Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

by
Simon Armitage

"....one of the strangest and most compelling narratives of all time."

Screened on BBC Four over four programs from 4th to 13th June and frequently Broadcast of Radio 4, as part of the BBC’s 2009 Poetry Season, Simon Armitage walked us through the landscape of the poem, revealing the Arthurian legend in a modern quest form North Wales to Staffordshire.

Born in 1963 and living in the village of Marsden, West Yorkshire, Armitage is the latest writer to attempt a full translation of the poem’s 2500 lines, he claims to have carried out this momentous task for all kinds of reasons; some literary, some sentimental, and part private indulgence, the book has gone on to be his most successful, especially in America, where Armitage's translation has been nominated as one of 2008's best books by both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.

Simon Armitage goes on the trail of one of the jewels in the crown of British poetry, the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, written about 600 years ago. There is only one known copy of the manuscript, and for a long period it lay dormant in a private collection. Armitage follows in Gawain's footsteps through some of Britain's most beautiful and mystical landscapes and reveals why the tale of a knight beheading a green giant is as relevant now as when it was written, “Death, violence and sex sit cheek by jowl in the poem.”

Simon Armitage joins translators such as JRR Tolkien and Ted Hughes, in translating one of the earliest stories told in English. Tolkien’s translation was so faithful to the original that some commentators have described it as seeming almost older than the original, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight abounds with the supernatural, so it’s not difficult to see why it would appeal to the author of The Lord of the Rings and the creator of the Middle earth mythology.

The poem tells that on New Year's Day, a gigantic Green Knight, mounted on horseback, carrying an axe arrives at King Arthur ‘s court and challenges the knights to a wager: any who accepts must take the axe and strike a single blow against the Green Knight, on condition that the blow will be returned the next year. Gawain, the best of knights, is the only one to accept. Stepping forward, declaring 'this moment must be mine,' Gawain takes a swing with the axe and beheads the Green Knight, who promptly picks up his head and rides off.

One year later Gawain sets out for the Green Chapel, though he has no idea where or what the Green Chapel is, it is this journey that forms the narrative of the film, from start to finish, with Armitage attempting to retrace Sir Gawain’s shadowy footsteps. Armitage, starts at Tintagel in Cornwall with the author musing over the whereabouts of the mystical Camelot. He then traces Gawain's journey from Camelot to the Green Chapel across the rural landscapes of Wales and England.

Gawain’s journey takes him along the north coast of Wales, the poem tells us, keeping Anglesey to his left before crossing at “Holy Hede”. A similar beheading and miraculous recovery supposedly took place St Winifred’s Well, at Holywell in Flintshire, where St Beuno restored his niece Winifred to life after her head had been severed by Cardoc, although Armitage declines the invitation of a dip in the waters of the well, settling instead for a paddle in bare feet, before crossing the Dee by drier means in a motorboat. The tale gives graphic detail of the butchering of a deer caught while out hunting which was unnecessarily portrayed in the documentary

Passing the Wirral and treading into Cheshire, several locations have been suggested for the site of the Green Knight’s abode, but Armitage heads for the Staffordshire Moorlands, and the Roaches, North of Leek, "It looks a wild place with no settlement anywhere to be seen, but heady heights to both halves of the valley," states the poem, "and set with sabre-toothed stones of such sharpness, no cloud in the sky could escape unscratched.”

We know from the dialect in the original poem that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written by someone living in the North Midlands, Cheshire or Staffordshire, Armitage says "It can be traced to an area near the Staffordshire market town of Leek."

“The place you head for holds a hidden peril," Gawain's servant tells him. "In that wilderness lives a wildman, the worst in the world. He's brooding and brutal, and loves bludgeoning humans."

At Doxey Pool Armitage met with Leek Post & Times columnist and former editor Doug Pickford, author of many local books on the area of the Three Shires, and battled some pretty atrocious Moorlands weather;  "being in these parts makes you feel a kinship with the poet," said Armitage, as he pushed on for the strange moss-covered geological fault of Lud's Church, which he calls “the perfect setting for the poem’s finale,” The Green Chapel, that “perilous place where the knight would receive the slaughter man's strike.”

The terrified Gawain enters the chasm and hears above him the grinding of the giant’s axe being sharpened in anticipation of his fate. Gawain survived his ordeal being protected by a green girdle given to him by the lady of the house where he stayed, possibly the nearby Swythamley Hall.

