char *(null)="
sheep.man
sheep.man
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
From: sean.briggs@natmags.co.uk
Subject: Yorkshire moors Ghost
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 13:31:29 GMT
Sorry for the delay in posting this tale and thanks for the encouragement.
What follows is an account of real events that occurred to a couple that
lived at the farm adjacent to me. I have changed the names and dates.
Fog illuminated by a hand held torch and seen through the rain on a pitch
black night can be very deceptive. It takes on a life of its own, images
imagined and real meld. Shapes seen by the corner of the eye vanish in the
time it takes to switch focus. Sometimes pathways open up enticing you in
one particular direction then close in behind you cutting you off.
Experienced in a familiar environment, in a town or park it can be
misleading or disorientating. On rain drenched moors pocked with abandoned
peat quarries its lethal.
Some parts of West Yorkshire are quite remote but very picturesque.
Heptonstall is a village which sits at the top of the Calder Valley. Its
boom time was during the Industrial revolution. The valley is full of
derelict mills some of which have been renovated or rebuilt in the past
few years, though in most cases only the towering mill chimneys remain.
During the late sixties and seventies any remaining cotton mills were
closed down and unemployment rose. Many locals moved away seeking
employment and as a consequence the house prices stayed low. During the
eighties however the local council developed the towns and villages and
gave birth to a prosperous tourist industry. This attracted those people
seeking an escape from the cities and offered them the chance of buying
large properties at decent prices. The indigenous population referred to
them as 'off-comers'.
One such couple were the Robinsons. They sold their semi-detached in
Ealing West London and bought a smallholding on the edge of Wadsworth moor
in West Yorkshire. They were both in their mid thirties and had managed to
make enough money from the sale of their London house to buy a run down
farmhouse and twenty acres of pasture land. The farm had been left empty
for nearly a decade though all the locals myself included referred to it
as "The Denies farm" the name of the previous occupants. Harry Denny the
patriarch of the family had died and his two sons had moved out of the
area, one to manage a large farm in Buckingham the other to the promise of
work in Manchester. Irene, the mother, held onto the farm as long as she
could, but the place gradually deteriorated and it was not long before she
moved out to a Nursing home. A couple of years later she sold the farm
and land to the Robinsons.
They didn't move into the farm straight away. For over a year they would
be seen on the occasional weekend attending to the property. Then, in the
spring of eighty-four the activity increased and local craftsmen were
employed to set about repairing the farm proper. In the Summer of that
year they moved in.
The biggest shock to the locals was, that after only a week a cattle wagon
turned up with thirty ewes and a ram. Isaac the wizened old farmer with a
pronounced limp and conical hat who had lived all his life in the farm
next to the Robinsons was the most surprised. He took great interest in
the couple and dedicated a large portion of his time to pointing out the
mistakes they were making and the best way of rectifying them.
The one thing Isaac was right about was the type of sheep they had elected
to buy. David Robinson incorrectly stated sheep were sheep, whereas Isaac
and all the other locals knew each breed of sheep had its own particular
traits. David had bought Swaledales. Swaledale are the Steve McQueens of
the sheep families. To them the great escape is a walk in the park. If
Swaledale had a motto it would be "The grass is greener on the other side
of the fence and no bugger on Gods earth is going to stop me tasting it".
Escapism is in their genes.
David and Melissa Robinson settled into the job of farming. The sheep
escaped regularly the locals returned the sheep regularly, and Isaac
became the mentor they had never expected.
David and Melissa became regular attendants at the Red Lion in
Heptonstall, that is to say they were there regularly any night except
Friday nights. Friday night was the only night Isaac went to the Red Lion
and his endless information on farming techniques was more than they could
face.
The problem of the sheep escaping came to a head a few months later.
Winter comes quickly on the Yorkshire moors. The early nights are
accompanied by bouts of thick fog which is breathed out by the vast
expanse of Wadsworth moor, acts like an enormous sponge that soaks up the
rain and slowly releases it . Large areas of that moor become treacherous
in the winter as the saturation reaches a peak. Venturing onto the moor is
best avoided during the day and never to be attempted at night.
In early December the Robinsons were returning from a late night drinking
bout in the Red Lion. As they approached their farm they pulled up their
Landrover. Through the torrential rain they could hear the bleating of
sheep. In a very short time they had learned many things, mostly about
fencing and walling in sheep, but also about the sounds sheep make. On
this particular evening the bleating they could hear was the sound of
sheep in trouble, the incessant cry of sheep in distress.
David rushed inside the farmhouse grabbed some waterproofs and a torch and
headed off into the fog and rain in the direction of the sheep. Melissa
was only a few steps behind and kept calling at David to slow down. They
moved through the top pasture then came to a standstill at the gap in the
fence that led to the moors. The fog was at its thickest there and the
torch light could only penetrate a few yards into the swirling gloom. The
bleating was much nearer though its resonance was flattened by the dense
blanket of fog. The couple trudged slowly onto the moor and rapidly the
fence that bordered their land faded to a faint contour then nothing. As
they headed off towards the calls of the sheep Melissa suddenly screeched
as she slipped and sank up to her thigh in brown and putrid water. She
quickly pulled herself out with Davids help, though the suction was a
poignant warning of the danger they had placed themselves in.
