Tales from the Black Meadow Page 2

  The voices began. The first was deep and sonorous. The second voice was light and warming. His mother and father were singing. Other voices joined theirs. The village was alive with sound.

  And the horses began to move.

  They stomped their feet to the rhythm, fluttered their ears and swished their tails. As the beat increased in tempo, so too did the speed of the horses stamping. They began to move into a circle, stepping in and out, in and out. The voices raised in volume. The tempo increased. Faster and faster and faster. The horses jumped higher, galloping to and fro, swapping places across the circle, getting faster but always dancing in time to the swelling music.

  Suddenly the horses began to rear up on to their hind legs, but rather than stamp back onto all fours they remained, dancing upright.

  The boy blinked his disbelieving eyes, the unlikely sight, which, as is the way in these stories, became more unlikely the more he stared. The horses stretched their legs. Their bodies seemed to thin and shrink. Their long faces shortened. Their manes became shocks of messy hair upon their suddenly round human heads. Their tails were pulled inside their behinds. Their ears no longer fluttered, but slipped from the tops to the sides of their heads. Their hind hooves flattened, softened and grew toes. Their dark hides faded, becoming pale skin. And they danced now, these Horsemen. They danced and danced wildly, their faces joyous and their eyes bright and full of life.

  The boy watched, mesmerised at the change. He marvelled at the enchanting noise sweeping out of the village into his ears. His limbs shook and his feet stamped. He rose to his feet, running into the field where the Horsemen danced. When they saw him they smiled and patted his back. They taught him steps of such skill, that were he ever to woo a young lady with this new dance, he would be guaranteed a quick wedding and many children.

  And he danced and danced. The night grew old.

  The music slowed. The voices dimmed. The boy found himself stopping with the rest of the Horsemen. The organ faded. The bell no longer tolled. The guitars stopped their strumming. Finally the thump, thump, thump of the marching drum ceased.

  Standing still in the field were the horses, plus one new foal.

  Of course you will know of the shriek from the boy’s mother when she found his bed disturbed and him gone. You will know of the cry of the father when he saw the new foal asleep in the stable. The new foal grew to be a splendid stallion that was always given the finest hay. The mother prayed for another warm October but there were no more in her lifetime.

  The next warm October occurred fifty years later. The boy’s mother and father had been dead for over three decades. On the third night the groom opened the stables. The villagers brought out the instruments to play for the Horsemen.

  Halfway through the dance an old man walked out of the field. He trudged towards an empty house. The villagers stopped the music and stared.

  They whispered to one another. They pointed and shook their heads in wonder. A child had disappeared from that very house, on a balmy October night, many years ago.

  In Her Arms of Mist

  I can’t see my hand

  In front of my face

  Can’t walk another step

  This place so dark

  But I knock so hard

  And the door becomes

  Your room your face

  You don’t wait you want

  To take my hand

  And pull me to your side

  Your mouth so soft

  It’s not quite there

  And I can’t see

  I know you’re there

  Wake so quick

  The ground so hard

  My arms are scratched

  The room so dark

  The breeze blows hard

  About my head

  I did not hear

  What she had said

  So close and yet so cold

  (Discovered scratched in the oak panel of a tavern bench by Roger Mullins in 1965)

  Our Fair Land (A song)

  Mist and Heather call us soft

  Over bramble meadows

  Village field and apple loft

  Under land and hedgerows

  Will you not hear the call?

  Will you with us stand?

  Will you take our hands in yours?

  Wake our fairest land.

  Church bell rings out, strong and proud

  Horse hooves tramp in sweet time

  Voices, drums that play so loud

  Trap their dance in sweet rhyme

  Will you not hear the call?

  Will you with us stand?

  Will you take our hands in yours?

  Wake our fairest land.

  Hidden cave and darkened sphere

  Rag and bone and scream

  Shining apples hold no fear

  For this waking dream

  Will you not hear the call?

  Will you with us stand?

  Will you take our hands in yours?

  Wake our fairest land.

  (Traditional)

  The brambles started to grow in thick clumps on the pillars, long straight clumps at each side, two little clumps at the base and a round clump on the top.

  The Children of the Black Meadow

  It has long been said that the Black Meadow has a mystical power. There are so many tales and songs that if put together they would fill the shelves of Saltburn library. Some of these tales offer comfort, others horror and some an answer to the mysteries of the Black Meadow. Some of the tales do all three of these things.

  The land has a sacred relationship with those who toil upon it and those who live by it. The land seems to give something back to those that gave it life.

  There was a time when sheep, cows and horses could not graze upon the Black Meadow as the ground was covered in tangles of blackberry. Only the bravest, clad in their strongest boots and toughest leather trousers, or the most desperate, could walk into the field.

