Loremen Podcast - S2 Ep13: Loremen S2 Ep13 - The Hexham Heads and The Mickleton Hooter

Episode Date: March 14, 2019

In this final episode of series two we come bang up to date (to the 1970s) with a North Eastern tale of Celtic effigies. Then we narrowly avoid Royal slander to chat about the incomparably named "Mickleton Hooter". In a way, this episode ties a lot of threads together - Parcy Reed (S1 E1) gets a shout out, the Screetonizer (S2 E6) shows up again, there's a Dun Cow (S1 E6) and even the Mickleton Hooter lurks in the shadow of Meon Hill (S2 E7). We are terribly sorry there is no mention of Chekhov's Gun in this episode. It's like we referred to it early on in the series but then it never paid off. Sorry Chekhov. The Loremen shall return! @loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod @JamesShakeshaft | @MisterABK  

Welcome to the final episode of Lawmen Series 2. I'm Alistair Beckett-King, the baddest man in the whole damn town. And I'm James Shakeshaft, the nicest man in the whole damn town. This is my final story for Lawmen Series 2, and it puts the hex in hexam. This story, James, is an extremely unusual one by the standards of lawmen. Oh, wow. Yeah, normally my stories involve, you know,

poring over dusty old books of lore and mystery. Well, that's more about your housekeeping. Indeed. Oh, seriously, I pulled the desk out yesterday and there were some, like, animal-sized chunks of dust there. And so I pushed the desk right back in and did nothing about it. For the best. What makes this story remarkable is that it's incredibly, incredibly recent. It takes place

slap bang in the early 1970s. Ooh. Yeah. Late 20th century. Wow. Post-war. Whoa. It's the height of wings mania. Yeah. So just pop some flares in front of your eyes and look at us through a corduroy filter. I say that as someone wearing corduroy flares.

And what that means is, first of all, there are no public domain images I can use for the website. This is annoying. Okay. But they're all there if you Google and no one cares. Yeah, so it took place in the early 70s. The other good news is that we're going to meet an old friend in the form of Paul Screton. Do you remember the journalist from the North East who covered the Hartlepool Monkey? Oh, the Scretoniser. That's right. The guy who led us to coin the phrase Screton. Do you remember the journalist from the North East who covered the Hartlepool Monkey? Oh, the Scretoniser.

That's right. The guy who led us to coin the phrase Scretonise. This story has been thoroughly Scretonised. Oh, brilliant. He's written a book about it and also a pamphlet, which is what I have read. I didn't read the book.

And it's the story of the Hexham Heads. The Hexham Heads. You heard me. Whoa. Yeah, not the Hexham Heads, not people who really like Hexham, but the Hexham Heads. The Hexham Heads? You heard me. Whoa. Yeah, not the Hexham Heads, not people who really like Hexham, but the Hexham Heads. Hexham is a small place in County Durham. Two youngish lads, one 14, one 17, the Robson boys, were messing around in the garden and they found two extremely

strange objects. Two carved heads, somewhere between the size of a tangerine and a tennis ball. objects two carved heads somewhere between the size of a tangerine and a tennis ball one apparently a boy and one apparently a girl and they're very strange features they're called the boy and the girl but they're also known as the the skull face and the wall-eyed hag the boy gets off a bit lightly he's just rocking heroin chick yeah i mean they've got they've got sort of strange very strange carving and and an important feature they have is a tenon neck meaning that their neck sort of projects as if they were part of a doll perhaps or as if they were designed to sit on something or in something a tenon tenon is the it's it's a manufacturing thing i had to look

this up so it's like um this wasn't in the pamphlet. This is non-pamphlet-based material. Not even in the glossary. We're on Wikipedia now. Whoa. Yeah, it's a tenon. Look at what a tenon is. I can only mime what a tenon is. It's this.

