Legend has it that the ghost of James Tankerlay, a rector buried in front of the chapter house at Byland Abbey, once blinded a woman as it roamed the North Yorkshire countryside one night. The abbot had Tankerlay’s body dug up and hauled as far as Gormire Lake, where, as they attempted to dispose of the body, the oxen carrying it nearly drowned from fear.
This tale was copied, along with 11 others, into the blank pages of a manuscript by a monk at Byland Abbey around the year 1400. On the 100th anniversary of their translation by the medievalist scholar MR James, historian Michael Carter is leading us through the ruined remains of the monastery to the threshold of that same chapter house for a reading. The sky is a patchwork of dark grey punctured here and there by the sunlight, casting dramatic shadows through the empty arches. A rabbit bounds across the hall in the direction of the graveyard. “A familiar?” he suggests hopefully.
