Thursday, January 05, 2017

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.5: She Who Waits Beneath the Witching Tree

Yesterday’s ruminations were, in part, the consequence of a recent - and rather unnerving -  incident. Whilst out for a stroll on the evening of the Winter's Solstice, I witnessed a small group of people huddled around the Witching Tree. On my passing, they stopped whatever activity they were engaged in to stare at me, after which I hurried home. None of the faces I recognised, but it was dark. The following morning I returned to the tree, noticing a patch of earth that had been disturbed near its base where, it transpired, a small clay statue of grotesque demeanour had bern buried, wrapped in the hide of a hare that had been tied with gut:



The following characters have been inscribed onto the hide in some blue substance:


In light of this, there is a scrap of local playground rhyme that I remember from my childhood, and which now takes on a rather unsettling aspect:

'Knock once, knock twice, and again makes three
For she who waits 'neath the Witching Tree'.

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