Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep100: Loremen S3 Ep100 - Danny Robins - The Cauld Lad of Hylton

Episode Date: March 10, 2022

The Loremen are joined by supernatural pod king* Danny Robins! Danny is the voice behind Haunted, The Battersea Poltergeist and Uncanny, as well as being an award-winning playwright. And he brings James and Alasdair a little-known North-Eastern legend: The Cauld Lad of Hylton. Was the Cauld Lad a ghost? A sprite? A murder victim? Or just an annoying guy who didn’t know how ducks work? Darting between Newcastle and Sunderland, we also encounter a somewhat smutty version of the Fish and the Ring, and a carefully censored account of Pollard’s Boar. *He’s king of supernatural podcasts NOT king of the pod people. Sign up to the patreon for an exclusive bonus episode with extra Danny Robins: www.Patreon.com/loremenpod 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, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And I'm James Shakeshaft. And James, I have a deputy guest lawperson for you. It is the BBC's Danny Robbins. Whoa, I knew that already. I know you knew that already. person for you. It is the BBC's Danny Robbins. Whoa! I knew that already. I know you knew that already. Sorry, I remember when it happened. Yeah, off of Uncanny.

Yes, many serious supernatural podcasts. And now plays and multimedia events. And Danny is bringing with him a Northeastern tale. It's the cold lad of Hilton. Oh, I'm so cold cold they must be cold if they're from the northeast are you saying because he's not wearing a jacket because of the jacket

because of the whole jacket thing james shakeshaft hello yeah hello alistair becker king did i startle you have i caught you in the middle of something? It was the full name. It always puts me, you know. Oh, yeah, yes. You were shaken by your own surname. Yes, let's leave it at that. I'm quite excited to introduce a deputy law person to you, James. Oh.

Yeah? Oh, yeah. That was a good noise of intrigue. I'm always excited to meet a deputy law person. It is off of the internet. That doesn't sound as good as I meant it to sound. No, everyone's on the internet. Off of the West End stage and the internet, which is worldwide.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber? Oh, nearly. Very nearly. One day. It is of uncanny and haunted fame, the podcast, not being uncanny. I'm doing this so badly. There's a lot of caveats. It's Danny Robbins. It's Danny Robbins? Yes, it's Danny Robbins. Hello, Danny. Deputy Danny. Hello.

Hello. Thank you for joining us as a deputy law person. It's very exciting. Although I feel like in the hierarchy of the supernatural, I feel like really you're like the chief. If anything, you'd be behind a desk with a big cigar and a mug of coffee. I am the law. With a noire. Exactly, exactly. Joke that works better on paper. Yes. Just judge dread, but it's about the normal spelling of dread.

But anyway, it's very, very nice to be here. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, thank you very much, Danny. I'm a big fan, as I'm sure many of our listeners are, of your podcasts. Uncanny being the most recent, and yeah, I absolutely love it. And Haunted being the least recent? Yeah, pretty least recent.

Yeah, if we're ranking things in terms of recentness, then that is correct. That's how time works, isn't it? And Battersea Poltergeist is a mid-recent. Yeah, sort of midi-recent. Yeah. I didn't even say Battersea Poltergeist when I was doing the... I'm so bad at introductions. It's fine. It was noted, but don't worry, we'll move on. Okay, this is going really badly. So, I'm going to try and build a rapport with Danny to make up

for forgetting about the middle one. You can win this back, it's fine. What on earth could you have in common well this will shock any listeners with an ear for accents but danny and i are both from the same part of the country the country being england and the region being the northeast but neither of us have a proper accent do it is unlikely isn't it and i've actually spent a lot of my life a member of a facebook group called yes i'm from newcastle and no I don't have a Geordie accent. My entire life. You're big Danny 101. My entire life people have said, you can't come from Newcastle, you don't have an accent.

And I'm like, well, you come from London and you don't have a Cockney accent. And then they drop their jellied eels with shock. And they lambeth walk off. But everywhere you go, there are people who are kind of middle-class people like me who don't have an accent, you know? And then people, the next people the next question is like oh well you must have gone to some posh private school i'm like no went to a really ordinary school you know and um you know got the stories i could tell you about my school we had a bloke at my school this this kid who was terrifying as a kid but he went on to to murder somebody by driving over them and then reversing

over them which was pretty horrifically bad. His real claim to fame was that he was the first person to be arrested drunk in charge of a horse in Newcastle Town Centre. Are you from the past, Danny? You're hanging out with people

who were getting drunk in charge of horses. When he ran over that person, was it in a trap? That's right. It was a horse and trap. But anyway, that's a long-winded way of saying, no, I don't have a Geordie accent, but I am from Newcastle. Are you from Jesmond? Is that right?

The posh bit. I am from Jesmond, actually, which anyone who knows Newcastle well will know is sort of the posh part of Newcastle. Is that the poshest bit? It's not the poshest bit. I mean, Gosforth would be the poshest bit. Like, you know, Pontelan's where the footballers live. That's where the money is. But it's in the middle. It's the Battersea poltergeist of poshest bit. It's not the poshest bit. I mean, Gosforth would be the poshest bit. Or like, you know, Pontyland's where the footballers live. That's where the money is.

