The Road Across the Moor
The Road Across the Moor.
Nowadays, crossing the moors of the Pennine fells in a motor car, can be completed leisurely within a few hours. The Tan Hill Inn, Great Britain’s highest pub, in North Yorkshire, standing at 1732 feet above sea level is fairly easy to find and relatively straightforward to get to, following a variety of different routes using whatever mode of transport you wish!
But once upon a time, it was a much more difficult and arduous journey. More often than not, undertaken by foot, over rough terrain and uneven trails. It could take some days to cross from one side of the Pennines to the other. Routes had to be planned meticulously, for there was little shelter to be had among these high flat topped desolate lonely places. But this land was not completely forsaken, for there stood hostelries such as the Tan Hill Inn, and busy establishments they were! Offering a place of refuge for those weary nomads upon the road, sheltered from the elements, s safe haven in a wild unforgiving land! 
For there were many dangers that faced those journeying upon these lonely exposed roads, not least the weather! Sunshine and a gentle breeze could quickly transform into poor visibility and strong gales and blizzarding snow could be upon without warning. Very often it seemed that every other form of metrological permutation in between was served out in cloudbursting succession, leaving traveler’s lost, and disorientated far from a place of refuge and safety!
These were lawless lands and robbing brigands made these remote exposed roads part of their hunting grounds, plundering the wares and possessions of poorly defended merchants and pedlars. Lonely travellers and drovers, herding their stock to the next great fair across the hill, were literally ‘fair’ game too, and a days pickings could be very worthwhile. However these moorland marauder’s knew when to leave these elevated highways, lest the hunter became the hunted. For they were not the only ones that stalked, hunted, or lay waiting for the unwary upon the trail!
By the time shadows were lengthening and the Sun had begun to sink behind the darkling fell, finding oneself still upon the moors was a perilous situation to be in.
Nightfall came swiftly!
There are stories of old that spoke of terrifying encounters had by those who survived to tell the tale! Spine chilling accounts told by horror stricken travelling parties of the strange shadowy things of the Fell, that crossed their path as they navigated a way through the boggy terrain. One such account describes how becoming lost a small group of traders sought another route. They decided upon a trail, that seemed to take them in the direction they needed to go, but eventually came to a halt in front of an ancient stone cairn, stood upon a raised mound of earth. The mound was covered in dead brownish grass and thick with thistles, which added to the brooding feeling of dread this place emanated. They did not linger and they quickly began to backtrack! But soon after they had left the lichen covered pile of rocks, a shrouded wraithlike figure  appeared some way back down the dead ended trail. Several more joined the first and they edged ever closer. The traders describe their features as translucent, constantly blurring through rictus grins and gibbering leers to a nightmarish gaping black hole where their mouth should be! Their pale blue eyes were said to follow your every move, while their arms, grotesquely, outstretched to unnatural lengths tapered to spindly  grey fingers ever  grasping outwards, eager to feel the warmth of the living and clasp them close in a grim icy embrace.
The fell lands were beset with freakish winds that came from out of nowhere. Circling above the pathways across the moor, and riding this howling onslaught, emitting unearthly shrieks of delight, flew what the dales folk believed, were the unseen fiends that dwelt on the exposed barren fell tops!
While upon the moor, on certain nights, pale ethereal lights flickered on and off amongst dank swirling patches of rapidly forming mist, leading befuddled weary folk to unwittingly stray from the path and onto treacherous trails that invariably led to flooded mine shafts, bottomless bogs, or further into this Upland wilderness, never to be seen again! The folk of the Dales would say they were spirited away by mischievous sprites. Local folklore also mentions that deep within the labyrinth of  high sided mounds of black wet peat known as ‘hags, there were shaded hollows where the sun never shone. These pits of eternal darkness concealed openings into caverns where it was believed the more malevolent spirits of the fell, such as boggarts  and other dark, unspeakable things silently and patiently lay in wait for those who strayed, just a little bit too close to their subterranean lair!
The fire is burning low, and all is silent except for the soft  purring of the pubs cat hidden somewhere within the bar area. Then two glasses fly from the shelf and smash on the flagstone floor shattering into a thousand pieces. The black cat that had been sleeping contentedly in an alcove beside the fire, was now hissing, hackles raised at something unseen behind the bar!!
Perhaps not all terrors of the night are locked outside!!!
Good night.
Don’t have nightmares.
(to be continued?)
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