January 17, 2008.
Medium: Corel Painter 10.
Many old halls throughout England lay claim to the legend of the Mistletoe Bride. Among them is Brockdish, in Norfolk. It is unclear as to the exact year that the incident is supposed to have taken place.
The tale is centred upon the daughter of the hall on the day of her wedding to Lord Lovell. The couple have chosen to wed at Christmas time and after the ceremony all return to the Hall for the reception and merrymaking. After a great deal of feasting and dancing, the bride decides she wants to play a game of hide and seek with Lord Lovell and all of her wedding guests. She is going to be the first to hide. With a quip to her young husband, that he must be be the one to locate her, she gathers her wedding finery and runs away upstairs.
She chooses for her hiding place a large oak chest in a remote part of the castle. In she climbs, bridal gown and all and there she waits to be found. Time passes, yet neither husband nor guest find her. Finally bored with the inactivity and cramped in the tiny space, the girl decides to return to her guests. However, when she tries to open the chest she is unable to do so. Unbeknownst to her, the chest has a hidden spring, which effectively locked the chest when it closed and which can only be released from the outside.
She made every effort to gain her release, as the scratch marks found on the inside of the lid bore witness to. She probably shouted and called and perhaps even screamed, but nobody heard her, so the tale goes. After the guests had eventually drifted away the husband and father continued to search the hall, but they never found her. Some say she suffocated, others that she eventually died of starvation and thirst.
Fifty years passed before the old oak chest was discovered and opened. Inside lay a mouldering corpse dressed in the remnants of a bridal gown. Some say she clasped a sprig of mistletoe, perhaps to claim a kiss from her husband.
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