But it's in the middle. It's the Battersea Poltergeist of poshness. You know, it's your kind of Stoke Newington of Newcastle, I guess. When I was a kid, it's where all the kind of

the middle class teachers and academics and people like that lived. But I mean, now it's full of students. It's a kind of, you know, it's just students now. All the real people

have moved out. Danny Robbins in Students Aren't Human shop. Okay. Where did you say the footballers live? Pontins? Oh, Pontiland. Pontiland. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's pretty posh out there. But no, I lived in Sunderland before that. So, I mean, like, I've embraced the kind of big divide in the North East, you know, Geordie's in Newcastle and Mackens in Sunderland. And I spent like the first eight years of my life living on this council estate

in this little place called Washington in the borough of Sunderland in the 1980s. Formerly in the County of Durham in the old days, Washington. Yeah, okay, well there you go. Where I'm from. Contentious. The Palatinate County itself.

Yes, yes. Washington actually used to belong, as listeners to the episode about the Lambton Worm will remember. Will remember? I'm sure they remember. Washington used to be part of County Durham, yes, before it was taken by Sunderland.

Fair enough. I was hunting around for a piece of Northeastern folklore to talk about with you, and I found some interesting little snippets that I'd like to share that we won't dwell upon. Because, of course, you span the region, Danny. I had so much to choose from. So the first thing I found was in a book called vox piscis from 1627 i don't speak latin but i think that means fish talk basically

everything you want to know about fish would that possibly be pisces instead of piscus or i don't know how they pronounce it well it's got an i in it i'm so i'm guessing it's pronounced piscus and pisces is the i mean piscus sounds like the sort of thing you should never type into the internet yeah i think we might have to bleep some of this, depending on... Well, there's more bleeping to come, unfortunately. Well, look, you're from Jesmond, so I'm sure your Latin is better than mine. So let's assume it's Vox Pisces. So it's the story of Mr. Anderson's ring, as quoted in Law of the Land. I'll read that to you now. Okay. A citizen of Newcastle, whose name I take to be M. Anderson,

talking with a friend of his upon Newcastle Bridge and fingering his ring before he was aware that it'd fall into the river and was much troubled by the loss of it, till by a fish caught in the river, that loss was repaired and his ring restored to him. It's the fish in the ring story again. So the fish ate the ring? The fish ate the ring.

Man caught fish. The fish got fished. The man got the ring back. It's a tale in the ring story again. So the fish ate the ring? The fish ate the ring. Man caught fish. The fish got fished. The man got the ring back. It's a tale as old as time, but it was claimed that this is the original version of the fish in the ring legend, which of course crops up wherever fishes and rings exist. Obviously, I mainly read it so I could say,

standing on Newcastle Bridge, find the ring is real. I got the sense that that was the main thing that drew you to that story. The main thrust of the Mr. Henderson's Ring little story. I mean, at this point, you've really moved into kind of consuming Roger's profanosaurus from Viz. Another Northeastern publication.

A lovely Northeastern touch there. It's no fish talk, but it's very good. But, I mean, he does very much sort of gloss over the miraculousness of that story in the telling, Mr. Vox Piscis. It's not written by Vox Piscis, James. You've completely misunderstood. Oh, is that a pseudonym?

It's about Piscis or Pisces. He's just like, yeah, he dropped his ring and then someone caught it in a fish. So, see you later. End of story. No questions. There's something quite miraculous about finding a ring there isn't it like my my mate lost his ring on a beach recently when he was in the summer and he was

going sort of paddling in the beach and a metal detector guy came and found him helped him find it in a few days later they did find this wedding ring which he was kind of consigned to losing and that moment where you get back this little band that signifies all this amazing stuff in your life you know this kind of love and union there isn't that to get that back feels kind of amazing and miraculous i can kind of see how that moment could then get evolved into something even more magical yeah and he never fingered it again did he respect the fishes then was he kind of a little bit more... Danny's friend or...? My friend wasn't

helped by fishes. I need to make that clear. He was helped by a... Oh, so the detectorist was a human. I was picturing a fish with a magnet. He was...

It was a human detectorist. Yeah. I mean... Right. It wasn't a piscean detectorist. Do you say piscean or piss-een? Piscean, I would say.

For fish. Piscean? I'd say fishy. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to imagine what fish would have access to a metal detector. All I can think of is that I suspect that dolphins have access to Geiger counters because of their noises.

That was tenuous, James, but really good. It was worth it, I think. Really, it was an excuse to do my Geiger counter-dolphin impression. I respect that. I respect that. I popped onto Ready to Go, which is the Sunderland message boards. It's mostly about Sunderland FC.

Okay. Found a very interesting discussion of local folklore on there. And one story which I hadn't heard before, which is Pollard and the Boar, which is a variation on the Bradford Boar story that listeners might remember Chris Cantrell brought to us. But I think user DagZD1973 does a much better version of the story of Pollard and the Boar. So I will read that now. Gist of it, big wild boar terrorising Bishop Auckland. Reward offered, gadget named Pollard follows it, hides up a tree, waits till it falls asleep, and bam, kills a... He then falls asleep

and a passerby cuts off the boar's head, claims the reward. That's it. We took about 40 minutes over that story, James. We did. And Gadji is such a brilliant Northeastern word. Like, nobody outside of Northeastern will know what that means,

but just like... I think it might be originally a Romany word, Gadji. It's bloke or guy, isn't it? Like, you know, oh, that Gadji came down the road. Yeah, this fella, this Gadji. Yeah. It's bloke or guy, isn't it? Like, you know, oh, that gadgie came down the road. Yeah, this fella,

this gadgie. Yeah. It's al gadgie. Do you know the origin? What is the origin of Maccombe and Geordie? Is Maccombe something to do with making a thing?

It's about Maccombe and Tackham, isn't it? I think it's that you make them and take them. I think Maccombe means making ships. Yeah. And what's a Geordie?

Geordie is from George. Hmm? But it's from, isn't it from George Stevenson? I thought it was from George Stevenson, the original kind of Northeastern inventor. I thought it came from that. Geordie's an abbreviation of George, isn't it?

