Yorkshire clergyman Sabine Baring-Gould was a Victorian superstar who wrote Onward Christian Soldiers for a Whitsun Sunday School parade in his parish in 1865.<br />But his incredible life was filled with other amazing achievements which have been largely forgotten, until now.<br />A new touring show - about to get its official world premier in his former Wakefield parish of Horbury - will tell how he he was a top five best-selling novelist; the writer of what is still the go-to book on werewolves and inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula. He was aaa storyteller of the Norse Myths of Iceland and even featured in a Sherlock Holmes novel as the detective’s godfather. <br />In real life he married Horbury mill worker Grace Taylor, after educating her in society etiquette, inspiring George Bernard Shaw's bestseller Pygmalion, which later became the Hollywood musical My Fair Lady.<br />But the curate said the most important thing he ever did was to save a huge collection of folk songs from, Devon and Cornwall, where he was originally from.<br /> Some of those songs, interweaved with anecdotes from his own astonishing life and stories from his books will mark the centenary of his death in a new touring show called Ghosts, Werewolves and Countryfolk.<br />It stars six-time BBC Folk Awards nominee Jim Causley and Miranda Sykes, of award-winning Show of Hands and Yorkshire-based Daphne’s Flight, and is narrated by John Palmer, director of the critically-acclaimed Vaughan Williams anniversary From Pub to Pulpit Cathedral tour.<br />The premier will be at Horbury Working Members Club on Friday, May 17, 7pm to 9pm, before it goes on a 25-date national tour. For Horbury tickets visit https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ghosts-werewolves-country-folk-songs-stories-of-sabine-baring-gould-tickets-863167335737?aff=ebdssbdestsearch<br />For more about the 2024 Whit weekend events in Horbury visit https://horburychurch.com/activities/whitwalk/
