car off the dogs, we'll bait our steeds and homeward go. They lighted high in Battinghope, between the brown and benty ground. Grand little benty around there. They had but rested a little while, till Parsi Reed was sleeping sound. There's none may lean on a rotten staff, but him that risks to get a fall, there's none may in a traitor trust, and traitors black were every haul.

They've stoned the bridle off his steed, and they've put water in his land gun, they've fixed his sword within the sheath, that out again it willna come. Awaken ye, awaken ye, Parsi Reed, or by your enemies be ta'en, for yonder are the five croziers, a-coming o'er the Hinging Stain,

which is the Hinging Stone. Now, I don't know what that means, but Hinging means really smelly in the North East, so it may awe of the Hinging Steen, which is the Hinging Stone. Now, I don't know what that means, but Hinging means really smelly in the North East, so it may have been a very smelly stone, but it doesn't say in the ballad, and it's not about the stone. So, yeah, while he was there, they disabled all of his armaments while he was asleep

and then called over the Croziers. The rest of the ballad follows him saying to the whores, stay and fight with me individually, and they say, no, we won't, we can't. And they run off, and then the over the Croziers. The rest of the battle follows him saying to the whores, stay and fight with me individually. And they say, no, we won't, we can't. And they run off and then the, well, the Croziers arrive and cut him to shreds. The exact level of shreds is not clear. So in Westwood and Simpson,

they describe him as being cut to collops. And I don't know what a collop is, but I think it's a smaller amount than you would want to be cut to, ideally. Yeah. It's like a lump of meat, I think it's a smaller amount than you would want to be cut to ideally. Yeah. It's like a lump of meat I think. Like a scolop.

What's that? Well a scolop is a some sort of shellfish thing and they're very small like the size of a 50p. Well that's too I mean that's too

small. It's not possibly a chopped man. It's too small. Unless you're having a haircut. Yeah so this is so now I'm reading

from English and Scottish popular ballads not as you might think English Scottish people ballads. Scottish popular ballads, not, as you might think, English... Scottish people ballads. Scottish popular ballads. The tradition says that the fragments thereof had to be collected together and conveyed in pillow slips.

I'm laughing there at pillow slips, because they're just... That has been the natural way of carrying body parts. But they didn't have bin bags, did they? They didn't have bin bags. They wouldn't have had a bin bag. But who's going to use those pillows? Oh, God.

There's bad news about Percy. Get the pillow. Unbag all the pillows now. What's happened? There isn't time to explain. Should we use the duvet case? No. He's in collops.

He's in collops. Imagine a future version of what a 50 pence piece will be like the small ones yeah so

they go home in pillow slips the natural way however in the ballad he then

goes on to have several conversations after this point post calloping post calloping and

presumably not mid pillow slip but after having from within there he makes a few demands of a local farmer uh that uh you know he'd be remembered to his his family and there you might think it would

all end however well to be honest i would have thought it would end a little bit earlier on when after death they cut him into small enough pieces to have to be taken away in pillowcases. But no, he then had a conversation with a farmer. A series of conversations with a farmer. I'm mixing different accounts here, but it's not clear. Well, the legacy of the story for the Halls was that the name was still mistrusted to this very day, if this very day was the mid-18th century. I think it's fine these days. But the spirit of Parsi

is said still to haunt the area and that's what makes this a legend. Well, that and the fact that nobody knows if any of it actually happened

is what makes it a legend. There is a place in Reedwater called Deadwood Hoes Hoffs I don't know how to pronounce any of these words.

How's that one spelled? H-A-U-G-H-S So it could be Hoff, Ho or Ho Deadwood Ho I'm going to go whore. Deadwood hoff. I'm going to go with whore. Deadwood whore. Sounds better than hoff.

He couldn't have a Deadwood hoff. You think like cough. It's spelled like laugh but with an H. But it can't be Deadwood haffs. Haff.

