Nobody knows how long ago it was when the Witch of Wookey was alive, but she was a terribly hideous person, and she did all sorts of horrible things until a monk of Glastonbury Abbey decided that she had wrought quite enough evil, and determined to rid Somersetshire of her baleful presence.
She lived in a grim cavern a mile or so from that wonderful cathedral city of Wells, and to this day you may visit Wookey Hole, her habitation, and see the very rightful fate that overcame this wicked woman. As an old poet wrote of her:
“Deep in the dreary, dismal cell,
Which seemed, and was ycleped hell,
This blear-eyed hag did hide.”
They say that in her youth, she was a very beautiful woman, yet no man fell in love with her, and so, becoming embittered, she made a bargain with the powers of evil, so that she might wreak her vengeance upon all mankind for the slight, she held, they had put upon her.
The devil gave her nine imps to assist her in her wicked work, and she, with her loathly helpers, sat in Wookey Hole, plotting misery for all the country-side. She blighted the crops, sent murrain among the flocks and herds, wove spells that created suspicion in happy homes and turned family love into violent hatred. But particularly the witch delighted to cause lovers’ quarrels. It was a happy day in Wookey Hole in those times, when one of the demons had caused a country lass and her swain to quarrel on the eve of their wedding. Then it was that the sounds of demoniac laughter that issued from the cavern were at their loudest.
But all this sorrow that fell upon the people touched the heart of a young monk of Glastonbury. He had been disappointed in love, and had found consolation in the cloister; but he was determined that others’ lives should not be similarly ruined if he could help it. So he went up to Wookey to beard the hag in her den.
No other possessed such courage, and the young monk went alone. He approached the place chanting a psalm, then, with holy water, he sprinkled the outside of the cavern and began the old service of exorcism. There was tremendous confusion within the cave at this unexpected intrusion. The witch rallied her servants around her and started out to do great violence to this reckless priest; but before she emerged, the monk, singing a “Paternoster,” fearlessly entered the “Hole.”
He sprinkled with holy water all that he encountered—and all that the miraculous liquid touched turned to stone. Never from that moment did any further evil issue from the cave at Wookey.
And, to-day, if you go there, you may see, as they have been these many centuries past, the petrified witch in her kitchen, cut off suddenly by this good brother of Glastonbury in the very midst of her wickedness, with her various household utensils, also turned into stone, all about her. Anyone may enter Wookey Hole now, and emerge unharmed.
Wells is your best centre for visiting Wookey. The city itself with its splendid cathedral, its ancient houses and its moated Episcopal Palace, is one of the most interesting in all England.
Glastonbury is near at hand, with the remains of its great abbey from which the good monk came, and its marvellous thorn tree, as legend has it, sprung from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea, who, having wandered from the Holy Land, decided to end his days in this pleasant place.
This is traditional Avalon, a town, perhaps, richer in history and romance than any other in our land. King Arthur and Guinevere his queen, they say, were buried within the walls of the ancient abbey over which, as the old tale tells, St. Patrick and St. Benedict once presided as Abbots.
And, should you weary of history, there are all the natural beauties of the Mendip hills for you to explore; for both Wells and Glastonbury lie on the slopes of this beautiful range.
Few places in Europe have so much of interest to offer the visitor as Wells and Glastonbury and that pleasing country all around, over which, in the dark ages, the Witch of Wookey wielded her gruesome sway.
