Loremen Podcast - S1 Ep5: Loremen S1 Ep5 - Minster Lovell and Silky

Episode Date: January 18, 2018

One tale definitely features dust, maybe skeletons, certainly dust - the other has silk and an awful, awful piggy bank... 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 about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And I'm Alistair's Batman and Robin, James Shakeshaft. In each episode, we'll unearth pieces of forgotten folklore and hold them up to the searing light of our arbitrary scoring system. So have you got a story this time? I have got a story, yes. I've got a story about Minster Lovell. Minster Lovell.

Minster Lovell. A person or a place? Oh, no, it's a place. It's a place. But it does sound like a person. Minster Lovell. A person or a place? Oh, no, it's a place. It's a place. But it does sound like a person. Minster. Is that a title or is that a first name? I don't know.

Just a typo in Mr. Mr. Lovell. The Spaceman. Right? Jim Lovell? I don't know. You don't know enough about Spaceman. Sorry.

I'm sorry. I didn't know. I need to know all the names of the Spaceman. No, this is Minster Lovell, which is a place. It's a building. It's now a ruin. And it's near enough to my house that when we all learned to drive, we would go there at night because it was spooky.

And we, in fact, this particular piece of folklore, I have a very strong memory of sitting in the ruins at night with my friends and reading this by um lantern light oh whoa whoa lantern i think we got a torch out but we had taken like a little shepherdy crook hurricane lamp thing did you did you grow up in the 16th century no we just wished we did i bet you you were some of the coolest kids around at the time. I think the bagginess of my brown cords showed the level of my coolness. And while we read the story, we heard what sounded like footsteps coming towards us across the gravel in the ruin. And we looked and there was no one there.

It might have been something dripping. It might have just been some dripping, echoing. Ghost dripping. Dripping ectoplasm probably. Ghost dripping. It might have just been some dripping, echoing. Ghost dripping. Dripping eto-plasm, probably. Yeah. Ghost dripping. A moist ghost approaching. Ghost dripping on ghost toast.

Desiree would not like that. Although, that would put her in quite the quandary, wouldn't it? Desiree sang Life, right? I don't know. You don't know Spaceman. I don't know the R&B slash soul. I don't even know what genre of music she exists in

she's got what's considered to be the worst lyrics in the world in the song Alive she goes I wouldn't like to meet a ghost

that's the thing I fear the most I'd rather eat a piece of toast are those those are actual lyrics in the song if I've got it wrong

I've made it better but yeah she rhymes ghost toast most. If she was presented with a plate of ghost dripping on toast... She'd be understandably furious. She wouldn't know what to do. She wouldn't know where to look.

She'd make her position clear on toast and ghosts. She would leave that restaurant. So, Minster Lovell, yes. Now, this... Annoyingly, there seems to be one thing that happened, and then there's two stories about it which are mutually exclusive. Like if one thing's true, big pause before true there. It's annoying.

They've got two different legends about the same thing, but there it's clear it kind of makes you think it was all. But it's so I don't know what order to say them because they both spoil the punchline for each other. The way that these sort of tales, they have like a little reveal at the end. This kind of has the same reveal but two different setups. Whenever that's happened to the story I've done, I've just told them both simultaneously

with all the contradictions. So the first version refers to Francis Lovell. He's from the medieval times. Medieval. I would say medieval. I would, because that's how it's written. For someone who just a minute ago said medieval, you're very angry.

And said Minster Lovell might be a typo, and it's referring to a spaceman. Or astronaut. This guy features in a rhyme, which is always a good thing. The rhyme is from the time of Richard III. He was a companion, close friend and minister of Richard III, this Francis Lovell guy.

And his name occurs in a famous bit of doggerel, which goes, The cat, the rat and Lovell the dog ride all England under the hog. I said England there there which annoyed me. Sorry does it not say England? No it says England. You added that.

