Witches Pool

Witches Pool, River Lyd, Dartmoor

June 2023

I have no idea how a consultation about arthritis turned into a conversation about wild swimming. It just happened that way – serendipity some would say.

So when an elderly patient recounted her carefree childhood dips on the moor above Lydford, my interest grew.

Witches Pool – how could any self-respecting lover of the old ways fail to be interested? And, despite living on Dartmoor for over 20 years, this was a place I had never heard of.

Stranger still, it was mentioned by another patient the very next day.

So the charm was cast, the hex was upon me, and I was powerless to resist the call to imbibe the magic of this mysterious moorland cauldron.

A little research and a late spring break saw me turning up a narrow track beside the Dartmoor Inn – yuletide log fire, laughter and a thick juicy joint of gammon; my own childhood memories served up on a pewter platter.

After weeks of sunshine, dark clouds were pummelling in from the west – moody, threatening, alluring. Warm spits of rain against my skin – like Ceridwen’s brew upon the hand of Gwion – but no chasing hounds were necessary to drive me into the water.

For I was drawn inexorably towards the siren call of the Lyd, chuckling as she weaved her sensual silky spell, winding and twisting, shape shifting into a lascivious lap dancer, urging me on with her peaty pout. Luring me downstream, on and on, faster, faster, faster, laughing now, teasing me into a run before she finally lay beneath me. Caught you!

Cross-capped Widgery Tor melded into an ever darkening, doubtless disapproving sky as I slipped off the stickiness of the afternoon and slid naked into her velvet.

Into the witches pool, her cauldron, her womb.

Here I was safe. Floating in innocence. Protected from the outside world.

No Putin. No partygate. No predictions of planetary doom.

A tranquility broken only by the distant cry of a cloud-curling buzzard and the persistent wanting whisper of the water.

Foxgloves swayed as gorse flowers gave way to the first hues of heather. Blackberry blooms foretold the sweet juice-dripping joys of Autumn. Tormentil clung to the closely cropped grass, a ewe sidled up to her lamb and sallow leaves shimmered in the lightest of breezes. Like some wild rollercoaster ride, a wagtail rose up suddenly, hung in the air, then dropped directly down onto some hapless insect.

And now it was my turn to rise from the pool, skyclad and carefree. I walked a short way downstream, savouring the sole-warming turf, before plunging into a ferment of foam, of boiling bubbles – massaging away the last dregs of thundery tension from my shoulders and back. Turning into the cascade and facing upstream, I gripped the granite and stood firm, dividing the flow, feeling the pulsing gushing thrill of elemental union.

This was joy. This was pure. This was timeless.