It's only that recent. It may be from King George. You think? Was everyone called George? I don't know. I have time to Google this during the podcast. It says here it's from the Jacobite Rebellion. Sorry, I've just Googled it. It's got a picture of Antony Deck on Wikipedia.

So this is authoritative. Oh, yeah, the name originated during the Jacobite Rebellion. The Jacobites declared that Newcastle and surrounding areas favoured the Hanoverian King George and were for George. So hence the name Geordie used as a derivation of George. He's not reading that. He's just remembering that from his childhood because he's a time-travelling ghost. You know what, though?

I have a Swedish wife and I have learnt Swedish as a result. And actually, there are loads of similarities between the Geordie dialect and Scandinavian languages. And you can see loads and loads of words that are similar. Like the word for child in Geordie is bärn, and in Swedish it's barn. The word for home in geordie is bairn and in swedish it's barn and the word for home in geordie is i'm getting yam i'm going i'm going home i'm getting yam and in swedish you say hem and i think in norwegian it is yam or something they're really

similar anyway so it's pesky vikings yeah and it's from the vikings landing there you know the vikings came there the norwegians landed there and and and the language has changed less in the northeast than it has in other parts of the country. Because we don't like change. Or chat. Exactly. Don't talk to people from other places. So I'd like to bring you the story that I want to talk about now.

I looked through lots of little stories like that. They were very nice and very folkloric, but because you're a ghost guy, Danny, I wanted us to do something that had a bit of a spooky dimension. Do you know anything about The Cold Lad of Hilton? state in in washington and it's about 10 minutes drive from hilton castle and i i'd sort of managed to get through my life without hearing this story but it's quite a sad and poignant tale isn't it this one actually and it really is this is this is essentially a comedy podcast and then every every second or third episode is just about a tragic child death i mean this is the thing something about child ghosts that's particularly affecting, I think, isn't there? And particularly kind of child ghosts from the past where this is a child who's been kind of mistreated by some nasty landowner.

You know, and I think that, you know, that's very poignant. You were calling it the cold lad there. But I mean, to be real proper Geordies, we should pronounce this as the cowled lad, shouldn't we? The cowled lad of Hilton. Yeah, the cowled lad. And they spell it C-A-U-L-D. But it's basically the story of this lad, this stable boy called Robert Skelton. And the important thing for everyone listening to know is that everybody in this story is called Robert.

If it was a made up story, you'd have more variation. But this is... This is before everyone was called George, I guess. Yeah. It's the 16th or the 17th century and i mean that's the other thing the details in this story are very vague and um it's it's morphed across time but anyway so this lad this young lad is uh is robert skelton and he's a stable boy for robert hilton who's this baron and as we all know that all barons are pretty nasty people you know you don't get to be a baron. And as we all know, that all barons are pretty nasty people. You know, you don't get to be a baron unless you're pretty cruel and mean. And so he's the baron up in Hilton Castle. And depending on who you believe, and when I say who, I'm talking about Wikipedia or the Sunderland Echo. The two great titans of journalism.

Exactly. And when I say, you know, I know this story, I'm talking about, I Googled it earlier today. It's either that this lad was having a romantic tryst, you know, to use that old-fashioned word, with the baron's daughter, or he was just a bit slow getting this horse to the baron. And for whatever he was doing, whether it was just kind of sort of tardy stable-handedness

or kind of romantic, lossful longings for a baron's daughter, he gets punished. And this man, this evil baron, either whips him with a riding crop, hits him and somehow kind of breaks his skull, or he decapitates him with a sword, or he runs him through with a pitchfork. And, you know, that's my favourite because pitchforks feel like you know kind of a classic staple of of horror you know like it's a proper hammer horror thing to use you know what you're going to go up to the castle with is always a pitchfork you know basically but anyway and and then you know the argument for the pitchfork increases perhaps because what he then does is he hides this poor lad's body under some straw, and then also later dumps it in a pond or maybe down a well. And you can see, again, it's like a choose-your-own-adventure-go story.

All these different options about, is it a pond? Is it a well? I don't know. So anyway, he gets put on trial for murder, this kind of baddie, this Robert Hilton. But he manages to produce an alibi, and it says that the lad fell or he seriously injured himself or he sort of tripped over and landed on the pitchfork. And somehow he escapes and gets

away with it. And there is apparently on record a 1609 inquest that says that this guy, Robert Hilton, was found to have killed somebody with a scythe or something like that. So again, glimmers of possible truth, apparently, according to the things that I'd read. But anyway, it's a classic story, really, that gets to the heart, I guess, of one of the big problems in our country, which is class and that the rich get away with stuff. And he was granted a free pardon.

He gets away with it. And this poor little stable lad is forgotten about. I thought you were going to go another way when it gets to the heart of a problem with our country, which is lazy stable boys. He is from the olden days, James. And availability of pitchforks. There's just too many pitchforks in circulation.

We need to clamp down on that. Apparently, another Robert gets involved a bit later on. This guy, Robert Surtees, who's this 19th century historian. Yes. And he starts reporting that this lad's ghost has been appearing in Hilton Castle. And apparently he either, he does two things. One is he either messes up a tidy kitchen or the other one, and this is where it gets really anarchic and dangerous.

He tidies up a messy kitchen. Ooh. What's the opposite of a poltergeist? Once you've got ghosts going around, poltergeists who tidy up, I mean, that is unsettling. Have you encountered such a thing in your researches, Demi? Any tidying ghosts? You know, I think I've heard about vacuum cleaners switching themselves on.

