The Ghost Duck
Tushingham, Cheshire 16th Century
“The duck wanted revenge, and quite regularly the step would come loose, no matter how well nailed down it was, and at these times the phantom duck would return to continue its pecking spree.”
If you told me that starting Northern Folklore Archive would lead me to finding a story about an annoying little ghost duck, I’d have laughed in your face. But here I am, writing out the story of the Ghost Duck of The Blue Bell Inn. This story is more than just the ghost of a duck… there’s priests, exorcisms, shrinkage, bottles, excavations… this story has it all!
Travel down the A41 highroad in Tushingham, and you’ll come across a 16th century black and white inn, as charming and quaint as you can imagine, The Blue Bell. Old horse mounting steps, prominent timber, cosy and snug inside, The Blue Bell screams ‘I am haunted’.
Haunted by what? You probably have guessed by now. The Blue Bell, undetermined what time period, had a pet duck that would greet the patrons, sit on the bar, enjoy pub life. The duck, probably when it reached teenager-age, became grumpy. Annoyed by the visitors, being shoved and pushed around, having ale spilled on it’s feathers, the duck started to rebel. It would peck customers’ ankles, push over pints and be a general nuisance to all who met it.
Customer complaints got a little too much for the landlord, and so they made the difficult decision to ‘get rid’ of the duck. They could have absolutely let the duck go, take it to a nice pond and leave it alone… but they decided instead to have it interred under the last step of the cellar stairs. Now, that is just asking for trouble. The duck was ready for revenge, and any time someone dared to walk on the step it was buried under, the duck would make the step come loose (no matter how many times they secured it with nails). Every time the duck loosened the step, it would be free to continue it’s ghostly ankle-pecking tirade.
The landlord, at their wits’ end, turned to the local church (Old St.Chad’s in Tushingham) for help. The local parson gathered twelve colleagues… a great use of their time… to perform exorcism-esque sessions to rid the inn of the troublesome duck spirit. How many priests does it take to exorcise a ghost duck? Twelve was apparently not enough, as the duck did not vanish from existence but instead began to shrink.. and shrink.. until it was just a little, tiny, teeny duck.
One of the religious colleagues had the genius idea, given the duck was now very small, to trap it inside a bottle - like a model ship - and seal it closed with a cork. That would stop the duck from pecking customers! Despite striking gold with this idea, they then had the absolutely naïve notion to brick the bottle up behind one of the inn’s walls. Because that is definitely going to work, and definitely will not anger the already annoyed and now very tiny ghost duck.
During some renovations, said wall was demolished to make way for a more structurally sound wall… and the bottled duck was unearthed. Unfortunately for the unknowing new occupiers of the inn, the ghost duck was now free. And pissed off. The ghostly sounds of waddling returned to the inn, the feeling of being pecked incessantly on the ankles resumed and the ghost duck was back in action.
Supposedly, the bottled duck was found again and interred back into the walls (by direction of a local historian). Could this cease the duck’s revenge once more? Will the duck finally be at peace?
