Who Put Bella in the Witch Elm?

Last month, I started wondering how Santa Claus got a hold of those reindeer and the willful indentured servants we call elves. Then I got to reflecting on the similarity of “Santa” to “Satan” (despite that I know Santa means Saint in Spanish – and perhaps other languages – a far cry from the devil). So I began outlining an idea than Santa stole the reindeer from the elves and eventually enslaved them as well. It’s a bit of a dark spin on a legend meant for children, but it wouldn’t leave me alone.

As I started the first few pages, I knew I wanted to describe the elves’ home in detail. I looked for what kind of trees grow in Norway, hoping to find a large variety for their “home tree.” I failed to find one suitable, but I did decide their forested home would consist of elms.

As I was looking at pictures, I found this.

What was this strange obelisk? Who was Bella? What was a ‘witch elm’? I clicked the link.

During World War II, there were obviously thousands of deaths, but not all were on the battlefront. Disturbed people at home still murdered. Because of the sheer number of dying and missing persons, not everyone could be identified.

In 1943, four boys trespassed in Hagley Woods (U.K.) to poach birds. They came across a large Wych elm (witch elm). One boy thought it would be a good place to find a bird’s nest and began to climb. But when he looked down in the hollow trunk…

They immediately left the forest and agreed not to tell anyone for fear they would get into huge trouble for their illegal presence on the land.

The youngest boy, Tommy, told his parents anyway. He probably felt the ghost would haunt him if he didn’t at least try to put its remains on the path to eternal rest.

Police found a complete skeleton, a shoe, hair, a gold ring, and a severed hand buried a few feet away. Forensic examination determined the body was female and had been dead for 18 months (placing the date of death around October of 1941). Asphyxiation was likely the cause, as the examiner found taffeta stuffed in her mouth.

The graffiti first appeared in 1944 in Birmingham on a wall in Upper Dean Street. The picture above was in 1999 on the Wychbury Obelisk in Hagley, graffiti that has been repeated through the years until as recently as 2013. The identity of the artist(s) is as much of a mystery as the woman. Did the original artist know who the corpse was? Was Bella just an epithet or her real name?

No one knows her identity for certain. If the artist knew, s/he wasn't saying. A prostitute came forward after the graffiti appeared, saying she knew a “Bella” that worked Hagley Road and had disappeared three years prior (in 1941). But there were no reported missing persons from the area that matched the description of "Bella's" corpse – petite, middle-aged, dark hair, irregular teeth. Police suspected she was foreign, perhaps German or Dutch.

Another explanation was produced in 1953 – questionable, as the witness did not come forward until ten years later, but it supported police suspicions. "Anna" wrote to the Midlands newspaper The Wolverhampton Express and Star that in 1941, a spy ring was operating in the West Midlands, involving a British officer who passed information on the locations of munitions factories to a Dutch contact, who passed it to a spy – a foreign trapeze artist – who passed it to the Germans. "Bella" was a Dutch woman who arrived in the U.K. illegally and became involved in the spy ring. She learned too much and was killed by the Dutchman and the trapeze artist in a car, then dumped in the tree. Although the British officer was revealed to be a relation to Anna, he had died insane in 1942. Some of Anna's claims were later verified, but the trapeze artist was never found.

And then there's the legend that a witch's soul can be imprisoned if she is placed in a hollow tree – the severed hand could have been part of a black magic ritual.

This mystery inspired composer Simon Holt to write a musical theatre piece. A play, Bella in the Wych-Elm, was developed in 2007 by Stourbridge Theatre Company.

Sources and Further Information:

http://brian-haughton.com/ancient-mysteries-articles/bella_in_the_wych-elm/

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/31-days-of-halloween-who-put-bella-down-the-wych-elm

Today’s deviant ditty:
“She and Her Darkness” by Diary of Dreams

Hail, dear cousin!

Today’s subject wasn’t something I happened upon during writing, but it’s been on my mind for years and I never bothered to look it up until recently.

My family is very small. If you read my last post, you know practically all of my grandparents died before I reached puberty. My mom has no siblings, and my father’s family don’t endear themselves to fellowship and conversation.

So I went back a few generations. My mother’s mother had one sister who never had children. Dead end there. My father’s family – see above. That’s as nice as I can be about it.

As a result, my only source for possible reconnection is my mother’s father. He had five siblings. 

Obviously their children would be my mother’s cousins (and generationally too old for me to really connect with), but what does that make them to me? And what would their children be to me?

