The legends of Worcestershire, as of most other counties, are mainly traceable to middle-age ecclesiastical influences or to the popular ideas of the author of all evil. Some few are derived from an exaggerated recollection of historical facts, and a still smaller number have descended to us from pagan times. Of these, with others whose origin is buried in obscurity, I shall now proceed to give a sample.

Ribbesford church contains an ancient sculpture on the tympanum of its principal doorway, representing an archer, with a doe or some other animal near him, which he has apparently shot at, but missing his aim, the arrow passes through what some have supposed to be a salmon, others a seal or a beaver; and the legend is, that Robin of Horsehill, the ranger to the manor, went out to shoot a buck, but incontinently pierced a salmon in the river. It is probable, however, in accordance with the known custom of the Norman builders, that the sculpture is merely intended to represent the leading feature of the locality, where an abundance of game was to be procured, the occupants of the manor being bound to furnish sporting for the monks of Worcester. Mr. Lees says that only recently another sculpture has been discovered at this church which seems to establish the proof that they are symbolical in design.

In the sandstone blocks lying in Whelpley and Sapey brooks, on the borders of this county and Herefordshire, are indentations which are accounted for in this way. St. Katharine and her maid Mabel (who ultimately took up their abode at Ledbury in consequence of having heard the bells of that town ring of their own accord), while travelling, had their mare and colt stolen, upon which the saint prayed that wherever the animals and the thief trod, the marks of their feet might be left, as a means of tracing them. The thief, it seems, was a girl in pattens, who took the animals down several brooks to avoid detection, and hence the marks of patten-rings and horses' feet visible to this day. Science, however, cold-blooded and unfeeling, has declared, by the mouth of Messrs. Murchison and Buckland, that the cavities alluded to are void spaces from which concretions of marlstone and other matter have been worked out by the action of the water. It has been subsequently urged by other geologists that these indentations were old water-marks made on the shore when the consolidated "old red" was an ancient sea beach, that they were filled up with soft marly matter, which in modern times was washed away by the continued action of streams in flowing among the stones, and thus the simulated mare and colt's tracks became evident. Two of them, at a place called Jumper's Hole, are very conspicuous, but it is certain that they have been deepened year after year by the action of the water that covers them in time of flood. Between Clifton-on-Teme and Stanford Bishop the best specimens may be seen.

The legend of St. Werstan, the founder of an oratory at Great Malvern, was detailed by Mr. Albert Way in the Journal of the ArchÆological Institute, in 1845, and illustrations given from the ancient painted glass in the third window of the clerestory, north of the choir in Malvern Abbey church. The glass was probably executed towards the close of the fifteenth century, when a part of the structure was renovated. The first subject represents the hermit, under the guidance of angels, indicating the spot for the erection of an oratory, then the angels are seen dedicating the building, next is a figure of Edward the Confessor granting a charter, and lastly the saint is undergoing martyrdom at the hands of two executioners armed with swords, and the choristers or youths belonging to the establishment are being punished by similar tormentors. The series is highly curious, and seems unaccountably to have escaped notice before.

Our neighbours, the Danes, when they piratically infested this country and plundered and burnt so large a number of churches, were sometimes caught in flagrante delicto, and their sacrilegious crimes were punished by flaying—their skins being nailed on church doors, as a terror to all other evil doers. The late Dr. Prattinton, of Bewdley, in his Manuscripts now in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries, states that some old doors then in the crypt of Worcester Cathedral were covered with fragments of human skin said to have belonged to a man who had stolen the sanctus-bell from the high altar. Portions of this skin have been since examined microscopically by Mr. Quekett, of the Museum of the College of Surgeons, and pronounced decidedly to be human. I have myself examined some old doors in the crypt and found on them patches of a substance like leather, of which I have a specimen now in my possession; but if it ever belonged to a Dane it affords substantial proof that they could not have been a thin-skinned race.

Similar specimens have been discovered at Westminster Abbey, and the churches of Hadstock and Copford, Essex; and Pepys, in his Diary (1661) mentions having seen Danes' skins on the great doors of Rochester Cathedral.

