Goddess Wite

Dorset's chalk ridge refers to dramatic chalk escarpments like the Purbeck Hills and the Wessex Ridgeway, formed from ancient seabed limestone, offering panoramic views, chalk grassland, woodlands, and historic sites like hillforts. Key sections include the Purbeck Ridge (Flowers Barrow to Ballard Point), notable for its windswept paths and views of Poole Harbour and the coast, and the Wessex Ridgeway, an ancient route with landmarks like Hambledon Hill and Cerne Abbas. These ridges are popular for walking, cycling, and horse riding, showcasing distinctive landscapes and rich geology. Today, the patron saint of Dorset is recognised as Saint Wite (pronounced Wee-ta) aka St Candida, her name referring to the white chalk. My theory is that she is an echo of a much older goddess. 

Legend has it that she was a 9th-century Saxon holy woman from Dorset who was killed by marauding Danes. Local oral tradition recounts that Saint Wite lived as a hermit on secluded cliffs in prayer and solitude. She maintained fires as beacons to guide sailors. She's said to have been killed during the Viking landing at Charmouth and the battle of Chardown Hill in 831 CE. To honour her as a saint, King Alfred the Great built the first church dedicated to St Wite to house her relics, just fifty years after her death.

Wite is an Old English word with no Latin connections, but is translated into Latin as Candida. The shrine containing Saint Wite's relics is located in the north transept of the parish Church of St Candida and Holy Cross in Whitchurch Canonicorum, in the Marshwood Vale between Bridport and Lyme Regis, Dorset. 

Saint Wite's shrine remarkably escaped desecration during the 16th century Reformation in England. St Candida and Holy Cross Church is one of only two churches in England that still holds the bones of a saint, the other survivor is that of the King and Saint Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey, London. The lead casket of St Candida was found to contain the bones of a small woman about 40 years old.

There is a holy well associated with Saint Wite at Morcombelake nearby.  It was first documented in 1630 and is managed by the National Trust. The water gathers in a stone basin, right next to the footpath. A tiny garden of flowers surrounds it, with a wooden enclosure to keep animals away. You can enter and sprinkle yourself with this holy water, bless yourself, or take some away. 

Goddess Wite is the land itself. Her blood is the pure water of the natural springs, her bones are the chalk of the ridges. She is Dorset sanctified, deified.