Byard's Leap is a hamlet in the North Kesteven

North Kesteven

North Kesteven is a local government district in the East Midlands. Just over north of London, it is east of Nottingham and south of Lincoln. North Kesteven is one of seven districts in Lincolnshire, England and is in the centre of the County...

 district of Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...

, England, and lies 3 miles west of Cranwell

Cranwell

Cranwell is a village situated in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire. It is part of the Civil Parish of Cranwell and Byard's Leap and is located 3.95 miles north-north-west of Sleaford and 16.3 miles south-east of the county town of Lincoln...

. It is part of the civil parish

Civil parish

In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...

 of Cranwell and Byard's Leap. The hamlet is associated with various legends.

Byard's Leap is associated with the activities of the Knights Templar

Knights Templar

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...

, who allegedly held tournament

Tournament

A tournament is a competition involving a relatively large number of competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:...

s and joust

Jousting

Jousting is a martial game or hastilude between two knights mounted on horses and using lances, often as part of a tournament.Jousting emerged in the High Middle Ages based on the military use of the lance by heavy cavalry. The first camels tournament was staged in 1066, but jousting itself did not...

s on the site. It lay at the southern end of their Temple Bruer

Temple Bruer

Temple Bruer is in a farm-yard in the civil parish of Temple Bruer with Temple High Grange, England. It is one of the few Knights Templar sites left in England where any ruins remain standing. Its name comes from its Templar ownership and its position in the middle of the Lincoln Heath, bruyère ...

 military training ground.

Legend

The story, best re-told by Ethel Rudkin, goes that there was a witch called Old Meg, an evil crone

Crone

The crone is a stock character in folklore and fairy tale, an old woman who is usually disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructing. She is marginalized by her exclusion from the reproductive cycle,...

 who plagued the local villagers from her cave or hut in a spinney near the turning to Sleaford

Sleaford

Sleaford is a town in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It is located thirteen miles northeast of Grantham, seventeen miles west of Boston, and nineteen miles south of Lincoln, and had a total resident population of around 14,500 in 6,167 households at the time...

 on Ermine Street

Ermine Street

Ermine Street is the name of a major Roman road in England that ran from London to Lincoln and York . The Old English name was 'Earninga Straete' , named after a tribe called the Earningas, who inhabited a district later known as Armingford Hundred, around Arrington, Cambridgeshire and Royston,...

, here called High Dike

High Dyke, Lincolnshire

High Dyke is a minor road following a length of Roman Road in the English county of Lincolnshire, between Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth and Ancaster. It is also the name of a small settlement on that road, near to Great Ponton, near to the mouth of Stoke Tunnel on the Great Northern main line...

. She was a bane of the countryside and caused the crops to whither. A local champion, a retired soldier, came forward in response to the villagers' requests, and he asserted that he could kill her by driving a sword through her heart. To select a horse suitable for this task, he went to a pond where horses drank and dropped a stone in the pond, selecting the horse that reacted quickest, and this horse was known locally as 'Blind Byard', as he was blind.

The champion went to the witch’s cave and called her out, but the witch refused, saying she was eating and he would have to wait. However, she crept up behind him and sank her long nails into the horse who ran, leaping over 60 feet (18.3 m). The champion regained control of the horse when they reached the pond, pursued by the witch, where he turned and thrust his sword into her heart, and she fell into the pond and drowned.

The spot where Blind Byard landed is marked by four posts in the ground with horseshoes on, and a commemorative stone. The sharply-cut small valley in the limestone, which is now smoothed over by ploughing, is as likely a site as any for the dramatic events, assuming they happened. This aerial photograph shows the High Dike running north and south in the centre, RAF Cranwell

RAF Cranwell

RAF Cranwell is a Royal Air Force station in Lincolnshire close to the village of Cranwell, near Sleaford. It is currently commanded by Group Captain Dave Waddington...

 is to the east and the valley lies between them. Byard's Leap is at the south centre.

The magical horse Bayard appears in several continental medieval romances.