Attacked by Weasels

A young boy battles Britain's most savage killer; PLUS George Robledo book, Nuremberg movie, Sam Fender podcast

“Many stories are told of the audacity and ferocity of weasels,” said the Berwick Advertiser in August 1840, “but we believe the following occurrence is nearly unequalled as an instance of their impudence and cool courage.” This story took place near the village of Ayton, in Berwickshire, in the Scottish Borders region. A young boy, described as being 13 or 14 years old and an employee at a local mill, was riding into the village on a pony when he encountered a boogle of weasels:¹

“While a short way to the north of the village, seven weasels issued out of a plantation on the roadside, and, setting themselves erect on their hinder ends, drew up in a regular line direct in the path of the pony.”

“At the sight of this formidable demonstration, the pony stopped short, and, although admonished by hand and heel, refused to advance an inch. His rider, however, was made of sterner stuff, and not thinking it becoming to be prevented by half-a-dozen ‘whitrets’² from making good his passage on the Queen’s highway, he dismounted, with the intention of forcing the pony to go on.”

“Scarcely, however, had he reached the ground, than the opposing force rushed simultaneously to the charge, the whole seven (leaving the pony unmolested) springing up the boy's clothes, with the obvious intention of reaching his throat, always the favourite object of a weasel’s attack. This was perhaps rather more than the young cavalier had calculated on, but, instead of losing heart or attempting to retreat, he commenced vigorously to repulse the assailants, brushing them off with his hands, and attempting to give them the coup de grace with his feet.”

“By the time the battle had thus raged for a few minutes, he had succeeded in laying three of the enemy dead at his feet; when the other four, seeing their chance of victory was desperate, deemed it prudent to beat a retreat. The victor, however, with the tact of an experienced general, followed up his success and, going off in pursuit, killed another of his opponents before they could reach the plantation. The courageous little fellow then returned to the scene of action, deposited the slain in a bag, and carried them home to his mother as an honourable trophy of his well-earned victory.”

In the following month, the Berwick Advertiser provided further details about “the young fellow who so manfully and successfully defended himself from the remarkable assault committed on him by seven weasels.” He was actually a little older than had been stated, at 16, and he was the son of Mr Martin of Waulk Mill³ in Reston, a couple of miles from Ayton. “It is but right, we think, that the name of the hero of an adventure so strange, and in which he bore himself so gallantly, should be known,” said the newspaper, adding:

“It is remarkable that the weasel which made itself most conspicuous in the assault, and which lost its life on the field, was of a slightly different colour from the rest, and was striped something in the same manner as a tiger. All the four slain, on being examined by a competent person, proved to be above one year of age.”

Weasels are the world’s smallest carnivores and are very common in the UK. They can kill a full-grown rabbit 25 times their own weight, and have been described by the Guardian as “Britain’s most savage killer.”◆

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Notebook

I reviewed the book Postcards from Santiago: The George Robledo Story by Spencer Vignes for When Saturday Comes magazine. It’s the story of the former Barnsley, Newcastle, and Chile footballer who became one of English football’s first overseas stars. You can read the review in the October issue of WSC, which is out now. You can buy the magazine here. I’ve added Postcards from Santiago to the Singular Discoveries Amazon bookshelf.*

My fellow popular history author Jack El-Hai, who publishes the excellent Damn History newsletter, has a new movie adaptation of his writing hitting screens. Nuremberg, adapted from the book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist and starring Russell Crowe and Rami Malek, had its world premiere this month and will be released in November. The American Society of Journalists and Authors has an interview with Jack covering the project’s long (14-year) journey from page to screen. You can read it here.

Sam Fender is a proper local hero here in the North East of England. The lad from North Shields released his third album, People Watching, earlier this year and I enjoyed one of his homecoming gigs at Newcastle United’s St James’ Park in the summer. Sam is featured on the latest episode of the Song Exploder podcast, breaking down the title track of the album and revealing the emotional backstory that inspired it.

I’m always interested in the creative process, and this is a fascinating insight, including how Sam demoed People Watching on GarageBand before finishing it in Los Angeles with Adam Granduciel of the band War on Drugs. I’ve thought since his first album that War on Drugs seemed like a bigger influence on Sam than the much-mentioned Bruce Springsteen, and this confirms it. You can listen to the podcast here.

More next time. Please share and subscribe.

1. With “boogle”, weasels boast perhaps the best collective noun of any animal, superior even to a cackle of hyenas or a flamboyance of flamingos.

2. “Whitrets” is Scottish dialect for weasels and stoats, probably derived from “white rats”.

3. A “waulk mill” is a cloth-fulling mill where woven cloth is fulled or cleansed, with the name derived from the traditional fulling method of walking on the cloth in tubs.

Main sources: Berwick Advertiser, 12 September 1840 & 15 August 1840.

*This publication features Amazon affiliate links. If you use them, I may receive a few pennies to help fund the newsletter. See our Amazon bookshelf here.