Jenny Greenteeth and other terrifying tales...
NEW BOOK REVISITS WORKS OF 19TH CENTURY SUPERNATURAL FOLKLORIST
THEY’RE the weird and wonderful bogeymen of Victorian Manchester.
From Jenny Greenteeth, a terrifying fairy who supposedly drowned children, to Nut Nan, a red hot poker-wielding, pipe-smoking sprite who attacked kids who stole nuts from her tree, our ancestors told some gruesome tales.
But over the years much of Manchester’s macabre folklore has been lost to the mists of time. Until now... Historian Simon Young has complied the works of 19th Century supernatural folklorist John Higson in a new book.
Gorton-born Higson spent years walking around the towns and villages of Manchester, Lancashire and Derbyshire collecting tales of boggarts (evil spirits), ghouls, ghosts and fairies.
His supernatural sketches, which were published in local newspapers and in two books, gave a fascinating insight into the lives, fears and preoccupations of Victorian Mancunians.
Mr Young said: “Born to a poor family, raised without an education, Higson became, through hardwork and talent, one of the most exciting Lancashire folklore writers of his generation, and got to be friends with some of the most influential county authors of his day. But, because Higson never brought his work together in a single volume his supernatural prose has been lost in obscure and forgotten publications.
“This is the first time his folklore compositions have been gathered together in the hope of giving Higson, and the supernatural world he inhabited, the attention they so richly deserve.”
To coincide with the publication of his book, South Manchester Supernatural: The Ghosts, Fairies, Boggarts and Superstitions of Victorian Gorton, Lees, Newton and Saddleworth, Simon takes us though some of the grisliest tales collected by Higson...
Jenny Greenteeth
When Higson was a boy in Gorton his parents terrified him with stories of Jenny Greenteeth, a water-loving fairy who ‘lurked at the bottom of watery pits, and with their long sinewy arms dragged in and drowned children venturing too near.’
Jenny also hunted after children who did not brush their teeth. I have evidence incidentally that some children in the north west still grew up with this threat in the 1960s! Higson remembered once being shown by his parents a horrible set of green teeth which, they alleged, belonged to Jenny. She was reported as living in Gorton, Droylsden and Stockport, where she sat in trees and moaned.
Nut Nan
Another Gorton bogey was the Nut Nan, an old tree fairy who smoked a pipe and who lived in the hazel groves, where nut-bearing trees were a precious local commodity frequently raided by children.
Woe betide any young Mancunian who went to pick the nuts, particularly before they were ripe to eat. The Gorton Nut Nan carried around a permanently
South Clock House Boggart
Higson lived for several years in Droyslden, where he became fascinated with the supernatural fauna.
Droylsden had a dozen different boggarts – the word could be used for any scary supernatural being – which Higson lovingly recorded.
One of the most interesting was the boggart of South Clock House.
Covered in ghostly white clothes, he used to have the run of the property, ripping bed clothes off sleepers and terrifying anyone who woke up by swelling to an enormous size in candlelit rooms. Neighbours also complained that the boggart used to perch in a high branch on a nearby yew tree terrifying passersby. In the end matters in the neighbourhood got so bad a series of vicars and priests were called together to do supernatural battle with the poor boggart. They managed, using arcane ceremonies, to trap the boggart beneath that yew where he had sat.
Church Street, Lees
Higson came to Lees in his 40s and died there, alas, before his time.
The most haunted road in the village was Church Street, formerly known by the suggestive name of Sorcey Lane.
It was a short street but had two different and terrifying spirits.
One of the old dwellings acquired the name of ‘Boggart House,’ in consequence of its being haunted by a hobgoblin having the appearance of a calf, some said with a cap on its head, and others a frill round its neck.
A woman in the same street had murdered two children in her cellar and the restless ghosts of these poor children flitted up and down the road.
Raura Peena
Apart from the various Saddleworth boggarts, Higson also talks of the last of the Saddleworth fairies.
These were found, not surprisingly, on the hill above Greenfield, the valley with the most pre-20th Century fairy reports of any place I know of in northern England. There were Pots and Pans, great rocks frequented by the fairies and the nearby Fairy Holes, a complex of caverns, which Higson certainly visited. Higson claimed that the fairies decamped several years before his arrival. The last fairy in the valley had been called Raura Peena. She appeared to a Greenfield man just a few yards from the Pots and Pans. Wisely the man did not follow her into the Fairy Holes.