Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep104: Loremen S3 Ep104 - The Legend of Maud's Elm, Cheltenham

Episode Date: April 14, 2022

Alasdair brings James the "pathetic" legend of Maud's (or Maude's) Elm, a story as thrilling as it is obviously made up. You've got your heroines: tragic. Your lords: wicked. Your uncles: damnable! Plus, someone's dear old mum will be cast out into the street. And we're talking olden days streets here, so that's 80% poo. Listeners will also discover who really killed Tsar Nicholas I, and what size of potato was considered noteworthy in the mid-19th century. (Spoiler alert: it wasn't that big.) Content warning: references to murder and suicide. 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 Alastair Beckett-King. And I'm James Shakeshaft. And James, you sound a little different to usual. Are you somewhere else? Yes, can you hear an American twang? Are you by any chance in San Francisco? I am in San Francisco, which is French for without Francisco. That is the exact joke I was going to do.

That is the exact joke I had prepared. You might be asking yourself, why is James in San Francisco? And of course, the answer is that today's story takes place in Cheltenham. Yeah! Near Swindon. Boo! And we should be going. I can hear birds.

Is that your end, James? Yeah, there's a lot of birds. I'm in the shed. I'm shed again. I am in a horrible hotel. I know I was complaining about budget hotels, but this makes the Premier Inn look as good as Lenny Henry thinks the Premier Inn is. It's paid to think the Premier Inn is. How dare you, James? I'm sure Lenny Henry likes that hotel every bit as much as he implies he does in the advert. I tried doing the Lenny Henry jump backwards onto the bed here, only to discover that the double bed is two smaller beds together. So I sort of fell into the crack. You never see Henry fall into the crack, not in the premiere.

Did it hold you like a hammock or was it two single sheets that betrayed you like a booby trap? It was like a hammock, but I have to say, and I don't know if I've mentioned this on the podcast before, I'm a hammock sceptic. Oh. Because people are always putting up hammocks in their garden saying, let's sit in the hammock. That'll be relaxing. Uh-huh. And it's like, yeah.

Oh, a pirate's bed. I'm sure they were comfortable. If you're on a Napoleonic warship, all the poor kids are sleeping in hammocks. The captain's not sleeping in a hammock if they're so comfortable. Why is the captain sleeping in a four-poster bed? Is he? Because they're awful. That's's why i've never thought about that yeah he's not sleeping in a hammock he's got his own special bed he's not in a weird banana shaped bed no because i sleep on my front and you can't bend that way no no no hammock it's not sustainable no what's the dust like on

the walls then in this one what's the messages does it say help us get us out this time no dust on the walls but it's got two wall mounted lamps the bulbs don't work in either of those ah the windows are covered with a sort of frosted piece of plastic is lacquered to them and there is a lot of condensation between that and the glass ah sorry to keep throwing my glamorous lifestyle in your face it's bleak it's bleak so I sound weird, that's the reason I sound weird. What animal shape was the towel then? They didn't even fold the towels into a humorous and whimsical shape, James. That's how bad things are getting for me. Was it in the shape of a manta ray? A skate? Well, I've got a story for you, James, that I have no right to tell you. No? Because really, it belongs to your area. Oh.

It's just beyond the Cotswolds, between the Cotswolds and Wales, in the Cheltenham-Swindon region. Oh, yeah. Well, we don't really acknowledge that area. Swindon is Oxford's enemy. Is it? Yeah. I thought Cambridge was Oxford's enemy.

Only when it comes to boating and toffs. The real people hate Swindon. You sort of the earth, Oxford The real people hate Swindon. You sort of the earth, Oxford types. You hate Swindon. That's your big rivalry. Yeah, Swindon and Reading. There's a real Thames Valley triangle. Right. That's incredible.