I tuned in to this program by chance while channel flicking, as you do when there’s not much on, and it was pleasing to see a retelling of the poem that kept to the original, watching earnestly to find the location of the Green Knight’s Chapel, we had to wait to the last 15 minutes to find Armitage arriving in Lud’s Church which was indeed a dramatic setting for the ending to the tale.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one of the finest surviving examples of Middle English poetry, but little is known about the author - except hints that he came from the north of England.

Tolkien identified the language of the poem as being of 14th century North Midlands. In the 1950s, Professor Ralph Elliott from Keele University in North Staffordshire went further and with field trips with his students identified many rare topographical terms used in the poem which appear in place-names all very local to the Roaches in the Staffordshire Moorlands. Notably, Elliott also identified the ‘Green Chapel’ as ‘Lud’s Church’ (or Ludchurch) the 300 foot long rock chasm near the Swythamley estate, just inside the North Staffordshire border.

John Levitt, another Keele professor, continued Elliott’s researches and claimed that the poet was probably a monk at the nearby, now ruined, Dieulacresse Abbey at Leek. Levitt claimed that if you read the poem with a Potteries accent, then it all became clear, and wasn’t then incomprehensible at all, having a magic, alliterative, hypnotic quality. Set in the wildernesses of the Staffordshire moorlands, it makes every tree and every rock come alive.


Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Simon Armitage’s book was published in 2006 and readily available, it has been described as the most readable version of the poem, while maintaining the strange alliterative verse of the original, Armitage makes the poem appear lucid, accessible, fresh and modern, bringing the text to life.

>> A Knight's Tale
Article by Simon Armitage in the Guardian on translating Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 16 December 2006.

>> Author's website

* * *

The Green Knight's Chapel

Lud's Church II

It is notoriously difficult to positively identify geographical sites from Arthurian literature: there are allusions in the landscape from Cornwall to Scotland; but one site that does seem to fit is Lud’s Church as the location of the Green Chapel from the late 14th century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Sir Gawain and The Green Knight
Gawain is King Arthur's nephew and a Knight of the Round Table who appears early in the development of the Arthurian legend. Gawain is a major character in the Arthurian section of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, where he is a superior warrior and potential heir to the throne until he is tragically struck down by Mordred's forces.

Sir Gawain and The Green Knight is a late 14th-century verse romance, 2,530 lines long surviving in only one manuscript, written by an anonymous author usually referred to as the Pearl-Poet, (or the Gawain poet) because it is found in the same manuscript as other works Patience, Cleanness, and Pearl. Another unattached poem, St. Erkenwald, may also be by the same poet. The author was a well read man and he’s moral consciousness of sin, guilt, penance, and forgiveness suggest he was probably a cleric, possibly a monk from nearby Dieulacres Abbey, just North of Leek; the dialect suggests a North Staffordshire location.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight features the beheading game, which became popular in French Arthurian literature around the time of Chretien's Perceval and a similar version features in Livre de Caradoc, but the tale has its roots in much earlier Irish tale Bricriu's Feast. The poem also has elements of the chastity test which featured in the tradition of Arthurian literature in tales such as Robert Biket’s Lai du Cor (Lay of the Horn, ca. 1250-1300). Another, later version of the tale is The Boy and the Mantle, in which a magical item is brought to the Arthur’s court which can only be used by a woman who is faithful to her husband.

Bricriu's Feast appears in early Irish Knights of the Red Branch literature, part of the Ulster Cycle, and has been dated to the early 8th Century, by far outdating any French grail literature so we can be certain the beheading theme has its roots firmly in Celtic mythology.

In brief Bricriu’s Feast is a series of episodes describing various tests of valour which the three bravest warriors, Cu Chulainn, Conall and Loegaire, have to undergo to determine who is most worthy to receive the Champions portion at a feast prepared by Briciu of the Poison tongue:

Cu Chulainn, Conall and Loegaire were the most courageous fighters in Ireland so to decide which of these was the greatest and who would take the Champion's Portion at Bricriu's Feast. To determine who was the greatest warrior a giant named Uath, termed a Bachlach, challenged them into a beheading game. Each warrior in turn would be allowed to behead the giant, but face his axe the next day. Conall and Loegaire did not accept this challenge but Cú Chulainn did and beheaded the giant. The giant stood up and retrieved his head and left. The next day, the giant returned with his axe and demanded that Cú Chulainn kept to his word. Cú Chulainn placed his head on the chopping block but twice the Bachlach could not behead because his neck was too short and the chopping block too small. On the third attempt he swung his axe but brought it down on Cú Chulainn’s neck but blunt side down. He declared Cú Chulainn was the bravest of the warriors then disappeared. The bachlach turns into Cu Roi in disguise who had come to fulfil his promise to Cú Chulainn [1]

Cu Roi appears in several Irish Tales as a semi-supernatural figure, scorcer and shapeshifter, most frequently in the guise of a giant or herdsman. He helped the Ulstermen on a raid of the Underworld.

