Folklore Tales

Happy Blog Day Everyone!

Today, I want a chat about Folklore, and include a tale that I always find interesting, and maybe, one day, will find a way to incorporate it into Brennan and Riz. Before that though, let’s move on to the weekly briefs!

Weekly Briefs

Harvey Duckman Presents…Volume 3

You didn’t think that just because Volume 2 was out and getting stellar reviews that this would be the end of it did you? Volume 3 is set for an October release, in what is proving to be a very packed month for my publisher. It will of course include a exclusive Brennan and Riz story, one that I’ll talk about that in detail after the book releases, in the coming weeks I may even share the title with you, and possibly moan about writing for a special Harvey Duckman release, but that’s all I’ll say for now.

Don’t forget, if you write Steampunk, Fantasy, Sci Fi or Horror (or a mix of the genres), then feel free to submit your work to this growing anthology! Click here for submission guidelines.

Crossing the Tees 2019

You’re probably tired of me going on about this, but I just want to bring as much attention to it as humanly possible, after all I owe everything to this competition.
We’re down to the final days now till the competition deadline of Midnight 31st July, if you’re entering and haven’t handed in your entry yet, then don’t delay! I’ve started my entry, but have had to go to a back up plan as my original idea needs a lot more work, but one day…

Creator Chaos

The next in our, All About Me, series is lined up, and it’s everyone’s favorite #vss365 tweeter, Kelvin Rodriguez! He will be at the mercy of whatever questions you want to ask, so please throw some good ones our way…

The latest episode of Creator Chaos should be up any day now, so if you want to know how I sound doing Sinarta’s Fly Me To The Moon (I do badly) then keep an eye out for it! Also coming soon, we’re hoping to do the first of our Guest Writer episodes featuring some of the great writers out there!

A reminder of who the rest of Creator Chaos are:

Me – I don’t think I need to explain myself…

Kelvin Rodriguez – Fans and followers of the #vss365 tag will recognize this fellow and his creations, a master of the pun. He also has a mighty fine singing voice.

Zack Brooks – Author of the ‘Charlie the Cupid’ shorts and ‘The Trials of Amaford” novellas, the audio book version of ‘How Not To Be A Rogue’ is out now! This is a perfect chance to get in on this series, with a great narrator. A great guy and the defacto leader of our rabble.

Pete Hartog – Author of the novel Bloodlines, and currently working on its sequel. A great guy with a great taste in music and a fantastic name. He also has a blog you can find here, give it a read! He’s currently working on a sequel to Bloodlines.

Click here to listen to all the podcasts so far and look out for us on Spotify and Apples Music Service!

Vector Unit Regen Orphan’s War

Still on hiatus, but all being well I should be able to resume it September going forward. It’ll probably be a fortnightly release schedule but I do want to see this story finished.
To catch up on the series so far, click here!

Brief Mentions

Liking what you’re hearing about Brennan and Riz? Click here to look at the short story collection of their adventures so far!
Looking for newer stuff?

Click here to order ‘The Yeti in the Snow’, the standalone Brennan and Riz Christmas story. Only available on Kindle. It may be collected in a paperback version in the future.

Click here to order Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 1 which includes ‘A Walk Through The Pleasure Gardens’

Click here to order Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 2 which includes ‘The Black Cat on the Prowl’
Click here to find me on Goodreads
And now…time for our main feature presentation…

Folklore Tales

So by now, you’ll have learned that I love me a bit of Folklore, the more local the better. I’m helped in this regard by the fact I live in the North East of England which is a hot bed of Folklore tales in all directions I look. Sometimes I do make my own up but that’s only to grow my world, which will always have proper Folklore at its heart.

This means there’s quite a few elements to enter the stories, and quite a few stories to tell. I do want to make a distinction though, that I also include ghosts sightings in Folklore, as a few of them date back centuries and their origins form Folklore of their own, which is the case with one particular tale harking from Northumberland, the Shade of Percy Reed.

It is one of the oldest ghost stories in the area and the haunting is of a lonesome figure walking amongst the bed of the River Rede in Redesdale. This is the spirit of Percy Reed, a man who once had the title of Keeper of Redesdale which meant a big deal back in the day. This annoyed his close neighbours, who of course, made plans to get rid of him. By conspiring with his enemies, a trap was laid and sprung. Poor Percy fell asleep during a hunting trip with his presumed friends and woke up, weaponless, to five opponents. I don’t think you need me to tell you what happened next. The results were so bloody that a bed sheet had to be used to carry what remained to his home. His neighbours were ran out of the area for their part in his death. Poor Percy though, all that remains now is his spirit, doomed to wander the area of his murder...

