When the blackthorn finishes and the hawthorn opens; don't follow the cuckoo

7 May 2026

Welcome to issue 34 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, fellow travellers

This week in the Chase

Something arrived in the Chase in recent weeks. You will have heard it before you saw it, two notes, repeating, coming from somewhere just out of sight. The cuckoo is back. So is it just another bird?

We have a report from the Forgotten Footpath Society, who followed a cuckoo into a hollow tree and encountered someone who already knew them and gave them a warning.

We also have a letter from one of the older residents of the Chase, responding to something that caught her ancient eye in last week's Hubert's Guide. Hubert may be in trouble (again).

We also have Hubert's newest guide. He has been to Donhead St Andrew. We have had to edit him, as usual, but what remains is still quite a lot.

Read on.

My regular pilgrimage to Hubert's dropbox in the tree roots up on Faulston Drove brought an unexpected bonus this week. Tucked away in the pages of Tess of the Durbervilles I found not only his guide to Donhead St Andrew, as expected, but also a letter addressed to Hubert from Ebble, the goddess of the river of the same name, with whom he has had a long entanglement of fluctuating cordiality.

Whether he left it intentionally for me to find, or not, I deem it to be of sufficient interest to readers of Tales from the Chase to publish the text here in full. So here's a full transcript. You'll have to imagine the faint scent of cold water over chalk, and that sinking feeling in Hubert's gut.

What follows will make more sense if you have read all of issue 33 (the email before this one). If you have not, you may find it faintly baffling, which, in fairness, is also how Hubert finds most things of this sort. Here's a link in case you missed it.

Hubert,

As an immortal river-spirit I have considerably better things to do with my time than monitor your literary endeavours. Yet your account of your recent encounter with Aelwyn of the Mists has been brought to my attention by Gerald, who is conscientious in these matters despite being a heron.

My interest is not idle. Aelwyn is a close friend, and we go back a long way. This should not surprise you. We spirits of place have endured together since the first shaping of the Chase.

Being a man of low emotional intelligence, as we have recently established, you may be unaware of one of the oldest and simplest of codes. The code is this: once a relationship has ended, one does not flirt with a woman’s close friends. Just because I am a genius loci does not mean it does not apply.

You will, no doubt, protest. You will claim innocence, as you so often do when confronted with your deeds. But you have always valued evidence. Let us then summon it. As one might gather stones from a riverbed, so I have gathered quotes from your text.

"Her voice sounded like a flute played at the bottom of a well." Curious. You once described my voice as "unnerving." Note the difference. I certainly did.

"Composed entirely of poor visibility." An evocative turn of phrase, yes, but also the words of a man who is attempting to cloak fascination in the guise of observation. You write as if you deliver a local weather report, but you cannot disguise the heat.

"Some kind of decorative fog." Decorative, Hubert. Before you stood an ancient guardian spirit, a being who has crowned kings and unmade many things since before your kind learned to name the wind, and the word that rose to your lips was ‘decorative’. You might have chosen obstructive. Or uncanny, or perilous, words that would at least align with the trembling of your knees.

But ‘decorative’ is a word a man uses when he has noticed something with some appreciation. Aelwyn noticed the word. As did I.

Then we have"you look like you're already halfway to a bout of pneumonia." You stood before a spirit of mist and ancient downland and made it clear that you would very much prefer she didn't catch a chill. I have seen empires bloom and wither along my banks. I have borne life and taken it back again. In all that time, Hubert, you have never once inquired after my health.

And then, of course: "My knees were wobbling subtly but I think I got away with it."

We both know what makes your knees wobble, Hubert, and I will simply note that it is not, in my experience, a ten degree drop in temperature.

And then the eyes. The cobalt eyes. The flashing. Three invocations within fewer than six hundred words. I have known you to describe a sunset as "adequate." Your meaning is clear.

So let me be clear, I am not jealous. Jealousy implies a present claim, which I do not have, particularly since you remain, as previously established during our recent discussion, notably underdeveloped in the area of emotional intelligence. What I have is a concern that, while the Grey King was literally at the gate, you chose this moment to indulge in ill-disguised flirtation with one of my oldest companions. And further, that you have seen fit to set it down where others might read it.

Gerald will remain with you and will deliver your reply when you present it to him. I strongly advise that you don't take too long.

Ebble

P.S. Whilst I await your reply, you may find your sleep less restful than it has been. As you know to your cost, dreams have currents of their own, and I am not unfamiliar with their channels. In waking, you may hear the sound of water where no water runs. Generally your day to day existence may have a dampness that was not there before.

If you are prompt, these courtesies will remain… subtle. Remember what happened last time.

This week we present another account from the archives of the Forgotten Footpath Society, whose outings continue to produce results that are not always cartographically reproducible.

