March 14, 2025

The Devil’s Role in Folklore with Amy Boucher

Join me for a fascinating episode with Amy Boucher, writer and folklorist specialising in Shropshire’s rich folklore, ghostlore, and history. Amy explores the interplay between folklore, the paranormal, and historical memory, shedding light on how stories shape our understanding of the past. In this episode, we delve into devil narratives, uncovering their significance in Shropshire’s eerie landscapes and myths. How do these tales preserve heritage? And what do they reveal about shifting beliefs? Tune in for a captivating discussion on history, hauntings, and folklore’s enduring power.

My Special Guest Is Amy Boucher

In this episode, you will be able to:

1. Explore devil narratives in Shropshire, their meaning, and their role in storytelling, belief, and folklore.

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Transcript

All houses in which men have lived and died, or haunted houses.

Through the open door, the harmless phantoms on their errands glide with feet that make no sound upon the floor.

There are places where history lingers, where time slips, if only for a moment, where echoes of the past whisper in darkened halls and forgotten corridors.

0:39

Old buildings hold more than just bricks and mortar.

They carry the weight of those who came before.

Laughter, sorrow, love, loss.

And sometimes, just sometimes, the veil lifts, revealing something beyond.

1:00

From spectral figures glimpsed in candlelight to stories carved into the very walls themselves, Haunted History Chronicles delves into the history, the hauntings, and the echoes of the past that refuse to fade.

But the journey for the podcast doesn't stop there.

1:20

We explore the strange and the supernatural, from folklore that has shaped beliefs for centuries to unexplained encounters that defy reason, tales of restless spirits, omens, cryptic legends, and mysteries that have endured through time.

1:40

Join me as we unravel the haunted, the historical, and the hidden.

So dim the lights settle in and step beyond the veil.

You can follow Haunted History Chronicles on all major podcast platforms as well as find us on social media to share in these stories.

2:04

Because history, folklore, and the paranormal are never truly silent.

Some doors, once opened, can never.

Be closed.

Welcome back to Haunted History Chronicles, where the echoes of the past whisper through folklore, legend, and the supernatural.

2:30

In tonight's episode, we delve into a figure it was loomed over British and European folklore for centuries.

The devil himself.

From medieval legends of cursed stones and infernal bargains to the eerie ways in which the devil's presence is said to have shaped the land itself, we'll be exploring the enduring power of these narratives.

2:54

What do these stories reveal about morality, fear and shifting cultural beliefs?

Why has the devil been both a menacing and at times almost comical figure in folklore?

And how have these tales evolved alongside history, religion and societal anxieties?

3:15

To guide us through these dark and fascinating tales, I'm joined by writer and folklorist Amy Belcher, a specialist in Shropshire folklore.

Amy's work explores the interplay between history, paranormal beliefs, and the stories that shape our understanding of the past.

3:35

We'll discuss how the devil has been immortalized in Shropshire's legends, from cursed landmarks to whispered tales of deception and doom, and how these stories compare to devil folklore from across Britain.

So settle in.

3:53

Keep a candle burning and prepare for a journey into the shadows of history, where the devil waits at the crossroads of folklore and fear.

Hi.

4:09

Amy, welcome back to the podcast.

Hi, thanks for having me.

I'm very excited to be here.

I've been looking forward to chatting you with you again since we had our last conversation before Christmas, so I again I'm really looking forward to this one too.

4:25

Me too, and any excuse for me to talk about one of my favorite aspects of folklore.

So just to kind of set the scene if you like, do you want to just explain what is folklore and how does it serve a community or a culture?

4:42

Yes, so.

I think there's lots of different answers to that question, particularly depending on the type of folklore you're looking at.

But folklore is the collective stories, the collective consciousness of a particular community.

4:59

And some folklore transcends boundaries and is world folklore or kind of British folklore where you see the same archetypes mirrored throughout.

Whereas other types of folklore tends to be more regional and more specific to either the landscape or the community or the particular concerns of the community that are happening at a particular time or place.

5:27

And I tend to see folklore as well as a way in which you can understand history and historical narratives and historical attitudes or ideas that aren't necessarily easy to access through conventional history.

5:43

So how would you define devil folk narrative, which is what we're specifically going to be talking about tonight?

So the devil is a wonderful, absolutely wonderful character in folklore and he has so many different roles, particularly within regional folklore.

6:05

He's he's a, he's a character that transcends boundaries and, but within different regions you see different types of him.

I believe that the devil could probably be best seen as a conduit, as an empty vessel, something in which a community can pour their ideas, their fears, their anxieties into to kind of exercise them or to explain them particularly as well.

6:35

One of the beautiful things about the devil is that the devil is a very familiar character.

The communities that would have used devil folklore were Christian communities who would have been very well aware of his symbolism and the things in which he came to represent.

6:56

So they can then use him to not only represent the same things that the church is saying he does, like evil, sin, malice, spite, but also a particular message or a particular fear in which they have specifically within their regional context.

7:13

And you see some real beautiful, wonderful, exciting devil folklore across England.

Well, obviously Shropshire, that's my kind of my thing.

But all over England, Scotland, Wales and further afield, he's a character that pervades, I think humanity in in human storytelling.

7:33

But I think there's a real richness to Shropshire's devil tales and he seems to crop up an awful lot in the county, more so than I'd say in certain other places.

I came across a really fascinating Irish folklorist over the Christmas period called Henry Glassy, I think is how you pronounce his surname.

7:57

And he, he said that if the parish is the cosmos, the devil is the dark matter at the heart of it.

And it was a, it was a quote that just really resonated with me because I think it highlights the, the presence of the devil in our stories as this necessary outlet for the, the darkness and the chaos of the world, showing that, you know, humans have that ability to live with it, that we can, we can live with it despite sometimes the fact that it comes from us as well.

8:30

And it offers this unpredictability to familiar scenes, to familiar stories, which just acts as this reminder that, you know, our grip on our surroundings can change.

Things can take that dire turn.

8:46

There is this slippery slope, if you like, on history and what we know around us.

