As the story goes, Moll was a 17^th Century colonist in Leonardtown, Maryland. Between a poor harvest and a deadly plague, the town was struggling, and the deeply religious townspeople were scared.

They decided that the famine and disease were caused by witchcraft and pointed to Moll Dyer, an older woman who lived on the edge of town, as the culprit. Shunned by the locals, she was destitute and roamed the lands, gathering plants to eat and begging from neighbours, who were too scared to refuse.

When a blizzard destroyed what was left of the crops in the fields, the desperate townspeople believed that it was the fault of “the witch in the woods”.

As is often the way in stories like this, they formed a mob to bring down the witch, setting fire to Moll’s hut. She managed to escape before she could burn and ran for miles, before succumbing to the elements.

As she died, she placed her hand on a rock and called down a curse on Leonardtown. Her spirit is said to haunt the woods and lands around the town, particularly on the coldest nights of winter.