☆ Round One!

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The Fairy Ancestry of Christopher Drawlight (1/2)

[(Anonymous)]

Part I: The Poacher, the Crossroads and the Doe-Eyed Lady

In recent years, scholars of magical history have been surprised to discover that of all of the figureheads who helped set in motion the revival of English magic at the turn of the century, Christopher Drawlight was the person with the most magical bloodline. Considering Mr Drawlight did not, as far as can be discerned, exhibit any sign of either magical aptitude or interest in learning the magical arts, many have come to the conclusion that he did not himself know of his own fairy ancestry.

Indeed, his unusual surname, which appears to have been adopted as an alias by his great-great-great-great grandfather, William Drawlight (born William Beam, 1617), has aided scholars in tracing his more recent London-based ancestry, and they have since further followed one line of his family tree back to the fourteenth century, to a Lincolnshire peasant farmer named Robert atte-Wode (b. c1360).

However, the story that has interested us the most begins at the end of the sixteenth century, in a small village in Nottinghamshire called Redwell, which no longer exists.

It involves a descendent of Robert atte-Wode, a self-described poacher by the name of either Thomas Wulnoth or Walnut, (b. 1572, the spelling of his surname varies throughout the record) who in the 1590s claimed to have had an encounter with a fairy, who went on to bear his child.

The story, as told to the parson of the church at Redwell and later recorded in The Book of Redwell (currently housed in a private collection in the village of Alverton) recounts Thomas leaving his home to go poaching on the night of a full moon. Thomas had been travelling along a road through the dense woodland to the north of Redwell when, at a lonely crossroads, he spotted a beautiful doe. As a poacher, his usual instinct would be to fire at the deer, but something stayed his hand. Instead, entranced, he left the road and followed the doe into the wood. He could not recall how long they traversed through the trees when suddenly he lost sight of the animal. Realising he was lost, he stumbled into a nearby clearing, which, much to his great surprised, was lit by golden light and inhabited by a beautiful woman, who told him that she had specifically chosen him to be her lover that night. Apparently happy to oblige, Thomas acquiesced to her wishes. After their encounter, the lady disappeared and, unusually drowsy, Thomas fell asleep in the lady's bower in the clearing, only awakening to find himself back at the moonlit crossroads. He could not recall anything of the fairy's appearance, save for her having strikingly beautiful dark eyes, such that he commonly referred to her as "the doe-eyed lady".

He told no one of what had happened at first, but frequented the crossroads often in the hope of seeing the lady again. At the point of giving up, nine months later, Thomas was surprised to spot the beautiful doe once more. Following it eagerly to the clearing, he discovered, instead of the lady, a baby girl lying there, in swaddling cloths. Guessing the child's parentage, he brought the girl back to his home and raised her with the help of his widowed mother. The child as she grew appeared human, except she had the same exceptionally beautiful dark eyes as her mother, and there seemed always to be something of a faint golden light about her, as if her skin glowed with the light of a setting sun. Because of this radiance, her grandmother named her Lucy.

Part II: The Half-Fairy Daughter, The Cunning Woman and the Murderer

Thomas Wulnoth (or Walnut) and his mother, were not popular with the other inhabitants of Redwell, chiefly due to Thomas's repeated poaching in the woods to the north of the village. Poaching is commonly defined as illegal hunting on someone else's land. However, in the case of Redwell, the woods in which Thomas hunted were not legally owned by any person in England. It was widely believed that it was a fairy wood and that no Englishman must disturb it or hunt in it lest it anger the fair folk. The villagers of Redwell even went as far as to refuse to name the wood, claiming it was not their place to give a name to land that did not belong to them. To this day, the woodland has no local name.

Thomas was believed to have disturbed the wood through his poaching and was ostracised by many in the village for that reason, as was his mother for continuing to associate with him. However, no villager could find it in his or her heart to dislike the girl Lucy, who was forever witty, frolicsome, and mischievous, but easily forgiven by them because of her grace and charm.

As well as the story recounted by Thomas to the parson, the Book of Redwell contains information regarding an allegation of theft made by the village's "cunning woman" (healer and midwife), Alice Hernshaw, against Thomas. Thomas was ordered to pay compensation for stealing a hen belonging to Mrs Hernshaw, but he refused to pay on the grounds that he was not guilty of the theft.

Mrs Hernshaw was greatly angered, claiming she had proof that he was the thief, and when he still refused to admit culpability, she is said to have placed a curse upon him. Allegedly, during a loud argument in the marketplace, she espied Thomas's daughter Lucy dance past, as the girl played with the other village children. Mrs Hernshaw looked Thomas in the eye and told him: "Your line will end where it began, in the wood".

Thomas took this as a threat to his daughter, and denounced Mrs Hernshaw as a witch. The entire case was brought before the assizes at Nottingham, in which Thomas was ordered to pay compensation to Mrs Hernshaw, while claims that she was a witch and had cursed him were thrown out when none of the villagers of Redwell could be made to testify that they had heard her curse him, or indeed anyone before. One witness even went so far as to suggest that if the words had been uttered (and she was adamant that they had not been), they sounded far more like a prophecy than a curse, and were therefore not punishable by law. (According to the Book of Redwell, Alice Hernshaw was much loved by the inhabitants of Redwell and had attended many of the women of the village in childbed, as well as healing many ill people of the parish, young and old, which may explain the amount of loyalty shown to her.)

