Hubert scoffs, the colour of a coming storm, and something ancient and mildly irritating

23 October 2025

Welcome to issue 11 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 BACK, BRAVE TRAVELLER​

So you’ve returned. The land is heavy with recent rain, and somewhere in the Chase a door that shouldn't be there has opened just a crack. Old stories are emerging, and you’ve arrived just in time. Settle down with your favourite hot beverage, and let's begin.

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR

After our recent feature on the Forgotten Footpath Society (see issue 8), and the free download of some of their archive material (issue 9), we received this curious letter from Hubert, who’s quite insistent that maybe we shouldn’t be encouraging the FFS. Plus, he shares some rather intriguing news about the FFS and fungi.

​

Dear Rob,

I must say, your recent foray into the world of the Forgotten Footpath Society has left me equal parts baffled and mildly horrified. I'll admit, at first I smiled. Then I groaned. Then I wept a little for the sanity of your readership. Encouraging the notion that our countryside is littered with secret paths and portals to other worlds is, frankly, a masterclass in absurdity.

One might almost admire the sheer dedication with which these enthusiasts chase shadows and whimsies, mapping these things as if they are real. But I feel compelled to remind you, and your readers, that indulging such fancies is an exercise in folly. Free downloads of their archive? Really. Why not hand out magic beans while you’re at it? Reporting on eccentricity is one thing; lending it legitimacy is quite another.

Just to put this into perspective, you'll know that I have experienced the extraordinary firsthand, and I certainly did not feel compelled to record such encounters and turn them into downloadable PDFs. Real magic is subtle and dangerous, and I fear the FFS is meddling with what it does not understand.

I urge caution. Chronicle their exploits for amusement, if you must. But resist the temptation to present them as some kind of "expert" in hidden realms. Some things are best approached with patience, respect, and a touch of fear. Others are better left alone.

On another equally alarming note, while we're on the subject of things best left alone, apparently the FFS has taken to “foraging” on their walks now. I heard with no small amount of horror that during last week’s ramble through the woods at Great Ridge, on some misguided mission to find yet another “secret way” presumably to some kind of ridiculous “lost” land where unicorns frolic with fairies, one of the FFS’s newer members, name of Cedric, I believe (I’ve seen him, the one with the perpetually fogged glasses), attempted to brew “tea” from something he found growing on a tree stump.

He was later found lying peacefully in a bramble patch, muttering about “a fox with a lantern who showed him a hidden monastery” or some such nonsense. Either the man really has stumbled into the otherworld, or he’s consumed something that will take weeks to clear out of his system.

I’ll remind all of your readers, you’ve got no business poking at fungi with sticks and declaring them “edible-looking.”

And as for those in the FFS keeping a “Mushroom Sketchbook”? Lovely, truly. Just don’t expect it to save you when you mistake Death Cap for Chanterelles.

This isn’t folklore. This is basic biochemistry.

Stop licking stuff you find in the woods.

Yours, still unharmed by suspicious fungi,

​
​Hubert

I asked the FFS for a response. This is what they said.

Dear Hubert,

While I respect your commitment to common sense, and to avoiding gastrointestinal and psychomedical catastrophes, I feel compelled to defend the humble practice of mushroom sketching.

Firstly, drawing fungi does not inherently lead to foraging. Some of us simply enjoy the peculiar shapes of nature without trying to steep it in hot water and hallucinate our way to a Saxon abbey. Cedric, as a new member, was clearly following his own predilections in that regard.

Secondly, it’s worth noting that the Society’s Field Guide to Curious Mushrooms and Misunderstood Lumps (Vol. 1, currently in draft) clearly states: “Observe with your eyes, not your tongue.”

The incident with Cedric has been documented in full, and he’s recovering well. His rash has faded, though he insists he can now “sense the colour of ley lines.” We’re monitoring this.

He also insists the monastery fox gave excellent advice, so who are we to judge?

Thank you for your concern, Hubert. As always, we appreciate your… grounded perspective.

Elspeth Thorne

FFS President

P.S. I include below a copy of our updated Fungus Protocol for information.

​

Notes on Fungus Protocol

• The Forgotten Footpath Society does not officially condone the consumption or licking of wild mushrooms or other fungi unless positively identified by a trained mycologist (and even then, best to be suspicious)
• Mushroom sketching is part of our Field Lore Recording Project, aimed at documenting unusual natural formations. This includes fungi that appear only in seasonal alignments, or next to paths that weren’t there yesterday.
• Sketches are preferable to photographs as photography is unreliable in liminal zones. Charcoal captures essence better than graphite.
• Never disturb a fungus that seems to be watching. Keep a respectful distance
• Whispering or bioluminescent pulsing are not cause for immediate alarm, but refrain from responding verbally.

