Ghosts and folklore of the North York Moors

Hobs: the household spirits of the moors

In moors folklore a hob is a small spirit that lives on a farm or in a house, usually helpful, threshing corn or finishing jobs overnight in return for a little food. Hobs could be offended by poor treatment, and local legend says that giving a hob a gift of clothes was an insult that drove it away for good.

Ryedale Folk Museum in Hutton-le-Hole tells the story of the moors hobs, and records a list of local hobs compiled in the 1820s. Hobs were linked with farms in Farndale, Glaisdale and elsewhere, and with caves on the coast near Runswick Bay.

Witch posts

A witch post is a carved oak post beside an old hearth, with a cross carved at the top. Fewer than twenty are known, and most are on the North York Moors, which makes them one of the area's most distinctive pieces of folk history. Tradition says they protected the hearth and the house from witches.

Ryedale Folk Museum has three, including one in Stang End, an old cruck-framed longhouse rebuilt at the museum.

Wade the giant and the Hole of Horcum

Local legend says the Hole of Horcum, the great hollow beside the A169 between Pickering and Whitby, was made by Wade the giant. Quarrelling with his wife Bell, he scooped up a handful of earth and threw it at her. He missed, and the clod landed to become Blakey Topping, the round hill nearby.

Wade is also said to have built Wade's Causeway, the ancient road across Wheeldale Moor, so that Bell could take her cattle to pasture. Historians still debate whether the road is Roman or later, and English Heritage looks after the surviving stretch.

Ralph Cross, Fat Betty and Lilla Cross

Old stone crosses mark the moorland roads, and each has its legend. Young Ralph Cross, near Rosedale Head, is the emblem of the North York Moors National Park. Local legend links the Ralph crosses with a traveller who died of exhaustion on the moor, and with a Danby farmer named Ralph who raised a cross where he was found.

Nearby stands the cross known as Fat Betty, which has legends of its own. On Fylingdales Moor, Lilla Cross is said in legend to mark the grave of Lilla, who died in 626 saving King Edwin of Northumbria from an assassin's dagger. Historic England dates the present cross to around the 10th century.

The Byland Abbey ghost stories

Some of the oldest ghost stories in England come from the edge of the moors. In about 1400 a monk at Byland Abbey wrote down twelve local ghost stories on spare pages of a manuscript that is now in the British Library. The ghosts take strange forms, including a horse, a raven and a haystack, and most of them want prayers or a task completed so they can rest.

The stories were published by the ghost story writer M.R. James in 1922. In one, the restless ghost of a former rector of Kirkby was dug up by the monks, who tried to sink his coffin in Gormire Lake. English Heritage cares for the ruins of Byland Abbey and has held ghost story events there.

Haunted castles and halls

Scarborough Castle has one of the best known ghost legends on the coast. Piers Gaveston, the favourite of Edward II, surrendered the castle in 1312 and was executed soon afterwards. Local legend says his headless ghost haunts the castle and tries to lure visitors towards the cliff edge.

At Nunnington Hall, in Ryedale, the National Trust house is said to be haunted by Lady Nunnington, a stepmother who mistreated her stepson. Legend says the rustle of her silk dress can be heard on the stairs.

The Hand of Glory from Castleton

One of the eeriest objects in the area came from a moorland village. A mummified hand, said to be a Hand of Glory used by burglars, was found in a cottage wall in Castleton and is now in Whitby Museum. Our Whitby ghost stories guide tells the legend.

Folk customs and ghost walks today

Some traditions are still alive. The Goathland Plough Stots perform their longsword dance each January, a custom that grew from farm lads dragging a plough to church to be blessed. In Kirkbymoorside, the local history group has led walks telling the town's ghost stories, and Whitby has its own ghost walks.