The witch-hare of Cleveland

Some farmers out hunting hares had had a disappointing day when they ran into Nanny X, a well-known local witch. “I can tell you where you’ll find a hare to chase,” she said, “but mind you don’t set a black dog on it”. And sure enough, under the hedge Nanny X indicated, there lay a huge hare.

It set off, zigzagging for miles across the countryside with the hounds and hunters in hot pursuit. Just as the hare, doubling back, reached the hedge around Nanny X’s little cottage, a random black dog appeared from nowhere and snapped at its haunches, tearing the skin and biting a lump out of its leg. When the hunters stepped into the cottage to apologise to Nanny X for not preventing the black dog’s attack, they found her groaning in her bed, with a lump out of her thigh, just where the black dog’s jaws had caught the hare.

The history: The Reverend JC Atkinson was the vicar of the parish of Danby in Cleveland for more than 40 years in the 19th century, and published his ‘reminiscences’ (Forty Years in a Moorland Parish) in 1891. Now available as a free e-book, it includes a good number of local folk-tales and traditions.