There are many legends available in folklore around the world related to witches, which are female paranormal entities or practitioners of black magic. Every country has tales and legends about witches and one such story is quite famous in South Africa about a witch who is not dangerous at all, but her presence can still be seen in the region.
South Africa's Hex River Valley is an adventurous outdoors with dramatic landscapes, rock formations, and colorful flora, surrounded by a river and many high mountains. But the name of this valley is popularly attributed to the legend of Hex, a Dutch/Afrikaans word for witch. For centuries, locals have been witnessing a beautiful woman wearing a white gown in these desolate mountains, mentioning that she has been dead for years.
The origins of this story date back to 1768 when the valley was in its early stages and a charming Dutch girl, named Eliza Meiring was living with her family on one of the farms in the Hex River Valley. Eliza was the most attractive girl in the whole valley as no one else was even comparable to her beauty. Eliza was courted by the many local young men who all wanted to marry her but she was too proud of her beauty. One day a young man's eyes fell on Eliza and he fell in love with her. He came to visit her and confessed his love. Somewhere deep in her heart, Eliza knew: this was the young man she was awaiting but she was still behaving egotistically.
Therefore, to prove his love, Eliza asked him to bring a rare flower named indigenous crimson disa that grows on the highest cliff at treacherous heights. Blinded by her love, the young man reached the top of the cliff and took the flower. But unfortunately, he slipped and fell to his death. When this tragic news reached Eliza, she was filled with deep guilt and grief, causing her to become mentally unstable. She wanted to head into the mountains to look for him and kill herself, but her parents locked her in a room to prevent her from committing suicide.
During the period of her confinement, she carved her name and current year (1768) on the glass windowpane of the room. But one night she somehow managed to escape from the room and killed herself by jumping from the same cliff where her lover had died. From that day onwards, Eliza's spirit began to appear on every moonlight night to people in a white gown, wandering the mountain slope searching for her lost love. Now she is known by the Africans as the Hex witch.
0 comments:
Post a Comment