And these stories offer that that reminds to do that.

And I think that quote that I just gave there really helps to highlight that.

Oh, definitely.

9:01

That's amazing.

It was when you said it, I was kind of like, oh, wow.

But I think you're right.

I think the devil being so familiar, and I do, I do kind of want to stress that the the Abrahamic Devil is a slightly different entity to the folkloric devil.

9:19

He certainly influenced the folkloric devil, but you can kind of put your own spin on the folkloric devil.

And you see again and again in these folk narratives the devil being used as a a very human thing.

9:35

And I think you see all different.

And we'll go into it in a little bit more detail as we move through different characteristics of the devil.

You know, he can be the arbiter of justice, bizarrely.

He can be wicked, he can be feckless, he can be astute.

The trickter and the tempter, but also kind of the subject of pity in a lot of these stories.

9:55

And I think his complexity comes from us, the devil's complex in folklore because we are we are complex.

And those intricacies, those kind of how can you in one story in one parish be, you know, absolutely useless and easily fooled and then the next one be a giant being that can RIP a person to shreds in a parish down the road?

10:19

Those are what make it so interesting.

And I think the power of the devil and the power of these stories still doesn't lie necessarily in traditional ideas of good and evil, but more the idea that he can be that conduit for whoever is speaking his name.

10:36

And even within the same variations of the stories in the same area or the same story, they're told very differently and they come to symbolize things that are very different.

So I just, I've, ever since I can remember, I've been fascinated by these ideas of the devil and, and devil narratives and the power in which they can have.

10:57

And I do think they're very human.

I think there's something very human about using this figure to say I'm scared of this or I'm worried about this or this is concerning me.

And I just think we can really, by peeling away some of the layers of the devil narratives, understand a little bit more about the history of a community or the the fears of a community as well.

11:23

And I think something that surprised me is the more you start looking, the more central you realise that the devil narrative is to folklore.

And I don't know if you have any thoughts on why it's such a central figure that we see this type of storytelling in British and European folklore all over the centuries.

11:43

I think it lies in a number of things, and I can only talk probably a little bit more comfortably about the the Shropshire context.

But if it's happening in Shropshire, it's probably very similar elsewhere.

And I think part of it lies in his familiarity.

11:59

He's a figure that through a, you know, Christian Church going lens, people would all know the devil symbolizes evil, the devil symbolizes negativity.

The devil has all of these powers.

The church would be telling you on a Sunday what the devil could and couldn't do.

12:15

And that you needed to resist him.

So I think certainly it's that familiarity and, but also the vagueness of the devil.

So equally, the biblical devil is powerful, we're told, and it's a creature of, you know, might and, and, and that's constantly in flux between, you know, good and evil.

12:37

But also when it's relatively vague, you're told that he can come in many guises or that he can, you must resist him, but you're never really given that much depth into what he is capable of.

And I think perhaps that's why versions of him develop and he becomes more of a monster of our own imaginings rather than something that we've copied and pasted into different narratives.

13:04

So I think certainly the familiarity of it links to kind of why he's so popular.

I think also because they make for very good stories.

And as we'll see with some of our Shropshire stories, there's a very real message behind them, often a very real message of the struggles or the the difficulties that communities face in.

13:27

But you can also make these tales rather humorous.

So certain stories in, in Shropshire folklore, there's a, there's a humour to it, there's a an element of showmanship that you can add to it.

But I think with him being such a a prevalent feature, certainly when we're looking at kind of where the majority of these devil narratives come from in Shropshire, kind of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, the devil is and religion is very prominent and is a prominent feature in life.

14:00

So I think it allows for the creativity of the storyteller and it's allowing people to actually explore the hardships of their situation through these stories.

And also I think whenever there is a gap, that gap needs to be filled in.

14:19

Whenever there is an uncertainty, we don't really, as humans deal with it very well.

We need something to fill in the gaps that are left with by uncertainty.

And the Devil is actually really quite a nice fit for that.

You know, why did my crops fail?

14:36

Oh, it was the devil.

It was because you, you know, you worked that Sunday and you didn't go to church and you're not a good churchgoer or you are always swearing or, well, you didn't use the correct protective on your house.

The devil is a quick fix for a lot of life's maladies.

14:54

So I think there's probably those reasons and many more as to why the devil is so popular.

So could you maybe provide some examples of devil folklore from different periods in British history, You know, maybe starting with the the medieval times?

15:11

Yes, certainly.

So I think one of the things I really like about the devil folklore is how it it does change and you see that in Shropshire, but you do see that elsewhere.

I'm really fond of kind of some of the Saints stories and the hagiographies and how the Saints, particularly the early Saints, dealt with the devil and how they were constantly seemed to be battling with the devil.

15:35

So you've got kind of Saint Anthony, who was kind of widely considered to be the father of monasticism.

He was throughout his life said to be battling the devil in different ways.

And the devil sent in physical threats and that, you know, didn't fall to his faith and he kind of returned back to health.

15:58

And then the devil sent a legion of ghouls in the shape of all these horrendous kind of creatures and wild beasts and things that were said to were meant to tear the Saint apart.

But one of the things I really like about this story and several others is that Saint Anthony kind of just laughed at the devil and all of the scary ghosts and said that if you had any authority over me, only one would have been sufficient to fight me.

16:26

And it's that kind of pride that, well, you know, if you had any control over me, mate, you'd, you'd, one would scare me.

I'm, I'm a good Christian.

I'm not scared of God.

I'm, I'm not scared of these.

I'm a child of God kind of thing.

And I love the idea of, of these early Saints.

16:44

And you see it with Saint Anthony.

You see it mirrored with kind of Cuthbert, St.

Cuthbert, who I'm, I'm very fond of, often had to fight the devil.

There was devil through and demons as well throughout his life that cast stones at him, flung him on the shore.

17:01

I think at one story he's even nearly thrown off a Cliff by the devil.

But through his piety he is able to kind of show the devil who's boss and that he and that he has no power over good Christians.