I've really done myself over being so. Is the hog Richard III? I guess Richard III is the hog. Love all the

dogs because he had a hound on his coat of arms. I don't know who the cat and the rat are. No one does. After Richard III's

death in the car park in Leicester. Spoiler alert for the play Richard III. Oh, and the history book. Yep. He tried to bring a revolt, which failed, and he kind of went missing from history. In fact, a later King of... He went missing from history.

He went missing from the book history. He was definitely defeated at Stamford Bridge, and the thing is they never found his body. He may have got away, though, or he was trying to cross a river, but the side was too steep and he drowned it. I'm now intentionally getting things wrong. A real surplus of syllables.

To cover up any mistakes that I make in life or this thing that we're going to talk about happened to him good one of the reports

claimed that he didn't die in the battle but he lived long afterwards in a cave or vault it was during Henry VIII that they tried to

they set up a jury to try and establish the fact of his death and they still so that's like two kings later, isn't it? Yeah. That's quite a long time. Yeah.

They reckoned he'd escaped abroad. But there was a macabre discovery, because I don't know how to say macabre, but I'm really happy that I did all that stuff already. That is some well-laid groundwork. Yeah. It was from the early 18th century. And according to the clerk of the House of Commons in 1728, again, I don't know whether it's going to early 18th century and according to the clerk of the house of commons in 1728 again i don't know whether it's going to be clerk or clerk so i've covered my back again

the earl of rutland had some workmen doing repair at minster level hall and they found a secret room and in that secret room was a table and a chair. And in that chair was the skeleton of a man with a skeleton of a dog at his feet. And as the air touched these bodies, they turned into dust. That happens conveniently in lots of stories. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? And so it's believed that this was Francis Lovell. He had a secret room made this was Francis Lovell. He'd hold up in his... He had a secret room made in Mr Lovell Hall.

He'd hold up in there. He only had one servant who knew of his location. That servant died. Francis then died. He starved and died in the little room. A prisoner in his own home. And it's meant to be his ghost that walks around the ruins to this day. That's story A.

Story A. I've just remembered, this is an aside. There was also a person walled up in Hermitage Castle from the last story. There was so much going on that one, I forgot to mention it. Oh, no. Yeah. So it's just someone walled up. Was that...

And I think he didn't even turn to dust when they found him. I think he genuinely was definitely there. Was he walled up on purpose, though? Because that was that wicked man sorry that was just an aside so that was story A what is story B

now story B is a version of the Mistletoe Bride in this case for some reason it's called the Mistletoe Bough

this is a tale that crops up all over the country so this is set at Lovell Hall and the young mr lovell i don't it doesn't matter which one because this is this one's definitely not true um on his wedding day they're having the big party that in the evening they decide to have a game of hide and

seek the bride hides she cannot be found days weeks people are getting worried he thinks that she's eloped with someone, maybe you know he's going through all sorts you know he dies a broken man many years later and then after this point they find they open this big old chest in the loft inside a skeleton

in bridal gear not a horse it is horse play but no this yeah a bride in a in a wedding dress

is found dead it's his ghost that haunts the grounds looking sobbing and looking for the bride

and presumably shouting how did you not think to look in the person sized chest in the loft that's exactly the kind of place you would hide yeah that is it's hide and seek

do some more seeking well she's not standing in the centre of any of these rooms. Let's call it a day. Yeah, she probably eloped. And so, yeah, that's story B. And that sort of undermines anything because it just sort of says, well, they might have found a skeleton.

But, like, you can't... It's not even the same skeleton. It's just someone had an idea that they might have found a skeleton that missed the level. We know one of them was found in skeletal form. I could try and do the mashup of A and B. So, a servant or builder

found a man and dog or bride in a walled-up room or chest. And the ghost of the person who was looking for that bride slash man with dog haunts the grounds to this day. In a state of some confusion. Justifiably upset. So, yes, that be they. To the scores. To the scores.

Once more to the scores. This is a classic. It's naming. The category of naming. Well, what you've done is you've sneakily mispronounced

a whole load of words to add unearned interest to the names and the words in the story. Yeah. So we've got

both Minster Lovell and Mr. Lovell later on revealed. Yeah. Neither of them are astronauts. One of them

a place, the other one just a man. Mm. Lovell's a perfectly nice name and he does share it with an astronaut. Mm. We've got Desiree. She's got an apostrophe in her name.