I had no idea. Oh, big time hate Swindon. The other justification I have for telling you this story is that I discovered it through the writing of Jan Bonderson. He literally wrote the book on the London Monster and loads of other weird stuff that's come up time and time again on the pod. He wrote a wonderful piece in Fortean Times about the legend of Maud's Elm. And that's what I'm going to tell you. Oh, yes, please. Or to give it the name it was given in its original pamphlet form,

The Pathetic Story of the Tragic Legend of Maud's Elm. Yeah, we'll put that on the... You don't think we should put that on the website? Okay. I should give a mini content warning that this episode contains murder and a suspected suicide, but please be reassured, the story definitely isn't true. Absolutely none of this happened at all.

Nice. So my main source for this is John Goding's History of Cheltenham. I wish I'd had more time to read this book because everything in it is incredible. My favourite section at the end is just chronological events, and James, some of them barely qualify as events. Here are some examples. 1856, July 23 23rd A large bird continued to perch Upon the vein of the parish church From Saturday afternoon Until Monday morning

When Mr Hollis, gunsmith Brought a favourite rifle to the churchyard And after about half a dozen unsuccessful shots Managed to bring down the strange visitor From its elevated perch Oh It proved to be a large pigeon The end

That's not history That's just a man murdering a bird for no reason, except that it perched on a church for all of Sunday. That's it. I guess you want to be alert to that in case it is the devil's work. But yeah, with hindsight, just a lazy pigeon. On closer inspection, it was a large pigeon. But that little mini whodunit is a good setup for the full story of Maud's Elm.

But I can't not tell you some of the other chronological events first. And this one baffled me, but there is an explanation for it. 1855. Did a cat sit on a settee? It's even more exciting than a large animal being somewhere you might reasonably expect to find that animal. Was there a dog in the playground? You're not going to get it, James. I challenge you to guess what this one is going to be. 1855, March 2nd, news arrives in Cheltenham of the death of the Emperor Nicholas, that is,

Tsar Nikolai I of Russia. A telegram received in Cheltenham announcing the sudden death of the Emperor of Russia caused immense excitement. Why was that? You'll find out. The bulletin issued at the examiner office contained only half a dozen lines giving the bare announcement of the fact, yet more than 2,000 copies were sold in two hours. Was it because someone had a pigeon called Tsar Nicholas? And they're like, oh, oh God, what's happening with the pigeon? Oh, no, it's just a human.

Well, the Reverend A. Boyd of Christchurch has the answer. Yeah, Boyd. A mere two weeks earlier, a mere fortnight ago, he and his parishioners had assembled in the house of God and bowed themselves before him in humble supplication and prayed for the death of Tsar Nicholas I. Wow. So this is the incredible situation.

Imagine the telegram arrives in Cheltenham saying the Emperor Nicholas has died and the people of Cheltenham are like, yeah, we did that. Good. It works. Admittedly, I had to look this up. The Crimean War was on, which goes some way towards

explaining this. But it also makes you realise that the Bolsheviks took a long time getting their business together if it's that easy to kill a Tsar. It was another 70 years or so. All you need to do is just have a word with the people of Cheltenham. Just think about it for a bit. I don't want to get political either,

but people of Cheltenham, you've got a lot of power. And just maybe think about using it. However you would like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, far be it from me to advocate any particular course of action, but I think you know what has to be done. Yeah. Is it to boost the listenership of LawmenPod?

Yeah. Join the Patreon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. People of Cheltenham. Join the Patreon. The Reverend A. Boyd said, Maybe the very commencement of that man's illness would date from the very day

when we knelt in prayer to God. It may be on that day the decree went forth commanding the angel of destruction to do his deadly work. In other words, God may have taken this way to make his people understand that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, and that his arm is not short or his ear heavy, but that he listens to and answers prayer, the same now as he did 1,800 years ago. Who did that 1,800 years ago? Who murdered someone by a god? I think that's in the time of old Jesus Christ.