  Once there was a beautiful family who lived on the edge of the blackberry meadow. The four children, each born a year apart, lived a jolly and gay existence. They picked the blackberries in the late summer, braving the brambles, making dens and mazes in the knotted tangles of thorny branches.

  One heart-breaking night in April, the house caught alight while the four children lay asleep. Their mother and father beat at the door. They battled the flames but all that was found in the morning were four sets of blackened bones.

  The village mourned the loss of these sweet and laughing children. The mother visited the graveside every day, while the father grew despondent, spending his evenings at the tavern. The two never spoke to one another again in public. Most suspected it was the same behind closed doors. Four months later another tragedy struck. Whilst stumbling home from the tavern, the father tripped, hitting his head on the bottom step outside his front door. He died instantly.

  The mother stood silent at the grave days later, her face stoic and unmoving. As the months passed she sat in her house by the window only venturing out for goods and the occasional book, for it seemed that she had become a voracious reader. The books she read were reported to be somewhat esoteric in nature, but no one ever asked her to explain why she was reading such mysterious works.

  Over the space of a week, there were several peculiar happenings that occurred one after the other. Firstly the graves of the children were disturbed and, on closer examination, it became clear that the bones had been removed. Secondly, it was noticed on her weekly visit to the village shop, that the mother had hundreds of tiny cuts on her arms and hands as though from many tiny thorns. The final and most disturbing of these happenings was that this same, poor, sad mother of four dead children was seen late at night on the edge of the blackberry meadow lighting fires around the perimeter; six fires at six points, like the six points of a star.

  No one questioned the mother about this; she barely spoke to anyone, although some people heard her talking on the edge of the meadow. Some thought that
they heard her calling the children she had lost by name, calling them in from play.

  Weeks passed into months. The mother stood looking out over the meadow every morning as though expecting something or someone to appear. It was at the end of the third month of this that a single bramble shoot was sighted above all the others standing straight and tall like a beanpole above the tangled mess below. Over the succeeding weeks another appeared, followed by two more, each one appearing a week apart, standing clear against the horizon.

  From all around each stalk, other brambles began to climb up, adding form and body to the thick blackberry spine in the centre. The brambles grew around each stalk until they were each the shape of a pillar. Four pillars stood atop of the tangle of brambles below, like standing stones on a forgotten hill. The pillars of brambles changed even more over the following weeks. The brambles started to grow in thick clumps on the pillars, long straight clumps at each side, two little clumps at the base and a round clump on the top. These clumps grew more distinct in their shape until, one by one each resembled a person cut by a skilled topiarist.

  The next week people were surprised to notice that the first pillar to appear had gone. In the weeks that followed the others too all vanished. It was then that the villagers noticed something far more shocking and out of place. The mother was smiling.

  The villagers finally understood what had happened several months later. There had been rumours of course, people had noticed lanterns flickering at the children’s bedroom windows. They had seen the woman hanging torn washing with a serene smile on her face, but that was nothing compared to the day she returned to the church.

  It was the Sunday before Easter. The church was packed with villagers listening to the sermon. Suddenly the priest was struck into silence, his face becoming pale as he looked up the aisle to the doors. There, silhouetted in the sunlight was the mother with four figures clad in her children’s torn Sunday best. The two smaller figures, standing either side of her, were holding her scratched, bleeding hands in their tight and nervous bramble grip. She walked forward, grinning. They sat in the pew that she and her family had occupied so many Sundays previously. Now she sat with her bramble children with their tangled arms and thorny legs; these creatures made of twisted thorn and leaf. People tried not to stare but these children invited it, looking around, their blackberry eyes unblinking in the stained glass light. The mother smiled. She nodded at the priest who continued his sermon - which no-one listened to - in a shaking voice.

  The following days grew even stranger, for the children returned to school holding their books and satchels in their prickly hands. They sat silent in class, but then so did the other children, terrified as they were of those silent unblinking blackberry eyes. Some of the pupils were brave enough to follow them home. They reported that when the four children went inside, they could be seen, each standing in a large earth-filled pot, whilst their mother poured water over them.

  The villagers noticed how quiet the mother was becoming. They had seen her kissing her children farewell at the school gate, her face cut by their bramble lips, but her initial euphoria had passed. She seemed quieter and thoughtful.

  Another grave was disturbed.

  The mother was seen at the edge of the meadow again, with her fires and incantations. Over the coming weeks and months, people witnessed the thickest and strongest bramble they had ever seen, rising above the rest with other brambles wrapping around it to make a sturdy pillar.

