For my first post, I’m going back to my roots. This mythical creature was born in the river Tees, in the town of Stockon, like me. Stockton-on-Tees began as a 5th century Anglo-Saxon settlement in the north east of England, and later became a market town, and center for shipbuilding, and commercial shipping. The widest market in the country, the invention of the friction match, and the origin of the first locomotive train line from Stockton to Darlington, are other notable claims to fame.

The folklore of Peg Powler was first heard in 1800, she’s a bogeyman creature whose tale was told by parents to scare their children into staying away from the banks of the Tees, for fear of drowning. In 19th century England most people didn’t learn to swim. Sadly, even sailors, and those living by bodies of water were afraid of drowning. Peg Powler “the evil goddess of the Tees” [1] , is a water spirit who inhabits the river, and tries to pull in anyone who strays too close to the edge into a watery grave. The foam which is occasionally seen floating on the river is called Peg Powler’s Suds, and was an indicator that Peg was flailing below the surface of the water.

Peg is a diminutive of the name Margaret and was a popular nickname in the 18th and 19th centuries. Her surname, Powler, comes from a dialectic pronunciation of the word “pull”. To powl, refers to her nefarious method of pulling children into the river to devour them.

She is depicted as having slimy green flowing hair. The lore of her image likely comes from the dense aquatic vegetation with long trailing stems of fine hair-like leaves that existed in pre-industrial Tees waters’. Plants like river water crowfoot, pondweeds, and spiked-water milfoil, could easily snag moving legs and wrap around them, pulling them into the water with the drifting current.