Oh, the famous serial killer. Yeah, ultimate serial killer, Jesus Christ, yeah. It's just him and the sea, the two main ones. This is a wonderful book. It's full of illustrations of local landmarks like the Devil's Chimney or the Female Orphan's Asylum. course, Maud's Elm. But before I get to Maud's Elm, I know I keep teasing. One of the other pointless sections of the book is Instances of Longevity, which is just a list of the oldest people in Cheltenham when they died. So all the people that hadn't annoyed the Reverend Boyd. Don't annoy Boyd. Don't annoy the Boyd. Boyd's annoyed. Everyone's fleeing from the church you annoyed the boy remember god's ear isn't heavy i know the kids are always saying that it is but it's not would

he sort of threaten people like going to put his hands together in prayer oh no i'm sorry i'm sorry reverend i'm gonna don't you make me bloomin'. I'm getting on my knees. Three years later, you'll die of natural causes. I'm of an age where I have to warn people before kneeling down. It's just a bit slower now. It used to be like down, up, down. Now it's sort of a, I am kneeling.

I'll be kneeling for a moment. You may hear some wind. Here are some of the people of Cheltenham. I want you to guess how old you think they were when they died.tholomew cassidy 80 103 whoa okay that was a fifth out moses moses ah moses moses so moses they moseyed in moses not quite as old as the name implies but still pretty old moses moses uh okay if that goes 103 then have we got to... Is he going to reach and breach the turn? Yeah. I'm going to go older though. Moses, Moses, 106. I'm afraid you've gone higher. You should have gone lower. It was 90.

Oh. Thomas Clutterbuck. Clutterbuck, 86. 90. Very close. He was also 90. John J. Sexty. Sexy sex. Unfortunately, not sexty. No. Two Sexy sex. Unfortunately not Sexty, no. Two Sexy Ladies, Sexty Sex. 92, 92, which is...

Good Innings. Good Innings. And finally, Charlotte Scott. Ah, now, women are famously long-lived. They are indeed. They tend to outlive men. A hundred and nine. Well, in a way, close, because there were two of them.

A hundred and a hundred and four. So 204 in total. Oh, in a way, close, because there were two of them, 100 and 104, so 204 in total. Whoa, well done, Charlotte. It's true that women are famously long-lived, but also, in those days, nobody checked how old you were. So you meet an old lady who says, I'm 104, and they just wrote it down. She's 104, you know. So Maud's elm is easily one of the top two elms in Cheltenham.

Oh, yeah. At this time. The other elm was Piff's elm is easily one of the top two elms in Cheltenham at this time. The other elm was Piff's elm, which was chopped down. What, due to derision? Just people not being that impressed by it. Jan Bonnarsson says that John Goding, the author of the 1853 History of Cheltenham, confidently claims that Maud's elm was now the most famous tree in Cheltenham after the enormous Piff's elm nearby had been recently cut down. A process that took nine sawyers, and it had never occurred to me that the surname Sawyer was someone who saws.

No. It took nine sawyers, 14 full days. Wow. Which sounds like the start of a maths problem, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It takes nine sawyers, 14 days to cut down an elm tree. How many apples have you got? None.

It's not an apple tree. It's a trick question. Having said that, I can't find the section in the book where he makes the claim that Jan Bonderson alludes to. So far be it from me to question the Bondster, but I thought that was funny. Are you calling to ban Jan? I would never ban Jan. Good. So now I'm going to tell you the pathetic legend of Maud's Elm and how it came to be and how it got its name. So in the olden days, there was a young woman by the name of Maud Bowen. She lived with her mother, Margaret Bowen. And one day she was sent into town with some spun wool.

And James, she never returned. Oh, no. A very sad, very familiar story. It's the setup of almost every murder mystery whodunit. And this story is a murder mystery, really. But it is one of those murder mysteries where they cheat and you can't possibly work it out. Oh. But I encourage you to try.

