Witches - The Witchiest Witch

 

‘The Lancashire Witches’

One voice for ten dragged this way once
by superstition, ignorance.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Witch: female, cunning, manless, old,
daughter of such, of evil faith;
in the murk of Pendle Hill, a crone.

Here, heavy storm-clouds, ill-will brewed,
over fields, fells, farms, blighted woods.
On the wind’s breath, curse of crow and rook.

From poverty, no poetry
but weird spells, half-prayer, half-threat;
sharp pins in the little dolls of death.

At daylight’s gate, the things we fear
darken and form. That tree, that rock,
a slattern’s shape with the devil’s dog.

Something upholds us in its palm-
landscape, history, place and time-
and, above, the same old witness moon

below which Demdike, Chattox, shrieked,
like hags, unloved, an underclass,
badly fed, unwell. Their eyes were red.

But that was then – when difference
made ghouls of neighbours; child beggars,
feral, filthy, threatened in their cowls.

Grim skies, the grey remorse of rain;
sunset’s crimson shame; four seasons,
centuries, turning, in Lancashire,

away from Castle, Jury, Judge,
huge crowd, rough rope, short drop, no grave;
only future tourists who might grieve.

                                                 Carol Ann Duffy

On a pleasant, summer afternoon in 2012, we went to Barrowford, Lancashire, to visit the Pendle Heritage Centre and find out more about the Lancashire Witches. It was the 400th anniversary of their trials that year. Having previously visited Lancaster Castle and the area where some of the witches were executed by hanging, we were starting our explorations at their end and going backwards into their beginnings. I found their story fascinating, disturbing and very sad. Witches? Really? Blind, struggling, penniless old ladies being picked on for how they lived and what they looked like upset me so much and it was too late to stick up for them. I saw them as two families who didn’t get on and tried to out-wit each other. They knew plants, good and bad. They knew the properties of each and how to use them for nourishment, medicine and poison. I don’t believe they murdered anyone. I believe that they were so terrified, that they made false confessions and were consequently found guilty at their trials and executed. That’s my opinion, based on what I felt was real and dismissing what I considered to be fantasy – familiars, in the sense, or rather nonsense of a person taking on the form of an animal or non-human creature.

The stories of the Pendle Witches are well documented, but here are a few snippets from a booklet we picked up on our visit,

“Early 1600s – Two rival peasant families live on the slopes of Pendle Hill. They are led by two old women called Demdike, a.k.a. Elizabeth Southerns and Old Chattox, a.k.a. Anne Whittle. The men of their families are dead, leaving them in poverty to beg and find work where they can. Many local people live in fear of them, believing them to have special powers.”

According to the booklet, things really kick off and reach a peak in the spring of 1612,

“March 18th, 1612 – Alizon Device, grand-daughter of Demdike, is begging on the road to Colne. A pedlar refuses her some pins and she curses him. Suddenly a black dog appears and she orders it to lame the pedlar who collapses, paralysed on the left side.

March 30th, 1612 – Alizon Device is hauled before the Justice Roger Nowell and confesses to witchcraft. Forced to give an account of her family’s activities she tells how Demdike had been asked to heal a sick cow which then died. She also told Nowell that Demdike had cursed Richard Baldwin after which his daughter fell sick and died a year later. Describing her family’s feud with the Chattox family she reports how Chattox turned the ale sour at an inn at Higham and bewitched the landlord’s son to death using a clay image.

April 3rd, 1612 – Nowell sends Demdike, Alizon Device, Chattox and her daughter Ann Redfearn to Lancaster Castle to await trial for witchcraft. Demdike dies in prison before the trial.

August 17th 1612 – The trial opens at Lancaster Castle. The accused are not provided with a defence lawyer. Nowell produces nine year old Jennet Device as a witness and she gives evidence against her own family. Her mother, Elizabeth, is dragged from the court screaming at her daughter and cursing Nowell. Alizon Device faints when confronted with the pedlar she is said to have lamed and when she is revived, confesses her guilt. Chattox weeps as she hears the evidence against her and asks God for forgiveness. She pleads for mercy to be shown to her daughter, Ann. The judge finds them all guilty.

August 20th 1612 – Chattox, Ann Redfearn, Elizabeth, James and Alizon Device, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, Jane Bulcock and her son John are hanged in Lancaster in front of huge crowds.

Were they malevolent people possessed by supernatural powers, or the innocent victims of a time obsessed with the pursuit and punishment of witchcraft?”

There is much more to learn about the Lancashire witches, that was just an outline of events.

I’ve convinced my grandchildren that I have special powers and I’m not even a witch! Well, I am sometimes, usually at Hallowe’en when I transform into The Witchiest Witch and give chocolate to all the children who come to my door. These are children who know me and recognise me from school or the neighbourhood. They are often disguised beyond my best efforts to recognise them as monsters, vampires, ghosts and miniature witches.

My own poem,

The Love Potion

She visited after midnight
And I listened to what she said.
Her voice was quiet and distant
For she was seven decades dead.
Her threadbare clothes were shades of black,
Her knitted shawl, faded to grey.
Old eyes, soft in her wizened face
Still had a kind and gentle way.

I adored my great-great grandma,
Her ghostly presence brought no fear.
She always knew what I needed
And I loved to sense her so near.
She said, “I believe I can help.
I know of a very old spell.
Come sit a-while beside me
And write it all down as I tell.