The following report concerns a spring walk in the Wardour Vale, undertaken in good weather and with every intention of remaining within the Chase throughout.

As usual that intention became slightly sidetracked.

Of Hollow Trees and Hollow Heralds

It should be noted, before anything else, that this walk was not supposed to go the way it went.

Cedric, known for what has been described by his fellow walkers as having “an almost pathological curiosity about things that are not his concern,” was leading a walk for the first time. He had assured the FFS hierarchy of his firm intention of sticking to the planned route and the rule that states that novice leaders are supposed to note the unusual and file a full report, but should not follow through on the day.

The walk was in the country around the ruins of Old Wardour Castle. The weather was good. The bluebells were starting to fade. All seemed set fair for a routine walk.

A NOTE ON THE CUCKOO

What followed can't properly be understood without a note on the cuckoo.

Local tradition in the Chase places the cuckoo in a category distinct from other birds. Sometimes called the hollow herald, according to local folklorist Isla Cobb the first cuckoo heard in the Chase was not a bird at all.

It was a shepherd boy named Rafe, who one April morning in some unspecified but very long ago time wandered onto the high downs in pursuit of a stray lamb and was never found. His mother kept a candle in the window for seven years. In the eighth spring, a cuckoo appeared at the edge of the wood in the exact spot where he had last been seen. It called three times, then fell silent.

It returned every year after that, always calling from the same tree, always three calls, always at dawn.

Cobb notes that there are two kinds of being led. You can be led astray, or you can be led somewhere. The cuckoo does not lead you astray. It leads you where you were apparently already going, whether or not you knew it. This is an important distinction that is perhaps reassuring when you're standing in a field that wasn't there a moment ago.

THE CALL

Cedric's group was crossing a small wooden bridge over a drainage ditch when the cuckoo appeared. It landed on a gate post, and called twice. Not three times, which Cedric noted, and flew off across a field away from the path.

“Interesting,” said Cedric.

“Don’t,” said Maureen.

Cedric proposed that the group follow the bird for “just a few minutes, to see.” The vote was seven to four in favour. It says something about the FFS membership that this motion passed seven to four. It says something further that of the four dissenters, three of them came anyway. The fourth, Derek, waited by the bridge for forty-five minutes before heading back to the car park, and later described this as the most sensible thing anyone did all day.

THE TREE

The cuckoo led them across two fields into a rough corner of pasture at the edge of a wood, where stood one extraordinary tree.

It was a hollow sweet chestnut of remarkable age. The trunk had split, revealing at its centre a darkness that was more than shadow. The bark was all knuckles and ridges. Above, the branches held the partially-opened pale green foliage of late April .

The cuckoo landed at the top, called three times, and was silent.

“Right,” said Cedric.

He stepped forward and looked into the hollow. Then he stepped inside and disappeared into the shadow.

There was a brief consultation, shorter than it ought to have been, then one by one the other nine walkers followed.

THE OTHER SIDE

One member later reported that the ground in the tree felt firm when weight was first applied, then subtly gave way slightly a moment later, as though making adjustments. Another said that sounds arrived a fraction too late, like echoes.

Then it settled, and they were still in the Chase but also not. The same general topography, the same mild Spring light, but stuffier, quieter. The grass was a deeper green, the sky a deeper blue. The tree, now behind them, was a vague presence you could feel, but seemed to be not quite there. If you looked straight at it, nothing; look from the corner of your eye, there it was.

They walked for perhaps twenty minutes along a path that led through woods of hazel and oak until they reached a long grassy clearing.

At the far end, they found him.

VESPERAL

He was tall, and crowned with antlers that rose from just above his temples.

He had a face, but those who later tried found they could not agree on what he looked like, apart from that he was neither old nor young with eyes of grey-green and a general expression that suggested helpfulness.

Where clothing might have been, there hung a mantle of evening, like layers of dusk; violet, indigo, a soft green. It shifted, though not with the wind.

He appeared to have been waiting.

"Welcome. I am Vesperal".

There was a long pause. Brightly coloured butterflies flapped lazily past. A thrush sang from the edge of the trees and a fox with silver-tipped ears ran across the clearing behind them.

Then Mad Geoff stepped forward. No-one had really noticed he was with the group, as he had been uncharacteristically quiet.

“You came back,” said Vesperal. ”I thought you might”

“I brought some people,” said Mad Geoff.

“How nice. It’s good to have company.”

There was a small pause in which several members of the group wondered whether Geoff had somehow engineered this situation. That he had brought them to Vesperal for some unknown and nefarious purpose.

Subsequent enquiries revealed that he had indeed met Vesperal once before, three years earlier, on a solo walk that Geoff had not mentioned at the time, and refused to elaborate on.

