Witchy Wednesday, Pond Witches!
🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿
 |
🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿
The River Witch!
Poem by Katherine Hazelton 2023
Down by the stream
Lives a woman of weeds
She is green with sharp nails
And on children she feeds
Lying in wait, under the water she hides
The occasional bubble on the surface does rise!
A poor unfortunate child, who was warned not to go
Looks in the water 'SPLASH' in he does go!
🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿
I have always been fascinated by River Witches since I was a small child. Having been told stories by my own grandparents of local folktales! I am not the only child either River Witch stories have been told by parents and grandparents for hundreds of years, if not longer, to scare children away from playing near places of danger. Often small deep stagnant pools of water would get covered in pond weed and become dangerous traps. Young children would run over them thinking it was grass get tangled and trapped in the weed and sadly drown! So to tell them the pond was home to a hideous water witch would keep adventurous youngsters away!
Across Britain descriptions of Water Witches are surprisingly similar, a blue or green skinned hideous old hag, with sharp nails and sharp teeth! She often lures, drowns and eats children and sometimes hanging their remains from surrounding trees! Even though her description is spookily similar across Britain she is known by many different names including Black Annis, Black Agnes, Jenny Greentooth, Jenny Greenteeth, Wicked Jenny and Grinnylow to name a few.
A rather scary tale I shall be researching into more in the future!
🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿
From A Dictionary of English Folklore, edited by Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud.
‘I have often been told by my mother and nurse that if I did not keep my teeth clean I should some day be dragged into one of these ponds by Jenny Greenteeth, and I have met many elderly people who have had the same threat applied to them’.
Fabulous tale of Black Annis by The Jolly Reiver.
Interesting link to Pond Witches:
http://www.whitedragon.org.uk/articles/blackann.htm
More natural pond creatures:
https://www.herefordshirewt.org/blog/meg-c/petrifying-pond-creatures
Because some folklore stories can be quite scary and disturbing with some adult content I would always advise visiting, reading and viewing links before showing or reading to younger children.
