The Celtic legend already alluded to comes from Alderley Edge. It is a
version of _Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table_.
A farmer going through Alderley Edge, on his way to the fair to sell a
beautiful white mare, was accosted by a venerable old man dressed as a
monk, who said:
“Sell as thou wilt that steed of thine
’Tis fated that the steed be mine.”
The farmer found no purchaser, and, returning at night, met the monk by
two enormous iron gates, through which they entered into a huge cavern
where numbers of milk-white steeds were stalled, and by each lay an
armed warrior asleep. The wizard paid the farmer, who asked the meaning
of the mysterious troopers, and was told that they would, when England
“Was thrice lost and thrice won
’Twixt dawn of day and setting sun,”
come to her aid.
When the wizard ceased, the farmer found himself alone on the hill, and
the gates closed behind him.
A dragon legend is connected with Thomas Venables, son of Sir Gilbert
Venables, cousin-german to William the Conqueror:--
“It chaunced a terrible dragon to remayne and make his abode in the
lordeshippe of Moston in the Countye of Chester, wheare he devoured
all such persons as he laid hold on, which ye said Thomas Venables
herringe tell of ... dyd in his awne person valiantly set on the saide
dragon, where first he shotte hym throwe with an arrowe, and afterward
with other weapons manfullie slew him, at which instant the dragon was
devouringe of a childe.”
A greater fund of legendary lore is found with regard to the lakes or
meres of Cheshire:--