Agnesse says:
“In times long past, these woods were the sacred woods of the goddess Annis, This being the name that the local People gave to the Lady …Annis, the Great Goddess who shaped all things from her womb at the endless beginning of time…Annis, who gave all and took all back into herself.
Nature is not all beauty and kindness…our ancestors dwelled in constant knowledge of the darkness that is also inherent in all things…the guardians of the land and forests can be malevolent, as they can be beneficial.
On the Hill above us lived a priestess of the Elder faith, who presided over these woods, and the sacred stones reared here by the Old Ones. The Goddess Annis was known here by the movement of her sacred animals: The Owl, and the Cat; Thus, she is also remembered as “Cat Annis” in some places.
The priestess in those times presided also over the sacrifice of the sacred king….she took from amongst the younger men of this shire a youth to be her consort, and through her, the consort of Annis…and on the Red Day, she would cut his throat, and spill his blood for the fields, that his life-force would make them fertile. People understood the meaning of sacrifice then; times were different, indeed.
The coming of the upstart Christian religion brought an end to the worship of Annis here….The monks murdered the sisters who kept the title of priestess, and burned their home, and to this day, storytellers remember these woods with their stories of hauntings, evil witches, and such nonsense. But still this wood is sacred to Annis, the Mother-Crone, supreme in her triple power…
The three standing stones within the wood are the very center of her power, locally. They were placed there by the dark ones who came to these isles first, in the depths of pre-history. They too, worshipped Annis, under some forgotten name, and with rites of such power that the spiritual climate of these woods still remembers them.
Thus it is that this place is now known as “Annie’s Wood”.