Geoff, for his part, appeared mildly offended by the suggestion of intent on his part, in the way a man might be offended by being credited with a level of planning way beyond his abilities.

Then Cedric stepped forward.

“We’re from the Forgotten Footpath Society,” he said. “We were following a cuckoo.”

“Ah,” said the being. “Yes. That happens sometimes.The cuckoo shows the way. It doesn't lead astray. It shows you where you need to be."

He looked closely at Cedric, the colours of his cloak shifting. "You have the look of someone who goes through doors without regard for what's written on them. You see the way."

He looked at the group.

“You’ve come through very cleanly,” he continued. “That’s good. Not everyone manages it on a first attempt. You’ll go back the same way, in much the same condition. We try to keep things symmetrical where possible. But there is something I should mention."

"Do not come this way again; not any of you" and here he glanced at Geoff and Cedric, "for some time. Not through that tree, not through any gap in the old corners of the Chase. Even in your world, stay indoors after dark." He paused. "The hunt comes at Beltane."

“The hunt?” said Maureen.

"Riders," he nodded. "They ride the old paths, the old boundaries, the long straight tracks. They hunt what is loose. What is abroad without permission. And this season will be long, longer than most; and hard, for those they find." He paused again.

"They don't take the dead. They take the in-between, and the left behind. The ones who are not quite one thing or the other. And the curious."

He looked directly at Cedric.

“Like you”.

Cedric felt a chill. It was not quite fear, but close. The word curious had layers, beyond just his own (mostly) harmless interest in the world. In Vesperal's tone there was a suggestion that something, or things, might find Cedric himself a curious specimen. It felt a bit as though he had been identified as something to be sought out, to be collected.

“You see things properly,” said the being. “It’s refreshing. Not many do, these days.”

Cedric adjusted his perpetually fogged spectacles. He had always thought it was curious that despite the fog they did not obscure his vision.

“They're a bit foggy, but I manage” he said.

“In certain contexts, that has uses. Some would say.”

Cedric did not ask for whom.

“When is Beltane exactly?” he asked, pushing all other thoughts aside.

"The night of the old May eve. Not your calendar, the real one. When the blackthorn finishes and the hawthorn opens. You'll know it if you're paying attention, which I suggest you begin doing. Don't be on those paths after dark. Don't follow the cuckoo. Don't stand inside a hollow tree, even to shelter from rain."

There was a silence. A small flock of goldfinches burst from the treeline, circled once above them, then back into the woods. A raven croaked somewhere in the invisible distance. Three of the group checked their phones, found no signal, and put them away.

“Is there anything else?” said Cedric.

The figure looked at him for a long moment.

“Noticing things goes both ways. Don’t lose your spectacles,” he said. “They see things most do not. There are those who would covet them. Keep them safe”.

He took a step backward and was among the trees, and then was not among the trees, and then was simply not there at all, and the clearing was quiet, and slightly less green.

The group retraced their steps and came back through the hollow tree to find that dusk was falling in the Chase. They quickly made their way back to their cars in the failing light, to find Derek sitting cross-legged on Maureen's car bonnet, waiting for his lift home.

"I was beginning to wonder where you'd got to. Did you go far?” he asked. Then, after a pause: “Actually, don’t answer that. You people never answer properly.”

A parish by parish tour of the Chase

DONHEAD ST ANDREW

DONHEAD ST ANDREW

Ah, Donhead St Andrew, a place of gentle hills, valleys, old stone buildings, and scenery at times so persistently attractive that I am mildly suspicious. Landscapes this keen on being admired are rarely doing it out of kindness.

Chalk downs rise in the southern part, streams meander, and a nationally recognised designed landscape occupies much of the northern part. How disappointingly bureaucratic.

With just over 410 residents, you might expect a “village” at the centre of the parish. You would be wrong. There is no centre. Instead, there are lanes; winding, narrow, a tangle of routes with houses and farms sprinkled about like confetti after a wedding no-one can remember. Medieval cottages of stone and thatch sit companionably next to more modern constructions, and an occasional grand residence lurks beyond walls or hedgerows. Less of a village than a rumour of one.

Notable for

Wardour Park and Old Wardour Castle. The Park dominates the northeast of the parish and extends over the parish boundary into neighbouring Tisbury. It’s a formally designed estate of such historical note and quality that it made it onto the national Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. Some would say "big deal". Given that the Chase itself is a National Landscape, the Park is doubly endorsed for its scenic qualities, which seems excessive. And all the more suspicious for it. This is exactly the sort of thing that makes one wonder what the landscape is trying to hide.