Yeah. That's good. Do we have any other names? No. I even just wrote... I didn't even bother. It was William Lovell was that guy's name, the eldest son of the family.

Well, you're losing points for that because that's a very boring question. The bride doesn't even have a name. You're right not to give me many points. So I'm going to say many points. So you're ruling out the possibility of it being a one pointer. Alright,

because of the connection to spaceman astronaut Jim Lovell, I'm going to say two points. One for space and one for the names in the story. Thank you. You're welcome. You're more than welcome. I'm being generous. Yeah, you are. Yeah. And another classic, Supernatural. The Supernatural category. Supernatural. Well, I don't really think you've got much supernatural.

So you've got whichever one of them actually did die haunts the place. Yes. And you met a moist ghost. I heard a moist ghost. You heard a moist ghost. But it was the ghost. This is real. This is the...

It's not real. But we were telling this story. The story of the place, in the place. In the place, and we thought we heard the ghost in the story. Multiple people. It wasn't just one person going, nor did you hear that, and everyone else going, oh, stop messing about.

Well, I suppose if a bunch of sort of rough and ready troublemakers like you and your friends could be scared by this ghost. Yeah. It's got to be pretty bone-shiveringly frightening. Mm-hmm. So that in itself has got to be an extra point added to whatever the base score is. But I must say, I think the base score is quite low for Supernatural. We've simply got the fact that the people who died came back and were a bit haunty.

Well, it's not, you're giving it multiple there. I'm going to have to, I'm going to do myself out of points. It's one ghost and two, two hypotheses. For up to,

but not exceeding one ghost. There is, there has been the spectre of a tall man in a cloak. You're just dropping in new ghosts. Throwing the scoring. Well, this is more, I think this is the one ghost.

I've already closed the inbox for ghosts. Groaning sounds coming from the ground. Saying it won't have any effect on the score. I've read that word for word in the book, Folklore and Mysteries of the Cotswolds. Groaning sounds heard coming from the ground. Ooh. Three points.

Yes. You've got three points, but only because of those groaning sounds coming from the ground. Where are they coming from the ground. Three points. Yes! You've got three points, but only because of those grounding sounds coming from the ground. Where are they coming from? The ground. So if we dig a little hole, are they louder?

Is that how this works? If you dig a hole, you'll just be able to see just a ghost's head. That's quite frightening. What's the next category? Parlour Games gone wrong. Yes. Very poor quality seeking. Very. Very poor quality seeking.

Very, very poor quality seeking. I mean, they've done so bad at hide and seek, I wouldn't want to entrust them with giant Jenga. They've done so bad at seek. She won. She won that game. In the case of the other version, where a guy and his dog were walled up

and no one found them. How could he... If the other guy no one found them how could he if the other guy could bring him how could he not get out was there just one brick for putting in food I mean he'd leave a

note you'd shout like he was the only guy with the key and the key in the room wouldn't you keep a copy in the room in case you needed to

leave it's like a panic room the panic begins once you're in the room you realise you've designed it terribly but adds no value to parlour games it's like a panic room the panic begins once you're in the room and you realise you've designed it terribly but adds no value

to parlor games I mean these guys I wouldn't want to see them playing charades somebody would be losing fingers at least in any other parlor game

based on a hide and seek death in a game of charades this bride would like go to drama school for three years and then be out of work for a number of times

trying to get bit parts in other people's games of charades before finally doing a career defining charades. All right. I think it's a four. And the reason it's not five is that being in a room on your own is not a parlour game. Yeah. Even if there's a dog there.

It's not a parlour. Very serious as well. It's not a game. Dead Man's Hide. Are you trying to come up with a name? I'm trying to come up with a name of a parlour. Very serious as well. It's not a game. Dead Man's Hide. Are you trying to come up with a name? I'm trying to come up with a name of a parlour game. Where you just hide in a room and die? Yeah, until you die.