Evesham Abbey is said to have derived its origin from the same means which have been assigned to many other religious establishments—namely, supernatural interposition. Eoves, a swineherd, was attending his pigs in the forest on the site of which Evesham now stands, when the Virgin appeared to him in a vision, which he communicated to his master, the Bishop of Worcester. The Bishop repaired to the place, and saw a repetition of the vision, the Virgin enjoining him not only to erect a monastery on that spot but to prepare an image of herself, which was to be worshipped at Worcester. This prelate, in atonement for the sins of himself and the people, bound himself with chains, locked them together, and threw the key into the Avon, declaring that nothing but Divine interposition should loose his chains. Then he undertook a pilgrimage to Rome, where his servant, purchasing a fish for dinner, found in it the key which had been thrown away; and so they returned triumphantly to Evesham.

St. Kenelm's chapel, on the Clent Hill, near Stourbridge, has also its legend. Kenulph, King of Mercia, who died in 819, left his young son Kenelm under the protection of his sister Quendreda, who, however, being ambitious for the throne, procured her lover, Askobert, to take the youth out hunting, and there, in a secluded valley, he cut off his head, and buried him. However, a dove dropped a scroll on the high altar at Rome, whereon was written a couplet giving information of the murder:

The lovers accordingly met with their desert, the murdered King was canonized, and on the spot of his murder a chapel was erected, and a spring of holy water burst forth which for many centuries proved an undoubted specific for sore legs and eyes, and a tolerably good source of emolument to the ecclesiastics.

The old church of St. Clement's, Worcester, stood on the eastern side of the Severn, close to the city wall; and the legend says, that it was begun to be built on the side of the river where the parish lies, but that angels, by night, took away the stones to the place where the church was afterwards erected. Modifications of this old tale, as also of the following, may be met with in almost every town. The original spire of St. Andrew's church is said to have been erected by a wealthy individual, out of gratitude for having, on a certain foggy night, been preserved from walking into the Severn, in consequence of hearing St. Andrew's bells suddenly strike out.

It is a curious circumstance that while the vulgar mind has been at all times prone to attribute extraordinary or unaccountable results to Satanic influences, and to regard the evil one as the very essence of craft and cunning, a tendency has always been apparent to reduce his pretensions as a prudent or successful bargain-maker, especially in those instances wherein he was supposed to have come in contact with ecclesiastical antagonism, and he is almost invariably shown up in popular legends as being outwitted and frustrated in his diabolical designs, not less by expedients of the most simple kind, than by evasions as transparent as they are dishonest. We are told by Dr. Adam Clarke that Satan is far from excelling in knowledge, being more cunning and insidious than wise and prudent, and that we in general give this fallen spirit credit for much more wisdom than he possesses; an estimate of character which cannot be far from correct, if the following recollections of his doings in Worcestershire may be relied on: On the north boundary wall of Bromsgrove churchyard lies an old stone effigy of a man in the attitude of prayer, and it is said that the original of this figure sold himself to the wicked one for certain stipulations, one of which was, that when he died, he should not be buried either in or out of the churchyard; and the man accordingly gave directions to be buried under the boundary wall, and the effigy to be placed above it. This was a similar trick to that of the teetotaller, who, having taken the pledge not to drink liquors in or out of his house, compromised the matter to his own conscience by striding across the threshold and draining a jug to the bottom.

So the people of Bewdley were once saved from destruction by a drunken cobbler, who foregather'd with the man of sin, as the latter was travelling with a spadeful of earth to dam up the Severn, and thereby inundate the country. The devil had lost his way, and inquired of the cobbler, who, smelling sulphur, and foreseeing annihilation to all his customers at Bewdley, coolly assured the father of lies that the distance to that town was so great that he had worn out a whole lot of shoes he carried in a bag at his back. Whereupon the fallen spirit at once dropped the earth, and there remains to this day the hill called "The Devil's Spadeful," or "Spittleful." A similar legend prevails in many counties, especially in reference to the Wrekin and High Ercall Hills, Shropshire, and "Robin Hood's Butts," Herefordshire.

Near Little Shelsley grows a plant called "Devil's-bit" (Succisa pratensis), which it is said was given to heal any deadly wounds, but as the devil saw how many wicked persons were thus rescued from his grasp, he bit the roots off this plant, whereupon it miraculously grew without them, and follows up the habit to this day.

In Bretforton church is the legend of "Maid Margaret" carved on one of the north pillars. It is said that a nun, being tempted by the devil, resisted, and was devoured by him, whereupon the holy sister, who always went armed with a cross, used it with such effect, that the evil one burst asunder, and she emerged.

