‘Now Orford is peaceful, and the fisherfolk are gone,
But the legend of the Wild Man of Orford lingers on.’
English Heritage
Who - or what, was the ‘Wild Man of Orford’?
I will soon be returning to the pretty Suffolk coastal village of Orford for a short pre-Summer break. As always in my travels, I will check out the local folklore and in Orford’s case, there’s a doozy, namely ‘The Wild Man’ that has become part of county legend.
‘Wild Men’ or woodwose/wodewose were common mythical figures/motifs appearing in the art and literature of medieval Europe - perhaps a debased throwback to the satyrs and the god Silvanus of classical paganism. Said to dwell in the deep woods and forests, these primitive, hairy humanoids were an object of fascination to the scarcely more sophisticated peasants of the Middle Ages.
Back to Orford
The Wild Man‘s presence permeates Orford; in the castle, the market place, shops and on the font at St Bartholomew's Church. But who - or what, was the fellow?
Fishermen were perplexed when they raised their nets and found something mysterious in their day's catch: a glistening, naked creature with an extremely hairy chest and a ragged beard, seemingly a merman who was unable to talk and who appeared more fish than man. Other reports claim the man dragged from the sea was covered from head to toe in hair, like a typical woodwose, the kind seen in many of the churches along the coast in Suffolk, allegedly mythical creatures, but perhaps based on Orford's very own Wildman.
In 1167, astounded fishermen carried the confused creature to the village, where he was imprisoned in Bartholomew de Granville's recently-built castle. The feral Wild Man - or more properly Merman, accepted raw food which he would squeeze the ‘juice’ from before hungrily devouring, especially fish - he drank the liquid he drained from the fish rather than the water offered him. The locals tortured him in a vain effort to make the Wild Man talk; his silence taken as obstinacy rather than ignorance.
Dragged to church, Orford’s Wild Man evidenced no knowledge or belief in Christianity, happy enough to sleep in his cell from sunset to sunrise, akin to many loafers through the ages.
Abbot Ralph of Coggeshall recounted the Orford Wildman in the Chronicon Anglicanum in 1200, "As to whether this was a mortal man, or some fish pretending human shape, or was an evil spirit hiding in the body of a drowned man, as can be read in the life of blessed Ouen, it is not possible to be precise; the more so because so many wonderful things of this kind are told by many to whom they have happened."
Escape from Orford Castle
As torture failed to provoke anything other than pain for the poor Wild Man, he was allowed to caper in the sea, bound to the village by three rows of thick netting placed across the harbor entrance. However, he easily dived beneath the nets and was seen frolicking in the open sea, but strangely, he promptly returned and was taken back to the scene of his torture - Orford Castle.
As time passed, his guards apparently grew bored with the novelty of their charge and far less vigilant, so eventually The Wild Man escaped under the nets and swam out to sea, not turning back. Local people regarded their guest as a seabound variation of the ‘Woodwose’ - maybe not such a one-off, as there is a proliferation of similar Wild Men carved in coastal churches in the area, at least 20 on fonts in this relatively small corner of Suffolk.
Whatever he was, the Wild Man never returned, or any of his ilk. Unless you count some of the more antediluvian inhabitants of coastal East Anglia.
Although, to be fair, this was reported in Weird Norfolk:
‘The superlative Paranormal Database received a report in May 2011 from a lorry driver who was passing through fields near Elveden on the A13 when he saw a light brown to grey ape-like creature which raised from all fours to stand up on its hind legs. He described it as "semi-human like" and said it looked at him, showing its "forward facing eyes, long snout but a shorter face than a deer" and "small upright dog-like ears," before it ran away into the forest.’
More Wild Man tales
Another unusual tale concerned a man walking with his partner from a festival in Peasenhall, also in 2011. As they walked along Rendham Road, close to woods towards Sweffling, the man saw a figure on two legs, "seven or eight feet tall… silver grey, dark" which he sensed was "friendly". Could it be that the local woodwose carvings actually commemorate some local protective spirits, like the “tall, hairy entity” that he experienced - glimpsed fleetingly, yet giving the people of that corner of Suffolk in the fifteenth century the impression of something “friendly?”
If you forget their reputation for kidnapping/eating children, and insatiable sexual appetites of male and (rarely seen) female wild people for intercourse with regular humans of either sex.
