Monstrum

- Deep in the English countryside, children are warned of a blue-faced woman with iron claws living in a cave beneath an ancient oak tree with strips of human skin hanging from its branches.

For centuries, parents warn their children to never wander near the forbidden lair of Black Annis, or else she'll eat you.

Before you think, pretty standard witch hag story that keeps errant children from wandering into the woods, know that this legend has a few too many real associations.

Official documents and a gravestone point to a hidden truth.

So, can we unearth the real legend of Black Annis?

(ominous music) Early evidence of a real Black Annis comes from an unexpected place, an 18th century title deed referring to a parcel of land known by the name Black Anny's Bower Close.

There was a real parcel of land, likely tree shaded, belonging to Black Anny.

This suggests that at least regionally, some version of the name and her lair had been circulating for some time.

And most of the legend of Black Annis we know today doesn't really appear until a couple of decades after that deed.

The typical Black Annis tale tells of children who go into the woods much later in the day than they should, but the children are not without defenses.

They usually carry a hagstone.

The smooth rock has a hole in the center that allows the children to see what supernatural forces are trying to hide.

At one point, the children hear a howling.

They are unable to locate the source, that is until they peered through the hole in their hagstone.

They are terrified to see Black Annis standing before them.

She gives chase.

In some versions of the legend, the children make it home safely, but other times, the children aren't so lucky.

In 1797, John Heyrich published a poem called "On a Cave Called Black Annis's Bower."

In it, he paints a picture of a terrifying witch.

Black Annis has enormous claws or talons stained and smelling of the remains of human flesh.

He says she was nursed by a wolf and clawed her cave layer into the earth with her talons.

One passage has this particularly charming detail, "While the obscene waist warm skins of human victims close embraced."

Yeah, she had a skirt made from the skins of her victims.

She would eventually become known not only as Black Annis, but Black Agnes, Black Anna, or even Cat Anna, because in some stories, she is even able to transform into a cat.

Said to eat both sheep and human victims, particularly children, she strips the skin from her victim before eating its flesh and scattering the bones, hanging the skin from the tree when she is finished.

Heyrich described an oak tree growing above her cave and a thorny bush blocked the entrance.

And Heyrich believed the story had some basis in historical fact.

If we want to figure out where Black Annis came from, we need to dig further.

First, can we find her famous cave?

The Dane Hills and Leicester changed dramatically over the centuries.

What was once open land is now covered by roads, houses, and developments.

And I wanted to see if this cave really did exist.

I looked at a lot of maps, a lot of old maps, like this map.

This is the first land ordinance map of Leicestershire from 1835.

We don't need to look at the whole thing, so we're gonna narrow it down to the region we want to look at.

And what we're looking for is the actual town of Leicester, which is right here.

And then to the west of that, the actual Dane Hills where Black Annis was said to roam.

And if we take a close up look at that space, we will see that there are two interesting things we can't quite explain in that area.

So one is we have this little black square with a dot in it, and then over here we also have this odd triangle shape with another dot by it.

So what we learned is that we're not 100% positive what those mean because we don't actually have a key for this map.

However, though, we do know this is a region that had quarries, which could be what those marks indicate, or the triangle could possibly indicate a cave.

We know from a newer map from that same area here, we definitely know that that little square was a quarry.

So this was a region where it'd be very plausible for there to be caves.

So I think we can safely say that this part right here is where Black Annis's cave would be.

The exact location of Black Annis Bower has been lost to time, it seems.

Still, according to oral tradition and that title deed, it was likely somewhere around here, near what is now the Western Park Road area of Leicester.

Does having a confirmed real location make it easier to find if there was a real witch?

For that, people have pointed to a woman by the name of Agnes Scott.

Agnes reportedly lived in Leicestershire in the 15th century.

She took holy orders and became a Dominican nun and an anchoress, a religious recluse who willingly withdrew from society to devote her life to prayer.