Or, yeah, I'll go with or. Yeah. There is a place in Reedwater called Deadwood Whores where the country people still point out a stone where the unshriven soul

of Parsi used to frequent it in the shape of a black hawk, and it's only a few years since he disappeared. And the story there is apparently that people used to walk past a particular area where Percy's soul had been bound for a certain time, which wasn't specified. And when you would walk past, they would see him,

possibly in the form of a bird, possibly in the form of a man in pillow slips, I'm not sure. Maybe a series of small pillow-sized ghosts, I like to imagine him. And they would bow to him and he would bow back to them. And he was trapped there for a certain period of time until a conjurer, according to Westwood and Simpson, released him from, or exercised him, I suppose. And at that time felt something like the wing of a bird brush by, and later on he was seized with a cold trembling and died. But he had freed the soul of Parsi, who was there presumably seeking revenge against the false-hearted

whores and the murderous Croziers. So this rock that he was bound to, was it the stinky rock? It doesn't say, but I can only imagine that. What greater torture would there be than to be stuck on a smelly stone forever in raven form? I mean, it is obviously possible that the raven was just a raven that liked that stone. But it did bow, which is, that's more a, that's a trait of humans, isn't it?

Bowing, yes. Although birds, their walk is kind of a sort of nodding. They're a noddy animal, the birds. They nod a lot. Very agreeable. Pecking, you might call it. I call it in bird form. Yes.

That sort of pecking motion they make. A rock that maybe smelled like something nice to the bird, like carrion if it was a raven. Yeah, for is it not saying, what may be hinging to a man, to a raven, smells quite nice. Even though it's a rock. Just a hanging stain.

And is that the end of his... That is the end, yeah. Spectral adventures. I think he might have... Well, he was also seen going abroad. I'm using that in the old sense, not like in the queue for Ryanair. He's just on the ferry. He's down the arcade on the ferry.

Yeah, dressed in his hunting dress. So he was seen going around hunting and blowing his horn. On stormy nights, the Phantom is also seen near his mansion, wielding a large whip so furiously that the very trees were threatened with destruction. Wow. But I prefer the bird

version of it. Yes. The massive, angry whip man. And also the whip is sort of... I don't know the full ballad, but that sounds like a weapon that they should have... Well, it wasn't in there, yeah. They should have tied his whip to a tree or something, shouldn't they? Well, just cut it.

And then you've just got a slightly shorter whip. I mean, the pillowcases for me is the bit that really... I've just remembered the one other silly bit that I forgot in the story. Really, he should have known that he was doomed. And the reason for that is his wife had some strange dreams anent his safety. And I looked up anent, and it means about. So his wife had some dreams anent his safety on the night before his departure. And at breakfast on the following morning, the loaf of bread from which he was supplied

chanced to be turned with the bottom upwards an omen which is still accounted most unfavourably all over the north of England. I still don't think I said that mysteriously enough. Inverted bread. Beware the inverted bread. So what a fool he was to even step outside the house, having

got upside down bread that very morning. I recall when I first visited the north and spoke to a northern man, there's a lot about bread. There's a lot more names for bread in the north, regional names. In the south, we pretty much just got bread, loaf and a roll and maybe a baguette.

Well, I'll let you into a secret here. We've only really got that two in the north. It's just that every village has a different name for what the roll is. Ah, the bread cake, barn, barn cake. Stotty. Stotty's the Geordie one. Is that?

I thought it was a cake. Stotty cake. Yeah, they call it a cake. It's not a cake. But they're lying. They're lying. It's just a kind of bread roll. I mean, an iced bun is not a cake.

That's a roll with some sugar on top. I mean, pardon the unintentional pun, that stottie cake now takes the biscuit. Yeah, so it's hardly surprising that, I don't know, what would it be? There must be a name for being able to read auguries in the movements of bread. I don't know.

I'm going to go with bread-o-mancy. Doviner? Dovination. Doviner? Dovination. Dovination, yes. Why are we talking about... Wait a minute, why are we predicting the future via bread? I just was amazed at the names. Oh, because of the inverted bread. Because the fact that inverted bread, as you put it,

is a bad sign. So that should have warned him that terrors were to come. Because I invert my bread quite a lot if your bread's a little bit too tall for your toaster you invert your bread and then i invert the bread and put it in so that the bottom gets done but then more often than not i forget about it and the middle gets burnt because it's been done twice i just need to open my damn eyes and see cause and effect yeah well yeah i've inverted a bread.

