Local Leicestershire tradition remembered the Comyn family, holders of Whitwick Castle, as a line of giants. The best-known tale tells how one of the Comyn giants tried to carry off a lady of Groby Castle, who had fled her home to take sanctuary at the priory of Grace Dieu. Going by a roundabout route to avoid Charley and Whitwick, she was overtaken by nightfall in the Outwoods and would have perished there.
The story
She reached instead the hermitage at the Holy Well, near Garendon by Loughborough, and collapsed at its door. One of the monks of the well used its waters to bring her back to life. The story holds that, in gratitude, the revived lady gave herself to God and became a prioress; some have linked the tale to the historical abduction of Eleanor Ferrers.
The Comyns who lend their name to the legend were real — Whitwick Castle passed by the late thirteenth century to John Comyn, Earl of Buchan — and the folk memory swelled the powerful, half-feared family into giants. The tradition is preserved in East Midlands folklore writing and ties the giant tale to the still-known site of the Holy Well Haw.