​

I also took a call from a FFS member who introduced himself as “Mad Geoff”, who added the following.

“Look, I’m not saying mushrooms are 'compasses' as such.

I’m just saying I’ve walked long enough to notice patterns, and when four identical puffballs grow in a line from the base of an old oak, pointing vaguely northeast, and you follow that line for three miles and end up near a Roman boundary stone… well, you start to pay attention.

Hubert scoffs, of course. He scoffs at everything that doesn’t come laminated, with the Ordnance Survey logo on the cover. But the land has memory. Fungi are part of that memory. They grow where paths used to be, or want to be, or almost were.

Case in point: a spotty red-capped cluster we found last week near a hollow tree. Not only did this mark the start of an unlisted deer track, but when I pressed my ear to the earth nearby (yes, Hubert, laugh it up), I could hear a soft pulsing. Rhythmic. Like drums, drums in the deep.

Maggie says it was distant traffic.

Els says it was probably my sinuses.

I say: mushrooms grow where the stories are".

THE LOSS REPORTS: FREE DOWNLOAD

Well, in defiance of Hubert’s warnings above, we have clearance to provide another download of material scanned from the FFS archive! Many of you asked about the mysterious “loss reports” tied to the Society’s 1930s expedition to the Library of Unfinished Weather and your persistence has paid off. They’re ready for perusal here FFS loss reports.pdf Do handle with care.

The Dream of the Blue Flowers

A Tale from Cranborne Chase

There’s a clearing deep in a wood in the midst of Cranborne Chase where the air smells like rain even when it hasn’t fallen for weeks. The locals call it the Dream Hollow. Walkers pass by without noticing, but sometimes, if you pause there and you’re quiet enough, you might hear distant music at the edge of hearing. It's like the wordless singing of a timeless and haunting melody, far away, then gone.

Nobody lives near the Hollow now. But long ago, when Cranborne Chase was still a deep and unfenced forest where deer moved like shadows and owls spoke secrets to the moon, there was a cottage there. It belonged to Eva the forester’s daughter, who lived there alone after the passing of her parents, who disappeared one day and were never found.

People said Eva had a way with growing things, that she could touch a dying plant and make it bloom again. Her garden was renowned, and the scent of roses and honeysuckle drifted through the woods like a spell, lingering in the air.

One evening, while gathering kindling in woods in the dim light before rain, she heard a thin, frantic sound, a flutter caught in the brambles. She pushed aside the thorns and found a bird tangled in a hunter’s snare.

The bird shimmered, its body no bigger than her palm, its feathers scattering the dying light into strange colours. It rippled through shades of blue and green, deepening to violet at the tips of long slender wings. Its throat gleamed turquoise like a kingfisher's wing, and the feathers round its eyes glowed faintly, as if sprinkled with gold dust.

Eva had never seen anything like it. Not in the woods, not in the world. It felt like something half made of light, half made of dream. She freed it carefully, untwining the wire from its tiny leg. Its blood caught the light, not red, but dark as ink, the colour of a coming storm.

“There now,” she whispered, cupping it in her hands. “You’ll fly again, I promise.”

She carried it home, rinsed its wound with water from the well, and kept it by her window in a little wooden box lined with moss. For three nights it lay there, breathing faintly. Each morning, she placed a few drops of honeyed water in a shallow dish and scattered fresh berries and seeds across the moss. On the fourth morning, she woke to find the box empty. The window was open. The only trace of the bird was a single iridescent feather on the sill, trembling in a draught that smelled faintly of rain.

That night, Eva dreamed.

A voice whispered “You have given me life. In return, I will show you beauty that grows only in dreams.” She stood in a vast meadow bathed in the golden light of sunset. Around her stretched an ocean of tall grass scattered with blue flowers, each petal edged in gold, glowing as though lit from within. Eva knelt, touched one, fragile and luminous as stained glass, and felt its warmth.

When she woke, her room smelled of wet grass and something sweet she couldn’t name. A single blue petal with gilded edge lay on her pillow. She buried it beneath the grass below her window, though she did not know why.

The next day, something new had sprouted. A single shoot rising through the dew below her window, its stem faintly silvered, its leaves edged with a soft blue sheen.