That's more of a passive aggressive, this place is filthy. Yeah, I think my mum did that, yeah. It's more of a passive aggressive, this place is filthy. Yeah, I think my mum did that. It's interesting that there are also, there are apparently reports of emptying chamber pots. So again, we sort of get back into that kind of piscusing territory there from earlier. And the ghost says, in a kind of ghostly way,

he says, I'm cold. I'm cold. What accent is that? I'm cold to translate. I'm cold I'm cold What accent is that? I'm cold to translate I'm not sure It's officially Spooky Geordie No I was

I appeared on Biker Grove as a kid I was channeling In a Biker Grove And the reason The ghost was cold Was that he was Naked apparently

And maybe that he was Kind of you know I mean that's a big Debate actually I get into this In my playbook About why ghosts Aren't naked Because clothes don't die he was naked apparently and and and maybe that he was kind of you know i mean that's a big debate actually i get into this in my playbook about why ghosts aren't naked because clothes don't die but that's for another day but um but anyway the the cook uh felt sorry for the ghost and he left some warm clothing out and again we get into sort of strange territory here because can a ghost be warmed by clothing i don't know he leaves his clothing out and apparently the next night the

cook hears this ghost saying, here's a cloak and here's a hood. The cold lad of Hilton will do no more good. And so this lovely little rhyming couplet, that is apparently the last time the ghost is ever seen. Or is it? Because apparently the cold lad of Hilton, the cold lad of Hilton has appeared a time since then.

Loads more times, yeah. To people like security guards and all sorts, and often appearing in a cloak and a hood. So that is what I know of this story, Alistair. That is incredible research. You know, I can see that you're impressed by that. I am. I mean, you know, my ability to read from more than one source on the internet is second to none. So I suspect now that you are going to pick apart my fledgling understanding of this tale and hit me with some real historical facts here.

Yeah, now that you've made your opening statements, I get to cross-examine you on all of these people allegedly called Robert. What you touched upon, which is exactly right, is that this isn't the story of one ghost. This is about nine different versions of the same ghost, which are mutually incompatible. And you hit upon all the major guys, all the big Roberts, especially Sir Tease, whose history of Durham has appeared on the podcast before. But I'd like to start off with a guy called William Howitt, who wrote a book called Visits to Remarkable Places in 1840. And he actually went to Hilton Castle. And this is what he had to say to describe the place.

And I don't know what he sounded like, so I'm going to do Posh Olden Days Man. The whole of this large old house is now empty and in the most desolate state. Fit haunt of ghosts and brownies from from top to bottom, and from end to end rain hollowness and decay. The very winds seemed to triumph around it, and a loose pane of glass in one of the windows served them for a harp to play upon, by which they contrived to make a whirring and moaning noise that sounded through the whole building, and which for a time excited my wonder whence could proceed so unearthly a euphony once i looked up what a euphony was i was chilled by that what is it a sound oh yeah

like a nice musical sound that's how it visits the place he's very impressed with its gothic qualities and and if you look at it it's a pretty bleak looking castle to this day. What's brownie in this context? Interesting. That will come up. So put a little pin in that and I'll tell you what a brownie. Yes. So not the cake, to be clear. Nor the miniature girl guide. No, indeed. Not a girl guide either. The first place he went is the kitchen, which was now home to a poor family. And he's a little bit judgmental about that. Whereas I sort of think if you're from Sunderland and you live in a castle,

it's kind of annoying to have like a big writer turn up and go like, oh, they were quite scruffy. Like, oh, well, it wasn't a very good castle. That is a bit mean. Like they're doing pretty well. And that kitchen was the location where the cold lad was supposedly seen. So from, as I see it,

the first incarnation of the cold lad is the one recorded by Robert Surtees, 1816. He's way ahead of everyone else. And his is an espadifolet or folet, an ab origini or an unembodied spirit, a brownie meaning a pixie. It's the Scottish version of a little goblin, not a ghost at all.

And he records it as a little household sprite who, as Danny quite rightly said, came in, sorted things out, messed things up, did all kinds of rascalsome business. This is interesting because there are real traditions of those kind of creatures in many folk traditions. And we've sort of lost that a little bit in England, I think. But I was talking to an Irish friend recently. She was talking about that kind of tradition of believing in fairies and household sprites. It was, you know, like, you know, they rerouted a road in Ireland not that long ago. I mean, it's like a few decades ago because it was going to go over a fairy fort.

Yeah. You know, this kind of place that they believe fairies live in. You know, Iceland, I think, have the fort. Yeah. You know, this kind of place that they believe fairies live in. You know, Iceland, I think, have the same. Yeah. Like Sweden, where my wife is from, there's this real tradition of Santa Claus. He's this character called Tompton and he is like a sort of slightly malevolent,

mischievous sprite who has little helpers. And if you don't give him a bowl of porridge the night before Christmas, then he will harm your animals. Oh, wow. Oh. You know, so that idea of kind of household sprites who come in and either help or hinder is definitely alive and well.

And that sort of leads us back to maybe that northeast being slightly different to other parts of England. Like certain things stay alive longer there. Like it's backwards is the word you might use. No, but I think, you know, like when I was a kid, you know, they used to say that Scots were Geordies with their brains knocked out

and Scots would say Geordies were Scots with their brains knocked out. That was a kind of thing back and forth across the border. But there's a real connection between Scotland and Newcastle. And Newcastle and Scotland

are much more similar than Newcastle and England, you know, and you can be in Newcastle and feel like you're in a different country. It does not feel like London, you know.

