The Fairies Chest
Embsay Moors, North Yorkshire
“an old chap we met on our wander here told us how the legends it once held “have died with the old folk it seems’.” Paul Bennett
Embsay is a village in North Yorkshire, paired with the neighbouring hamlet of Eastby to form the civil parish of Embsay with Eastby. Formed originally as a Celtic settlement, the village is listed in Domesday Book as Embesie, which translates as Embe's enclosure.
If you wander onto Embsay moors, you’ll find a rather impressive slab of stone. Well more than that, a giant, elongated boulder stretching to 40ft long! This boulder was first recorded in an 1853 Ordnance Survey map of the area, and was labelled as ‘Fairies Chest’.
It seems that the origins of this rock, along with the legend attached to it, has been somewhat forgotten over time. Locals who remember the legend claim it must “have died with the old folk it seems.” But what is the legend of Fairies Chest?
Legend has it that this giant boulder, shaped very much like a huge chest, was home to the ‘little people’ of time gone by. Given it’s name, one would assume that little people did refer to fairies, fairy folk, maybe a boggart, perhaps a goblin or two?
For a long time, legends have arose from certain locations linking them to access points for fairy hang-out spots.
“Normally, the road to fairyland is a lot better concealed and a lot more forbidding.” British Fairies
It is said that the entranceway to the land of the fairies is often concealed, and can sometimes be found under standing stones, like the Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire or the oval stone seen in the Welsh legend of Einion and Olwen. So, could it be so wild to presume this strange, chest-like boulder could hold more underneath?
