Lover
Olive's Leap
Catch me if you can. He couldn't.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Converted medieval abbey house
- Legend from
- Aubrey, retold in Picturesque England
- Tone
- Romantic
'I will leap down to you.' He thought she was joking.
Olive Sharington, daughter of Sir Henry Sharington of Lacock, loved John Talbot, but her father refused the match. On moonlit nights Talbot courted her from below while she stood on the battlements. One night she said she would leap down to him; he said he would catch her. She jumped, her skirts caught the wind, and she knocked him senseless. Thinking him dead, she cried for help, and he recovered. Her father said that since she had made such a leap she should marry him. They wed in 1574.