THE WITCH OF WOOKEY.
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.