The Maid, the Witch and the Cruel Queen Read online

  “But did they catch her?”

  “I’m coming to that,” Sir James said and supped his ale. “The woman disappeared into a small clump of trees. When we reached it she wasn’t in sight. Then we heard her cry again...”

  “You had her trapped in the wood,” the priest smirked.

  “No! The voice came from behind us. She was at the top of the hill again! She couldn’t have run! She must have flown. We set off back up the hill and she ran. It was a struggle but when we got to the top … she’d gone.

  “We heard her cry, ‘Leave me alone!’ and there she was – at the edge of the wood.

  “All morning we chased her. When we thought she was in the wood, she was on the hill top. When we thought she was on the hill top, she was down in the wood.”

  “Didn’t the dogs catch her?” Father Walton asked.

  “I’ll swear at one time they did. I saw them race up to her on the top of the hill. There was sweat in my eyes but I swear they got to her. She just stretched out a hand and patted them! They wagged their miserable tails!”

  The priest moaned. “You cannot fight the Devil!”

  Of course, I knew they hadn’t been fighting the Devil.

  I knew they had been chasing two women – Old Nan was one. I was the other. We’d made a white wig from sheep’s wool for me to wear. The hunters never got close enough to see who was really on top of the hill. Nan just stayed near the wood.

  We took it in turns to cry “Leave me alone!”, and we watched the men run up and down the hill all the hot summer morning.

  When the dogs caught me, of course they let me pat them! I was the maid that fed them!

  “But that wasn’t the worst,” Sir James said and held his mug out for more ale. I filled it and smiled.

  Chapter Seven

  Old Nan’s New Guard

  I knew the worst. At last Sir James Marley of Roughsike and Lord Scuggate had stumbled back to Bewcastle that morning.

  Nan and I came together at the smouldering ruin of her cottage.

  We heard the church clock strike a quarter to twelve and we heard his Lordship yell, “The queen! She’ll be here soon!”

  “No parade! No witch-burning!” Sir James wailed.

  Nan and I watched as the two men rushed to the bridge together and, in their panic, crashed into one another and fell into the river. It’s lucky the river was low after the hot summer weather or they’d have drowned.

  But they hit a pool where the town drain runs out. They came out spluttering, smelling strongly. They did not smell of sweet heather, either.

  It was then that Lord Scuggate ran to meet the queen – dripping and smelling of the town toilets.

  The friendly men in the local tavern laughed when I told them the story of the trick we’d played on the foul Lord Scuggate.

  Next day, they climbed the hill and build a new cottage for Nan, fine enough to keep out the wicked winds that whipped Butterburn each winter.

  No one helped Lord Scuggate to rebuild the manor. And he had lost all he owned in the fire. He moved in with his friend, Sir James at Roughsike. They deserve each other.

  He won’t be back to bother Old Nan again. And, even if he did, he’d find she has two fierce dogs to guard her. Lord Scuggate’s dogs!

  How did she tame the beasts? With kindness? Or with witchcraft?

  Only Old Nan knows!

  Afterword Old Nan’s Story

  The Maid, the Witch and the Cruel Queen is a story based on real people and events in Tudor times.

  Mary Tudor became queen when her brother, Edward VI, died in 1553. She was a Catholic and wanted everyone in England to worship at Catholic churches. She made a new law that said people who refused could be burned. From 1555 till she died in 1558, three hundred men and women were burned.

  The people of England learned to hate her and to call her ‘Bloody Mary’. They had bonfires and parties when she died. Mary’s sister, Elizabeth I, took the throne and stopped the burning of people who refused to worship in Catholic churches.

  But killing ‘witches’ still went on.

  In Tudor Britain, it was against the law to practise witchcraft. In England, the punishment was to be hanged, while in Scotland, witches were burned.

  Most of the people accused of being witches were harmless old women who had no one to protect them. From 1450 to 1598 over thirty thousand people in Europe were executed as witches.

  But there are some stories of women accused of witchcraft who got away with it. One of these stories was about a woman in northern England known as ‘Old Nan’.

  It was said that the local men tried to hunt her down, but when they chased her to the top of a hill she appeared at the bottom. No matter where they chased her she seemed to appear somewhere else calling, “Leave me alone!”

  Did Old Nan use witchcraft? Or did she use a trick like the one in this story? Was there ever such a person as Old Nan? Or is she just a legend?

  Only Old Nan knows!