From Great British Life, a perhaps more nuanced view of The Wild Man of Orford:
‘Despite his unkempt, feral appearance, the wild man displayed a certain intelligence and responsiveness to human interaction. He could not speak but could make grunting sounds and seemed to understand basic commands. Attempts were made to clothe and feed him, but he would often revert to foraging for his own food in the forests surrounding the castle.’
Interestingly, the legend of the Wild Man of Orford does not stand alone. Similar tales of feral, humanoid creatures dwelling in the wilderness can be found in folklore across Europe, from the Woodwose of Germany to the Yeti-like Almasty of the Caucasus Mountains. This suggests a shared cultural archetype of the ‘wild man’ that has persisted in the imaginations of people for centuries. Whether the wild man was a true feral creature, a misunderstood outsider or simply the product of vivid local imagination, his legend speaks to our deep-seated curiosity about the untamed wilderness and the mysterious beings that may dwell within it. The Wild Man of Orford stands as a testament to the enduring power of folklore to inspire wonder and speculation about the unknown corners of our world – and what lurks in its woods’
To some, including myself, there is some resemblance in the Wild Man/Merman to Proteus, the sea god depicted by Willem Dafoe in Robert Eggers’ disturbing 2019 horror-fantasy The Lighthouse:
Suffolk’s nearby village of Sproughton is home to its very own ‘Wild Man’ legend. This from Weird Suffolk:
‘A theory is put forward: “On the north side of the River Gipping, which runs from Stowmarket to Ipswich, is a place that just happens to be called – and has been called, for as long as people have inhabited those ancient parts – Devil’s Wood, where significant archaeological finds from both Neolithic and Paleolithic times have been made. That Sproughton is only twelve miles from Stowmarket, and just three and a half miles from Ipswich, that ancient man lived in this very area, and that the place itself became associated with the Devil, collectively suggests a distinct possibility that the wild man of Sproughton may have been far more than a mere eccentric vagabond or hermit type, after all.
Maybe, incredibly, he was one of the very last of his kind, perhaps even a Neolithic survivor, one who made his lair in old woods that, not surprisingly – given the man’s wild appearance and mysterious presence – became so linked with matters so dark and devilish.”
Some tales claim the Wild Man was caught by villagers on the inn’s site and that he had lived in Devil’s Wood on the north side of the River Gipping, an area which today is covered with housing. Others link him immediately to the Woodwose they had grown up alongside, carved into the woodwork of local churches, and claim he appeared and “terrified builders”. But what fascinates Weird Suffolk is the sign that shows the Wild Man carrying off what looks like one of the village’s children; is there a dark secret hidden in this medieval parish? Was there a creature that stole Sproughton’s young living in the woods?’
Incidentally, in the Hertfordshire village of Aldbury (15 minutes from my current abode), at the Church of St. John the Baptist, there exists the recumbent effigy of Sir Robert Whittingham (d.1471) showing his feet resting on a reclining wild man, holding a "ragged staff".
The picturesque village has been the location for many TV series and movies. Seen here as 'Little Storping', aka 'Murdersville' in the 1967 episode of The Avengers bearing the same title:
The Wild Man/Merman continues to intrigue both the village - and further afield:
St Mary's Church Burwell, Cambridgeshire, ‘The north porch is the main entrance today. It seems likely that this was always so because it is vaulted whereas the north porch is not. Not least of the charms of the north porch are a rather weathered St George & The Dragon and a much more entertaining and better-preserved woodwose - old man of the woods - keeping guard, lethal cudgel in hand. The apparent pre-eminence of the north porch reinforces the notion that the old fear of the “devil’s door” was less of an issue in areas with, perhaps, more sophisticated congregation and clergy.’
The Wild Man of Stainfield a local nobleman?
Was he in fact a local nobleman who returned from the Crusades to find his land and property stolen? He takes to the woods with his mind bent on vengeance, terrorizes the neighborhood, and is then killed by Francis Tyrwhitt-Drake? Unlikely, as the Tyrwhitt-Drakes appeared centuries later.
Young Kaspar Hauser suddenly appears in Nuremberg in 1828, barely able to talk or walk, and bearing a strange note.
Kate Bush - Wild Man
10cc - Old Wild Men
Stephen Arnell’s novel THE GREAT ONE is available on Amazon Kindle now: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-One-Secret-Memoirs-Pompey-ebook/dp/B0BNLTB2G7
Review: