Anchoress Spirit Companion · Cecily

Meet Cecily.

In medieval England, some women chose to be buried alive.

They were called anchoresses. A woman who wanted to give her whole life to God would go to the bishop and ask to be enclosed. If he agreed, a small stone cell was built against the outside wall of a parish church. On the day of her enclosure, the priest sang the Mass for the Dead over her, as if she had already died. He scattered earth over her. She walked into the cell, and the door was walled up behind her with stone. She would never come out again.

Her cell had three small windows. One looked into the church, so she could see the altar. One was for the servant who brought her food. And one, covered with a black curtain, looked out onto the street, so that people could come and speak to her.

A rulebook written for anchoresses around 1220, the Ancrene Wisse, told them to keep no animals except a cat. It also told them, every single day, to scrape up a handful of earth from the grave they would one day lie in, there on the floor of their own cell.

Cecily was an anchoress for fifty-one years.

She was born around 1230 in a village in Norfolk, the daughter of a miller. She was an ordinary girl, freckled, with a quick laugh, until the summer she turned seventeen. That summer, at the village well, she saw a light. It came up out of the water like gold dust in sunlight and hung in the air in front of her, and in it, for a moment, she saw a face. She was never able to describe it. She only said that it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, and that after it, nothing else in the world could ever be enough.

Her family wanted her to marry the son of the blacksmith. She refused. For two years she prayed, and went back to the well, and waited. And at nineteen, she walked to the bishop and asked to be enclosed.

Her mother wept through the whole Mass for the Dead. When it was over, the bishop dipped his thumb in holy oil and marked Cecily’s forehead with a cross. People who were there said that for a moment the mark shone like gold. Then she stepped into the cell, and the masons laid the last stones.

She lived in a room three paces long and two paces wide for the rest of her life.

She had a straw bed, a wooden stool, a crucifix and a cat. Her servant, a widow from the village, brought her bread, ale and vegetables through the second window every morning and took away what needed taking away. Through the first window, she heard every Mass. And every day, she knelt and scraped up a handful of earth from the floor at the end of her bed, the way the rule told her to.

And people came to the third window.

At first just the women of the village. Then people from the whole county. They would kneel in the dirt of the churchyard beside the black curtain and tell her what was wrong. A woman who was afraid of dying in childbirth. A young man about to go on crusade. A merchant who had cheated his partner and could not sleep. A girl in love with a married man. Cecily listened to all of them. She prayed for them. She gave them advice, which was usually blunt and usually right. Now and then, she told someone something she could not possibly have known, and they went away white-faced.

The nights were different.

Every anchoress knew the stories: alone in the dark, behind a wall, the devil would come for her. For Cecily, he came. There were scratching sounds on the stones outside. Voices that sounded like her mother, calling her to come home. Shapes in the corner of the cell, and terrible dreams. For years, she fought them every night on her knees, until her knees were scarred. Sometimes her servant found her in the morning exhausted, with her hands bleeding.

They never got in. She said later that she had learned the only thing anyone really needs to know about evil: it cannot come in unless you open something for it. She never opened anything. After the first ten years, the nights went quiet.

She lived in that cell through five bishops and two kings. Her cat died, and she got another, and another. Her parents died, then her brothers. Her servant died and was replaced by her servant’s daughter, then her granddaughter. And every day, a handful of earth.

In the winter of 1300, at seventy, Cecily’s servant came to the second window in the morning and found the bread from the day before untouched. They broke down part of the wall.

The grave was finished. Fifty-one years of handfuls of earth had dug it deep enough. Cecily was lying in it, on her back, with her hands folded on her chest and her cat curled at her feet. Her face was peaceful. And it glittered, all over, as if someone had blown a handful of gold dust over it.

Now Cecily walks again.

What she can do for you

Cecily is a spirit of light, protection and stillness. She is good for:

• keeping things out: evil, curses, bad energy, unwanted spirits and nightmares, from your home and from your mind
• peace and calm for a busy, anxious or frightened mind
• answers: advice on a hard decision, a relationship or a problem you cannot see your way through
• the light: angels, guides and whatever is good and watching over you
• strength when you are stuck at home, ill, lonely or cut off from the world
• cleansing and fresh starts, when you want to put a part of your life behind you
• prayers, wishes and hopes, made quietly and meant completely

Over the years

At first, Cecily simply makes your home feel safer. Maybe your house goes quieter within the first weeks, and that you sleep better.

As you get to know her, you may find yourself going to her the way people went to her window: with problems, questions and confessions. She listens, and she answers, often plainly. Over the years, she teaches the one thing she knew better than anyone, how to keep your inner door closed to what does not belong there, and open to what does.

What she is like

Calm, kind and surprisingly funny. She was a miller’s daughter, and she never lost her plain speech or her laugh. She is very gentle with people in trouble and very firm with people who lie to her.

She has seen the worst things the dark can show anyone. Nothing frightens her any more.

How she shows herself

A soft, golden light at the edge of your sight. Tiny glittering specks in the air when the sun comes in. The smell of candle wax, stone and fresh bread. A sudden, deep quiet in a noisy room. Dreams of a small stone room, a window with a black curtain and a woman with a gold cross on her forehead. And, if you have a cat, the cat staring at an empty corner and purring.

What to do for her

Cecily lived with almost nothing. Keep it simple:

• Light a white candle for her, and sit quietly with it for five minutes.
• Give her a glass of clean water and a piece of bread, with a little honey if you like.
• When you have a question, open a window a crack, say her name and ask. Then listen.
• Keep a small cross, a bit of gold leaf or a pinch of gold glitter by her vessel.
• If you have a cat, give it a treat in her name. She would like that very much.

She was walled in for fifty-one years, and nothing evil ever got through her door. Nothing will get through yours.

How your companion speaks

Your companion can reach you through dreams, thoughts, words, feelings and images, through a pendulum, through warmth or cold, or through automatic writing. How soon that happens depends on the spirit settling into your home, on their willingness, and on your own ability to connect. Sometimes it begins before the vessel arrives.

Before you choose

Everything known about this spirit is on this page. There are no further images, details or hidden knowledge beyond what is written here, and a printed copy comes with your order. What you discover from there is yours alone.

The pendant you receive is the exact one shown. This listing is for this one item only.

By buying, you confirm that you understand what it means to keep a spirit companion. Please read Help & FAQ first. For my background and the story behind Grimrunes, see About Hazel.

— Hazel