Another absolutely brilliant one is Saint Teresa, who is really quite sassy and she has multiple run insurance with the devil.

17:26

And at one point she is trying to get to sleep and she saw kind of this dark glooming figure above her.

And at first she thought it was kind of a burglar or a murderer.

But then she realised it was Satan.

17:43

And she is quoted as saying something along the lines of oh, it's only you.

I thought it could be someone who would actually harm me.

And the devil was so embarrassed that he actually leaves home.

And I think particularly with the early kind of medieval, you see a lot of these tales of Saints in constant battle with the devil.

18:04

And I think they're very symbolic.

I mean, apart from being brilliant and you get these kind of sassy one liners.

Oh, I thought it'd be someone that would hurt me.

You've got the idea that there was a very new religion in Britain only within the first couple couple, 100 years, no more than about 3-4 hundred years.

18:25

And they would constantly have been tempted by old ways or different things.

So the devil would have been a very real entity.

He would have been something that was lurking behind different closed doors and different things.

So he is a literary device, he's a folkloric device, a hanging graphical device.

18:45

But also for early Christians, the fear of the devil would have been very pertinent.

So certainly I think out of the history of the devil outside of Shropshire, my favorite are kind of the the early medieval accounts because he's he seems very tangible.

He seems like something that could do harm and that somebody who is desperately trying to battle with the Saints to tempt them over to his his ways.

19:11

But you do tend to see a lot of the folklore kind of after the medieval period being a little bit more like what we see in the the accounts from the 1800s kind of things.

So certainly I think there's a tendency to think devil folklore is very, very ancient.

19:32

And I've seen some people link it to the medieval, which there was, you know, in the medieval book also try and link it to some kind of throw back to paganism or something like that.

But within Shropshire's context, a lot of it comes from kind of the 1600s onwards.

19:50

We're talking middle of the 1600s through to about well in in Shropshire's case, it goes into the 20th century, but it's relatively recent, a lot of the development.

But we do see in kind of the sixteen 1700s account, the devil is a lot more bestial.

20:09

He's a lot more powerful.

There's a lot more.

Unbridled kind of rage or violent acts.

There's a lot more blood and and guts and kind of all that good stuff.

Also, rather bizarrely, the devil is actually an arbiter of justice, certainly in Shropshire in a lot of kind of the earlier accounts or the ones that we can prove earlier.

20:36

So he's either incredibly violent because that's in his nature and that's the way the devil is, or he is enacting violence against a group of people because they have done a wrong.

So for example in Shropshire there is a number of tales that kind of link to someone who's doing something they shouldn't be on a Sunday.

20:57

So the devil attacks them.

The most famous one being someone some vicars who are playing cards on a Sunday and not going to church.

They get the devil to come and attack them and, and violently rips 1 pretty much to shreds because they should have known better.

21:14

They should have been pious.

Then when we get into the later kind of 1800s, that's late 17, early 1800s through to the advent of the 20th century.

The devil is a little bit, he's a little bit more played out.

21:29

He's a little bit more feckless and easy to kind of win over or easy to defeat.

And that could be linked to a number of different things.

Some of it can be to do with just the changing ideas of religion, the less of a focus and Hellfire and brimstone and more of, you know, not quite secularism, but certainly religion leaving the spotlight when you get to kind of towards the 20th century.

21:58

It's a different type of Christianity as well.

Or it could simply be to do with something highly specific to that region within British folklore.

But the devil changes, I think, because we change, and every time there is a big event or a big change in society that shifts society into a different direction.

22:20

You see that mirrored in the devil folklore.

It's fascinating when you really start to to look at that evolution and how you rightly said there that that is manifesting because of the, the change within society.

You know, it's a reflection of the religious change, the social change, the cultural shift.

22:40

You know, it's, it's reflecting the fears, the beliefs and how those shift.

And I don't know if you can kind of tease that out a little bit further in terms of showing how you see that manifesting in some of the the narratives and how it it shows that cultural shift from that period that you were just detailing and describing there within Shropshire.

23:00

Probably the best place to start is in a book called Spring in the Shropshire Valley by Catherine Gaskell.

And it's a wonderful book.

It's kind of a romp around the countryside.

It was written in 1915.

23:16

I think it's around in around that kind of turn of the century.

And she romps around the countryside and she shares all these different quirks and folk stories and things like that.

But she amongst this meets a man who she affectionately calls Old Timothy.

23:33

And Old Timothy starts off by telling her about a clinical custom about an orchard.

And he's very vague, doesn't really, but it's something to do with orchards and scaring the devil away from orchards.

But then he goes on a bit of a tangent and he says that religion was a different thing when he was a lad.

23:51

He said sadly.

And he said, he goes on to say that the devil was thought about a lot in his time and the devil was always ramping and raging around the and and going up and down.

And that now at the time of writing, that it was a poor lame kind of played out devil, broken, winded and drugged, not the rowdy, handsome devil he used to be afraid of.

24:14

And he goes on to say of all the different ways he thought the devil when he was younger could do and all the things he could do.

So how the devil could come down the chimney drowning, be down in the wells and he could even be in the cupboards.

And how the Parson used to stress, keep him out, keep him out.

24:32

And they thought that they'd done a good job if they could keep the devil away from their gardens and their fruit trees.

And it's a little bit tongue in cheek because old Timothy's, he's very, I almost think he's a little bit like Grandpa Simpson from The Simpsons home.

24:48

But it actually gives us a really great insight into how the devil has changed within old Timothy's life.

So we know, unfortunately we don't know how old, old Timothy was, but we know at the time of writing it was kind of 191419151 could presume that he's about 70, no more than no less than 70, maybe a little bit less, but around that kind of age.

25:15

So we know that in a space of a person's lifetime, the symbolism of the devil has changed massively within the community and he's gone from being, I love the description, a rowdy, handsome devil that they used to be scared of, to being a character in folklore that's very lame and poor played out.

25:34

So we know that at least within kind of the communities in Shropshire, the symbolism of the devil is being discussed and it is being talked about and how it has changed.

