An unsettling experiance on a Norfolk marsh.

[anser2]

In the general shooting section Harnser has posted an interesting experiance on unexplaned happenings while shooting. I was going to add the following tale , but thought the wildfowling thread was a better home for the story. The marsh innthose days was in east Suffolk , but following boundary changes is now in Norfolk.

 

 

 

A few years ago I was staying at a small pub deep in the fowling grounds of my youth. By chance an old wildfowling friend who I had not seen for many years was drinking in the bar. It was pleasant to sit down in a quiet corner of the bar and remiss over a pint or two , past flights , half forgotten over the passage of time. During our conservation Rick asked if I remembered a strange evening we spent together on a Suffolk marsh not so many miles from where we sat.

Now I am no great believer in ghosts , but then I am no disbeliever either. I just leave matters of the supernatural alone and hope it will leave me alone. However one autumn evening several years ago my friend and I had a brush with something neither of us have ever fully explained.

When we were in our late teens Rick and I were both keen wildfowlers and one of our favored places to shoot was along the lower River Waveney valley. The river ran through the seemingly endless marshlands on its way to the sea and to shoot those marshes was a great adventure to two young lads.

Following days of heavy rain the marsh would flood and with the floods would come the duck. Great solid wedges of mallard , tight Wheeling packs of wigeon and as the waters subsided the dusk would alive with teal and shoveller flighting into the receding pools. Hard weather would bring the geese in but , they were always too wily for a couple of novice fowlers. Sometimes after weeks of frost and snow we would hear high up amongst the stars the magical calling of wild swans , calling through the darkness , being driven south from their northern tundra by the arctic cold.

The river was skirted by a vast ancient reed bed , remnant of a time when the marsh was part of a huge estuary that stretched miles inland to Norwich and Beccles. A little bit of history left from the time Roman legionnaires would have looked down on the river from nearby Burgh Castle. The reedbeds ran for miles and were cut in places by narrow twisting dykes that ran right into the heart of the marsh. Hear and there the reeds thinned and one would come across tiny meadows and hidden shallow pools that teamed with shrimps until the first frosts killed them all. The reeds were full of birds , shank and snipe loved the pools , bearded tits would pass one by in little chiming bands after sunrise and there were always water rails squealing deep in the reeds. Curlew poured into the grassy knolls forced off Breydon Water by the high tide. Many a still dusk I would sit motionless in the deep dusk watching the curlew come in and listen to their bubbling evensong accompanied in the twilight by the booming of bitterns. Then under the cover of darkness I would creep away without firing a shot for fear of ruining the whole picture. There is more to wildfowling than killing duck!

 

The reedbeds could be an eerie place after sunset , especially on misty evenings when swirls of mist covered the marsh. I will never forget one silver moonlit night when walking home along the river wall following an unsuccessful foray after the geese a mist began to rise off the river . Soon the whole river was steaming. Slowly the mist stole out of the river and covered the reeds. It piled up along side the river wall until finally finding a low spot it cascaded over in slow motion forming a ghostly waterfall pouring down onto the grazing meadows. I stood transfixed for an age until the cold wraths of fog wrapped around me and smothered the scene.

But I digress , to return to my tale of strange happenings. One late October evening Rick and I had trekked far out into the reeds to a distant pool where we had hopes of a shot or two at the teal we had see dropping into it a few days before. The evening was fine and the only sound to break the stillness came from the baying of a distant pack of geese heading for the estuary. No sooner had the geese faded from earshot than we heard a faint whispering in the reeds. The sound gradually grew and Rick came over to me asking what on earth it could be. The sound grew louder and came closer. There was a movement on the far side of the pool. The reed heads started nod , then sway and finally toss and weave about. By now the whisper had grown to a rush as whole reed stems shook and twisted as though a whirlwind was passing through them. The whirlwind , if that is what it was passed only a few yards from where we stood and disappeared downstream towards the old disused windmill on the river wall leaving a trail of broken reed stems in its wake. Yet though we were within spiting distance neither of us had felt a breath of wind. Somewhat unnerved both of us decided to give the duck flight a miss and headed back through the reeds for the river wall.

