In the 1950s and 60s, members of Women’s Institutes in Cheshire published a number of interesting tales, not previously recorded, from their own villages. These include a striking story about the heraldic emblem of the Breretons, formerly owners of Brereton Hall, which is a muzzled bear. Popular legends purporting to explain family heraldry are quite a common genre, and the explanation proffered can be either that it commemorates an act of heroism or that it is the record of some shameful crime.
The Brereton story is of the latter type. It alleges that one of the family, Sir William Brereton, killed his valet in a fury because the man had interrupted him at dinner. Realizing he could be charged with murder, Sir William went straight to London to obtain a pardon from the king. At first the king refused to consider his plea, but then offered him a chance to save his life. He would be imprisoned in the Tower for three days, during which time he must make a muzzle that would fit a bear; then he would be put in the cage of one of the bears then kept at the Tower, and if he succeeded in muzzling it he could go free – if not, the bear itself would be his executioner. Needless to say, he succeeded, and the family coat of arms records the event.
There is a much older legend about the Breretons, namely that they, like many other ancient families, had a death omen peculiar to themselves. In their case, it concerned a lake on their estate; whenever the head of the family was about to die, a black tree trunk would be seen floating in it. There is disagreement among local historians as to whether this lake is Blackmere, which still exists, or Bagmere, which has been drained. The omen is referred to by several writers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; William Camden in his *Britannia* (1586) gives a slightly variant account where it announces the death of the heir, not the head of the family:
> A wonder it is that I shall tell you, and yet no other than I have heard verified upon the credit of many >credible persons, and commonlie believed: That before the heire of this house of the Breretons dieth, >there bee seene in a poole adjoining, bodies of trees swimming for certaine daies together.
Another sinister tradition, recorded by Christina Hole in the 1930s, is that once a year the ghosts of all the Breretons that ever lived gather at the Shocklach church; the black phantom coaches in which they arrive block the lane leading to the lonely church.