Ralph and the Silver Bit
a Ribble Valley Fairy Tale
written by: Alex Burton-Hargreaves
@albuharg
In Deepest, Darkest Yorkshire, under the shadow of Pendle, in the church of St Peter and St Paul, in the ancient village of Bolton-by-Bowland, can be found one of the most ornate tombs in all of Christendom.
This is the final resting place of the 16th-century landowner Sir Ralph Pudsey, his three wives, and twenty-five children.
Many tales have been told about Ralph Pudsey but one jumps out more than the rest, this is the tale of Pudsey’s leap.
The Pudseys were a very rich family indeed and had owned the village for generations, but when Ralph Pudsey’s father died he found he was left with very little, his father had run out of money due to spending above his means and having to pay recusancy fines for not attending church.
Ralph knew he might have to give up the family home, Bolton Hall, and had started to have the estate valued, but the weight of all this bore down on him enormously. He couldn’t see a way out of this at all.
After what seemed like an eternity of despair, when it seemed like there was no hope, Pudsey did find his salvation at the last, when he encountered a circle of fairies in a wood beside Skirden Brook.
In these dark days, Ralph used to ride to the woods when he desired solitude, they were thought by locals to be haunted so were largely avoided.
Only he visited and he thought himself to be alone at these times, unwatched by the eyes of mankind.
And this was true.
But we all know deep down, in our primal core, that however alone you think you are there is always something watching you.
In Ralph’s case, the keen eyes which curiously followed his slow movements through the wood belonged to the circle of fairies which resided there, amongst the trees of Oak and Ash and Thorn.
One particular fairy, perhaps more perceptive of man’s emotions, maybe braver than the rest, or more likely, (as the nature of this race is to be guileful and duplicitous in their dealings with man) with some nefarious scheme in mind for him, saw how despondent Ralph was and approached.
Ralph could not believe what his eyes told him, he had heard the stories and warnings repeated oft enough but had never expected to see such a sight.
Upon approaching the Fairy spoke to him, and Ralph could not believe his ears, they only confirmed what his eyes told, and this could only mean that he was either mad, or the apparition he saw before him was real.
“Ralph,” the fairy whispered “Ralph,” “Do not despair.”
Ralph stood frozen to the ground, like one of the many tall trees surrounding him his feet felt like they had grown roots into the dark soil, forbidding him from fleeing, and his body felt stiff as a trunk, wooden and cold.
The fairy took two steps closer, fixing its eyes upon his.
“Allay your fears and listen to me, only what I say can set you free.”
Such is the spell that a fairy has over a man once it has caught his attention Ralph could do nought but listen!
“Ride tomorrow in the morn, to your quarry at Skellhorn.”
“Seek the shining glint at noon, and silver you will find there soon.”
Ralph heard these words clear as a bell, they rang as if being spoken directly into his skull, yet he could not see any movement about the creature’s pointed face except the quick darting of its sharp little eyes.
“And if you should find yourself in trouble,”
The fairy continued.
“Place this bit in your horse’s mouth, and you’ll ride at the double.”
On hearing these last words Ralph felt a cold, heavy sensation in his hands, and upon looking down was stupefied, for he held now, where nothing had been before, a pair of the most beautiful silver horse’s bit he had ever seen.
When he finally looked up, the wood was empty, just he stood alone, there was no fairy to thank.
Ralph did ride out the very next morning, he had nothing to lose after all, and had awoke from a restless night’s sleep to find the silver bit before him on the nightstand, so he felt there may be something tangible to the eldritch apparition’s words.
His family owned a lead mine to the south, at Skellhorn near the village of Downham, it was Roman, his father had told him, and was of no use as it had not borne even an ounce of lead, “not even enough for shot to kill a bird,” he had once spat.
So it was to this quarry that he rode.
Once there he stood before the pick-face for what seemed like an age, pondering his wisdom in this foolish endeavour.
Then he paced to-and-fro glancing at the midday sun and peering at the rock, looking up, looking down, squinting in the glare off the slick, wet stone, and listening for the midday chimes of the bells in the tower of St Margaret’s.
11:56, 11:57, did the church clock keep the right time?
11:58, 11:59, was that a different-looking glimmer to the dirt-encrusted grime?
Ralph swung mightily with his iron pick, shards of stone flew in every direction, and when the dust settled a new shine pierced the shadows of the quarry, the unmistakable glint of silver.
The fairy’s promise had rang true!
Re-hiring the estate’s old staff that his father had, reluctantly, let go was very easy once they heard of the riches the useless old quarry now yielded, and with the ore the men mined from the earth he could afford to build a mint. This, he hid in one of the village’s cottages, you can still see it today, bearing the rather appropriate house-name ‘Mint Cottage.’
He soon started production of his own coinage, embossed with his family’s emblem, the Pudsay Star, and these became known as ‘Pudsay shillings.’
All the local businesses assumed his coinage was legal tender and accepted it for long enough for Ralph to accumulate a small fortune, but eventually, he was found out.
He paid his workers in the silver shillings and, so the story goes, one of his miners was out drinking one night in the nearby town of Clitheroe after being paid in these.
He happened to drop his purse in an alehouse and the silver coins rolled out all over the floor, but after scrambling and scrabbling in the straw and filth the miner managed to collect all of his money, all except one solitary coin.
