The Haunted Moors

If ever there was a more superstitious people than those that inhabited the moorlands of Glenopshire then they were of another world. Those people believed that the very moors they called home were also traversed by a plentiful range of all things unnatural and unreckonable. By day, when Mother’s Light burned bright to ward away all the horrors of the night, the moors were safe for man and woman to walk in and for children to frolic in. Winter days when the Mother’s Light hid behind clouds were perilous but not nearly so as the night. The night belonged to Brother Devil and his abominable creations to which he fed children and shared in the toasts of goblets filled with the blood of virgins. 

Perhaps the most blatant of warnings to those who dare visiting on the moors after sundown is that of the Misty Night’s Fair. It is said that on an evening in the depths of Autumn when the mists are at their thickest, tents and people amongst them can be seen. The sound of music and merrymaking is carried across the valley where it can be heard in the nearby towns of Frowlton and Harnsley Crale. The origins of this haunting tell the tale of a troupe of southern nobles, from where such knowledge and understanding of the lands is not known, chose the Glenopshire moors as the location for a large gathering to celebrate summer's solstice. Locals claim that as the Mother’s Light sank into distant hills a great mist descended on the valley, the likes of which weren’t due for several months. When the early summer sun rose and the mists cleared there were no tents or people, or horses. Not a scrap of proof these nobles had ever made camp here. But once a year without fail for the past four centuries when the mists of the Glenopshire moors first roll in, a glimpse of the fair can be seen along with the distant sounds of music. None have camped there since and if they have there is none to tell the tale and those that claim to have done so be liars and wrong’uns.

Story and artwork by Alex Bamforth