Ladyewell: An encounter with The Dark Goddess
“You are in my dreams, the darkness in my eyes the rapture in my screams, Black Goddess arise”
Not too long ago, as the Moon waned thin and the relentless midsummer Sun beamed down upon a bleached and heat weary England, members of The Clan of Tubal Cain travelled deep in to the Lancashire countryside to visit the Marian shrine of Ladyewell at Fernyhalgh near Preston, thus completing our approach to the three faces of the sacred feminine.
The shrine to Our Lady was erected over a sacred well spring at the head of a ferny vale, which is commonly believed to predate Christianity in the British Isles. Fernyhalgh was already an established place of pilgrimage as early as the reign of King Edwin, being re-dedicated to Mary the Mother of Christ on Edwin’s conversion from heathen ways in the year of 627 AD. King Edwin’s reign soon fell to Saxon successors who held on to their cultural wealth in honouring the Old Gods of England.
To which pagan “devil” this sacred well was originally established, remains unrecorded and unknown, but on a somewhat subjective
reach, we have surmised the forgotten Goddess may have been Old Mother Hel, the Norse Queen of the underworld, from whose sacred cauldron such potent waters flow.
And so history and legend merge to suggest the shrine fell into disuse only to be rediscovered in a chain of miraculous events in the 10th/ 11th century by Fergus Maguire, son of the Chief of Fermanagh. The Catholics managed to hold on to the shrine right through the reformation, continuing their worship in this remote hideaway, in spite of the fact that their chapel was left in ruins by the Protestants.
The stones may have lain tumbled around the feet of the faithful, but the waters still flowed, bringing testimonies of health, restored to body and mind, for the spirit of the place endured regardless. When freedom of worship was re-established, the bricks and mortar were too. And so it remains until this day, where the well is to be found in the carefully tended grounds of an established religious house, several chapels, refreshment facilities, a shop (with a huge second hand book department) and a reliquary.
The grounds remain open even when the house is closed, and it is then, under the moon, the constant North and turning Stars, that the respectful seeker fares best to visit in honour of Our Lady. To take our photographs we visited during daylight hours on the hottest of days to find an organised Christian pilgrimage in full swing, but things were not as we expected. Clan members experienced strong feelings of constriction at Ladyewell, an encroaching malaise which could gradually overwhelm the senses, something malign just beyond the threshold of waking consciousness.
This unseen but crushing pressure cloaked the congregation at their prayer, as surely as the clergy took ladles in hand, to sprinkle pilgrims with water from the Sacred well. We waited, and watched closely, raising the obligatory cup of English tea to our parched lips, but even this cure-all did little to raise our dampened spirits and lighten the weight of this exposure to a most ancient power.
We relocated to the quiet of an interior Chapel, only to set eyes upon the severed blackened hand of Margaret Clitherow, a Catholic martyr from the time of the reformation. This Lady, known as The Pearl of York, had been crushed to death on Good Friday in 1586; her only crime was protecting fellow Catholics. We all gazed at the Saint’s hand, which seemingly beckoned us deeper into areas of darker thought, prompting us to revisit the Holy Well again before we departed.
Descending the stone steps to the well once again was in itself a journey closer towards the dark portal from which this disturbing presence made its entry into our world. And so it was, that even on this sweltering afternoon, the stifling moisture emanating from the well head, which feeds leafy fern and all manner of verdure, chilled the air around us, like the very breath of death itself. Our perceptions sharpened; this shrine had all the ambience of a disturbed grave, and all the subtlety and trappings of a rasping death rattle.
The shrine’s guardians had capped the well; even constricting the healthy aperture our Maid knew from years ago, down to a trap door of A4 dimensions. This was without doubt a futile and sacrilegious (in our view) modern measure, undertaken during the recent fevered years of health and safety EU madness. It presented an opening just big enough to trap a limb or a small head… but could never contain the potency of the untameable force; the dark and ancient power of The Black Goddess.
Later that evening, our Clan enjoyed the finest of curries in the town of Darwen, feasting as friends, and a splendid time was had by all, but as darkness finally lowered over the Lancashire hills and we had retired to bed, the Maid let out a terrible scream from her sleep, a scream so loud it roused our companions, a cry both bloodcurdling and protracted. Her dream proved impossible to describe to concerned friends, who had rushed to her aid, up three flights of stairs to the attic.
Totally unable to formulate any recall of the details of the dream, it appeared that this nightmare scream had emanated from a dark and formless void. Later, and before the sun could set once more, the pressing need arose to record these events, offering a pale reflection of Her dark visage.
“Caught in thy net of shadows, what dreams hast thou to show? Who treads the silent meadows, to worship thee below?”
Lady, we do…
F/F/F
Carol Stuart Jones
Maid of Tubal Cain
References:
1) The Black Goddess Rises: Words by Daniel Lloyd Davey (1994)
2) Shrines of Our Lady in England (p76 to p84) by Anne Vail (2004) Gracewing Publications: Herefordshire: England
Resources:
Megalithic: http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=17435