And the idea of folk traditions lasting longer somewhere like that, just as, you know, you look linguistically, the dialect has stayed separate. I think that's really interesting that traditions can survive longer there and that certain belief systems will still be in place much, much later in Newcastle and other parts of the country. I also think it's interesting how a phenomenon happens and a different period is interpreted as a different thing. A disturbance that used to be caused by a brownie is now being caused by a ghost. Well, when I say now, in the mid-19th century being caused by a ghost, because ghosts

were all the rage then. I think things do really go in fashions. And I've noticed a lot of people approaching me recently asking about time slips, you know, and about that idea of, you know, sort of a moment where you sort of slip out of your reality into a different period, be it in the past or the future. You know, that's something that, you know, like seeing a ghostly image of the past, you know, is something that's been around for ages. And we talked about stone tape theory, the idea that buildings can record things. But now, like lots of people are putting that term on it, time slips, and it's become a very kind of fashionable term that people want to know more about. So I think, yeah, absolutely. We process unexplained phenomena through the kind of the terms of the day and the reference points, the kind of cultural reference points of the day. I think that's really, really true. The story was changing even by the time

Howitt arrived. The woman who was showing him around the house gave him a completely different account of the story. He writes that on arriving at a certain chamber, the woman pointed to a cupboard over the door and said, that is the place where they used to put the cold lad. I replied, to which he used to retreat, you mean? No, no, reiterated she pertinaciously, where they used to put him. pertinaciously where they used to put him. So that's his first introduction to the idea that it's not a pixie or a fairy. It's the ghost of a little boy who was treated cruelly. And what the implication is that he was locked in that cupboard. Yeah. The hat and cloak, as you rightly said, are not the only time he's been exercised. A priest hammered a series of nails into a door.

One for every year the spirit would stay away. Glad he had a reason. Because sometimes priests probably take their mickey a little bit yeah oh no there was a ghost and supposedly those nails all dropped out um and the spirit keeps returning you don't get a priest to put a shelf up is what i'm learning what an interesting idea though that you'd hammer a nail for each year you want the ghost to stay away because you know surely you just want the ghost to stay away forever rather than putting a finite thing on it. Just eventually run out of nails. I know. I mean, how many nails have you got?

What would no more nails do? Would that work as the opposite or would that work as infinite nails? That's what he needed. Yeah, just squidge that all over the place. Then you start having to use that gaffer tape. So Bernard Burke's history of England, 1849, records there was a room in the house called the Cold Lad's Room, and nobody ever stayed in that room unless the house was absolutely overflowing.

He writes, and you're going to notice he's got a very similar accent to the other Victorian guy. Within the last century, many persons worthy of credence heard at midnight the Cold Lad's unearthly wailings. An old Quondam, means former, an old Quondam inhabitant of this most uncanny castle, used to tell fearsome tales about his doings.

One night she saw the cold lad looking in between some shutters which did not fit close. Aye, that was the night, sir. Well, and what was he like? Why, sir, he hadn't a head. Oh, no. And he does go on to say how can you look in through a window if you haven't got a head but i've taken that bit out because that seems unfair a lot of these headless things do exhibit signs of having a head like getting a hat in this case for instance there was a ghost or some sort of being from the south coast that was a black shadow shape that had no head and red eyes.

That's good. How do you do that? He turned up and bothered a dairy maid who was sipping cream from a big spoon. Oh, living the dream. He didn't appear. This was an audio manifestation she heard in her ear.

You taste and you taste and you taste, but you never give the cord ladder taste. Oh, bit pass ag from the give the cord ladder taste. Oh! Mmm. Bit pass ag from the poltergeist there. Oh, nice. She dropped the spoon, never came back into the castle after that. Wow.

Now, Howitt, the guy from the start who was obsessed with wind, he asked the question, could we be saying that word wrong? Could called, instead of meaning not hot, could it be cowed, C-O-W-E-D, which in the North East would mean cropped close, i.e. having short hair, or possibly meaning beheaded? That is very, very short hair. Take care going to the barbers, James. I'm also drawn to the fact that there's a hood involved, and obviously another word for a hood is a cowl. I mean, yeah, the cowled lad, perhaps, yeah.

Is there any sense that it's derived from there, I wonder? Quite possibly. And there's one, I've got one more possible meaning for it, but I'll save that because the lack of head leads us on to, as I think you did a really good job of it, the Baron Hilton in the early 17th century, Robert Hilton, not to be confused with his relative, Henry Hilton, the mad Baron or melancholy Baron.

Not a mad or sad Baron like the other one. or Melancholy Baron. Not a mad or sad baron like the other one. This is a bad baron. No, indeed. He tried to give a stable boy a little warning shot across the bows with a pitchfork, and it went awry. Cut his head off. The Wikipedia account, the popular account of this is misleading. The stable boy's name was, I'm sorry to say, Roger Skelton, as far as I can find.

Oh, really? Not Robert Skelton. I hope I'm not blowing say, Roger Skelton, as far as I can find. Really? Not Robert Skelton. I hope I'm not blowing anyone's mind there. Oh, wow. Okay. And it is true, though, that Roger Skelton, a young boy, was killed by Robert Hilton, and he did get away with it, and there was an inquest. But the inquest is written in Latin, which is why nobody has bothered checking what it says.

And they just go, oh, and he got away with it. It's quite a different story. He was mowing grass with a sc's quite a different story he was he was mowing grass with a scythe and uh very sadly he caught the leg of the boy behind him and it being the 17th century the boy died because they didn't know what legs were they couldn't do anything they didn't know what legs were they knew what legs were they didn't know what medicine was they didn't know what medicine was they didn't know know what medicine was. They didn't know what plasters were. It does sound like it was genuinely an accident and not the story of the boy who didn't get the horse ready in time.