Okay. Is the spun wool a clue or is it a character detail? It is not coming back in. It's not coming back in. Don't expect to find the spun wool in the story again. It's just humanising her. According to Goding, the inhabitants of Swindon were one night alarmed by the shrieks of an aged and frantic mother who declared that her only child was lost. Maud didn't

return home. A search began. She didn't turn up until she was found, very sadly, dead, drowned in the stream by the bridge. But that wasn't all they found. They also found the body of her uncle, a second corpse, Godfrey Bowen, shot through the heart with an arrow. What a mystery. It's a classic locked stream mystery. Yes. An arrow, according to the book,

an arrow had penetrated his heart. He grasped with his left hand the handrail of the bridge and in his right hand were some rent portions of Maud's dress. Now that's the first twist in the story. It's twist after twist. So the coroner, who Bonderson calls Crispin the Coroner, which is an amazing name, returned a verdict of fellow de se, that is, he decided that Maud had taken her own life, which was very much stigmatized in those days. Mm-hmm. It was really bad news that he'd returned that verdict because that meant that she couldn't be given a Christian burial.

Ah, yes. Which was what every 17-year-old girl dreamed of in those days. It meant that she would, to the wormy bed unshriven go, she would be buried with not even no fanfare. She was taken to the crossroads and had a steak driven through her... Uh, vampire style. Vampire style. I'm quoting,

in accordance with the fashion of the day, an elm steak was driven through her body. You know, fashion. Trendy. She had a trendy, snazzy steak. Yeah, just give me what the kids are like with their driving of steaks through people's bodies. It's just a TikTok fad.

It'll pass. Here's yet another twist. That elm stake itself grew into the stately tree, which now exists and which yet retains the name of Maud's Elm. With a supernatural speed, it began to grow into a tree, still within the lifetime of the mother, Margaret Bowen. You think things are bad already. They're going to get worse.

Margaret Bowen is evicted things are bad already. They're going to get worse. Margaret Bowen is evicted by the local landowner, Lord of Swindon Manor, Robert De Vere. Now you might think this guy sounds nice. He's not. He's actually, because normally people with names like De Vere are great. But of course, the one rule of English legends is if you've got a French surname, you're evil. And he is no exception to that rule. So Margaret Bowen, the mother, was evicted by escheat, which is a word I had to look up. And it means how if you die with no heirs,

your property reverts to the state. How that works, if your daughter dies, you get evicted by the Lord. I don't know how that works. Come on, let's not wait for you to die. Come on, I want this house back, please. Yeah, because that is escheating. You can't do that, surely. You have to wait for the mum to die as well, just because her heir has died doesn't mean that she doesn't own the hat. What? Anyway, I don't know. I'm not a lawyer.

You're not an olden days lawyer. So she became a travelling hobo, which is not as much fun as it sounds from the name. And she would wander around. Sometimes she would stay in a local inn, but more often than not, she would be found at the site of the elm tree, Maud's elm, mourning the death of her daughter. Now, one day, Robert de Vere is riding with his vassal, Hubert. Hubert? Yes, who can only move diagonally.

And has the big little nose. Hubert. Hubert. Hubert. Ah, Hubert. Hubert. Another French name. Which is French for, where's the bear? Hubert, Hubert, Hubert. Ah, Hubert. Hubert, another French name. Which is French for, where's the bear?

Hubert. La bear is dans le pissing. GCSE French really doesn't allow you to accurately describe where bears are. Où est le bear? Il joue au video game. Avec mon petit-déjeuner. Sorry, has the bear got your breakfast? Yeah, yeah.

Il mange mon petit-déjeuner. Wait, sorry. Has the bear got your breakfast? Yeah, yeah. Il mange mon petit déjeuner et les singes. Dans ma sac, il y a a bear. Perdu. Is it even bear in French? I'm sure they've got a different word. It's going to be,

I think it's probably urs or something like that. Yeah. The Latin word is ursa. Oh, to ur is bear. As the old saying goes. Very much guessing what the French word for bear is there. Right in.

If you're a bear, let us know. Robert de Vere was riding along. Bobby de Vere. With his vassal, and he saw his former tenant, Margaret Bowen, mourning the grave of her daughter. He did what any of us would have done, became furious and said, er, shift her on. I don't want her mourning all over the place, making this place really mawny.

