Before the apparent extent of the child grooming scandals became apparent I would have joked about Yorkshire’s biggest mystery being why it has such a high self opinion, as I did in Wales when I lived there; and that the mystery of why the Nora Battyish women want attention is explained by them growing up on Last of the Summer Wine. Compo was one of my favourite sitcom characters, but that doesn’t mean I fancied Nora!
However, now I think ‘local pride’ is needed as a defence against invasive cultures, due to the combination of high immigration and a Multicultural Fascism politics and media policy over the last twenty years.
Mysterious Yorkshire by Rupert Matthews
While there is still a lot of greatness in Yorkshire, such as a couple of big lovely national parks, historic towns and villages, and a high-chalk-cliffs coastline including abundant seabirds Rupert Matthews explains why Yorkshire is so proud in his book on its mysteries.
In history, Yorkshire spread across the north to the west coast, so including the Lake District. It is already the biggest county in England if including its four geographical sub-sections together (separated in 1974), and was big enough to be a separate country in its historic form, as it basically was before England formed; and as many still want it to be today.
Pagan Yorkshire
Matthews discusses how the Yorkshire area was separated into tribal areas when the Romans invaded about 2000 years ago. The biggest tribe were the Brigantes, who worshipped one goddess, Brigantia, and controlled the north and west of the region; the Parisii controlled the east, and worshipped multiple ‘pagan’ deities. There are many stone circles and monoliths from that era, including the highest standing stone at Rudston.
Rome introduced Christianity, but after they left, paganism became the norm again after Germanic tribes; such as the Jutes, Angles and Saxons; settled into the vacuum left by the Romans.
After Christianity took hold again after a few centuries, the Vikings brought paganism with them when they invaded. Over the following centuries, Christianity became the norm again, through a mixture of preaching, war and bribery, but pagan beliefs and practises continued, and are still celebrated today. In fact, many ‘Christians’ seem to have more ‘pagan’ beliefs than mildly pagans like me; being more inclined to be superstitious etc.
There are chapters discussing many fairies, witches and ghosts sightings and experiences, and many are very persuasive. There is even a were creature legend known as the barguest (not greenYgrey though) said to roam Ilkley Moor, which also has a stone circle, and regular mysterious lights sightings.
Alien UFO Yorkshire
There was also a famous UFO/alien encounter there in December 1987 (when I’d left the UK!), with a policeman taking photos of ‘something’ (looking old-fashioned greenygrey itself, while the photo is overall greenYgrey):
There was an even stranger experience in the Halifax-Todmorden area in November, 1980 (around the time I had my distant UFO experience in Wales) with several policemen seeing UFO’s; some close-up.
Moreover, one of them, Alan Godfrey, under hypnosis recollected being abducted, and had earlier that year investigated a man, Zigmund Adamski, who’d been found dead from shock, staring face-up at the sky on a pile of coal, after disappearing several days earlier.
The strangest and most convincing part was that Adamski had some ointment on him, as if it had been used to tend burn marks, that they still don’t know the composition of; and there were also strange marks found on the body.
I have found out all that barguest/UFO information since writing my parody comedy X-Files fantasy fiction travel book featuring a vegetarian werewolf protagonist:
Travel 25 Years... and more 