Folklore's full of larger than life characters - and these criminal examples from the British Isles are no exception. Let's take a look at...
- The Truth-Twisting Tale of Dick Turpin
- Sawney Bean, Scotland's Cannibal Bandit and His Clan
- An Gadaidhe Dubh, the Black Robber of County Cork
- The Baron-Killing Red Bandits of Mawddwy
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| Despite the legend, Dick Turpin probably never had a horse called Black Bess... (Erik-Jan Leusink) |
The Truth-Twisting Tale of Dick Turpin
Though now a figure of legend, the highwayman Dick Turpin was a real criminal in 18th century England. He was depicted in later folklore as a charming and bold scoundrel, riding an impressive mare known as Black Bess and capable of feats such as riding from London to York (around 200 miles) overnight... and based on the number of pubs around England that claim to have been a base of operations for him, he'd have to have had superhuman endurance and a cast-iron liver. The reality was rather different - he was a cowardly killer, and the story of his fabled steed seems to be a complete fabrication.
The son of a tavern keeper and apprenticed to a butcher, Turpin was spotted stealing cattle and embarked on a full fledged career of criminality. He joined the Gregory Gang of Essex (where his butcher training proved handy in processing stolen livestock) and moved on to housebreaking, torture and murder. He was most certainly not depicted as a folk hero at the time - in fact, one contemporary depiction showed him pushing a lady into a lit fireplace while his accomplices look on.
After the break up of the Gregory Gang, Turpin took to highway robbery and joined up with another highwayman identified as Tom (though this may have been an error or an alias - it is thought that his real name was Matthew) King.
The partnership would end poorly when the two stole a horse named Whitestockings near the Green Man Inn at Leytonstone. The owner reported the theft to the innkeeper Richard Bayes, who managed to track down the missing horse - it was being held only a few miles away by Matthew's brother, John. Upon being confronted by a local constable, John cracked and told the group where to find his brother.
When the modest posse went to confront Matthew King, a struggle broke out and King put his pistol to the innkeeper's chest and pulled the trigger - only for the gun to misfire. Hearing the commotion, Turpin rode to the rescue... only to miss his intended target and hit King. The mortally wounded highwayman cried out "Dick, you have killed me" as his erstwhile companion fled the scene.
As it turned out, King lived long enough to identify Turpin (and call him a coward to boot.) Realizing he was a dead man if he stayed in the area, Turpin relocated to Yorkshire and adopted the name John Palmer... but didn't change his ways. He continued stealing horses, but it was an incident in the street when he shot a chicken and threatened to kill those complaining about the deed.
This little stunt landed him in jail, and when the magistrates looked deeper into "Palmer" they realized he was probably a wanted horse-thief (a crime that could carry the death penalty at the time.) Turpin actually wrote to his brother-in-law Pompr Rivernall, asking him for help in arranging a defense. Rivernall never collected the letter, but Turpin's former teacher James Smith recognized the writing on the letter and identified the criminal for who he was.
Turpin ended up on York's gallows in 1739, hanged for horse theft rather than multiple murders. Almost before the earth had time to settle on his grave, Turpin's corpse was targeted by body-snatchers - so his remains were treated with quicklime and reburied.
So how did Turpin get transformed into a dashing, heroic folk hero? Much of the blame for this can be laid at the feet of writers. A highly romanticized version of Turpin starred in Penny Dreadfuls such as "Black Bess: Or, The Knight of the Road" featuring dramatic imagery and daring feats.
There was also the book "Rookwood" by William Harrison Ainsworth. The novel blended the exploits of other highwaymen to create a larger than life gentleman bandit - such as taking the courtly charm of Claude Duval and the alleged riding prowess of John "Swift Nick" Nevison, said to have robbed a man in Kent one morning, ridden 200 miles to Yorkshire by sundown and placed a friendly wager on a game of bowls with the Lord Mayor of York. The Lord Mayor testified to the time at which Nevison had made the wager in York, and no-one believed that he could have made the trip in so little time!