Their progress was slow as they went forward and more than once they
considered going back for extra help or at least to get some rope. The
desperate cries of the sheep held them though and drew them onward.
Eventually the first sheep came into sight, a wave of relief swept over
the couple when they realised most of the sheep were huddled in a tightly
knotted group, for comfort and warmth .Once they came up close to the
group their relief was replaced with a stomach tightening realisation that
at least a dozen of the flock were up to their necks in moor land bog.
David stood looking at them helplessly for a while unable to speak or
think straight. Already two or three of the larger ewes were showing
strong signs of exhaustion and had given up struggling, their heads
resting on the tufts of coarse grass which poked up through the mire.
They stood there watching some of the ewes struggling to clear themselves
but their winter pelts were sodden through and the weight held them down.
The ewe nearest gained strength from them being there and turned towards
them pawing at anything to gain ground. One way or another she made
progress towards them and David carefully moved into the sodden pool. He
was surprised to find the bog was not that deep and seemed solid enough
for him to wade toward the struggling sheep. As he drew close the sank
deeper without any warning and he found himself flaying around tying to
step back. Melissa stood on the bank shinning the torch light toward him
calling for him to come back. Somehow he managed to gain a firm footing
and when he stood upright the water only came up to his waist. From his
position he leaned forward and managed after a couple of attempts to snag
hold of one of the struggling sheeps horns. Then with as much strength as
he could muster he bodily hauled the sheep toward him. It was slow going
but he managed eventually to free it from the sucking mud and out onto the
coarse grass beside Melissa.
When David turned to step back into the bog Melissa grabbed hold of him
preventing him from going any further. He stopped panting for breath, a
look of helplessness across his face. There was a frenzied splashing as
one of the previously motionless ewes put her last strength into an
attempt to break free. Her neck strained and her head thrashed about as
she desperately searched for a footing then suddenly she was gone. The
surface broke only once as she gulped in a lung full of air, then nothing.
No movement, no bubbles. David waded in without thinking and stood up to
his waist in the bog looking across to were the sheep had gone under. A
second sheep started the same actions, thrashing about perhaps panicked by
the loss of its fellow . David and Melissa watched desperately, unable to
do anything the bleating of the sheep rising to a new high.
Beyond the pool on the opposite side to the couple a faint light suddenly
blinked into sight through the gloom then out again. Then a shadow in the
distanced solidified then was lost as the fog enveloped it. Eventually the
figure of a man could be seen dimly opposite he seemed to be carrying an
old paraffin lamp with a rope slung over one shoulder and a short broad
plank under his arm from his limping movement and the shape of his odd
conical hat they knew without doubt who he was.
Isaac shouted across to them but the fog flattened his voice and the sheep
drowned out any of his words. With signs and gestures he made it clear
that the ground was firmer on his side and with the help of the plank he
could slide himself out to the entrenched sheep. This he did. He threw the
length of rope over to David then dropped onto his stomach and moved out
across the plank to the first of the remaining sheep. Luckily the sheep
became oddly calm as he approached them and he seemed to have no trouble
tying the rope around the horns. David and Melissa then pulled for all
their worth till finally the sheep was clear. With this technique they
struggled for several hours throwing the rope to Isaac and him securing it
on the sheep then pulling back his plank before sliding out to the next
one. By the end of their ordeal Melissa and David were exhausted though
they marvelled at the strength Isaac, a man more than twice their age had
displayed.
David signalled at Isaac through the fog to go around the mire and join
them back at the farmhouse, Isaac clearly signed back that he would join
them for a drink at the pub the following night. They had no doubt who
would be paying. The Robinsons got their sheep back safely to the low
pasture making sure they were secure, then went to bed tired, but relieved
that they had lost only one sheep.
The following evening the Robinsons went to the pub early hoping to see
Isaac and to thank him for not only saving ten of their sheep but also for
stopping David risking his life further. They were surprised he wasn't
already there but bought their drinks and waited, and waited and waited.
After a couple of hours turning to face the door every time somebody new
came in, the landlord asked who they were waiting for. They explained the
events of the previous night and how Isaac had come to the rescue and that
they owed him at least a night of free drinks. The landlord went pale and
at first seemed quite angry until he studied their faces and saw that they
were telling the truth. He was obviously quite shaken and poured himself
a large glass of whisky. He explained it could not possibly have been
Isaac as he had been found dead on his farm two days previously by the
home help. David and Melissa Robinson were stunned into silence, they
ordered a pint of Isaacs favourite beer and left it undrunk on the bar in
tribute to the old man who had done so much to help a couple of
off-comers. To this day on any Friday night that the Robinsons go to the
Red Lion there is always a pint of undrunk beer waiting for its owner to
claim.
___________________________________end_______________________________
If you enjoyed the above tale I have a couple of eerie experiences you
might be interested in. One is a personal tale of my childhood memories of
living in an haunted farmhouse. The other is a disturbing tale of burials
on unconsecrated ground.
Unfortunately I don't have time to write them both this week but if you
let me know which you'd prefer I'll try to finish it by next weekend.
Thanks for reading I'd like to see any responses.
Sean.Briggs@Natmags.Co.Uk
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