The White Procession

What it looks like, and what it does

A single unbroken line of tiny pale bodies stretching to the horizon over grass and gravel, each bearing a chip of white stone on its back like a lantern. The line casts a faint reflected light on the underside of low cloud.

Walks by day, rests in dark. Does not deviate for obstacles, though it will pass beneath doors left ajar.

What is known

The line forms at the quarry mouth in late September and takes eleven days to reach the end of the valley. It has done so for at least eight hundred years. Villagers lift their gates for it and do not discuss it.

Where the line passes, the grass is untouched. At the river bend it vanishes in a single night. The stones are not found. The valley's church floor, when relaid in 1844, was found to be paved with identical chips beneath the old flags.

What it can do

• Carries stone in numbers sufficient to pave a valley
• Moves as a single organism with a sense of direction

Where it stops

• Cannot be turned back or divided
• Is unable to cross the river, which seems to be the point

An encounter

Oakes lifted the gate for the line and stood with her class as it went under. Eight-year-old Tobias asked why they were carrying the stones. She said she did not know. He said that was all right because they did.

Verity Oakes, village schoolteacher, Quarry Lane to the river bend, Wethersfield, Eleven days from the last week of September

What is established, and what is only said

• established: The line's passage is recorded in parish accounts since 1203 without a gap.
• rumor: That each stone has a name scratched on the underside.
• incomplete: Core samples under the church floor show eleven layers of identical chips and no foundation.

Still unresolved

Surveyors have reckoned the quantity of stone delivered in eight centuries. It should already have filled the valley. The valley is clear.

Where it has been recorded

• Wethersfield (confirmed) — Recorded by Verity Oakes, village schoolteacher.

Stories about it

• Forty Miles, Single File (Entity story, 4 min) — Every late September a pale single-file line walks eleven days from the quarry to the river bend at Wethersfield, and no one has ever seen the stones put down.
• Why the Wethersfield Gates Are Lifted (Regional legend, 2 min) — A village tale about a widow, a quarry and the white line that crosses the valley each autumn.

Connected entities

• The Cathedral Slug — Both are processions that other people have organised their lives around. Neither has been seen to arrive.