The Werewolf of Dogdyke

Ev you ‘eard o’ the Werewolf o’ Dogdyke?
It’ll be news to you, I’ve noa doubt.
A creature of legend you’re thinking
And noat to get fretted about.

Now many folk gab about werewolves.
‘It’s mere superstition,’ they say
But I knowed of an ode boy who seen one,
I’ll tell you his tale, if I may.

Way back in the twenties it ‘appened
This scientist feller, called Jones
Was delvin’ in Langrick Fen peat bog
When he dug up some very queer bones.

He carried ‘em back to his kitchin
And scrubbed ‘em to see what he’d found.
The skeleton looked pretty human
But the ‘ead was the skull of an ‘ound!

It rattled t’ode chap for a moment
He thought that it must be a hoax.
P’raps travelling fair-foak had left it
To put the wind up local folks

He was supping the dregs of his Horlicks
Whilst sorting the bones on the floor.
Summats out on the causey was scratting
And lifting the sneck o’ the door.


The noise from the causey alarmed ‘im
What on earth could be maakin’ the din?
He decided to peer through the winder
To see who was trying to git in.

For there i’ the glow of the moonlight
A glimpse o’ a figure he caught
A creature i’ black and all crooked
‘Ahh, that’ll be parson,’ he thought.

Then a ‘ideous face manifested,
The face o’ some creature from hell.
Jones ran to the petty and bolted the door
I suspect ‘e was feeling unwell.

Whilst the snarling and clawing continued
He lay back far-weltered and frit.
He weren’t gonna argle wi’ werewolf
‘e’d leave him to cool down a bit.

When dawn came Jones felt a bit better
He listened for sound o’ the beast.
“Perhaps he’s calmed down and gone home now”
Though he wasn’t convinced in the least

Then he stopped and he started to think why
The beast was in such a bad mood.
P’raps werewolf was just a bit hungry
And all that he wanted was food.


He decided to make ‘im some breakfast
Some cheese and plum loaf  ‘ud be fine
If only he’d been there last Sunday
He might ev enjoyed stuffed chine

He unbolted the door of the lavvy
Wi’ his stick he approached kitchin door
Now what if the beast were still in there
If he was, he ‘ud give him what for.

With ‘is hand on the sneck he just waited
And then in he bu’st at a pace
But there wasn’t noa beast to be found there
Just glass, smithered all ower the place.

I can’t say ‘e felt disappointed
That the beast had returned whence ‘ed came
But his paintwork ‘ud need touching up now
And ‘e’d only got hissen to blame.

So straightway he gathered the bones up
And returnin’ ‘em back to the fen
He hoped that the beast ‘ud forgive him
And not damage his paintwork agen.

So if iver you’re passing through Dogdyke
And walking your dog on your own
Doan’t let ‘im run off in the peat bog
He might cum on back wi’ a bone!

The above is my attempt at Lincolnshire dialect to retell a tale told to me some forty years ago by Mrs Rudkin of Toynton.

Ethel H Rudkin (1893-1985)

Mrs Rudkin, was a respected local historian well known during the last century throughout the length and breadth of Lincolnshire. Born Ethel Hutchinson in Willoughton, she was a dedicated collector of Lincolnshire ephemera. She was active not only in the fields of local history but in archaeology, local traditions, music, folk-lore, and dialect. From the age of 12 she kept a detailed diary which she continued to write up until her death at the age of 92.

The first part of her diary to be published recounted her early life in Willoughton where she lived with her family.  There was a gap during the first world war when in 1915 she married George Rudkin of  Folkingham. Then sometime after he died in the influenza epidemic of 1918 she became housekeeper for his brother and helped to run the family farm. Her own house at Willoughton became a virtual museum, a place of pilgrimage for many researchers, packed with artefacts, farm implements, and memorabilia, as well as books and manuscripts. Several farm wagons and other agricultural vehicles that she had rescued, but which she had no room for, were stored in a variety of farm buildings belonging to different friends in nearby villages. Her main folklore collecting, in the 1920s and 1930s, was made directly from the people of the villages up and down the county and covered a broad range of topics. In 1927 she helped C.W. Phillips in revising the ancient monuments for the Ordnance Survey maps containing snippets of local information, conversations, historical facts and accounts of interesting journeys in her Bull-nosed Morris.

A string of articles published in the Folklore Society's journal included descriptions of many local customs which were celebrated at different times of the year in villages throughout  Lincolnshire. Much of her own research involved beliefs in witches and devils, stone-lore, and over a dozen ‘Black Dog’ stories one of which was that of the hound/werewolf of Dogdyke. She spent little of her long life away from her native Lincolnshire yet although she wrote many papers and contributed articles to a variety of magazines yet with little recognition or encouragement. She only wrote one book, Lincolnshire Folklore. This was published at her own expense in 1936.

She wrote in the second volume of her diary, which covered just one year, 1932 It contained tales of many Lincolnshire characters she’d encountered. One story is of her visit to the hamlet of Scredington where she met an old lady, Mrs Carter, who still dressed in traditional Lincolnshire Victorian style and could neither read nor write. She wrote an account of a visit to the deserted village of Gainsthorpe near Hibaldstow and retold the legend of Byard's Leap. She made several trips to healing wells and springs in north Lincolnshire, many of which in the years just before the Second World War still displayed rags and bandages on the bushes nearby as tokens from those who claimed to have been cured.

In later life Mrs Rudkin moved to a small cottage in Toynton All Saints where she continued her digging and archaeological studies for many years with the help of her friend and companion, Lucy Arliss. After building a larger bungalow to accommodate more relics she continued her researches, working on the site of the nearby manor of Eresby and the brickworks at East Keal. It must have been during in the early 1960s when I was introduced to her by my aunt and uncle (Fred and Jean Shaw) who at that time owned Brickfields Farm at East Keal and which had previously been my mother’s childhood home.