Hence, the topic at hand.

I have made a chart to make things clearer, but from what I have found:

Sibling A (let’s call him John) and sibling B (let’s call her Anne) each have children. Those children are first cousins – what we normally think of when we say, “Oh, that’s my cousin.”

Now, if John’s children have children, and Anne’s children have children, that third generation will be second cousins to each other, and their children will be third cousins to each other. Easy enough to follow.

But I’m sure we’ve all heard about the removed.

It sounded to me like estranged family members, black sheep, pariahs.

“Oh Sally? She my first cousin twice removed. We don’t talk about her.”

What it actually refers to is the generation separation. My mother’s first cousin is my first cousin once removed. My mother’s first cousin’s children are my second cousins, but to my mother they are her first cousins once removed. My grandfather’s first cousin would be my first cousin twice removed, because I came two generations later. Likewise, I am the same title to that cousin – his first cousin twice removed.

The chart for the visual learner:

And, of course, Anne would be John III's great-aunt (why don’t they call it grandaunt?): his grandfather's sister and father's aunt. Likewise, John is Anne III's great-uncle.

If there were a John IV, he would be Anne’s great-great-nephew (“great grandnephew” would make more sense), Anne Jr’s first cousin twice removed, and Anne III’s second cousin once removed.

Sources and further information:

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bridgett/cousins.htm

http://www.genealogy.com/16_cousn.html

Today’s deviant ditty:

“Massive Addictive” by Amaranthe

What exactly is a bluestocking?

Greetings and welcome to The Scarred Bluestocking, a blog of trivial factoids and writing advice.

You’re probably wondering how I came up with my title.

Bluestocking has been a slang term for an intellectual, bookish woman since the 18th century. The word originated as a reference to someone in informal dress – a man wearing blue worsted stockings instead of traditional black silk stockings. Today’s equivalent would be the individual who wears jeans instead of slacks or a skirt.

In the mid-1700s, certain women in London society grew bold enough to declare their boredom with being sent off to do embroidery while their husbands discussed poetry and the like. They believed such topics were not beyond their mental scope and demanded to be included.

The first “bluestocking club” was started by Elizabeth Montagu in 1750. She and her friends invited men to gather with them – informally – to discuss literature, art, and places of interest, among other things. The men came wearing…you guessed it, the blue worsted stockings. Informal gathering? Casual dress it is! The male fashion somehow fused with the female-initiated intellectual society. Bluestocking at that time designated both sexes. Now it exclusively refers to an intelligent female – if it is used at all.

If we know anything about the Victorian era, we know how stifled the women were, especially in regards to voicing their opinions. It’s not surprising that by the mid-1800s, a satirist named Honoré Daumier found the bluestockings laughable, and published “scathing caricatures” of them. Bluestocking became a negative slang, a mockery.

The term fit so well, I couldn’t help but adopt it as my moniker. And it’s so much quainter than bibliophile. Besides, I am so much more than a lover of books. I am a lover of words, of language, of knowledge. I hunger to learn like I hunger for food. Having finished my official schooling and earned a Bachelor’s degree in English, I now feel something missing from my life, which is why I started this blog. Not only am I continuing to learn as I write my fiction, I am able to teach as well.

Which leaves the question: why am I scarred?

It is my belief that everyone is, in one way or another. In my own life, I have been a witness to far too much death. I am in my early twenties and I have attended more funerals than I can rightly remember. Three grandparents I lost before I turned ten, the last grandparent before I turned fifteen. My father self-murdered before I was a teenager. I’ve had two dogs and two cats euthanized – only one due to old age (the others were injured or ill). I’ve lost count of the number of elderly neighbors and friends’ grandparents whose funerals I attended.

My rite of passage to the land of the dead came at the age of seven, when my great-grandmother passed. The service was held in her home state three hundred miles away, and a horrendous snowstorm made the return drive last eleven hours.

My initial knowledge of death happened even before that. I was five. A neighborhood boy my age who watched too many televised wrestling matches decided he wanted to hold my head under water in my wading pool. He was not playing. My friends tried to pull him off, but he was determined. My father had to yank him off me.

So although my body is perfectly healthy, my soul is more than a little damaged. But I press on, for despite my past, I am grateful for my present.

Sources and further information:

http://www.basbleu.com/info/bluestocking.hzml

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=bluestocking

Today’s deviant ditty:

“Enter the Highlands” by LEAH