The beheading game would later reappear in the tale of the Arthurian legend as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and has many similarities with Bricriu’s Feast and Morgan le Fay, the scorcer, is substituted in the English tale in place of Cu Roi.

The poem is set in the days of King Arthur at the New Year's feast at Camelot:

The feast is interrupted by a huge green knight who challenges any member of the court to deal him a blow that is to be returned at his home, the Green Chapel, twelve months later. Sir Gawain beheads the knight, who picking up his head reminds Gawain of their agreement and leaves. At Michaelmas, Gawain sets off for the Green Chapel. He journeys through North Wales, through the Wirral to the North Midlands. On Christmas Eve, he is invited by Sir Bertilak to stay at his castle which is near the Green Chapel. Sir Bertilak and Gawain agree to tell each other each evening what they have gained during the day. Sir Bertilak goes hunting and Gawain has to resist the temptations of the seductive Lady Bertilak. On the third day, Bertilak has only managed to catch a fox while hunting, so gives Gawain the pelt. Gawain does not present the lady's gift, a magic green girdle which makes him invulnerable. On New Year’s day, Gawain rides to the chapel to meet the green knight who takes two swings with the axe but only nicks Gawain. On the third swing he cannot cut off Gawain's head because of the magic girdle. The knight reveals to him that he is Sir Bertilak and that the whole episode was planned by Morgan le Fay.

The tale gives graphic detail of the butchering of a deer caught while out hunting. The poem also contains pagan elements with reference to the annual cycle of death and rebirth and the three attempted axe cuts may be referring to the triple death associated with merlin or druids, the Celtic obsession for the number three.

The Green Chapel has been identified as Lud’s Church because of the poet’s use of dialect words and rare topographical terms used in the poem appear in place-names all very local to the Roaches and this area of the Staffordshire Moorlands [2]There is further evidence in the poem:

“…..Then the lord quoth, laughing, "Now must ye needs stay, for I will show you your goal, the Green Chapel, ere your term be at an end, have ye no fear! But ye can take your ease, friend, in your bed, till the fourth day, and go forth on the first of the year and come to that place at mid-morn to do as ye will. Dwell here till New Year's Day, and then rise and set forth, and ye shall be set in the way; 'tis not two miles hence.

Then the knight spurred Gringalet, and rode adown the path close in by a bank beside a grove. So he rode through the rough thicket, right into the dale, and there he halted, for it seemed him wild enough. No sign of a chapel could he see, but high and burnt banks on either side and rough rugged crags with great stones above…..

………Then he drew in his horse and looked around to seek the chapel, but he saw none and thought it strange. Then he saw as it were a mound on a level space of land by a bank beside the stream where it ran swiftly, the water bubbled within as if boiling. The knight turned his steed to the mound, and lighted down and tied the rein to the branch of a linden; and he turned to the mound and walked round it, questioning with himself what it might be. It had a hole at the end and at either side, and was overgrown with clumps of grass, and it was hollow within as an old cave or the crevice of a crag; he knew not what it might be……” [3]

• High banks on either side:
the valley of the Black Brook between the north side of Back Forest ridge and Gradbach Hill,

• Rough rugged crags with great stones above:
this fits the general location of the area, the Roaches perfectly,

• a bank beside the stream where it ran swiftly, the water bubbled within as if boiling:
The confluence of the River Dane and the Black Brook runs swiftly and appear to bubble over rocks,

• The mound:
Lud’s Church is on the spur of the hill, not easily seen amongst the vegetation but appearing as a mound from the path

• had a hole at the end and at either side:
Lud’s Church has openings at both ends,

• was overgrown with clumps of grass:
Lud’s Church is overgrown with clumps of grass and vegetation clinging to its rocky sides,

• it was hollow within as an old cave or the crevice of a crag:
Lud’s Church is hollow inside like a cave or the crevice of a crag and is in fact marked on OS maps as a cave,

• 'tis not two miles:
Swythamley Hall is less than two miles from Lud’s Church.