I'm miming the gesture a child would mime for sex. Oh, yeah. That's what a tenon is. Your finger in the sex mime, that's the tenon. Okay. I think. I mean, I don't know a lot about... Don't know about sex. Tenon, don't know anything about sex. That's the tenon, I think. Okay. I think. I mean, I don't know a lot about... Don't know about sex.

Tenon, don't know about sex. A lot of this is based on Wikipedia. So they've been described by an archaeologist as having an archaic appearance. And this was in 1971, we think, although it's often reported as being 1972, because it didn't hit the news straight away. There wasn't no 24-hour news in those days. There wasn't. And also, so in those days. There wasn't. And also, so far, all that's happened is two boys found some doll's heads.

This is when weird things start happening. So there is all kinds of poltergeist activity attached to those heads. So quite low-key stuff, like during the night they'd be put away, and then they'd be found facing a different direction in the morning. And mirrors started to break. At one point, the Robson mum found a shattered mirror all in her frying pan one morning. The most bizarre of the lot is a neighbour, Mrs Dodd.

And Dodd is a really good Northeastern name. It's a Reaver name. Oh, I forgot to mention, the name of this street is Reed Avenue, R-E-D-E. I suspect as in Parsi Reed, because we're in the North East, and so it's probably named after our good mate, Parsi Pillow Slips Reed. Mr. Collops. Yeah, so it all connects listeners,

long-time listeners being rewarded in the smallest possible way. Long-time listeners clutching those red bits of wool and pins, finally getting to put one in. Yeah. I was looking in a... I must have said this before. I was looking in a... I must have said this before. I was looking in a cookbook and it mentioned collops. I think you did tell me that,

but I don't know if you told me it on the podcast. Yeah, well... So we know what a collop is. It was smaller than a minute steak, minute steak. Minute steak, isn't it? I have no idea. This is really the wrong person to be. A minute steak should take even less than a minute to cook, in my view.

Yeah, I reckon it must be a minute steak. Probably. It's very difficult to find out. The best thing to do would be to record the question in podcast form and just wait for answers to come in. Yeah, any butchers, please. Is it very small? Very quick.

Thank you. So next door on Reed Avenue lived Mrs Dodd and her son Brian, who I assume is quite young because she's sleeping in the same bed with him in this story because he's not very well. And in the night he wakes up saying that someone's touching him. And she says, no, no one's touching you, don't be silly. And then she feels something touching her. And she looks up and she sees a dark man-like figure

but with the top half of an animal. She describes it as being a sheep-like creature which turns and pads away into the night whoa yeah however according to there are quite a few decent blogs about this yeah we're using blogs not tomes because it was the 70s and we're up to date there's uh hexam heads uh blog and there's the... The real Hexham Heads. From when one of them left the group. And there's the Urban Prehistorian blog, both quite helpful. And they mentioned that, I think there was an abattoir quite nearby and at least one

case of a drunk man stealing a dead sheep in the middle of the night. But not necessarily breaking into the Dodd's house wearing the dead sheep. A drunk man stroking Brian. D breaking into the Dodds house wearing the dead sheep. A drunk man. Stroking Brian. Diving into the body, half of a body of a dead sheep. It could have happened. We don't know.

We don't know. But that's fairly sinister and it's not the last time that something of its nature will appear in this story. What, half sheepmen? Well, wait and see. So the heads, of course, have done a small amount of interest at this point. And they end up in the hands of the Museum of Antiquities in Newcastle. And eventually word gets to an archaeologist and expert in Celtic history, Dr. Anne Ross of Southampton University. And she gets super into the heads. So she takes

them with her to Southampton University and has them tested by one of her colleagues, Frank Hodson. Oh, Hodson's on the case. And he determines that from an examination of the construction that they are thousands of years old. Wow. And she builds a picture of these Celtic heads as being... Well, the head is very important in sort of Celtic mysticism. Heads apparently were used, people would carry them into the battle. They were used for good luck.

