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An Odd Bit Of Road

Bigphoot2 said:
There's a bridge in Scotland notorious for its dog suicides
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...-death-haunted-scottish-bridge_n_7652030.html
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That comes up every now and then. I saw an article about it recently online (possibly taken from the Daily Mirror) with the usual suggestion that the ghost of the White Lady of nearby Overtoun House is luring dogs away to their doom.

The more rational explanation is that the dogs catch a whiff of wild mink and charge off to investigate, not realising that there's a huge drop on the other side of the bridge wall. I've kept dogs and that sounds plausible to me; where dogs are off-lead they feel safe to explore and wouldn't know how high up they were.

(A bigger mystery might be why the dog-owners don't just put their pets on the lead along there. That'd save a lot of trouble. When I walked my dogs I soon learned about trouble spots like the decomposing wildlife they loved to roll in. I'd call them back in good time and restrain them as we passed or bear the smelly consequences!)
 
Ermintruder said:
This. This must be expanded upon. Or we shall descend upon you with firey torches, & foul oaths. And massive kazoos, made out of kayaks.
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It is a magic of the subtlest effect; perhaps perceptible only to those in a receptive, if not credulous, frame of mind, and even then only glimpsed through the corner of the eye, or corner of the heart. In my experience, in my credulous heart, it manifests as a 'rightness' in the landscape: the smooth rolling fields and hamlets doubtless obscure a long history of hardship and inequality between cottage and the big house, but the quiet single track roads hearken back to an idealised past. Maybe I am more susceptible to the illusion than many, as my maternal grandfather hailed from Pocklington. He left the countryside to work in Bradford's dark, Satanic mills. As many other Romantic fools have thought: truly, paradise lost. His surname hangs proud in a church in Bridlington - one family myth is that there is a lost fortune... As I make my way around this part of Yorkshire, I fancy I can see these riches, my true inheritance, on all sides: a faerie shimmer, beckoning me astray.

So, as I travel through on my pilgrimage, making my way to its endpoint, the ritual anointing of my feet in the North Sea, I am not only vulnerable to the enchantment, I positively welcome it. The rest of my family are not blind to the area's charms, but on the return leg I must, like Odysseus, be bound to the mast, lest my head is turned by the Siren call and I jump ship. Their ears, however, are plugged with wax; their birthright encompasses land far, far, further east. We wander, and wonder: just where is it, this place we might all call home?
 
I've had a similar cliff edge/escarpment experience at "Hall's Gap" in Victoria, Aus. Beautiful place but on approaching the edge I had an overwhelming feeling of wanting/having to jump. It was so strong I had to get down on my hands and knees and explore. The need to jump came in waves and I was shaking a little. That evening around the fire our guide told us that the place was famous for suicides.

Back to Catseye's bit of road. Although I would love an other worldly explanation I wonder if the odd feeling may have come about due to the car vibrations. If the road surface there was different in some way if may have subtly changed the way the car vibrated causing the change in sensation.
 
My car is elderly and is basically one small box of metallic vibrations, Pandacracker. I NEED to go back and check out this bit of road! Unfortunately I am on a deadline and shouldn't even be here...
 
pandacracker said:
I've had a similar cliff edge/escarpment experience at "Hall's Gap" in Victoria, Aus. Beautiful place but on approaching the edge I had an overwhelming feeling of wanting/having to jump. It was so strong I had to get down on my hands and knees and explore. The need to jump came in waves and I was shaking a little. That evening around the fire our guide told us that the place was famous for suicides.
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:eek: Oh my flip, that's scary! I want to try that.

There's a road near here where we hear a dog barking, faintly but clearly. We worked out that it's the slightly uneven surface making a sound which we interpret wrongly.
 
Hi catseye just reading your thread from 2017 about the Yorkshire wolds very spooky.
Have you read any of the Paul Sinclair books although they are mainly about the coastline ( filey Bridlington etc) he does mention the inland areas a bit.I go walking around the area. Before lockdown? .
Never felt anything spooky or weird. Beautiful place to visit though a lot of the churches are covered in very old graffiti art.
 