Oliver Cromwell's compact with the devil, before the battle of Worcester, has been a favourite fable probably ever since the restoration of Charles II. Echard, the rev. historian, condescends to propagate the fable, that Cromwell, on the morning that he defeated the king's army, had conference personally with the devil in Perry Wood, and made a contract with him, that to have his will then, and in all things else for seven years from that day (he unsuccessfully proposed twenty-one or fourteen years), he should, at the expiration of the said term, have him at his command, to do at his pleasure, both with his soul and body. A valiant officer called Lindsay, an intimate friend of Cromwell's, is said to have been so horror-struck at the interview, that he fled from the battle that day, escaped to a friend's house at Norfolk, and foretold Cromwell's death would happen in seven years, which accordingly so happened on the anniversary day of the battle.

A few remains of fairy lore are yet to be picked up here and there, and Mr. Jabez Allies has furnished us with as much probably as can be gained on this subject. He says that the peasantry of Alfrick and Lulsley occasionally suppose themselves "Puck-laden" (i. e. misled by that mischievous sprite Puck, alias good old cider), and so drawn into ditches and bogs, whereupon the evil genius sets up a horse-laugh; also that Rosebury Rock, opposite Knightsford bridge, was a favourite haunt of the fairies, concerning whom he tells some curious tales of the patronage they bestowed upon those who had done them a good turn.

In the same locality is a place called "Callow's Leap," where it is said that a mighty hunter, named Callow, leaped down the precipice; what became of him afterwards no record saith, but it may be presumed that the consequences of the leap were not fatal, as Callow's grave, or at least the name of it, exists near Tenbury, a considerable distance from Alfrick. Many are the tales of sights unearthly to be seen at the former spot by night—of hideous black dogs running about, and of the difficulty of getting horses by that part of the road at times.

The "Jovial Hunter" is a legend of some note at Bromsgrove, and an old ballad is still remembered there which records the wondrous achievements of "Sir Ryalash" in ridding that country of an enormous wild boar, which, nerved by the promise of a fair lady's hand, he succeeded in despatching after a four hours' conflict. Bromsgrove, it is said, received its name from Boar's-grove, and there is a place called Burcot, or Boar's-cot, about three miles to the east of the town. An old story has also been handed down that the devil kept his hounds at Halesowen (Hell's Own), and, with his huntsman, Harry-ca-nab, riding on wild bulls, used to hunt the boars on Bromsgrove Lickey. Feckenham forest extended round this neighbourhood for many miles, and there are some historical evidences left of the zest with which the sport of hunting was formerly pursued here, among which is the mandate issued by Edward I to Peter Corbet, an ancestor of the family at Chaddesley, who, like other hunters of wolves, was in the king's pay. (See "Rambler," vol. iii, p. 220.) An argument has been raised from the fact of Robin Hood's name being applied to some trees and other objects in this neighbourhood that the great outlaw must have been at one time a resident in Feckenham forest; but there is no tangible evidence to support the conjecture, as the name of Robin Hood, like that of the Duke of Wellington or Lord Nelson, may probably be met with on signboards or otherwise in every county in England.

The parish of Wolverley has likewise its legend, derived from the period of the holy wars. Wolverley Court belonged to one of the Attwoods, who went out as a Crusader, was taken by the Saracens, and kept so long in a dungeon, that his lady at home, supposing him to be dead, was about to marry again, when the knight, having made a vow to the Virgin to present a large portion of his lands to the church at Worcester, was supernaturally liberated from his cell, whisked through the air, and deposited near home, when of course he lost no time in forbidding the banns. The prisoner's fetters are still preserved at the Court, as also the sculptured figure of the warrior, which formerly lay in the old church.

The name of Kidderminster is said to have been derived from the mythological period of Britain's history when King Cador resided at that town; his Majesty having been the founder of a minster there—hence Cador-minster; or, still more whimsical, comes the following versified legend:

(And echo answered—"Cador-mister.")

As to the etymology of the parish of Oddingley, Dr. Nash informs us that Odd and Dingley, two Saxon giants, were said to have fought upon the common at that place, till the former, beginning to feel anxious for his own personal comfort, roared out—

Oddo and Doddo were two powerful dukes of the Mercian kingdom, whose history is connected with that of several towns in this district, and they were buried in Pershore church. Oddingley, however, most probably means "the field of Oding."

