Byard's Leap: A Story of a Witch and a Blind Horse.

Eugene Delacroix's horse leaping over a gate.

Just the other evening I watched yet another film telling the story of Snow White. The ever lovely Snow White has changed over the years, no longer is she the rosy cheeked innocent of my day, but a self confident, sword carrying, feisty teenager. Snow White’s father’s new bedfellow hasn't changed much either, her disguise is still a stunning medieval beauty, but like Snow White, her alter ego has changed. Now she is beautiful in her ugliness, no longer the horrible hag with the wart on the end of her hooked nose, or a cackling, hand ringing gorgon, that frightened the little eight year old girl that was me. 

A hunchbacked hag is how most of us imagine a witch. She is always ugly, a woman with a bent walking stick and black cat using sorcery or casting spells on anyone who gets in her way. In my home county of Lincolnshire we have no witches today, or if we do I’ve never seen one! But in days gone by there were those who are said to have ridden on broomsticks, flying around causing havoc among the fenland living folk. Of course, the aforementioned Lincolnshire folk told tall tales of such women, these stories and songs have passed into popular culture. Ethel Rudkin of Willoughton in Lincolnshire was a dedicated collector of folklore ephemera which she was collecting in the mid 1920’s and 1930’s she was an expert in this field. Her book Lincolnshire Folklore was self published in 1936, the information in it taken directly from the people in the villages of Lincolnshire. Of witches she writes

    “In the presence of a witch, so she shall be powerless against you, clench both your fists with the thumbs inside and under                                                                                                         fingers”  


                        “If you pluck straw from the thatch of a witches house and hold it in your hand she cannot harm you”


Maybe this is where the saying clutching at straws originates?

Map showing the re-alignment of the A17. Photo Credit National Library of Scotland

On a sunny day out two summers ago my husband and I stopped at a lovely little cafe for a cup of tea at the village of Byard’s Leap and found, to my amazement, that it was the site of the origins of a local legend about a wicked witch and a horse. Byard’s Leap is a civil parish in North Kesteven on the B6403 on the north side of the A17 and one of seven districts in the County of Lincolnshire.  Within this tiny hamlet there are a number of different legends one is the story of a horse named Byard.  

Living in a small area of trees and bushes, in times gone by called a spinney, was a witch called Old Meg. Meg lived in her home on Ermine Street at a place called High Dyke. Her evilness caused all the crops to wither and the local farm animals to die. Fortunately, living in the same area was a soldier and a hero who was willing to come to the villagers aid by telling everyone he would kill her with his sword by plunging it into her wicked heart. Not having a horse of his own he went in search of a suitable mount and passing by a pond he saw a few horses drinking, throwing a stone into the water he picked the horse who had the quickest reaction. The said horse was known as Blind Byard. Soon our hero and Byard were off in search of the wicked witch. Eventually they found Meg, she was summoned to leave her home by our hero but she refused on the grounds that she was eating her dinner, “Come back another day” she croaked! The soldier duly waited unknowing that Meg had snuck out the back door and was creeping up behind, she sank her long yellow nails into the rump of poor Byard who was so shocked he ran and leaped over sixty feet in distance.

Byard leaps from the horseshoe over the trees in the far distance.

Meg chased Byard, but the soldier soon gained control of his horse by the time they reached the village pond, turning, and with one swipe he thrust his sword right into her heart where she fell into the pond and drowned.

Today, we can still see the spot were Blind Byard landed after Meg sunk her talons into him. The site is marked by four horseshoes and a commemorative stone.

The spot were Blind Byard landed.

What a wonderful story!  Of course a story is all it is, an embellished tale of a poor old lady that no one liked very much, who was a scapegoat for the villagers problems and who was probably banished by the Lord of the Manor from the saddle of his brown bay!  However, as with most stories there is no smoke without fire.

Bayard is in general folklore a ‘magic horse’ usually a Bay which is renowned for its spirit and has the ability to adjust its size according to the size of its rider. Bayard appears in many medieval romances and first appeared as belonging to one Renaud de Montauban in a twelfth century tale. This horse was able to carry Renaud and his three brothers and hold a decent conversation in French at the same time! Later in the story Bayard is punished for some misdemeanour by having a large stone tied around his neck, but Bayard is strong enough to smash the stone and escapes to live in a mystical wood.

Renaud and his three brothers.

Bayard can also be found in Geoffrey Chaucer's work Troilus and Criseyde as a talking dancing horse, and in 1286 he appears again in The Canterbury Tales and then again as a blind foolish horse in the Yeoman’s Tale, where it states 

"Though you search afar, you shall never find it; Be you as bold as Bayard the blind, that blunders forth and perceives no peril.”

Byard from the History of France by M. Guizot.

Sounds a bit like Byard from Lincolnshire doesn't it?

By the time of the thirteenth century Bayard had come to represent the exploits and daring do’s of any remarkable horse and no longer is associated with magic, in fact from the end of the thirteenth century Bayard is now often found as a fool of a horse in English literature.