Who me said:
Hi catseye just reading your thread from 2017 about the Yorkshire wolds very spooky.
Have you read any of the Paul Sinclair books although they are mainly about the coastline ( filey Bridlington etc) he does mention the inland areas a bit.I go walking around the area. Before lockdown? .
Never felt anything spooky or weird. Beautiful place to visit though a lot of the churches are covered in very old graffiti art.
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Was just going to say the same when I read this !,, Yes , weird wolds by Paul Sinclair, good read.

He is on some you tube channels I follow regarding the UK Dogman sightings, now funny enough I was on the live chat on sat night and an ex policeman from Brid area said himself and 2 other PCs in the patrol car saw a Dogman on the A171 in the late 90s. Had a chat with him and put him forward to report the sighting to Paul Sinclair. .... The point is that the whole area is steeped in history, magic and weirdness.
 
Hi funky tt yeah it is an old and odd place me and the beloved walked from fairydale round to wharram percy one summers day and in the valley it’s self it was very very still and quiet.
Nothing odd happened but no bird song and the sheep never moved when we were quite close to them/walking past never saw any one else either
 
Who me said:
Hi funky tt yeah it is an old and odd place me and the beloved walked from fairydale round to wharram percy one summers day and in the valley it’s self it was very very still and quiet.
Nothing odd happened but no bird song and the sheep never moved when we were quite close to them/walking past never saw any one else either
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I've spent a pleasant, albeit somewhat melancholy, hour or so mooching around Wharram Percy. But this is the first I've heard of Fairydale - what's that?
 
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Hi krepostnoi it’s described as a dry chalk valley where farmers would put their sheep. When you are in them they are very sheltered from the wind etc when you walk them the valley bottom follows the ancient river bed. OS explorer map 300 howardian hills &malton hope that helps.My computer skills aren’t good enough to get it on google maps for you sorry :bthumbup:
 
Will this help?
Google Maps, Howardian Hills.

The description characterizes this as "heavily wooded." It looks like mostly farmland to me. Are there any thicker forests left in Britain?
 
Here's an OS map with Fairy Dale marked, WhoMe.
https://gridreferencefinder.com/os.php?x=487300&y=463390&lt=54.059075&lg=-0.66778840
For added local weirdness you can have that track along east to west with all its prehistoric burial mounds. And the road north to south is probably ancient too. So you get an added bonus of an ancient crossroads (that's always a nice liminal fortean spot innit).

I find dry valleys really strange and evocative of somethingorother ancient. There are a lot to the south of where I live. I like them a lot. But yours has evidently got a weird reputation too or why would it be associated with the (shh) good people?!

ps I notice there are Fairy Stones there too and they can help you with a bit of precognition
https://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/12809/fairy_stones.html
 
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Who me said:
Hi catseye just reading your thread from 2017 about the Yorkshire wolds very spooky.
Have you read any of the Paul Sinclair books although they are mainly about the coastline ( filey Bridlington etc) he does mention the inland areas a bit.I go walking around the area. Before lockdown? .
Never felt anything spooky or weird. Beautiful place to visit though a lot of the churches are covered in very old graffiti art.
Click to expand...

The whole of the Wolds area has a very 'stuck in time' feel to it - due, I think, to there not being many settlements up there, just endless roads that seem to go to nowhere very much.

I've still not driven that road again, I really should. If nothing else, just to find out whether that spot provokes the same reaction in me. But it's a fair way from me (about an hour or so's driving) and I could be sitting on my bed staring into space and wondering if there's any cake left...
 
