X-Files from the Bog: Peg Powler
More recent literary tributes to this phantom include that of J.K. Rowling, who has featured Grindylows in her Harry Potter books.
Peg Powler, Hag of the Tees
The River Tees is one of the great rivers of England, and it has much folklore attached to it. The superstitions of the Old North follow its teeming currents down from the dales, and none is more chilling than that of Peg Powler.
Peg Powler is said to be a hag with green skin, long hair and sharp teeth who lurks in the river. She reputedly grabs the ankles of those who approach too close to the water's edge, reaching out with her long fingers from the deep, and dragging her unwitting victims in to their doom.
Also known as the "High Green Ghost" or Jenny Greenteeth, Peg is typical of the water spirits known across Yorkshire and Lancashire as Grindylows. This an old dialect word related to Grendel. Grindylows are said to seize little children with their long sinewy arms and drown them. Although this might be dismissed as an old wive's tale to keep children away from the water, the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf includes a battle by the eponymous hero against the Grendel, and an even more vicious one against the Grendel's mother.
Grindylows are also referenced in several Old English land grants in connection with pools and bogs, including one as far south as Devon:
'...of doddan hrycge on grendeles pyt ; of grendeles pytte on ifigbearo...'('...from Dodd's ridge to Grendel's pit ; from Grendel's pit to the ivy-grove...') - Land grant at Creedy, co. Devon, 739 AD, by Æthelheard King of Wessex, to Bishop Forthhere
So what's in there anyhow? Any bottles?
I've done quite a few dives in the River Tees and with precious little to show for it in terms of finds. This is the fastest flowing river in England and bottles don't stand much of a chance after they've been thrown in; they are churned about and smashed, and the pieces lost to the currents. There are however a few "cogg holes" in the river - deep pools that the whirling eddies cannot reach - and these may harbour the occasional find.
As of yet the only bottle I have ever discovered in the Tees was a modern one, so modern in fact that it still had the cap and label on...a full bottle of Stella Artois. Its contents chilled by the deep waters of a cogg, I accepted it gratefully and drank it upon my return home. But why was a full bottle in there? Was it left for me to find by Peg Powler?
Visibility in the river is invariably poor, and I've included a short bogcast of a recent dive which shows, well, not very much at all. But about twenty seconds in you can see what might be Peg's grasping talons reaching out to me...or perhaps they are just some sticks caught in the river bank? A minute later you can see the green strands of her matted hair...or perhaps they are just pieces of weed on the surface?
Maybe it's all the same thing anyway...
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