  There, silhouetted in the sunlight was the mother and four figures clad in her children’s torn Sunday best …

  Everybody kept checking the growth of the bramble every day; they were determined to see the magic done. Finally, after several weeks, a giant bramble man stood above the tangle. As they watched from behind their twitching curtains and half opened doors, they saw this giant bramble man stroll across the top of the blackberry to the woman he loved, enfolding her in his prickly embrace. She wept. He stared unblinking from his blackberry eyes.

  As the weeks passed and the children of the village gave the blackberry four a wide berth, things seemed to go less well for the mother. Villagers could hear her shouting and doors slamming, they could only hear her voice as the bramble father had none. The bramble father was seen every night sitting in a corner of the tavern pouring beer into his bramble mouth, watching as it dripped over the thorns inside him before making a puddle on the floor. No one sat with him. One night the bramble father smashed his glass on the floor in a rage and stood, knocking his stool aside. He walked outside towards the field. Looking down at his bramble chest, he saw a small branch curling out from between his thorny ribs. He pulled it with both hands, tying the trailing bramble to a post outside the tavern. He walked slowly towards the field, gradually unravelling as he trudged further away from the village. He walked, with his slowly disappearing bramble head held high, until all that was left was a single trail of bramble running from the tavern, across the street and deep into the heart of the blackberry meadow.

  The next morning more doors slammed. The mother screamed for them to stay, but the children wanted to return to their father. The village hated and feared them. They could not bear it a moment longer. The mother argued, pleading with them not to untangle, not to join the blackberry as their father had. Her tears were such that they relented, but they would not stay. The next morning the four blackberry children donned ripped caps and shredded clothes. With their mother’s sobs echoing in their tangled ears, they went to seek their fortune in the south of the country where, it is said, that they made thousands of pounds in the manufacturing, marketing and selling of the most delicious cordial.

  Novo Inventus

  What will you find when you pull back the bramble?

  A forgotten coin

  An old book of rhymes

  A roast dinner still steaming on a plate

  A tub of golden apples

  The bloodied claw of a buzzard

  A screaming child

  What will come out of the mist?

  Four children of bramble

  A vagabond tree

  A horned demon

  Three spheres of dark

  A spiral spinning home

  (Found in a child’s exercise book on the ruined site of Black Meadow School)

  There is a standing stone in the centre of Black Meadow.

  The Standing Stone

  There is a standing stone in the centre of Black Meadow.

  It is a rough oblong of black-grey granite with ornate carvings up the sides. Each carving is a different sized spiral scattered all over the uneven seven sides of the eleven-foot-tall pillar.

  The standing stone is in the centre of a treacherous bog. To some it is impassable; to others it seems hardly worth the bother, after all it is just a large lump of granite. Some have lost their lives and many have lost their shoes there.

  People who think that it is not worth the effort ought to read up on their local folklore. If they did they would see that a visit to the standing stone might be a worthwhile venture.

  It has been said that when a gentleman or lady visits the stone they will need to take with them a large sheet of parchment and a stick of charcoal or dark wax. It is advised that a visitor to the stone scrutinises every inch until they find their spiral. Apparently, legend states, that the visitor will know that spiral when they see it. The spiral will stand out as though embossed and shining, rather than engraved and dull. If two were to visit the stone each of them would see a different spiral and will comment or even argue that a different spiral is standing out.

  It is said that one should place the parchment over the chosen spiral and rub the wax or charcoal over the pattern until it is captured on the paper.

  Once the individual has negotiated the treacherous bog home, they should take the parchment and lay it flat on a table. It has been noted that there is a space between the lines of the spiral in which one could write using tiny characters. The individual may have something or, heave
n forbid someone, that they would like to vanish. They can use the spiral to enable such a thing to occur.

  Some examples of items that individuals have vanished include:

  A lustful thought

  A painful memory

  An annoying barking hound belonging to a neighbour

  A disease on your lung

  An unrelenting ache of the knee

  An unsightly wart

  A nagging spouse

  An irritating younger brother

  It is suggested that one should write down (neatly and with joined handwriting) the name or description of this item within the spiral and where it shall be at the midnight of that day. It must be written clearly so that another can read it. If someone has an untidy scrawl, then caution must be exercised, in case that person should lose the wrong thing, such as a whole memory, a nose, a home or an entire village.

  It is said that this paper should be thrown upon a fire and that the individual should watch the ash and smoke spiral up the chimney.

  It is said that the spiral of ash and smoke will find the offending item that has been identified and grow or shrink to envelop it, until it, he or she is hidden. The spiral of ash and smoke will dance back to the stone where it will deposit its luggage inside.