But Burke has two more excellent versions of the story that I really like. One of them is just the cold lad was killed for just being really annoying, which I know will appeal to you, James. He sounds like he carried that one beyond the grave. In this one, he was a prodigious numpty. The best kind. And what happened was that the baron was trying to, wanted to ford a nearby river.

And he said to the cold lad, can you get through here? Can you ford it here? And the cold lad said, I know a problem. And so the baron went in, the horse nearly drowned. He got back out. He just survived being swept away. He said, what are you playing at saying you can ford the river here? He said, you kind of saw a duck doing it this morning.

Good lad. The good lad of Hilton, more like. They took him away to the cold lad's room, killed him dead. Oh, you could get killed for that in the past. Okay. Yes. And diverse stains of blood appear on to this day in that room, supposedly. And the sexiest version.

I'm not happy with the way I've segued into it, but I've said it now. By far the sexiest version of it, you also touched on this, Danny, is that cold lad might mean cow herd or cow lad. Okay. And so he's less of a child in this version and more of a hot Sean Bean type.

What's he doing to this cow that's so sexy? It's not so much the cow that is the object of his affections as one of the Miss Hiltons, one of the Baron's daughters. She fell in love with him and the cruel Baron locked her in a closet, not him, and fed her nothing but bread and water until she died.

Could take a while. While the young cow puncher was straight up murdered. Oh. Once again, leaving indelible blood spots on the floor of the apartment. And unexpectedly, there's sort of some evidence for this one. And I'm quoting Burke again. This improbable but rather beautiful story is oddly connected with the family portraits at Hilton, one of which represents a lady, young and handsome,

of whom, strange to say, there was presented another portrait exhibiting her in a state of mental derangement. That's weird, isn't it? When someone tags you in a bad photograph on Facebook, it's like, okay, that happens. But to commission a portrait of someone looking dreadful... In a state of mental derangement. That's weird, isn't it?

Yeah. That's really a weird thing to do and is that a portrait that you can see now is that does that still exist i think not i'm afraid but at the time that burke is writing it it seems that that was seen by people i did check up on that so it's not said that there was a painting i think there actually was a painting it's difficult to do a painting of someone you know you know how you get a picture and someone's pulling a bit of a silly face. You can't really do that in a painting because you do have to sit unless your painter doesn't tell you you've got resting mental derangement face. story as a kind of a parable for what's happened to the northeast as well in terms of the kind of way that people in the northeast have been essentially shafted by the rich or the or the you know the the um establishment in this country like you know and growing up there in the 80s and

you know watching what happened under thatcher and you know like the way that you know the shipbuilding industry was dismantled there and just you know the mines and you know, watching what happened under Thatcher and, you know, like the way that, you know, the shipbuilding industry was dismantled there and just, you know, the mines and, you know, just like the way that the community spirit was destroyed. And I see it again now, like, I mean, I don't know how many people listening have watched Sunderland Till I Die on Netflix, you know, and I mean, you know, I'm, you know, I'm from Newcastle, by no standards should I be watching a documentary about Sunderland, the football team Sunderland. But it's an incredibly powerful piece. Even if you're not interested in sports,

it's about how a community is pillaged by the rich and has the heart ripped out of it. You know, the people who bought Sunderland and, you know, tore the heart out of the club and sort of ran them down the divisions and about, you know, the loyalty of the fans being sort of completely sort of taken for granted and trampled on and you know i think the northeast has suffered a lot more than many other places in this country and so you know seeing this as you know the the little lad and you know what happens in the kind of disregard the way that he is casually tossed into a you know a, what is it, like a bale of straw and then

the river. I mean, you know, you could read it in those terms. You could read this as a kind of, you know, a metaphor for the class struggle between the North East and the British establishment. That's a really good point, Danny. Yeah. But the problem is, I've got one more fact, and it seems a little bit silly off the back of what you just said, which was quite profound. A little bit of politics. Go on. Okay.

It's supposedly connected by cave to Spotty's Hole. What is Spotty's Hole? I thought you would know. It's a popular tourist attraction in that region. Is it? It's a very small cave that was inhabited by an odd local character called Spotty, who didn't speak English. I think he was a shipwrecked sailor.

Oh, we know what they do to them up there. And his clothes were sort of polka-dotted. And so he got the nickname Spotty and was made to live in a cave. Oh. Until he mysteriously vanished, which is the olden days version of dying. And someone finally went into Spotty's cave and found out that it was a very small cave and not, as they thought, connected to all sorts of other places like Castle Hilton. Oh, is that how they kind of justified it to themselves?

Like, oh, he lives in that cave, but yeah, he's got a back entrance to the castle. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. It's like our baby boomers think millennials are living. Like, if Spotty just cancelled his Netflix, he could get a bigger hole. If he stops smashing those avocados, which... That is the stories of the cold lad of Hilton.

Shall we move into the scores, James? Yeah, I've got a lot of score-based issues to air. Oh, dear. All right, well, let's hope we can litigate those as we proceed. Danny, do you have a first category there in your ledger? Yes, the first category is naming. And just to put the case for this, I would say you've got a lot of roberts i mean you've got

three roberts you know that that is a lot of robert two and a bit roberts men for your money we've got multi bobby yeah you've got this whole kind of what does cowl mean in the cowl lad of hiddleton there's a kind of whole mystery just around even one word of the title of this ghost story and yeah that i mean that's about it, really. I can't... There's loads more than that, Danny. There's Spotty's Hole. Spotty's Hole?

