Black Lady of Bradley Woods
Actions always lead to consequences, you do, you pay, but sometimes the things that have been done are so terrible than no punishment is good enough to restore a balance. The hunger for revenge is everlasting, once you let it take over your soul, turning you into an insignificant life form yearning for an end.
The Black Lady of Bradley Woods is a ghost which reportedly haunts the woods near the village of Bradley, Lincolnshire, England. Alleged eyewitnesses have described her as being young and pretty, around 5'6" tall, dressed in a flowing black cloak and a black hood that obscures her hair but reveals her mournful, pale, tear-soaked face. According to the legend she has never harmed anyone and has only ever proved to be a pitiful, if unnerving sight.
The story is known to have been told for many generations. It was once used by parents to frighten children; this appears to have been a common practice among parents in the area, and children were warned that if they were not safely in bed by a certain time "the black lady will get you!".
One theory that has been put forward is that the Black Lady is the ghost of a nun. She appears dressed in black and at nearby Nunsthorpe (Nunsthorpe is a suburb in the western part of Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, England) where a convent existed until the Reformation (The Protestant Reformation was the 16th-century schism (division between people) within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants). This theory gives no reason as to why the Black Lady should have moved from Nunsthorpe to Bradley, 2 miles (3.2 km) away. Also, though she may be dressed in black, few if any eyewitnesses have described her appearance as matching that of a nun.
Another possible explanation is that she is a spinster who at one time lived a life of isolation in her cottage in the woods far enough away from the village. If village children had come across a woman living on her own in the woods, who became angry when her privacy and solitude was breached, then imaginary tales of witchcraft could have exaggerated the legend.
Neither of these theories ties in with the folklore.
The myth
During the Wars of the Roses (between two rival royalties), a young woodsman and his wife lived with their baby son in a cottage in Bradley Woods. Eventually the woodsman left his family to fight in the Earl of Yarborough's army, leaving his wife to bring up the baby alone. After many months there was no news of the woodsman. Every day she would take her child and walk to the edge of the woods, awaiting the sight of her husband coming home from the war. One new year’s day, a group of soldiers on horseback came riding through the woods, part of a force that had been plundering the surrounding countryside. Coming across the cottage, they broke in and demanded the woodsman’s wife hand over all her money and any strong drink she might have. When she refused, the soldiers beat and raped her savagely, before taking the baby and riding off, laughing wickedly. Heartbroken and humiliated, she wandered the woods searching in vain for her child and husband.
From that day on, the woman dressed in black and roamed the woods searching for her missing child, accosting anyone she met and begging them for any news of the baby. She soon earned a reputation as being quite mad, and so people began to give the woods a wide berth.
The woodsman never returned home, and the woman continued to roam the woods, desperately searching for her lost baby until the day she died. After her death people began to see her wandering the woods, carrying on her never ending search.
Legend has it that her ghost still wanders the woods today, and if anyone is brave enough to walk into the woods on new year’s day or on Christmas Eve and shout : "Black lady, black lady, I’ve stolen your baby!" three times, the woman shall appear and confront them.. This appears to be a modern addition to the myth.
So guys, I want to make some things clear:
1. I don't write the legends, I just find them. Now I now what some of you may say ” This is crap. How hard can it be to get information from wikipedia, put it here and assume it's mine. I can do that too ” Haha...no. I do take the legends from different sites and put it here but it's not as easy as it seems. I try not to just paste it, I give my opinion and shit.
2. This isn't so easy to do. You may say that”yeah, okay, you write like three rows from your point of view, pffft, I bet it didn't take you more that half an hour.” Now, I also believed that this wouldn't take more than an hour but I was sooo wrong. As you may have noticed I always try to make my stories high quality ones. I check my grammar a hundred times(but I still make mistakes, sorry) and I'm sure that many of you do that. Anyway, I shall let you know how the writing of a chapter goes: 1 Firstly I look on a website with legends and find one that I like 2 I look up that legend on google and try to find as many versions as I can, so that I can put here the best version. 3 Then comes the selection of the facts, the interesting ones so I wouldn't bore you with the unimportant ones 4 I look for pictures EVERYWHERE to match the story, I usually get them right but they aren't always perfectly matching. It's just so you can picture it better 5 And of course the last part is to get my lazy ass to work and make the final product and guess how much it takes: between two and four hours (on a good day XD). So yeah, it's a lot of work to do but I love to do it, and you my readers, are the ones I make this for ♥
I'm sorry you had to read my babbling here but I just wanted to make that clear :D
P.S. My point of view will be written with bold letters.
Btw. Are my explanations of the uncommon words tiring ? Should I write the explanations at the end of the legend ? Please tell me.
This chapter is dedicated to a badass fan and brilliant friend for supporting me when I didn't expected it @DevilAngel89 . You're amazing love ♥
If you have any legends that you may want to know more about but you are to lazy to look it up yourself, please tell me, it'll be a pleasure to help you ^-^