I've got bad luck. If anything, you're lucky that it's in bread form that the bad luck you've engendered strikes you. I wouldn't be surprised if you ended up in collapse by the end of the day if it weren't for the burned bread. Ideal sandwich size as well. I want to get back to the pillowcase man. That's not going to get out as well. You're not going to the pillowcase man that's not going to get out

as well you're not going to get that out that blood in those days with the washing powders that were available absolutely

I would go as far as to say that those pillow slips are a write off but it's one of those things where you say what's happened to what's happened to your posse I haven't seen him for a while

do you not hear the whores betrayed him and then the croziers cut him to collabs alright how did you not hear the whores betrayed him and then the croziers cut him to collops alright how did you get the bits for him pillow slips obviously I had to buy a whole load of new pillow slips after that but like I say they didn't have

bin bags we wouldn't have had bin bags in those days they did not have bin bags you are limited unless you're doing the old pulling the jumper up scrumping for apples style but you wouldn't want to be collecting the collops of a local aristocrat in your jumper. No. Nor would you in your pillow slips, really.

No, because that's where you put your face. I'm trying to think of anything else they could have used, and actually, to be fair, I think they made the best choice. I don't blame them for using pillow slips. I blame them for telling people that they used pillow slips. It does add an unnecessary indignity yeah parsey reads but it's one of those details where that's how you know it's true i i would say because you wouldn't invent if you were making the whole ballad up you wouldn't add which item of bedclothes they used to carry the bits home in

so is it time for the scoring yes what. So, yes, let's score. Let's score Parsi Reid. Parsi Pillow Slips Reid. I'm doing inverted commas around Pillow Slips. It doesn't make it any better, the poor guy. Brad was against them. Everything was against them. Now you're betraying him, undermining.

I'm sorry. I'm no better than a false-hearted haul. So, categories for score. The first category has obviously got to be gore. Yes, high. It's out of five, isn't it? It's out of five. Columbs.

One word for you, columns. Yeah, it's got to be five. I'm picturing these pillowcases, and they are dripping with blood. Just grotesque. It is horrible. I imagine they probably had to make a couple of trips, so they had dripping with blood. Just grotesque. It is horrible. I imagine they probably had to make a couple of trips. So they had two pillow slips. They went out and thought,

oh, there's even more colopy than I thought. And then they had to reuse the same, having emptied the bags out, they would have to go back out and get more bits. Oh. That's a five. Yeah, that's a blood dripping five for gore. Mispronunciation.

That's my next category. Oh, I think you were very high well we don't know that's the point we can't possibly but that's the excitement we can never know whether it's

trough end or trough end the name of the place where Percy Reed lived he's already mispronounced his own name which clearly should be

Percy yeah yeah and the the how how how

oh I forgot to say the place the place where he haunted was called Pringle Whore, or Pringle Half, or Pringle Her. Her. Pringle Her. Pringle, ouch. Ha.

Ha. Ha. Yeah. So, yeah, four, spell F-A-U-G-H. Oh, well, that's very generous of you. Is it? I don't know if it's good or bad. My next category is supernatural.

So, I mean, aside from the upside-down bread, portent. I think we can all agree that upside-down bread is definitely a supernatural occurrence. Yeah. Yeah, you've got your potential for a ghost in the form of a raven yep and a ghost in the form of a man and a ghost

in the form of a man and it doesn't say that there were definitely several tiny pillow slip ghosts but I think we'd be fools not to assume

that that definitely happened it's not the most active of ghosts just whipping a little bit he could have whipped down a tree that's pretty he could have

but he didn't. It is more of a spooky epilogue than it is a supernatural tale of mystery. Yeah, it's not your total bang-on ghost story. It doesn't come in going, this is a story about a ghost that could have whipped down a tree. Here's his origin. So I'm going to give it a three for supernatural.

Yeah. That's firm but fair, I think. Yeah. The next category uh which uh which has been suggested by you yeah uh is stinking rock stinking rock category five out of five five out of five because we've not got one stinking rock we've got the potential of two there could be at least two smelly rocks there's definitely one and there's another rock who smell we haven't been able to ascertain at this time.

