Hester’s Way (Cheltenham)
Story in the press in 1960s that Hester was a witch and her ghost can still be seen.
Anon
Kontra Roots 2023
Read: https://www.historyofhestersway.co.uk/vol2/hhw2_2.php – QUOTATION:
Who Was Hester?
As stated, there are existing stories of who Hester could have been. The Edwardians loved romantic fireside tales and probably originated these. The “Hester the Witch” story is perhaps inspired by the Saxon word for witch being “Haetsa”. Having been decapitated as she fell down a well, she is now supposed to haunt a certain drain in Fiddlers Green. A less gruesome version of the story says the well became a wishing well, bringing good luck to those who drank from it. Hester was in previous centuries a common enough name – a variant of Esther – and there were many Hesters in the Greville family who were the local gentry at one time.
Another local story says that Arle was the name of the miller who owned land here. Ghost stories also exist relating to Arle Court House (in Kingsmead Road) and to Gloucester Road (at Benhall Gardens).
However, anyone with a romantic train of thought could compose similarly an account, poem or song concerning Hester, or other local “characters”. For example, who were the Fiddler and the Monk? There are plenty of evocative names around which a myth could be invented. Although the name of Princess Elizabeth Way relates specifically to 1951, she and her coronation could be transferred to any century the storyteller chooses. If this seems to have nothing to do with “real history”, try it and see.
On a related subject, “Fiddler’s Green” is also the name of a folk song (actually written by John Conolly in 1966), in which an old fisherman sings: “Fiddler’s Green is a place I’ve heard tell,
Where fishermen go if they don’t go to hell�.”
Fiddler’s Green is a term for sailorland, the district in a city-port that catered for sailors’ needs. By extension it signifies the sailor’s ideal world or paradise. The name must contain a pun or word-play of forgotten significance. There are other hamlets of the same name in England – in Cornwall, Herefordshire and Norfolk
The Edwardians loved romantic fireside tales and probably originated the stories of who Hester might have been. The “Hester the Witch” story was perhaps inspired by the Saxon word for witch being “haetsa.” (Having been decapitated, she is supposed to haunt a certain drain in Fiddlers Green – https://www.historyofhestersway.co.uk/geographical_history.pdf
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