Now when walking home from this part of the marsh we had the choice of two paths. The one we always took ran along the top of the wall for a mile or so passing the old mill before turning towards the uplands. The second path though shorter we never used as it meant the crossing of a wide dyke by using a slippery algae covered half submerged plank to get onto the meadows. For some reason we opted for the slippery plank tonight and somehow we managed to negotiate it without falling in. Mid way across the meadows I glanced back to the river wall. I thought I saw a flicker of light against the mill. Yes , there it was again. Rick clutched my arm. He had seen it too. A third flickering light appeared followed by a succession of flames licking the walls of the mill. As one we both turned tail and fled , not stopping until we reached my parents cottage at the top of the lane.

It was a couple of days before we could pluck up the courage to go back and have a look at the mill and we made sure it was broad daylight. When we arrived at the mill we had a shock. There were scorch marks up some of the brickwork and remains of a fire close by. The door had been forced open and there were bare footprints on the dusty floor. Was this the supernatural at work ? I guess we will never know for sure.

My personal theory is one of the supposed witch’s covens that one reads about from time to time in some of the less reputable Sunday papers had been meeting at this lonely mill. At least I hope that is what had being going on. Witches coven or not I will not willingly pass that mill to this day after dusk.

 

My tale is nearly finished now though I still have a few unanswered questions. What made Rick and I change our minds and take a different path home that night ? It was a path neither of us have ever used before or since and what of the whirlwind ? Some will no doubt will say it was a natural phenomenon of the weather and they are probably right. However it is strange that I have never seen anything like it before or since and it is odd that its occurrence coincided with the strange lights and it appeared to be heading for the mill.

 

By now it was quite late and Rick downed his final pint before wishing me well and cycling home across the marsh just as the first wraths of fog were rising from the river. I did not envy him his ride home.

 

I wrote most of this shortly after the event as I always felt it important to keep a record of the event. The exception was meeting my mate Rick in the pub , that happened years later. I also tidyed it up a bit for a magazing article for the ST but they never published it. Something else I should add. In those days ( the late 1960s ) before the News of the World had more fun tapping mobile phones hardly a week went past without them exposing some whiches coven or another.

Edited August 25, 2012 by anser2

[norfolk dave]

Spooky

[bigman]

Nice read mate , made the hairs on my neck stand on end

[ayano3]

Great write up and scary. I won't be going past that mill if I ever go on the broad's again.

[Laird Lugton]

I read your comments on the other thread about the above story so was glad you wrote it up, you did not disappoint!

[DerbyshireDale.]

In the general shooting section Harnser has posted an interesting experiance on unexplaned happenings while shooting. I was going to add the following tale , but thought the wildfowling thread was a better home for the story. The marsh innthose days was in east Suffolk , but following boundary changes is now in Norfolk.

 

lllllllll

 

A few years ago I was staying at a small pub deep in the fowling grounds of my youth. By chance an old wildfowling friend who I had not seen for many years was drinking in the bar. It was pleasant to sit down in a quiet corner of the bar and remiss over a pint or two , past flights , half forgotten over the passage of time. During our conservation Rick asked if I remembered a strange evening we spent together on a Suffolk marsh not so many miles from where we sat.

Now I am no great believer in ghosts , but then I am no disbeliever either. I just leave matters of the supernatural alone and hope it will leave me alone. However one autumn evening several years ago my friend and I had a brush with something neither of us have ever fully explained.

When we were in our late teens Rick and I were both keen wildfowlers and one of our favored places to shoot was along the lower River Waveney valley. The river ran through the seemingly endless marshlands on its way to the sea and to shoot those marshes was a great adventure to two young lads.

Following days of heavy rain the marsh would flood and with the floods would come the duck. Great solid wedges of mallard , tight Wheeling packs of wigeon and as the waters subsided the dusk would alive with teal and shoveller flighting into the receding pools. Hard weather would bring the geese in but , they were always too wily for a couple of novice fowlers. Sometimes after weeks of frost and snow we would hear high up amongst the stars the magical calling of wild swans , calling through the darkness , being driven south from their northern tundra by the arctic cold.