It's a crossroads. It's meant to be funky. I'm not quoting directly here. She's making this burial place for suicides and criminals ever so downbeat. She's making this place where they normally keep gallows, ruining the vibe of the tree near the suicide grave. The vassal is sent over to manhandle her away. He barely has a chance to do it when...

I don't know if you could tell from my audio mime, an arrow came seemingly from nowhere, straight through his heart. Dead. That's the end of Hubert. Audio mime, yeah. Audio mime? It's one of the services I provide.

Okay. All right. I'll let it pass. Audio mime? It's one of the services I provide. Okay. All right. Thunk. I'll let it pass. He got me in the eye. Continue. That's Hubert gone. He's out of the story.

Shot through the heart. Don't expect to hear from him again because he's dead. The Lord of the Manor, naturally, Robert De Vere, furious. A search of the nearby woods is initiated. No archer is found. Did he check any grassy knolls? He did. It really is a JFK-level mystery.

Was there a second archer from the book suppository? I'm sorry? What? No. You should talk to your doctor if that's what you've been doing. It's a new way of learning. Well, it's better than those skim reading scams that are trying to sell you on the internet.

Read a book in 30 minutes. You can't, so don't. Just watch the telly. If you don't want to read a book, don't. Anyway, it really makes me annoyed. Doesn't work. So there is, in a sense, another gunman, and that gunman, Satan himself.

Oh. Since no archer has found Robert De Vere, comes to the conclusion that the old woman is a witch and that the arrow was conjured from nowhere through the dark arts. He's really logical, this guy, isn't he? To a fault. That's the thing. Men are more rational, aren't they? Because old women are always doing things like weeping on the roots of trees. Whereas men are more like, we haven't found the archer, so it must have been witchcraft. And your daughter's dead. That means I can evict you.

Yeah, just normal stuff like that. So this reasonable, logical guy decides that the next morning she's going to be burned at the stake. Where will that stake be? Why? Right next to the elm tree, of course, the site of her daughter's grave. It just seems reasonable. Yeah. So she's tied to the stake.

The fire is kindled. And our quoting, the solemn silence was broken by the Lord of the Manor, penetrating the assembly and taunting the dying woman with exercising the art of witchcraft. Dude. Tevye. He's awful, isn't he? He had not spoken many words before

an arrow from some invisible hand penetrated his person. And after uttering several convulsive groans, Avenge me. He fell dead at the feet of the burning Margaret. The burning Margaret does sound like a euphemism. Oh, me Margaret. I can't sit down. I've got the burning Margaret. It's another thing you want to talk to your doctor about.

A few moments afterwards, the burning pile seemed to have reached its height. The stake was heard to fall and nothing was to be seen but a heap of mouldering ashes. Margaret seemed to have vanished. Okay. I was going to say, that sounds like pretty much standard fire. Yeah, it was the lack of a smouldering corpse. Ah, yes. That was the mystery there.

That gives it away. This mystery of where those three arrows came from does have an explanation. However, it involves introducing at the last minute a character who explains everything, who couldn't possibly have been set up earlier, otherwise it would have given the whole mystery away. And that character is called Walter the Archer. Yeah, I think he might have shown his hand.

Yeah, if I had mentioned him at the start, oh, by the way, Maud's boyfriend was a famously good shot with an arrow, that would kind of, to some extent, spoiled the mystery of who was shooting those arrows. So what happened? Well, it is a miserable story of betrayal. Godfrey Bowen, Maud's uncle, had the idea of marrying her in order himself

to gain possession of that house that everyone was so keen on, which Maud was going to inherit. So are we flashing back to the murder of Maud now? Absolutely, yeah. If this was like in a TV drama, we're flashing back to that and he's... Oh, yeah, it's desaturated. He's at the thing, he's got one hand on the railing and you're like, oh, no, I know what's coming. He's a horrible, creepy old guy.

Hello, Maud, I can look after you. The other hand, he's grabbed hold of her dress. Think of the family. Think of our descendant, Jim. He's going to need this money to set up his famous TV show. That's Bullseye. Yeah, that's Bullseye for American listeners. Look up Jim Bowen.

