The Cunning Man's Wife

So when the Cunning man wanted a wife, what did he do? White Mary had faded from public view and it was the Cunning Man that people came to consult so he was now well known. Few were the women who would come to live in his cottage in the Haunted Wood. But there was one with a bit of independence of mind who had caught his eye, and he thought he had caught hers. So he went to her , and he wooed her, and in due time she came home with him as his wife. 


 But that was just the start if it. As they passed Mary’s cottage he pointed out the nosegay of herbs Mary had left for her. But they were green and grey for the most part and she paid little heed of them. That was her first mistake. When they entered the cottage the spaniel, who could be either there or not there, as was needed, was not there, as she had no need or heed of her. That was her second mistake. 


 ‘Oh well’, thought her husband, ‘She’ll learn’. A few days later, when she had settled in, he had to go out for the day and would not be back until late that night. Before he went he warned her not to move or change anything around the cottage. Later that morning she went out to the well for water. Just beyond the well an ash tree’s branches hung down and were bedecked with seven bright ribbons. She took two for her hair. The well itself was difficult to get to because of the stones arranged around it. So she moved them. 


 During the afternoon she started to get a feeling that she was being watched, but she ignored it. Then as evening drew a shade across the forest, she began to hear noises. She looked out through the front door and realised that the ash tree was right up against the house. How had that happened? Then she saw that one of the branches was moving towards her. She screamed and retreated into the cottage. Where could she get help? This was her only thought. And at that thought the spaniel suddenly appeared beside her. The end of a branch pushed open a window and the spaniel jumped snarling up and through the window. There was a terrible commotion outside for a while, then it subsided. She went to the window for a look and saw that the tree was gone but the spaniel was now at the well where the green head of Nicky Nye had appeared. Fear gripped her and she shrank back. 


 But then she heard a soft voice singing and she peeped out again through the window. A woman with a face like moonlight was walking around the well and putting the stones back in their places as she sang. By the time the Cunning Man returned all was quiet. Nicky had gone back into the well and the spaniel was sitting at his wife’s side having her ears scratched. The next morning he went out to survey the damage. The well was as it had been and Mary must have come back at first light as fresh herbs had been strewn all around. But the ash tree was gone save for a gnawn branch on the ground. He took the branch away later and came back with a sapling ash to put in the place of the one that had gone. Then Mary came with new ribbons and another nosegay which his wife took with thanks and hung over the window in their bedroom. 


 For the most part she got over that night and now the spaniel was at her side most of the time. But the thing she didn't get over was her fear of Nicky Nye and because he knew her fear he had power over her. He never again appeared at the well but she could feel his presence when she went down to the river so she always kept away from the water. 


 A few years passed and a young child was growing up in the cottage. One day he toddled down to the river as they walking towards the bridge. He looked into the water and saw Nicky looking back. Then a green arm emerged and began to encircle him and the green teeth of Nicky Nye protruded from his open mouth. The mother’s fear was tested but she found new strength and running towards the child she pulled him back, hissing at the creature. The spaniel was there too and Nicky retreated with the spaniel in pursuit. He kept away after that, but whether it was because of the spaniel or the fact that the wife had won over her fear, or that she was by now part of the magical configuration of the place, is hard to say. But so it was.

Living in the Haunted Forest

How did the cunning man live safely in the the haunted forest?

His spaniel has been mentioned, and the tale says that it was a spayed bitch. Why?

John Aubrey in his The Remaines of Gentilism (1686-87) relates the following:

I believe all over England, a spaied bitch is accounted wholesome in a House; that is to say, they have a strong beliefe that it keeps away evill sprits from haunting of a House ; e.g. amongst many other instances, at Cranborn in Dorset about 1686, a house was haunted, and two Tenants successively went away (left the house) for that reason: a third came and brought his spaid bitch, and was never troubled.

