WitchFamous
The Witch of Wookey
She hid in the dark. The holy water found her anyway.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Show cave with witch-shaped stalagmite
- Legend from
- Local legend; skeleton 1908
- Tone
- Eerie
Holy water, splashed into the dark. When the lamp came round, the witch had turned to stone.
In the first chamber of Wookey Hole Caves stands a stalagmite shaped roughly like a crouching woman. The legend says a witch lived in the cave and spoiled the courtship of a Glastonbury man and a Wookey girl. The man became a monk and came back for revenge. He followed the witch into the dark, blessed the river water, and splashed it over her, and she turned to stone where she hid. In 1908 Herbert Balch dug up a skeleton in the caves. The bones became 'the witch' when the show cave opened in 1926, though tests suggest they were a man's.