They were used as totems. And so she theorises that the site of Reed Street is the site of a Celtic shrine or some other site of importance. And in fact, there's a degree of scepticism, even from her, around the provenance of the heads. But the location they come from seems, for some reason, to make her particularly convinced that they are genuine and that they contain powers. And the other reason she believes them is that as soon as she gets hold of them, she starts to experience hauntings of some kind. Not just Dr. Ross, but the entire Ross family begin to experience, well, I'm going to use the word, werewolf. Oh, werewolf in Sheep's Clove? I mean, I've already written that down, James.

So yeah, to coin a phrase, werewolf in sheep's clothing. Yeah. So the reason we know about this is that Anne, perhaps unwisely, went on the BBC television programme Nationwide and in the interview told people what she'd never included in any of her academic writing about the heads, which was that there was a werewolf. It was about six feet tall, stooping, and covered in black fur on its top half,

the bottom half of a man, the top half of a wolf. And it wasn't just her that saw it. Her daughter recounts coming home, opening the door and seeing a black thing jump over the banister and land, quote, with a kind of plop, you know, like padded, heavy animal feet, which ran away into the back of the house and she wasn't able to track it down. Yeah, because she should have run away. And this extremely noisy apparition, which Paul Screton thinks sounds like a person in costume.

He thinks it's a real thing and it might be somebody in disguise because it sounds so unlike the usual kind of apparition. It doesn't sound very like the we woke up and we saw a walking sheep creature. It was during the day and we saw a really noisy, weird thing in our house. That said, the apparition stops as soon as the heads are removed from Dr. Ross's house. It's at this point that the story takes, I was going to say an unexpected twist, but I don't think you're going to be surprised in the slightest. A man called Desmond Craigie gets in touch to say that he used to live in the house and he made the heads 18 years before the

boys found them out of concrete, because he was a builder. Oh, that was unexpected. Oh, okay, it was unexpected. I thought you were going to say, of course a man made them. Of course he made them out of concrete. Yeah. I've seen an article from 1974 in the Sunday People about this. He's quoted as being a sort of a bluff Geordie builder, or I just made them out of concrete

to impress my daughter, because his daughter wanted to know what he did, so he made her some little heads out of concrete, which goes completely against the analysis that Dr. Ross had done, which said that they couldn't possibly have been moulded, they'd been carved. So with this builder, I'm thinking, cover up. He's a werewolf. You're not the only... You are the only person to have come up with the he's a werewolf theory.

But you're not the only person to think that he's not telling the truth. Oh. What was the Dr. Anne? Dr. Anne, there is some credence to his story. The heads are now sent up to Newcastle University where Dr. Douglas Robson, I think he's a doctor, examines them. Yeah, he's got the same surname, but he's a different man because everyone in the Northeast has one of three surnames.

I'm sorry about this. And I was so confused. Luckily, one of the websites I mentioned, the Hexham Heads blog, has a list of all the people involved. And there's like 12 Robsons. And I went down the list and there's like, there's Leslie Robson and Colin Robson and their parents Robson and Douglas Robson and Sparky Robson.

And I thought, who's Sparky Robson? And Sparky Robson is I thought who's Sparky Robson and Sparky Robson is their budgerigar it's included in the cast of characters on this website is he a werebudgerigar as far as we know no

but he did die during the poltergeist activity and in fact that website has done fairly recently an interview

with Colin Robson to check whether he thinks sorry it's one of my favourite things. The interview is about three lines long and all he asks about is the budgie. So he asks,

do you think the death of the budgie was in any way connected to the poltergeist activity caused by the heads? And he says no. But they buried the budgie and after they buried the budgie in the garden, Sparky, a bush grew in the area where the heads were found,

and it produced one flower which stayed there all winter and has been known at night to glow. Yeah, take that tangent and smoke it in your tangent pipe. What angle do you hold that tangent pipe at? 90 degrees, I hope. Definitely. Well, it depends on the angle of incidence, but it's not important. Yeah.