So that's a strong five there. A challenging curveball category for you. How would you rate it in terms of misused bedclothes? The misuse of bedclothes. Well, a duvet cover may have been better

but maybe they didn't have them or some rug. why not a rug I think because a pillow slip is in itself a bag isn't it basically yeah it's already in bag form

and it highlights how small these collops are the fact that you can put a person into those that's all of

that's definitely smaller than a head or the head being the maximum size his torso was not in one piece I reckon you could get a couple of arms into a pillowcase couldn't you? You'd have to fold them

Fortunately is one of the two main positions for arms One being folded two being in the air like they just don't care yeah

so what's your score for misused bedclothes four so what I like is the way you have left open the potential for there to be

another story in which bedclothes are more misused that's exactly right to the tune of 20% yeah I think

I don't know if that's mathematically accurate, but it's an estimate. I think, yeah, no, you could have a 20% to 25% increase in misuse of bedclothes. Bloody pillow slips. Oh, full of callops. Collops.

It's really, collops. This is a feature. You're just gradually blending it towards scallops. Escalop is like, like you get a chicken escalop. I'm motioning something the size of my hand. That's a hand-flattened bit of breaded chicken. Right.

But I always thought the escalop bit referred to the breading, but maybe I'm wrong. No Gordon Ramsay. That's an unrelated fact. In case anyone was trying to picture me. And you guess who, Bord, of all the people in the world

can flick down the Gordon Ramsay one because I am not Gordon Ramsay. I think that is the end of scoring for Parsi. That is a pretty high score for a Parsi read.

I want to try and give Parsi some of his dignity back. Parsi, boil in the bag read. We've got to give him his dignity. You've gone to great lengths to remove his dignity

at the beginning of this sentence. Yes. And after it was removed I then took that dignity and then described a farcical way of transporting

that dignity away. I think we've got it. Well that's a sad story. Now's the turn of my region, the Cotswolds. Now, if you've ever walked along a dark, dark road at night and thought you heard footsteps behind you, be thankful it was just the echo of your fancy boots and not what this guy experienced. thankful it was just the echo of your fancy boots and not what this guy experienced.

Right, let's tell this story. This happened near Chipping Norton, which is the town that I grew up in. Okay, so this story was told to the folklorist Catherine Briggs by Frederick Bayliss about his father. The only name I've got for that is Mr. Bayliss, who was a brewer. So Mr. Bayliss Sr. told this story to his son. This story happened at the turn of the century, presumably 19th to 20th, because this was written down in the 1960s, so that kind of adds up.

So Mr. Bayliss Sr. was seeing a girl. I'm just going to call him Mr. Bayliss from now on. What about Daddy Bayliss? Papa Bayliss. So old Bayliss was young at the time, which is more confusion. It's really confusing. I'm having more confusion. You've very poorly characterised old man

Bayliss. As a young... yeah. So he was seeing a girl in Milton under Witchwood, which is a town five miles away from Chipping Norton. And he would walk there because it was the past. And... He used to visit her on a wednesday night and a saturday night so wednesday night he'd be back in good time but saturday night he'd stay out late

and at about midnight he'd be passing the corner of the track to churchill which is another small town a place called sarsden pillars which is where there were these two stone pillars with orbs on the top to... Orbs? Is that the right word? Sphere. Yeah, yeah. Just a stone sphere. Maybe that's commonplace down your way, but I've never...

That's unusual. Well, they're to mark the boundaries of Sarsden, which is, I think by then it'd become a small village or a large hamlet. I've actually found the first mention of it is the Battle of Sarsden in 1016 when King Canute of the... Was he the guy

that was trying to get the tide out? Yeah, he hated the sea. King Canute, the guy... I'm trying to think of a... Sorry. A title for him that represents his tide-turning inability

and I've got nothing. It isn't really necessary to indicate that someone's not able to stop the tide because that applies to everyone. Which is sort of the point of the King Canute story. Yeah. So, yes. So, King Canute,

he was defeated by Edmund Ironside. The TV detective, yes? Yeah, that's the first mention of Sarston. So, that's irrelevant. So, he's passing by Sarston Pillars at midnight on Saturday night and a ghostly coach passes in front of him. Now, the thing about this ghostly coach, he only heard the coach. He didn't see the coach.

