THIS region hosts a large number of folk tales and myths ranging from the Bosky Dyke Boggart to the Serpent of Handale. The number of stories in the North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales is about 70 with a further 30 or so in the City of York and the Yorkshire Wolds.

It is a good academic question to state the difference between a legend and a myth. In fact, my thesaurus groups them under a single reference – eg: myth includes fables, fairy stories, folk tales, legends, fantasy, imaginary tales and others, even lies.

It is interesting to trace the source of such long-living tales – for example, the Giant of Penhill in Wensleydale might have originated in a cruel and greedy human landlord who lived there and terrified his tenants. On the other hand, the Mermaid of Staithes might have been nothing more than a grey seal stranded on the beach.

Even the name of this month, September, is a myth. The prefix sept means seven because this was formerly the seventh month of the Roman year.

The month was introduced by Romulus in BC 753, but in this country it was first known as Gerstmonath (the barley month) and later by the Anglo-Saxons as Haefestmonath (the harvest month).

In the Roman calendar it was the seventh month, hence its name of September, but when January and February were added around 700 BC, September was moved to become the ninth month, albeit without a name change. Likewise, October means eighth, November means ninth and December was the tenth month.

Today, therefore, the names mean something that is not strictly true, but it is seldom that we question the origins and names of those months. So are they myths?

It was research at Glaisdale in the Esk Valley that led me to question the above names. I was checking the tale of Robin Hood and his Merry Men who were once believed to hide from their enemies in a large cave in Arncliffe Wood between Glaisdale and Egton Bridge. It was claimed there was a secret tunnel running deep underground from that cave to Robin Hood’s Bay about nine miles away.

Clearly, the latter claim was not only unlikely but impossible. For one thing, I have never read any authoritative account to suggest Robin Hood and his Merry Men truly existed or used that cave.

To create such a tunnel without the aid of mechanical equipment to cope with the supply of fresh air, the disposal of surplus earth and rock, protection of the tunnel from floods and falls of earth but was also large enough to allow passage by humans with luggage including bows-and-arrows was clearly nothing but a myth. It is also questionable whether any lights they carried would survive the difficult journey through such a long narrow, winding and perhaps airless tunnel.

While researching the life of the martyr, Nicholas Postgate of Egton, (c1599-1679) I discovered another long-lasting myth which claimed he was born at Egton Bridge. A small ruined building called Kirk House stood near the end of the bridge in Egton Bridge and was said to be the birth site with an alternative name of Kirkdale House. A nearby pile of stones was believed to be its remains - as a pupil in the village school, I was shown that pile of stones from Father Postgate’s house.

However, in the dialect of North-East England and southern Scotland which is still spoken on those moors, a kirk house is a house attached to, or very near, a chapel or church. Many such chapels exist in the north, but records show a bridge chapel on this site during the 13th and 14th centuries. The tiny chapel was occupied by a priest who celebrated Mass for travellers and collected tolls from those crossing the bridge. Story tellers of the last few centuries seemed confused with the references to a succession of priests in Egton Bridge – but they were all based at nearby Grosmont Priory, coming to the region c.1204.

That bridge chapel was frequently wrecked by many floods, but a particularly destructive one c.1381 brought an end of the little chapel with further destruction up-river. The sad remains of that little chapel could never have been the martyr’s birthplace – it was demolished long before he was born.

In fact in his time, few houses except the very large ones like halls and mansions bore names. Because most ordinary people could not read so their houses were known by their description, eg Kirk House, Corner Cottage, Riverside and so forth.

There is strong evidence the martyr lived at Kirkdale Banks in Kirkdale near Egton in an un-named family home. His Egton Bridge “home” or birthplace is therefore a myth.