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‘Paranormal Paradise’: St Botolph’s Skidbrooke
This large redundant church near Skidbrooke has been declared a ‘paranormal paradise’ by an article in the Britain Express and is, apparently, a hot spot both for forces of the beyond and their fervent worshippers. The same article claims sightings of a ghost monk…
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Six-Pint (or Ten-Pint) Smith
This legend concerns one John Smith, who would apparently turn up at the pub every day at noon and drink twelve half-pints of beer that had been lined up for him before the clock had finished chiming the hour…
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Bardney Abbey: Oswald and the Shaft of Light
In 697, the substantial abbey at Beardeneu (Bardney) received the relics of King Oswald of Northumbria, who had been killed in battle against King Penda of Mercia in 642. As Oswald had once ruled…
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Brigg Fair
This is a famous folk song, first collected in 1908 by Australian folk song collector and composer Percy Grainger. Grainger recorded Lincolnshire folk singer Joseph Taylor singing the song (and several others) on wax cylinder in 1907, when Taylor was in his mid-seventies; it is the earliest known recording of a folk singer.
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Fred the Fool
A wayward lad called Fred Baddeley, who is thin yet greedy, gets a job at a farm on the other side of the Wolds: the farmer has offered him the job in the belief Fred will be cheap to feed and clothe. Unfortunately, Fred eats the house bare…
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Sir Hugh Bardolph & the Dragon
The legend of Sir Hugh Bardolph, set in the twelfth century, recounts the slaying of a man-eating dragon with one-eye (perhaps unique in British folklore) at the site, during a storm…
Lincolnshire Folk Tales Project 