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Unless otherwise stated, this image is the copyright of the submitter. Contact them for permission to reproduce it. |  | | Description | Mitchell`s fold looking north. An interesting legend about this site comes from charlotte burn`s "shropshire folklore"(1883): "in times gone by, before anyone now living can remember,there was once a dreadful famine all about thus country, and the people had like to have been clemmed. there were many more living in this part then, than what there are now and times were very bad indeed. and all they had to depend upon was, that there used to come a fairy cow upon the hill, up at mitchell`s fold, night and morning, to be milked. A beautiful pure white cow she was, and no matter how many came to milk her, there was always enough for all, so long as everyone that came only took one pailful. It was in this way: if anyone was to milk her dry, she would go away and never come again; but so long as everyone took only a pailful apiece, she never would be dry. They might take whatever vessel they liked, to milk her into, so long as it was only one apiece, she would always fill it.
well, and at last there came an old witch, Mitchell her name was. A bad old woman she was, and did a great deal of harm and had a spite against everybody. And she brought a riddle and milked the cow into that, an of course the poor thing couldn`t fill it. And the old woman milked her and milked her and at last she milked her dry , and the cow was was never seen there again , nor after. Folks say she went off into warwickshire like a crazy thing and turned into the wild dun cow that Guy, earl of warwick killed; but anyhow they say she was sadly missed in this country and a many died after she was gone, and there`s never been so many living about here, not since. But the old woman got her punishment. She was turned into one of those stones on the hillside and all the oter stones were put up round her to keep her in, and that`s how the place came to be called mitchell`s fold, because her name was mitcell, you see. There used to be more stones than there are now , but they have been taken away at one time or another. it`s best not to meddle with such places. there was a farmer lived by there and he blew up some of them and took away the pieces to put around his horsepond, but he never did no good after." |
| Posted Comments: mynd
(2009-08-11) | I really like this picture - mine always look so bleak at this site. Your brief history doesn't mention the farmer who hacked the stones down in 1995 with a digger! Though he was real and not the mythological, unfortunately. Really the folklore deserves to be included in the site description, methinx. |
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