Fluffy tail wrapped over the face like a sleep mask; and hidden bonfire cultists sniggering quietly into their hoods

12 March 2026

Welcome to issue 29 of Tales from the Chase, a weekly newsletter for Cranborne Chase. Local events. Odd tales. Mildly strange goings-on. All delivered by email, free, and occasionally unhinged (in a charming way). Was this email forwarded to you? You can sign up for free by clicking below!

welcome, strange companions

This week in the Chase

Think you’re busy? Too busy to read this most excellent newsletter? Well meet the dormouse: a tiny creature that spends most of its life asleep. Stop pretending to be productive. Read on and let the dormouse show you how it’s really done.

And Rufus spills the truth; are they actually just hibernating, or is there something else going on?

Meanwhile, Hubert wanders into a foggy northern parish and discovers its stories of all sorts of weirdness… plus giraffes, because why not?

Small, Golden, and fond of a good sleep

The diminutive Hazel Dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius) could teach the rest of us a thing or two about work–life balance, spending up to seven months of the year in hibernation. Eat well, climb trees, nosh a few hazelnuts, and when winter arrives, simply clock out until spring. It's the Chase's most accomplished sleeper, and quite possibly its wisest woodland resident.

Yet their languid reputation is somewhat misleading. When awake, dormice are remarkably energetic. They are nimble, acrobatic, and perfectly adapted to life high above the woodland floor.

Dormice are not quite like other rodents. Evolutionarily speaking, they occupy their own small branch of the family tree, somewhere between a mouse and a squirrel. The result is a creature uniquely suited to the world of the woodland canopy.

Its luxuriously fluffy tail is not for decoration. It acts as a balancing aid when racing along up in the treetops and hedges, where they spend the vast majority of their active lives, leaping between branches and stems with the confidence of champion gymnasts or circus performers.

But their very name hints at their greatest talent. The word dormouse likely derives from the Latin dormire, “to sleep”. During hibernation their body temperature drops dramatically and their heartbeat slows.

Dormouse dining

Dormice are discerning diners. Their menu changes with the seasons, making the most of whatever the woodland pantry has to offer.

In spring, they tuck into fresh tree blossoms and nectar. Summer will find them chowing down on insects such as aphids and caterpillars, and as autumn arrives they pig out on hazelnuts, berries and other high-energy foods to build fat reserves to power those months of winter hibernation.

Dormice as indicators

The presence of dormice tells us something important about the landscape around us. They require diverse, well-connected hedgerows and native woodland to thrive. If these habitats disappear or become fragmented, dormice quickly struggle. Conversely, where dormice are flourishing, it usually means the ecosystem around them is in good shape too.

From penthouse to basement

When winter approaches, these canopy specialists descend to ground level to hibernate.

Instead of simply hiding in a hole, they build a carefully constructed winter nest known as a hibernaculum. They make these in deep leaf litter or moss, or tucked beside tree stumps or fallen logs, at the base of hedgerows, among roots and sheltered hollows.

Why the ground? Because it provides more stable temperatures. While the air temperature may swing wildly above, the earth maintains a steadier cold that is ideal for long-term hibernation.

Also, dormice need moisture to prevent dehydration during their sleep. A breezy tree cavity would dry them out, but the damp environment of the woodland floor keeps conditions just right.

Dormouse conservation

Despite their charm and ecological importance, hazel dormice are facing something of a housing crisis. The loss of traditional hedgerows and woodland corridors has made it harder for populations to move safely through the countryside.

Fortunately, there are simple ways we can help. Plant native species such as hazel, hawthorn and honeysuckle. Protect and restore hedgerows, ensuring they remain thick and connected. "Connected" is particularly important as dormice use hedges like motorways to move around the Chase. We should also encourage varied woodland structure, which supports the diverse diet dormice rely upon.

Not always a protected species…

In Ancient Rome, the Hazel Dormouse's larger cousin, the Edible Dormouse, was considered a delicacy. Wealthy Romans even kept them in special clay containers called Glirarium, where the animals were fattened on nuts before being served at lavish banquets.

Recipes suggested stuffing the dormice with herbs, pork, and pine nuts before roasting.

Dormouse tales

We all know about the dormouse in Alice and Wonderland, but folklore? Not so much. However, I know a man who usually has a tale or two up his sleeve. So I arranged to meet Rufus Penn. Here's what he told me. It might just change the way you think about this tiny, sleepy creature.

The Old White One

It was late October when I headed off into Rushmore Woods. Rufus was crouched at the base of an old hazel stool when I arrived, his fingers tracing something in the earth. He stood slowly as I approached and brushed the dirt from his knees.

"You've been thinking about the dormouse," he said.

I hadn't told him why I'd wanted to meet. I was beginning to accept that with Rufus, this was simply how things went.

