Shropshire Folk-Lore, a Sheaf of Gleanings (Volume 1) - Tapa blanda

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1883. Excerpt: ... fight, after which misdemeanour, Fulk was constrained to carry his sword over to Llewellyn of Wales, who was ready enough to befriend a disaffected March-man. But King John and his men came in force against Llewellyn, and though for a short time Fulk was restored to Whittington, the prince presently made peace with the king of England, and Fulk judged it expedient to go beyond seas, where he 'assayed marvels' enough to fill a volume; till at last he returned to England, and fell upon the king as he was hunting in the New Forest, carried him captive on board ship, and forced him to restore his lands and reverse his outlawry. So Fulk returned to Whittington in peace, and had the king's peace all the days of his life, and was buried at last in the New Abbey at Alberbury by Severn side, which he had founded. All this and much more both of fact and fiction is told in the Norman-French romance which records our hero's deeds,1 and which, in spite of its inaccuracies and impossibilities, presents so vivid a picture of life on the Welsh Marches in the thirteenth century that, had space permitted, I would gladly have given a fuller account of it here. The name of Fulk Fitz Warine, however, has utterly vanished from the popular traditions. Still, the dim remembrance of an earlier outlaw, who also rode with horse-shoes reversed and fell upon his enemies under Nesscliff Hill, may perhaps have led to the importation into the legend of Wild Humphrey, of places with which the Kynastons had nothing to do--such as the Breidden Hills and Loton Park, the present 'great house' of Alberbury, which was the Fitz Warines' earliest Shropshire home.2 Nesscliff seems to have been the haunt of outlaws and highwaymen from time immemorial. It overlooks the high road from Shrewsbury to Oswestry, along which the Sh...