In Areley Kings churchyard is a curious monument formed of sandstone blocks, like a portion of a wall, being part of the ancient fence; it bears this inscription in old capitals:

Sir Harry Coningsby, who is thus commemorated, lived in a moated grange in Herefordshire, and was early left a widower, with one child, a daughter, on whom all his happiness was centred. He was standing one day at an open window with the child in his arms, when, in some playful action, she threw herself out of her father's arms, and fell into the moat beneath, where life soon became extinct. The wretched parent could no longer bear to reside at that fatal spot, and removed into Worcestershire, to a house called "The Sturt," in Areley Kings, where he led a solitary life, went usually by the name of "Sir Harry," and when he died was buried in a corner of the churchyard, the epitaph being carved on that part of the churchyard wall which formed Sir Harry's "pane.[8]" A walnut tree was planted close to the grave, and the boys of the parish were to have the walnuts, and crack them on "Sir Harry's" gravestone; but the tree was cut down by the late rector.

The ancient parish of King's Norton keeps up the memory of two traditions—first, that Queen Elizabeth once slept in a large and picturesque building still shown there; and second, that some centuries ago, letters were usually directed to "Birmingham near Kingsnorton." Droitwich likewise boasts of having, in some remote period, been a town of so much more importance than Worcester, that the latter was known chiefly by its vicinity to the former. There is indeed every probability that the salt springs of Droitwich were worked by the earliest settlers in this island.

The register of Broughton Hackett is said by Nash to contain an entry, that in the reign of Queen Anne the minister of that parish was tried, convicted, and executed, for baking his shepherd's boy in an oven!

There is a tradition at Birtsmorton that Cardinal Wolsey was once a servant in the Court-house of that parish.

Tibberton also has its traditions. It is said there that one Roger Tandy (temp. James I) was so very strong, that being at Sir John Pakington's, at Westwood, he took up a hogshead full of beer, drank out of the bunghole, and set it down again, without resting it on his knee or elsewhere. Also that one Hugh Pescod, alias "the little Turk," in the time of Oliver Cromwell, was hung up by the neck for half-an-hour by some Parliamentarian soldiers, and being cut down and thrown into a saw-pit, he recovered; in memory of which era in his history he planted some elm trees near his orchard at Wood Green.

At Dudley there is a tradition that many years ago a giant lived in Dudley castle, as did also one in the castle of Birmingham. The Birmingham giant had done suit and service to the Dudley giant for many years, but growing fat he began to kick, and refused to serve the Dudley giant longer. A furious dispute thereupon broke out; the Dudley giant in his rage threw a large stone all the way from Dudley at the Birmingham giant, and demolished his castle and killed him. Some of his surviving followers erected a stone in the lane as a memento of prowess and rage, and called it the war stone, whence the name Warstone Lane. When the lord of Dudley castle began the dispute which ended in the ruin of the lord of Birmingham, the latter had a large and deep hole made in the castle yard, in the which were buried the treasures and the muniments of his house, with a full charge to his familiar spirit—every great man in those days had one—to watch over them until better days came and justice were done to him. Some years ago, as a gentleman was digging a well in his garden he came unexpectedly upon a strong box. He began to dig round it, and had got it slung in ropes for the purpose of hauling it up, when an ugly dwarf jumped upon it (no one seeing where he came from or went to), exclaiming, "That's mine." Immediately all the earth fell in the hole he had made. He tried many times to get the box, but every time the same thing occurred, so he gave up the attempt in despair. My grandmother has often told me she did not know the gentleman, but she had frequently seen the pick and spade with which the hole had been made.—J. Vernal.

St. Augustine's Oak—the celebrated tree under which the "Apostle of the English" is said to have held a conference with the British bishops—has been claimed by many places in this county as a plant of Worcestershire growth: Rock and Alfrick, a place called "The Apostle's Oak," near Stanford Bridge, the Mitre Oak at Hartlebury, and other places, have been pointed out, but the record left of the site of this famous oak is so vague that any attempt at fixing it must be mere matter of conjecture. Some have supposed that the parish of Rock, whose original name was derived from the Saxon word signifying an oak, must have been the site, as Dr. Nash informs us that there was a hollow oak there held in great veneration by the country people, and called by them "The Apostle's Oak." When the turnpike was first erected, it served as a habitation for the keeper, and through his carelessness was burnt down.