The village of Ingleby Greenhow is located at the foot of the Cleveland Hills on the northern edge of the North York Moors, 6 miles to the south of Guisborough.
The Hand of Glory by J. Fairfax-Blakeborough (1924) includes a story called 'The Maid of the Golden Shoon'. The original folk tale was noted down in the early 1800's from an old lady called Betty Ellis, who in turn heard it from her grandmother during the 1770's, when she was living at Ingleby Greenhow. This written version was later adapted and extended to create a Mell Supper play, and the manuscript eventually came into the possession of Richard Blakeborough in the 1890's, who then 'put together' the Maid of the Golden Shoon folk tale in its current form.
Reading the story does suggest that an original piece of folklore has been adapted and extended to create a much longer drama, with a virtuous and moralistic conclusion. The first part of the story seems to be the older, more authentic section, with the stealing of several babies from their mothers side during the night, which is a well known fairy theme, but in this story it is a group of witches who are suspected. The local wise man is sent for, and in a dream his spirit is taken to a boulder known as the 'Wishing Stone', which is located on the moors above Ingleby Greenhow. Here, he witnesses the witches ceremony as they transform the babies into black cats to act as their familiar spirits. The wise man later instructs four men to visit the stone and perform a ceremony in order to learn from the fairies how to recover the missing children. From this point onwards the story takes on a more moralistic tone with the introduction of the 'Lady Winifreda', who seeks a virtuous knight to help her fight the witches - now transformed into dragons.