The Petrifying Well at Mother Shipton's Cave

Forgotten Wishes

It has been said, so I read, that the first childhood memory you can recollect characterises your life. This interested me because as I thought about this at the weekend, I noticed my mind always goes to an image of my 8-year-old self, making a wish at Mother Shipton's Cave in Knaresborough. If you’re unfamiliar with this mystical woodland area in North Yorkshire, it is the birthplace of England’s most famous prophetess and witch Ursula Sontheil and the same county where I was raised. She was born in the cave in 1488 and eventually after a difficult start in life, she learnt the forest around her. She became known for predicting the future, including events like The Great of Fire London (1666) and the Defeat of the Spanish Armada as well as making potions for locals from the plants, herbs and flowers she’d studied. She died at age 73 and left behind the legacy of Mother Shipton’s Cave (as she was known locally) now the UK’s oldest attraction in the UK.

Besides the infamous cave and parkland, there is the striking Petrifying Well which turns objects to stone with its magical waters. These same powerful waters also serve a wishing well, where it is tradition to make a wish should you visit Mother Shipton. There are rules to follow when making your wishes, but they do come true, and it is at the wishing well my quandary now begins.

I distinctly remember following the rules and making a serious large wish (I have never believed in paltry dreams) at the wishing well. I can see myself doing all this but – I cannot remember what I wished for. This realisation of my faux pas turned me into feeling complicated all weekend because…

What if my biggest wish did come true and I missed it because I’d forgotten what it was? What if my most wanted dream did show up after all, but I turned right as it turned left? What if I didn’t recognise my wish? What if I keep missing all the clues to lead me to the big finale but I bypass each one because I don’t notice them? What if Mother Shipton and the magical waters have now given up on me in despair and cancelled my wonderful wish? 

Am I doomed? 

The weekend has morphed into Monday morning and I’m sitting in my writing place where I currently live. I’m supposed to write three magazine features for the next two days, but I can’t think about those. My forgotten wish haunts me. 

Regardless of the misplaced dream, it does, it seems, prove the child memory theory correct. My first memory has indeed shaped my life…  I have become the mystical and the mystery. I bring magic into real life and spend my days writing witchy fiction and spells. I take magic and wishes seriously, it’s a power and gift never to be underestimated or misused.

In my fantastical world, I am considering ditching writing magazine features for today, grabbing my car keys and getting in the car to make the one-and-a-half drive to the woods and cave. To ask Mother Shipton, and the wishing well, to break any hex and impart a second chance to me to recast my wish into the well. I definitely know what my wishes are. I’ve written them down in my book of spells and I’ll make damn sure I won’t miss a thing.

Would you know your true dream if it showed up or have you given it up to the murk of life? Magic needs an atmosphere of belief to work, to allow miracles and spells to move... did you stop believing in magic because you thought it wasn't real when your wishes and dreams did not come to pass, or did they and you just forgot what you wished for in the first place?

Annaliese  

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