The only evidence of her witchcraft are eyewitness accounts by Sir Matthew Fell, the owner of a local seat named Castringham.

Outside his bedroom window grows a monstrous ash tree, where on moonlit nights he would sometimes supposedly see Mrs. Mothersole climbing the trunk and snipping branches with a dagger.

A few weeks later, Sir Matthew and the local vicar are walking by the ash tree at dusk when they spy a creature in the branches that disappears before they can get a good look.

When the family plot in the local graveyard needs to be expanded to fit his remains, Mrs. Mothersole's resting place is exhumed to make room and the coffin is found to be empty, with no body.

A gardener climbs a ladder and peeks into a hollow in the center, seeing something that causes him to drop his lantern in alarm and set the tree ablaze.

The guests watch in horror as countless large, venomous spiders crawl out of the hollow on fire, dying on the grass.

An investigation of the tree reveals a cave beneath it with a cavernous spider's nest and the withered skeleton of a woman (presumably the remains of Mrs. Mothersole), dead for at least fifty years.

[5] In 2019, a modern-day audio adaptation written by Matthew Holness and starring Amanda Abbington, Reece Shearsmith, and John Sessions was released by Bafflegab Productions.