Warning:
**This story might be a little more scary than the others. If you don’t like scary stories, scroll down to the bottom to find the answer to the puzzle.**

Something lived here before. Before the town or the castle, even before the Roman legions marched this way. It was a thing of the marshes, a lonely thing which haunted the lost and the travellers.

It dwells here still. On a dark night, you might even see it floating along the canal.

It does not matter what it once was. Perhaps a Baggard or a Bogun or an old Lancashire Boggart. It matters that they gave it a name.

Probably it was some crooked granny or nasty big brother or some storyteller who should have known better. They called it Flincher and it lurched between the shadows of the slum houses. Its hands were heavy and dirty and they snatched anyone foolish enough to walk the canal at night.

Later, the grannies and the yarn-spinners named it: Owd Reek. A stinker, a malingerer who spilled out from the drains. He returned every summer with a stench as heavy as mud until every one of those grandchildren grew old themselves and refused to speak his rotten name.

Then some fool of a schoolyard bully tried scaring a junior class. It was the Gobbler that sneaked up behind children and plucked off their ears. He’d gobble them up or he’d save them for later. Sometimes you’d see the ears, pegged to a washing line, drying in the wind.

Nowadays, these tales are rarely told but the old Boggart lives here still. So be careful with the stories you tell and never, ever name a Boggart.

**For those who’ve scrolled down, the answer is…Ears**