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Before the waters were drained … the ‘walking fires’ were often glimpsed, flickering over rivers and pathways.
The eerie lights appeared in churchyards too, hovering over water logged graves … corpse-candles.
Many a night walker in the Fen has been led to a slow, sinking death by the, deceitful, dancing ‘will o’ the wisp’.
Were they the souls of the dead and the drowned … who lured unwary travellers to a watery end?
Fen folk said the lights led the good to safety…. and the sinful to their doom!

                                                  

And strange things bred in the depths of the peaty water.

‘Old Yallery’ ... that old Fenland bogeyman, crept out of the water to curl his long, yellow fingers round the necks of unsuspecting night walkers.

And  there was Black Shuck, Odin’s faithful hound of death: pad, pad, padding along the drove.

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If you're thinking of taking a stroll on the Fen after dark…. you’d better check your pockets. Just to be on the safe side! Have you got a luck piece about  you? Do you have your ‘safe-keep’ handy?  A rabbit’s foot will do.
Or a verse from the Bible tucked into a nutshell? Best of all, a coin from a dead man’s pocket.

Oh, and don’t forget your eel-skin garter, to ward off the fen ague. Better take them all …. just in case.

Good luck.

Oh, and if you should glimpse the unlovely Jenny Burnt Arse, bobbing towards you, or if you hear the unmistakable sound of a giant hound padding along behind you ….

‘Like one who on a lonesome road, doth walk in fear and dread.

Because he knows, a fearful fiend, doth close behind him tread’.

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Don’t look round. Just run as though all the fiends in hell were after you… because they probably will be!