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| Maybe cannibal bandits like a good view as well? (foxycoxy) |
Sawney Bean, Scotland's Cannibal Bandit and His Clan
The exact details of his life are a little hazy, but the story goes that he was active around the 15th century. Born in East Lothian and the son of an agricultural worker, Sawney became a tanner by trade. He eventually married a woman - in some accounts she was known as Black Agnes Douglas and had a reputation as a witch.
Whether they were fleeing from the rumors of witchcraft or simply wanted to abandon the tanner's trade, the Beans moved to a remote
sea cave at Bennane Head. The cave itself was raised, and though it was only accessible at low tide, the interior remained dry. The Beans had a home, but how were they going to sustain themselves? There wasn't exactly much call for a tanner-turned-hermit after all.
Well,
Sawney took to banditry. Ambushing travelers provided the Beans with a supply of coin and goods, and a policy of letting no witness survive meant that the recluses were at little risk of identification when entering settlements to buy essentials with stolen cash.
Of course, there's only so many ways to get rid of a body, but Sawney had a solution -
cannibalism. Not only would this help get rid of the evidence of their crimes, they'd be able to save on meat as well!
The life of a cannibal bandit seems to have suited the Beans. Soon they had children, and those children had children (best not to speculate too much about that, since they kept to themselves, as it were) until a small clan of cannibal monsters lurked hidden on the shores of Ayrshire. They'd mob their victims in coordinated ambushes that left no chance of escape,
pickling any meat they didn't eat for later consumption and throwing the bones into the sea... which led to the occasional unexplained bit of human remains appearing further along the coast.
When things finally went wrong for the Beans, they did so in spectacular fashion. The clan ambushed a man and his wife who were returning from a country fair, but the man put up quite a fight and managed to jump his hose over the ambushers. Things still would have gone ill for him if a crowd of fair-goers hadn't chose that moment to appear - and seeing that they could win against such numbers, the Beans retreated.
The grieving husband was taken to the Chief Magistrate of Glasgow, who combined his testimony with a long list of disappearances and decided the situation was beyond his pay grade - he sent the report on to King James VI of Scotland.
To his credit, the king decided he'd take a direct hand in the investigation. With a small army and a group of trackers with hounds, he combed the Ayrshire coast... until the dogs picked up a strange scent near a sea cave.
The inside of the cave was a charnel house, with piles of spoils on the floor and limbs hanging on the walls like joints in a butchers. The Beans themselves may have been more than a match for outnumbered travelers, but they fared poorly against professional soldiers - the survivors were marched to Edinburgh in chains.
So what happened to the Beans? Depending on the tale the men were hanged, drawn and quartered or simply had their limbs hacked off and were allowed to bleed to death. The women were burned alive in bonfires.
So did any of this actually happen? On the negative side, it seems unlikely that the hundreds or even thousands of victims ascribed to the Beans would go unrecorded (or indeed, the mass execution of the clan when caught.) On the positive side, the cave exists and would have made an excellent hideout. There's also the fact that James VI had an obsession with witchcraft (he even authored the book "Daemonologie" and oversaw the North Berwick witch trials) and probably would have wanted to get involved in such an investigation!
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| One tale has the gadaidhe change his ways after seeing a penitent in the river... (Wietse Jongsma) |
An Gadaidhe Dubh, the Black Robber of County Cork
Also known as
Gadaí Dubh or the Black Thief, this roguish figure comes to us form the folklore of County Cork in Ireland. It was said that this figure had no fear and no shame. He'd wander around the settlements of County Cork, helping himself to everything from the shoes on a horse to the clothing left on washing lines. He'd even crash weddings, upstage the groom and steal kisses from the bride!
One day he passed a fairy mound and heard the words “Íocfaidh, Íocfaidh” or "will pay, will pay." With his usual lack of fear he asked "who would pay? the response that floated back was "your family or their family." Chuckling to himself that he'd evade any such retribution, the thief continued his larcenous ways.
Some time later, the robber heard the sounds of metalwork and masonry as he roamed the streets of Ballyvourney. Curious, he traced the source of the din and found a group of workmen constructing a church to Saint Gobnait... and the workmen had left their tools, a bag of silver coins and a fine horse unguarded.