The river was skirted by a vast ancient reed bed , remnant of a time when the marsh was part of a huge estuary that stretched miles inland to Norwich and Beccles. A little bit of history left from the time Roman legionnaires would have looked down on the river from nearby Burgh Castle. The reedbeds ran for miles and were cut in places by narrow twisting dykes that ran right into the heart of the marsh. Hear and there the reeds thinned and one would come across tiny meadows and hidden shallow pools that teamed with shrimps until the first frosts killed them all. The reeds were full of birds , shank and snipe loved the pools , bearded tits would pass one by in little chiming bands after sunrise and there were always water rails squealing deep in the reeds. Curlew poured into the grassy knolls forced off Breydon Water by the high tide. Many a still dusk I would sit motionless in the deep dusk watching the curlew come in and listen to their bubbling evensong accompanied in the twilight by the booming of bitterns. Then under the cover of darkness I would creep away without firing a shot for fear of ruining the whole picture. There is more to wildfowling than killing duck!

 

The reedbeds could be an eerie place after sunset , especially on misty evenings when swirls of mist covered the marsh. I will never forget one silver moonlit night when walking home along the river wall following an unsuccessful foray after the geese a mist began to rise off the river . Soon the whole river was steaming. Slowly the mist stole out of the river and covered the reeds. It piled up along side the river wall until finally finding a low spot it cascaded over in slow motion forming a ghostly waterfall pouring down onto the grazing meadows. I stood transfixed for an age until the cold wraths of fog wrapped around me and smothered the scene.

But I digress , to return to my tale of strange happenings. One late October evening Rick and I had trekked far out into the reeds to a distant pool where we had hopes of a shot or two at the teal we had see dropping into it a few days before. The evening was fine and the only sound to break the stillness came from the baying of a distant pack of geese heading for the estuary. No sooner had the geese faded from earshot than we heard a faint whispering in the reeds. The sound gradually grew and Rick came over to me asking what on earth it could be. The sound grew louder and came closer. There was a movement on the far side of the pool. The reed heads started nod , then sway and finally toss and weave about. By now the whisper had grown to a rush as whole reed stems shook and twisted as though a whirlwind was passing through them. The whirlwind , if that is what it was passed only a few yards from where we stood and disappeared downstream towards the old disused windmill on the river wall leaving a trail of broken reed stems in its wake. Yet though we were within spiting distance neither of us had felt a breath of wind. Somewhat unnerved both of us decided to give the duck flight a miss and headed back through the reeds for the river wall.

Now when walking home from this part of the marsh we had the choice of two paths. The one we always took ran along the top of the wall for a mile or so passing the old mill before turning towards the uplands. The second path though shorter we never used as it meant the crossing of a wide dyke by using a slippery algae covered half submerged plank to get onto the meadows. For some reason we opted for the slippery plank tonight and somehow we managed to negotiate it without falling in. Mid way across the meadows I glanced back to the river wall. I thought I saw a flicker of light against the mill. Yes , there it was again. Rick clutched my arm. He had seen it too. A third flickering light appeared followed by a succession of flames licking the walls of the mill. As one we both turned tail and fled , not stopping until we reached my parents cottage at the top of the lane.

It was a couple of days before we could pluck up the courage to go back and have a look at the mill and we made sure it was broad daylight. When we arrived at the mill we had a shock. There were scorch marks up some of the brickwork and remains of a fire close by. The door had been forced open and there were bare footprints on the dusty floor. Was this the supernatural at work ? I guess we will never know for sure.

My personal theory is one of the supposed witch’s covens that one reads about from time to time in some of the less reputable Sunday papers had been meeting at this lonely mill. At least I hope that is what had being going on. Witches coven or not I will not willingly pass that mill to this day after dusk.

 

My tale is nearly finished now though I still have a few unanswered questions. What made Rick and I change our minds and take a different path home that night ? It was a path neither of us have ever used before or since and what of the whirlwind ? Some will no doubt will say it was a natural phenomenon of the weather and they are probably right. However it is strange that I have never seen anything like it before or since and it is odd that its occurrence coincided with the strange lights and it appeared to be heading for the mill.

 

By now it was quite late and Rick downed his final pint before wishing me well and cycling home across the marsh just as the first wraths of fog were rising from the river. I did not envy him his ride home.

 

I wrote most of this shortly after the event as I always felt it important to keep a record of the event. The exception was meeting my mate Rick in the pub , that happened years later. I also tidyed it up a bit for a magazing article for the ST but they never published it. Something else I should add. In those days ( the late 1960s ) before the News of the World had more fun tapping mobile phones hardly a week went past without them exposing some whiches coven or another.

