Brancepeth Castle in 1777.
Scottish armies, commanded on the one side by Edward III., and on the other by the Earl of Murray and Sir James Douglas, lay encamped for some days over against each other on the hills round Stanhope. No battle was fought, and the Scots withdrew by night, having deceived Edward by false intelligence. The remains of the earthworks in which the two armies entrenched themselves may still be seen.
St. John’s Chapel, seven miles west of Stanhope, is the last considerable village on the road to Alston before it crosses the boundary of Durham. The chapel is mentioned in the fifteenth century, and a market and annual fair were held there, but there were few inhabitants until the end of the eighteenth century. From St. John’s Chapel the road leads up over the moors, past the sources of the Wear, and crosses the county boundary on Killhope Moor.
FOLK-LORE OF THE COUNTY OF DURHAM
By Mrs. Newton W. Apperley
WHOEVER makes a study of the folk-lore of a county will find that its customs, beliefs, and superstitions, have their origin in immemorial antiquity. To find out the reason for many a curious and apparently frivolous observance it is necessary to go back many centuries, to the time when a nature-worship, already immeasurably old, was practised; when the sun and moon, fire, water, and earth, were personified by gods and goddesses. Festivals were held in honour of each, and stones and trees, wells and rivers, had their temples and devotees. These were overlaid by and mingled with the successive rituals of Roman, Saxon, and Dane, and finally were almost, but not quite, conquered by Christianity. The older faiths made a stubborn resistance to the reformer, and though adapted and altered, many of their usages survive to this day.
The four great Fire Festivals of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter were Christianized and dedicated anew; some of the gods and goddesses were re-named as saints; and many of the rites belonging to their worship were modified into Christian observances.
But the people kept their old superstitions, and placed their faith in the charms and amulets belonging to the ancient worship. In the North especially the old beliefs lingered long, and even now, in the twentieth century, many quaint customs are to be found. Most of the people who practise them could give no reason for so doing, and have certainly no knowledge of their origin. It is "lucky" to do this, and "unlucky" to do that, is all they can say.
The county of Durham, though the especial patrimony and property of St. Cuthbert, is particularly rich in legends and traditions, in places both haunted and hallowed, and in old-world observances of all kinds. Many are the stories of giants, brownies, fairies, ghosts, witches, and "worms" or dragons, told of and in it.