You get what I'm saying? Glowy bush. Sparky the budgie garden. Well, it depends on the angle of incident, but it's not important. Yeah. You get what I'm saying? Chloe Bush. Sparky the budgie car. Sparky the tragic budgie car. I don't know why I said budgie car. Sparky. Oh, no, Sparky. That's what I meant when they were like, Sparky's dead. The cage has been buckled as though it had a man-sized person in it who died and then turned back into a budgerigar

because it was a weird budgerigar. Do you get the picture? Struggling through the accent to paint a picture of a budgerigar turning into a man but getting crushed by that cage and then turning back into the budgerigar. There's every reason to assume that's what happened. Or to paraphrase that interview, no.

So Douglas Robson, scientist, no relation, investigates it and he says, yes, it's concrete and that it could well have been moulded. And his method of investigation is to take a sample of it and examine it rather than just to look at it under a microscope. So, I mean, I don't know a thing about geology. So at this point, enter Paul Screton. No.

All right. Can we keep on topic? All right. In that case, what Screton does is he starts travelling around investigating. So he goes to see Desmond Craigie, and Craigie offers to make a one of the heads to show what he did. So Craigie makes a new head. And this is where the controversy comes in, because it's widely believed that Craigie's head doesn't really look like the

original Hexham heads. It doesn't have the tenon neck. That's the important thing. He doesn't make it with a neck. However, like 20 years have passed since he claims to have made it. And if I'm honest, even though it undermines the mysteriousness of the story, I think it looks fairly like the head. That's not the only head Screeton picks up in his journey. He goes to see Colin Robson, former budgie owner, adult man now, and Colin Robson shows him a head that he had made as a boy at the age of 11 in school, which looks, at least in black and white, remarkably like the Hexham heads. But it's been painted and he's sort of done fangs. It's like a vampire head, but it's a very strange, ugly little head. And the front cover of Screeton's book is him holding the two

simulacra of the original Hexen heads, one by the builder and one by the boy. And most of the explanations are, well, one of them made it or the other one made it. But the idea that the boy made it, I found a little bit unsatisfying because it'd be a really weird scam because there's no reason to think that making them would get you in the news. Like making two doll's heads and pretending to find them in the garden. You can't assume that Anne Ross is going to blunder in with a werewolf and suddenly make this national news.

And if you had done that, why would you to a journalist say, oh, here's another one I made when I was 11? Without saying, I made those ones. Without admitting it and going, yeah, we just made it up. It was a prank. So it's odd. So there are odd things going on there.

And Screton is as perplexed as you and I about that. And after he takes them into his possession, starts to feel very funny about them, his children hate them and he begins to have strange dreams where the stone faces loom towards him. But, I hear you ask,

who has the originals? Well, at this point, they've passed on to yet another doctor, Don Robbins. Not Roberts, not Robson, Robbins. Phew. And Don Robbins is the author of The Secret Language of Stone, and is like Anne Ross, they were sort of collaborators, and they're academics in the 70s, but with an interest in the paranormal. And Robbins' area of specialism is are you do you know the the bbc drama the stone tape from the 70s i haven't seen it but i know a bit of what it's about the stone

tape is really worth things written by the guy who wrote the quatermass films and it was one of the bbc's ghost stories for christmas but the thing about it is it's very very 70s it's all shot in studios on television cameras the cast is 12 men just shouting and laughing and one woman screaming. So every single scene is things like, oh my God, we're trying to find ghosts and her screaming, oh, I'm being, I think I might be psychic. And the men going, please stop shouting about being psychic. But yes, the essential concept of the Satone tape is that rocks,

in some way, through electrical impulses, are able to encode the events around them or or cause things to happen around them so that history repeats itself that's that's the x that's the essential concept of the stone tape which is well worth watching it's on youtube and don robbins's theory is the real world version of that from the same era which is that stones have all kinds of properties that certain manifestations say for instance a werewolf apparition, can be caused by places. And sort of electrical images can be recorded in stone