And I think it's fascinating to have this account from the book to know that actually people were talking about this and people were actually saying the devil is different to the way he was when I was younger and that the oral tradition, the storytelling tradition has changed altogether since I was younger.

26:05

So certainly we do see particularly I think from if we kind of take away some of the earlier stuff, ignore some of the earlier stuff, the real change you tend to see with the devil is around the advent of industry, certainly in Shropshire.

26:21

So you go from having stories where the devil is very bestial and he is very kind of either random in his acts or kind of more like I said, he's, he's in acting justice.

Someone has done something wrong, so I will be the one to fix it.

26:38

And in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, you see the devil coming to the forefronts of people's mind in Shropshire.

So kind of Colbert Dale was really the advent of industry in the area and one could argue in the country and it kind of became a real spectacle.

26:58

It was described in kind of alchemical terms and saying that, you know, because they could literally turned metal in into something else and well, it's still into metal.

But you tended to get a lot of people coming and visiting.

You've had people from Italy and France either coming to paint the scenes or write in detail about the scenes and you see the language being used.

27:23

Very devil focused.

The you hear about the sooty demons which are the workers and the flames of smog and smoke and it being akin to the fires of hell.

So I think the industrial revolution, particularly in Shropshire, really put the devil into the minds of the people who were experiencing it.

27:47

But also you see in the more rural areas of Shropshire, the devil losing a lot of his significance and becoming a little bit pathetic, a little bit easier to overcome.

So certainly I'd say that within it was really the industrial revolution in Shropshire that you see this big cultural shift from him being something that's terrifying and that you want to check your chimney so he doesn't, you don't see him to being a creature that could be outwitted.

28:17

And it's interesting to think of the landscape mirroring the folklore and and often in those cases feeding it and and helping it develop.

And just kind of going on from that and extending that idea, you know what, what would you say these stories reveal then about these fears, these beliefs, these shifting attitudes may be towards mortality, the supernatural, religion, you know, these different periods in history.

28:43

So I think certainly whenever there is a time of turbulence, the devil is a very turbulent being.

So in some of our early accounts, you've kind of lived through civil wars and and moving from the Civil War, the devil still has a turbulence about him.

29:02

In a lot of the kind of early to middle 1700s accounts, you have a lot of the devil being associated with the wrong sort of religion or the wrong sort of practices.

But when you get to the Industrial Revolution, which is really where the devil has his prominence in Shropshire, I think the concerns of the community are to do very much to do with alcoholism, particularly in the kind of the gorge, the Iron Bridge Gorge stories.

29:31

The devil is appears in ale houses.

He appears wherever there is alcohol and vice around.

He is a creature that can tempt you from the right path and can ultimately bring about your downfall.

29:46

And I think for these communities that have had that shift from the agrarium through to the fires and the the the smog of, of what would be very reminiscent of hell.

You have a very high mortality rate.

30:04

You have a very high death rate and disease rate.

The devil must have been a very tangible creature and certainly you see in in other aspects of folklore from the Industrial Revolution, a growth in kind of ghost stories in Shropshire and a growth in other Maleficent kind of beings.

30:24

But I think the devil comes to symbolise whatever a community is fearing.

But often he can symbolise the fact that perhaps because I think because they're so on the knife edge, often, particularly in the the more the more industrial areas of Shropshire, he comes to symbolise what would happen if it all goes wrong.

30:46

Or what would happen if they, you know, your husband come home with no money after working all day and you couldn't feed your children or really quite hard hitting and and difficult things.

And he loses that fear of kind of if you don't go to church or you don't do this it he becomes a lot more human in his presentation.

31:08

He becomes a lot more reminiscent of the most difficult aspects of life or the difficult aspects of of society.

You don't need to worry about him coming down your chimney or sitting in your cupboards because he is the thing that's already there.

31:28

He is your children dying or he is your husband being in an accident.

He is a lot more tangible in the the type of fear he's presenting.

So what would you say are some of the the notable examples of devil folklore from Shropshire especially?

31:45

Certainly.

You have ones that are attached to the landscape, so you tend to see in Shropshire landscape devil stories and then you see ones that concern a particular person or a particular group of people.

So within the landscape ones you've got kind of the the stipestones is the kind of, I always refer to it as the jewel in the devil's crown of Shropshire and it is kind of a rocky.

32:14

It's an area and, and of natural beauty, but but the stipestones themselves are rocky outcrops that sit on the hillside in South Shropshire.

It's absolutely beautiful, absolutely beautiful area and I recommend anybody who is in the Shropshire area to visit the stipestones.

32:34

But it's does have a certain atmosphere I suppose.

So perhaps maybe that's where the devil is comes from or why it becomes so synonymous.

But it's known widely throughout the county to be the Devil's area and there has been associations between the Devil and the stipestones from around 1595.

32:59

So it's perhaps the longest in certainly in the county.

But it on an ordinance, early ordinance survey map, we have evidence that it was known as the Devil's Chair, which is, is what it's now known as, was known as the Devil's Bridge.

And it was seen as the centre of the Devil's power.

33:16

So the Devil's Chair is like I said, a rocky outcrop on the striper stones and there's a great body of folklore attached to it.

But it it said that the devil actually created it.

So he was walking back from Ireland.

33:34

For some reason in all of us, pretty much all of our tales, whenever the devil is travelling, he's coming from Ireland.

But he was coming back from Ireland with a great quantity of large stones in his apron pocket.

And he was doing this because he was planning to fill up a valley known as Hell's Gutter, which wasn't far from the area.

33:55

And Hell's Gutter is said to be so deep it runs all the way to hell.

And the devil was getting fed up with people wandering down there by mistake and him having to, I don't know, give him directions out.

There is an alternative version of the story that suggests that he was going to dam the River Severn and flood the whole of Shropshire, which has parallels with the the reeking story, which I'll touch upon.

34:21

But carrying the stones come with their own set of challenges and it is quite a long journey between Ireland and and Shropshire.

So he started to feel tired.

He was feeling the strain and quite suddenly his apron strings snapped and they scattered the stones all around him, some of which made the devil's chair.