Gwalchmei: the Hawk of MayIn Welsh Arthurian literature, Gawain is considered synonymous with the native champion Gwalchmei ap Gwyar, who appears in the Welsh Triads and in Culhwch and Olwen, an 11th century Arthurian tale but probably much earlier, making him along with Cai and Bedwyr amongst the earliest characters associated with Arthur. Here Gwalchmei, like Gawain, is Arthur's nephew and one of his chief warriors; Arthur sends him and five other champions with Culhwch to find Olwen.

It has been said that the the sun only shines directly into Lud's Church at midday on the summer solstice. But the poem refers to an event on New Years day, so it is referring to an event around the winter solstice, which would, however, appear directly opposite the summer alignment.
Gwalchmei may have originated as a Sun God of Celtic myth; in the later Romances Gawain is shown to have the extraordinary ability to grow stronger towards midday before waning in the afternoon; his might triples by noon, but fades as the sun sets. Gwalchmai has been translated as the Hawk of May.

Also contained in the early Arthurian story Culhwch and Olwen, is Gwynn ap Nudd, Lord of the Underworld, who abducted a maiden called Creiddylad after she eloped with Gwythr ap Greidawl, Gwyn's long-time rival. King Arthur settles the feud by arranging for the two to battle every May Day until Doomsday, Gwyn and Gwythr's fight, which began on May Day, represented the contest between summer and winter. This sounds very similar to Gwalchmei as the Hawk of May waxing and waning with the power of the sun and may demonstrate his origin in the pantheon of Celtic gods.

Knight’s Lowe
Knight’s Lowe in the grounds of Swythamley Hall has been suggested as a possible site of Gawain’s grave. However, William of Malmesbury said that the tomb of Walwen (Latinised version of Gawain) was discovered on the sea-shore, in a certain province of Wales called Rhos, which is understood to be that still known by the same name, in the county of Pembroke, where there is a district called in Welsh Castell Gwalchmai [4] and in English Walwyn's Castle.

“At that time [1066-87] in the province of Wales known as Ros was found the tomb of Walwen [Gawain], who was the by no means degenerate nephew of Arthur through his sister. He ruled in that part of Britain which is still called Walweitha and was a warrior most famous for his courage; but he was driven from his rule by the brother and the nephew of Hengist, though he made them pay dearly for his exile. He shared deservedly in his uncle’s praise, because for several years he postponed the collapse of his tottering homeland.

However, the tomb of Arthur is nowhere to be found—that man whose second coming has been hymned in the dirges of old. Yet the sepulcher of Walwen…is fourteen feet long. It is said by some that Walwen’s body was cast from a shipwreck after he had been wounded by his enemies, while others say that he was murdered by his fellow citizens at a public feast.” [5]

Walwyn's Castle was built within an Iron Age hillfort at the head of a long narrow valley running north for 3 miles from the Cleddau estuary, Rhos, in the modern day waterway of Milford Haven. Built on an inland promontory formed by the divergence of the valley, the roughly triangular site had steep slopes on two of its three sides and steep rampart on the third. It was later re-fortified by as a Norman motte and bailey.

In the Stanzas of the Graves a similar locality is indicated:

"The grave of Gwalchmai is in Pyton,
Where the ninth wave flows." [6]


Maybe Gawain was beheaded after all, Caxton, in his preface to Malory's Morte Darthur, writes:

"In the castle Dover, ye may see Gawaine's skull"

>> Part III - The Hawk of May <<

Notes:
1. Ancient Irish Tales. ed. and trans. by Tom P. Cross & Clark Harris Slover. NY: Henry Holt & Co., 1936
2. A Companion to the Gawain-Poet, “Landscape and Geography" - R Elliott pp. 105–117, DS Brewer; 1997.
3. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - prose by Jessie L. Weston, used for ease of reading.
4. Gwalchmai was the original name from Welsh tradition which appears in some of the earliest welsh literature such a s Culwch ac Olwen before the French romancers changed it to Gawain.
5. William of Malmesbury: De rebus gestis regum Anglorum. (Book 3, chapter 287) in Arthur’s Britain, E K Chambers.
6. Pyton is considered to be Perditon, or Perrydon, in South Wales.

