William of Lindholme was probably a hermit who lived on an island in Hatfield Chase, just over the border in Yorkshire, and who is mentioned as early as the thirteenth century. In some accounts, he is known as Tommy Lindrum. In legend, this farmer’s son is a giant, and his father exploits his son’s strength. He turns against his parents, who leave him to keep the sparrows from the corn when they go to Wroot Feast, by trying to kill them: he hurls a big boulder at the house to which they have gone, but throws it too far by mistake. He also inadvertently kills the sparrows by trapping them in a barn, with the exception of a few which have been turned white by the experience.

William is soon accused of selling his soul to the Devil. Legend has it that he agreed to construct a causeway across the wetlands from Lindholme to Hatfield, on condition nobody could watch him, and was subsequently seen working on it at great speed with the assistance of scores of miniature demons. Knowing he had been spied on, and his wish for secrecy has not been respected, William is said to have left the causeway unfinished. (Whatever feature it was that previously bore a similarity to a causeway, it seems subsequently to have been obliterated.) It is alleged he threw two more rocks, called the Little Finger Stone and the Thumb Stone, and these were on private land close to Hatfield Hall. The boulder he is said to have thrown in an attempt to kill his parents was on private land close to the centre of Wroot village. (There is some speculation they still exist, but as the researcher Paul Hickman notes in correspondence to us, they are most likely now destroyed. Do get in touch if you have evidence one way or the other!) According to one local legend, William eventually decided to dig his own grave, set a flagstone against a beam above it, then sit in the hole and knock away the support, burying himself alive. These stories are quite well known, and are discussed, for example, in Polly Howat, Ghosts and Legends of Lincolnshire and the Fen Country, Maureen James, Lincolnshire Folk Tales, and Susanna O’Neill, Folklore of Lincolnshire. Adrian Gray’s fine rendition, ‘William the Giant’, is in Tales of Old Lincolnshire.

One variant of the above story tells how he regularly had to walk across the marsh, so he called on the Devil to help him make a causeway. However, Old Nick soon tired of the exploit, so the causeway remained unfinished. According to Susanna O’Neill, who recounts this version of the tale (first collected by Ethel Rudkin), ‘people say there is still evidence of the beginnings of a cobbled causeway there now’, but this does not seem to be the case. If you know differently, please get in touch with us – you will be credited.

Words by RORY WATERMAN