The Three Hills Symbol Analysis

The three hills to symbolise the young woman’s inescapable guilt. Each of the individual hills represents one of the old crone’s visions and, by extension, one of the ways in which the young woman has failed her family. Throughout the story, the young woman is surrounded by these hills—her failings—which cast the hollow below in a darkness so intense that it threatens to “overspread the world.” This is reflective of the overwhelming nature of the woman’s guilt over abandoning her husband and leaving her child to die, and it highlights her feelings of hopelessness and confinement.

Notably, the story contains religious imagery that takes on an unholy connotation given the contrasting presence of evil in the story. For instance, the narration references an “Evil” figure using the pool in the hollow is used for “an impious baptismal rite,” and the way in which the young woman lays her head in the witch’s lap reads like a perversion of the biblical John the Apostle laying his head on Christ. In this light, the three hills could alternatively be read as a metaphorical representation of the Holy Trinity. The recurring unholy imagery in the hollow, as well as the woman’s inexplicable inability to leave, might suggest that the hollow is intended to represent a kind of biblical purgatory or hell. With this interpretation in mind, the woman’s presence here, shrouded in darkness and hidden from God, is a form of punishment for her wrongdoings.