***

A Mysterious Corner of Staffordshire

LUD'S CHURCH (I)

Lud’s Church can be found just beyond The Roaches, north of Leek in North Staffordshire in an area known as Back Forest. This sudden land upheaval is the start of the Pennines with open views across the Cheshire plain to the west. The natural cleft known as Lud's Church, or Ludchurch, is over 100 yards in length and over 20 yards high, created by a massive landslip in the hillside above the river Dane. This whole area of the Staffordshire Moorlands has a tale to tell.

Following the A53 to Buxton road, the Roaches and Hen Cloud dominate the landscape as you cross Blackshaw Moor leaving the North Staffordshire market town of Leek, The Queen of the Moorlands. With the early morning sun shining on these massive gritstone outcrops they look like something out of Monument Valley in Arizona. This a magnificent drive across high moorland following the line of an old Roman road to the spa town of Buxton, but today we are going to Lud’s Church which is tucked away  in Back Forestbehind the rock formations of The Roaches. During the summer you can park at Tittesworth Reservoir and jump on the bus to the Roaches as parking is limited.

Leek’s Double Sunset
Recorded as 'Lec' in the Domesday Book, Leek is a market town in a bend in the River Churnet. The double sunset must be one of Leek’s best kept secrets and a detailed account of the double sunset can be found in Dr. Robert Plot's book, 'The Natural History of Staffordshire', published in 1686 [1] Plot described how on midsummer's day the sun could be seen from a Leek churchyard to set behind a hill called the Cloud. It would then reappear and set again on the more distant horizon of the Cheshire plain. The churchyard contains two crosses; a 10th century Saxon cross and a Norse style 11th century cross. The double sunset even has a local beer named after it.

The Roaches
This superb escarpment of pink gritstone rises to a height of 1,657ft, named from the French 'Roche' (Rock) has magnificent views over Tittesworth Reservoir and the Cheshire plain. Geographically this area features on White Peak maps but this area of the Staffordshire Moorlands is geologically Dark Peak, with gritstone, heather and peat. This high ground from the Roaches, Ramshaw Rocks to Axe Edge, provides the watershed for many famous Peak District rivers, Dove, Hamps, Manifold, Churnet, Dane and the Wye all rise here. Alongside the road here past the Five Clouds outcrops there is a derelict cottage that was sold in July 2008 for £120,000 and that is without any services, land or planning permission! 

The Roaches was once part of the Swythamley Estate, owned by the Brocklehurst family, who established a private zoo here, from which Wallabies escaped (or released) in the 1930’s and a recent sighting near Hangingstone in 2007 indicates they have sirvived in the wild. Peregrine falcons have nested here for the first time in a hundred years. [2]

Hen Cloud

Hen Cloud at 1345ft high, is a solitary outlier from the Roaches , popular with climbers. The name may be derived from Herne Clud, Herne being the ancient Celtic hunter god, Cernunnos, lord of the woodlands, with Clud a Celtic word meaning 'rock'. He is found throughout Celtic lands and folklore as the guardian of the portal leading to the Otherworld.

RockHall
As you walk up to the Roaches the first thing you come to is Rockhall Cottage, built into the overhanging rocks of the lower tier, a climbers' cottage rebuilt in memory of Don Whillans, a cult figure from the 1950s working-class rock climbing revolution. A legend says that, years before, this had been called Doxey Cottage which some say was named after the daughter of Bowyer of the Rocks, the highwayman and his wife Bess. Their daughter was rumoured to have been carried off by ‘strange men’ one day. Bess died, her heart broken. The ghost – the ‘singing woman of the Roaches’ who walks the ridge on dark nights – is said to be the spirit of her daughter. Some say Doxey pool was named after her.

Doxey Pool
Continuing up the roughly cut steps to the upper tier walking along the ridge you soon come to the dark, waters of bottomless Doxey Pool sitting on top of the Roaches, claimed to be higher than any other in the area. Doxey Pool is said to be home to the mermaid Jenny Greenteeth who lures travellers to a watery grave. In 1949, Mrs Florence Pettit visited this pool for an early morning dip with a friend, and saw:

‘a great thing rose up from the middle of the lake . . . 25 to 30 feet tall . . . and those eyes were extremely malevolent…..’

Water spirits are a common feature of the folklore of most pools and lakes and not far from here is the The mermaid of Black Mere on Morridge (see below).

