 |
| Artwork from Hellebore Magazine |
It was Monday, September 8th, 1986 – and Mick Dodds, his wife Lila [1], and his mother-in-law had spent a long day in the Staffordshire village of Abbots Bromley, where they had borne witness to the age-old performance of the Horn Dance. As they put the village in their rearview mirror on the way to Stowe-by-Chartley, they had no idea that the ritual wasn’t done with them yet.
The Wildman's Hunt
After dropping Lila's mother back at her cottage in the nearby village of Stowe-by-Chartley, Mick continued driving northeast until he reached the A518 road that would take them home. It was nighttime by now, but both parties were looking forward to the drive that would take them through the idyllic West Midlands countryside and past the 11th century ruins of Chartley Castle.
Perhaps the couple's casual conversation was suddenly interrupted. Something large and dark lurched out of the field to the right side of the road, and Mick slammed on the breaks in shock. It was a massive stag, its velvet antlers glistening in the moonlight. The giant animal wandered across the road directly in front of their vehicle, leaving both Mick and Lila silent with awe. While they watched the deer, something else was quickly making its way through the field under cover of darkness.
Lila screamed with horror as the grotesque thing leapt out onto the road, seemingly in pursuit of the stag. It seemed to be a large primate, like a chimpanzee. Neither passenger registered how the stag reacted to this, however, because the chimpanzee only made it halfway across the road before stopping dead in its tracks and turning to look directly at them through the car's windscreen. It began to move towards them, picking up speed.
Red hot panic overwhelming his senses, Mick put the car into reverse gear and attempted to back away as quickly as possible as the ape began a flat-out charge towards their vehicle. The engine stalled. Just before it reached the car's bonnet, the chimp stopped and retreated. Fumbling to restart the engine, Mick accidentally flooded it and left them completely stranded and helpless. Maybe sensing weakness, the hairy thing charged again.
Just before it reached their car, it stopped once again. Was it mocking them? The terrified couple and the monstrous ape remained deadlocked like this about twenty seconds, and it made at least one more mock charge before beating its final retreat. It bounded off the road and into the dark field to the left of their car, presumably chasing the stag. It had never actually touched the car, and the passengers were (physically) unscathed by the encounter.
Mick set about the gruelling process of restarting the engine, pale as a ghost and shaken to his core [2].
Clashing Antlers and Pagan Cults
At the start of this article, I mentioned the Horn Dance of Abbots Bromley. I feel that this is particularly relevant because of the contents of the performance, which seems to have been somehow reflected in that evening's weird happenings on the A518.
The 'horns' of the ritual are actually antlers, held by six costumed men who perform what is perhaps a strange re-enactment of the clashing of rutting stags throughout the day on Wakes Monday (the first Monday after 4th September). They are accompanied by a motley crew of other characters who provide a musical backdrop for the ceremony, including a fool, a bowman, a hobby-horse, a triangle player, and a man in costume as Maid Marian.
Beginning at 8am at St. Nicholas' Church, the stag-men pass through key sites throughout the parish of Abbots Bromley, forming into two parallel lines at each location and methodically advancing towards each other. Their antlers are held at chest height as they pass, but they never actually collide with one another. This strange rite is repeated all through the parish for twelve hours, before a final dance is performed in the street at 8pm [3].
The first mention of a hobby-horse dance at Abbots Bromley dates from 1532, but does not mention the antlers. A 1686 source discusses the antlers in a description of a performance witnessed around 1630. It has seemingly been performed annually since then, with a short hiatus for the English Civil War.
Before the Civil War, it was likely a Christmastide festivity associated with St Nicholas' Day and New Years Day. The antlers used have been dated to the 11th century, having been from domesticated reindeer perhaps imported from Scandinavia sometime between then and the 17th century.
Mainland European church documents from between the 4th and 11th centuries frequently denounce midwinter practices that were viewed as pagan, which included animal guising and ritual transvestitism, just like the Horn Dance we see today. These have frequently been interpreted as fertility rites.
While none of these references refer specifically to Britain, or to any time beyond the 11th century, 20th century folklorists frequently saw the possibility of a connection between these ancient practices and modern day rituals.
Doubt has been cast on the pagan theory by modern scholars due to lack of direct evidence, and Ronald Hutton postulates that animal disguises and crossdressing may have independently arisen during medieval festivals as an easy way for ritual participants to express the suspension of normal social rules (distinctions between the sexes, and between humans and animals) that took place at midwinter [4].