Anchoresses often live their entire lives locked in small rooms attached to churches, but Agnes chose a different path, living as a hermit in the woods.

A medieval woman living alone outside of a town or nunnery meant giving up much of the protection, food, water, and support from community members.

It left her vulnerable to the elements and to violence, an unusual choice that would surely stir up continuous speculation and rumors.

And in the 15th century, a woman deciding to live alone, removed from society in the wilderness certainly sounds like the beginning of a witch story.

It stands to reason that people would consider Agnes a figure to fear, right?

But Agnes doesn't seem to be regarded as some terrifying outcast.

She was buried at Swithland Church where an image marking her grave still survives.

Not everyone was given that treatment.

There are no suggestions that she was a child-eating or monstrous being.

Quite the opposite.

She appears to have been respected and perhaps even revered.

This is where we have to separate what we know from what later storytellers told.

In Medieval England, the long history and unclear boundaries between religion and what we might call witchcraft or magic today likely played a role in the story of Black Annis.

Clergy themselves and nuns could be accused of practicing magic and be subject to punishment, including death.

There was also a time when women charged with religious fervor would tell of visions and predict events to come.

These prophetesses were largely viewed with awe and respect, not fear, until someone claimed their visions were demonic and they were called witches.

After the publication of Martin Luther's "Ninety-Five Theses" in 1517, the Protestant Reformation redefined the religious landscape of Europe with broad reaching effects.

There was a dramatic shift in how nuns, priests, and monks were viewed, with women getting the brunt of the impact given their already limited role in the church.

During the reformation, Protestants also rejected not only traditional nature spirits, but even natural places associated with Christianity, like holy wells or perhaps caves of religious recluses?

In the 1650s, Britain implemented laws to censor anyone who practiced prophecy.

Women already unable to enter politics or religious leadership were further marginalized.

These changes in beliefs could easily shift Agnes Scott's history and identity.

Someone who was just a reclusive zealot became a darker figure with a more monstrous identity.

Most scholars agree that the real Agnes' shift from honored religious recluse to terrible regional monster occurred sometime during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Seeing as the first written reference to Black Annis doesn't appear until the 18th century, we got a couple of centuries of good old-fashioned storytelling to turn a nice old lady into a monster.

In the 18th century, folklorists began recording oral traditions from around Europe.

They would add their own embellishments to the stories.

Many also attempted to find real world connections and explanations, and Black Annis was eventually assigned an ancient origin story of her own.

If you do a search for Black Annis today, you'll frequently find claims that Black Annis originated as an ancient Celtic goddess named Danu or Anu, said to be the mother of the Tuatha De Danann, and some of her stories sound familiar.

This Celtic goddess bears a resemblance to Black Annis, but the link is tenuous at best.

Her story is associated with blue skin, large talons, bad temper, and a habit of eating kids.

Very similar to Black Annis, except there are no ancient Celtic accounts that contain this elaborate story.

The goddess story likely originated sometime during the 18th century.

There aren't even any ancient accounts that include a god named Danu, literally none in any source.

It wasn't until the 11th century that this deity was given a female identity.

Most scholars now agree the addition was a way for learned Christian clergy to further remove pagan traditions from the religion they promoted.

In short, we can't say that Black Annis can be linked to an ancient Celtic deity.

The farther back we go looking for the Black Annis we know today, the less we find.

I'm inclined to lean into the more modern interpretation that the legend of Black Annis was based on a person, Agnes Scott, because at the end of the day, she was a very real person tied to a very real piece of land that ended up getting a villain edit thanks to time, prejudice, and a cultural and religious overhaul.

But ultimately, we can't identify one original Black Annis.

Black Annis looks less like a single ancient monster and more like an amalgamation of time and mystery.

Now, the reported cave that was once the rumored lair of a terrifying monster is likely part of a housing state.

It's a very concrete reminder that there are incredible stories buried right beneath our feet.

Folklore helps keep them alive.