He wins. He won that game. It's like sardines, but with one sardine, but it is still dead. And a dog. Well, the dog will eat the sardine. Well, that brings me to the final category, Dust. Dust. Oh, did we get a score?

It was four, wasn't it? It was four. Yeah, it was a solid four. Dust. Oh, did we get a score? It was four, wasn't it? It was four, yeah. It was a solid four. Dust. Explain this category. I noticed that there was a lot of dust in this story and I thought this would be an easy way to get five because you can't argue

that there isn't dust. So you were gerrymandering the whole system because you knew that you were going to score poorly on naming and supernatural because of your weak rank ghosts. I didn't think I would score as weakly on Supernatural. I thought my word counted for more. But I did want to make sure that I had a high score. Because you can't argue that there's dust.

You can argue about where the dust came from. Whether or not a body will disintegrate that quickly. It would need to be very dry. A tiny breeze. I mean, presumably the loft, the attic with the chest, the surrounding area would also be quite dusty. It must be dust. That's the marketing slogan for dust.

It must be dust. When you're trying to decide what to coat your surfaces with, it must be dust when you're trying to decide what to coat your surfaces with it must be dust it must be dust yes I don't know if you could tell from a dust whether it's a human or a dog's

from our dust Skellington I don't even say it like that it annoys me when people say it like that it did bring up a point that I wanted to make I don't even say it like that. It annoys me when people say it like that. It did bring up a point that I wanted to make that I think punctures a big hole in the disgraced Viscount Francis Lovell story. So these builders in the 18th century

find the secret room with the skeleton of a man and his dog, with a dog at his feet. I mean, as if you can still sit in a chair as a skeleton. And also... You'd crumble. If a man and his dog were locked in a room until they both starved to death, I'm sorry, but that dog is going to have had a go at that man.

The dog is probably going to have lasted longer and will have definitely had a nibble. But maybe that's what they mean by at his feet. Yeah. Like gnawing away. As if you were near a dog barking, even if it is in a nibble. But maybe that's what they mean by at his feet. Yeah. Like gnawing away. As if you were near a dog barking, even if it is in a secret room. I mean, come on, guys.

And also, I mean, he was on the run, but the dog wasn't on the run. No. Why did the dog need to be? Nobody was saying, oh, there's that treacherous dog who conspired against the king. What is the logistics of this?

Is this the man that died, the only man that knew they were in there, who brought the food in, is he taking the dog for walks? Is he coming in? And if so, people are spotting that and going, oh yeah, there's old Francis Lovell's dog. He's a good boy.

Where's he when he's not going for walks? Nowhere. No, we haven't got a dog. Don't look behind that large portrait of a man and a dog where both of the eyes are moving. And the tail's wagging. Or you want to get locked in a secret room with a dog. Dog's going to go to the toilet. They didn't have little plucky bags in those days.

We've established this. It's going to be a lot more of a chewy and a pooey room. It's going to smell. It's not going to be pleasant at all. But there was definitely dust. There was definitely dust. So you can't take points away. Yeah, what you've done is you've undermined your own story.

But frustratingly, I've already given you five points. So I'm a man of my word and I can't take any of them back. Well, none of my points were for credibility. Yeah, or contingently not being a very smelly room. We're silly to give this away for free to the, you know, big dust. We've given them like their Christmas campaign right there. Accept no substitute. I mean, they'll probably get someone better to do the voiceover.

Somebody who can say most of the words. When you need to cover all your things and sound too gritty, it must be dust. This next tale will leave you shivering every time you hear a rustle of silk. Or possibly not.

I have a story about a ghost called Silky. Oh. Which is another Northumbrian ghost. It's from a quiet village called Blackheddon, which is where hedonism comes from. Really? Nope. Made it up.

I just made it up to see your face when you said, really? No. Imagine if it was a small village in Northumberland where Hedonism was piloted. Or it would be like Black Hedonism, which would be like the anti-Hedonism. That is what it's like in Northumberland, though.

