Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

On Thursday night, March 2, 1663, some company came to my house, and as they came they saw a strange flaming northwards. One said it was just like that streaming that she saw about 20 years ago, immediately before the Scotch wars, and she never saw any except that, we all went out to look at it, it was a dark night, something stormy, and in the north we saw a bright place which was constantly light, but sometimes far brighter, and bowed always, far and wide in the air, it was so bright sometimes that one might have seen anything clearly on the ground, it shone in at windows, and was in my apprehension very formidable to behold. The lord sanctify such strange sights. It hath been seen again the night after in the west. There is also a strange noise in the air heard of many in these parts this winter, called Gabriel-Ratches by this country-people. The noise is as if a great number of whelps were barking and howling, and ’tis observed that if any see them the persons that see them die shortly after. They are never heard but before a great death or dearth. There is another noise heard in the air, which here they call night-whistlers, which make a whizzing, or whistling in the air, as if it were a piece of timber that’s carried with violence through the air, and some say they have seen it, but very many have heard it, though it be rarely heard, and presage something more than ordinary, yet several have heard this also this winter – though I never heard either of them.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations:

• ER: East Riding
• GM: Greater Manchester
• NR: North Riding
• NY: North Yorkshire
• SY: South Yorkshire
• WR: West Riding
• WY: West Yorkshire

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Original

On Thursday night, March 2, 1663, some company came to my house, and as they came they saw a strange flaming northwards. One said it was just like that streaming that she saw about 20 years ago, immediately before the Scotch wars, and she never saw any except that, we all went out to look at it, it was a dark night, something stormy, and in the north we saw a bright place which was constantly light, but sometimes far brighter, and bowed always, far and wide in the air, it was so bright sometimes that one might have seen anything clearly on the ground, it shone in at windows, and was in my apprehension very formidable to behold. The lord sanctify such strange sights. It hath been seen again the night after in the west.

There is also a strange noise in the air heard of many in these parts this winter, called Gabriel-Ratches by this country-people. The noise is as if a great number of whelps were barking and howling, and ’tis observed that if any see them the persons that see them die shortly after. They are never heard but before a great death or dearth.

There is another noise heard in the air, which here they call night-whistlers, which make a whizzing, or whistling in the air, as if it were a piece of timber that’s carried with violence through the air, and some say they have seen it, but very many have heard it, though it be rarely heard, and presage something more than ordinary, yet several have heard this also this winter – though I never heard either of them.

279 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Dog (12) ·
• English Civil War (1642-1651) (27), a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of religious freedom ·
• English folklore (17) ·
• First English Civil War (18), August 1642-June 1646 ·
• Heywood, Oliver (1630-1702) (34), Bolton-born nonconformist minister and diarist, active in the West Riding, resident at Northowram, ejected for his beliefs ·
• Northern lights (2), aurora borealis ·
• 📌Northowram (14) ·
• Superstition (14) ·

All tags.

Similar

• 11 December 1680: The Great Comet is seen at Halifax as a natural event, in London – amid Popish Plot hysteria – as a portent
• 14 March 1670: The itinerant Presbyterian, Oliver Heywood, is arrested for preaching in a private house at Little Woodhouse, Leeds
• 24 March 1703: The mathematician and astronomer Abraham Sharp experiences the northern lights for the first time, at Little Hortonn, Bradford
• 11 April 1667: A hubristic Sam Mitchell impersonates a gypsy in a Halifax pub, and nemesis follows
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• 10 December 1673: The Rev. Heywood prays for more death and destruction in the new year