Oxfordshire Folktales Read Free

bells on her toes’ are akin to the bridle of the one who graced Thomas the Rhymer with her presence (decorated with ‘fifty silver bells and nine…’). Enchanting music was often heard before the appearance of the Fey, and any who heard it was doomed to go there, or fade away in this world. Its pull is irresistible, as W.B. Yeats captured so immortally in his classic poem The Stolen Child: ‘Come away, O human child, to the waters and the wild…’
    Fairyland might seem far away from Banbury, but since this was the first town outside of Northampton (my old home county) I would come across as I ventured ‘into the west’, I think of it as a ‘Lud-in-the-Mist’ type place (the town in Hope Mirrlees’ 1926 novel which borders Faerie), being the gateway into the Cotswolds and beyond to the ‘weird’ West Country and wilder Wales. Here, I have melded two strands of folklore together – one about the Queen of Elfland and crossroads (as featured in the Scottish ballad ‘Tam Lin’); and the other a local folk tale about William Oldys. In this coupling of the mythic and the mundane something magical occurs. One needs to be anchored to the other – to stop the former flying away into the ether and the latter from being stuck in the mud of reality. Visit Banbury on the day of the Hobby Horse Fair in early July, when unusual beasts from all over England gather for a procession through town, culminating in the People's Park, and you will see this occurring before your eye. For a while, reality bends.

Two
T HE W HITE H ORSE OF U FFINGTON
    Come to the Horse Fair-O – have you a scrape and thrill!
Come to the White Horse, stabled on Uffington Hill.

    It was the time of the Scouring of the Horse, a great fair that took place every seven years on Uffington Hill. The local lord himself had funded it, though much did he rue the fact, complaining about the state of the economy, taxes and poor harvests. But the spirit of the people to celebrate could not be suppressed, especially when they’d had to wait so long; long enough for legs to grow, and tales in the telling of the previous fair. Littl’uns who’d grown up listening to what the grown-ups spun were now eager to discover the magic for themselves. Would it be real, or moonbeams on the chalk? Well the day had finally come…
    Uffington Fair is always a very lively affair – officially lasting for three days – although the revelry often continues before and after with the quaffing of much ale, the feasting, the cheese-rolling down into The Manger, stalls selling gewgaws and local wares, wrestling, dancing, tests of strength, the sharing of news and views, and, of course, the Scouring of the Horse. The villagers took great pride in this, and Betty was one of them – a local lass, this was the second Scouring she could remember. She was conceived at one, fourteen years ago, so her folks remind her, much to her embarrassment: she was an ‘Uffington gal, thru and thru,’ her Dad said. The fair had always seemed magical to her, with its many sights and wonders, but especially this year when she felt… different, and had taken great care in preparing her outfit, a lovely clean white dress with ornate bonnet, her best shoes, her hair done just so, and her face ‘as fresh and comely as a May morning’, as her Granny said. Holding a garland of flowers, she had proudly joined in the procession to the Horse at dawn along with the whole village – apart from Granny, whose legs weren’t like they used to be.
    Bill the butcher led the way, beating his pigskin drum in solemn manner, his black tricorne hat sporting a pheasant feather, ‘like the cock o’ the morn,’ someone giggled, until elbowed into respectful silence.
    They gathered in a great circle round the chalk figure – over three hundred feet in length – which was carved into the side of the Downs. They stood overlooking the Vale of the White Horse, slowly emerging from the mist as though from the dawn of