The road across Seamer Moor between Ayton and Scarborough was considered sufficiently dangerous for those who travelled late to carry firearms.  Thus we can see Mr Thomas Chandler of the Low Hall at West Ayton—­a Justice of the Peace—­having dined with some relations in Scarborough, returning at a late hour.  The lights of his big swinging barouche drawn by a pair of fat chestnuts shine out on the white road; the country on either side is unenclosed, and masked men may appear out of the shadows at any moment.  But if they are about they may have heard that Mr Chandler carries a loaded pistol ready for emergencies, for they always let him reach his house in safety.

To the simple peasants highwaymen were probably considered of small account in comparison to the apparitions that haunted many parts of the lonely country.  Nearly every part of the moor had its own wraith or boggle, and the fear of these ghosts was so widespread that in many cases the clergy were induced to publicly lay them, after which were seen no more.

To record the advent of these strange beliefs is impossible, for who can tell how or when they originated?  We can only describe them at the time of their destruction.  Chaucer, writing in the fourteenth century, seemed to imagine that belief in elves and fairies had received its death-blow in his own time, for in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” he says—­

  “In tholde dayes of the Kyng Arthour,
   Of which that Britons speken greet honour,
   All was this land fulfild of fairye. 
   The elf queene with hir joly compaignye
   Daunced ful ofte in many a greene mede. 
   This was the olde opinion as I rede,—­
   I speke of manye hundred yeres ago,—­
   But now kan no man se none elves mo,
   For now the grete charitee and prayeres
   Of lymtours, and othere hooly freres,
   That serchen every lond and every streem,
   As thikke as motes in the sonne beem,—­
   Blessynge halles, chambres, kichenes, boures,
   Citees, burghes, castels, hye toures
   Thropes, bernes, shipnes, dayeryes,—­
   This maketh that ther been no fairyes.”

Five hundred years, however, had to pass before the most implicit belief in hobs, wraiths, and boggles was to disappear, and even at the present day those who have intimate associations with the population of the North Yorkshire moors know that traces of the old superstitions still survive.

Several books have been written on the folklore of Yorkshire and from them it is possible to get a rough idea of the superstitions common to many parts of the county, but these do not particularly concern the district surrounding Pickering.  We should probably have never heard of many curious facts specially belonging to this part of the county if a small manuscript book of closely written notes had not been discovered by Mr Richard Blakeborough of Stockton-on-Tees, who has kindly allowed me to quote from it.  The stories were collected by one George Calvert, who writes in 1823, and frequently mentions that the customs he describes were rapidly dying out.  Under the heading of “Witch Hags who have dwelt hereabouts” he writes—­