and planted in people's mind. Now those images might be the image of the heads themselves. Maybe the reason why everybody living in that house was producing those heads was because the location was planting that image in their mind. Maybe we don't have to believe that the heads were ancient in order for this tale to be mysterious. Maybe he wonders if the ancient myth of the wolver, who's sort of a northern version of a werewolf, was planted in people's minds by the stones themselves. Robbins wonders if the apparition of the werewolf was imbued into the heads because of where they were made, not because of who made them or when they were made, which is somewhat convenient. After Robbins has the heads, they are

loaned to a man called Frank Hyde. A new surname. Hyde? Yes, he does. Nobody has ever heard of Frank Hyde since, and nobody has ever seen the heads again. Nobody knows where they are. Nobody knows who has them. I've heard some people saying that Frank Hyde died in a car crash, but I can't seem to back that up in any way. And Screton is left as baffled as you and I. He says, I cannot pin down the clue to this mystery. Someone, somewhere, somehow must be lying.

The Urban Prehistorian ends with a quote from Robbins talking about Hyde, saying that Hyde seemed to have vanished as completely as if he had walked into a fairy hill in a folktale. And that's the story of the Hexham Heads. Whoa, that's got arcs. It's got arcs, it's got tangents, it turned out to be made of concrete by a man. It's got the whole package.

It's got the surname Robson. How many times? Too many to count. So, James, if you can find a little head space. Ooh. Yeah. I'd like to ask you if you're ready for the scores. I'm ready for the scores. All right.

In that case, my first category is... It's like we're scoring a hexam. Ooh. Ooh, I'm going to cut that out. Too good. Too sharp. The first category... I genuinely forgot what we were doing the first

category is names names yes you've got two or three surnames now hexam heads that drew me in yeah i wanted to know and it was accurate which i'm always a fan of accuracy in the names yep all the robsons sadly no bobby or brian no no unfortunately not but no robson and jerome either i was just waiting no robson jerome uh but sparky sparky rest in power it's called a man called frank hyde who no one can find i mean what more could i have done that's from finding a few other robsons whilst Whilst I did say I like inaccuracy in a name, sometimes they can be a little bit too on the nose. All right. And I think Frank Hyde, frankly, hiding them,

is perhaps a step too far. It is a little bit guy incognito as a name to give if you're planning to just steal something and vanish. The kids are called Colin and Leslie. They sound like a middle-aged couple. We've got Screton, the Scretoniser. On the case. The Scretoniser, four out of five.

Okay, my next category, Supernatural. Loads. Good. You've got a couple of some sort of shambling beasts. Yeah, yeah. Which I like.

Stroking little Brian. Yeah. We don't know how old Brian was. Stroking an indeterminately aged Brian, possibly an adult man. You've got Headbase Nightmares and, oh. The Mystery Glowing Bush. Oh, Glowing Bush, oh. The Mystery Glowing Bush.

Oh, Glowing Bush. Yeah, that's right. You forgot the Mystery Glowing Bush. Yeah, okay. Also, Someone's All Light in the Sky. What? Someone's All Light in the Sky. Whoa.

That's just an aside. I learned about this story because Rachel read about it in the Fortean Times. Rachel, my partner, and she said, Oh, are you going to mention me on the podcast? It's not what she sounds like. Oh, you can't just pretend you knew. Tell her it was me. Tell her it was my idea. I think she's going to really appreciate on the podcast it's not what she sounds like oh you can't just pretend you knew tell it was me tell it was my idea i think she's going to really appreciate that shout out so i thought i'd do a shout out when i make a sound like a tiny boy from hexham how about man you

made us sound like an idiot on the podcast oh wait someone's touching us in the bed three three for supernatural this is one of the most supernatural stories i've ever presented to you is it because you don't believe in the were man creature i believe in the weir you believe in the weir in the weir man what about the glowing bush the glowing bush is a bit of an odd aside hold on right they turned directions i've got to tell you oh yeah that was good dr don robbins didn't like looking at them he turned it away from him the the hag the girl one and he felt like the eyes turned back to follow him he felt like they did or they did well i mean i can't speak for don robbins but i'm gonna say they did

