Giant · Tilney All Saints
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Armed with an axle and a cartwheel, he killed a giant.
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Tom Hickathrift fought a giant with a cartwheel for a shield. His grave, they say, is that long slab at Tilney.
Tom Hickathrift was a fenland giant of enormous strength who killed a man-eating giant on the Smeeth, the marshy common near Wisbech. When the giant came at him, Tom had no weapon, so he pulled the axle and a wheel off his cart and fought with them as a club and shield. Dutt quotes Dugdale on the axletree and wheel, and says Tom's grave was pointed out both on the Smeeth and in Tilney church. The Eastern Daily Press reports that Tom threw a stone to choose where he would be buried. Norfolk Heritage Explorer says a coped tomb slab in the churchyard gave rise to the legend.