Tiddy Mun was a bog

Bog

A bog, quagmire or mire is a wetland that accumulates acidic peat, a deposit of dead plant material—often mosses or, in Arctic climates, lichens....

 spirit

Spirit

The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...

 worshipped in 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

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, who supposedly had the ability to control the waters and mists of the Fens

The Fens

The Fens, also known as the , are a naturally marshy region in eastern England. Most of the fens were drained several centuries ago, resulting in a flat, damp, low-lying agricultural region....

.

Legend

Tiddy Mun's existence was first cited in June 1891 in an article by M. C. Balfour in the Folklore Society

Folklore Society

The Folklore Society was founded in England in 1878 to study traditional vernacular culture, including traditional music, song, dance and drama, narrative, arts and crafts, customs and belief...

 journal Folk-Lore. In the article she recalls a story, collected in the Ancholme Valley

River Ancholme

The River Ancholme is a river in North Lincolnshire, England, and a tributary of the Humber estuary.It rises south of Bishopbridge and passes through many Lincolnshire villages and the market town of Brigg before flowing north into the Humber at South Ferriby.North of Bishopbridge, where the River...

, told to her by an older person who spoke of a curse

Curse

A curse is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some other entity—one or more persons, a place, or an object...

 of pestilence that had been cast upon his village by the Tiddy Mun, who was angered at the draining of the Fens by the Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, led by Cornelius Vermuyden

Cornelius Vermuyden

Sir Cornelius Wasterdyk Vermuyden was a Dutch engineer who introduced Dutch reclamation methods to Britain, and made the first important attempts to drain The Fens of East Anglia.-Life:...

, in the seventeenth century. According to the story the Tiddy Mun was eventually placated after the villagers gathered at twilight at the time of the new moon, poured buckets of water into the dyke and apologised for the damage caused.

He was not exclusively malevolent; if the Fens flooded and the waters reached the villages, people would go out at night and call Tiddy Mun wi'out a name, tha watters thruff! ("Tiddy Mun without a name, the water's through!") until they heard the cry of a peewit, and the next morning the waters would have receded.

Description

The Tiddy Mun is described as being no bigger than a three year old child, but looking like an old man with long, tangled white hair and a matted white beard. He is said to have worn a grey gown so that at dusk he was difficult to see. His laughter was said to resemble the call of the peewit.