The Souther Fell Phantom Army, Cumberland, 1735 to 1745

Souther Fell rises to 522 metres in the Northern Fells of the Lake District, south of Mungrisdale in old Cumberland. Below its east side stood the farm of Blakehills and the house of Wilton-hill. Harriet Martineau later wrote that its precipices "defy all marching of bodies of men". Two eighteenth-century sources tell the story, the Gentleman's Magazine of 1747 and James Clarke's Survey of the Lakes of 1787. They disagree on the years.

Midsummer Eve, 1735. A servant of William Lancaster saw the east side of the fell covered by a regular marching army for more than an hour. Nobody else had seen it. He was mocked.

Midsummer Eve, 1737. Between eight and nine in the evening, Lancaster saw what looked like gentlemen following their horses, as if hunting. Ten minutes later they were mounted. Behind them came a "vast army", five abreast. His family saw it too. Now and then one rider would quit rank, face the column as if directing it, then gallop back. Later the column lost its order and "rather had the appearance of people riding from a market." It went on until dark.

Around 1743, John Wren and his servant Daniel Stricket saw "a man with a dog pursuing some horses along Southerfell-side". Next morning they searched for tracks and a body. "Of man, horse, or dog, they found not a trace."

Clarke dates it 23 June 1744. The 1747 account says Midsummer Eve before the rebellion, which would be 1745. At about half past seven, Stricket saw "a troop of men on horseback riding on Southerfell-side", in "pretty close ranks, and at a brisk walk." Remembering the ridicule, he watched a while before speaking. The family came out. The horsemen appeared at Knott, moved along the fellside opposite Blakehills, then curved over the mountain. Again and again, a rider at the back galloped to the front, then fell back into "a regular, swift walk". The watchers questioned each other. They saw the same changes at the same moments. It lasted "at least two hours and a half".

The 1747 writer counts about 26 witnesses. This time, shapes like carriages moved among the riders. Next morning some climbed the fell. They found no trace of feet.

The 1747 writer, identified by Stephen Matthews as George Smith of Wigton, questioned the witnesses himself and found them respectable. Lancaster said the night was clear, and each horse and rider looked like a single creature, "nothing like any clouds or vapours". In 1785, Lancaster and Stricket signed an attestation that Clarke printed. Martineau's later claim of an oath before a magistrate appears in neither eighteenth-century source.

The 1747 writer suggested "a lambent meteor" and imagination, yet could not explain the regular formation, the pauses, or the single evening a year. Hutchinson in 1794 called it "unquestionably an optical delusion." The Lonsdale Magazine proposed rebels drilling in Scotland, reflected by vapour like a Fata Morgana. Beachcombing notes the border lies about 40 miles away, and in 1735 there was no army to reflect. Clarke himself concluded: "it is difficult to say what it was, or what it was not."

Guidebooks and folklore collections retold the story for generations, adding embellishments along the way. In 2011 Stephen Matthews gave it a full study, The Spectral Army of Souther Fell.