Oh, Spotty's Hole. How could I forget Spotty's Hole? That surely should have been imprinted on my mind. There's Mr. Anderson, Vox Piscis, Fishtalk. Vox Piscis. Fishtalk. It was the take a break of the 17th century. It's Fishtalk. Are you sureiscus. Fishtalk. It was the take a break of the 17th century. It's Fishtalk.

Are you sure? When you say it's M. Anderson, are you sure his name wasn't just Manderson? I am Manderson. But anyway, I feel like on the naming score, you have to give quite a high score here. I don't want to push you. I don't want to put the judge under any pressure,

but I think anything less than 11 would be embarrassing for everybody here. I don't want to push you. I don't want to put the judge under any pressure, but I think anything less than 11 would be embarrassing for everybody here. Don't mind James. Danny knows quite a lot of ghosts. He does, yeah. And I can unleash them as well. A lot of ghosts follow me on Twitter. All I've got to do is post. He just has to say, bloody hell

Ken, and he can make things happen. The spectral hordes will be upon you, my friend. What do you reckon, James i did like the the sheer amount of bobs that were that were knocking around you like a bob i love a bob he likes a bob i did have a look over this story as well and i had to constantly double take that roger skelton wasn't called roger skeleton yes he died and his name is skill i think i did read up there's another cold cold lad from nearby there's one other cold lad wasn't called Roger Skeleton. Yes. He died and his name is Skeleton. I think I did read up. There's another cold,

cold lad from nearby. There's one other cold lad. Um, I forget off the top of my head where he's from. And I think that cold lad got skinned. Blimey. Well, no wonder he was cold.

Yeah. It would have been freezing. I mean, you did dazzle me with a lot of Geordie Nis early on, which I think as I'm going to give it a four. A strong four, but a four. What are we scoring out of here? 20.

No, five. Five. Oh, is that a five? So that's pretty good. Because I thought we were out of ten, and at that point I was feeling a little bit snubbed. Well, I knew your 11 was optimistic either way. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, 11 was wildly optimistic if it was going out of five. It wasn't going to happen, but we can dream. Thatcher can't take that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, 11 was wildly optimistic. It was very out of five. I mean, it wasn't going to happen, but we can dream. Thatcher can't take that from us, Danny. What's the next category? The next category is supernatural. Oh, and he said that in the voice he uses on his podcast, James. He said it in the voice.

He said it in his own voice. I think it's very, very hard to argue with the supernatural stakes in this story. I mean, it's got everything. It's got poltergeist activity. It's got apparitions. It's got kind of a proper evil baddie, you know, in there that, you know,

that's great for your ghost story. It's got, you know, that possibility of elves and, you know, that kind of folkloric traditions going back to tapping into kind of folkloric traditions going back to tapping into kind of really ancient traditions. So I feel like this delivers, whoever you are, whatever your interest in the supernatural, this story delivers for you.

Definitely. Yeah, this is not subsonic vibrations. No. No. This is not just being asleep. Clearly there's something to have this many attempts at an explanation, there must have been something. A lot of sounds heard and some no-heads seen.

There's a nice bit of actual history as well, isn't there? I always love it when you find things that do seem to back up to some degree, these stories. As well, I don't think we can have Tony Robbins on our podcast and not have a five out of five for Supernatural. I well, I don't think we can have Tony Robbins on our podcast and not have a five out of five for Supernatural. This is... I know what I saw.

I really like that theme tune. It's almost as good as our theme tune in terms of being a really good theme tune. They're from Newcastle. The band who sing our theme tune on Uncanny. Lanterns on the Lake,

they're called. They're from Newcastle. So it should be I know what I saw. It's a beautiful Geordie connection. You are proof that they don't necessarily have to have that voice, Alistair. But you know what, though? True to my roots,

I've only used Northeasterners for the theme tunes for my podcast. Nadine Shah did the Battersea Poltergeist and Lanterns on the Lake did Uncanny. So there you go. Representing for the North East in our theme music. I think you were gearing up towards a five there, James. Oh, it has to be 100% a five. Yes!

If I could give more, I would. There's more than five cold lads even in this one. I'm glad you said that, James, because the next category is lads, lads, lads. Oh, right, yes. Because, you know, three of us, great bunch of lads, and there's so many cold lads lads lads oh right yes because you know three of us great bunch of lads and there's so many cold lads they're so cold and there's so many of them and you could argue that that you know you can have whatever cold lad you want you know like and again that's that's like an awful spectral brothel keeper danny yeah you know you can read into this story what you want so the cold lad can

become whatever you want. I mean, I was making a pitch for it being this kind of metaphor for class war, but it could be whatever you want. You can bring to the table what you want, and throughout the years, throughout the centuries even, people have had different versions of this story, and they've twisted this tale to suit their own ends. It's like, spoiler alert,

it's like an end to the Spider-Verse of Cold Lads. Yes, it is. Yes. It's the Spider-Man meme, but it's young boy ghosts. Yeah, I just wish we had a cold pig. That would be really good. But I don't want to say any negative points. It's clearly a high score, surely. Oh, yeah. You've got a full five-a-side team of cold lads.

Yes. And they would presumably be called Cold Lad FC. Okay, my final category. Bam, killed the... I hope people can work out what's going on there behind the bleep. For once, it is the worst word. Yeah, you've got it. You've got, presumably, that fisherman,

going chronologically through what you've told me, the guy that lost his ring, I've got a feeling that guy that was fingering his ring wasn't that grateful to the fish. I bet he wanged it over the head. How else are you going to get a ring out of a fish? Yeah, you can't just grab it by the tail and swing until it shoots out. Yeah, like one of those...

The tubes that make the spooky noises. Maybe you could do that with an eel, but not with a fish. No. Couldn't happen. Not if you want control over where the ring ends up. You've got your recreation of the Bradford Boar version. What is it?

