Wild Edric, Who Rides Before a War
A Saxon lord who married a fairy is said to sleep under the hills of Shropshire. When war is coming, people say, he and his fairy wife ride out across the sky.
What was reported
Eadric the Wild was a real Saxon lord who resisted the Norman conquest of England in the 1060s. Legend says he married a fairy woman named Godda, whom he found dancing in the forest, and that she left him when he broke a promise.
Later folklore says Edric did not die, but is bound under the hills near the Stiperstones, where Shropshire lead miners heard him knocking. Before a great war, he rides out with his fairy wife and followers. People reported seeing him in 1853, before the Crimean War, and some said again before the First World War.
Explanations offered
Wild Edric's story mixes a real resistance leader with the fairy-bride and Wild Hunt legends found across Europe. Like other sleeping heroes, he became a symbol of the land and its people. Miners' knocking sounds were probably the noises of the mines themselves.
- When
- Told since the Middle Ages
- Where
- The Stiperstones, Shropshire, England, UK
- Witnesses
- Shropshire folklore and miners
- Status
- Legend
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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