Welcome, Shuck fans, to Shuckstack #16. Each month, we offer subscribers the chance to hear a little more from us in between editions giving us greater opportunities to journey with you as the wheel of the year turns and the moon cycle spins. This month, ghost writer Ada travels across the border to meet the green children of Woolpit, discovers the folklore of wild garlic, shares some reading suggestions and visits the grave of a Giant.
Dear ones
There is still a rawness in the air and the windflowers on the floor of the woods are still bowed against the menace of the sky. This is the season of shadow and shine, great cloud masses and then breakthroughs of the sun, cold that bids you to button your coat and warmth that makes you throw it open.
T.S Eliot wrote that “April is the cruellest month” and while I would love to agree with him, I feel it is difficult to rouse melancholia when the world stirs with such vigour. And reader, trust me when I say I have tried.
Today’s letter takes us back to the magical and mysterious days of the Greatest Show on Earth and Norfolk’s role in it, in particular Robert Hales, a man with a big heart, quite literally.
Phineas Taylor Barnum met Robert in 1848 having wooed him from his yellow caravan which he had been using to tour the fairs in England after being discharged from the Navy on account of his great height of 7ft8in. A tall man below decks isn’t always a good thing, it seems.
In America, Barnum billed him as “The Norfolk Giant” and Hales also posed with Eliza Simpson as the husband and wife Quaker Giants. Hales returned to England around 1850.
I have always held esteem for Barnum, despite his many faults, if only for his flair for the dramatic in his personal life: he demanded an early obituary so that he could read it before his death on April 7, 1891. I only wish I had had the foresight.
We also travel to Woolpit in Suffolk, named for wolves and home to green children, discover the joys of wild garlic (personally, I have never understood why you would want to repel vampires, they are deliciously good company) and I offer you some further reading to entertain, educate and get you as drunk as David’s sow*
Your obliged and most affectionate friend,
Ada
*As drunk as David’s sow; a common saying, which took its rise from the following circumstance: one David Lloyd, a Welshman, who kept an alehouse at Hereford, had a living sow with six legs, which was greatly resorted to by the curious; he had also a wife much addicted to drunkenness, for which he used sometimes to give her due correction. One day David’s wife having taken a cup too much, and being fearful of the consequences, turned out the sow, and lay down to sleep herself sober in the stye. A company coming in to see the sow, David ushered them into the stye, exclaiming, there is a sow for you! Did any of you ever see such another? All the while supposing the sow had really been there; to which some of the company, seeing the state the woman was in, replied, it was the drunkenest sow they had ever beheld; whence the woman was ever after called David’s sow. A warning to the curious.
The Green Children of Woolpit
An evergreen tale from across the border today from a Suffolk village where a curious incident occurred and saw two green children from a twilight world appear as if by magic.
A few miles east of Bury St Edmunds, Woolpit is a village whose very name harks back to a time when wolves were running and when pits were dug to trap the creatures and stop them terrorising villagers and their livestock.`
But it wasn’t a big, bad wolf that led to Woolpit’s infamy in the 12th century, it was the sudden and unexplained arrival of two children who were decidedly off-colour.
The story of the Green Children of Woolpit - who can still be seen on the village’s sign, alongside a wolf - was recorded by two ecclesiastical writers, Ralph of Coggeshall and William of Newburgh, both of whom reported the arrival of the youngsters at harvest-time.
Reapers, it is said, were working near the old wolf pits when they discovered two children wandering in the forest: a boy and a girl, apparently siblings, they wore strange clothes, spoke an unusual language and, most remarkably, had green-tinged skin.
The pair refused to eat and, unsure of what to do, the workers took the pair to local landowner Sir Richard de Caine at Wikes Hall near Bardwell, six miles away.
Although clearly starving, the children would take no food until they saw a servant carrying green beans through the hall, at which point they devoured the beans in a trice.
Sadly, the younger child never recovered from his ordeal: forever tired, depressed and lethargic, he died, leaving his sister, who gradually thrived and adjusted to her new life, her unusual colouring fading as she grew accustomed to a new diet.
She learned English and, when she was fluent, was able to shed a little green-tinged light on her earlier life in another, distant land.
“We are inhabitants of the land of St. Martin, who is regarded with peculiar veneration in the country which gave us birth,” the young lady said.
