No sooner does Florimell appear at the beginning of the third book of The Faerie Queene than she is chased out of sight again by a ‘griesly Foster’, and then immediately by Prince Arthur and Sir Guyon, who set off in pursuit behind her, and behind the man attacking her. When she manages at last to evade her pursuers and to stop to rest, she finds herself on a hillside, overlooking a valley, where she spots a thin column of smoke rising through the trees. Taking this as a ‘chearefull signe […] | That in the same did wonne some liuing wight’ (III.vii.5.4–5), she makes her way in that direction:

The palaces of monarchs and nobles are not the only houses in The Faerie Queene. The hovel which Florimell discovers is an example of the poor dwellings which appear at many points in the poem, but much less frequently in writing about it. The description of the witch's hut as ‘homely’ seems to denote humble poverty rather than comfortable and modest plainness, especially since she is discovered sitting straight on the ‘dustie ground’ (III.vii.7.5).