He's actually thinking about it, you know, because he had Bully. Yeah. Him and Bully, they could almost be like a sort of antithesis to Noel and Blobby. Yes, they were very much the working class answer to Noel and Blobby. Yeah, salt of the earth they were. Yeah, just a northern club comic and a cartoon bull who plays darts. Very much salt of the earth, just like the people of Oxford

who hate the people of Swindon. Exactly, the best type of haters. So Godfrey Bowen was after Maude. She rejected him because she was an honest and pure-hearted girl. And also, he was her uncle, which is definitely too close. You can't marry an uncle. Absolutely not. Sorry to be judgmental.

Not advised. And you can't marry a niece. But Robert de Vere also had his eye on young Maud. And so he made a deal with Godfrey that Godfrey would end up with the house if she could be brought to him. So would end up with the house if she could be brought to him so are you familiar with the work of kate bush the the musical artist kate bush the musical artist it's just a reminder me of if i only could i make a deal with godfrey but it's running up that hill i think it's from the song running up a hill i'm sorry if it's not

about wuthering heights i i don't know it It's me, you're Cathy, come on. That's a more low-key Cathy than in the song. Does that sort of sound like Cathy's leaving a message on an answering machine? Yeah, she thinks Heathcliff's there listening. Pick up, come on. It's me, you're Cathy, come on. It's me, it's Cathy. Come on.

So Godfrey was engaged in this nefarious deed of trying to transport Maud into the hands of the evil lord of the manor, when they crossed the bridge, she tried to break away from him. He was shot in the heart, but she tumbled and fell into the water and sadly drowned by accident. And who shot in the heart? Why, of course, it was Walter the archer, the young man who loved her. Couldn't he have shot the stream?

Unfortunately, James, even the best archer cannot kill water because what is water? It's basically what the sea is made from. What is the sea? A stone cold killer. And you can't shoot the same stream twice. Yes. As the internet says.

Having shot Godfrey and seen his love drown, poor Walter the Archer goes off and becomes a soldier and joins the wars or opens a pub or both. I'm not quite clear on what he does. Opens a pub on the front line. Do you remember I told you that while she was homeless, Margaret Bowen would spend time in a local inn?

You did, I remember that. That was Walter the Archer's inn. That was me setting that up. So he would look after her. And while she was attending her daughter's grave, he would go and keep watch. What was the pub called? The Arrow and Vengeance?

The Sad Archer. I think I once saw a pub called The Cocky Dolphin. No legs, unfortunately. Exactly. And according to David Bellamy, if it's a fish, you lose points. You lose all your points. Well, that's a mammal, so it's a fish, you lose points. You lose all your points. Well, that's a mammal, so it's not a fish.

So I wouldn't worry about that. Good point. Very good point. So you're safe if it has boobs? I don't know if I would say a dolphin has boobs. Do they? Well, they must do. They're mammalian.

Sorry, there's no name for the inn. I thought you were just pausing to Google dolphin. I could just use my imagination. I don't need to. It was an inn on the road to Gloucester. That's all I can tell you. I don't have the name of it. That kind of little detail really adds verisimilitude and makes it sound like this really happened. So essentially that solves the mystery. And who was it that fired the arrow and helped Margaret make her escape at the very end? Why, of course, it was Walter the Archer once again. But still, it's pretty impressive that the tree grew to become a full tree within the lifetime of an old lady who was aged in the first place.

So well done. Well done there. So Jan Bonderson looks into this and tries to work out whether it happened. The short answer is obviously it didn't. And it doesn't make any sense at all that any of this would happen. So she spent all of her time at the graveside, and he spent all of his time guarding her, even though there was no reason to believe that she would be attacked

for no reason, as she was. Only for him to leap in and shoot. He spends his whole time in the bushes just waiting to shoot people. Yeah, that's his excuse. He has his revenge, but at the most narratively dramatic point rather than in a time which is convenient to him he could have done it all within a space of a couple of weeks but he doesn't he stretches it over many many years waiting until the most thrilling possible moment to fire an arrow and the only other detail that i can't ignore is that the elm isn't there anymore it was in the

mid-19th century when John Goding was writing and there's several Victorian photographs of it. It's absolutely massive. Very sadly, it got a bit sick, this elm, and the local council tried to revive it by filling the hollow interior of the tree with concrete, and that didn't work for what I think are obvious reasons. I can't think of a single thing that you can fix by filling it up with concrete.

