North of Stoke Ferry, up by Castle Acre, there lived a villainous Count named Barnard Ralph Rainald. (1)
Now, Count Barnard desired a certain maid, and he swore that she would be his.(2) But Elwine, for that was the maiden’s name, (3) continually spurned his approaches. Until, early one Spring morning, in a fearful state, she ran as fast and far as she could to evade the intensions of her powerful lord. She ran until she came to the lovely green valley of the Nar. And there, in a cottage on the edge of a wonderful wood she seeked refuge. But, upon knocking on the cottage door, she found no answer. Undeterred, the brave maid went inside and, afraid the vicious Count Barnard may have followed her, she hid herself up the chimney.
Now the cottage in which Elwine found herself belonged to an old spinster who span wool from the sheep of Count Barnard. Though the old lady was approaching the end of her days, she span her wool by day and by night to make her meagre living. The yarn she span was ‘short’,(4) but how else would she earn enough to eat and pay her lord her dues? Each morning, bright and early, the old lady would go walking to Fakenham. And there she presented her spun yarn to the agent who paid her and the other spinsters for their work. He would then send the woollen hanks off to weavers in Norwich, who in turn supplied their cloth to that City’s wealthy merchants. Each time she met the agent she was afraid he would see her yarn was short. But the agent was a kindly man. He knew that all the spinners were extremely poor and worked every day and candle-lit hour to save themselves and their families from starvation. So, he never ‘grassed’(5) on the women to the City authorities.
And it was on one such morning, while the old lady was off at Fakenham, that the fleeing Elwine came and hid in the chimney of the cottage by the wood. When the old lady returned from Fakenham she, as was her habit, shouted up the chimney.(6) Surprised she was when she heard a maiden answer and ask if the coast was clear and if it was safe to come down. The old lady and Elwine saw each other and immediately became friends. And so it was that they lived happily together for a number of years. Both spinning each long day and the old lady delivering their short yarn.
Now there came a time when the merchants of Norwich brought in laws to punish the women spinners of Norfolk. The merchants were hell bent on stamping out short yarn and short reeling. They employed inspectors to scour the Norfolk countryside and visit each house where wool was spun. But their inspectors never went to the old lady’s cottage. They were too scared of the nearby wood and the legend of its protective ancient oak that captured and imprisoned forever those who were foolish enough to enter. And so, the old lady and the maid were protected from arrest, imprisonment, flogging, or being pilloried on Castle Acre’s, Stocks Green.(7)
And still each day the old lady continued to take yarn to the agent in Fakenham. And each day the yarn was short. But the agent was a kindly man. He said not a word, though from time to time he did wonder how the old lady, who was now so much older and as sparse as a heron, was spinning twice as much yarn as she ever used to!
But the merchants of Norwich were ever furious. They had eradicated the short measures of yarn throughout the county, except from Fakenham where came hanks of wool that were of false measure. They sent inspectors to visit the agent for that town. But the agent was a kindly man. He professed he did not know who produced the short yarn. However, under questioning and threats of imprisonment in Norwich Castle the agent did admit that he thought the short yarn might come from one of the tenants on the land of Count Barnard. With some glee the city’s merchants immediately wrote to Count Barnard Ralph Rainald saying that if he did not stamp out the practice of short yarn by his cottagers then they would stop buying spun wool from him.
Count Barnard was alarmed! He made much money by having his sheep’s wool spun by his cottagers. So, one evening of a full moon he ordered his men to visit each of the cottages on his estates, and if they met any resistance from any cottagers they were to use axes to break down doors and seek out the ‘robber spinners’.
When his men came back from their mission they reported that they had failed to find one ‘robber spinner’. “Are you sure? Did you search every cottage?” demanded the Count. “We have your lordship” they replied, “…well except…” “Except what!” the Count thundered. “Well except the one cottage by the edge of the wood, by the Wonderful Wood that’s protected by an ancient oak.” “What! A Wonderful Wood? Do you believe such Saxon nonsense? You must set forth tomorrow morning, visit that cottage and, if you find that its spinner is cheating on me, you can put her to the sword and burn down her cottage! Is that clear?” “Yes your lordship.” his cowardly men replied.
That moonlit night the Count’s men went off to carry out their latest order, but as they approached the old lady’s cottage, the trees of the Wonderful Wood began to swirl about so giddily that they created a mighty wind that rose up sending leaves, twigs, and branches into the air. The men became scared, their horses too and each mount rose up threw off its rider and galloped full pelt back towards Castle Acre. The men, bruised and battered, trailed after them, limping in fear back to their lord. Count Barnard was furious. Once again his men had failed in their mission. He vowed that he himself would lead them the very next morning and settle this matter once and for all.
