The Maid's tale
A fire blazes in the Great Hall's central hearth, but still the winter wind sneaks somehow in, a strong draught playing tug and war with a nearby ajar door. Even though the lure of bed will beckon soon, knowing it's warmer around the roaring fire makes every one happy to stay, drink mulled wine and talk. Then the conversations lulls - and in this quieter time some one offers to tell a ghost story. Looking up from stroking the sleeping spaniel on her lap, Mistress Gwenda's eyes almost glow from the light of the fire. She glances around at her companions.
"I would like it well if all of us tell a tale..."
It was at that point that the elderly maid - who had been waiting patiently on her mistress - spoke up:
"A pleasure it may be to hear the stories that you gentlefolk have told and to be sure the hairs on the back my neck have stood up at the mere thought of these things. Be that as it may, the tales you tell are, for the most part, of the second and third hand, and I'll wager that not a one of you has ever so much as heard or seen a ghost. But, if my lady will allow it, I will undertake to tell you a true tale, something that I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears."
The company, which at first had been surprised (and not a little offended) at this outburst from a servant who had hitherto remained silent, were now anxious to hear her story and begged her to continue.
She told the tale thus:
"My name, as some of you know, is Ellen Cole and I was, for many years, the maid of the famous John Dee. Aye, you may well start when you hear that name, but I tell you now that many of the foul tales told about him are untrue. Despite what you might have heard, he was (and if, for ought I know) a good and holy man, though he knew much about astrology and mathematics. He was a great friend of the Queen and of the late Lord Leicester - god rest his soul - and many was the time that a great lord or lady came to have their nativities drawn.
At that time, we lived in a house by the river in Mortlack and never did you see such a strange place. There were, oh!, thousands of books in the place, all scattered here and about, and in his special rooms there were brass instruments and globes with stars inscribed upon them. I was not allowed to touch them, but many was the time I looked at the signs and sigils on the globes and wondered what they meant.
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