North Yorkshire Folk Tales Read Online Free PDF Page A

adventure!
    As he began to ease the sword out of its scabbard, all of the sleepers began to stir and breathe more quickly. In terror, he thrust it back again. After a brief, horrible moment, the sleepers relaxed again and the regular breathing filled the cavern once more.
    Reluctantly Potter Thompson realised that he would have to abandon Excalibur. ‘I’ll take that horn at any rate,’ he said to himself, reaching out for it. This time it was worse. As soon as he touched it, the warriors began to stir again. Some muttered in their sleep and one or two even began to sit up and fumble for their swords.
    It was too much for Potter Thompson. He dropped the horn, turned and ran. Down the long tunnel he crashed, blundering into walls and banging his head. As he ran he heard a voice singing, though whether it was behind him or in the walls themselves he could not tell. The words remained burned into his memory:

    Potter Thompson, Potter Thompson
    If thou hadst either drawn
    The sword or wound the horn
    Then thou hadst been the luckiest man
    That ever yet was born!

    His wife was amazed when he came home shaking and bleeding from a hundred scrapes and scratches. For once she did not scold him but put him to bed with a hot brick at his feet. He slept like a log for a whole day.
    His wife’s kindness proved just a temporary lapse, but Potter Thompson himself was never quite the same man again, though his life seemed to go back to its normal dull routine. His friends did not exactly believe his story, but they could not help feeling a little proud of him and there were few weeks when he was not to be found sitting in the alehouse, a free pint in his fist, being encouraged to tell his tale to wondering strangers.
    ‘You wait,’ he used to say to his friends, ‘one day I’ll go back in there and bring you proof!’ But he could never find the entrance again and they are all still waiting …
T HE D RUMMER B OY
Swaledale
    On top of Richmond rock stands not just the town of Richmond but a fine medieval castle, built, it is said, by William the Conqueror. Long after it ceased to be used to guard the city it got a new lease of life as the home of the local militia. A barracks was built inside the curtain walls and the echoes of trumpets were once again thrown back by the ancient stone.
    Everyone knew Potter Thompson’s story by this time, though he himself was long dead. Children told each other about it and spent the summer (as my own children did 200 years later) searching for the entrance to his wonderful cave. His was not the only story they told each other, though – there was said to be a treasure hidden beneath the Gold Hole tower and the secret tunnel that leads to Easby Abbey. If only you could get into the castle itself, they thought, who knows what you might find? If only the soldiers were not there …
    The soldiers heard these stories too and were just as keen as the children to search for some way into the secret places of the rock. One day a group of soldiers was sent down to the dungeons to clear space for the storage of gunpowder. The opportunity to explore was too good to miss: they had plenty of candles with them and, once they had moved some of the rubbish accumulated over centuries, they started to search in good earnest for secret passages.
    ‘What would you do if we found the cave? Take the sword or blow the horn?’Fred asked Bill.
    ‘I don’t mind,’ said Bill, ‘as long we wake up some decent soldiers. Happen they’ll fight the French instead of us.’
    ‘Well, I hope those old fellers down there know how to fire a musket, then!’ laughed Fred.
    ‘I don’t want to wake the old knights,’ chipped in the twelve-year-old drummer boy named Georgie, who was searching with them. ‘I just want to become the luckiest person that ever was born!’ They went from cellar to cellar, dungeon to dungeon, lower and lower until they could go no further.
    ‘I reckon we’ve had it now,’ said another of the