In the Footsteps of Legends – Ana Sampson and Chris Riddell

Submitted: 12th September 2024

In the Footsteps of Legends

In the Footsteps of Legends – Ana Sampson and Chris Riddell . Hold a legend to the light and peer into its depths. You will see that it contains – or seems to – a grain of truth. It might concern a person who really lived: a queen, an outlaw, an acrobat, a saint. It might be rooted in a real landscape or place – a castle or cavern, a clifftop or coastline. Someone has asked themselves: who lived in this ruined palace? What lies under this hill? Who brought these standing stones here, and why? In answer a legend is born.

To gather poems for my new anthology – Heroes and Villains: Poems about Legends – I poured over lots of stories linked to specific places. Here’s a legendary book trail for anyone who’d like to follow in legendary footsteps.

Locations in Heroes and Villians

Dartmoor, Devon (c) Unsplash

Locations in Heroes and Villians

Dartmoor, Devon

First up is ‘A Howling on the Moor’ by Kate Williams is a poem about dastardly squire Richard Cabell. This was a man who attracted the unflattering nickname of ‘Dirty Dick’ for purported crimes including the murder of his wife and selling his soul to the devil.

Spookily, on his burial at Buckfastleigh in 1677, and on the anniversary of his death each year, a pack of phantom hounds were said to pelt across Dartmoor, baying and howling and breathing fire.

Heroes and Villians by Ana Sampson and Chris Riddell

Locations in Heroes and Villians

Taking no chances, the villagers built an enclosure around the tomb. What’s more, they popped a huge slab of stone on top of it, and an iron fence around it, for good measure. According to legend, local children believed that if they walked around the tomb a certain number of times and poked their fingers through the grating, the devil would appear and bite the intruding digits off. In fact, a version of the story reached the ears of Arthur Conan Doyle, and is thought to have inspired him to write The Hound of the Baskervilles.

The Merry Maidens of Boleigh, Cornwall

The Merry Maidens of Boleigh, Cornwall (c) Anna Wilson

Locations in Heroes and Villians

Nineteen stones, regularly spaced in a circle with an opening at the eastern end, stand in a field between Lamorna and St Buryan. They’re thought to be from the late Stone or early Bronze Age which would date them to between 2500 and 1500 BC.

Venerable though the stones are, the most popular legend about them seems to date only to Victorian times. According to this legend, a group of young girls went dancing on the Sabbath and were turned to stone for this transgression. In a nearby field., there are two larger stones known as the Pipers. These are supposed to be the musicians who caused all the trouble in the first place!

Writer Anna Wilson walks her dogs regularly round the Maidens, and she wrote a wonderful poem for the anthology about the legend associated with them.

Illustration from Heroes and Villains by Chris Riddell

Locations in Heroes and Villians

Hamelin, Germany
The tale of the mysterious musician who rids a town of its rats, goes unpaid and, in revenge, leads the town’s children away is known to every young reader. It has passed through many hands, including those of the Brothers Grimm and Robert Browning, whose famous poem tell us that

‘… out of the houses the rats came tumbling.
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,
Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats,
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,
Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers…’

In fact, it seems that the piper may have his roots in reality. In Hamelin, in Bavaria, a plaque on a house dating to 1602 – and an even older one on the building’s window – reads:

“A.D. 1284 – on the 26th of June – the day of St John and St Paul – 130 children – born in Hamelin – were led out of the town by a piper wearing multicoloured clothes. After passing the Calvary near the Koppenberg they disappeared forever.”

Heroes and Villians by Ana Sampson and Chris Riddell

In the Footsteps of Legends – Ana Sampson and Chris Riddell

Locations in Heroes and Villians

Theories include economic migration, with brightly dressed recruiters attracting young people to move; the impact of the devastating Black Death; the 13th Century ‘Children’s Crusade’ to the Holy Land or even an instance of the ‘dancing plague’ which caused its feverish victims to cavort and caper, possibly even to travel to nearby areas, before they dropped. Nevertheless, it’s impossible to know what the true story might have been, but the Pied Piper’s fame is undimmed.

Today, Hamelin is a picturesque town, boasting lots of timber framed buildings – the largest and prettiest of these is now a tourist attraction as the ‘Pied Piper’s house’ – and atmospheric winding alleyways.

In the Footsteps of Legends – Ana Sampson and Chris Riddell Anne Hathaway’s House. Photo by Christopher Eden on Unsplash

Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire
No poetry collection about legends could omit Shakespeare. He drew on legendary sources himself, such as the entertaining but pretty inaccurate Holinshed’s Chronicles. These were published in the late sixteenth century, and inspired Macbeth, among other plays. Known as the Red King, Macbeth was king of Scotland from 1040 until his death in 1057. Although Shakespeare has him and his wicked wife slaying King Duncan in his sleep, the historical Macbeth’s troops killed Duncan in battle. Macbeth himself died on the battlefield after a relatively peaceful reign.

Locations in Heroes and Villians

However, Shakespeare himself has proved fertile ground for legends, too. Over the years, there has been speculation about alternative authors for his works. Whatsmore, there has been rumours about the identity of the figures in the sonnets (is poet and playwright Aemilia Lanyer the Dark Lady?) and about his life. Wonderfully,you can walk in his footsteps in Stratford upon Avon.

Bodmin Moor, Devon

Attie Lime. poem

Locations in Heroes and Villians

In the late 1980s, I vividly remember seeing a newspaper report about the fabled Beast of Bodmin – a big cat rumoured to stalk the moor. In total, there have been more than 60 reported sightings since the late 70s of a large, dark cat-like creature with lamp-like yellow eyes and razor sharp teeth. Rumours of mutilated livestock fanned the flames. In 1995, the government even launched an official investigation – concluding that there was no evidence of the creature’s existence. In the late 90s, a boy found a leopard skull on the banks of the River Fowey which reignited the stories. However, when the Natural History Museum analysed it, it was found to have come from a leopard skin rug.