No. It's like, you know, feed a fever, starve a cold, fill a tree with concrete. It's the old wives' tale. It didn't work on that one occasion. And so the elm, that tree which hateth man and waiteth, eventually had to be cut down. And the locals have petitioned, according to Bonderson, consistently petitioned for them to put a new tree there. have petitioned, according to Bonderson, consistently petitioned for them to put a new tree there.

And the blooming council, James, just sitting on their hands doing nothing about it. Were they like, we're not going to throw good concrete after bad. But the name of Maud's Elm is remembered in place names nearby, including the Maud's Elm Nursery. Is that a nursery for humans or plants? It is a nursery for plants, good that you asked. Always important to check that, especially when looking for childcare. It really is.

But also, if you've got a truckload of manure, do make sure what kind of nursery it is. It's just polite. I wouldn't be surprised if that was ringing a bell there, because you would be saying, oh, Maud's Elm Nursery Gardens. Is that the same Maud's Elm Nursery Gardens where in 1856 a fluke potato was dug up weighing 32 and a half ounces. Whoa. According to the history of Cheltenham, it's nearly a kilo, which actually is not that big. Ah, yeah. A kilogram. Kilogram potato.

Did it look rude at least? We can only hope that it looked exactly like a dolphin's boobs, I think. So that is the story of Maud's elm. Wow. Easily one of the top elms in Cheltenham. Yeah, top two. Better than that elm. So, James, do you think you are in a position, from your lofty seat, to judge this story? Yes.

Do you think you can fairly judge the people of Swindon without letting your natural bias creep in? No, but I'm aware that I need to wind my neck in. Yeah, yeah. Lest I annoyed the boyd. Yeah, you don't want to get on the wrong side of him. Who knows how far his powers reach? God's arm is long and his ear is not heavy. Ever so light.

My first category is naming. John Godin. John Godin. That's not as good as John heavy. Ever so light. My first category is naming. John Godin. John Godin. That's not as good as John J. Sexty. No. Yeah, there were some good... I liked the list of old people. Moses Moses.

Moses Moses. Crispin the Coroner. Great name. Crispin the Coroner. Walter the Archer. Reverend Boyd. The Silent Assassin. I did drop in The Devil's Chimney and, of course,

The Female Orphan's Asylum. FOA. Yeah. the silent assassin i did drop in the devil's chimney and of course the female orphans asylum foa yeah i think it's got to be four including wicked uncle godfrey just just four for oh wicked uncle godfrey yeah godfrey bowen it made me think of jim bowen so yeah actually you're right you're right you're good you're right to uh query that that yeah, it's going to be a five, actually. Yes, good. And we didn't even count Piff's Elm. So great. I accept that. Second category, Supernatural. All we've got.

It grew really fast. Is a magic tree. Yeah, I'm afraid it turned out that the arrows were not, as you thought, James, appearing from nowhere through magic. Yeah. They were actually being shot out of a bow. But the tree did grow really fast and from a stake, which can't happen. A cutting. Oh yeah, okay. You can grow things from cuttings. A two,

a two. What? Okay, all right. But also, do I knock any points for the fact that it definitely didn't happen? Surely the fact that this is all made up isn't lying a form of magic? It is a kind of magic because you took me on a magic path, but I don't think we want to get into that with our stories. What about the magical powers of the church assembly who killed Tsar Nicholas I? Surely that's worth something. That's true. Actually, I'd forgotten about that. And there was that lazy pigeon. So it's going to be three. You're doing very well on the contest in these scores today. Yes. And quite the rollover. That leads me neatly onto my third category, which is,

who done it? Who done did it? Because there were a lot of crimes. There's the murder of that pigeon. Who did that? A happy rifleman. An absolute nut bar

by the sounds of it. The best shot in the village who took seven shots or whatever to actually hit a pigeon. With his finest gun. And he was a gunsmith. That is not a good advert.