Why should a spayed bitch have magical properties? Perhaps the lack of procreative ability concentrated the energies on psychic matters? This is a mystery that remains to be explained.

It is said, in another tale, that the cunning man had the help of his aunt, White Mary, in arranging things at his cottage: placing stones in a particular configuration, hanging ribbons in a special way on the ash tree, constructing the well surround in a way that kept the flow of sweet water running, and strewing herbs regularly to keep the surroundings wholesome.

These magical defences did not banish the spirits of the forest, but allowed the cunning man to live safely alongside them, to interact with them, and to live in harmony with the denizens of the forest. Bringing anything new into these arrangements might upset the equilibrium. This happened when the cunning man brought home a new wife. A story to be told another time.

The Cunning Man of the Haunted Forest

Nicky Nicky Nye
He pulls you down
Underneath the water
To drown, drown, die.



Nicky was a water spirit of the malicious kind. He was notorious for grabbing children from the river bank and dragging them in. He had green teeth, green hair and green eyes. Like waterweed. But he could be as clear and transparent as the running waters when he wanted to be. In the past he had been feared by children and their mothers all along the river. But these days he tends to stay in the haunted wood, and that is what this story is about.

Few lived in the wood, or even dared to venture into it, especially after dark. Only two people lived right in the heart of the wood. One was an old wise woman. The other was her nephew, later known – after her time – as the Cunning Man of the Wood. They lived about a mile apart. He made his reputation while still a young man. But even before this folks marveled at the fact that he lived in a cottage right on Nicky’s river. But they knew his aunt and put it down to her magic: the placing of stones, the speaking of charms and the spaniel bitch, which she had given him as a puppy, and which had powers no doubt like those of the one who was said by those with a gossip’s tongue to be the old woman’s familiar.

One day a farmer from the forest edge came to the Wise Woman to ask her advice as his cows were dry and he suspected dark magic. She nodded and told him to go to her nephew who would know what to do. The farmer hesitated, then took the path to the river. He told his tale to the young man, who thought a while then turned aside and said, as if to the empty air,

“what thinks?”

As if from nowhere the spaniel was at his side with eager eyes.

“Yes, we’ll come”, he said. “At midnight”.

The farmer did not want to wait to accompany them and set off home before it was dark. They came in the gloom of the night and the spaniel sat in the meadow among the cows. A large hare comes lopping across the field and begins drinking from the udder of one of the cows. The spaniel sprang, the hare leaped, and away with them. The spaniel nipped at the hare’s heels and was all the time forcing the direction of the chase towards the river. As they arrive the spaniel barks and Nicky emerges and grabs the hare. Then a screech as the witch comes out of the hare form and struggles to get out of Nicky’s clutches. But she failed.

After that, the Wise Woman’s cottage began to fade a little, so that people sort of forgot it was there. But they know about her nephew and his spaniel. And about him there are many tales to tell of his life in the haunted wood. And maybe, soon, one or another of them will be told here if you care to call in to find out.

The Cailleach

The following - by Tony Kelly - is from 

The Archive of the Pagan Movement, circa 1975.

And when the Goddess is old and haggard?  What of November when her hair is grey, when her bones are bare and the leaves are falling grey and sodden about her?  Who will love her then?  Old Hag of the hollow breasts and the withered arms, of the eyes that look only inward, of the empty hand, of the grasping claws that would take all, for only all will sate her...  We could not leave her if we would, and would not if we could, for as the tongue forever returns to the aching tooth and grief to the very source of pain, the plight of a Goddess bereft of her all is a pain we have no will to put aside.  She is fear, horror, abject despair and the withering of all hope; she is the pit out of which all that is lovely has fled and out of which meaning itself was dug.