A Place Between Places
Rituals in which the spirit world was invoked frequently involved the dissolution of normal social categories and boundaries. Initiation rites often feature a middle stage between the initiates' separation from their previous social roles and their reaggregation into a new position in society, which has been called liminal. This same quality of liminality (neither-here-nor-there-ness) has been identified in settings conducive to paranormal activity in the modern day [5].
One such setting between settings nowadays would certainly be a long road, such as the A518, the site of the Dodds' encounter. In fact, the Dodds are not the only people to have seen something strange along this road. Local resident Tom Goode told investigator Jim Foley of his recollection of seeing a large number of cars parked near Weston Bank (about 3 miles southwest of Chartley Castle) sometime around the summer of 1950. When he asked what the drivers what they were doing, he was told that they had seen strange objects in the sky and wanted to get a better look.
Apparently unidentified aircraft had been seen coming towards the road from near Stafford, and "hovered and darted to and fro". Tom stayed in the area for a little while, but was unable to see the lights. He dismissed this event as having been due to secret aircraft testing at a nearby airbase [6].
A newspaper article from the October 27th 1995 edition of the Post and Times, written by Rosemarie Davies, is also reprinted in Foley's excellent book on the folklore of the road. It details a poltergeist outbreak that took place over the course of three days at Lower Loxley Farm (approximately 3 miles northeast of Chartley Castle) one August in the 1890s.
Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, along with their 13-year-old maid, were horrified to repeatedly witness kitchen items and shoes pick themselves up and fly through the air at great speed, accompanied by loud knocking on the walls and ceilings. Stones were thrown at the house from outside, shattering windows up to the third floor. After Mr. Wilson called the police, they witnessed the strange happenings too, and then apparently threatened the maid with jail time if she did not confess to the whole thing.
There was only ever one incident in which the maid was seen to throw a small stone at the house, and she was frequently with the Wilson couple when all three of them witnessed strange things happening, well beyond her ability to accomplish. When spiritualist F. Brittain asked her about her experience of the three days, she said that she didn't have much memory of them and had felt as if "a bandage was wrapped tighly around her head, so tight at times that it hurt her". She described experiencing strange sensations all over her body at night, and fainting uncontrollably.
After the first night of activity, the maid slept in the same room as the Wilson couple. One night, Mr. Wilson noticed that she raised her head while breathing very heavily and making "peculiar noises in her throat" whilst the knocking sounds were occurring. The bizarre events ceased when the maid left the farm on the 21st of August, leaving behind more questions than answers [7].
Conclusion
I cannot remember exactly where I heard it, but I think it was on an episode of the podcast Strange Familiars with Timothy Renner. He said that when he investigates Bigfoot sightings, he will often ask the witness if they have seen anything else out of the ordinary. He is rewarded so often with further stories of strange lights and apparitions that he has come to expect this pattern. It seems that the same holds true for the 'British Bigfoot'.
Many sources grasp at a possible connection between manifestations of inexplicable phenomena and human ritual behaviour. If the area around what is now the A518 seems to be especially prone to strange happenings, then perhaps it is no surprise that such a modern remnant of an age-old boundary-defying ritual is still annually performed there too. Just like the costumed performers become something that is neither human nor animal, it seems that forces beyond our knowledge might take on similar costumes given the right circumstances...
Bibliography and Notes
1. Pseudonym, Mick's wife goes unnamed in the original source.
2. Redfern, N. (2012) ‘Chapter Sixteen: A Monstrous Castle’, in Wildman! The Monstrous and Mysterious Saga of the British Bigfoot. CFZ Press, pp. 95–98.
3. Roud, S. (2008) ‘4th September: Abbots Bromley Horn Dance’, in The English Year: A Month-by-Month Guide to the Nation’s Customs and Festivals, from May Day to Mischief Night. Penguin, pp. 394–397.
4. Hutton, R. (1996) ‘Chapter Eight: Hobby-Horse and Horn Dance’, in The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Oxford University Press, pp. 81–95.
5. Hansen, G.P. (2001) The Trickster and the Paranormal. Xlibris Corp.
6. Foley, J. (1998) ‘Tom Goode’s Story’, in The Road to Chartley: Ghosts, Legends & Stories of the A518 (Part I), pp. 38–49.
7. Foley, J. (1998) ‘Strange Goings-on at Lower Loxley’, in The Road to Chartley: Ghosts, Legends & Stories of the A518 (Part I), pp. 103-105.
No comments:
Post a Comment