Lotta Bartle

SATURDAY NIGHT, 8.30

THE Wensleydale village of West Witton is quiet before the dusk, the bairns Christmas Eve expectant.

The notice board announces that it's Feast weekend - on Sunday, quoits, boules and wallops, at least two of them familiar - that the last bus down dale leaves at 11.25pm and that on Sunday morning there's another at 11.47, having for reasons best known to itself come all the way from Keighley.

The bar of the Fox and Hounds is thronged, the landlord possessed of the sort of beard in which Mr Edward Lear supposed that two ducks and a hen, four larks and a wren might have made their home.

In shirt sleeves and blue braces, an elderly man with a yet more venerable suitcase squeezes towards the pub piano. It's possible he is the turn, but not the star turn. The star turn's Bartle, and they're going to burn him.

Goodness knows how long they've been burning Bartle in West Witton, or why on a Saturday night in late August they do it in the first place. There is relish for the ritual, nonetheless.

One legend, propounded a century ago by the luminous J Fairfax-Blakebrough and preferred by the village local history group, suggests

that Bartle was an evil giant who lived in a castle on nearby Penhill, rampaged periodically - as, memory suggests, did Joe Gargery in Great Expectations - but went a bit far when threateneing to kill all the village first-born.

He was hunted down and driven over a precipice, adds the story - and fie, if not fo-fum, to that.

Another theory is that Bartle was simply a sheep stealer, caught on the slopes of Penhill and, apparently immortally, immolated.

The curious thing, however, is that August 24 - last Sunday - is also the feast day of St Bartholomew, known sometimes as Bartle, and that the parish church of West Witton is dedicated to him. Where do fact and figment meet, and is the collision head-on?

The procession bearing Bartle's effigy is a little late away, as if dragged reluctantly to the tumbrils. Tradition has it that they stop for refreshment at various points in the village, the master of ceremonies decanting at each a shaggy-haired doggerel:

On Penhill crags he tore his rags

At Hunter's thorn he blew his horn

At Cappelbank Stee he broke his knee

At Grisgill Beck he broke his neck;

At Wadham's end he couldn't fend

At Grisgill End he met his end.

The refrain, if refrain be the word, is 'Hip, Hip Hooray'.

Bartle 2003 has battery-powered flashing eyes and a jacket with 'Storm warning' on the back, but may otherwise have altered little over the years. He is also said to bear a marked resemblance to the landlord with the Edward Lear beard.

The MC carries a stick in one hand and a can of export ale in the other, essaying a passable impression of Mr Stanley Unwin (whom older readers will remember) before the doggerel has had its day.

The effigy's bearers, one either side, are offered drink at every stop. If Bartle is legless so, soon, might they be. There is more of the County Durham first footing tradition about it; were someone to wish Happy New Year, it would hardly seem premature.

Finally they reach Grisgill End, the retinue perhaps 200 strong. "If they haven't a match, those two need just breathe on him," says someone else.

The MC stirs the blazing sacrifice like a night watchman might a brazier, sober enough to wipe the sweat from his brow with the hand carrying the can, and not the one with the poker.

Soon a Captain Pugwash accordion strikes up You Are My Sunshine. It is an ignominious end for poor Bartle, and a most improbable epitaph.

Sunday morning, 9.30

THE neighbouring parishes of West Witton, Wensley and Preston under Scar are gathered together for St Bartholomew's patronal festival. Few faces seem familiar; not many have burned the candle, or vandal, at both ends.

There's been a village church since Saxon times, this one partly Norman but extensively restored in 1875. A cross in the vestry wall is thought to be seventh century.

We'd last been there in February 1995 when the Vicar was the Derek Dalton, known affectionately as Derek the Cleric, and there was a hymn in which 'telly' rhymed with 'smelly'.

Now the priest in charge of the three parishes is the Rev Bob Miles who arrived in 2001, worked full-time for six months and, according to plan, retired to Wensley Rectory on what the Church calls a 'house for duty' basis - accommodation in exchange for two days work plus Sunday services.

There are moves, however, to declare Wensley's handsome parish church redundant.

Mr Miles, hugely popular, had previously been in Gloucestershire - Laurie Lee country, he says. "I've swapped one corner of heaven for another, though the nearest thing to heaven is the Long Room at Lord's."

Bartholomew was one of the 12 apostles, said when first told about Jesus to have wondered if anything good could come out of Nazareth.

It's a bit like someone in Yorkshire wondering if anything good could come out of West Witton, Mr Miles tells his congregation and adds - lest there be confusion - that of course it could.

Bartholomew, it's said, was flayed alive before being beheaded. Somewhat gruesomely, he's the patron saint of tanners, and of butchers.

Last Sunday also marked the baptism of Eleanor Beth Harker, aged four months, and of her brother, Edward Peter.

Whilst Eleanor briefly expressed indignity, master Edward took it altogether in his stride, as befits a young man of two.

Hymns and songs included Morning Has Broken and The Whole World in His Hands; the Gospel was read, not from near the chancel steps which is usual, but with the Vicar symbolically, rather cleverly, facing the open church door.

"It is a gospel for the whole world," he explained.

Mr Miles, a member of Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire and Durham county cricket clubs and a keen horse racing man - he can see the gallops from his window - says that he believes traditions like Bartle are vital to local communities but not particularly relevant to the church.

Valerie Alsop, a lifetime in West Witton, says the tradition is more greatly observed among relative newcomers. "When you've seen it for 50-odd years it's not the same. He doesn't change much, old Bartle."

Afterwards, the village is off to the quoits, boules and wallops, and to the Fox and Hounds. Two and a half hours after departing Keighley, the 11.47 bus leaves West Witton, punctual to the minute.

* St Bartholomew's in West Witton is part of the North Yorkshire Churches Tourism Initiative, has had £475 in grants towards signs, stands and improved lighting, and is open 365 days a year - in summer from 9am-4pm and in winter 9am-3pm. They also welcome bell- ringing visitors.