Krepostnoi said:
It is a magic of the subtlest effect; perhaps perceptible only to those in a receptive, if not credulous, frame of mind, and even then only glimpsed through the corner of the eye, or corner of the heart. In my experience, in my credulous heart, it manifests as a 'rightness' in the landscape: the smooth rolling fields and hamlets doubtless obscure a long history of hardship and inequality between cottage and the big house, but the quiet single track roads hearken back to an idealised past. Maybe I am more susceptible to the illusion than many, as my maternal grandfather hailed from Pocklington. He left the countryside to work in Bradford's dark, Satanic mills. As many other Romantic fools have thought: truly, paradise lost. His surname hangs proud in a church in Bridlington - one family myth is that there is a lost fortune... As I make my way around this part of Yorkshire, I fancy I can see these riches, my true inheritance, on all sides: a faerie shimmer, beckoning me astray.

So, as I travel through on my pilgrimage, making my way to its endpoint, the ritual anointing of my feet in the North Sea, I am not only vulnerable to the enchantment, I positively welcome it. The rest of my family are not blind to the area's charms, but on the return leg I must, like Odysseus, be bound to the mast, lest my head is turned by the Siren call and I jump ship. Their ears, however, are plugged with wax; their birthright encompasses land far, far, further east. We wander, and wonder: just where is it, this place we might all call home?
Click to expand...

I live not too far from there and we go to Rudston etc with some regularity because we also feel the pull of that area although my ancestors come from nearer Selby way - got no DNA in that soil! Although I do descend a long way back, though, on my dad's side from the Constable family of Brid.

There's a real, underrated beauty to the area of the wolds that I love because some stupid vet didn't write books about it in the 70s that alerted the tourists to the fact it's there - it's still unspoiled. We went to Pock a fair bit in the Before Times and we do have family (related by marriage) from there.

Went to see the David Hockney exhibition a few years back - he came back to the Wolds and painted that massive treescape - it's a real acquired taste, that area, but those of us who love it, love it well. I think there might be all kinds of High Strangeness going on up there.

Another chariot burial found there:

https://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/further-chariot-burial-discovered-at-pocklington.htm
 
Bigphoot2 said:
There's Kinnoull Hill just outside Perth is Scotland which is a notorious suicide spot. Many years ago I stood at the edge of the cliff and didn't feel well at all. I don't like heights anyway but the feeling I got there was a lot worse than normal, I felt dizzy and was becoming disorientated.
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That's' just the after effects of a good Scotch Malt Whisky!:headspinner:
 
WeeScottishLassie said:
I've never heard of dog suicides before!! :(
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This has been explained by the presence of mink which live under the bridge. Dogs can smell them and want to chase them but when they take off over the wall they drop off the side.
 
escargot said:
This has been explained by the presence of mink which live under the bridge. Dogs can smell them and want to chase them but when they take off over the wall they drop off the side.
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A family cousin had a rescue dog who fell off a cliff near Edinburgh.

Thankfully they were able to save it though!
 
IbisNibs said:
"Describing the elaborate burial, Paula Ware, Managing Director of MAP Archaeological Practice, said: ‘The upright horses were positioned in motion, as though leaping upwards out of the grave."
HOW on earth (under earth?) would they have managed THAT?
Sounds very awkward.
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A 'leap' of the imagination possibly?
 
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IbisNibs said:
"Describing the elaborate burial, Paula Ware, Managing Director of MAP Archaeological Practice, said: ‘The upright horses were positioned in motion, as though leaping upwards out of the grave."
HOW on earth (under earth?) would they have managed THAT?
Sounds very awkward.
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Dunno but it's an amazing idea. And I guess they know they were buried upright from where they found the bones.

Maybe kill them, put them whilst laying on their side into a "leaping" position, wait for rigor mortis to set in, bury them quick..? (Upright). I suppose they'd spent a lot of time thinking about the logistics of horse burial! These days you'd have some sort of digger thing to lift them, I guess!
 
From the upright burial of horses and chariot discovered in Bulgaria 2013:

"Experts believe the chariot was placed in a narrow hole with a sloping side to allow horses, decorated with elaborate harnesses, to pull it into its final resting place, after which they were killed."

I cannot believe it was easy to entice horses into a narrow hole, but once in position they were pole-axed and had no room to fall down.

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/2500...+Suggest+Creatures+Were+Buried...-a0344066042
 
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