But it sounded like a ghostly coach passed directly in front of him. Wow. It doesn't specify exactly how many times this happened but this was a regular enough occurrence that he was a bit nervy about it and then one week one saturday night as he arrived at this point he had a guy walking next to him and he he was comforted by this he was like i'm glad there's someone there because this bit of road by the pillars the two orbs me up a little bit to be honest i like the girl i'm gonna end up marrying her spoiler he ends up marrying her this might even been frederick bayliss's mum

mama bayliss mama bayliss yes knee not mama bayliss so yeah this guy's walking next to him and then the next week is saturday night he's been out and seeing the girl and milton he's walking back at midnight he's passing by the point again he hears the guy walking by him it's quite a cloudy night this time it's very dark he's probably more nervous than normal but he hears the guy walking by him has a little chat to him third week comes around it's a bright moonlit night he's walking the same route the same time he's a creature of habit as he reaches the corner of the churchill tracksized and pillars he hears the footsteps of the man walking next to him and he thinks i think he said he even says this out loud now i'm going to use contemporary language hold up mate i don't even think you've said a word in all the time we've walked together.

And he turns around to look at him and he runs, he runs away. He runs away to some cottages which were about half a mile away and hides in there for the night. Because what he saw when he turned around was mildly amusing to modern... It was...

I mean, I am on the edge of my seat. It was a man in his Elizabethan dress with a big ruff and above that ruff nothing no head he looked down

to under the man's arm that's where the head was a non-standard head placing the classic headless ghost is what he saw when he turned back that's why the guy hadn't spoken because his head

was under his arm because his head was under his own arm and from that day forth Papa Bayliss made sure that he was home of a Saturday night

well before midnight wow and that's the that's what happened that's a proper bona fide ghost story. That is proper bull****. It really, like, that's the head under the arm.

It is a very standard type A, from a book, kind of a ghost. And at the turn of the century, so start start of the 1900s that's the sort of ghost that you probably would have heard about this it was that it was come up with that or come up with a guy in a sheet rattling some chains those are his options i think the part of it that marks it out as questionable for me is the the series of nights in which he has a conversation with someone who never answers him and who he never looks at. Because that is acceptable behaviour in a story. But do you imagine someone like in 1910 having a series of conversations with someone

they've neither seen nor heard anything from? That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it? Yeah, just hearing footsteps at a scary point in the road, not looking around for three weeks. And thinking, well, I'm a bit more relaxed now. Yeah. At the sound of approaching footsteps from behind.

I mean, what I'm guessing is he wanted to get back for last orders. Because he's a brewer. He likes a booze. He's seeing this girl in Milton. Are you knocking on the balers here? No, no, no. Just, he's getting home every night

at about half midnight. And he's thinking, if I was back just an hour early, if I was back on a Wednesday night timescale, I could be in for last orders. I could get a little pint. So you think he's concocted this stock ghost story as an excuse to get off home a little bit earlier?

Yeah, and Mama Bayliss would have told it as like a family story. So the kid hears it, the kid tells it to a folklorist. It's printed in a book now. It's now being told on a podcast. It's gotten out of hand for Papa Bayliss. He had a go earlier on

at trying to get out of being so late. There's a ghost coach. Ghost coach. Yeah. And then he had to up the ante. And everyone was like, well, just, you know, you don't see it,

just hear it, just, you know, you don't see it. Just hear it. Just keep walking. All right. This is going to take three weeks, but it's going to pay off. So he was egged into. I think there's something sort of psychopathic about how calculating he was in laying this out week by week, saying, oh, I got a bit worried near that bit with the two orbs on the stones. But then I heard footsteps and I felt a lot more relaxed.

So no more on that story for now. I had a lovely chat with a guy. Oh, yeah, what did he look like? I don't know. I might have a look in a fortnight. See how I feel. And now he's getting his just desserts over 100 years later. Also, I did a little bit of research into this

as well i was looking at the area where it happened and sarsden was the home of the train station sarsden halt now this didn't open until 1906 but there was a train line there and there were some sidings so that even calls into question the whole spectral coast thing. He heard something that sounded like a coach about a quarter of a mile away from a railway line. So even if he hadn't made that bit up, he's, I mean, he's falling apart, Popper Bayliss. I've also looked into Witchwood.

