Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents, and Strange Events

Metadata

Gutenberg ID

—

Title

Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents, and Strange Events

Language

en

Book source

Global Grey

Description max 80 words

Sabine Baring-Gould presents a haunting collection of eccentric characters and supernatural events from Yorkshire. Blending folklore with true crime, this volume explores ghostly apparitions, fraudulent prophets, and the bizarre lives of local oddities, offering a vivid glimpse into the county's rich, strange history.

Summary up to 500 words

In *Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents, and Strange Events*, Sabine Baring-Gould compiles a vivid collection of memoirs and strange occurrences from his years of residence in Yorkshire, celebrating the county's unique eccentricity. The volume blends the mystical with the criminal, preserving tales of strong characters before they fade into history. The book opens with a preface noting that no other county produces so much originality, often carried to excess. One prominent narrative details the haunting of Trinity Church in York, where witnesses describe recurring visions of a mother, nurse, and child appearing on the stained glass window. These figures, dressed in white, move with distinct gestures of despair before vanishing. Baring-Gould corroborates these accounts with letters from multiple observers, noting the figures' clarity and their apparent existence outside the church, creating an impression of real persons walking past the window rather than shadows on the glass. The volume also delves into human oddities, such as Jemmy Hirst, a fiddler who collected children and old women, sold doggerel verses, and kept a coffin to show visitors. He accumulated hundreds of garters from women trapped in his coffin and died at ninety-one, leaving specific bequests for his funeral music. Another section recounts the tragedy at Beningbrough Hall, involving a Roman Catholic family, a stolen fortune, and the mysterious murder of a housekeeper, Marian, in a beech avenue by a gamekeeper named Martin Giles. The narrative shifts to the infamous Mary Bateman, a fraudster who poisoned her husband and others using magical charms and false notes. Despite her eventual conviction and execution for poisoning, she maintained her innocence until the scaffold. Even in her final hours, she continued her deception, attempting to sell charms to other prisoners. Through these varied accounts, Baring-Gould captures the peculiar blend of the supernatural and the criminal that defined Yorkshire's annals, offering a humble contribution to the county's history.

LLM editorial rating

4.2/5

Download URL

https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/ebooks/sabine-baring-gould_yorkshire-oddities.epub

Local file path

data/epubs/url-582812ee21074307.epub

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Categories

• Folklore
• Paranormal