“We are ignorant [of how we arrived here]; we only remember this, that on a certain day, when we were feeding our father’s flocks in the fields, we heard a great sound, such as we are now accustomed to hear at St. Edmund’s, when the bells are chiming; and whilst listening to the sound in admiration, we became on a sudden, as it were, entranced, and found ourselves among you in the fields where you were reaping.
“The sun does not rise upon our countrymen; our land is little cheered by its beams; we are contented with that twilight, which, among you, precedes the sun-rise, or follows the sunset. Moreover, a certain luminous country is seen, not far distant from ours, and divided from it by a very considerable river.”
Another source claims the girl said that the pair had become lost when they followed cattle into a cave and, guided by the sound of bells, eventually emerged into the land of humans.
Employed for many years as a servant in de Caine’s household (where she was considered by many to be “very wanton and impudent”) some say the girl became known as Agnes Barre and eventually married a man from King’s Lynn in Norfolk, who was a senior ambassador of Henry II, who came to the throne in 1154.
It is said that England’s blue blood, even today, has a green tinge through Agnes’ bloodline.
The folklore of wild garlic
Arriving in the Spring, you may smell allium ursinum before you spot the spangle of white stars that declare that wild garlic is in season.
Often found in ancient woodlands, this is a plan of shady, damp woodlands, fields and hedgerows and it is prolific in Norfolk. It arrives as a white carpet of star-like blossoms before being replaced by the blue expanse of bluebells.
In Ireland, “as bitter as wild garlic” means that someone is unhappy with their life, although it was such a valued herb that there was once a fine for stealing it from private land that involved the poacher forfeiting “two-and-a-half milk cows”.
Wild garlic’s Latin name, allium ursinum, harks back to the pre-medieval days when bears (Latin name ‘ursa’) lived in England alongside wolves and lynxes: as they woke from their winter slumber, the bears would make a beeline for wild garlic, snacking on the bulbs.
In the wonderful Tater Trap zine by Mickey G, the author writes about wild garlic and its links with folklore.
“The Egyptians harnessed garlic’s powers by placing it in tombs to ensure their rulers were well-supplied on the journey into the afterlife,” he writes.
“Healers among the Celts and Romans called it the herba salutaris or ‘healing herb’. It is sometimes called the ‘magnesium king’ of plants because of the high levels of mineral found in its leaves.
“…Even before Christianity spread, folklore across Europe had favoured using garlic to repel evil of all kinds, so it was placed in the mouths, ears and nostrils of corpses as a means of warding off evil spirits, a practice similar to the embalming methods used by ancient Egyptians.
“Pagans in England made offerings of wild garlic at crossroads to appease the Greek goddess Hecate, who presided over magic, spells and the underworld.
“Her triple-bodied form meant that she could stand at crossroads accompanied by wild barking dogs, and see in all directions.”
Christians used wild garlic flowers to decorate churches on the feast day of St Alphege and thatchers would incorporate it into the roofs of cottages to deter fairies.
In Greek legend, Odysseus used moly, a wild garlic, as a charm to keep the sorceress Circe from turning him into a pig.
Tater Trap is a real treat to anyone that loves nature and foraging. Each issue is full of useful botanical and visual information to help you find and identify edible plants, combined with stories of folklore, history, legends and superstitions relating to each of the species. We recommend.
A few links for Spring
Listen to this lovely ballad about the Babes in the Wood, printed by Thomas Millington I Norwich in 1595, the tale of two children abandoned in a wood by their wicked uncle who die and are covered with leaves by robins.
Make Cherry Blossom cocktails: https://www.diffordsguide.com/encyclopedia/1651/cocktails/bartenders-guide-to-foraging-cherry-blossom
Find out how to forage wild garlic and some lovely recipes to use it in here: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/how-to-use-wild-garlic
Read more about the folklore of spring here: https://www.woodlarking.co.uk/post/the-folklore-of-spring
Somewhere strange to visit in Norfolk this month: The grave of the Norfolk Giant.
For a big man, the tomb is disappointingly small - but it bears a legend etched in stone: "Beneath are deposited the mortal remains of Robert Hales, the Norfolk Giant".
Born in West Somerton close to Great Yarmouth in 1820 and baptised on Halloween at the village church, Robert was the sixth of nine children born to William Hales and Elizabeth Dyble, both said to be over six feet in height at a time when the average height in Britain was just 5ft 5.
