The forest was older than any town around it and had remained the same size and shape for as long as any surviving record admits. There were old stories that claimed the locals around there had made pacts with the woodland folk and in return for their protection the woods had to stay the same as the day they made their deal. Other stories say that the woods were cursed to stay that way when a woodcutter was killed by a falling tree. Gasped out the curse with his dying breath, the usual spiel.
Aside from its apparently set shape, size and basic landmarks, the woods were also home to great fissures within the clay-rich soil. Some were only a few inches deep, trip hazards at best, but deeper in they grew to several feet in length and up to twenty feet down into root-dense earth.
There was always at least one or two deaths per year from some elderly hiker falling down and getting trapped. Sometimes bones were found trapped in the roots, generally animal but the occasional human ribcage made an appearance. Just the ribcage though, never anything else. It was almost like something was trying to get a signal out, a clear "GET LOST" if ever there was one.
Tonight we follow Abbie who climbed down the deepest fissure (locally known as Devil's Maw) on a dare. She was set to win fifty quid if she made it back alive with a photo of her view from the very bottom or as close as she could get, as well as leaving a neon ribbon tied to the lowest root she could find.
It all seemed so simple at the time. And then her climbing rope (her dad's borrowed one that he'd used to climb Mount Snowdon five years ago) snapped, sending her plummeting down the fissure to land with a painful thud on the cold damp ground of what appeared to be a cave.
Nobody had told Abbie there was a cave below the Devil's Maw so perhaps this was a brand new discovery? After giving herself a quick once-over and determining she wasn't injured, merely bruised, she took her phone out to snap a photo of the crack above her, the surface seemed to much further away from where she sat.
There wasn't much room to stand, she found, the roof of the cave was a foot shorter than her but still,she must have been almost thirty feet below the woods. As she switched to her phone's torch app and began to examine her surroundings she saw that she wasn't alone. There were about ten children huddled as far from her as they could possibly get, all filthy and painfully thin.
At first they wouldn't talk to her, not until she had a one-sided conversation with herself about how she got there and how her friends were mean, eventually getting small smiles from the children. After she fell silent the oldest looking child (probably no older then eight) asked if her parents hated her too or was it just her friends?
With a little prompting the young boy explained that they were all down there because their families "couldn't keep them" and this was "the kindest thing to do". One by one their parents had taken them to the Devil's Maw and tossed them down, crying their apologies and goodbyes in the same breath, assuming their children were already deceased.
None of them knew how long they'd been down there but their clothes looked like they'd all gone to the Medieval Festival that happened at the field nearby. They asked if Abbie could climb back out and bring them back some food. They didn't want to come back out, not when their families couldn't afford to have them around, despite Abbie insisting that the police could help them (until a young girl called Greta Matilde said her dad was a local Constable "and he didn't even stop walking to push me down!").
Promising to bring adults back with her, Abbie began to ascend to the woods, the roots almost forming a ladder right in front of her while the children quietly cheered her from below. Fighting back her exhaustion, the thought of those tiny fragile faces starving to death driving her on, she refused to pause or slow down until she had finally clawed her way to the surface.
As soon as she'd caught her breath she called 999, telling them there were children stuck at the bottom of Devil's Maw and waiting for them to arrive impatiently. The wait and the next few hours were hazy and unfocused, like she was seeing the world through a kaleidoscope until she eventually came back into consciousness in hospital, her leg in a thick cast.
Apparently the police had found her, not on the surface but stuck in the roots several feet down, clinging to her phone and deliriously muttering about the children in the cave. They told her there was no cave, never had been. It struck her later how the Constable who'd come to check up on her had the surname of Matilde and how he'd seemed so nervous.
Aside from its apparently set shape, size and basic landmarks, the woods were also home to great fissures within the clay-rich soil. Some were only a few inches deep, trip hazards at best, but deeper in they grew to several feet in length and up to twenty feet down into root-dense earth.
There was always at least one or two deaths per year from some elderly hiker falling down and getting trapped. Sometimes bones were found trapped in the roots, generally animal but the occasional human ribcage made an appearance. Just the ribcage though, never anything else. It was almost like something was trying to get a signal out, a clear "GET LOST" if ever there was one.
Tonight we follow Abbie who climbed down the deepest fissure (locally known as Devil's Maw) on a dare. She was set to win fifty quid if she made it back alive with a photo of her view from the very bottom or as close as she could get, as well as leaving a neon ribbon tied to the lowest root she could find.
It all seemed so simple at the time. And then her climbing rope (her dad's borrowed one that he'd used to climb Mount Snowdon five years ago) snapped, sending her plummeting down the fissure to land with a painful thud on the cold damp ground of what appeared to be a cave.
Nobody had told Abbie there was a cave below the Devil's Maw so perhaps this was a brand new discovery? After giving herself a quick once-over and determining she wasn't injured, merely bruised, she took her phone out to snap a photo of the crack above her, the surface seemed to much further away from where she sat.
There wasn't much room to stand, she found, the roof of the cave was a foot shorter than her but still,she must have been almost thirty feet below the woods. As she switched to her phone's torch app and began to examine her surroundings she saw that she wasn't alone. There were about ten children huddled as far from her as they could possibly get, all filthy and painfully thin.
At first they wouldn't talk to her, not until she had a one-sided conversation with herself about how she got there and how her friends were mean, eventually getting small smiles from the children. After she fell silent the oldest looking child (probably no older then eight) asked if her parents hated her too or was it just her friends?
With a little prompting the young boy explained that they were all down there because their families "couldn't keep them" and this was "the kindest thing to do". One by one their parents had taken them to the Devil's Maw and tossed them down, crying their apologies and goodbyes in the same breath, assuming their children were already deceased.
None of them knew how long they'd been down there but their clothes looked like they'd all gone to the Medieval Festival that happened at the field nearby. They asked if Abbie could climb back out and bring them back some food. They didn't want to come back out, not when their families couldn't afford to have them around, despite Abbie insisting that the police could help them (until a young girl called Greta Matilde said her dad was a local Constable "and he didn't even stop walking to push me down!").
Promising to bring adults back with her, Abbie began to ascend to the woods, the roots almost forming a ladder right in front of her while the children quietly cheered her from below. Fighting back her exhaustion, the thought of those tiny fragile faces starving to death driving her on, she refused to pause or slow down until she had finally clawed her way to the surface.
As soon as she'd caught her breath she called 999, telling them there were children stuck at the bottom of Devil's Maw and waiting for them to arrive impatiently. The wait and the next few hours were hazy and unfocused, like she was seeing the world through a kaleidoscope until she eventually came back into consciousness in hospital, her leg in a thick cast.
Apparently the police had found her, not on the surface but stuck in the roots several feet down, clinging to her phone and deliriously muttering about the children in the cave. They told her there was no cave, never had been. It struck her later how the Constable who'd come to check up on her had the surname of Matilde and how he'd seemed so nervous.
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