Lud’s Church
After descending the main ridge to Roach End, cross the road then through the stile and continue along the permissive path along the Back Forest Ridge. Lud's Church is an huge natural chasm in the rock on the hillside above Gradbach, on the north side of the ridge, formed by a landslip which has let a cleft which is over 20 yards high in places and over 100 yards long, though in some places only a couple of yards wide. This chasm can be very muddy in wet weather.

The place has many myths and legends associated with it, most famously Gawain and the Green Knight, were it is said that here the hero of the Arthurian romance slew the Green Knight, symbolic of death, rebirth and fertility.

Fairies have also been associated with Lud’s Church;  “One lived in Thor's Cave, and a whole clan were to be found in the cavern beneath Ludchurch.” Lud’s Church has also associated with Robin Hood and his merry men.

Luddites
A more recent, addition to the folklore of Lud's Church is that it was used as a refuge for the Luddite movement of the early 19th Century. Workers, upset by wage reductions and the use of unskilled workers, started to break into factories at night to destroy the new machinery that the employers were using. It is known that the Luddites were operating in this area at the time and were wanted criminals who if caught were often hanged.

The Lollards
The Lollards, believing that the Catholic Church was corrupt, were critics of the established church. Founded by John Wycliffe, in the 1370s they quickly found themselves victims of persecution from the church and the monarchy. In the early 15th Century the Lollard’s were persecuted for their religious beliefs after Henry IV legitimised the burning of heretics. It has been suggested, that if not for Luddites, then Lud's Church may have been named after Walter de Lud-Auk, a 'Lollard', who was captured here at one of their meetings. His grand-daughter Alice de Lud-Auk, said the possess one of the most beautiful voices ever heard, used to sing at their meetings in Lud’s Church but was killed here from a stray gunshot after a scuffle with the authorities. At one time a white wooden statue known as 'Lady Lud' stood in a high rocky cleft above the chasm said to commemorate the death of Alice.

Lady Lud
Day trippers were charged a fee to visit Lud’s Church and hear Philip Brocklehurst’s legend of the Lady of Lud and see the figure of a lady clad in white nestling in the rocks of Lud’s Church and were led to believe it depicted Alice de Lud-Auk, the girl with the ‘unearthly voice’ who was shot and died here.

There is a reproduction painting of an old picture postcard in the dining room at nearby Gradbach Youth Hostel showing a strange statue perched on one of the walls of Lud's Church. It was noted after a visit to Lud's Church in the 1930s, there was what looked like the figurehead from the ship Swythamley fixed to the rock just inside the entrance, apparently placed there by Brocklehurst, the land owner from Sythamley Hall, around 1862, which looked very similar to the female in the Gradbach youth hostel painting.

The Back Forest Ridge

Swythamley
Situated on the Staffordshire side of the River Dane, Swythamley Hall stands in a fine park and was originally a medieval hunting lodge belonging to the nearby Abbey of Dieulacres. Swythamley has been identified as Hautdesert, the castle of the Green Knight of the classic medieval poem "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and nearby Lud's Church as the knight's 'Green Chapel'. It is often suggested that the unknown author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was a monk at Dieulacres Abbey.

In a patch of woodland to the north of Swythamley, just across the A54 road, lies Cleulow Cross, a 9th century cross shaft thought to be of Scandinavian craftsmanship. Nothing is known of its origin or purpose, but it may have been a boundary marker. Also in the grounds is Knight’s Lowe bearing another old cross, possibly marking an old burial mound.

Dieulacres Abbey
Dieulacres Abbey was a Cistercian monastery established by Ranulf, Earl of Chester at Poulton in Cheshire. It moved to the present site in the valley of the river Churnet, to the north-west of Leek in Staffordshire in 1214, possibly in part as a result from raids at the former site by the Welsh.

By the 14th century, Dieulacres Abbey had become a great landowner in Staffordshire and often behaved as such. In the later Middle Ages the Abbot maintained armed bands ‘desiring to perpetrate maintenance in his marshes and oppress the people’. In 1380 it was claimed that a group had beheaded John de Warton at Leek at the command of Abbot William, and by the beginning of Henry I’s reign (1100-1135), the county was reportedly in a disturbed state, with bands, including monks from Dieulacres, stealing and breaking the peace. Such a reputation must have caused numbers to fall: in 1377 there were just seven monks and at the time of the Dissolution there were only thirteen. Now derelict the few visible remains of the Abbey have been incorported into the buildings at Abbey Farm,

Hanging stone
The Hanging Stone sits on the end of the Back Forest ridge above Swythamley bearing a plaque to Colonel Brocklehurst, who was killed in Burma in 1942. The Brocklehurst's certainly had much influence on this area, one of them even accompanied Shackleton to the Antarctic.

