Don’t let the bogey-man get a fang hold o’ yer boy

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Filed under: Articles, My Stories — Norfolk Wolf

Ever been out mettlin’ and had the feeling that there was an unknown presence on the field with you? I’ve had it happen to me more than once and I can recall that one of those times wasn’t that clever!

I’ve always tended to be a loner, whether it’s fishing off a beach at three in the morning, sailing my boat or mettlin’. I’m not anti-social, I just prefer my own company a lot of the time and I’m not tied down by other peoples timetables, or “just got to do’s” before they can make a move. So being frightened of the dark or jumping at shadows ain’t part of my make-up. However. I’d had my eye on a good Roman site of mine that had been ploughed a couple of weeks back, which continually produce a fair number of goods each year. The soil had settled down a treat by the way the stones had just starting to show through the surface. Not only had I found Roman, but just on the edge of the site a Gold noble of Henry IV had turned up the previous year along with a silver penny. “Right” I thought, “you’re in for a real nailing tomorrow”

It was one of those spring mornings which can only have been made for detecting, The sun was out with a trace of a breeze, the big old Norfolk skies lived up to their reputation that the artists have given them. The sort of day I used to bunk off work to go mettlin’, before I went full time.
I parked my car out of site behind some old barns. It’s a dead giveaway leaving it on the edge of the fields, your eyes are drawn to the car and it doesn’t take long to spot someone on the field swinging a coil. The less people know about what I’m a doing, the less chance of me having unwelcome nocturnal visitors on my sites. (The scurvy bastards!)

I put on the small coil for the Shadowx5, ground-balanced and off I went. Nearing the actual area, I started getting the normal spits and farts that are associated with the large amounts of smallish ferrous on any good Roman site, so it was just a question of dropping the Sensitivity a bit and working slow.

After a couple of hours or so I still hadn’t had a good signal, not one and as I said this was a good productive site. I hadn’t seen any unfilled holes or disturbed soil, so I knew that I hadn’t been hit by night hawkers; at the very least I should by rights have had a few bronzes or the odd silver by now, but zilch? Come you on, give us a break!

Ever since going full time, I found that the mind set alters; no longer is it imperative to find just because you’ve got a whole week ahead of you back at work. If I don’t find today, there’s always tomorrow. If you know that you’re doing it right and you’re in the right area, it will happen eventually; so there’s no sense in chasing across the fields like a blue arsed fly.

Up until then I had been doing it methodically, I decided to give this a miss for awhile and hit the real hotspots that had provided a lot of good stuff in the past. Another 2hours and still nothing, I had even started to dig the odd “good?” iron signal; (just to keep my hand in with using the spade). Enough was enough, time to make my way make to the motor for a cup of tea and a blast or two on the old nicotine stick, and give me a chance to think things out.(as if I hadn’t been trying to for the past 4 hours).

Sitting down with my back to the hawthorn hedge, it’s surprising the short time needed for the wildlife to start to appear. I don’t mean the pheasants and partridges; they keep pecking away at the ground quite close, just keeping that twenty or thirty yard gap away. No, it’s the rabbits then the hares and if you’re lucky the odd deer will drift in view but these will spook immediately over the slightest movement. You can’t buy that no matter how much you’ve got. Well, I suppose the land owner can, but I get it for free! I hope I’ve been able to get across to you my easy frame of mind up until that point; it was going to change come the afternoon.

I decided to go with a different machine and use a small elliptical head to see if that would improve matters. I reached the area that I had been searching and went into action; a few minutes went by and got the first good signal of the day. At last! Bending over and sticking my foot on the spade to dig it in, the hairs on the back of my neck went up. I swung round expecting to see either the farmer or one of the farmhands come across for a chat, there was no-one there; and yet when I bent over on my spade the same thing happened. It felt like someone was standing right up close behind me. “Christ, get a grip man, it’s broad daylight! I’m telling you straight, I carried on digging that hole, but facing the way that I had come and still glancing behind me whilst I did. When I dug it up, it was the worst conditioned bronze coin that I had had off that site. I tried to shrug off the feeling (it was still there) and carried on mettlin’.

There I was in the middle of a 94 acre field, I could see for miles in any direction and not a soul in site, behaving like a townie on his first night trip beach fishing! I’ll be damned if I’m walking off this field through my own imaginations. I could just imagine my old man (if he were alive) fetching me a bang round the lug-hole and telling me to get on with it or there would be worse to come. Well I stuck it out, but that feeling didn’t go away, it got worse. No matter how much I tried to concentrate on the mettlin’ I couldn’t shake it off, it was like someone there as close to me as my shadow. Then I got mad at the situation, my back went up and there was no way I was leaving this site until I was good and ready, whether I found anything or not.

I stuck it for another hour or so, I didn’t find a bean and that horrible feeling stayed with me right up until I left the site area; as soon as I was out of it, the feeling went and nothing more for the other two hundred yards back to the car. I revisited that site the following day, it was no different than any other time and I made quite a good number of finds going over the same areas as the day before. That happened a few years back and the subsequent times I’ve been there since, nothing untoward has taken place. say in Norfolk, “Cor, what dew yew reckon to that then boy?” “Waal, blarst me, if that warn’t a rum job”
If we take that as a “bad” experience, I’ll let you know of a couple o’ “good-uns” later on.
John Lynn