“Get some milk thistle and nettle,
Buttercup, daisy and clover.
Leave it to rest in rose water
Until the petals turn over.
Slowly stir in bramble honey,
A splash of dandelion wine
And sprinkle the seeds of the poppy
While you sing ‘Oh Let Him Be Mine’.”

“You want him so much,” she whispered.
“This potion will bring him along.
He will love you as you love him
And together you will belong.
Follow instructions exactly.
Choose every item with great care
And take your time, do not hurry.
Be of glad mind as you prepare.”

Her cold, hard fingers touched my face
And I felt the warmth of her love.
The vision drifted out of sight
Carried floating somewhere above.
She’d died long before I was born,
Yet she was always there for me.
I am blessed to share the blood-line
Of a free spirit such as she.

Pamela M Winning 2012

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Mistletoe

Ah, the night before Christmas. Season's greetings, gentle readers. Of course you've all hung up your bunch or sprig of  mistletoe  strategically for the morrow - but do you know why? To kiss under, you'll say. So I'll ask again. Do you really know why?

When she was a teenager, my youngest daughter used to collect the screw-tops from bottles of Snapple drink because they had interesting facts printed on the underside of the lids. Example: The average person spends two weeks of their lives kissing. 

If one were to plot a graph of a population's kissing minutes by days of the year, there would be two statistical peaks: one in mid-February (Valentine's Day) and a much bigger one in late December (around Christmas time). But what's the origin of this seasonal custom and why does mistletoe feature? You'll be delighted to hear that I'm going to kiss-and-tell.

Mistletoe first. It's a parasitic plant growing on a shrub or tree, drawing the water and nutrients it needs from its host via a structure called the haustorium. Viscum album, to give its Latin name, is widespread across the UK and Europe. It has broad green leaves and white berries. There is also a rare, red-berried version, viscum cruciatum, found in southern parts of Portugal and Spain and in Morocco. The derivation of the word is somewhat obscure but is believed to be Proto-Indo-European in origin with Old English addition, from me (with), sed (sit), and tan (twig): a twig that sits with (another). Mistletoe propagates via birds - like the mistle thrush below - who eat the drupes or berries and both excrete the seeds they contain onto another tree or wipe their sticky beaks on some virgin branch which soon becomes a new host.

Mistles

All species of mistletoe are toxic to a degree for human beings, though rarely fatal. Blurred vision, diarrhoea and nausea are the commonest reactions to ingestion, though seizures and cardiac arrests have been recorded.

The importance of mistletoe in pagan times was essentially religious, its white berries being regarded as a symbol of male fertility. The Ancient Greeks referred to it as "oak sperm", the Celts as "semen of Taranis" (god of thunder), the Romans revered it as a symbol of peace and love and hung it over doorways to protect the household. In Druidic mythology it seems to have served both as fertility symbol and as a medicine (for external use only).

In Christian times across the western world it has become incorporated (like yuletide) as a symbol of regeneration into our Christmas rituals, denoting fecundity and friendship, though the habit of kissing under it appears to be quite recent (late 18th century). It gave licence during the festivities around the winter solstice for men to beg kisses of any woman standing under the mistletoe, and bad luck was said to befall a woman who refused. (Unpick the socio-political implications of that one.)

And why the winter solstice rather than the summer one (which also has a wealth of fertility lore associated with it)? Probably simply because mistletoe is more noticeable and much easier to harvest once the leaves have fallen from the (mostly deciduous) host trees. The mistletoe that is sold in our markets and shops in the lead-up to Christmas is harvested in late November and early December. The centre of the trade in the UK is at Tenbury Wells in Worcestershire which hosts a mistletoe festival and crowns a mistletoe queen each year.

This latest composition, a love poem of sorts, commemorates a real incident in my past life, on the morning of the winter solstice back in 1975, when I was a student at Exeter University (completing my Postgraduate Certificate of Education). Haldon as mentioned in the poem is Haldon Forest (south of Exeter and just inland from Dawlish), home to red oaks, lots of mistletoe and myriad birds including blackbirds, jays, nightjars and of course mistle thrushes. This may not be its final form as I'll probably tinker with parts until I feel I've done the memory justice.

Mistletoes*

Hand in hand in Haldon woods 

we footed close through frosty ferns,

rudely startled blackbirds in our wake.

 

You a copper-haired daughter of Taranis

cutely duffled against the snap 

of winter solstice chill,

me more of the long-haired berserker,

our twin breaths visibly mingling 

in still hanging dawn mist

with not a hint of wind beneath 

those querky oaks with shaggy shocks

of parasitic growths, just the thrilling sight

of thrushes overhead at first light

making breakfast on white berries.

We paused to gaze in wonder, then

you rose on mistletoes and we kissed

(I don't know whether you shut your eyes

I certainly closed mine, the nearest

I've ever come to a swoon) for minutes 

until the turning earth stood still

beneath the rising sun or so it seemed,

then spun again. 

You named me your Viking lord

and I hailed you my Celtic queen,

a solemn, sacramental moment 

at the time, though slightly absurd I suppose

for you had a husband waiting at home

and I a train to catch to London at noon,

the first of many Christmases

we never spent together.

* for Hazel, wherever she may be.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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