Arthur Elwood and the Charmwood Banshee

People in the village on the edge of Charmwood Forest rarely saw Arthur Elwood after this. He would often appear at mass with a beautiful woman by his side but spoke little to his fellow parishioners and was never seen in the village much after. They were soon married in a private ceremony. They had apparently built a home on some land Arthur had purchased in Charmwood Forest and lived there quietly. Years passed and neither Arthur nor his bride had been seen for years. Through the means which all these stories seem to make their way into the wide world, which is to say no one knows how, villagers began to tell his tale. In some versions, Arthur was killed by the will-o-the-wisp, in others he failed the Mari Lwyd’s test. In others still, it was the banshee who was the worst beast of them all and had led Arthur into the woods to his death. When her minions, the wisp and the Mari Lwyd, had failed she took his fate into her own hands, enslaving him until he reached the end of his days, since the Fair Folk are themselves immortal. The truth, however, is this. Arthur and Siofra lived out their days in wedded bliss. And while they kept mostly to themselves, they did not abandon the village altogether. Whenever they were around things seemed greener and brighter and more joyful. It is unknown whether Arthur died. All that is known is that Arthur and Siofra had one child, Elwin Stratford Elwood. After it was presumed his parents were dead, when Elwin was a young man, just finished with school, stories about them began to circulate. Some of them were not so pleasant and Elwin was often plagued with questions. He refused to answer them, and eventually moved from Charmwood village. Some say he eventually dropped his father’s surname, Elwood and went by Elwin Stratford. He later became a curate and then priest at St. Nicholas’s Church in Carlisle, but that does not enter into this tale.