34:42

And it's said that this absolutely infuriated the devil.

He became so angry that he would jump up and down on the stones and try and force them back to the earth.

And it's said that when he succeeds, that's when England will fail and fall and we won't have a country like we we know it.

35:03

And there's not really a reason why the devil seems to hate Shropshire as much as he does, because it is notable throughout a lot of our narratives that he really doesn't like us.

There's one account that Charlotte Byrne mentions by a bloke she spoke to known as Old Neverely, who was a lame man who used to look coal with a car and two donkeys about the area and he said it was because Shropshire was a county of good Protestants who read the Bible.

35:32

So he sits on the chair, hoping the weight will force it down to earth and be the ruin of England.

There are other variations of the Devil's Chair story though, and some suggest that rather than jumping up and down on it, he actually uses it as a chair.

35:49

And that's where he looks out over the whole of England and planning his wicked schemes.

And there's a wonderful local belief that says that if you spend the night on the Devil's Chair you'll either be inspired or be driven insane, which I haven't tried yet.

36:06

Hopefully I'd get the inspiration, but it's known to be, within the folklore at least, a very dangerous place, particularly on the longest night of the year, so the the winter solstice.

36:22

And that's when the devil is said to be the most present on the devil's chair.

And it's also when he calls forth all his witches, his ghosts, his warlocks and cruel spirits, and he judges their misdeeds.

And it's the most important black mass of the year.

36:41

And this culminates in the election of what's known as the King of Evil for the following year.

It's not really clear what you get being the king of evil.

It's I've never read, you know, do you get like a Burger King crown and a pat on the back from the devil?

36:59

But there is this, this idea that it's a place where evil gathers and the centre of the devil's power also every Friday night, which is meant to gather on the devil's chair to hold their sabbats, which is is rather cool.

37:14

And you get a whole load of other little links to the devil on the devil's chair, such as if he's sat on it and there's smoke and cloud and rainfall in in the wider area.

It means the Devil's rather annoyed, but the Stipestones is certainly the probably the centre of the devil folklore.

37:37

Rather interestingly, the Rekin which is in in Telford has a very similar story to the Stipestone story.

So the the story of the Rekin and the way the Rekin was founded is now known locally and elsewhere as being either 2 giants that were having a fight or one giant that was bringing stones in an apron to try and dam the River Severn to flood Shrewsbury.

38:05

But an earlier version of the story from about 1860 was said to be the Devil.

And it was said to be that the devil was walking back from Ireland with an apron full of stones ready to dam the River Severn because he hated Shrewsbury.

38:21

And the stones fell and it created the the reeking or also he was carrying a mount a a spade full of earth, which is is very similar to the reeking giant story.

And I find it very interesting, the idea that not necessarily people were looking at their landscape and going, I don't quite understand that it must have been the devil, but rather the idea that they were creating narratives and they were creating stories to engage with the landscape around them.

38:56

And I think it's fascinating to think that somebody one day was going, oh, you know, tell me how the Rican was founded.

And they spanned this yarn and made the story just as they'd done.

And perhaps they'd even heard the story elsewhere for the sniper stones.

39:14

As well as that, we get a lot of stories where the devil is enacting justice.

He is the one to bring kind of sort situations out and punish people who have done something wrong.

So at Place Hall, which is kind of South Shropshire, we're told that one Sunday night there was a group of clergymen who had finished their preaching for the day and they descended to the hall for an evening of games and merriment.

39:44

They got absolutely drunk and they were playing cards.

And midway through the card game the devil appeared.

These men were so stricken with fright they managed to run away from the hall to the safety of the surrounding area.

Except for one who was so frozen stiff with fear that he couldn't move.

40:06

And the clergymen were said to have laid low for a few days and they felt guilty because they didn't know where their their friend was.

So they actually returned back to the hall to find.

A substantial blood stain covering the floor and that was said to be indelible as a reminder of old scratches power.

40:28

This is kind of what I was alluding to earlier is the idea that in some of our earlier stories there's a clear cut kind of someone does something wrong.

It's usually play cards on a Sunday to be honest.

So the devil is there to punish them and often in very violent, violent ways.

40:49

We have a similar story in Minsterley Hall where there is an outsider that moves to the area.

People don't really trust him, but soon enough they start to trust him.

He throws a great big Christmas party and he ends up being killed by the devil because he's he's made kind of a pact with them.

41:10

I'm also rather fond of there's a story from around 1700s from Wem and it's said that some young man, some young men in Wem decided to go for a night out and in the pub after they'd had several drinks, they thought it might be a good idea to summon the devil.

41:33

As you do, you know, standard Friday night out and they summon the devil and the devil is in a in in a circle.

But then the devil is so angry and riled up that they can't banish him.

And there's this whole kind of played out story where in the end a vicar has to come and lay the devil in the same way that you might lay a ghost.

41:58

So you see already there is a devil with a different, different symbolism or different kind of purpose, often to point out folly or to bring a certain message about.

42:14

I'm very fond as well of the I think I've I've mentioned it before, but the, the boat in story, the idea of the devil going to the pub, playing cards with someone and then him being revealed as the devil.

Because I think that story is so symbolic of the concerns of that community, of the worry of drink and the demons of drink, you could say, particularly because there was a teetotalist movement in the area from around the same time as the story was was said to have been set.

42:49

And also the fact that it has these very complex messages in it.

But it's it's incredibly powerful but also incredibly, incredibly funny because you can almost imagine the way it being told it would have quite a lot of humour within it.

43:08

So there's certainly some of them.

I think I could go on and on and on about the Devil and and some about of Shropshire stories because there is a real collection of them in the county.

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43:28

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43:45

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44:07

And I think it's, it's also the uniqueness and I, and I think this is something to kind of really highlight and hone in on because we have these narratives up and down Britain, we have these types of stories all around the world, but yet there is something very unique about them in terms of what they share from within that region.

44:28

And I don't know if you want to just kind of highlight just what you think personally these stories from Shropshire offer in terms of how they compare to other parts of Britain when it comes to devil folklore.

