The White Cross story is recorded by John Nicholson in Folk Lore of East Yorkshire (1890). He places the haunting at White Cross, between Leven and Riston, and describes a woman without a head who used to be seen on the road. Her habit was to leap up behind horsemen and slap their ears.
Nicholson says the people were so terrified of going that way after dark that they would sooner travel miles about than meet her. As with the other roadside ghosts in his collection, nothing is said about who she was or when she was last met, and he implies that by his time the belief was fading.
This kind of crossroads haunting is often connected to old burial places or execution sites, and Nicholson notes elsewhere that crossroads where suicides were buried were always counted haunted, with horses especially affected. He does not make that link for White Cross, so it should not be assumed. The entry is one printed source with no named witness, tagged as traditional. The pin is an estimate between Leven and Long Riston.
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