So, that same bright sunny morn, the old lady set off from her cottage to carry her yarn to Fakenham, when she spied the Count and his men crossing the Nar. The old lady rushed home fast to warn Elwine of the danger saying, “You flee fair maid. If Count Barnard finds you here he’ll surly cut off your head.” Elwine knew the only place she could hide and be safe was in the Wonderful Wood.(8)
So, she walked through the wood where the oaken tree stood
And she curtsied did she to the oaken tree
And he let her go by, she being friend to the elves
And luck went with her all up and down good
From the wood, the wood, the Wonderful Wood
But cruel Count Barnard had seen her go into the wood. He rode after her. He spurred on his horse as he took out his gun to murder the one he so desired.
He rode through the wood where the oaken tree stood
And he cursed did he at the oaken tree
And he took his gun fine for to cut down young Elwine
But a bough it fell quick, and it broke his neck
In the wood, the wood, the Wonderful Wood
But the Count’s men were looking for him in turn. And through the trees they spied their Lord, slain and lying on the ground. This wicked crew, with their axes sharp, were bent on revenge. They galloped into the wood to cut the oak tree down.
O they rode in the wood where the oaken tree stood
To cut down the tree, the old oaken tree
Then the tree gave a groan and summoned his own
And the trees of the wood gathered round.
And they never got out and they never were found.
In the wood, the wood, the Wonderful Wood
Elwine was safe once more. And then, while on her way back to the old lady’s cottage, from the stump of an old willow tree appeared an elf so small it had just the length of a young eel. The elf told Elwine, “You must go to the Nar and there take up water in your cupped hands, look deep therein and see your future self.” Elwine, knew well of the dangers of disobeying elves, so off to the Nar she went. She cupped her hands and looked deep into the waters therein. She saw herself then, not as a young woman but as an old maiden, still living in the cottage by the edge of the wonderful wood and spinning wool by day and night.
Elwine quickly made her way back to the cottage and saw the old woman bent at her spinning. But, as she got closer she realised that the old lady, her only friend, was dead and frozen to her wheel.
Now, Elwine lived in the cottage from that day forth. And for many, many years she span her short yarn and took it to Fakenham every morn. And then, early one Spring morning, a young maid, fearful and exhausted, came knocking at Elwine’s cottage door and, finding no one at home, rushed to the kitchen and hid herself up the chimney.
Well, this new maiden’s story is for another day, and perhaps it will end happily ever after. The outcome is, as they say, in our hands.
(1) Count Barnard Ralph Rainald: this is an amalgam of names associated with the 11th century Norman occupation of the Stoke Ferry district. These were local lords: Rainald fitz Ivo, who was Tennant-in-Chief to one Ralph Barnard and to Count Alan of Brittany the Fourth. All three were highly important allies of William the Conqueror. Source: A Farthing for the Ferryman, Richard L. Coates, Harpenden Press, 2019, p32.
(2) Feudal lords used their power over serfs to exploit women and were free of any consequences.
(3) Elwine, is an Anglo Saxon girl’s name, it means, Friend of the Elves. In Norse mythology, Elves lived in kingdoms found in woods, forests, meadows, or hollow tree trunks.
(4) In the 16-18th centuries, Norfolk’s female spinners would take in the wool and keep some of it for themselves that they span and sold privately, or used it for their own family’s clothing. The spinners gave short measure by reducing the number of threads in the spun yarn and/or reducing the circumference of their spinning wheel. This was called short reeling, or false or short yarn. It was seen by the women as a perquisite (a perk) to make up for extremely low pay received for working long, exhausting hours.
(5) Grassing’ or being ‘a grass’: Police are sometimes referred to as coppers, and the rhyming slang for them became Grasshoppers. This was eventually shortened to ‘Grassers’ and it is thought this expression became used for those who became police informers.
(6) There are many old English folk traditions of shouting or calling up a chimney in order to scare off the devil should he be hiding there. Another belief said that calling up a chimney brought cooked food and fuel to the house. We still have a variation of this tradition today with Santa Clause bringing presents down our chimneys. This current custom is based on the 4th century legend of St Nicholas who, dropped bags of gold down the chimneys of the poor.
(7) At least 32 women spinners of our district were convicted of fraud under the Worsted Act, 1768 and suffered the punishments listed. See my previous Village Pump article, December 2020, Spinning a Tale.
(8) This rhyme is adapted from The Wonderful Wood, a story from Forgotten Tales of the English Counties, Collected by Ruth L. Tongue, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970, pp32-33.
Leave a Reply