There's certainly every single one of them has its own uniqueness and its own kind of either it's a story reacting to the environment like the Stipe Stones, or it's talking about particular moral I'll.

44:57

So another really good one is there's a story that was originally found in a Welsh account which was published in 17 O 3 that suggests that the devil appeared in his own form in a the prelude of Doctor Faustus when it was being acted in Shrewsbury.

45:17

And the devil was said to be rather insulted by the person playing him, his part in the play.

So he took over and played his own role in Doctor Faustus.

And there's a wonderful quote that says that he turned all of the the people from their pleasures to their prayer books, which feels very Puritan in it's slightly later than kind of the what we would normally call the highlight of the Puritan kind of period.

45:44

But it's that criticism of the kind of theatre and the ills of the theatre.

So the stories like that that are very specific to a cultural phenomenon.

But I do think in Shropshire, a lot of them are very linked to the industrial revolution.

46:02

So for example, you do have say, for instance, the the boat in narrative in Jackfield, which is talking about an area that is very engulfed in the industry of, of Shropshire and really is the Crucible of the industry for a lot of its history.

46:23

So understandably then the devil would be, if the devil was going to be in any environment, it would be in somewhere like Jackfield or Iron Bridge during the Victorian period.

But then curiously, you see some narratives in Shropshire that are actually you could argue were a rejection of the industrial revolution and the actually pride rural knowledge and emphasise how having this rural knowledge can actually be to your benefit.

46:56

So there's an absolutely brilliant example that's a very long story.

So I'll try and sum it up a little bit.

That can be found in an idler on the Shropshire borders in Ida Gandhi.

And again, it's another, it's one of those books that were very popular, come from about 1900 to about 19401950, where people went on leisurely tours round counties and talked to their curious and their curiosities.

47:25

And the lady who wrote it was introduced to another old man, this time an old man very knowing in country matters, who gave her this narrative from when he was a boy.

And it was about the legend of David Appevan.

47:42

And David Appevan was a farmhand who lived kind of in the Clun, the wider Clun area.

And one day he was working in the fields in Scybury, maybe several 100 years ago, we're told in the story, when the devil came to him.

48:03

And the devil said to him, why aren't you going to the wakes, which is kind of a event, calendrical, often calendrical event, where people would drink and be merry.

And David said, oh, it was because I have to scare the crows.

I've got a job to do.

So the devil helps him out.

48:19

David gets to go to the wakes, but then throughout all of his life, you get this kind of interplay between David and the devil where the devil tries to outwit David, but David is able to very easily outwit him through his knowledge of the countryside and through his knowledge of the local area or kind of the more agrarian lifestyle.

48:47

So it it fits into the kind of tops and tails narratives.

The idea of, oh, the devil asks what would be better, the tops or tails of the wheat and the devil picks the wrong one and the tops and tails of the potatoes.

And eventually David is able to outwit the devil one final time in death because he's outwitted him so many times in life that the devil says, right, well, you might have got the better of me, but I'll take your soul when you die.

49:17

I'll take your soul if you were buried outside of the churchyard or inside of the churchyard.

And David goes, oh, well, actually, I'll get buried half in and half out.

So he wins one final time.

And conceivably these kind of stories where it's particularly the idea of the tops and the tails and knowing which is the right one to pick for the crops to grow, and would be quite logical to someone whose life is absolutely agrarian, who's always been working in that kind of sphere.

49:51

And the fact that the devil is so easily outwitted.

It prides rural knowledge.

And these stories tend to, there are several, but they tend to really come into prominence in Shropshire around about the time that the Industrial revolution is occurring.

50:08

So obviously in in the David app Evans story, it was written down kind of in the 40s, but it is a story that is talking about a time 100 to 200 years before that.

And you could argue, I think that stories where rural knowledge is the way in which the devil is outwitted are priding it.

50:30

And they're saying that actually you can reject the industrial revolution, you can inject reject all of the trappings of modern society, because this is the knowledge that will always matter.

You always need to know the whether the tops or the bottoms of the wheat are the important to ensure we have food.

50:49

And you do see after the initial kind of, I think, shock of the industrial revolution, you see a lot of these tales where the devil is actually could, could be argued to be quite stupid and is easily outwitted due to a lack of knowledge of the space that he inherit inherits.

51:10

So I think, again, it links to that idea of the devil being the perfect conduit.

And you do see as well several stories where the devil demonstrates a fear about a particular person in the community as well.

But he has so many different facets.

51:27

I think that's why we're able to still be infused by him, enthralled by these stories.

Have you noticed any recurring motifs or themes whilst studying the the Shropshire Devil narratives compared to again other narratives from other parts of Britain and beyond?

51:47

I think there's the several.

So in Shropshire, which probably is mirrored elsewhere, is the idea of the devil playing cards or somebody playing cards and the devil coming to punish them.

So you have in the Minsterley Hall narrative, you have in, in some versions of the Minsterley Hall narrative in place Hall, you have in lots of different ones, the idea that these cards, these card games are inherently evil.

52:17

And also in in my grand, my granddad used to tell a story about how he met the devil when he was a boy and that was linked to him playing card games on a Sunday.

So that is a wider tradition in Britain, Scotland, Ireland, but certainly there is this idea that there is a Sabbath and the Sabbath is important for a reason.

52:39

One of the things I think is probably most pertinent in Shropshire is the devil as the arbiter of justice and the devil being the person, well, not the person, the supernatural persons that can bring about justice and right or wrong.

52:58

So there is a road in Shropshire that kind of runs through Cardington, that kind of area.

And it's a little bit of Roman road and Acton Burnell, Rockley in Cardington it is.

53:14

And this road is no more than about 30 yards in length now to.

And it's cobblestone, which people have said to say that it is Roman Rd.

But folklore tells us that the devil laid it in a single night to aid him on his nefarious travels.

53:32

And it's known as the Devil's Causeway and is haunted by the devil still.

