Legend of the Moonlit Moor

The Legend of the Moonlit Moor

When autumn winds across the moor

Beneath the pale moon fly,

A headless driver seeks his love

Who answers with a cry.

Ride on, ride on, through the mist and night,

Though death has closed the door.

Two lovers seek each other still

Upon the moonlit moor.

He’d come seeking his bride, stealing a carriage belonging to his mother because he wanted to keep his lady protected against the night.

Against the world.

Sadly, it seemed that it was against him and the lovely Heather, named for the purple and pink blooms that grew upon the moors this far north in an area known as Fangdale Beck.

It could be so thick that a man couldn’t walk through it, but there was something comforting in that bushy, prickly foliage.

The month was October, with a chill in the air, and the last bits of heather were still blooming before winter forced them to slumber until the following year.

Heather.

She was waiting for him.

The problem would be making their way to Carlisle before her family discovered she was missing.

She was the only daughter, after three strapping sons, and her father kept a close watch on her perhaps more than he should.

Heather was a little wild, much like her namesake, but just as free and lovely.

He’d fallen in love with her within the first few moments of being introduced at a neighbor’s celebration last year.

Do you ever dream, Rickard?

That was one of the first conversations they’d ever had.

Heather had asked him if he’d ever dreamed, but she hadn’t meant it in the literal sense.

She hadn’t meant when he was sleeping. She’d wanted to know what the dreams for his life were.

Did he wish to travel? To marry and have a family?

To be wealthy? They’d spoken of these things for the duration of the feast, which had lasted three days.

By the end of the three days, they were deeply in love and already making plans to flee Yorkshire and travel across the sea.

Perhaps to Antwerp or Paris. Perhaps even further.

They weren’t exactly sure, but that didn’t matter. They’d found one another.

And they bided their time.

That time came when Heather’s father was away, traveling south, and her brothers were occupied with their games and drinking.

No one was paying attention to Heather, who packed her satchel that fateful night and ran out to the moors where Rickard was driving his mother’s fortified carriage.

It was a bright night, with a full moon in the sky and scattered clouds against the black expanse, and the landscape below was bathed in a silver light.

It was easy to see and, certainly, she could spot the carriage on the approach with the lamps on either side of the cab, like beacons.

But someone else saw the carriage, too.

Heather’s father was arriving home unexpectedly from his journey.

Rather than spend the night in Thirsk, he decided to make it home during the full moon.

He was traveling with some of his armed men for protection and when he saw the carriage upon the moors, it had his attention.

When he saw a lone figure in a pale cloak running towards the carriage, that had his attention even more.

There was something about the way the figure moved across the landscape that reminded him of someone.

It was the way the figure leapt over obstacles that must have been in the way, like rocks or even a pile of dead foliage.

He had a daughter that jumped in much the same way.

Then, it occurred to him who it was.

Heather’s father charged towards the carriage.

Because he came up on Rickard’s back, the young man never saw him coming.

Heather’s father reached the carriage, swinging his broadsword at the head of the man driving.

Perhaps he really hadn’t meant to kill him, because he was certain the man had heard him coming, but that wasn’t the case.

Rickard had been focused on Heather and hadn’t been attune to his surroundings, which was his fatal mistake.

He didn’t move when Heather’s father swung the sword that ended up lopping off his head at the shoulders.

Momentarily shocked at what he’d done, Heather’s father watched Rickard’s bodyless head roll to the side of the road.

Heather’s screams, however, snapped him out of his trance and as his men took care of the body, the head, and the carriage, Heather’s father pulled his errant daughter onto his horse and thundered back home.

He punished Heather for her insolence by locking her in her chamber for a fortnight before sending her to Rievaulx Abbey, who was more than willing to accept the man’s incorrigible daughter along with a sizable donation to keep her there.

Forever.

But to Heather, it didn’t matter. The only man she’d ever loved had lost his head over her and there was nothing else left. No travel, no Antwerp, no Paris. Rickard was gone and she would never love another, for when her father killed Rickard, he’d killed her heart as well.

Everything in her was dead.

It remained dead until she was a very old woman, a nun who had taken the name of Sister Hilda long ago.

In her twilight years, she was one of the sisters who tended to any travelers who might seek shelter in the abbey.

A young man had begged entry one night, seeking a warm spot to sleep in, and he was relegated to a corner of the cathedral with another man who had come in that same night.

As Sister Hilda brought them bread and warmed, watered wine, she heard the young man speaking of the journey he’d taken through the Fangdale Beck, where the moors were particularly dense, and he swore that he’d seen a headless man driving a spectral carriage down the road.

The horses had fire in their eyes, he said, and somewhere over the moor, he could hear a man’s voice calling…

Heather!

Heather!

Pah, said the other man. He didn’t believe in ghost stories meant to frighten women and children, but the younger man swore that’s what he’d seen and heard. There was a phantom on that moor looking for someone named Heather.

Sister Hilda knew, exactly, who it was.

Rickard had come back for her.

A week later, the old nun was found dead in Fangdale Beck, lying upon a bed of heather.

No one knew what she was doing on the moor.

Perhaps they would never know. She was dead, but there wasn’t a mark on her, and she was buried at Rievaulx Abbey where she’d spent the majority of her life.

But the mystery of her death upon the moors remained until…

One evening some time later, a weary traveler passing through Fangdale Beck heard the ghostly calls for Heather.

This time, she answered.