[The Dragon of Wantley.]
Once on a time—as the old storytellers were wont to commence their tales of love, chivalry, and romance—there dwelt in the most wild and rugged part of Wharncliffe Chase, near Rotherham, a fearful dragon, with iron teeth and claws. How he came there no one knew, or where he came from; but he proved to be a most pestilent neighbour to the villagers of Wortley—blighting the crops by the poisonous stench of his breath, devouring the cattle of the fields, making no scruple of seizing upon a plump child or a tender young virgin to serve as a bonne-bouche for his breakfast table, and even crunching up houses and churches to satisfy his ravenous appetite.
Wortley, is situated in the parish of Penistone, and belongs now, as it has done for centuries, to the Wortley family. Before the dissolution of monasteries, the Rectory of Penistone belonged to the Abbey of St. Stephen, Westminster, and was granted, when the Abbey was dissolved, to Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, who out of the proceeds established in Sheffield a set of almshouses. The impropriation of the great tithes were let to the Wortley family, who, by measures of oppression and extortion, contrived to get a great deal more than they were entitled to, and Nicholas Wortley insisted on taking the tithes in kind, but was opposed by Francis Bosville, who obtained a decree (17th Elizabeth) against him; but Sir Francis Wortley, in the succeeding reign, again attempted to enforce payment in kind, with so much disregard to the suffering he inflicted upon the poor that they determined upon finding out some champion who would dare to attack this redoubtable dragon in his den at Wantley, so as to put an end, once and for all, to the destruction of their crops, the loss of their cattle, and the desolation of their ruined homes. Foremost in this movement was one Lyonel Rowlestone, who married the widow of Francis Bosville; and the parishioners entered into an agreement to unite in opposition to the claims of the Wortleys. The parchment on which it is written is dated 1st James I., and bristles with the names and seals of the people of Penistone of that time, and is still extant.
In the neighbourhood, on a moor not far from Bradfield, stood a mansion called More or Moor Hall, and was inhabited by a family who had resided there from the time of Henry II., but of whom little is known, excepting the wonderful achievement of one member of the family, "More of More Hall," who slew the Dragon of Wantley.
The family had for their crest a green dragon, and there was formerly in Bradfield Church a stone dragon, five feet in length, which had some connection with the family. To this worthy, who, it is supposed, may have been an attorney or counsellor, the parishioners of Penistone, having decided upon appealing to the law courts, applied to undertake their case, and make battle on the terrible dragon in his den among the rocks of the forest of Wharncliffe. He readily complied with their wish, and with great boldness and valour prepared for the conflict by going to Sheffield and ordering a suit of armour, studded with spikes—that is, arming himself with the panoply of law, and then went forth and made the attack. The fight is said, in the ballad narrative, to have lasted two days and nights, probably the duration of the lawsuit, and in the end he killed the dragon, or won his suit, thus relieving the people of Penistone from any further annoyance or unjust exaction from that quarter. Sir Francis Wortley persuaded his cousin Wordsworth, the freehold lord of the manor (ancestor, lineal or collateral, of the Poet Wordsworth), to stand aloof in the matter, and now the Wortley and the Wordsworth are the only estates in the parish that pay tithes.
To commemorate the event an exceedingly humorous and cleverly satirical ballad was written, which, being also a lively burlesque on the ballad romances of chivalry, served the same purpose towards them that Cervantes' "Don Quixote" did for the prose fictions of the same character. Thus opens the ballad—
"Old stories tell how Hercules
A dragon slew at Gerna,
With seven heads and fourteen eyes
To see and well discerna;
But he had a club, this dragon to drub,
Or he had ne'er I warrant ye;
But More of More Hall with nothing at all,
He slew the dragon of Wantley.