We walked out of the woods until we came to the edge of a field where the hedgerow was old. Hawthorn, hazel, spindle, blackthorn and field maple all knotted together in the way that only happens when a hedge has been standing for centuries.

"Through to what?" I asked.

"The old people called it the Under-Country. Not quite the land of the dead exactly, more of a place between. Where things go when they're waiting. Where things go in winter." He paused. "Where the dead go who haven't quite finished."

He told me the belief as it had been passed down through the families of the Chase, the woodsmen, the coppicers, the hedgers. The dormouse, they say, is a creature of two worlds. It was made for the crossing. It moves between the living world and whatever waits in the quiet below.

"Not its body" he said. "That stays in its nest in the dead leaves and moss. Its spirit goes, only comes back when the warmth returns to the world above".

“And there’s a custom” he went on. “You leave an offering at the roots of a hazel; they always said hazel grows close to the paths. You press it into the earth, lightly, where you think dormice might be." He turned an old nut in his fingers. "If you had something to send, a word, a wish, something left unsaid, you'd take a hazelnut and hold it for a while. Think on what you wanted carried. Then leave it before the first frost."

"And a dormouse would find it?"

"Yes. But it has to be before the first frost. After that they're in the crossing, and only carry what was already given."

"So a dormouse would carry the message across?"

"Yes. And there's a warning that goes with it," Rufus said. "There always is."

"What warning?"

"Never wake a sleeping dormouse. Not ever. Not to see if it's alive, not for curiosity."

"Because?"

"Because you don't know which world it's in when you find it. You don't know what it's carrying." He looked at the nut in his hand. "To drag it back suddenly risks harm. To the creature. Whatever it was carrying with it. Whatever was on the other side, waiting to receive it."

"But there is one," Rufus said, “a single dormouse, that has made the crossing so many times it no longer comes back entirely. A little of it stays over there. It walks in both worlds, and fully in neither. You'd know it if you saw it." He was quiet a moment. "If it let you."

He described it as looking older than any dormouse ought to, its fur gone the colour of ash, or of frost.

“In the Chase they called it the Old White One.”

Then Rufus went still. I looked where he was looking.

At the roots of the hedge, half-hidden in a fold of bark and moss, something sat. It was tiny, and for a moment I couldn't quite resolve it in the low light and the shadow. Then it moved its head, and I saw the eyes: dark, liquid, impossibly bright; looking directly at us. The pale fur was the colour of birch bark, or snow in shade.

Then it was gone, no longer there, the way a thought disappears when you try to catch it.

"That was… " I said.

"Yes," Rufus said.

We stood in silence for a while, waiting for another glimpse, then Rufus walked on and I followed.

"All dormice carry things across. But that one… sometimes it carries things back.”

“Like what?”

I asked him how he'd come to know all this.

He was quiet for a long time.

"My father died when I was nine," he said eventually. "My mother brought me out here, to a hedge not far from here, actually, a few days after. She had a hazelnut in her pocket. She'd been carrying it for days, she said. She pressed it into the earth at the roots and she said something quietly, something I couldn't quite hear. I asked her what she was doing."

He stopped walking. We both did.

"She said she was sending him something. So he'd know we were thinking of him."

"Did anything come back?"

He hesitated, scanned the horizon. "No. It wasn't the Old White One that took the message. You're lucky if it does. Or maybe not so lucky."

That night I sat by the window for a long time.

The frost had come hard and bright. The grass was silvered, and the shadows were black and still under the moon.

I found myself thinking of my own dead. The things I had meant to say and never quite found the moment for.

Then it occurred to me that I had already missed my chance this year.

By now the dormice would all be under, passing from their deep winter sleep into that quiet crossing Rufus had spoken of. Carrying whatever messages had been given to them. Thousands of tiny messengers crossing between worlds.

I thought of the one that walks in both places. Who might bring something back.

I stood at the window for a while longer, looking out over the frozen fields and the black line of the hedge.

For a moment I had the strange feeling that something was watching me. But of course, there was nothing to see.

Next autumn, I thought, maybe I would find a hazelnut. And I would leave it before the frost. Maybe the Old White One would find it and bring something back.

A parish by parish tour of the Chase

corsley

See Hubert’s guide to Corsley below. All opinions are his own, and may not be shared by Tales from the Chase, or anyone of sound mind.

CORSLEY

Ah, Corsley. The most northerly parish in the Chase. It offers a loose confederation of hamlets, a collective home to about 680 people, strung together by lanes clearly designed by someone who had never heard of a straight line and had a strong liking for hedges. Whether this represents rustic charm or not is, I suppose, a matter of opinion.

But only part of it sits within the Chase. This lends those fortunate parts a certain dignity, a sense of history, an aesthetic, a reason to exist.

