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kittiwakeBlack Annis lived in the Danehills.
She was ever so tall and had a blue face and had long white teeth and she ate people. She only went out when it was dark.
My mum says, when she ground her teeth people could hear her in time to bolt their doors and keep well away from the one window. That's why we don't have a lot of big windows in Leicestershire cottages, she can't only get an arm inside.
My mum says that's why we have the fire and chimney in the corner.
The fire used to be on the earth floor once and people slept all round it until Black Annis grabbed the babies out the window.
There wasn't any glass in that time.
When Black Annis howled you could hear her five miles away and then even the poor folk in the huts fastened skins across the window and put witch-herbs above it to keep her away safe.
A selection of traditional tales from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man, mostly collected in the 19th and early 20th century. The stories are divided into themes such as Fairies, Origins and Causes, Saints and Devils, and Enchantment, and each section has an introduction describing that type of story, where each one comes from and who collected it. The tale of Black Annis, for example, was told to the folklorist Ruth Tongue on Christmas Eve 1941, by a girl who had been evacuated from Leicester.
She was ever so tall and had a blue face and had long white teeth and she ate people. She only went out when it was dark.
My mum says, when she ground her teeth people could hear her in time to bolt their doors and keep well away from the one window. That's why we don't have a lot of big windows in Leicestershire cottages, she can't only get an arm inside.
My mum says that's why we have the fire and chimney in the corner.
The fire used to be on the earth floor once and people slept all round it until Black Annis grabbed the babies out the window.
There wasn't any glass in that time.
When Black Annis howled you could hear her five miles away and then even the poor folk in the huts fastened skins across the window and put witch-herbs above it to keep her away safe.
A selection of traditional tales from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man, mostly collected in the 19th and early 20th century. The stories are divided into themes such as Fairies, Origins and Causes, Saints and Devils, and Enchantment, and each section has an introduction describing that type of story, where each one comes from and who collected it. The tale of Black Annis, for example, was told to the folklorist Ruth Tongue on Christmas Eve 1941, by a girl who had been evacuated from Leicester.
