On nights where dense fog rolls in across the cold and lonely saltmarshes, her screams ring out to towards the village – the drowned cockler of Stiffkey returns, full of rage.

Others have reported seeing poor Nancy, or rather her spirit, water pouring from her mouth as she screams, seaweed clinging to her hair, spite remaining in her heart.

The tale of the Screaming Cockler is a classic Norfolk ghost story that comes from one of the county’s prettiest villages, with its quaint flint cottages and winding river.

The village is noted for its cockles, known as Stiffkey (“Stewkey”) Blues - the blue-tinged shellfish usually being found about an inch under muddy sand.

Traditionally, the cockles were raked from the mud by women from the village, washed in seawater and later steamed and eaten fresh with pepper and vinegar.

This tale, passed down through the generations, transports us back to the early 19th-century when Stiffkey was a working village of fishermen and cocklers.

Cockling was unforgiving work: summers were blisteringly hot and winters deathly cold as the women waded through deep mud to find the treasure that would help feed their families. 

It was also a dangerous job with stretches of sinking sand and unpredictable, fast-moving tides flooding the twisting creeks twice-daily.

Women tried to stay on the marshes until they’d filled a sack – payment was by the sackload – and then they’d face the trek back to the village, lugging their haul.

The tale has it that the village women, including headstrong Nancy, were working on a day when the cockles weren’t presenting themselves as readily as usual on Blacknock mudflat.

Eastern Daily Press:

As the day wore on, those that filled their sack left while others miserably realised that they weren’t going to reach their sack-load and pooled resources, suggesting to Nancy she do the same: but she was determined. She would not go home without her money.

As she worked, on the distant horizon, the waves were beginning to roll in over the flat marshes and the water in the creek was starting to rise.

With the wind picking up and the sky darkening more by the minute, Nancy worked on.

The seawater rose to her thighs: and then the fog began to envelop her, a blanket of grey which left her disorientated and unsure which way to walk back to the safety of Stiffkey.

Norfolk marsh people had a name for this fog: “roke”.

Suddenly, Nancy realised the danger she was in and as she desperately tried to wade through the deepening water through a roke so dense she couldn’t make out any landmarks, she began to scream.

From the village, her desperate cries for help immediately sent villagers to the edge of the marshes and to their small boats to try to navigate their way towards the wailing.

Some stories say that as Nancy realised that no one could reach her, her screams turned to rageful spite as she cursed the saltmarsh, the roke and the sea – and finally, God himself.

And then, suddenly, silence.

With no voice to guide them and the realisation that the silence could mean only one thing, the search was called off until first light, when the roke had lifted and the tide receded.

It didn’t take long to find Nancy, she was lying drowned on Blacknock, her cockle sack tied to her wrist, her body wreathed in seaweed.

Nancy was laid to rest in the village church…or so those that buried her thought. 

On the first night that a roke enveloped the marsh after her death, Nancy’s screams were heard in Stiffkey once again, along with her dreadful curses which echoed along this treacherous piece of coastline. 

And it is said she can still be heard on occasion or, even more terrifyingly, seen through the fog, water pouring from her mouth and seaweed trapped in her hair.

Read more: From screaming cocklers to the shrieking pits of Aylmerton and Northrepps.

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