Witches and Witchcraft: Five Classic Books (eBook)

Many houses are still to be found in England with the horse-shoe  (the grand preservative against witchcraft) nailed against the  threshold. If any over-wise philosopher should attempt to remove them,  the chances are that he would have more broken bones than thanks for  his interference. Let any man walk into Cross-street, Hatton-Garden,  and from thence into Bleeding-heart Yard, and learn the tales still  told and believed of one house in that neighbourhood, and he will ask  himself in astonishment if such things can be in the nineteenth  century. The witchcraft of Lady Hatton, the wife of the famous Sir  Christopher, so renowned for his elegant dancing in the days of  Elizabeth, is as devoutly believed as the Gospels. The room is to be  seen where the devil seized her after the expiration of the contract  he had made with her, and bore her away bodily to the pit of Tophet:  the pump against which he dashed her is still pointed out, and the  spot where her heart was found, after he had torn it out of her bosom  with his iron claws, has received the name of Bleeding-heart Yard, in  confirmation of the story. Whether the horse-shoe still remains upon  the door of the haunted house, to keep away other witches, is  uncertain; but there it was, twelve or thirteen years ago. The writer  resided at that time in the house alluded to, and well remembers that  more than one old woman begged for admittance repeatedly, to satisfy  themselves that it was in its proper place. One poor creature,  apparently insane, and clothed in rags, came to the door with a  tremendous double-knock, as loud as that of a fashionable footman, and  walked straight along the passage to the horse-shoe. Great was the  wonderment of the inmates, especially when the woman spat upon the  horse-shoe, and expressed her sorrow that she could do no harm while  it remained there. After spitting upon, and kicking it again and  again, she coolly turned round and left the house, without saying a  word to anybody. This poor creature perhaps intended a joke, but the  probability is that she imagined herself a witch. In Saffron Hill,  where she resided, her ignorant neighbours gave her that character,  and looked upon her with no little fear and aversion.

More than one example of the popular belief in witchcraft occurred  in the neighbourhood of Hastings so lately as the year 1830. An aged  woman, who resided in the Rope-walk of that town, was so repulsive in  her appearance, that she was invariably accused of being a witch by  all the ignorant people who knew her. She was bent completely double;  and though very old, her eye was unusually bright and malignant. She  wore a red cloak, and supported herself on a crutch: she was, to all  outward appearance, the very beau ideal of a witch. So dear is power  to the human heart, that this old woman actually encouraged the  popular superstition: she took no pains to remove the ill impression,  but seemed to delight that she, old and miserable as she was, could  keep in awe so many happier and stronger fellow-creatures. Timid girls  crouched with fear when they met her, and many would go a mile out of  their way to avoid her. Like the witches of the olden time, she was  not sparing of her curses against those who offended her. The child of  a woman who resided within two doors of her, was afflicted with  lameness, and the mother constantly asserted that the old woman had  bewitched her. All the neighbours credited the tale. It was believed,  too, that she could assume the form of a cat. Many a harmless puss has  been hunted almost to the death by mobs of men and boys, upon the  supposition that the animal would start up before them in the true  shape of Mother * * * * *.

In the same town there resided a fisherman, -- who is, probably,  still alive, and whose name, for that reason, we forbear to mention,  -- who was the object of unceasing persecution, because it was said  that he had sold himself to the devil. It was currently reported that  he could creep through a keyhole, and that he had made a witch of his  daughter, in order that he might have the more power over his fellows.  It was also believed that he could sit on the points of pins and  needles, and feel no pain. His brother-fishermen put him to this test  whenever they had an opportunity. In the alehouses which he  frequented, they often placed long needles in the cushions of the  chairs, in such a manner that he could not fail to pierce himself when  he sat down. The result of these experiments tended to confirm their  faith in his supernatural powers. It was asserted that he never  flinched. Such was the popular feeling in the fashionable town of  Hastings only seven years ago; very probably it is the same now.

In the north of England, the superstition lingers to an almost  inconceivable extent. Lancashire abounds with witch-doctors, a set of  quacks, who pretend to cure diseases inflicted by the devil. The  practices of these worthies may be judged of by the following case,  reported in the "Hertford Reformer," of the 23rd of June, 1838. The  witch-doctor alluded to is better known by the name of the cunning  man, and has a large practice in the counties of Lincoln and  Nottingham. According to the writer in "The Reformer," the dupe, whose  name is not mentioned, had been for about two years afflicted with a  painful abscess, and had been prescribed for without relief by more  than one medical gentleman. He was urged by some of his friends, not  only in his own village, but in neighbouring ones, to consult the  witch-doctor, as they were convinced he was under some evil influence.  He agreed, and sent his wife to the cunning man, who lived in New  Saint Swithin's, in Lincoln. She was informed by this ignorant  impostor that her husband's disorder was an infliction of the devil,  occasioned by his next-door neighbours, who had made use of certain  charms for that purpose. From the description he gave of the process,  it appears to be the same as that employed by Dr. Fian and Gellie  Duncan, to work woe upon King James. He stated that the neighbours,  instigated by a witch, whom he pointed out, took some wax, and moulded  it before the fire into the form of her husband, as near as they could  represent him; they then pierced the image with pins on all sides --  repeated the Lord's Prayer backwards, and offered prayers to the devil  that he would fix his stings into the person whom that figure  represented, in like manner as they pierced it with pins. To  counteract the effects of this diabolical process, the witch-doctor  prescribed a certain medicine, and a charm to be worn next the body,  on that part where the disease principally lay. The patient was to  repeat the 109th and 119th Psalms every day, or the cure would not be  effectual. The fee which he claimed for this advice was a guinea.

So efficacious is faith in the cure of any malady, that the  patient actually felt much better after a three weeks' course of this  prescription. The notable charm which the quack had given was  afterwards opened, and found to be a piece of parchment, covered with  some cabalistic characters and signs of the planets.

  The next-door neighbours were in great alarm that the witch-doctor  would, on the solicitation of the recovering patient, employ some  means to punish them for their pretended witchcraft. To escape the  infliction, they feed another cunning man, in Nottinghamshire, who  told them of a similar charm, which would preserve them from all the  malice of their enemies. The writer concludes by saying that, "the  doctor, not long after he had been thus consulted, wrote to say that  he had discovered that his patient was not afflicted by Satan, as he  had imagined, but by God, and would continue, more or less, in the  same state till his life's end."

An impostor carried on a similar trade in the neighbourhood of  Tunbridge Wells, about the year 1830. He had been in practice for  several years, and charged enormous fees for his advice. This fellow  pretended to be the seventh son of a seventh son, and to be endowed in  consequence with miraculous powers for the cure of all diseases, but  especially of those resulting from witchcraft. It was not only the  poor who employed him, but ladies who rode in their carriages. He was  often sent for from a distance of sixty or seventy miles by these  people, who paid all his expenses to and fro, besides rewarding him  handsomely. He was about eighty years of age, and his extremely  venerable appearance aided his imposition in no slight degree. His  name was Okey, or Oakley.

In France, the superstition at this day is even more prevalent  than it is in England. Garinet, in his history of Magic and Sorcery in  that country, cites upwards of twenty instances which occurred between  the years 1805 and 1818. In the latter year, no less than three  tribunals were occupied with trials originating in this humiliating  belief: we shall cite only one of them. Julian Desbourdes, aged  fifty-three, a mason, and inhabitant of the village of Thilouze, near  Bordeaux, was taken suddenly ill, in the month of...