He had five sisters with an average height of 6ft3 and two of whom, Mary and Anne, were either just under or just over seven feet tall. His three brothers were around 6ft 5 tall, but Robert would be the largest member of the large family.
As a child, Robert fell in love with the Norfolk Broads and boats, spending happy hours operating Norfolk wherries and eagerly signing up to join the Royal Navy as a 13-year-old. His life on the sea was, excuse the pun, short-lived. When he reached the grand old age of 17 and the grand old height of 7ft 6 he had to be paid off: he was too tall to fit below the deck, there was no room for a giant. But with his towering stature and imposing vital statistics - his weight was 33 stone, his chest was 64 inches, his waist 62 inches and his thighs 34 inches - a brand new career was just around the corner, under a stripy tent.
Hailed as The Norfolk Giant at fairgrounds, Robert began his new life at local fairs including the fairs at Tombland in Norwich and on the Britannia Pier in Yarmouth. Along with sister Mary, who was just four inches shorter than her brother, and her husband Joseph Laskey, the pair toured round the county in a big yellow van which boasted eight-foot beds.
By 1840, news of Robert had reached the Royal court, and at Epsom Races in 1840, the Norfolk man met an enchanted Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The Queen mentioned a striking resemblance between Robert and the late George IV and he said he had been told the same thing before.
The following year, Mary died aged just 30. Joseph took just two years to make her sister Ann his second wife - Robert was not happy about the marriage and the group parted.
After meeting a carnival impresario's agent at a dinner in London, Robert was enticed to make the long journey to America and a new life across the pond. It was in America that the Norfolk Giant agreed to work with the Greatest Showman, PT Barnum, who signed him for £800 for his American Museum and quickly began to exhibit him in New York, where his nickname was born.
He even lived with Barnum for a time at his Bridport country villa. Located at Broadway and Ann in Lower Manhattan, it was a museum which not only housed artifacts from the American Revolution, scientific exhibits and oddities - the trunk of a tree under which Jesus' disciples sat, waxworks and the FeeJee Mermaid (a mummified monkey's torso with a fish's tail) to name but a handful.
There were also living creatures: a flea circus, a loom run by a dog, Ned the learned seal, Grizzly Adams' trained bears and it is said that when a fire destroyed the museum in 1865, two whales were reportedly boiled alive. But the greatest attractions of all, however, were the "human curiosities".
There was General Tom Thumb (whose daughter Minnie Stratton is buried at Earlham Cemetery in Norwich), conjoined twins Chang and Eng, Annie Jones The Bearded Lady, Prince Randian the Human Caterpillar, Isaac Sprague The Living Skeleton and then, amongst others, the Norfolk Giant.
Robert was with Barnum for two years, during which he married Irish Giant Eliza Simpson, who was advertised to be eight feet tall and with whom he possibly had a child called General, although most people believe the marriage was a publicity stunt masterminded by Barnum. In 1851, he came back to Britain without Eliza and instead married a woman called Maria Charlotte Webb under a possibly bigamous shadow.
He was invited to Buckingham Palace to meet Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, five of the Royal children, the Duke of Wellington and several distinguished nobles. A report at the time said: "The Royal party - particularly the children - were struck with wonder and astonishment. Colonel Buckley, standing 6ft 3 and generally considered the tallest officer in the army, her Majesty observed, 'I thought the Colonel very tall, but really he looks quite small by the side of Mr Hales.'"
Tired of touring, Robert became the landlord of the Craven Head Tavern in Drury Lane in London and then, as his health worsened, he and Maria returned to live in a caravan at Cumber Corner in Beighton where he survived on an income from selling leaflets that told the story of his life, still wearing the gold watch and chain given to him by Queen Victoria. He eventually moved to Yarmouth, living at 3 Wellington Road where, on November 22 1863, aged only 43, he died of bronchitis, leaving just under £600 in his will to Maria.
His body was returned to the village he had loved, West Somerton, and was buried at St Mary's Church in a tomb far less than 7ft 6 long - and there lies another mystery, just how did he fit within it?
His childhood home that housed giants and which used to be close to the post office in the village, was demolished 100 years after Robert's death in 1963, but his lantern and walking stick can still be seen on display at the Time and Tide Museum in Great Yarmouth, a big reminder of a Norfolk Giant buried a stone's throw from a witch, another legend just a minute or two's walk away.