Soon the thief was riding away with his newly acquired loot, racing through the nighttime countryside until dawn broke... at which point he found that he'd been riding circles around the church all night. The saint had interceded, cursing him with "meascán mearaí" or befuddlement.
As a side note, this seems oddly similar to another folk belief called the gallitrap - criminals who walked in these fairy circles would become disorientated, left wandering until a magistrate could arrest them!
The story goes that the thief realized that consequence could catch up with him and decided to mend his ways. A stone slab depicting the thief was placed at the church as a way of shaming him, where it remains to this day.
There's
another tale of how the Black Thief changed his ways. One cold night, he was herding a group of stolen livestock across a river when he saw a man standing in the icy waters, clutching a stick in his hands. When the gadaidhe asked what he was doing, the man replied that he was seeking atonement for his sins - and that he'd be successful when leaves sprouted from the stick. He also mentioned that he'd been at this task for a century.
Suddenly concerned for his own odds in the afterlife, the thief decided to stay with the penitent - and the next morning, leaves sprouted from the stick. The gadaidhe refrained from ever stealing again!
A more ambiguous take on the thief can be found in the tale of the "
The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen." To summarize, three princes (who'd been tricked by their royal stepmother) are tasked with stealing the Steed of Bells from the Knight of the Glen. This horse would shake whenever someone approached, ringing the bells and summoning the knight... who would cook any would-be thieves alive.
The princes meet the Black Thief on the road - and he decides to try and help them on their doomed quest. Sure enough, they are captured when the steed raises the alarm... but the thief makes a deal with the knight - he agrees to spare each prince, providing the thief can tell a tale of when he was closer to death than that prince is now.
Not only does the thief have a story of his exploits (some of which paint him in a most unflattering light) that wins the freedom of each prince, his last story features him saving a child and killing a man-eating giant with trickery - though he lost both a chunk of his hip and a toe in the process.
Here's the twist - an old woman in the court confirms the story and identifies the Knight of the Glen as the child saved by the Black Thief. The knight pardons all of them, and even gives them the steed once he hears of their quest. As for the wicked stepmother, she falls to her death upon seeing the princes return in triumph!
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| Modern day Mawddwy - no wonder bandits thought it'd be a good hideout... (William Hook) |
The Baron-Killing Red Bandits of MawddwyFrom 16th century Wales comes the tale of the "Gwylliaid Cochion Mawddwy" or "Red Bandits of Mawddwy." You might be wondering about the name - well,
it seems that this group of marauders had red hair.After the Wars of the Roses (an English civil war) a large number of former soldiers who'd got a little too used to pillaging found that they didn't want to reassimilate into society. A fair number ended up in Mawddwy.
Now it should go without saying that these were not good people - if they weren't stealing cattle, they were directly robbing and murdering the locals. Farms and manors alike had to be fortified, with the occupants fitting scythe blades or spikes in the chimneys to deter the bandits from gaining entry.
Though the remoteness of their hideout kept them safe for a time, such activity can only fly under the radar for so long.
Lewis ab Owen, Baron of the Exchequer of Wales and Sheriff of Merionethshire, was ordered to clear them out.
On the Christmas Eve 1554, the baron led a group of men up the valley to the bandit's camp (
thought to be the farmhouse Dugoed Mawr, which still exists as a listed building) while they were drunk and feasting. Caught unawares, eighty of the Red Bandits were captured and summarily executed at a mound (
Collfryn mound or Boncyn y Gwylliaid) where the Collfryn Farm estate now stands. Apparently the mother of two of the bandits confronted the baron - exposing her chest, the hag screamed that
“These yellow breasts have given suck to those who shall wash their hands in your blood.”The threat was realized on All Hallows' Eve in 1555. The surviving Red Bandits had cut trees to block the path at Llidiart-y-Barwn, trapping the baron, his brother-in-law and two servants. Leading with a volley of arrows from the woods (and striking the baron in the face) the bandits overwhelmed the baron and his brother-in-law with spears and bills - apparently they ripped him open and washed their hands in his blood, thus fulfilling the hag's curse.
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