The floor of our temple is the rolling plain, the pillars are the greenwood trees and our roof is the open sky.  Come Sun, come Moon, come wind and rain, come hail and sleet or snow, there in the heat of the day or there in the eye of the blizzard, are we and the gods.  Am I cold?  I am the cold.  Is the rain pouring down?  I am the rain.  I am the rush of the river, the noise of the storm, the heat of the sunshine, the lust of the May.  And the priestess of Mab the Beautiful, dancing there with the girdle of hawthorn leaves...  Will I remember her when she is old and the leaves are falling and she bears the elder wand and her girdle is of bones all whitened on the rain-lashed hills?  Yes, I'll remember, for she is closer than breath and the dance must go on and on.

Meditation for the Waning Moon

Light fades. It ebbs away under the dim shade of the forest trees. Darkness falls after the last blue glimmer dissolves into the stream, which carries it away. There is a hush, in spite of the rush of water through the stones of the narrow gorge. The watcher by the stones has taken a position with a view through the opening in the trees where the Moon will rise. She is waning and some time will pass after the setting of the Sun before she is visible. The sky is a deep blue-black where stars glitter, the brightness of some of them tracing familiar patterns: Orion, The Plough, The Giant's Chair. The white mist of the Milky Way recedes behind the visible stars and re-appears as a path for the watcher to walk by. When the left-handed crescent rises she appears enamelled silver-white against the sable of the sky.

The way is clear. The Otherworld wraps itself around him. He knows not where he goes, but his path stretches away in the path of the Waning Moon.

Knowing she will haunt the sky until long after the Dawn pales and herself fade in the morning light.

Somewhere between light and dark, between moonlight and sunlight, he sees a vision of a far-off land and knows that he lives there for a fleeting moment of time which is forever.

Returning, he sees the Moon reflected in the stream. The night is cold but only now is he aware of it. He touches the chill waters with his fingertips, then anoints his forehead. All is still. He blesses the night as the night has blessed him.

Harbinger of Winter

But the night is Halloween,

.....

Just at the mirk and midnight hour

The fairy folk will ride

(Tam Lin)

Where do they ride?
Is it to the land of the Dead?
As the trees of the land respond to the longer nights with a glow of autumn gold before casting their leaves to the Earth, the life of the land fades and the faërie folk appear to fade too. In their realm they are as bright as a summer day. In ours they are shades dwelling in the long shadows cast by the low sunlight and bare trees. Skeletal as a leaf with only the sap veins remaining.

So they ride to the land of the Dead, becoming shadows of what they were in our world.
But not in their own.

Then - shaped out of grey mist - comes the Grey Mare, on a steed for the Hag of the Night.

Dreaming the Land

It is said that the land of Faery is as near as breath.
So it is. And as far away as a land beyond the clouds or deep underground. That is true too. Faërie logic allows for this contradiction. The old stories of the Otherworld folk living in mounds and moving between the worlds capture this nearness while at the same time conceding that it is an invisible realm for those going about their daily business with eyes focused on the main chance.

So it is the slant look, the averted gaze, the dreaming eye that might catch a glimpse through the veil of enchantment that casts a glamour over the Otherworld. Yet to go there is not easy. Stories tell of journeys through darkness, through water and through suspended time to get there. What sort of journeys are these? They too are the journeys of dream, of trance, of stillness in a world of shifting time and space.

Deep within the living world of Nature the dream goes on, just as a dream does in the world of sleep. But this is a waking dream with a continuous existence half a glance away. Dream the land and the land will dream you; sidestep the path and a new path opens before you. To glimpse these ways into dream is an occasional privilege granted to those who care to attune their senses and be still and aware. This dream world is not insubstantial and fleeting; it is deep in its dimensions and time is everlasting. But it often comes unexpectedly and as soon fades into a barely perceived memory. The trick is to train the mind to see though the veil at will. To dream the land by charms, by spells, or by developing the clear sight conferred in the tales of faërie by the application of a special lotion and taken away by the casting into the eyes of a special dust causing blindness in the faërie realm and often, also, in the common world too. This suggests danger. Truly the Realm of Faery is a perilous realm, not to be encountered lightly.