Credit: Dangerous Minds / Mark Anderson

It shouldn’t be as striking a sight as it is, yet there’s something weirdly profound about the fact that, in the middle of nowhere in the countryside of England, specifically in the South Pennines near West Yorkshire, stands Churn Milk Joan… It may not look like an important part of local history, but trust me, it is.

Despite its remarkably human-sounding name, this is actually a seven-foot-tall pillar of rock standing against whatever wind, rain, sun or, most fittingly, snow that comes its way – the pillar was very much put there by man, but the specific reasons for it being there were lost to time long, long ago, so we English did what we always do, and made up a story about it. The story that stuck is regarding the woman who supposedly gives the pillar its name, Churn Milk Joan.

The story goes that the menhir is a monument to her memory, erected long, long ago by her family… Joan, as the name suggests, was a milkmaid, one who clearly drew the short straw that day and had to walk the five-mile trip from Luddenden to Pecket Well while carrying two heavy buckets of milk.

Not a fun way to spend a day, but one that went from tiring to life-threatening halfway through when a blizzard struck – despite trying her best to make it, Joan froze to death, and after her body was found many days later, the pillar was set up where she had stood.

One hell of a story, and the truth is, that’s probably all that it is. Though the dents in the foot of it do look alarmingly like a milkmaid, which gives the whole tale a sense of Old English lore. It’s telling, however, that Joan isn’t the only story people tell about this old pillar. In fact, it’s only one of its possible names. Another is the ostensibly similar Churnmilk Peg, one that alludes to a very different and much more supernatural brand of local folklore.

You see, the pillar stands near vast swathes of nut thickets. The kind that would regularly be pilfered from by naughty children from the nearby thickets. Churnmilk Peg was a pipe-smoking sprite who guarded the thickets from greedy children.

Now, this is clearly a story made up by parents who just wanted their kids to stop stealing the nuts they were growing, but it does speak to the folklore of the area. Adding a particularly English mysticism to the area that is still felt today.

After all, to this day, those who pass by the menhir leave a few coins on top of it. In his 1980 article for Wood and Water, ‘Churn Milk Joan: A Boundary Stone on Midgley Moor’, Michael Haslem wrote that these offerings were left as “a gift to the spirit world, to bring luck.” He elaborated on this by viewing the pillar as a point of connection between our world and the spirit world. It’s easy to view this as cobblers today, but England has a vast history of mysticism and wonder.

It’s a tradition that probably died out years back, if we’re really honest, but that’s the thing about the fey and the spirit world. All it takes is a thought and an open mind to live again.