In Shropshire Folk-Lore Burne writes that South Shropshire people avoided certain places after dark for fear of "summat to be sid", meaning something uncanny to be seen.
Her example is the father of William Hughes of Longnor, who was crossing the Long Mynd one twilight on his way to relatives on the Ratlinghope side. In a hollow of the road he met a funeral, with a hearse, bearers and pall-bearers and crowds of people going very fast. They filled the road so that he had to stand aside.
He thought it odd that a funeral should be held at that hour and at such a pace, and asked his friends whose it was when he arrived. They said no one was dead, asked where he had met it, and told him there was always something to be seen there.
Burne later links this with the old Furious Host tradition, a rushing phantom company. The account is second-hand, undated, and has no named hollow, so the pin is the general moorland near Ratlinghope.
Comments