# XVI: Birdalone Findeth Her Witch-Mistress Dead explained — The Water of the Wondrous Isles > Chapter companion for The Water of the Wondrous Isles by William Morris. ## What happens Birdalone awakens after noon and, though fearful, approaches the witch's dwelling. She finds the witch dead on the bench, with kine lowing to be milked. After confirming death, she milks the cows, drinks, enters the house, retrieves her old clothes, and buries the corpse. She then eats, weeps for her past, and sleeps peacefully, dreaming of her mother and Master Jacobus. ## Themes in this chapter ### Female Agency and Autonomy Birdalone confronts her former captor, takes charge of the household tasks, and buries the witch, asserting her independence. ### Identity and Transformation Birdalone reclaims her old clothes and reflects on her past life, marking a shift from fear to self-possession. ## Character check-ins ### Birdalone Returns to the witch's dwelling, finds her dead, milks the kine, retrieves her old clothes, buries the corpse, and sleeps peacefully. ### The Witch Wife Found dead on the bench outside her dwelling, with staring eyes and cold skin; Birdalone buries her. ### Master Jacobus Appears in Birdalone's dream of the fair city of the Five Crafts. ### Birdalone Dreams of her mother and Master Jacobus in the fair city of the Five Crafts. ## Key lines > Somewhat she felt the burden of fear upon her, even before she was fully come to herself, and knew not what it was that she feared; but when she called to mind that it was even the meeting with her old mistress, her flesh quaked indeed with the memory of bygone anguish, but valiantly she arose and faced the dwelling of the witch despite her naked helplessness. She woke with a vague sense of dread, and when she realized it was because she had to face her old mistress, her body trembled with remembered pain, yet she bravely got up and went to the witch's house, even though she was unarmed and vulnerable. _Birdalone's courage in confronting her past fear._ > Then was a great weight lifted off her heart, and she turned about and looked on the meadows and up to the trees of the wood and down to the rippling stream before her, and fair and sweet and joyous were they gotten unto her; and she looked at the kine who were drawing up towards her, and she laughed merrily, and went to the outhouse hard by and took forth a milking-pail and a stool and fell to milking them one after the other, and the beasts went off down the meadow lowing in a changed voice, for joy to wit, this time. A huge relief flooded her; she looked around at the beautiful landscape, laughed happily, and milked the cows, who lowed contentedly now. _Birdalone's joy and relief after discovering the witch is dead._ > But she told herself that the work was to be done; so she dragged the body away thence, and across the brook, and a little way into the meadow, and then she went back and fetched mattock and spade from the outhouse, where she knew they lay, and so fell to digging a grave for the corpse of her dead terror. She resolved to finish the task, dragged the corpse across the brook into the meadow, fetched tools, and began digging a grave. _Birdalone takes practical action to bury the witch._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_water_of_the_wondrous_isles_se/chapters/xvi-birdalone-findeth-her-witch-mistress-dead - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_water_of_the_wondrous_isles_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_water_of_the_wondrous_isles_se/chapters