So it's a small village near Stamfordham and Silky is the name of a female ghost or spectre or bogey who for years and years and years and at the end of the 18th century haunted and terrified the people in that area. This story comes from M.A. Richardson's table book. I'm going to say in advance, before I start reading this, this guy likes long sentences. There are some very long sentences. Some so long that I've not been able to pay attention to what they're about from start to end, so I'm going to enlist your help in working out what the author's meaning is.

Okay, I'll take that. I've got a pen. The important thing is that the ghost was called Silky, a name which presumably does not derive from the Andre Williams album Silky, famously the most sleazy album in the world. I don't think it's that at all. It came from, and now I'm quoting, it's manifesting a marked predilection to make itself visible in the semblance of a female dressed in silk.

Many a time when any of the more timorous of the community had a night journey to perform, have they unawares and invisibly been dogged... Hold on, invisibly? Yeah, come on. All right, been dogged and watched by this spectral tormentor, who at the dreariest part of the road,

the most suitable for a thrilling surprise, would suddenly break forth in dazzling splendour. Presumably not invisible at that point. So they're invisibly following, and then when they get to the worst bit of the road... Break forth in... I'm imagining a kind of Cher-like image on the road, which is dazzling. I'm imagining lit up steps that Sylvia's walking down

and they're lighting up as she's coming down the steps. If the person happened to be on horseback, a sort of exercise for which she evinced a strong partiality, she would unexpectedly seat herself behind, rattling her silks in inverted commas, which I assume is not meant to be sounding... I mean, that's not adding a euphemism. I think it's just a direct quote.

I don't know how you rattle a silk. No. That's... I thought the whole point of silk is that it's very quiet. It's very... I suppose in the wind, like a... I'm flapping my hand. Like a flapping thing.

Yeah, like a sail or a flag or something like that. But still, silk, the very nature of it is quiet. There, after enjoying a comfortable ride, with instantaneous abruptness, she would, like a thing destitute of continuity, dissolve away and become incorporated with the nocturnal shades, leaving the bewildered horseman in blank amazement.

Asia, no, that continuity, bloody hell, that sentence, how many clauses are in that? When did that sentence start? You've got two sentences so far, right? Pretty much two sentences. I'll give you what I think is the longest sentence, not just in the book, but in general, the longest sentence I've come across.

So this is about one of the other things she would do. So that's what she would do. She would ride along and she would appear on the horse behind you, being all rustly, and sometimes appear in front of you looking dazzling by all accounts. One of the other things she would do, as far as I can tell, is be noisy in a forest, which is what my understanding of this sentence is. All right, I'll give you the shorter sentence before. Here often has the belated peasant with awe-stricken vision beheld her dimly through the sombre twilight as if engaged in splitting

great stones or hewing with many a repeated stroke some stately monarch of the grove. stones, or hewing with many a repeated stroke some stately monarch of the grove. New sentence. And while he thus stood and gazed, and listened to intimations impossible to be misapprehended of the dread reality of that mysterious being concerning whom so various conjectures were awake, all at once excited by that wondrous agency, he would have heard the howling of a resistless tempest rushing through the woodland, the branches creaking in violent concussion, or rent into fragments by the impetuous fury

of the blast, while to the eye not a leaf was to be seen to quiver, nor a pencil spray to bend. One sentence. Whoa. Noisy in a forest.

Yeah. Is all I can tell. But you can't see. You can't see anything. You can just hear general noisiness in a forest. That's quite scary.

My favourite thing is that she had a sort of a hangout, which was a particular area near a pond where there was a tree. So over which a venerable tree sweeping its umbrageous arms adds impressiveness to the scene. Now umbrage is like annoyance. So I guess umbrageous arms are like the tree going, come on. Now, umbrage is like annoyance, so I guess umbrageous arms are like the tree going, Come on! Silky!