The ostracism of Thomas Wulnoth continued until his death in 1615, of causes unknown. Meanwhile Lucy, by all accounts, grew into a beautiful young woman and was much sought after by the young men of the village, despite her father having died too poverty-stricken to have provided her with an inheritance or dowry. A young carpenter named William "Billy" Beam eventually won Lucy's hand and they were married, according to the parish register, in 1616, and had a son, also named William, born in 1617. However, married life for the couple was unhappy: it appears that Billy was a jealous husband, constantly afraid that his beautiful wife was catching the eye of the local men and making him a cuckold. Lucy was angered by his accusations and denied them, but was frequently confined to the house by him nonetheless. In addition to reports of jealous behaviour on the one side, and flirtatious behaviour on the other, it was alleged that Lucy did not much enjoy the usual aspects of running a household as a married woman and was averse to all the menial tasks: the cooking, cleaning, washing and sweeping that are expected of a wife, which caused her husband no end of consternation. Moreover, Billy himself accused her of having no maternal feeling to speak of, neglecting their son and leaving Billy himself in in charge of watching young William more often than not.

Matters between the couple appear to have reached a head during the May Day celebrations of 1622, a full account of which appears in the village book. During the celebrations, Lucy was crowned the "May Queen" by the village elders, despite that nominal title usually being reserved for unmarried women. During the dance around the maypole, Lucy took the arm of several different men of the village, as is customary, but while the dance was still proceeding, her husband Billy stormed into the throng, ripped the garland of flowers from Lucy's head and dragged her back to their cottage. Nobody in the village saw her again.

In the last testimony of Billy Beam, before he was hanged, he maintained that he had not killed his wife. Instead, he claimed that he and Lucy had fought, as husbands and wives often do, but that during the disagreement, his wife had told him that she had "had enough of him" and was going to "return to her people, the trees", something she had never said before. She then ran out of their cottage towards the wood. Billy went after her, grabbing his pistol on the way out "for protection" (he claimed) and keeping his wife in sight to see that she came to no harm, for he was convinced she was suffering from a fit of madness. He said that he followed her at a distance until they reached a crossroads, at which point he fired a warning shot in the air, to "scare her into coming home". Instead, he said that Lucy ran into the woods and when he followed her, all he could see was a doe leaping into the distance, and no sign of his wife. He searched the wood all through the next few days, despite the village prohibition on disturbing the land of the fair folk, but never found her. After a few days it became impossible to continue to conceal his wife's disappearance, Lucy having been exceedingly popular, and the people of Redwell began to recall the events of May Day, the shouting that they had overheard coming from the Beam's cottage, and later a single gunshot from the direction of the wood. Billy claimed that he was telling the truth, that his wife had vanished in the woods, but neither the villagers nor the courts believed him.

Despite the absence of a body, Billy Beam was found guilty of murdering his wife, and eventually hanged at Nottingham gaol in January 1623, proclaiming his innocence to the end. The child of Lucy and Billy Beam, William Beam was therefore orphaned, and given over to his aunt, Anne Sturridge, to raise, as his great-grandmother and grandfather had by then both died. Anne was the older sister of Billy, had six children of her own to raise and had vocally disapproved of Billy's marriage to Lucy Wulnoth. It was clear she did not much care for this new addition to her family, who looked so much like his mother with his otherworldly fine dark eyes and a very slight hint of a golden radiance about his skin (although allegedly much less so than that of his mother). He did not resemble his father, and Mrs Sturridge was said to have very often remarked that he could not be her brother's child. By most accounts, he was not treated kindly by his extended family.

The Book of Redwell records that in 1631, just before his fourteenth birthday, young William Beam ran away from his aunt's house and did not return. That is the last record scholars have found of an ancestor of Christopher Drawlight living in Redwell.

Within twenty years of William Beam leaving the village, the population of Redwell had reduced by more than a half, and by the year 1700, Redwell was reportedly abandoned. Nobody could explain the relatively sudden exodus of the inhabitants, who one after another decided to move to pastures new. However, visitors and sightseers to the place often remarked on the dense trees that grew all through the village, encroaching on herb gardens and vegetable patches, growing from kitchen floors through rooftops and up chimneys. People who had passed through Redwell years before could not recall the village having been built amongst oaks and beeches and elms, and yet the trees that were there appeared so tall that they must have been there for a great many years.

The parson was the last villager to leave Redwell: he carried with him many important records and documents, including the village book, which eventually found its way to the church at Alverton and thence into the private collection.

Re: The Fairy Ancestry of Christopher Drawlight (1/2)

[(Anonymous)]

I really hope you continue this A!A, I'd love to see where it leads!

Re: The Fairy Ancestry of Christopher Drawlight (1/2)

[(Anonymous)]

A!A, here. I'm glad you liked it, anon! I actually originally decided not to continue with it due to the lack of interest, but I do have the story plan for the next section... somewhere. Perhaps I'll dig it out and finish it when I have the time. :)