it's still only a three i'm sorry it's pretty spooky i can't believe that you're giving me three for a story where in my notes i'm looking at the words dod stroked by sheep man i can't believe it james but okay those are the rules i guess is there an ombudsman we can refer this to i don't is there an adjudicator there was someone online once who had a problem tom holmes tom yeah he had a problem with our definition of canines he did point out that canine yeah okay we got canine wrong didn't we he said that wolves aren't canines they are lupine of course i saw a man walking a wolf the other day. What? No lie. No word of a lie. I just thought, oh, is that a husky?

And then it got nearer. No, it was a full-on wolf. Well, this is not going to give me any points for supernatural. Hexum has a hexum wolf. Whoa. And the reason it doesn't give us any points for supernatural is it was a real wolf that was escaped and got shot, and there's a picture of it.

Oh, God. So just a wolf. The hexum wolf. Oh, wow. So no supernatural points there, but you've got to admit a hexum wolf has a ring of it. Oh, God. So, just a wolf. The Hexenwolf. Oh, wow. So, no supernatural points there, but you've got to admit, a Hexenwolf has a ring to it. Definitely.

Are they sure it was a wolf? And not a man. A were? In wolf form. Hmm. Maybe an extra point for supernatural there. No. My next category is heads.

Definitely. Definitely heads. Definitely heads. Well, we've got like 12 people. All of them have at least one head. That's a fact. And we've got like 12 people all of them have at least one head that's a fact and we've got four spooky heads the budgie had a head too the werewolf had an animal's head and so did the sheep where sheep it's only going to be four because those are the major heads the major you can't just get points for animals or people in

stories having heads because then i'd lose a lot of points for all the stories I've told about headless dogs in this series. All right. So four out of five for heads. Come on. It was nearly only two. It's one of the headiest stories we've done. With heavy head, I accept your four. And the final category, which you completely ruined with your extemporised punning.

The final category is werewolf in were sheep's clothing definite five clearly because you've got a werewolf you've got a were sheep and to be honest i suspect a builder who's a werewolf you think the builders are well i'd put the second half of that sentence on otherwise it was a bit weird i think the builder's a werewolf and he was like oh i just made it i made the heads they're nothing to do with werewolves stop talking about that part of the story now and let's just go back to talking about how there was a fake head and if you've ever found yourself having any work done around the house you will have found yourself on a morning where they said they'd be there

thinking were builder i know oh well you're talking about this actually you brought you brought in the extra actual wolf oh yeah yeah there's the hexam wolf that could have been one of these werewolves yeah from around the hexam area so wait if a werewolf bit a sheep would it become part wolf or part man would it be a sheep that turned into a man or a sheep that turned into a wolf i think it'd be a sheep that turned into a werewolf a sheep wolf okay so that would be a wolf in sheep's clothing yeah okay so yes five four five this tale was inspired by an email we had from one of our listeners unfortunately the tale that was suggested massively slandered a member of the royal family, so I tried to look up some other stories from that village, Minchinhampton,

but my eyes were drawn to the page across, and I think you'll see why I picked this one. I'm actually going to say it this time. Strap yourself in, Alistair. All right. Ka-klunk. Click. It's the Mickleton Hooter. Five points.

This is a Gloucester ghost. It's just a very slight tale, but it's called the Mickleton Hooter. Yeah. It's from Gloucester. The Mickleton is a little village slash town in Gloucester ghost is just a very slight tale, but it's called the Mickleton Hooter. Yeah. It's from Gloucester. Mickleton is a little village slash town in Gloucester. And this ghost is usually heard. It's an inaudible ghost. It makes strange moaning.

Ghosts from Audible. Audible. I'm the Mickleton Hooter. Part one, the Mickleton Hooter. The Moodle-Doodle-Doodle-Doo. Mickleton-Doodle-Doo. Mickleton Hooter. They don't even need to say words in American podcasts. It's just like, hooglum, bubblum, scabble-a-bub.

