Legendary outdoors chronicler Alfred Todger investigates the mysterious Old Grey Woman of Muckthwaite Moor in this week's outdoors diary entry.
Muckthwaite, Friday 29 September, 2006
Many folk will have heard tell of the 'Old Grey Woman' of
Muckthwaite Moor and many's the encounter I've had with her ghostly,
inexplicable presence. The first mention of the phenomenon was in the
writings of Victorian pioneer Sir Francis Waffle.
'As I neared the summit of the moor,' he writes in his classic
tome, Travels Amongst the Muck, 'I became aware of a strange presence
behind me. As I walked I became cogniscent of the ghostly echoing
sound of clicking, not unlike knitting needles, which appeared to
emanate from the murky depths of the moor.
'Yet strangely when I stopped and surveyed my surroundings,
there was nothing and nobody to be seen. At that I heard a low,
female cackle. My resolve quite dissolved, I fled and it wasn't until
I reached the sanctuary of the inn in Muckthwaite village that I
regained my composure'.
Well since then, not a few walkers have sensed a dark and gloomy
presence knitting behind them on the moors. Some say they can make
out the distinctive sound of wrinkled stockings rubbing together as
she walks, and a few maintain with quivering voices, that they've
caught a glimpse of a vast, shadowy figure in a tatty housecoat with
its hair in rollers towering over them.
None knows what she is or what she wants, some say as she was cast
out onto the moors after she knitted one Christmas cardy too many,
others that she's simply selling cheap kitchenware door to door and
simply has a poor sense of direction.
Some things though, we're not meant to understand. Stuff like as
pot-holing and new-fangled softshell clothing. Mystery is there for a
reason I say, and long may it stay so. There's few things that'll
leave cold sweat dripping down the base of your spine like the Old
Grey Lady mind. But then I rather like that.
Alfred Todger
