urban legends ✓

the witch of hex river ☹

The Witch of The Hex River Valley ~

The Hex Valley is surrounded by high mountains. The highest peak is Matroosberg, where, on the lower crags a lovely young woman makes her appearance on certain moonlit nights, crying and wringing her hands. But she has been dead for many long years.

She was Eliza Meiring, daughter of a farmer whose homestead was not far from the foothills where Matroosberg rises from the vineyards. She lived in the middle years of the 19th century. She had many suitors because she was very beautiful. But she was also a bit spoilt and self-centred. She fell in love with a young man (some say his name was Frans but no more is known about him). To satisfy her pride she demanded that, to marry her, Frans must first go and pick her a red disa in the kloofs of the Matroosberg. The disa is a beautiful flower, but unfortunately it grows only in the most inaccessible places: against steep, mossy cliffs in shady ravines and gorges. So to pick a disa is an almost impossible task without mountaineering equipment, which did not exist in those days.

Frans promised to bring her a red disa, for he loved Elixa with all his heart too. He went into the Groothoek kloof alone, saw the disas where they glowed in their beauty against a wet and mossy cliff, and tried to reach it. But as he reached for a precious flower he slipped and fell to his death.

When they brought Eliza the news that her lover had fallen to his death with a disa in his hand, she was beside herself with grief and remorse. In fact, she was so overcome because she had caused the death of her only love with her demand that she became mentally ill, and her parents kept her locked in her bedroom to watch over her. She scratched her name on the wooden windowsill: "Eliza. 1868".

But one moonlit night she broke out and escaped. Wearing only her long white nightgown, she went into the foothills and then up the trail Frans had taken. There, somewhere on a rocky outcrop, she sat down and sobbed. But the outcrop crumbled beneath her and she, too, fell to her death.

Now Eliza still wanders the crags of the Matroosberg when the moon is full: a pale ghost in her long white dress. She is known in Afrikaans as the "Heks van Hexrivier" (witch of the Hex River). A few decades ago the old farmstead was demolished. Eliza's name and the date were still on one of the windowsills.

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On a farm in South Africa in 1768 a beautiful girl and her family lived in the shadow of the Hex River Mountains. The young Eliza Meiring had no shortage of suitors and, in what was either arrogance or an attempt to scare them off, Eliza asked each of her admirers to bring her an orchid from the highest peak of the mountains.

Unfortunately for Eliza, the one man she really took a liking to set out to bring her the orchid in the hopes that it would secure her hand. The unlucky young man slipped and fell from the mountain and was killed. The news drove Eliza insane and she had to be locked away inside the house. One evening she managed to get a window open, but slipped in her struggle to climb down the side of the house and also fell to her death.

It's said that Eliza's spirit wanders the peaks of the mountains, mourning over the young man she loved. She's referred to as the Witch of Hex River, and it's also believed that the date 1768 and her initials are carved into a windowsill at the farmhouse.