Pedlar of Swaffham

The Pedlar of Swaffham is a traditional English folktale from Swaffham, Norfolk, recorded in the English Fairy and Other Folk Tales (1906), which cites the 1699 Diary of Abraham de la Pryme.

The story tells of a pedlar who lived in Swaffham—referred to in older forms as Soffham or Sopham—who had a strange dream. He dreamed that if he traveled to London and stood on London Bridge, he would hear joyful news. At first he ignored it, but after dreaming it multiple times, he decided to make the journey and see if anything would come of it.

He arrived in London and stood on the bridge for several days, watching the crowd but hearing nothing of importance. Finally, a nearby shopkeeper, curious about the pedlar’s aimless standing, approached him and asked what he was doing. The pedlar explained his dream. The shopkeeper laughed and called him a fool for acting on such nonsense. Then he told the pedlar of a dream he himself had: that there was treasure buried in an orchard behind the house of a pedlar in a village called Swaffham—a place he had never heard of. But he added that he wasn’t foolish enough to chase after such a dream.

The pedlar, realizing the man had unknowingly described his own home, hurried back to Swaffham. He dug beneath the oak tree in his orchard and discovered a great treasure. With this newfound wealth, he became a rich man. Wanting to give back, he paid for the restoration of Swaffham Church, which had fallen into disrepair. His memory is preserved there to this day, with a statue showing him with his pack on his back and his dog at his heels. His image also appears in stained glass windows and on signs in taverns and alehouses around the town.