If we are to believe anything at all of this prodigious story we must place it among those which have been handed down from the time of the Danes and have become somewhat confused with later superstitions.

Coming back to the story of the beautiful spectre we find that in 1782 a certain Thomas Botran wrote down all the information he could find out in his time concerning the story of Sarkless Kitty, and Mr Blakeborough has added to it everything else that he has discovered relating to it.

It seems that there lived near Lastingham towards the close of the seventeenth century a girl named Kitty Coglan whose beauty was so remarkable that “folk at divers times come much out of their way in the pleasant hope of a chance for to look upon the sweetness of her face.”  She was, however, extremely vain, and her mother seems to have heard stories of her bad conduct, for she began to worry herself over her daughter’s behaviour.  Having had a curious dream she asked Takky Burton, the wise man of Lastingham, to tell her what it meant.  He told her that the wonderful gem of her dream was her daughter Kitty, who like the gem had blemishes beneath the surface.  Soon after this Kitty married the only son of a small farmer, but after they had lived together about four months he disappeared, and then Kitty seems to have gone from bad to worse.  How long after this it was that the tragedy occurred is not known, but one day Kitty’s naked dead body was found by the wath that her spirit afterwards haunted.

Two other stories that were at one time well known in the neighbourhood of Pickering must be mentioned.  One feature of these old time legends is very noticeable, that is, how each ends with a moral usually of virtue overcoming vice.  This was probably in some instances a new touch of colour given to the stories during the time when a religious wave swept over the dales.

“The White Cow of Wardle Rigg” is a good example of an old time legend, that owing to a natural process of alteration became gradually fitted to the beliefs and superstitions of each age in which it was told.  How the story came to be localised is not known, but in its last phase it had reached this form.

Once an old couple lived near to Wardle Rigg, and bad seasons and other misfortunes had brought the wolf very near to their door.  One night there passed by the humble cottage a little old lady driving along a thin and hungry looking white cow, she craved a crust and a drink of water for herself and shelter for the poor beast, this was readily granted by the old couple, they gave the old lady the easy-chair by the fire, and gave her of the best from their poor larder.  She learnt from them how poor they were, and sorrowed with them.

In the middle of the night she called to them, as she stole silently out of the house, that for their kindness she left them all the worldly possessions she had, namely her white cow.  This they were in no wise grateful for, because they could scarcely afford to feed it and it was too poor to sell or to hope to draw a drop of milk from.