Folklore of Lincolnshire Read Free

as illustrated in this little ditty Mrs Gutch recorded for us for the early 1800s:
    Cheshire for men,
    Berkshire for dogs,
    Bedfordshire for naked flesh,
    And Lincolnshire for bogs. 13
    There is so much more, however, than the legendary boggy landscape. Described perfectly in Brewer’s Britain and Ireland , Lincolnshire is:
    …for the most part flat, and much of the south is taken up with the Fens, but it does manage to raise itself at least on to an elbow in two places, the Lincolnshire Edge (known locally as ‘the Heights’ or ‘the Cliff’), a limestone escarpment running east to west on which the city of Lincoln is situated, and the Lincolnshire Wolds, a range of chalk hills running northeast-southwest in the eastern part of the county. 14
    And according to Jack Yates and Henry Thorold:

    The long drainage ditches and narrow roads so characteristic of Lincolnshire.
    The landscape is of strongly contrasted kinds – one long and level with two-thirds of every eyeful sky. Wide and splendid cloudscapes and a great expanse of stars at night…The other sort of scenery is hilly, the rolling country of the Wolds, which seem very high by contrast but never rise more than 550 feet and are like theDowns, with beech plantations on their slopes and villages in their hollows and at their feet. 15
    Well known for its farming, Lincolnshire is ‘overwhelmingly agricultural…the county supplies Britain with a cornucopia of vegetable…its pigs are famous…Lincolnshire sausages…’
    Cumbrian and Lincolnshire sausages are two of the best known in the country but there were other farming traditions which made Lincolnshire famous. There is a specific Lincolnshire breed of sheep called Lincoln Longwool, larger and heavier than the Leicester, and also there is the Lincoln Red; a breed of red shorthorn beef and dairy cattle. There was once a breed of pig, the Lincolnshire Curly Coat, aptly named due to its woolly coat, but it has now died out.
    Also known for its tremendous fishing industry, the Lincolnshire sailors and their wives have a tale or two to tell about life with the sea.

    A community heavily reliant on agriculture, much of the Lincolnshire landscape encompasses fields upon fields of farmland.
    We shall begin our journey through Lincolnshire’s store of tales and folklore by introducing the canny nature of the Lincolnshire folk through their shrewd tradition of decoy ducks. 16
    They say that some Lincolnshire farmers used to breed ducks in a special way, for the specific purpose of betraying their fellow ducks! One source suggests there were up to forty such farms in the county, taking somewhere in the region of 13,000 birds via this method, in one season.
    The decoy ducks were bred in specially designed ponds, where they were given much attention and care so that they became tame and fed from the farmer’s hand. When they were ready they were ‘sent’ abroad, possibly to Europe, where they met other ducks and enticed them back to Lincolnshire, in their ducky language, with tales of a wondrous life!
    When the decoy ducks returned with flocks of followers, the men began to secretly feed the newcomers handfuls of grain in the shallows of the ponds. The decoy ducks were used to this and happily went to eat and soon their new friends copied, confident in their host’s judgement.
    The grain was soon scattered in a wide open place and the ducks went there to eat it. Then it appeared in a narrower area, where the trees hung over like a tent. All the ducks now followed the food, feeling secure but unaware that there had been a large net placed in the foliage above their heads.
    The decoy ducks had led their new friends into the netted area and all were feeding greedily, oblivious to the nets gradually lowering down on them with one end nipping into a point.
    Suddenly a dog was let out and came towards them barking ferociously. The ducks all attempted to fly away but the net prevented their escape. They were instead driven