A Dartmoor tale, retold.
Vixiana. Her story.
‘She’s a witch’ they said.
Of course she was, teeth missing, hunched in hunger, too tall, too furious, too single, too female, not female enough. Her hair unbrushed. Clothes ragged. Visibly poor.
She had taken refuge below the tor, in a cave that the ewes had sheltered in, so she smelt of sheep piss as well. A twisted furze stick for walking and such weak protection.
She scared them with her words, her wild ways, her potential, her lack of care.
No woman like her had ever got away without those words being whispered.
Witch.
She didn’t stand a chance, and that was before you factored in the land.
They wanted the land. They always do. Land to rule over, to use for their own ends, profit or pleasure or just to have won it. As they sat in the pub, grandfather, father and the golden boy, they discussed it. How she stood in their way, had done for years, she should have left back when grandad took what he wanted (and her looks to boot), yet here she still was, crazy and alone but still on that land. You couldn’t get past her, and, like all blusterfull men, they were all afraid of her, of her words and the damage they could wreak.
It itched at them, night after night, pint after pint, and like all those who can’t take a no, especially from a woman, especially from a mad old woman, a poor woman, a witch, so they pushed it to a bitter end.
She had thought of running, but where do you go to when all you have is a scrap and a scrape, and the justified fury that consumed her held her still.
Her isolation meant the rumours grew unchecked. Dark tales of malice told to scare the daughters who also craved the quiet, the sons who wanted nothing but the west winds voice.
The village was full of talk, the kitchen table whispers spread, something had to be done they said, a dangerous witch, a unstable woman, the swirl of stories filled the dark hours, until a the golden boy, a young man who could tell a good tale, to whom the word ‘no’ meant nothing but a challenge, a proper charmer of a man, went to her rocks and ran her to ground.
One push and she wasn’t a problem anymore.
His word against her deathly silence.
Her land his.
Her broken mouthed face pushed into the mud, shutting her up, while her land was used, abused, overworked and then made a plaything.
And she was forgotten.
Mostly.
But her ghost, her spirit, her howling into the wild winter winds still held sway, memory of what was done to her, and why, kept the tale alive, embellished into a horror story, with her the villain of the peace and he the golden hero.
In time, to the astonishment of all, she got her revenge. The land became quiet again except when the wild west wind carried her cries of ‘No’ and ‘Go’ across the valley, a ghosts peace fell on that place, shut from the constant needs of folk, left instead to the calls of the last undisturbed tor nesting raven.
The summer lark.
The cuckoos call.
Finally she had the peace she needed.