Each night she dreamed again, of the meadow, the flowers, the bird. Of a haunting, ancient melody.

And the shoot grew quickly. Too quickly. Within a week, the first bloom had opened, as blue as the sky before a storm. Then came another, and another, some tinged with green, some violet, all edged in gold, until they covered the clearing like a shimmering pool of blue light.

The villagers came to see. Some were charmed. Some were afraid. They started whispering. The flowers seemed to move when no wind stirred, and their scent was sweet and strange, it made thoughts drift. They said the petals glittered on moonless, starless nights, that people could hear faint music coming from the Hollow. One boy snuck close and swore he saw Eva lying among the blossoms, eyes closed, lips moving like she was whispering or singing in her sleep.

“Keep them cut back,” warned old Mrs. Harrow, the village healer. “Nothing grows that fast without a reason. Nothing looks so fair and carries no shadow.”

Eva only smiled. “They’re beautiful,” she said. “They make me dream.”

But beauty has its cost.

Soon, those who visited the clearing began to complain of strange dreams; dreams they struggled to wake from, wandering through fields of impossible blue until their bodies turned still as stone. Or they’d wake at dawn with dirt beneath their nails and no memory of the night. The forest itself began to hum with the sound of unseen wings.

Then came the vanishings. A shepherd, a boy, a woman fetching water at dusk. Their tracks always led toward the Dream Hollow, and there they stopped.

Afraid, Eva sought the bird once more. She had found no answers in dreams. For three nights she called to the bird in the woods near the place she had once found it in the snare. Her voice was a fragile sound in the vastness of the forest.

When it came, the bird was not all as she remembered, nor quite how she had dreamt it. It shone with its own light, a creature made of dusk and memory. The blue of its wings had deepened to midnight, and the gold about its eyes flickered with shadows.

“The flowers are not meant for waking eyes,” it said. “They are of the Dreaming world. By burying the petal, you have made the boundary between worlds thin; more than that, you have grown a gate that should only exist in sleep. The gate cannot be unmade."

Eva bowed her head. “Then it’s my fault,” she whispered. “The people who’ve vanished.”

“They heard the call, and more will follow,” the bird said softly. “The music, it lures them. They hear it in dreams, then one day they hear it in waking and go willingly, though they do not know where the path will take them. As they step toward the heart of the Hollow, they pass fully into the Dreaming world, awake though they are. And then they are gone. Never to return.”

“I can’t let it take more of them,” Eva said. “You say it can't be unmade, but can it be closed, locked?” Eva asked, hope and dread rising together in her chest.

The bird tilted its head. “Yes,” it murmured. “But not from this side. You must go there in sleep and close the gate yourself. But know this, Eva. Once you close the gate, you cannot return as you were. You will belong to the Dreaming world. There is no other way.”

A hush fell over the Chase. Even the wind seemed to listen. Eva looked toward the Hollow, where the flowers swayed as though stirred by unseen hands. “Then let it be so,” she said. “I will close the gate. Let the dream end with me.”

"Oh, the Dream never ends," said the bird as it spread its wings and flew high into the night sky and was gone.

Eva returned to the Hollow, and her cottage. Inside, she lit a single candle and sat at her small table. The night was utterly still.

She took a sheet of paper, and wrote:

If you find this, fear not for me. The flowers were never meant to grow here. I go to set right what I began. Should the Hollow fall silent, as I expect, leave it be. Plant no seed, sing no song, and the Chase will be safe once more.

She folded the letter, left it by the window where the dawn light would fall, and blew out the candle.

Then she stepped into the night, walking barefoot through the dew to the centre of the clearing, and laid herself down among the flowers. She slept, and did not rise again. By dawn, both she and the blue blossoms had vanished, leaving only the soft grass in the clearing where they had been.

The villagers found her cottage empty, the letter by the window. They burned the cottage that night, and by sunrise the fire had died, the smoke cleared. The cottage was a pile of ash.

Eva passed through the gate she planted, into the Dreaming world, where blue flowers edged in gold bloom forever in woods and meadows under a golden sky. There she closed the gate she'd made so that others could not follow.

But the gate is not unmade. She uses it still. It opens to her touch alone. Sometimes she returns, a pale shape drifting through the trees at the edge of the clearing, her hair speckled with golden dust, softly singing. Others claim to have seen her reflection in the water that gathers in the Dream Hollow after rain, her face surrounded by blue flowers edged with gold.