The Park has been shaped over centuries, but was notably refined in the 18th century when the owners, the Arundells, consulted Lancelot “Capability” Brown about a design in line with the newly fashionable informal English landscape garden style, to tie in with the construction of a new country house, a lake, a stone grotto and a banqueting house. In the end they hired rival designer Richard Woods, a fellow Catholic, to do the job. Brown was excommunicated. Presumably they thought Woods would be more likely to make the topography align with their theology.

Despite this, his ideas were not fully executed. This might be attributed to expense, changing taste, or divine intervention. But some say that something in the estate simply did not agree with being remodelled. It has its own ideas about how it prefers to be seen, and enough was enough.

Old Wardour Castle sits in the Park astride the parish boundary. It is now a romantic ruin, like many medieval castles across the UK, but with the distinction of having reached its current state through a particularly overzealous combination of English Civil War mishaps and later aesthetic fashions.

It was built in the 14th century by Lord Lovell as a rare and rather showy hexagonal castle, later enhanced by Sir Matthew Arundell into a modern Elizabethan residence.

Then came the English Civil War, which ensured that what had been an architecturally ambitious building was left partially dismantled by explosives, an approach to heritage management that has regrettably fallen out of favour these days.

Lady Blanche Arundell first lost the castle to the Parliamentarian forces in 1643, after an impressively stubborn siege. Then her son, Henry Arundell, seems to have rather carelessly blown one side of it apart when retaking it the following year.

Apparently the castle’s commander woke up to find part of his bedroom had disappeared, which must have been an unsettling way to start the day.

I trust that Henry was suitably nervous about telling his mum what he'd done. "Good news mother, the castle's ours again. I’d suggest we don’t rush the housewarming."

Afterward, the castle simply settled into ruin, though not entirely through neglect. Neglect implies nobody cared. At Old Wardour, people cared very much, but mainly that it should continue to look like a romantic ruin.

The 18^th century remodelling of the Park brought the newly fashionable landscape vocabulary of ruin and romance to the party, so the castle was expressly given a starring role as a picturesque landscape feature in the setting of the Arundells’s new country home, which was about half a mile away. It now represented melancholy, antiquity, and picturesque decay; the notion that old buildings are improved as features in the landscape by letting them fall to bits. Unlike many of their contemporaries, the Arundells did not have to build a fake gothic ruin, they had the real thing.

The castle site is now run by English Heritage, so you can visit. Entrance fees apply. Go see for yourself. But note that the transformation from living castle to aesthetic object has had an odd side effect. Ghostly figures have been seen among the broken walls, echoes of the siege carry on the wind, and there’s a sense that certain corners of the ruins are slightly more attentive than they ought to be.

Also notable:

Ferne House (often referred to as Ferne Park), which has had more architectural reincarnations than seems strictly necessary.

There has been a settlement here at the foot of the chalk hills since at least the 13th century, followed by successive manor houses, demolitions, rebuilds, and reinventions. The current incarnation is a large classical house designed in the early 21st century by Quinlan Terry. It is privately owned and not open to the public. You can’t visit. Tough.

St Andrew's Church sits in the valley beside the River Nadder, close to what would be the centre of the village, if it actually had one.

There has probably been a church of some sort on this site since roughly the time people were still deciding whether roofs were a good idea. Inside, you’ll find a Saxon arch. Most of the building is 13th century, though Victorian restorers later “improved” it (as usual).

Julian Bream. The parish was home, in his latter years, to classical guitarist Julian Bream. He lived here from 2009 until his death, bringing a rare period of cultural refinement to the parish.

The Forester, a pub; currently closed, maybe closed forever, its up in the air. It has been serving the area in one form or another since the days when people thought hygiene was optional and beer was a food group.

Parts of it may date to the 15th century, and legend suggests it was rebuilt using stone from the ruins of Old Wardour Castle.

There have been closures, plans for conversion into a house, and local outrage. Currently its future lies in the balance.

If it does become a private house, future owners should know they are sleeping inside a 600-year-old monument to local community life. Which seems, frankly, like a lot of responsibility for one family armed with a Farrow & Ball colour chart.

Other slightly disturbing features

There are anecdotes of figures at field edges at dusk, unexplained sounds in the lanes, and a general sense that certain places are mildly displeased with human presence.

There are also persistent stories of buried valuables, usually linked to Civil War disruption. Hide your wealth and then flee or die, seems to be the general idea. Guaranteed to keep future generations busy digging in entirely the wrong places.

These stories are not verifiable, but they are very well distributed, and have adapted successfully to the local ecosystem.

I left the parish having not enjoyed myself, being too suspicious of everything to relax properly. I'm sure the sounds I heard as I left were entirely explicable, and that whatever was standing at the edge of the churchyard was almost certainly nothing.

NEXT TIME: DONHEAD ST MARY

Prepare to be utterly underwhelmed. It's another Donhead. Can't be worse, surely.

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