Byard's Leap
| Byard's Leap | |
| Lincolnshire | |
|---|---|
 Byard's Leap | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SK990494 |
| Location: | 53°1’58"N, -0°31’31"W |
| Data | |
| Post town: | Sleaford |
| Postcode: | NG34 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | North Kesteven |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Sleaford and North Hykeham |
Byard's Leap is a hamlet in Kesteven, the south-western part of Lincolnshire, about three miles west of Cranwell.
The hamlet is associated with various legends, and occasionally some genuine history.
In the Middle Ages, the Knights Templar were active hereabouts: the site of the hamlet is at the southern end of what was their Temple Bruer military training ground.[1][2]
Legend
The story, re-told by Ethel Rudkin,[3] states there was a witch called Old Meg, an evil crone who plagued the local villagers from her cave or hut in a spinney near the turning to Sleaford on Ermine Street, here called High Dike. She was a bane of the countryside and caused the crops to whither. A local champion, a retired soldier, came forward in response to the villagers' requests, and he asserted that he could kill her by driving a sword through her heart. To select a horse suitable for this task, he went to a pond where horses drank and dropped a stone in the pond, selecting the horse that reacted quickest, and this horse was known locally as 'Blind Byard', as it was blind.
The champion went to the witch’s cave and called her out, but the witch refused, saying she was eating and he would have to wait. However, she crept up behind him and sank her long nails into the horse who ran, leaping over 60 feet. The champion regained control of the horse when they reached the pond, pursued by the witch, where he turned and thrust his sword into her heart, and she fell into the pond and drowned.
The spot where Blind Byard landed is marked by four posts in the ground with horseshoes on, and a commemorative stone. The sharply-cut small valley in the limestone, which is now smoothed over by ploughing, is as likely a site as any for the dramatic events, assuming they happened.
The magical horse 'Bayard' appears in several continental mediæval romances.
A different telling of the story can be found in a book by Christopher Marlowe (not the famous Kit Marlowe but a local author); Legends of the Fenland people written in 1926.[4]
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Byard's Leap) |
References
- ↑ Page, William, ed. (1906)
- ↑ Information on Byard's Leap from GENUKI
- ↑ Rudkin, Ethel (1934). Lincolnshire Folklore, Witches and Devils, Ethel H. Rudkin, Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 3. (Sep., 1934), pp. 249-267, see p255.
- ↑ Marlowe, Christopher: 'Legends of the Fenland People' (EP Publishing, 1976) ISBN 978-0715811726 page 169