Each month, James Franklin, online and educational resources officer at Culture Vannin, looks at a particular place in the island and gives a guide to some of its folklore.

A buggane, moddey doo, tarroo ushtey, glashtyn, witches, miraculous bells and ‘The Big King of the Hill’ – Glen Mona has it all.

So began the blurb for the tour we recently gave in Maughold as a part of the Heritage Open Day events.

Glen Mona, on the main road between Laxey and Ramsey, is more likely a place that people look up on a map than stop at to explore.

But its folklore shows that it is somewhere rather special.

For example, on the Ramsey side of Dhoon School is the old Ballagorry Chapel (now a barn), and a glashtyn used to lurk in the field behind here. But what was this creature?

Elsewhere in Maughold, at Ballure on the edge of Ramsey, a ‘glashtyn’ is a horse-like figure who tries to drag people into the river.

But over in the Corony Valley, on the side of North Barrule, it was known as a shy hairy giant of a person who would help about the farm, much like the Phynnodderee.

However, we don’t know what form the glashtyn took behind the Ballagorry Chapel.

It was never seen, but it was heard here at night into the 1850s.

Overlooking the school is the hill, Creg ny Mult.

This translates as ‘rock of the wethers’ (castrated rams), raising the possibility that this was once a place where shepherds would castrate their sheep. Manx place names are always worth looking into.

William Kennish in the 1840s claimed that witches gathered here on Oie Voaldyn, at the end of April, to commune with the devil.

However, this is almost certainly his own odd fiction.

Not in doubt, however, is the significance that Berree Dhone had over in the Corony Valley.

Perhaps a Celtic ‘witch’ who can take bovine form, lives underground beneath a rock in the hills, and who offers followers a vision of the future… but certainly the subject of a wonderful old Manx song still heard sung today.

Beyond the school, at the end of the terrace of houses, is a small drainage ditch.

It was here one night in the late 19th century that two miners were walking home by moonlight when they saw something very strange.

A great splashing in the water preceded a great black dog emerging out onto the road.

This moddey doo then lurked off towards the Corony, leaving the two terrified men in its wake.

It’s not just in Peel Castle that you might find a moddey doo.

The present church at Glen Mona was built after the original building at the Dhoon fell into disrepair, hence the unusual name of ‘Christ Church Dhoon,’ but this was only possible due to something of a miracle.

Lost in the mist at sea, a ship sailed perilously close to the rocks at the bottom of Dhoon Glen.

But, just at the last moment, the sound of the small bell at the old Dhoon church rang out - we think - miraculously, and the ship averted its course towards safety.

It was in thanks for this that two of the boat’s passengers donated money to build today’s church in the centre of Glen Mona.

The history books might disagree with us on this one, but whoever let that get in the way of a good story?

As these few tales show, there’s a lot to Glen Mona, and we haven’t even got to the buggane or the Ree Mooar ny Howe yet.