Folk lore of the East Yorkshire coast

Some extracts from Folk lore of East Yorkshire by John Nicholson, 1890

A middle age tradition tells us that one of the violent storms that visited Filey Bay, a hen-coop was washed on shore, and the natives, not understanding what it was, sent for the preist, a drunken old fellow, who, on coming, bade them turn it over. They did so, and so he bade them turn it over again, which they did; and then he said he could not tell what it was, but he thought it would make a good organ for the church, and accordingly it was carried there.

The dangerous ridge of rocks known as Filey Brigg was built by the devil, who, in building lost his hammer. Plunging into the sea after it, he grasped a fish in his sooty fingers, and exclaimed "Ah! Dick!" The fish has been named haddock ever since, and still retains the mark of the satanic grasp across its shoulders.

On Cliff Lane, Bempton, are seven or eight large whinestone boulders, and the old people say the stones were washed up over the cliff by the sea. At one time they were scattered about the fields, but were placed in their present position, by the road side, so as to be "out of the way," and not to interfere withh the cultivation of the field.



OTHER ARTICLES
• Robin Hood's Bay - The Storm family website
• Filey and the gales of 1860,1867,1869 AND 1880
• A sea shanty about a storm on the Scarborough coast
• The Yorkshire smuggler - the smuggling of contraband
• Thomas Crimlisk - First of the Crimlisks
• Primitive Methodism amongst the Scarborough Filey and Flamborough fishing communities
• Sea shanties and the filey Fishermen's choir
• The national RNLI and the Scarborough lifeboat of 1861.
• aThe coble boats of Filey Flamborough and Runswicks Bay
• Shipbuilding at Scarborough - the wooden barques and schooners
• French merchants and smugglers on the Yorkshire coast
• The fishermen and fisheries of Robin Hood's Bay in 1838
• A great storm off Filey Bridge and a famous rescue in 1799
• Trawling and overfishing - Filey fishing
• The 200 year history of scarboroughs RNLI
• Shipping Ironstone down the coast by John Rushton
• Filey and its early fishing industry
• Charles Dickens account of Filey and Scarborough graveyards
• Carrying Coal to the Yorkshire Coast - John Rushton

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