British Creatures and Places in Legend, Part 1 Quiz

Answer: It is actually a skull of a monkey that was kept as a pet

One of the most famous "Screaming Skulls" in England, this skull and Bettiscombe Manor are still featured in television documentaries, feature articles, and local folklore. Screaming skulls are a whole subsection of English folklore, with Cornwall and Nottinghamshire seeming to have the most of them.

Answer: Hell's Kettles

I've actually visited these pools and saw three ponds that ran the gamut from clear to muddy. Visible from the motorway if you know where to look, their coordinates are N 54° 29.582 W 001° 33.981. I didn't see any dogs die swimming in them, but they still gave me the creeps. Daniel Defoe asserted that the pools were flooded coal mines; later historians said they were marl-pits.

However, medieval historian Holinshed attributes them to the 11th century seismic event in the area that caused caverns to collapse and thus opened up deep, dark pools. Metalcore band Old Corpse Road actually has a song about these.

These things are deep, though. I tied fishing line to a rock, threw the rock into the middle of the largest pond, and still hadn't touched bottom when my fifty feet of line had run out.

Answer: a long eared owl

Don't assume that the actual cause was indeed an owl. Sometimes so-called natural causes are built into stories to protect the credibility of their storytellers. Starting in the early 20th century, locals would start giving guided hunts for the "shrieking boy."

Answer: Thomas a Becket

The actual well emanating from the spring comes from Roman times, and was rebuilt early in the 16th century. The castle and abbey near the spring remain, of course. Anti-Catholic sarcasm also attributed the presumed lack of birds in the area to Becket's austerity and anger. However, birds have since long been reported around the manor.

Thomas Becket himself has been canonized by the Church and was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until he was assassinated by men loyal to King Henry II in 1170. After all, he had fallen into a pattern of excommunicating the Bishops of York, London and Salisbury, as well as others, for holding Henry's coronation without him there. Henry indirectly ordered his death.

Becket had a reputation as a gruff, churlish man; then again, he wore a hair shirt beneath his robes so he couldn't have been too comfortable. Nonetheless, his fame spread soon after his death and the pilgrims in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales are on their way to his tomb as a pilgrimage undertaken by Christians throughout Europe.

Answer: cormorants

These are only about a hundred years old, yet they have already been the subject of myth and legend, including one that has them moving ever so slightly whenever a prostitute passes beneath them. Your guess is as good as mine why they'd do this. Created in 1910 by German designer Carl Bartels, the birds might reflect the cormorants who frequent Liverpool's docks and waterways.

The name Liverpool, incidentally, comes from the word "laver," which refers to a type of seaweed found in the nearby waters.

Answer: a farmer broke it off so he could plough without obstacle

The boulder itself, or what's left of it, rests in a sunken space with wooden- walled supports around it. It's not well known outside of the town, but my Loughborough college girlfriend bet me I wouldn't kiss her on it. She lost the bet. On a curiosity note, angle measurements conducted in 1988 showed that the boulder had rotated seven degrees clockwise over the past half a century. Various reasons were put forth, including earth tremors from nearby WW 2 bomb hits, magnetic deflection and, of course, supernatural phenomena.

Answer: frogs

Rains of frogs are actually quite common and are most likely caused by a distant tornado or waterspout sucking up the unfortunate denizens of a pond or lake and unceremoniously dumping them upon some superstitious lot in an isolated hamlet somewhere. A rain of crystallized honey - but no bees -- was reported near Leicester in 1933.

Answer: dancing to keep warm

Devon and neighboring Cornwall are filled with some of England's most dramatic landscapes. The Valley of the Rocks is one of the more eerie and arresting places and a must see if you're in the area. The theme of divine punishments recurs elsewhere in England, particularly with stone circles and sunken cities or churches. Whether by God or the Devil, punishments for transgressions on the Sabbath were doled out equally.

Then again this part of England -- along with Wales to the north -- is geographically as different from the Midlands and East of England as Arizona is from Kansas. The dramatic mountains, steep and isolated valleys, and ridges windswept by the weather coming unabated off the Atlantic have made these areas a geographically autonomous area complete with its own pantheon of myth and legend.

Answer: wolf

Wolves have almost always been (unfortunately) reviled creatures in Western mythology and in contemporary viewpoints. Perhaps because of their hunter-like tendencies and their ability to kill livestock. Either way, these mostly harmless creatures were once widespread in England.

The actual last wolf can never be determined, and several families lay claim to having dispatched it. The last reported sighting occurred in 1658 in Cumberland, with several farmers claiming to have seen a large wolf in the nearby woods. None has been reported since then.

Answer: St. George

The Uffington White Horse, one of three remaining hill figures in England, is also the oldest and predates Christianity by several centuries. The other two hill figures, the Naked Man of Cerne, and the Long Man of Sussex, are popular tourist and pagan visits, with many marriages and fertility rites being performed at the former. The Uffington Horse is perhaps the oldest, with research dating it to the 9th century, cut for Alfred the Great to celebrate a military victory.

St. George himself dates from the 3rd century AD, when he was born in what is now Palestine; the legend of him slaying the dragon was probably brought back by the Crusaders, who told of him saving a village in either Libya or Palestine whose spring was haunted by a marauding dragon who refused to let the villagers have water unless they offered up a maiden as bait. St. George slayed the dragon, of course, and thus became entwined with the legend of Perseus and Andromeda. The dragon could also be a reference to a pagan cult of sorts. St. George was later broken on the wheel by Emperor Diocletian for refusing to renounce Christianity. However, he somehow made it to England a thousand years later to slay more dragons lurking around hills and such.