Case file · Folklore / legend
Black Annis of the Dane Hills
Leicestershire's blue-faced hag with iron claws, said to live in a cave she clawed out of a sandstone cliff in the Dane Hills, from which she snatched and ate children.
1764 CE · 52.63, -1.16 · status: legend
The account
The earliest written trace is a pair of 1764 title deeds naming 'Black Anny's Bower Close'. She was said to hang her victims' skins on an oak at the cave mouth. Some Victorian writers linked her to a pagan goddess, an idea historians such as Ronald Hutton reject.
The sceptical view
A bogeywoman used to keep children away from dangerous places; the cave and oak have long gone.