‘I expect he’s bounding through the forest,’ the woman replied. ‘He left my house fit and well at sunrise.’
‘You lie!’ said the forester.
The woman shook her head and walked past him. As she did, the man saw she had a limp. ‘It’s you! You’re limping on your left leg, the same leg that was bitten by my hound. You must have turned yourself into a hare yesterday to cast your spells and work your evil.’
The woman smiled sadly. ‘I can’t change myself into animals. I’m just an old woman who understands a little bit about herbs and healing. Hare is my friend. He would have died if I hadn’t taken his injury on myself.’ She lifted up her cloak to show teeth marks on her calf.
At the sight, the man backed away. ‘Proof!’ he cried.
That night, in the village inn, the forester drank heavily, telling his story to anyone that would listen. ‘You should be careful what you say about people,’ the landlord shouted through the din.
‘Should I?’ the forester slurred. ‘What if I told you I saw her with my own eyes, turning from a hare back into a woman?’ The din fell away into silence.
From that night on, the people of Fairwarp, Maresfield and Duddleswell shunned the wise woman.
A year passed. The forester’s precious young daughter caught a winter fever. He spent every penny he had on remedies, medicines and the best doctors from Crowborough to Lewes. They all said the same thing, ‘She won’t see the end of the week.’ The forester couldn’t and wouldn’t believe it.
As he looked out into the snow he had a thought: ‘If only I could take my daughter’s sickness on myself.’ In that instant, he remembered the wise woman and made a decision. Wrapping his daughter’s thin body in thick blankets, he lifted her gently and carried her through the blizzard towards Duddleswell.
To his relief, he saw that smoke was rising from the chimney of the hut. With his foot, he knocked politely. The woman answered and without hesitation ushered him in out of the cold. By the stove a very old hare was sleeping, curled up in a basket stuffed with straw. The woman gestured to the man to put the girl on her bed. He set her down carefully. ‘They say she’ll die within days. I saw what you did for the hare …’
The wise woman nodded towards the stove. ‘That’s him there, asleep by the fire. He is old and his time has come. I don’t think he’ll last out the month. I’ll do my best, but your girl’s fever looks advanced. The only sure way of saving her would be for another to take on her illness. It’s not something I could do myself. As an old woman, the fever would kill me before I’d finished the healing and then we’d both be lost.’
‘I want to take on her sickness!’ the forester begged.
A series of loud, honking squeaks came from the fire. The old hare had woken up and seemed to be paying attention.
He called again and again. The woman shuffled over, calling back in the same fashion. She stroked his long ears. Turning to the forester she spoke: ‘Hare says your daughter needs her father. He’ll take on her illness. It’s nearly his time.’ The forester looked at the hare and then, in shame, at his own feet.
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘That you won’t set your hounds on hares anymore?’ the woman answered.
‘I won’t,’ whispered the forester.
Placing the old hare on the girl’s chest, the woman burned herbs, wafted smoke and said some words so quietly, the forester couldn’t catch what they were.
The hare’s breathing slowed as the colour returned to the girl’s cheeks. Her eyes opened and she sat up. The wise woman took the animal’s limp body and wrapped it in a soft cloth.
The forester and his daughter yomped home through the snowdrifts. By the time they reached their cottage, she was starving hungry and ate a whole apple pie by herself.
Her father ran to the village inn and told everyone that would listen about the kindness of the woman of Duddleswell. For years afterwards he left a pile of firewood outside her hut every week, by way of thanks. He is long gone now, but the wise woman is still sometimes sighted, tending to a fledgling which has fallen from its nest or a fox cub with a cold – not just in Duddleswell but across the forest, ‘hare’ and there.
A speckled cat and a tame hare
Eat at my hearthstone
And sleep there.
W.B. Yeats
15
Jack and the Devil
• Ashdown Forest •
Question: What did the nut say when it sneezed?
Answer: Cashew!
It wasn’t the blacksmith’s tongs, it wasn’t the candle and sieve of Granny Annie, it was young Jack of Alfriston who finally got the better of the Devil – well almost. This is how.
Jack was bouncing on the heather and skimming flint across the grass when he saw an old walnut shell. He picked it up. It had a small hole in the side. Jack looked around and picked up a stick. Would it fit the hole? Nearly. He took out his little penknife and began to sing:
There is no if, there is no but,
The stick I’ll trim, the stick I’ll cut,
See how it fits, see how it shuts?
I’ve made a nutcase of a nut!
‘That might be useful!’ he said and off he tripped, tapping the stick against the nut until the moon rose.
From behind a bush came the Devil. He’d lost his confidence a bit and decided that bullying a little boy might be just the trick to get him back on track.
He shook his horns, stamped his feet and rolled his red eyes.
‘Are you scared of me, Jack?’
‘Not really,’ said the boy.
The Devil puffed himself up till he was as tall as a tree.
‘Are you scared of me now, Jack?’
‘Nope.’
The Devil blew up his body until he was as tall as Firle Beacon, with red flapping wings, a red forked tail and a red frowning face.
‘Are you scared of me now, Jack?’
‘Sorry,’ shrugged Jack, ‘I’m only scared of small things! If you were to make yourself so tiny you could fit in this walnut … well …’ he pretended to shiver and opened his eyes as wide as he could get them.
Like a blacksmith’s bellows puffing out air, the Devil deflated until he was as small as a caterpillar.
‘In here?’ he squeaked as he crawled up the side of the walnut.
‘Yes.’ And once the Devil was safe inside, he said:
There is no if, there is no but,
I’ve caught the Devil in a nut,
How can I keep him tightly shut?
I’ll use my stick to stop him up.
‘Done!’ he chuckled, as he strolled along, throwing up the walnut shell and catching it.
Jack made straight for St Dunstan. The holy man took a hammer and put the walnut on his anvil.
‘Whack!’ the nut stayed whole.
St Dunstan took a heavier hammer and with Jack’s help to lift it, ‘Heave!’ he tried again.
‘Whack!’ it didn’t even crack.
This time St Dunstan took a hammer so big he could only lift it with the help of the whole congregation of Mayfield Church.
‘Whack!’ The nut shattered.
Back then, the people of Sussex rarely shut their mouths. They were either talking, eating or gazing slack-jawed at the clouds, so when the nut split into thousands of fragments, a piece of the Devil flew onto everyone’s tongue and was swallowed down.
So, if anyone in this county ever says to you, ‘You’ve got a piece of the Devil in you today!’ You can reply, ‘It’s true and so have you, and this is why.’
And you’ll tell them this (forked) tale:
Bucky, bucky, biddy bean,
Is the way now fair and clean?
Is the goose y-gone to nest?
Is the fox y-gone to rest?
Shall I come away?
(Traditional spell)
Sussex Folk Tales for Children Page 8