Witchwood is the witch of Witchwood. How is that spelled? It's W-Y-C-H. So is that pronounced witch? I always thought that was wick. No, it's Witchwood. It's pronounced Witchwood. How is that spelled? It's W-Y-C-H. So is that pronounced witch? I always thought that was wick. No, it's Witchwood. It's pronounced witch. It's not anything to do with witches.

However, it was a dangerous place. A little thing I found out today is one of the earliest reports that was done on Witchwood said it had no sizeable oaks, but it was also very lawless, and it was reported in that order. Because you go out there and say, oh, these violent and dangerous people be going, and the oaks? When are you going to get around to telling us about the oaks? How big are they?

Well, they're not sizeable. At one point, part of Witchwood was enclosed by Henry I and made into a zoo, which had lions, tigers and a porcupine. You see, lions, tigers and bears is the correct cadence for that. Any other animal is going to be a disappointment. A porcupine, more than most. But funnily enough, in this case, the porcupine was the one that caused the most fuss because it would fire its quills at dogs that barked at it.

And that was the thing that caught everyone's imagination. So there's lions and tigers there who are rightly pissed off at the porcupine stealing all their thunder because it's got ranged weaponry. I didn't know porcupines could fire their quills. Maybe just this one. I had no idea. Can they do that?

Much like the sizeable oaks. Took it at face value. Fair enough. That was so famous that I believe it's mentioned in Shakespeare's work, the porcupines. That porcupine is famous enough that it's in Shakespeare? Yeah. It's referenced as though it were like a normal reference. Just that, you know, that porcupine.

Yeah. It was full of robbers gypsies and trees men which would forest don't know what a trees man is should have looked

that up I mean I can probably guess you know it's not like an estate agent you've got some idea of what a trees man might be interested in

not like a turf accountant I've never heard of it it's a bookie oh like a like a bookmaker yeah which is also a pretty f***ing name for what they do you can watch them all day Not like a turf accountant. I've never heard of it. It's a bookie. Oh, like a bookmaker. Yeah, which is also a pretty f***ing name for what they do.

You can watch them all day, not a single book gets made. No binding. There's a couple of ghosts. One called Black Stockings pulls off riders. Sorry. I wasn't going to touch that. Unlike Black Stockings. But that turned out to be made up by highwaymen, that one,

because it was actually the ghost of a shrieking boy. Sorry. So there was believed to be a ghost called Black Stockings who would pull riders from their horses, but it transpired that that story was made up by highwaymen to cover up the ghost of a shrieking boy who had witnessed some sheep rustlers and had been horribly killed by being skinned alive.

That is a story that goes from unlikely to unacceptably amusing to horrible to the depths of horror. So the high women killed a boy, I believe that, by skinning. Sheep rustlers killed

a boy. Sheep rustlers killed the boy. Well, why would the highway men try and cover it up on behalf of the sheep rustlers? And why would you try and cover up a ghost with another ghost? And why do they need to? It's not like the ghost is going to report the crime. Is that the fear, that the ghost will report the crime? And so to scare people away from

the ghost, they invented the story of a ghost. That is the most ridiculous plan I've ever heard. Yeah. But they're not even doing it for themselves. They're doing it on behalf of sheep rustlers. Just out of sympathy. For sheep rustlers who skin children alive they think, well, we don't want them being caught.

It's a good name though, Blackstocking. It is a good name. And once it's called Blackstocking, nobody's going to ask if it's the ghost of a small boy trying to report a crime. Although it would seem this has all come out subsequently so we do know we now have got the facts how did that transpire i don't know again these would men are we just little soups on the side of the main story of papa bayliss well because so this area is an area sort of um rich in law and eldritch goings on and skinned children.

It's spooky. It's lawless. The oaks aren't that big. And that's why I think Papa Bayliss thought he would be able to get away with his... Subterfuge is the word I would use. I was going to say, just say the word bullshit again. But I was trying to think of something nice and then it got to nonsense. But I think it's got a

little bit more of an edge than just nonsense. Pulling the wool over the eyes of Mama Bayliss. Wool that he came by in a legal manner. You're not implicating

him 300 years later in sheep rustling. No. No. So yeah. I mean and that's the size of it. I think we should get

on to scoring. All right. Okay, well, what categories have we got? First up, classic category, naming. You've put me in a tough position because almost none of the characters have names. No. We've had to invent names.