 A chilling tale? Perhaps, but this is perfect for me, as I can approach it in several ways, would I deal with the pair trying to move Percy on? Would I instead deal with Percy approaching the pair seeking revenge so he can move on? I’m not going to say more as I do have an idea in mind on how to approach it...

But that’s not really Folklore...Or at least, the Folklore you’re expecting me to talk about, so how about the Lambton Worm? The ‘Worm’ in this context isn’t the humble earthworm but comes from the Old Norse ‘Ormr’ meaning Serpent or Dragon. This is why the term crops up in Folklore as it really means the tale is about a Dragon of some description (Hint: not the one you generally see on TV). This tale starts with a rash young heir fishing on a Sunday in the River Wear near his family’s castle, Lambton Castle (which was torn down in the latter 18th Century). In the days when the story is set, fishing on a Sunday was generally a no-no. Anyway John Lambton caught a strange little worm as his fist catch of the day, what did he do? He threw the pitful creature down a nearby well. Big mistake, as even though he quickly forgot about it, the creature grew and grew. Years past and the Worm started eating livestock and causing destruction on a massive scale.

The lord of Lambton at the time, tried to appease the beast by offering troughs of milk, while also getting the best knights in the land to come and kill the worm. Each one failed and even those that managed to cut it in two, found that it just put itself back together again. Then John came home from the Crusades. Seeing his home in danger, and recognising the Worm as the one he threw down the well, he takes it on himself to get rid. Now learning that all the other knights failed, he seeks the counsel of a wise woman who tells him to stud his armour in spikes.

 The thinking here is that he beast likes to constrict it’s enemies, so when it tries it with John, it’ll kill himself. The information comes with a price though, that of a command John must do. If he’s successful in killing the Worm he must kill whatever he sees first afterwards less he and his line be cursed for nine generations. He thinks he can outsmart this though, and concocts a plan that when the worm is dead, he’ll blow his horn and the father will send out one of the loyal hunting dogs, the poor dog will take the chop and no curse.

John goes to battle and the plan works, the Worm goes in for the kill but only ends up killing itself, and with the Worm dead, John blows his horn. He was probably thinking how clever he was at outwitting the Wise Woman, but his father got too enthusiastic and ran out to congratulate his son. Not wanting his father to die, he blows his horn again. This time a servant releases a dog, who reaches John first and dies for the honour. As you can guess, this didn’t work and a terrible curse was placed on the Lambtons, and for nine generations, no Lambton died peacefully...

This is an epic piece of Folklore, and shows that you shouldn’t try and cheat your way out of a deal, especially if it’s with a powerful being, in this case the Wise Woman. Again this tale is one definitely one that I’ll be covering with Brennan and Riz as there’s a good way to take it, one that should make for an interesting story.
Okay, I’ve covered two I will use, and now for one that’s a lot a harder to use...Why? Well you’ll see.

This tale is called, the tale of Johnny Reed, who was a parish clerk in a village near Newcastle upon Tyne. One night, Johnny Reed was walking back to him home when he spotted nine cats lurking near a country gate. One of them turns to him and shocks him by talking. It says: “Johnny Reed, Johnny Reed, tell Dan Ratcliff that Peg Powson is dead.” Frightened beyond belief, he races back home and told his wife of the encounter, his own cat, on hearing the name Dan Ratcliff jumped up from his resting place by the fire. With a start he shouted: “If Peg Powson is dead, it’s no time for me to be here!” After that outburst, the cat then ran out of the house, never to be seen again.

There’s no more information that I can find on this story, but the book I first read it in (Supernatural North East by Tony Liddell) does question if the person who first told the tale enjoyed drink a bit too much to come up with a story like that!

Now, with this one, there’s not a lot to it, and it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever and reads like a drunken encounter. However Riz is a talking Rat...So talking cats...Out of the question? Or do I have more to use then I first realised. This is what I love about Folklore, and what I love in delving into the tales as I come across them. Every time I look at one, I’m inspired by what I read and think of new ways to torture Brennan and Riz (The number I gave in the All About Me is now out of date as it has risen. I’ve got Brennan and Riz stories for years)

That’s all we have time for this week! Thanks for bearing with me while I waffled about three different Folklore Tales, and if this goes down well...I’ve got a lot more where these came from! Keep writing my friends!