A dark, sharp-eyed fellow leaning at the end of the bar saw events unfold and witnessed the gleaming coin roll into a corner, but he knew better than to pick it up straight away, he merely bent down to tie his boot-laces on his way out and surreptitiously pocketed the shilling.
Now the gentleman could have spent this shilling in any of the town’s several alehouses and taverns, or even kept it for a rainy day, but he had better plans for the coin, and he had been observing the miners flash their shiny new cash around town for quite a while now.
Indeed it was his job to look out for this kind of thing, for he worked for the crown.
Forgery of the king’s money in the 16th century was a capital offence, punishable by death, and the Royal Mint employed a league of dark, sharp-eyed fellows all across the country specifically to look out for forgery and malfeasance. (And they still do)
Thus the Silver shilling, clearly embossed with the Pudsay star, made its way into the possession of the Mint’s clerks, and hence into the hands of King Henry.
Ralph was rash in the way he handled his newfound fortunes, and with more caution, he could have avoided the trouble that was to come his way, but hindsight is a rare and precious trait, especially in rich young men.
This doesn’t mean that he was a complete fool though, he knew that what he was doing was highly illegal so kept a close eye on everything that was going on in the Ribble Valley so as not to be caught out unawares.
This is how he was alerted to the brigade of soldiers riding towards Bolton Hall.
Upon witnessing the armed troops galloping towards his home Ralph set off at haste to the stables, he had the foresight to be carrying the Silver bit upon him and when he reached his mount he immediately attached it to his horse’s bridle headgear.
He managed to leap on his saddle and gallop away just as the soldiers arrived in view at the end of the lane, but several mounted soldiers witnessed him leaving the hall and turned to give chase, his horse swallowed up the ground under its hoofs in a manner it had never done before, if only (Ralph ruefully thought afterwards) he had possessed the silver bit earlier, then he could have won every steeple chase in the land and he wouldn’t be in this position!
He hardly had to spur the horse on it was so unusually fleet of foot but the troops had a furlong’s lead on him so there was no way he could outride them, they flanked him and blocked off the only escape from the field, leaving only the way to Skirden Brook open.
Crashing through the brambles and brush Ralph plunged through the wood, and realised with horror that he was being corralled straight towards the cliff at the edge, Rainsber Scar.
Rainsber Scar is Ninety feet high and drops sheer onto the rocks of Skirden Brook and the troops chased him straight there. Ralph found himself at bay and surrounded behind and to his sides with only the precipice before him, he pulled on the reins to control his mount, who seemed to have suicidal urges, frothing at the mouth, gnashing at the bit and scoring the earth with its fore-hooves.
The nervous yet steely-eyed troops, catching their breath after the chase, held their ground though, they knew their quarry was desperate and on his own turf but they had him cornered, trapped! There was no obvious escape but they wouldn’t have risked letting him go in any circumstance, they had ridden a long way after all with one express command; to bring him in alive, and anyway, they were professionals and weren’t going to be shown up by some poncy noble!
Ralph to’d and fro’d before the men, his horse becoming angrier and more frantic with every heart-beat until he couldn’t tell if the pounding he felt belonged to his or the horse’s heart. The men, wary of the snorting, pawing, froth-mouthed horse, held their lances firmer and higher until the gleaming steel points seemed as if they would pierce the whites of the horse’s rolling eyes.
The only way out, clear sky beckoning, was forward, over the scar.
Ralph never knew why his mount decided to make what should have been, in any sane world, a leap to certain death for both of them, and it all happened much too quickly for him to comprehend anyway but in one drawn-out second his horse charged for the edge and then…
His horse flew, nay, soared over the chasm!
The troops and assembled onlookers stood agape at what they saw before their eyes. The spectacle was so astounding that it was told by all present to their children who told it unto their children and so through time until I tell it today!
With a rush and a loud thud which everyone could feel he landed square on the grassy bank of the brook opposite Rainsber Scar, right where families have sat and picnicked every summer since, but the soaring charge didn’t stop there, with a thunder the horse galloped through the low mist which lay across the field and disappeared from view.
Some commented afterwards on how odd the low-lying mist had seemed, and how peculiarly it had swept and curled and twisted round to swallow the rapidly vanishing figure as it galloped away.
But of course, none of them knew about the silver bit, or the role the fairies had played in Ralph’s story, so none suspected that they might have conjured it into being to help him.
As for our young forger, he knew that such spells only last until sundown, so he kept on riding into the heart of Bowland forest where he lay low for the night, and the next day, when the silver bit had evaporated in the night, but he was still a wanted man, he set off to make his slow and unobserved way down to London.
Now nothing is known about Ralph’s journey through the kingdom to London Town, it must have been uneventful though otherwise he would not have made it.
Why did he go to London? You may rightly ask, well, there was only way Ralph could save his skin, and that was by way of Royal Pardon, and this is where our hero was truly lucky, because, believe it or not, Ralph Pudsey’s godmother happened to be Queen Elizabeth the First, who did indeed grant him a royal pardon and save him from King Henry’s wrath, thus bringing an implausible (but historically true!) happy ending to Ralph’s adventure.
The spot where Ralph escaped is now a popular picnic and paddling spot known locally as Pudsey’s Leap and it is said that fairies still frequent the woods by Skirden Brook to this day and can be seen there on midsummer’s eve,
But only by one who has a Silver Pudsay Shilling upon their person.
- Ralph and the Silver Bit - October 22, 2024