But on this road, the devil will, if you are unlucky enough to meet him, if you've been good your whole life, he might rough you up a little bit and scare you, but he'll send you out on your way.

53:52

And you can warn others, but if you have been bad, the devil will beat you to a bloody pulp and leave you lying on the side of the road.

So you've got a very extreme version of the devil being an arbiter of justice.

54:07

If you've been a bad person, you don't deserve anything more than the devil to beat you to death.

To put it very bluntly, and I think it is found elsewhere, but at least within the Shropshire context, the devil seems to be a little bit more of this instrument of, of, of justice and, and ensuring that you are punished for the things that you've done wrong.

54:32

You see that repeated kind of again and again.

There are stories where he's doing something rather random, all little random snippets you get about a particular place or an area.

But a lot of the time there's a very purposeful reason why the devil is doing something.

54:48

And I think you could probably suggest that all of Shropshire's devil stories present a situation or a little insight into the history or the cultural or even the fears of the community.

55:05

And I think until we get to some of the ones where the devil is a bit silly and like like the David app Evans story, the devil is certainly a conduit for fear.

Or concerns.

Yeah.

I think you've really highlighted just the, you know, the, the particular purpose that they could have, you know, in, in offering that explanation, that warning, showing how it can explain natural phenomena or geography.

55:31

You know, we've all heard stories in our local communities of, of how the devil has been linked to stones being flung at churches and mounds of earth dug up to bury villages.

You know, all of these stories that help to explain the geography of our local landscape and I think you've been able to share that really quite, you know, really quite evocatively in terms of sharing how that's very unique and specific to to Shropshire and really showing and highlighting that purpose.

56:02

Look how how would you say just kind of dig into that a little bit further?

How would you say then that they, these stories impacted the local communities in particular through that history?

You know, given given that kind of ability to to highlight these warnings, have these explanations behind them, how would you say they impacted on local communities?

56:25

There would there is a certain element with the stories of them being either humorous or kind of the more traditional storytelling things.

So you can't ignore the the humour in say the David up Evans story or the other stories where the devil is kind of a bit silly.

56:45

You have to kind of go right, yes, this was something to laugh about or to kind of enjoy.

But also I think having this thing, this symbol or this, this tangible thing that you can blame for something allows a community, a kind of exorcism in itself.

57:06

So if you are suffering, there is something going wrong.

There is a period of disruption.

If you have something tangible to blame it on, you can also come to terms with it.

And I think certainly when you look at some of the ways in which in Shropshire people try to stop the devil, you're giving them a tangible means of control.

57:32

And I think a lot of it does come from control.

If you have got this awful thing ripping through your village or through your local community, affecting crops or affecting people, if you've got something to control that that allows you an ability to in your head deal with it.

57:50

Even if you don't necessarily are not necessarily convinced that it's actually going to stop it, it allows you to do something.

And I think so much of our folklore, even aside from the devil, is a means in which you do something to feel in control.

58:08

So for example, things like in Shropshire, horseshoes are incredibly pertinent in the Shropshire context.

It doesn't matter which way the horseshoe.

I've had lots of debates about it, but it doesn't matter which way the horseshoe is hung because the power is in the material the horseshoe is made, not the actual shape.

58:29

But they were often hung on boats, particularly around the Seven Valley in Shrewsbury on the River Severn to ensure that the devil didn't disrupt disrupt them.

And in more rural areas, branches of forms were often concealed above the entrance to stop the devil getting in because the devil was repelled by sharp objects.

58:51

You also have references in parts of Shropshire as people drawing kind of not like patterns on the threshold and also on the hearth to stop the devil coming down the chimney.

These aren't things.

59:08

Rowan wood crosses as well are another one that keep the devil and witches away.

Now these aren't things that are actually going to do anything on the grand scale of things, but you felt like you were in control and you felt like you were able to do something to either get rid of your fear or allow yourself a little bit of control back.

59:31

Because the as I said earlier, the devil fills the gaps in left by uncertainty.

So if you are uncertain and you have something you can do any a protective device or something you can physically do or say to attribute it to that it, it allows you more freedom I think.

59:50

I I think you hit really the nail on the head.

It's that ability to put a name to something that feels very vacu, you know, vacuous, very empty that you can't control.

You are enabling yourself to to name that.

Forbidden scary thing.

1:00:08

The thing suddenly becomes something more tangible and you have that power, you feel like you can can take control of it and actively do something to it.

It's that element of, like you say, taking control, which I think is really, really highlighting the impact that these stories had on the local person day-to-day.

1:00:26

Yeah, and I think also when you link it back to the humour, when you poke fun at something, it's incredibly British thing to do.

But when we poke fun at something we reduce its power and I think that's why you have so many names for the devil in Shropshire.

He is Old Scratch, Uncle Joseph, the old Man and countless more when you say them Old Scratch or old man, he's less scary than Satan the Devil, Beelzebub or whatever else you want to call him, but also using humour to deflect from some of his power.

1:01:00

So one of the most kind of surreal and bizarre stories we find in Shropshire is on the English side of the of offers dyke.

And it's the idea that offers dyke is actually a furrow that was cut in a single night by the devil and the devil had a plow pulled by a gander and a Turkey.

1:01:24

That is absolutely ridiculous and I'd love it if he did.

But it's, it's the idea that if you mock him and mock the devil, you're losing any of that original religious guilt or religiosity of it.

But also you're, you're not going to be scared of someone who is pulling, you know, be in charge of a plow pulled by a Turkey really.

1:01:47

So I think when humour is injected you it's used to reduce some of that fear and alleviate some of the concerns.

I, I think it has the equivalent of, you know, you see that we do it still to this day.

1:02:03

You know, people try and reduce a scary situation by adding that humour to it or having that slant that's slightly mocking, you know, For example, if you don't like giving speeches, imagining your audience naked whilst you're giving your speech, it's exactly the same type of thing.

1:02:19

By trying to reduce the fear factor by poking fun at it in some way, you are taking away some of the sharp sting, that real fear that can grip you and just itch you from the inside out.

