Shonks

We'll start today's walk in the village of Brent Pelham in Hertfordshire.... 

And this was once the communications hub of the little settlement! I don't know how many people still post letters rather than firing off emails, but they certainly take good care of their post-box, freshly-painted in bright red with the details picked out in gold. The telephone box, however, now houses a defibrillator rather than a telephone since everyone now carries a phone in their pocket.

The remaining cottages have been spruced up for modern living, though they retain their picturesque charm. And there are other reminders of the past...

Here are the stocks and whipping-post, left from a time when justice was handed out more brutally than today.

So lets go for a walk in the surrounding fields, where harvest has been gathered in once again as it has been throughout the centuries, albeit with rather less sweat and toil in these mechanised times.

Even now it's just about possible, from time to time, to glimpse the mystery and magic of this ancient landscape; for this whole area is woven together with myths and legends, the texture of which still shows through in some places, despite our attempts to gloss everything over with our modern preoccupations.

Just over the fields in Anstey there's the legend of the Blind Fiddler, who walked off into a secret tunnel playing his violin. Screams were heard but the fiddler was never seen again. They still call the local pub "The Blind Fiddler".

And a little further afield they speak of Jack O'Legs, a friendly giant who robbed the rich to give to the starving poor. Nearby, Jane Wenham was the last person in the country to be convicted of witchcraft.

(I wrote about Jack O'Legs and Jane Wenham here)

The mystery we were struggling with on this drizzly morning was where exactly the footpaths were; if they weren't plunging us into waist-high vegetation, they were vanishing without trace as they crossed newly-ploughed fields. But we did see a ghostly figure ahead of us at one stage....

....an unusual white pheasant. These occur occasionally as the birds are reared to be released for what some people call "sport". Helpful, I suppose, for very short-sighted marksmen!

We completed our circuit and arrived back at the church. If we go inside we can hear about Piers Shonks, the subject of Brent Pelham's very own legend.

Piers Shonks lived around here back in the eleventh century - you can still find "Shonk's Moat" marked on modern maps. Now, around that time the district was much troubled by the existence of a dragon who lived in a hole in the ground. In 1830 farm labourers engaged in felling an ancient tree found the very lair (or at least that's what they thought). 

The brave Shonks slew the beast only to find that it was the Devil's favourite dragon and Old Nick was naturally displeased with Piers. "I'll have your soul, whether you're buried inside the church or outside", he hissed. When Shonks neared his death he asked if he could have his bow and arrow; wherever the arrow landed was where he was to be buried. The arrow flew through the air, passed through the window of Brent Pelham church and buried itself in the wall.

And there Shonks was buried, in the church wall, neither inside nor outside, and thus cheating the Devil.

The carved stone, which lies in the niche, is richly carved and, whatever the exact details of its history, must have been to commemorate a rich and powerful individual. It's also very old.  What's more it's horrible to photograph, being at an awkward angle and badly lit. I was down to about half a second exposure time.

The enigmatic verse above the stone was added much later. The legend and how it's been added to and re-invented over the centuries is the subject of a book (Hollow Places: An Unusual History of Land and Legend by Christopher Hadley) which attempts to unpick the various strands of story-telling, superstition, misunderstanding and facts.

Whatever the truth behind the story of Piers Shonks it's always interesting to consider how our ancestors' lives differed from ours - and how many similarities there are.

Take care.