Medieval Ghost Story
Dave Cubby, NSW, Aust
March 2001
This is a true story, whether they be ghosts or a timeslip or not I do not know to this day. But saw them, I did.
I lived in Oakfields Way, Catherine-De-Barnes, Solihull in England. I know Solihull very well and this incident occurred when I was about twenty-three years old, a short while before I left for overseas. I now live in Sydney, Australia.
In 1973 I was walking the dog 'Maggie' (named pre-Thatcher and nothing to do with her). I walked down to the canal at Catney (short for Catherine-De-Barnes) Bridge near the Boat Inn and then back along the path towards Lugtrout Lane, Birmingham way rather than the Hay Lane, Stratford-upon-Avon direction. There was a way up to the fields from there, the other side of the canal to Lugtrout. At the top of the path a farming meadow swept down from a house at the top of the rise and the other side from the canal dip was bordered by "Gallagher's Wood", as I knew it. Owned by J.J. Gallagher the builder, these acres have probably been built on now. But they were old woods, old fenced, lots of silver birch but a real mix of oak and ash and undergrowth. There were paths through to Damson Lane, and then the main Coventry-Birmingham road, I'm sure.
It was a late summer's afternoon, early September, warm, clear and bright. As you hear about ghosts they arrive unexpected, but they are never quite as you imagine. As I crossed the field and neared the fence, just beyond, within the edge of the wood was a small coterie of three people deeply involved in animated discussion. Clear and sharp to my eye, as I could illustrate them even now, they were all dressed in medieval garb, in green leggings one of them and a reddish arm shirt as well as drab colours. In the flick of an eye (I didn't turn my head) they were gone and though I crossed to the place with intrigue, rather than fear, I could not find a trace.
I never saw them again, I went back several times and was never afraid to walk the dog there. Whether or not these are ghosts, for your interest, this is what I saw - sharp and definite. I am also convinced that these were authentic figures, not a contemporary group dressing-up.