You know, again, you're, you're bringing it down to earth a little bit, aren't you?

1:02:36

It just helps reduce that anxiety.

Yeah, I think so.

And I think even when you get into, I mentioned it several times, what stories like the boat in story, you've got this very, very deep message about the devil being in the pub in a working class community in an area which was notable for its ale houses and its brothels.

1:02:59

And it's kind of bulbating and other low kind of undesirable activities.

But it's told in quite a comical way.

And you could almost imagine it being told in the pub.

But that doesn't detract from the story's significance.

And it's, it's emphasis on the idea of, of alcoholism and not and, and poverty and, and the fears of a community when their husbands left the door kind of thing.

1:03:27

So you have these many layered ideas in these stories.

Also, there is quite a few stories where either like I mentioned earlier, that the kind of the vicars getting told off by the devil or killed by the devil or the land owners not doing the right thing, being a bit wicked or being, you know, in the Minsley Hall story, it's just the fact that he is an other.

1:03:53

He's not representative of the old institutions or what they know.

He's an outsider that's come to the area.

Them getting punished.

It's very indicative of the working class oral tradition, the idea that why not poke fun and and at the injustices?

1:04:13

Why not make up a story where the devil is punishing someone for who is you're better, quote UN quote, for doing the wrong thing?

It's it's very the devil.

I've never stopped being fascinated by him.

1:04:29

And every time I dig deeper, I find new layers and new facets to him and new implications.

And I think I'm very grateful in some ways that I've chosen to look at him in a regional context because I think it'd be my life's work if I was to study him on a wider context.

1:04:46

But when you look in a regional context, there is still so many links to British folklore and also elsewhere.

So he's just fascinating.

And I think even though he is a supernatural folkloric creature, there is something so human about him.

1:05:08

I have used the line in the past that he's walked among us so long that he forgets he isn't human.

And it's the idea that this his stories have been so much part of our kind of cultural zeitgeist that we have been adding these human layers to him over the last kind of 2 or 300 years.

1:05:27

And just to kind of draw together our discussion, what would you say are the, the main insights then that we can really gain by examining these types of folklore, you know, and the role that the devil has in the, in these stories, You know, how, what would you say, as I say, the, the main insights you think that are the takeaways from that?

1:05:50

If you're interested in folklore, you shouldn't shy away from the devil.

I think there's a tendency, even if you're not religious, or to see it as as something that just is or something that is not really worth looking at.

1:06:06

Or, well, the devil's just the devil.

The devil is, I think, possibly one of the most human aspects of folklore because we have used him so much and added so many layers to him that his story has become in many ways, I think mirroring our own.

1:06:24

And I think I've obviously I'm, I'm, I've got the interest in him, particularly in Shropshire, but he is characterized by his multitudes.

And in many ways, I think the devil can be seen as the great equalizer because in a lot of our stories, no one is safe from his guile.

1:06:44

No one is shit safe truly from his influence.

But I think his complexity is due to us.

And I think that makes him more enthralling and more interesting.

And if we are to look at our stories of the devil in a regional or a national context, we're able to truly understand, I think a little bit more about societies that are, or aspects of society that are less understood, less accessible, because the devil is a conduit for whoever speaks his name.

1:07:21

And you're able to look at what a community is worried about through his stories.

Are they worried about the outsider?

Are they worried about the religious institution?

What are they worried about?

You can see all this and more, and I think there's a reason because his there's a reason that his stories have endured.

1:07:43

And I wouldn't necessarily say it was due to his religious importance in the traditional, conventional sense.

It's because that he is so tangible.

There's also a reason why there are so many variations of his story, and I think it's because there are so many variations of human experience.

1:08:02

So I think I would implore people who have that interest in folklore to look a little bit deeper and to look at what the devil is symbolizing.

And and perhaps that will give you a little bit more of an insight into your own self as well.

1:08:20

Because I think some of the devil stories, how I've looked at them and interpreted them, mean different to me than they would have when they were first spoken.

So I just believe he's, he's a wonderful, wonderful figure that can express the hardships of a community.

1:08:37

He can be seen as an active agent in daily life or even holding up a mirror to the world around us.

So I really would.

I, I can't emphasize enough how wonderful it has been in a process and looking through these fragments and these these folk stories and trying to piece together the historical importance of them.

1:09:00

Amy, it's been so fascinating to talk to you again.

And you know, I will make sure to include in the podcast description notes, links to your blog, to your podcast, you know, the, the narrative that we spoke of last time, all of the, the ways that people can follow you.

1:09:17

I will make sure to include all of those links because I hope people follow that up and, and dive into some of your writing on your blog and go and listen to the podcast narrative that you wrote because you know, you are such an incredible writer and you are so passionate about Shropshire.

1:09:36

And yeah, I would very much recommend if anyone has an interest to go and follow, see what you're up to, see what you're doing next, because they won't be disappointed.

Thank you.

That's really lovely of you.

I'm I'm really pleased with that.

1:09:53

Honestly, thank you so much for your time.

It's always such a fun chat being able to talk to you about whatever aspect that we go down and we discuss.

It's always so really intriguing because you offer such passion, such knowledge and real insight and it, it always makes me come away with just so many more questions and wanting to look so much more further into certain details, which is a real sign, I think again of just what you bring and what you offer.

1:10:21

So thank you so much for for coming along and and chatting with me tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me and thank you for listening to my favorite thing, which is the devil.

And I will say goodbye to everybody listening.

Bye everybody.

Thank you for joining us on this journey into the unknown.

1:10:41

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Until next time, keep your eyes open and your mind curious.

Amy Boucher

Amy Boucher is a writer and folklorist who focuses on her native Shropshire. Her emphasis is primarily on the interplay between Folklore, history and the paranormal, as well as perceptions of the past through the lens of folk beliefs. She is a passionate advocate of Shropshire’s folklore, ghostlore and local history, and the role these play in preserving memory and heritage. She is currently collating ghost stories from the area, as well as writing an audio drama based on the intrinsic link between the Shropshire landscape and Satanic Folklore.