The names Popper and Mama Bayliss because we don't know what the characters are called. Two of the characters have names that is the same name. Yeah. We've got Blackstockings. Blackstockings is a good name, but technically that's a different story

it's just a tangential sous-son I can't take those points in that case I think it's a two at most that's very

generous that is very generous well I'm feeling sorry for you because you'd think even Papa Bayliss might have asked

the headless cavalier what his name was the story tells us definitely that the other guy didn't reply ever at any point in his one-sided story. He might have been mouthing along.

That's the sad thing, I think. This poor headless ghost may have been trying to reply, but because his neck wasn't connected to his lungs, he's just mouthing along. That's what I hope. The best he could hope would be to make a kind of a... kind of noise. A popping sound. Maybe a... kind of noise. A popping sound.

Maybe a sucking kind of... Gore. Gore. Gore. I think it's medium, loam to medium, because we've got a proper headless man, and it was quite scary when you told me. If that weren't an enormous cliché of ghost stories,

it would be a frightening image to see a guy with a ruff holding his own head under his arm. The ruff's really highlighting the lack of head as well, isn't it? Yes. I'm imagining the ruff would be sort of spattered with droplets of blood and so forth. Well, you would imagine it would be wet through. Soaked and flopping.

Well, maybe he's changed it since he was beheaded. Okay, this one, it could go either way supernatural out of five well it depends if we're to believe Papa Bayliss' account it's a good high

it's a high proper ghost story with the beginning and a middle and an end double ghost story as well because you've got the ghostly carriage the ghostly carriage. The ghostly carriage.

Which was a feature of Cotswold legend. I don't know if it is particularly around other areas in the country. But there were a few ghostly carriages knocking around. So that kind of undermines him though if he has made it up. He's not even original. If we're to believe him I think it would probably be a four or maybe even a five. I think bang on five bang on five but

since we we think he may have just made the whole thing up he might have not known he was making up the carriage bit because we've established

he's a brewer he might have been a little bit drunk and he's walking near a train line always happening at the same time as well

kind of like how trains do alright on a foggy night, as you described, your imagination can run away with you. If he's selling the truth, it's a five. But the grain of doubt, the seed has been sown.

I'm going to have to knock it down to four on the grounds that I actually think he just made the whole thing up. It's good value for money, ghost-wise. Did he have to escalate his story? You've got to wonder where he would have gone as well if that hadn't been enough. I've got the sound of a coach.

I've got my headless mate walking next to me. And then we stumble across the devil himself who says you should get home a little bit earlier. And I will take your soul if you don't have a little pint when you get in. Okay, so next category this is one place I got to score cliches slash tropes.

Five out of five. Yes. He's got his head under his arm James under his arm. He's in Elizabethan dress. Yeah.

If you were a ghost being cast in a haunting and asked to wear a ruff and hot you'd be like if you're an out of work. Like a black actor being asked to wear a ruff you'd be like if you're an out of work like a black actor being asked to do

minstrels in the 70s on TV you'd go no this is Uncle Tom bullshit I am not wearing that ruff but if you're an out of work actor

desperate for the job of this ghost and you wanted to seal the deal you're going to turn up to the auditioning costume and pick an Elizabethan dress head under the arm okay this one then surely wanted to seal the deal you're going to turn up to the auditioning costume this is exactly

under the arm okay this one then surely family legend i'm going to give it a four because not not a five because it's its reach has been limited but considering it is just a family story like you know that time that you know had diarrhoea on holiday, those kind of family stories, to have got into at least one serious book of folklore is quite impressive. None of my family stories have ever been recorded for posterity. I think this should score highly.

I'm arguing in its favour. This should score highly for family legend because of the awkwardness that Papa Bayper bayliss would find himself in yes so the reason it's in the book is that he has been forced out of pride to not recant the story and just double down on it and insist that it did happen that this ghost from central casting forced him to go home earlier that is a mediumly high score i think i mean not respectable bearing in mind that none of this happened. Yeah, not bad. You have been listening to Lawmen.

The Lawmen are Alastair Beckett-King and James Shakeshaft. If you enjoyed Lawmen, please rate and subscribe in all the usual places. If you didn't enjoy Lawmen, we'll cut you into cobs.