Magi to the rescue

The Shillington Goblins once inhabited the pretty Bedfordshire village of that name, only a short distance from where I currently dwell.

After Oliver Cromwell won the English Civil War in 1651, his strict Puritan faith led the Protector to ban much of the celebratory aspects of life in the land, including Christmas, music, song, theatre and public merry-making in general; little Shillington was particularly blighted by Cromwell’s anti-entertainment edict.

To counter this, relatively benign, fun-loving goblins and other magical beings appeared in the village to produce feats of magic and wonder, a form of Faerie resistance against the grim Puritans, who of course had already infected the American Colonies with their depressing creed. And still do.

Anyway, the goblin-folk (who varied in size from munchkins to giants) would gather in the village’s central meadow at the foot of the hill on which the church stood (which Cromwell’s soldiers had ridden through, causing much damage), and at each equinox and every solstice, conduct ecstatic revels deep into the night, with strange, flickering lights accompanying the riotous partying.

The villagers were cheered, rather than terrified by these magical visitors and would conduct their own more restrained celebrations as the goblins danced the evening away.

Incidentally, my distant ancestor Richard Arnell, one of the Levellers, was executed on Cromwell’s orders in Ware, Hertfordshire. Frank Finlay played Arnell (named “John Carter” and given a fictitious backstory as a former friend of the Protector) in the 1970s historical drama motion picture Cromwell, in which he was hanged rather than shot.

Back to the goblins. Their groovy happenings occurred for one night every spring, summer, autumn and winter until King Charles II was restored in 1660 – and the goblins never returned.

But as the story goes, after their departure, once each year a faerie ring – a henge of mushrooms – would appear in the corner of their meadow as both a a reminder and a pledge to the good people of Shillington that should the monarchy ever fall once more, the goblins would return to the same spot and continue their carousing ‘til King of England sat on the throne again.

By the early 20th century, the tale had begun to fade from memory, but a mushroom henge still appeared periodically in the meadow where the goblins were said to frolic, situated where New Walk and Hillfoot Road now meet.

However by the 1950s, a dwelling was built on the exact spot and the faerie ring has never appeared again, understandable given the brick and concrete structure now built on its former home. To some, it’s not exactly clear whether the myth of the faerie ring predated the Shillington Goblins who were supposed to have appeared there, a handy way of explaining the phenomenon and also sticking it to the Puritans, who dominated Bedfordshire, the home county of John ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ Bunyan.

Faerie Rings in England

Faerie rings, which are also known as elf rings or pixie rings, are naturally occurring circles of mushrooms, which grow out of the ground in a circular shape. Some circles are small in size while others can grow up to 600 metres in diameter.

Nations throughout Europe have their own folklore tales about the rings. In English and Celtic folklore, they are caused by faeries or elves dancing in a circle. If humans joined in the dance they would be punished by the faeries, made to dance in the ring until they fainted from sheer exhaustion. Akin to Sydney Pollack’s 1969 movie They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

Beware the weirdless days and weary nights

It was believed the rings should not be cultivated. Grazing them, and even more importantly, ploughing them, was strongly discouraged: a Scottish ballad warned, “He wha tills the fairies’ green Nae luck shall hae; And he wha spills the faries’ ring Betide him want and wae; For weirdless days and weary nights Are his til his deein’ day!”

Anyone foolish enough to ignore such advice would find their cattle struck down with ‘murrain’ – a deadly plague affecting domestic animals.

In Germany, things took a typically even more nasty turn, as the circles were actually known as witches’ rings. Witches would dance on ‘Walpurgis Night’, a spring celebration taking place exactly six months before Halloween. I can personally attest to the spooky penchant of the Germans, having been terrified as a child by a portrait of the Kinderfresser (Child-Eater) that was hanging in Black Forest Inn my family stayed at one evening on a touring holiday in the 1970s. Or was it Der Struwwelpeter ('Shock-Headed Peter')? I forget which.

Walpurgis Night was the theme of Bram Stoker’s short story Dracula’s Guest, which wasn’t included in his novel Dracula.

In Austria, dragons were/are supposedly responsible for faerie rings, burning them into forest floors with their fiery tails.

Stephen Arnell’s novel THE GREAT ONE is available to purchase on Amazon Kindle: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-One-Secret-Memoirs-Pompey-ebook/dp/B0BNLTB2G7

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