Meg of Meldon

Meg of Meldon is an ancient witch from Northumberland in North England, and Meg was an ugly old greedy woman who hoarded treasure and she couldn't get enough of it. Meg would never help the village where she lived, nor anyone else, with her fortune, and she just wanted to hoard it over pits in the countryside where she elected to keep her gold.

Meg was a bitter old woman, and kept herself to herself, wearing all black, and an old crooked hat, and unsurprisingly people called her a witch. She was very selfish, ungrateful, and miserly.

Later in her life, Meg worried about what would happen to her gold that she collected, and she decided to guard it with her life by throwing it in deep pits in the country. She put the greatest portion in the village well, where she would most frequently visit to check the gold.

Sometime after, Meg died, and now her ghost returned, coming back seven years, then going back to Hell for another seven - and so on, seven years on and off, until all her gold was recovered by some brave person and used for charity, she would forever roam between Hell and Earth.

A young man in Meldon, Northumberland, once had a strange dream in which a man in dark clothes appeared to him and bade him to come to the village well at midnight tomorrow, and he should be alone and quiet. The man was curious so he arrived on time. He was told he was going to find Meg's last gold, and the man from his dream was there. He was lowered into the well in a bucket, careful to remain silent, because of the ghost, and he very almost got to the treasure, taking it in his hands, in a cow hide wallet it had been stored in, and when he got halfway up to the top of the well he got so overcome with joy he yelled out "Now we have her!" and then found to his horror, Meg's ghost was gloatingly sneering at him, and he screamed, and ran off from Meldon and never came there again.