I don't know what an annoyed tree would be, just shaking angrily in the wind like an old man's fist. Amid the complicated contorting limbs of this tree, Silky possessed a rude chair where she was wanting her moody moments to sit. Now, we don't know how rude. We don't know in what way the chair was rude. It doesn't say. She would stop horses dead in their tracks around Silky Brig, which is Silky Bridge, so it became name at least after she stopped a horse dead in her tracks.

And the only way to dispel her was to have some witchwood about your person, and that would get the horse moving again. The other thing she did, which was not traditional for ghosts, is that she would mess up your house. So if you tidied everything up on a Saturday night before Sunday morning, you'd come up in the morning and she would have messed everything up. However, if you left everything in a mess, she would tidy it up, which is not bad.

It's just kind of nice. Oh, that's okay. But the writer of this is convinced that she never did anything nice. Oh. And so he probably thinks that she's probably rewarding people who don't deserve it. So if you're lazy and you don't tidy up, you get tidied up, which is more immoral. Yeah, but if it's your house, you just chuck everything everywhere. If she's going to come by and do it again... Exactly.

I think the whole village gave up tidying up. They just stopped tidying up eventually, I think, so that she would do it. Makes it much easier. Unless you put stuff away in weird places. I do get annoyed when other people tidy up because I never know where anything is. But here's the thing that makes Silky remarkable, and it's the end of Silky's story. Silky got ghost busted. No more Silky, right?

So most ghosts sort of just peter out. Silky didn't. Silky stopped dead because, well, the rumour about Silky had always been that, quote, it had long been surmised that she was the troubled phantom of some person who had died very miserable in consequence of having great treasure, which before overtaken by her mortal agony had not been disclosed. And on account, she could not lie still in her grave and then what happened was there was a domestic female servant in one of the houses in blackhead who was just cleaning up alone in one of the rooms and the ceiling came in and a black figure fell down from inside the ceiling

and landed in the room and the woman was terrified and ran out of the room shouting, The devil's in the house! The devil's in the house! That was bad news. So it was like, oh, and so she's saying, Oh, he's coming through the ceiling, according to this. And there's a really good long sentence here, if I might trouble you with a long sentence. Go on. With this terrible announcement, the whole family were speedily convoked,

and great was the consternation at the idea of the foe of mankind being amongst them in a visible form. In this appalling extremity a considerable time elapsed before anyone could brace up courage to face the enemy, or be prevailed on to go and inspect the cause of their alarm. At last the mistress, who happened to be the most stout-hearted, ventured into the room, when, instead of the personage on account of whom such awful apprehensions were entertained, a great dog or calf skin lay on the floor sufficiently black and uncomely

but filled with gold. That's how you end a ghost story. A dead dog full of money falls on someone's head. After that Silky was never heard

or seen of again. Her destiny was accomplished her spirit laid and she now sleeps with her ancestors as peacefully and unperturbed

as do the degenerate and unenterprising ghosts of modern days. An unnecessary dig at modern ghosts. These modern ghosts. Bloody modern ghosts. Bloody nuisances.

So that was it. That was the story of Silky slash ceiling dog money bag. Ah. I mean, for a three-sentence story, that guy sure packed a lot in. And, okay, questions. What was the second sentence?

So what we've got here is a lady ghost who is frightening mostly men? Mostly men, mostly on horseback, yes. Mostly horseback men by making a noise. Yeah, it's mostly the rustling of silk. Right. If that's her thing, she should have worn noisier clothes like a shell suit or something. I mean, I've got a big problem with the maid at the end who's tidying up

when we already know that if you don't tidy up, Silky's going to do it for you. She may have been causing a mess. It doesn't say whether she was tidying or making a mess ready for it to be tidied. What's the level? I imagine the nurse was probably just there putting down a few saucers with the biscuit crumbs on them.