The Pollards? Sue Pollards? Yes, Sue Pollard and the Boar. Sue Pollard and the Boar. She's climbing up a tree. For American listeners, Sue Pollard is... There isn't Sue Pollard and the boar. She's climbing up a tree. For American listeners, Sue Pollard is... There isn't time to explain, James. There isn't time.

She was spotty tops, though, but she was not that spotty. She just wanted to be a yellow coat. A pontinland, right? Pontiland? I'm trying to make a local reference. Pontiland, yeah. Yeah, and then, obviously, the bad guy, the bad batter. The not mad, but bad.

However he did it, be it scythe, whip, sword, pitchfork, putting him in a cupboard. Yeah. That's minimum five, isn't it? There's five different methods of how you, bam, killed that. Poor little cold lad. You know, we're keeping his story going. At least it was quite a high-scoring one.

That really has taken the edge off it for me. And for that cold lad, hopefully he can find some solace in the fact that he got a good score on a podcast. Maybe he'll whisper that in a maid's ear. Have you listened to the Lawmen podcast? He'll be like, what do you mean? Four out of five for me.

I've got two. I'm called Robert and Roger. I'll be the only one not haunted because i asked for 11. oh danny thank you so much this has been super fun thank you for bringing your spooky energy to lawmen no it's a pleasure and i think it's it's it's fun to explore some of the legends from the area you grew up you know because i mean what i do is generally people send me their ghost stories and then i i you know explore very personal sorry to happen that person but actually you know looking at an area and the kind of stuff that has grown around an area and things that come out of sort of specific groups of people is really interesting

i think i'm always drawn to the ones that you literally only knew if you grew up there and everyone knows it as well in that area but it hasn't even gone past the edge of the town kind of thing yeah and you can sort of see a logic to certain stories can't you like as a cautionary tale to stop you doing something like you know don't go to spotty's hole for instance you know like you know avoid certain things or certain actions, you know, things that warned young children not to, say, mess with authority. I can imagine being quite potent and powerful in those days, you know, things that kept people in their place, I guess. Yeah. Stop being cheeky about what ducks do. Yeah, exactly. Stop cheeking the baron.

Stop misunderstanding ducks. Yeah. Danny, thank you very much for coming on the show. I mean, I'm sure our listeners know where they can hear more of you. You're not just constrained to the audio medium, are you? He's actually visible. You've got a play, which I went to see the other day. How do you say it?

I've been saying 2-2-2, but I think it's 2-22, I should be saying. It is, yeah. It's in the time, 2-22. It's a fantastic play. I enjoyed the heck out of it. And a ghost story. 2-22, yeah, yeah. It's a fantastic play. I enjoyed the heck out of it. And a ghost story. 222, a ghost story. It ran in the summer and autumn of last year

with Lily Allen starring in it and Jake Wood and Hadley Fraser and Julia Chan and then came back just very recently. We sort of finished our last run in February and that was with Giovanna Fletcher and Stephanie Beatrice from Brooklyn Nine-Nine and James Buckley for The Inbetweeners and Elliot Cohen. And then we are coming back again, I think, fingers crossed.

And then there's talk of international productions as well, excitingly, and I hope we will do a tour as well. So, I mean, I hope that the 2.22 A Ghost Story story will continue to run. And then I'm also doing a really interesting project at the moment, actually, that might appeal to your listeners, which is not about folklore, but about something that's kind of almost become folkloric, which is the Gunpowder Plot. I'm doing a new kind of theatrical experience. It's not a play. It's a theatrical experience for the tower of london it's called the gunpowder plot immersive it's immersive theater which i don't know how familiar people are with that but it's this kind of new

trend of you go in a small group and you're kind of you you are part of the action you know the actors are there around you i love that part of the story you know and there's been you know secret cinema does that and it's kind of you know, Secret Cinema does that. And there's kind of, you know, there was a Doctor Who one and a Great Gatsby one. There's been quite a few examples of that recently. This one's even more exciting. It uses virtual reality too.

So in some rooms you kind of use VR goggles and you kind of actually will be in Jacobean London. But I mean, the whole thing feels like you're in Jacobean London. And you're a government spy trying to infiltrate the gunpowder plot, basically. And that opens in May. So I hope people might come and see that. I think it's going to be a really exciting and dynamic live experience. And it's kind of in these vaults just opposite the Tower of London.

So yeah, that's my next big project, I guess. And then, you know, alongside that, we will come back with new audio as well. Actually, we're doing a new series like the Fantasy Poltergeist, taking one case and telling it through drama and documentary. And we're also coming

back with a new Uncanny series as well. Nice. You know, if you like ghosts, I will attempt to make things about ghosts that you like, essentially.

This lad's got ghosts. He's got lots of ghosts. He's got hordes of spectres. Thank you, Dannyy thank you very much danny a pleasure a pleasure what a lovely episode that was really great um and if you want to hear even more there is even more in the Patreon Extra,

which you can get at by joining us on patreon.com forward slash lawmenpod. And that's not the only way to help us out. You could write us a five-star review on the podcast app of your choice. Yes, some people have left some really great reviews recently. One person once had to pull their car over they were retching so hard at one of our stories retching i think it might have been that that dog ate the plastic bag full of dog poo and then sucked it up in front of me while i was eating sorry if you just crashed your car what did they give us out of five oh five out of five it's a good story.

I'm glad you've chosen this one. I think it's a really good story. I think, you know, it's interesting. There's a podcast in this. That's a huge relief to discover that. 45 minutes in. Shall we start recording?