Hanging stone marks the end of the ridge running from Hen Cloud and offers a vista from Morrdige to Alderley Edge. (left)

The Mermaid of Morridge
Leaving Leek on the A53, turn right at the Moss Rose pub (now closed) and follow the road to Morridge, there is The Black Mere, also known as the BlakeMere or the Mermaid's Pool, nearby is a suitably named pub. The Black Mere is very similar to Doxey Pool, being another bottomless dark pool on the moors between Buxton and Leek, at a similar elevation and part of the high ground extending south from Axe Edge. Merryton Low is the highest point on Morridge at 1,604 feet. There are excellent views from here and superb views are also gained at the trig point on Royledge across the Roaches to the Cheshire plain and Alderley Edge.

It is said that cattle refused to drink the waters of the Black Mere, fish could not live there and birds never flew nearby. Black Mere’s mermaid was supposed, like the siren, rose from its depths at midnight and lured the young to their deaths. Legend say that on Easter Eve, a young man who sees the mermaid will be granted riches for one year. But he will be so infatuated with her beauty that he will be drawn to throw himself into the pool to be with her forever.

Alderley Edge
Alderley Edge is about 5 miles to the northwest of Macclesfield, just south east of Wilmslow, situated at the base of a steep sandstone ridge known as The Edge overlooking the Cheshire Plain. Copper and lead mining are known to have taken place in the past at Alderley Edge in the Bronze Age and Roman times and continued from the 1690s to the 1920s. Several ancient gold bars have been found at Alderley Edge.

There are several local legends, the most famous being The Iron Gates, the exact location is unknown, but they are supposed to lie somewhere between Stormy Point and the Holy Well. There are several versions of this legend but a letter published in the Manchester Mail in 1805 from a reader claiming to be the "Perambulator" stated that he knew the location of the Iron Gates:

“Tradition says that a farmer from Mobberley was taking a milk white horse to sell at the market in Macclesfield. Whilst walking along the Edge, he reached a spot known locally as "Thieves Hole." Suddenly an old man clad in a grey and flowing garment stopped him. The old man offered the farmer a sum of money for his horse but the farmer refused, saying he could get a better price at the market. The old man told the farmer that he would be at this spot again that evening when the farmer returned, not having found a purchaser for the horse. The farmer failed to sell the horse and, cursing his luck, made the journey back home along the Edge. At the same point, the old man appeared again, offering the farmer the money, which this time was accepted. The old man told the farmer to follow him with the horse. As they approached an area just past Stormy Point, the old man banged on the ground with his stick and, to the farmer’s shock, the rock opened up to reveal a set of Iron Gates. The old man beckoned the farmer to follow him through the gates into a large cavern. In the cavern, the farmer saw countless men and white horses, all asleep. The old man explained that all these sleeping warriors were ready to awake and fight should England fall into danger. The farmer was shown back to the gates and stepped outside back onto the path. Immediately the gates slammed shut and the rock face returned to its previous state.”

Further variations say that the Wizard was Merlin and the sleeping men were King Arthur and his knights. There is a restaurant on The Edge aptly named "The Wizard Inn".



Lud's Church series is Copyright © 2008-2009 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk/

Notes & References:
1. Dr. Plot and the Amazing Double Sunset.
2. For up to date information visit the Roaches website
3. Roaches Tea Rooms
4. Hen Cloud Cottage
5. Doug Pickford, Staffordshire: Its Magic and Mystery, Sigma Leisure, 1994.

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I have walked across this landscape in North Staffordshire many times and find the legendary atmosphere around the Roaches totally captivating.

But I'm not convinced that Lud's Church is named after Luddites or Lollards.

In the following pages I propose to totally reject the suggestion that Lud’s Church is named after The Luddites, a group of modern day anti-technologists, who followed the teachings of the so called Ned Ludd, an opponent of technology in all its forms, and that it is named after an ancient cult from the dawn of time.

>> Part II - The Green Knight's Chapel <<

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