Who killed Tsar Nikolai I of Russia? You and I know. Yes. They'll never prove it, James. They'll never prove it. Who killed Maud? Who killed Godfrey Bowen?

It's a proper mystery story. Apart from no one mentioning at the start that she was going out with someone called Walter the Archer. It wasn't his surname. It was just a description of him. Yes. Oh, I should have called this category Where's Wally

but never mind that's Where's Waldo for the Americans you've got the bird you've got the Tsar and you've got the

three arrowed victims Godfrey Bowen Hubert the Vassal and of course Robert de Vere himself all shot within metres of this tree. Yeah, I've got to go with a five.

Yes! Oh, I'm so glad this is going really well. Thanks, Jan Bonderson. Five dones for the whodunit. Final category, Got Wood? Yeah. Question mark? Can you hear the question mark?

Yeah, it was an ever so woody tale. And I'm modelling that category, of course, on the got milk campaign to encourage people to drink milk i'm just trying to raise awareness about trees you're trying to get people to drink wood yeah you'd have a little twig mustache i would say it is a very woody category i was wondering if the arrows were even whittled from the elm itself that would make it even more sort of i think in the sort of when this gets expanded out into like a full cinematic universe that there would be a whole montage of walter the softy getting the wood from the tree crying getting the wood from the tree whittling it into arrows a sad whittling yeah crying and whittling it into arrows. A sad whittling. Yeah, crying and whittling.

I bet he was. Alternating between crying and... Because you've got to whistle while you whittle. You do, you do. Yeah, there's so much wood in this tale. Even though there isn't any in the side tales, it doesn't matter. There's two big trees.

There's a stake involved early on. There's arrows left, right, and centre coming, literally coming out of nowhere. Wow, your arrow noise is much better than mine. Mine sounds like a swanny whistle. That's the sound of picking up and putting down an arrow. It is a five. Yes!

I am whittling you a five. Thank you. Carving you a five. Don't cry, James. There's no need to cry while you whittle. He's weeping. He's weeping and he's whittling. He could have been spying and crying when he was watching her.

He was spying and crying. He was weeping and whittling. That was the story of Maud's Elm, courtesy of Jan Bonderson and John Goding. It was real like an adventure. Yeah, it's a properly good story. I think that's how you can tell it just didn't happen. Someone just made it up. Yeah.

Because it's such a good story. Thank you very much, Alistair. You're very welcome, James. After we spoke, James, I checked, and the wall of the hotel did actually have a bit of dust on it. Of course it did. It simply must be dust. If you'd like to support Lawmen,

you can go to patreon.com forward slash lawmenpod. Yeah, there's bonus episodes and video access, and you can join the Discord, and you can have a good old chat with all the law folk. But you don't have to. There are other ways to support. A lovely review would be great. A nice tweet.

Oh, yeah. If you love the podcast, tell a friend about it. Yeah. And if you hate the podcast, tell an enemy. Trick them. Trick them in. Hi there, law folk. There's some sad news here because a friend of the podcast and dad of me,

Jimmy Shakeshaft, he's Dan Gangster, has died. Now, obviously, I've got all sorts of jokes prepped. You know, the human Chesterfield last spring is gone, so we've called the council and propped him outside for collection but it's a bit of a sad time around here don't worry he would have appreciated the inappropriate use of humor at this time now I've got lots of stories about him and his life and other characters from our family e.g. Dark Marianne they're yet to make it to the podcast and those will come in time don't worry but what with one thing and another there might be a minor disruption over the next couple of weeks.

So thank you for your patience on that. I just wanted to say thanks to him for his love of Greek mythology that sparked off my love of myths and legends and odd old books. Thanks, Dad.