He looked on down from the higher ground
At the village he held in thrall,
A gaggle of bowers, of steeples and towers
And he ruled them, overall.
They went their way each enchanted day
Unknowingly bound in his spell,
Not able to leave, to fret or to grieve
While he ruled their wishing well.
The wishing well in the village square
That had been since ancient days,
Nobody knew who put it there
Some sage with enchanted ways,
Its spirit was always known for good
Till they dragged her from a ditch,
That haggard harridan, Elsie Hood,
Known as the village witch.
They’d ducked her once in the village pond
To see if the crone would float,
Pricked her skin with many a pin
So the Witch Finder could gloat,
The sentence passed was the first and last
For a witch, in that village dell,
While some were stern, said a witch should burn,
She was tossed, head first down the well.
The well grew an ugly, creeping moss
That gave off an evil smell,
And everything good from it was lost
Some said, ‘It’s the witches spell!’
Then he had come to the village square
And tossed in a coin or two,
Said, ‘I command, let me rule the land
And the village surrounding you.’
And from that day they were cut away
From the villages all around,
Each road would twist with an evil mist
They were lost, and not to be found,
While he looked down from the higher ground
To gloat on each church and bower,
For then by stealth he had taxed their wealth
Though all that he had was power.
A maiden sat in the village square
Selling her flowers and blooms,
Each day, enchanting the people there
By night, in the Tavern’s rooms,
She caught his eye, and he breathed a sigh
When she smiled, so innocently,
So he went to tell the wishing well
‘That’s who I want, for me!’
The spirit flew from the wishing well,
The spirit of Elsie Hood,
‘I’ve done the thing that you want me to,
But now you want her, for good!’
It dragged him screaming across the square,
And tore at his eyes and skin,
His blood was spread almost everywhere
By the time that she dropped him in.
The mist has gone, it has moved along
The roads in and out are clear,
The moss dried up on the wishing well
And the girl, well she’s still here.
They filled the well to the top with sand
So no-one conjures a spell,
They’d rather be part of the greater land
Than wish in a wishing well.
David Lewis Paget