The Curse of Tiddy Mun

A picture of the Tiddy Mun (though personally I think he looks a little on the tall side, and seems to lack a beard.)

The Tiddy Mun is a character from Lincolnshire Folklore. For those outside the United Kingdom, Lincolnshire is a county in the East Midlands, it is a relatively rural area made up of rivers, fens and rolling countryside.

Years ago Lincolnshire had a lot more wetland, but it was decided that this should be drained and turned into fields for farming. This is where The Tiddy Mun comes in. The Tiddy Mun meaning ‘The Small Man’ in the local dialect, was a sort of gnome-like entity with white hair and a long white beard that would have put Gandalf to shame. He was described as being three to four spans high (A span is the distance measured by a human hand, from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger) I’m not certain how accurate a form of measurement this is so please don’t use it for any DIY, unless you like wonky shelves.

As his name would suggest the Tiddy Mun was small, he was the King of the Tiddy Folk (Fairy Folk.) If ever there was flooding the local folk would go about the district chanting -

Tiddy Mun wi’out a name

Tha watter’s thruff

Which means ‘Small Man without a name, the water’s through!’ The folk would then listen for the cry of a Peewit, if they heard the birds call they would know The Tiddy Mun had taken pity on them, and the waters would soon recede. So in this respect he was quite a helpful little chap. But he also had a dark side, if people in the area drowned or disappeared, it was said The Tiddy Mun was to blame.

When King Charles I, bought in Dutch engineers to drain the fens the old Tiddy Mun was a tad annoyed, and demonstrated his displeasure by causing houses to collapse, walls to crumble and disease to spread amongst the people and their livestock. (Strangely most of these unfortunate things could have been bought about by the dramatic change in the landscape.)

Facing these horrible disasters the folk went out and poured water into the local ditches chanting -

Tiddy Mun, wi’out a name,

 Here’s watter for thee,

Tak tha spell undone!

The people continued this tradition for many years, until eventually it was supposed that the Tiddy Mun had vanished from the Fens forever.

So that is the story of the amusingly named ‘Tiddy Mun,’ if you enjoy Folklore why not try my book ‘Fireside Horror’ it has had very positive reviews, the links are below.