Things That Go Bump on the Ryburn: Ghosts, Boggarts and Folklore for Halloween

The nights are drawing in, the mist is sitting low over the river, and when the wind gets up and rattles the old windows, it's easy to see why our ancestors told stories by the fire.

Halloween is nearly here. In a building that's been standing beside the Ryburn since 1307, you can't help wondering who, or what, might still be about once the last orders has been called and the lights are off.

So pull your chair a bit closer to the hearth. Here are a few of the old tales folk round here have been telling for generations.

The Boggart

Ask anyone brought up in the Pennine valleys and they'll know the word boggart. The boggart is a mischief-maker, a household spirit that hides your keys, sours the milk, knocks things off shelves and pulls the bedclothes off you in the night.

Folklore says you should never give a boggart a name. Once it's named, there's no reasoning with it and no getting rid of it. Some families tried moving house to escape theirs, only for the boggart to pack up and come along with them.

Next time a pint glass goes missing behind the bar, we know exactly who to blame other than Grandma Betty!

The Barghest and the Padfoot

Yorkshire has its own black dog, and you really don't want to meet it on a dark lane. The Barghest is a huge shaggy hound with eyes like burning coals. People said it walked the lonely roads at night, and seeing it was a warning that death wasn't far behind.

Here in the West Riding there's a cousin of it called the Padfoot. Folk heard it before they saw it: soft padding footsteps following them home, sometimes with the rattle of a chain. Turn round and there's nothing there. Keep walking and the footsteps come back.

Remember that next time you're walking home along the river after a few oooooooooo!

The Gabriel Ratchets

This is one of the old West Yorkshire tales, and a sad one. On dark autumn nights you might hear a strange yelping and crying high overhead, like a pack of hounds running across the sky. Folk called them the Gabriel Ratchets or Gabble Ratchets. Some said they were the restless souls of babies who had died before they could be christened, wandering the skies because they had nowhere to rest.

It was probably geese flying over in the dark. But it does make you think about the old font in our bottom bar, and how much a christening mattered to people in those days.

The Night the River Rose

Not all our spooky stories are made up. Ripponden has always lived alongside the Ryburn, and the river hasn't always been kind. Locals still talk about the Great Flood of 1722, when the water is said to have torn through the village, damaging the old chapel and washing graves away from the churchyard. Skeletons hung from the trees mum told me!!

Before there was a bridge, travellers had to ford the river right outside our door. It's not hard to imagine some of them never making it across.

Nutcrack Night

Halloween wasn't always pumpkins and sweets. In the north of England it was sometimes called Nutcrack Night. Young couples put hazelnuts on the fire to see what the future held. If the nuts burned quietly together, the match would last. If one cracked and jumped out, well, you might want to keep looking.

You could have a go tonight. Our fire's lit.

And What About the Inn Itself?

Seven hundred years of travellers, clothiers, church wardens and regulars have walked through our door. There's cruck beams older than most churches, a font nobody can quite explain and corners that feel colder than they should.

So we're handing this one over to you. Have you ever seen or heard something in here you couldn't explain? Footsteps upstairs when nobody's there, a figure in the corner of your eye, or a glass that moved on its own? Maybe your grandparents told you a story about the place?

Come and tell us at the bar, or drop us a message. We'd love to hear it, and the best ones might end up in a future blog.

Happy Halloween from all of us by the bridge. Keep the fire in, keep your boggart nameless, and if you hear soft footsteps following you home… don't look back xx