It's all about the vocal fry. It's all there. The Mickleton Hooter. Stay with us. I went to Mickleton Hooters and they kicked me out. James Shake Shaft was trying to tell a story about the Mickleton Hooter. So this, it's an auditory phenomena on the whole. An auditory phenomena on the whole?

On the whole. Get into A&E. It's got auditory phenomena on the whole. It's a strange moaning screeching sound. I'm not surprised. It sounds like Fox is at it. Right. It's mostly heard. Sometimes it's seen, though, and it either takes the form of a tall white figure or,

and this is why I thought this would appeal to you, one description is it took the form of a calf. Nice. With a man's head. Oh! Reverse Minotaur. It's in Jim Menken territory. It is, yes.

And you're most likely to hear it in Hidcote Bartrim, which is a village above Mickleton. It's on an escarpment, which is a word I forgot to look up. And it's a little wooded valley. There's a little wooded valley there called the Weeping Hollow, and that overlooks the Vale of Evesham. And some people think it might be because this has really steep sides and some odd woods that it's fuddling the wind and that's why you hear this weird noise

just there but what is the mickleton hooter hmm that's part two of the audible series what is the mickleton hooter that is the mick Hooter. That's why the vocal fry gets too bad. Your attempt at vocal fry is just like a very small Tom Waits. Just in the distance. Like the Mickleton Hooter. That is the Mickleton Hooter. Right, so villages in nearby Warwickshire were terrorised by a huge, savage cow. Called the Dun Cow. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, another one. That's like the one from Durham. Like the Dun Cow. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Yeah, another one. It's like the one from Durham, like the Dun Cow. Which is brown, doesn't it? It means brown, yeah. It just means a brown cow. But this was a huge and very dangerous cow that terrorised villages. Every time I bring up Durham, you're like,

is there a cow in this story? And now you're like, oh, but this was a really exciting cow. This was better than your northern cows alistair yeah this was big and angry and it belonged to a giant uh what was the giant's name like stumbly bumble bum i didn't find the name you don't have the name for the giant an unnamed giant no uh and this beast was slain by guy of warwick that's unspecific that is his name and some people think it's the ghost of that cow that haunts the hollow. Some people think that, do they?

Yeah, definitely me now. Or the noise could be caused by the ghost of Sir Edward Greville's son. Sorry, is he Edward Greville's son or Sir Edward Greville's son? Good question. It's Sir Edward Greville, his son. The son of Sir Edward Greville. Edward Greville Jr. Edward Greville, his son. The son of Sir Edward Greville. Edward Greville Jr. Edward Greville Jr.

And this- Special grilled, I think. I'm thinking of Breville. Yeah, heir to the Breville fortune. His arch nemesis is George Formby. George Foreman. Right, so, and this was in the 16th century. Sir Edward Greville accidentally killed his son

because he mistook him for a robber. And it's meant to be his ghost that makes the moaning. Or it's Sir Edward Greville's brother, the ghost of Sir Edward Greville's brother. And what happened was Sir Edward was showing off how good his strong longbow was and fired an arrow up into the air. And that arrow came down,

his brother in the air didn't kill him. And that's his ghost. Have you seen the Bross documentary? I have not seen the Bross documentary. My favourite bit in that is where they talk about their hobby that they used to have when they were young. They had one dart.

One dart? One dart to play with. And they go out into the yard and they throw the dart up in the air and then close their eyes. And it was like a bravery thing kind of thing. And then one of them totally got stuck in his rib. And they tell the story that they ran inside.

Their granddad said, what are you doing, you idiots? Pulled it out. They got that dart, went back outside and carried on playing. And that's Bross, basically. I mean, that's the legend of the Mickelton Hooter. That's the legend of the Mickelton Hooter. That's the legend of the Mickelton Hooter. Which tells us a little bit about Bross. What a story.

What a story. I mean, it was a short one, but very punchy. Yeah. So, naming. So many out of five. Brilliant. Maximum points. Maximum points.

