Public bogies and supernatural landscapes in North-Western England in the 1800s

ABSTRACT

The author maps the supernatural onto the landscape of eleven nineteenth-century, north-western communities: Bradford (WY), Burnley (La), Delph-Dobcross (WY), Droylsden (La), Gorton (La), Greenfield (WY), Hawkshead (La), Lees (La), Moston (La), Natland (We) and Worsthorne (La). Here locals feared boggarts, dobbies, fairies and phantom dogs and ‘public bogies’ (celebrated local spirits) were often associated with specific points in the landscape. These bogies, in fact, typically appeared radially around towns and villages, on human or natural boundaries and they, generally, were to be found on the edge of but not within urban centres. The almost total absence of public bogies from urban centres in the case studies is surprising and runs against the grain of contemporary scholarship. Does this represent a problem with the data, or a previously underappreciated aspect of the supernatural in the north-west and perhaps in Britain more generally?

KEYWORDS:

• Cumberland
• Lancashire
• landscape
• supernatural
• Yorkshire

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Davide Ermacora, Lucy Evans, Chris Woodyard and the two peer reviewers for reading and commenting on this article. I would also like to thank Najla Kay for her invaluable help with the maps.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Two other places I considered were Middleton (Lancashire), Bamford (1905, I, 44–48) (Bamford’s descriptions were too vague); and Hebden Bridge (West Riding), where I could not, in the end, find enough references.

2. There are very occasional hints of local cunning men and women fighting or even deriving powers from landscape spirits: Higson (1859, 68).

3. I have been unable to trace the author but ‘Fieldhouse’ is a Bradford name, Fieldhouse (n.d). Many came from Horton (the south), but also fromother parts of the city.

4. ‘Fairy Lane’ is marked, OSLanc 104 (1848). It runs to Fairy Hill House and a Barrow Hill is labelled nearby, potentially an interesting association. I have a (late nineteenth-century?) postcard of Fairy Lane. The road seems, at this date, rustic.

5. For a rare continually haunted house in London (Berkeley Square) and for a useful summary of writing on this house see Price (1945) (192–203). Did more stable populations among the London upper classes allow the tradition to establish itself?

6. Thanks to Lucy Evans for this reference, EA 361, John Rylands.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Simon Young

Simon Young is a British historian based in Italy. He is the editor with Ceri Houlbrook of Magical Folk: British and Irish Fairies (Gibson Square 2018).