[Wildfowler12]

Great write up the marsh is a truely eiree place after evening flight. I remember a washed up piece of corregated steel scaring the life out of my dog last year, for some reason things always seem 'scarier' when the dogs tail is between his legs!

Edited August 25, 2012 by Wildfowler12

[hutchie the white hunter]

Cheers for that i was looking forward to the 1 sep

[Harnser]

Super story Anser 2 ,and yes Norfolk is rife with devil worship and witches covens .Taken very ,very seriously by the initiated . Be very careful getting involved with this as once in there is no way out .It is a very dangerous thing to be involved in . I to could tell all a couple of true storys very similer to your tale of the windmill that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up . Super read .

 

Harnser .

[DerbyshireDale.]

Don't mean to spoil the tale but why would ghosts force the Door and how could they leave footprints and start a fire?......my take on it would be;...Poachers fall into the river, startled by your sudden appearance (whispering to each other)decide to make their way down stream through the rushes until they can scramble up the bank (hence broken rushes)..climbs up the bank and discovers the old building, as they're now wet & cold they start a fire so they can dry out their clothes and decide to force the door of the mill to see if they can find anything edible and as one is looking inside he leaves his "footprints in the dust, when he comes back outside he realises they have lit the fire too close ' to the mill wall so they move it back a bit as the flames had been catching the wall leaving scorch marks, but as these events all occured on a misty night folks imaginations can run wild...Elementary my dear Watson!!

[Harnser]

Don't mean to spoil the tale but why would ghosts force the Door and how could they leave footprints and start a fire?......my take on it would be;...Poachers fall into the river, startled by your sudden appearance (whispering to each other)decide to make their way down stream through the rushes until they can scramble up the bank (hence broken rushes)..climbs up the bank and discovers the old building, as they're now wet & cold they start a fire so they can dry out their clothes and decide to force the door of the mill to see if they can find anything edible and as one is looking inside he leaves his "footprints in the dust, when he comes back outside he realises they have lit the fire too close ' to the mill wall so they move it back a bit as the flames had been catching the wall leaving scorch marks, but as these events all occured on a misty night folks imaginations can run wild...Elementary my dear Watson!!

 

A little to Enid Blyton to me .

 

Harnser .

[Laird Lugton]

Are Harnser and Anser2 making all this up so the marshes will be deserted for their own exclusive use?!

[mpk]

Nice i enjoyed that

[beeredup]

Are Harnser and Anser2 making all this up so the marshes will be deserted for their own exclusive use?!

[Tommo]

All,

 

You should read Hunters Fen by Humphries. He recalls extensively tails of visions of 'ole Roomans' monks and long deceased fowlers.

 

I'm not a great believer, but like the post author I do believe if I leave them alone they will return the courtesy!

 

T

[Reece]

At least you were with someone when it happened. It would be more terrifying if you were alone.

 

 

You said you sent it in to Shooting Times but it was never published. When was that?

Edited August 26, 2012 by Reece

[anser2]

Reece I had a number of articles published in the ST and Countryman magazine ( now defunct ) many years ago , in 1987 \88 \89 I took a break for a few years and the next batch of wildfowling stories and instructional articles though accepted just sat in their office for well over a year so i asked for them back ( some were then published in another magazine ). The above tale under the name was in the batch , but I never got around to sending it off again.

Edited August 26, 2012 by anser2

[escortmagnum999]

a great read, bloody spooky too! you have got a handle on writing too, thanks

[Pole Star]

A great spooky read anser2 my friend ! I must take a look at that mill next time I am in your part of the world " in the day time that is ! " .

I put a post on" A very strange Experience " that you might like ? although I got an answer for the thing that frightened the daylights out me very quickly !.

 

ATB Pole Star

[39TDS]

Thanks for the tale.

[Ant8681]

Nice read but as im just about to head out of the door for a bit of shooting its put the ****s up me a bit!

[Yoggy]

Excellent read......reminds me of the 2 riders on horseback wearing long cloaks galloping across the fields on the way back from an evening flight in 1996 myself and 2 mates spotted!!!!!!!!!!!

[J.C]

Excellent read......reminds me of the 2 riders on horseback wearing long cloaks galloping across the fields on the way back from an evening flight in 1996 myself and 2 mates spotted!!!!!!!!!!!

 

You can't say that Yoggy with out expanding the story......come on tell us about those horse riders you saw!