During the Wars of the Roses, or alternatively the Barons' Wars, a young woodsman and his wife lived with their baby son in a cottage in Bradley Woods. Eventually the woodsman left his family to fight, leaving his wife to bring up the baby alone. After many months there was no news of the woodsman. Every day she held her child and walked to the edge of the woods, awaiting for sight of her husband, coming home from the wars, 'til one day the enemy army crossed the Humber and marched through the area on the way to attack Lincoln. As she was leaving her cottage, the woman was set upon by three horsemen who brutally raped her before snatching the baby boy and riding off laughing into the woods. Heartbroken and humiliated, she wandered the woods searching in vain for her child and husband. After her death people began to see her wandering the woods, carrying on her never ending search.