helter-skelter, toppling and tumbling, heads over heels, heels over heads, and all the while making a noise not unlike that of a disturbed nest of partridges.’
White Wells on Ilkley Moor, a fairies’ bathing house? (Kai Roberts)
Of course, Ilkley Moor had long been known as a haunt of fairies. A cavity in the outcrop known as Hanging Stones, a small distance east along the moor from White Wells, had been called the Fairies’ Parlour or Fairies’ Kirk for centuries prior to Butterfield’s account and according to local folklore, its tenants should not be disturbed. It is perhaps relevant that Hanging Stones is also the location of some fine examples of that enigmatic form of prehistoric rock-art known as cup-and-ring carvings. Indeed, Ilkley Moor bristles with such artefacts and with prehistoric archaeology generally. Once again, it seems that pre-modern man may have overtly associated the fairies with the visible relics of his pagan ancestors.
The fairies’ pagan connotations may be one reason why they were so opposed to churches being built in their vicinity. This common migratory legend crops up at several places in Yorkshire including Holme-on-the-Wolds and a number of villages around Huddersfield – specifically Kirkheaton, Kirkburton and Thornhill. The church-builders are invariably warned that their favoured location in which to raise a new place of worship would not be favourably regarded by the fairies, but they ignore the advice and construct the church there anyway. Then just as they are nearing completion, they awake one morning to find everything demolished and the stones moved to a different place. They attempt to rebuild it on their chosen site but once again, their work is torn down and the materials shifted. Eventually, the builders admit defeat and simply build the church elsewhere.
In functional terms, this narrative probably accounted for cases where shifting patterns of land-use over the centuries had left the modern village centre at some distance from the local church. It is a story also connected with the Devil in some places (North Otterington and Leake, for instance) but whilst the Devil’s motive is easily recognised as animosity towards Christianity, the fairies’ intentions are a little more vague. Are they proclaiming their hostility to the new religion, or are they simply keen to be left alone? Given that their reticence is an almost universal theme in fairy lore, it may be the latter. Any form of disturbance seems to be resented by them and a church would certainly represent a substantial imposition.
Such behaviour could also be a product of their fondness for pranks and mischief: for whilst the fairies begrudge any human interference in their affairs, they seem happy to meddle with impunity in ours. Most famously, they were believed to enjoy firing arrows at cattle and so causing disease in the herd. Indeed, the earliest recorded mention of the fairies in England is an Anglo-Saxon charm against ‘elf-shot’. Over 1,000 years later, Richard Blakeborough attested that this superstition was alive and well in Yorkshire, whilst it was even mentioned in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights . Yet again there is a connection with ancient man, as farmers regarded the prehistoric flint arrowheads often revealed by ploughing as evidence that fairies had been targeting their cattle. Touching the afflicted beasts with one of these flints was also considered to effect a cure.
Another game the fairies liked to play was to fling their ‘butter’ at the doors, gates and window-frames of a building, to which it would adhere and rot the wood away. Apparently the houses around Egton Grange were especially known for being thus targeted. Of course, ‘fairy butter’ was actually a common gelatinous fungus of the Tremellales order. Fungus is also implicated in the creation of ‘fairy rings’, circles of darkened grass which previous generations held to have been created by the fairies dancing
White Wells on Ilkley Moor, a fairies’ bathing house? (Kai Roberts)
Of course, Ilkley Moor had long been known as a haunt of fairies. A cavity in the outcrop known as Hanging Stones, a small distance east along the moor from White Wells, had been called the Fairies’ Parlour or Fairies’ Kirk for centuries prior to Butterfield’s account and according to local folklore, its tenants should not be disturbed. It is perhaps relevant that Hanging Stones is also the location of some fine examples of that enigmatic form of prehistoric rock-art known as cup-and-ring carvings. Indeed, Ilkley Moor bristles with such artefacts and with prehistoric archaeology generally. Once again, it seems that pre-modern man may have overtly associated the fairies with the visible relics of his pagan ancestors.
The fairies’ pagan connotations may be one reason why they were so opposed to churches being built in their vicinity. This common migratory legend crops up at several places in Yorkshire including Holme-on-the-Wolds and a number of villages around Huddersfield – specifically Kirkheaton, Kirkburton and Thornhill. The church-builders are invariably warned that their favoured location in which to raise a new place of worship would not be favourably regarded by the fairies, but they ignore the advice and construct the church there anyway. Then just as they are nearing completion, they awake one morning to find everything demolished and the stones moved to a different place. They attempt to rebuild it on their chosen site but once again, their work is torn down and the materials shifted. Eventually, the builders admit defeat and simply build the church elsewhere.
In functional terms, this narrative probably accounted for cases where shifting patterns of land-use over the centuries had left the modern village centre at some distance from the local church. It is a story also connected with the Devil in some places (North Otterington and Leake, for instance) but whilst the Devil’s motive is easily recognised as animosity towards Christianity, the fairies’ intentions are a little more vague. Are they proclaiming their hostility to the new religion, or are they simply keen to be left alone? Given that their reticence is an almost universal theme in fairy lore, it may be the latter. Any form of disturbance seems to be resented by them and a church would certainly represent a substantial imposition.
Such behaviour could also be a product of their fondness for pranks and mischief: for whilst the fairies begrudge any human interference in their affairs, they seem happy to meddle with impunity in ours. Most famously, they were believed to enjoy firing arrows at cattle and so causing disease in the herd. Indeed, the earliest recorded mention of the fairies in England is an Anglo-Saxon charm against ‘elf-shot’. Over 1,000 years later, Richard Blakeborough attested that this superstition was alive and well in Yorkshire, whilst it was even mentioned in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights . Yet again there is a connection with ancient man, as farmers regarded the prehistoric flint arrowheads often revealed by ploughing as evidence that fairies had been targeting their cattle. Touching the afflicted beasts with one of these flints was also considered to effect a cure.
Another game the fairies liked to play was to fling their ‘butter’ at the doors, gates and window-frames of a building, to which it would adhere and rot the wood away. Apparently the houses around Egton Grange were especially known for being thus targeted. Of course, ‘fairy butter’ was actually a common gelatinous fungus of the Tremellales order. Fungus is also implicated in the creation of ‘fairy rings’, circles of darkened grass which previous generations held to have been created by the fairies dancing
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