30th September
Peg Sneddle
Banshee. Source: Adobe Stock Photos
With the first autumn gales and storms, the season of Banshees commences. A regular feature of Irish mythology, one of the most notable English banshees is Peg Sneddle. Allegedly the shrieking ghost of Elizabeth Sledall, the seventeenth century lady of Crackenthorpe Hall in Appleby, Cumbria, Peg Snedall, after Elizabeth’s death, arose to scream her warnings of the imminent demise of of the head of the Machell family, the owners of Crackenthorpe. In an effort to rid themselves of this curse, the Machels had the body of Elizabeth disinterred and buried in the River Eden, under a huge granite boulder to hold her down. A priest read an exorcism and condemned Elizabeth to enforced rest for 999 years.
This rite only seemed to antagonise Peg, who upped her terrifying act by appearing ominously by the Sledall Oak whenever a member of the Machel family was about to die and began to ride the Cumbrian Helm Wind in a black coach, driven by six coal black, red-eyed and flame-nostrilled hellish stallions. Although the last surviving Machel was killed in the First World War, Peg’s hauntings continue: every year in late September she rises from the Eden and enters Crackenthorpe Hall to terrorise anyone therein.
Peg may be a survival of ancient spirits of evil. Pech in Lowland Scots means faerie, and Cumbria did comprise part of Scotland in the early Middle Ages. There are several other “Peg” banshees in north west England, often associated with rivers and lakes, which lends credence to the theory they are descendants of pagan water goddesses.