I just, I loved every minute of it. Every single name And it was like being tickled by a lively puppy Hidcote Bartrim Hidcote Bartrim Every one of them sounds like you're just having a fit While you're saying it The Hibbleton Bibblebib

Mickleton Hooter He's got an allergy, what does he need? Mickleton Hooter Fetch Sir Edward Greville It's 5 out of 5 A big Don Cow The Don Cow We've heard it

I've heard it before We have literally heard that one before Whatever escarpment means I think it's a geological thing Yeah okay I'm going to take five I'm not going to

give you any more reason not to take any points off to be honest I mean Don Cow was making me raise an eyebrow Five out of five Cool five out of five. Cool. Five out of five.

Supernatural. It's extremely supernatural. There are three different explanations for how it's a ghost. So that's three times as supernatural as one ghost. Yeah. Is it a son? Is it a brother? Is it a big cow owned by a giant?

Or is it... There's an extra point right there. A different cow with a man's head. Oh, I forgot completely. I forgot about the calf with a man's head. This is a cracking story. Or a tall white figure. I saved the worst till last. I mean, I'm a tall white figure, so

I don't find that that spooky. That frightens you every night. I don't know. Just the racial profiling of me doesn't particularly endear me to the story. Four or five? I think it's a four out of five. Okay, that's good. Because a tall white figure is not in itself terrifying.

And my fifth, no, God, I can't count. My third and final category, cow. So it's sort of amount of cow, how much cow is in it. Well, there was one cow. Big cow. But it was big. And it's... of amount of cow, how much cow is in it. Well, there was one cow. Big cow. But it was big. And it's... And so angry.

Survived death. A savage cow. Imagine a savage cow. Not even a bull. Like a bull you could understand being described as angry because they've got, you know, built-in weapons. But a savage cow. So...

And also the calf with the man's head which is a small cow but it's got a big bit of weirdness going on there well i would say it's only 70 of a cow because the head is um could you have a chat with that cow with the man's head i'm not sure i'd have that much in common when you talk about bus timetables i wonder when this one's coming yeah i think i think if it's got a man's head, it's got a man's brain, it can speak, it's got its opinions. Yeah, all right then.

Good, good. That was, I would just, I only came up with this story so I could posit that question and finally find out the answer. Yeah. Could you have a chat

with a cow if it had a man's head? Or the original, the fly-based scientific mishap. That's a valid theory. Does it mean any extra points for the category of cow, though? Oh, damn, no.

It wasn't cow brackets experiment. Cow slash the original version of The Fly. I think it's a three out of five for cow. Your eyes have really flared angrily there. Because there's only two cows, but one of them's probably at least twice the size of a cow. Yeah, because there's not many cows, but one of them's probably at least twice the size of a cow yeah because like there's not many cows but one of them's really big and so i've inflated the number from two to three so that was a mickleton hooter and what a hooter it was and now uh just get the vocal front back up and try

and tell someone a special kind of mattress threadwood grevels faulty breville the only sandwich toaster you'll ever need. Do you hate going to the sandwich toaster shop and having to wait in line? But now I Grevel all my Brevels at home. I got Tom Bombadil's socks sent to me and they wick away moisture. And I had to look up what wick away means because it's not a phrase that people use usually. It could part from razors. The only razors.

They cut out the middleman razor. I'm sick of being scalped on razors. The bloody middleman. You've been listening to Lawmen. The Lawmen are James Shakeshaft and Alastair Beckett King. Please subscribe, rate, review and recommend to a friend. You can tweet us at lawmenpod or email us at contact at lawmenpodcast.com

to suggest stories from your area. And that was the end of Series 2 of Lawmen. Hope you enjoyed it. But never fear, the Lawmen will return. The post office I hate the post office so much Matt Springs Springs in my bed Mattresses coming to my door

The size of a mattress Sick and tired End of the episode The Mickleton Hooter. Mickey Hoots.