Just to make sure that Silky came to tidy up, make the beds. Tipped over the threshold into mess. But we don't know who she is, just that she had some... gold went missing. We... You've got me on the ropes here. Oh. We don't know anything about her or indeed whether

she had any gold. It's just that some people had a sense that she was missing... I mean, the idea that she had been missing her gold was obviously put in afterwards, after the dog full of gold fell out of the ceiling. And that fell down and then Silky stopped showing up. But Silky stopped. There were no reports of Silky after that, except occasionally

on people's deathbeds. So from then on, she only ever appeared as a deathbed spirit. And did she show up as fabulous? Or did she sort of match her mode of entrance to the situation I would hope so because you don't want to

come in like Liberace if someone's on their deathbed you don't want to just fly down on a golden swan or dog riding on a golden dog riding on a golden dog gold coins falling out of its seams do you not think that might have just been a sack a sack yes but a sack just been a sack? A sack, yes. But a sack made

from a dog. A dog sack. Because for me it implies a backstory where someone had got a lot of gold. Oh, we've managed to hide all this gold from the Doomsday book or something. Where are we going to keep it, Dad? Dad, why are you looking at Rover? Naturally, we're going to put it in there. And we don't also know whether the dog

was dead before the money went in or just as a consequence of being filled with gold. So the very idea of it is grotesque. Because, you know, when someone's got a very old dog and they don't move very much, they just sort of sit there smelling slightly, maybe their dog had got to that stage and they realised they needed somewhere to hide their gold. And it just... So they just filled the dog up there so whenever anyone came around it was still that you just pop your feet up on it nobody noticed oh dog full of gold it is i mean it is

literally the last place you would look inside an animal inside an animal in the loft as well they ended up putting it like oh yeah or within this as well if you had got to the stage where you were looking in the crawl space of a building if you found the dead

body of a dog there you're not even going to prod it and hear it sort of jingle a little bit and think

like a horrible leathery piggy bank maybe it's not the brilliant disguise I assumed. I think if you hide it in plain sight, like you have it as though it's like, oh, that's, and that's how I'm on a mummified dog even. You can even go that.

Yeah, or just have it looking out the window all the time. That makes it look suspicious. You're absolutely right. Yeah, they've made a terrible error. And that's why it was found out. And that's why they cut it open, presumably and found all the gold. Well, it just fell down

in the end. It just... Time took its toll on putting a load of metal in what presumably was like wooden... Oh, in those days

ceilings were made of just cheese and straw. A drawing of a ceiling. Okay, let's get back to Silky herself. Doing a good service. She's brightening up

through the parts of the room. Silky sounds great as far as I'm concerned. It's got a sort of drag queen-y kind of feel to it. Yeah. The show she's putting on. And I appreciate that. Especially with the angry trees and the rude chair. Well, do you think if she is kind of going for the drag queen vibe,

that's probably quite a rude chair. I have to say, I think at this point, people will wonder if we know the actual meaning of the word rude in that context. I don't. Okay. It just means simple, unsophisticatedly made. Oh, the opposite. In the sense of the rude mechanicals in Midsummer Night's Dream.

Like rudimentary, that's it. So not actually, necessarily offensive chair. Got fingers on the bits where you put your arms, it's just got middle fingers up. Yeah. And it says on the back, now, f*** off.

Yeah. Those T-shirts, they seem all right on the front. Right, I'm, to be honest, some of those sentences, all of them, even the one that you said was the short one, were a little bit long. This was the Victorian era, so this was before the invention of entertainment of any kind. And so really long sentences were a good way of passing the time before death. What was the thing about dreary corners and pizzazz?

Pizzazz, I'm guessing, is my own word. Just search for the word pizzazz. She would appear on corners, the dreariest being the best for her. Yeah, what's happened there is he's just inserted his opinion about what areas of the road are most suitable for a thrilling surprise. And then, kablam!

A fantastical... Silky's here. Yeah. You did say that. No, silky! Silky's here. It will be there. And then the glitter falls from the ceiling. And big letters like in a silky. Silky's here. It will be there. And then the glitter falls from the ceiling. And big letters, like Elvis. Sorry, the ilky. I imagine she starts facing away from you and then spins around and then spotlights.

Yeah. And then the steps, sound steps, all light. I mean, this is the poor people of Blackhead in Northumberland. It's a dreary existence they live. This has got to be the visual highlight of the year. This Emma Richardson, I think, has got the wrong end of the silky stick here because she seems to be doing all good.

