Peg Powler, County Durham
How children in past times escaped childhood without a nervous condition is a mystery. Or perhaps the warning tales of Jenny Greenteeth , Bobby Bannister , Black Annis and the like strengthened them? Peg Powler is another such: she was (is?) another bogeywoman whose threatening presence was used to keep children away from the banks of the River Tees , and on occasion to quieten naughty kids warned Peg would come for them if they continued thus.
Long-haired Peg has green skin, fang-like teeth, and a reach that would grab the ankles of the vulnerable walking beside the Tees or fording it. Once grabbed the victims were pulled beneath the waters to drown.
Westwood and Simpson place her particularly in Piercebridge in County Durham, but the story was common to the whole area, further upriver at Mickleton it is said she was known by a different name – the High Green Ghost. Such legends are common to many European countries, and doubtless beyond, serving to keep the incautious away from danger, though we can only imagine that this was at the expense of childhood nightmares.
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