So if you find yourself in the Dream Hollow, and the air smells faintly of rain, and you hear the music at the edge of hearing, do not linger. Most who hear the music walk away quickly. A few don’t. They answer the call, and follow it at their peril.

And on such days, in the morning, the mist over Cranborne Chase looks a little bluer than it should.

A parish by parish tour of the Chase

Our parish-by-parish pilgrimage through the Chase’s 108 parishes continues.

This week: Boyton.

boyton

This parish sits at the northern edge of the West Wiltshire Downs, tucked alongside the river Wylye, which forms much of its northern boundary. Around 240 souls inhabit the village and the nearby hamlet of Corton, located close to the river.

From the river, the parish stretches southward across empty chalk downland, and includes much of Great Ridge one of the largest woodlands in Wiltshire, notable for both its trees and a certain ambient eeriness. The southern parish boundary is partially marked by one of the many “Grim’s Ditches” that lace this part of the world; a prehistoric earthwork whose purpose remains ambiguous.

Hubert's guide is below. All views expressed are Hubert's own, and not necessarily shared by Tales from the Chase.

BOYTON

Ah, Boyton. If you are reading this, congratulations: by the end you will have the dubious privilege of knowing as much as I do about this parish, which is both ancient and mildly irritating. I shall now, regrettably, take you through its curiosities and follies. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Notable for: ancient barrows

Boyton is stuffed with prehistoric remains, mostly because early humans enjoyed digging big holes in the ground and placing their friends and family in them. Archaeologists have found skeletons, cremations, and probably some poor person’s old coffee mug. Corton Long Barrow, for instance, held eight original skeletons, then later cremations. Why? I do not know, and neither will you.

Most of these barrows cling to parish boundaries. Again, why? Possibly as markers, possibly because early humans just liked boundaries. Who can say?

Other features

Great Ridge Wood, a sizeable chunk of woodland that sprawls across Boyton and neighbouring parishes. There is also a Roman road (course of) running east-west through it.

It was the hunting ground of Jack Hag, a local highwayman who preyed on travellers. He was supposedly caught and hanged from Hag’s Oak, a giant tree which eventually fell in 2005. Inside was a forgotten iron plaque. Only one letter remained visible: “H.” Yes, it is as thrilling as it sounds.

Parish Church of St Mary & the Giffard Chapel. Locked when I visited, so I was unable to view its delights. Apparently there are some effigies, and bits of stained glass from Chartres cathedral in France. Fascinating I'm sure. But for me these remain a mystery. For you, likewise.

Boyton Manor, a private residence of some historic significance. Apparently Prince Leopold, youngest son of Queen Victoria, lodged there briefly. Presumably complaining about something.

The Ginger Piggery: a farm that diversified into a café, artists’ workshops, galleries, and purveyors of vintage homeware. No pigs, ginger or otherwise. But you can get a flat white, artisan pottery, and a wrought iron hat rack. I had tea.

The Dove Inn. A pub, located in Corton. Had an air of being both open and closed when I arrived. So I did not enter. Seemed likely to end in disappointment.

Suggested itinerary:

Arrive mid morning in time for tea (or beverage of your choice) at the Ginger Piggery. Admire the handmade ceramics and resist buying furniture you don’t need.

Walk south to reach the woods at Great Ridge. As you pass through the vast downland fields, note the abundance of pheasants awaiting slaughter. Once in the woods, find the Roman road (course of). Imagine a bunch of Romans trudging along, grumbling about damp sandals.

That sense of unease? Typical Great Ridge ambience. Feel an entirely reasonable urge to get out of the woods, and head quickly north, back to the village via the relative sanity of wide paths across open fields. Note the crackle of gunfire carried on the breeze and imagine dead birds plummeting from the sky in the distance. It’s best not to linger.

Return to The Ginger Piggery for a final cup of tea. Maybe add cake. It will taste better than the first time, possibly because you’re relieved to have escaped the woods and fields unmolested by uncanny spirits and lead shot.

Leave, slightly wiser, relieved, and perhaps mildly irritated by Boynton.

NEXT WEEK: BREAMORE (part of)

Prepare to be utterly underwhelmed.

Farewell friends. And so we drift, like spores on a moonlit breeze, past dreaming flowers and ancient mounds. We’ll return, as always, when the clocks have gone back and the veil thins, when the paths between places remember their old alignments. Until then, enjoy the records of the lost and a nice cup of tea.

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