The remainder of the parish, such as the hamlet of Corsley itself, lies outside the Chase entirely, being merely Wiltshire. Oh, the quiet disappointment, indignity and unvarnished dullness of being unremarkable.

Most notable feature.

Cley Hill, now in the tender custody of the National Trust. It is a striking lump of earth rising from flat countryside, and possesses an Iron Age hill fort, a couple of barrows, medieval strip lynchets, and the confidence of something that knows it has a distinctive origin story.

Ah yes, that origin story.

So the Devil, enraged by the people of Devizes (one sympathises), was lugging a sackful of Somerset earth all the way there with the intention of burying the town. Why bring earth from Somerset? Who cares. Perhaps he lived in Frome (some would say that seems legit). Perhaps he enjoyed pointless exertion for absolutely no reason. Perhaps he enjoyed making a complete fool of himself. But the story doesn’t trouble itself with such trifles.

En route he stopped to ask directions from an old man, who informed him he'd been walking to Devizes since his beard was black and it was now grey and he still hadn't arrived. The Devil, presumably concluding that the burden was heavy, the way was long, and Devizes was not worth the effort after all, dropped the sack where he stood.

And how come he needed directions to Devizes? Did he forget the way? Did he not think this through? Certainly possible. Is he not the sharpest horn in hell? Undeniably. Whatever the reason, Devizes survives, and Cley Hill visitors are encouraged to admire a hill that, if the story is to be believed, owes its existence entirely to devilish incompetence.

That's not all Cley Hill has to offer. There is, sadly, more of the same tomfoolery with a different cast of characters.

Apparently Cley Hill hosts a benevolent spirit who lives in a barrow on top of the hill and serves as protector of the hamlet of Bugley (now part of Warminster, so that worked out well). Long ago he kindly revealed a well capable of curing sore eyes, and thoughtfully offered simple instructions: use the water on your eyes, do not drink it. Simple, clear, elegant.

Naturally, an old woman drank it. She died that night. Then a cow contaminated it. The cow drowned. One assumes the spirit rolled its eyes, shook its head, and wondered why it had bothered.

There's more: each Hallowe'en, enormous bonfires blaze on the hill, figures dance and chant in unknown tongues, and then the whole spectacle vanishes without trace. No ash, no people, no explanation. Some say it’s magic. Others say it’s madness. I say stay home at Hallowe'en.

And from the 17th century onwards, strange lights have been reported in the sky above the hill, culminating in the famous "Warminster Thing" of the 1960s, which attracted UFO enthusiasts from across the world. A photograph of a shimmering light made national headlines in 1965. Whether sightings were spacecraft, atmospheric phenomena, or simply what happens when an area has accumulated so much ridiculous mythology that it has nowhere left to put it, remains unresolved.

Also notable

St Mary's Church at Temple, built between 1899 and 1903 in Arts and Crafts Gothic style, funded by the will of Mary Barton of Corsley House as a memorial to her husband and son. Now looked after by the Friends of Friendless Churches, a noble society dedicated to preserving buildings so unwanted that even ghosts have given up and moved elsewhere.

A portion of the Longleat Safari Park sits within Corsley's bounds. One may drive past giraffes, zebras, wildebeest, and African painted dogs. Then comes the "Monkey Drive Through", a thrilling exercise in vehicular vulnerability, where monkeys will dismantle your car with cheerful efficiency and absolutely no regard for your insurance policy. The big game and tigers are housed in a neighbouring parish, which also hosts the main entrance, where you will pay your substantial entrance fee. Note: In Corsley you will see signs on the A362 directing vehicles to Longleat. These signs are not suggestions, they are instructions. Attempts to subvert them by taking shortcuts through the lanes will lead to disappointment and humiliation.

Part of Longleat Centre Parcs also falls within the parish boundary, including the main car park and some of the lodges where families pay considerable sums to "holiday" in a forest, pretending that quad biking and field archery are nature experiences.

Other observations

On my visit, Corsley was wreathed in fog, Cley Hill invisible. I traipsed up the hill in the murk anyway, saw nothing but a trig point, then traipsed back down again, my knees having confirmed that gravity continues to function perfectly well in the area. I am sure that somewhere in the fog the benevolent spirit was watching with mild curiosity, perhaps wondering whether intervention was warranted, while mysterious lights failed to shine and hidden bonfire cultists sniggered quietly into their hoods. The entire enterprise amounted to nothing more than a steep, damp and slippery trudge culminating in a concrete pillar and a profound absence of anything remotely worth the effort.

Still, one must be grateful. Had the fog lifted, I might have been forced to admire the view, which could have ruined the entire experience.

NEXT WEEK: CRANBORNE

Prepare to be utterly underwhelmed.

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