Legends
The Drummer Boy:
In the dim and distant past a tunnel (so it was said) ran from Easby Abbey to the castle a distance of about a mile in order to provide safe communication and an escape route. The tunnel, lost for many years, was discovered in the castle grounds a few hundred years ago. The years had taken their toll and so the entrance was small and the way forward large enough only for a small boy. A brave drummer boy volunteered to explore the tunnel. He would keep drumming so that his companions on the surface could follow his progress and trace the route of the tunnel.What he confronted half way to Easby we will never know. The drumming suddenly ceased, he never returned from the tunnel and the brave lad could not be found.
A stone on the path to Easby marks the point of his disappearance. Some say that if you listen carefully to the stone the sound of the drummer boy may still be heard.
King Arthur & the Knights of the Round Table:
The castle it can be observed is located at the top of a cliff that rises from the River Swale. It is a place of natural fortification Alan Rufus certainly thought so when he decided to make it his stronghold. The records of what existed before the castle are mysteriously vague. Perhaps there was nothing but would then Rufus have built a castle in the middle of nowhere? Maybe there was an earlier settlement or possibly some other attraction. It was a certain Potter Thompson who stumbled across a concealed entrance to a secret passage. In spite of his fear he felt compelled to explore the difficult route that took him into the bowels of the castle deep into the bedrock of its foundations.
Suddenly he found himself in an enormous cavern. In this enchanted place he found himself amongst the company of King Arthur and his Knights surrounded by the magical 13 treasures of Britain. In awe he fled.
In Arthurian lore it is said that Arthur and his knights will rise to defend Britain at the hour of greatest need.
The Treasures of Britain