She's brightening up dreary points of the road. She's acting as a companion for lonely riders. The experience of seeing silk. I don't get what she was doing in the tree in the chair, to be honest. But she's tidying up houses. Just rocking, I think. She was just rocking the wind.

She's trying to calm down a grumpy tree. And she's filling their pets with gold. She sounds great. All good, Silky. Keep doing it. Why did you stop? No, I like her. He's got the wrong idea of her.

So, scores. Can I give you some categories? Yes. And do you want to give me some scores? All right. Well, the first idea of her. So, scores. Can I give you some categories? Yes. And do you want to give me some scores? All right. Well, the first category, naturally, is supernatural. That's going to be five of five. Good.

I mean, there is no scientific explanation for any of the stuff that I've described. No. No. Not at all. Loud noises in a forest. Pfft. You're joking. Ghosts.

Yeah. Seeing someone in a tree. Ghost. It's obvious. Yeah. Forgetting whether you've tidied your house or not. Ghosts. ghosts yeah seeing someone in a tree ghost it's obvious yeah forgetting whether you've tidied your house or not ghosts

dreary bits of the road ghosts yeah horses ghosts it's ghosts ghosts

ghosts yeah so I accept your I accept your five out of five as no more than Silky's Jew this is maybe a

trickier one what about the traditional category of names that's a good Silky is the the traditional category of names that's a good Silky is the only name we've got it's a good name it seems to describe

actually whoa yeah I'm literally as I'm saying I could feel that four or five stars coming my way and now receding

there's one name and I think it's inaccurate and it doesn't Silky and the only thing that defines her silkiness is the noise that it makes that could be any fabric and most other fabrics are likely to be noisier tinfoil i think you're right i was going to try and argue but i think you're sorry so what's your score there it has got a that's got a little something about it i'm not

going to forget it i think silky has a bit of it's got a bit of show business and a bit of razzmatazz and if nothing else that is what Silky brought yeah Silky the sole name she puts herself up there with Madonna

Seal or the other mob with one name alright so what's your what's your final score for names it's going to be I think two would be under underrating

the branding of Silky. Yeah. But three seems a bit much for something that's only got one name that is inaccurate. If they'd have had something for the dog full of gold that they thought was the devil, if that had maybe got a little name in there. Did I mention his name is Arthur Johnson? Jeff.

I didn't know his name. No. Two. It's going to be two. It's a two. Sorry, Silky. I'm sorry, Silky. My next category is Rude Chairs is the next category.

Rude Chairs, five. Five out of five for Rude Chairs. The full title for this category is Rude Chair slash Grumpy Tree. Brilliant. Yeah. That's not subtracting any points. Well, that more than makes up for the names problem. Tree emotions.

And my final category, silk purse out of a sow's ear. Well, five, Silky. Five. Because it's Silky's purse. Yes. Out of a dead dog's carcass. Well, that is a wonderfully high score.

Unsurprisingly they cleaned the phrase up. Would you hold it by the legs do you think? You could trust the legs together and put it over your arm like a handbag.

Yeah, yeah like a abhorrent handbag. But it just shows once people found out there was gold in there they'd start treating you differently. Yeah, because you wouldn't be able to walk

if you had a dog's worth of gold in there. A dog's worth of gold. Dogs, yeah. Yeah, because it's a silk purse out of a sow's ear, in a sense, because there's quite a lot of jumbly rubbish here. But the general charisma of Silky has tied the whole thing together into a flamboyant, entertaining display

that ends with a dog full of money falling on someone. I didn't see that coming, to be honest. When you said, don't worry, the Silky story does come to a resolution, I don't think I even thought a dog would be involved at all. No. Let alone one full of gold. Let alone it falling out of the roof.

Let alone someone thinking that was the devil for no particular reason. No, it's just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Even a cat full of gold would be a lot. You have been listening to Lawmen. The Lawmen are Alistair Beckett-King and James Shake Shaft.

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