WITCHERY IN NORFOLK.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19760, 10 April 1926, Page 19

WITCHERY IN NORFOLK.

AN INGRAINED BELIEF. RECTOR'S STRANGE TALES. Merton, In Norfolk, the village of the legend of the "Babes In the Wood," holds to a still older belief, that of witchcraft. This belief is not merely the Bagciiug superstition of the peasantry, but the reasoned, though modified, faith of the scholarly rector himself, the Rev. Charles Kent, M.A. “•! have lived here," Mr Kent told a press representative, "tor 20 years, and so I know my people intimately. 1 am the rector of four parishes—Merton, Tottington, Sturston, and Tompson—and il 1 were to take a census of opinion in all a majority seriously pmiessing belief in foui villages I am certain I should find witchcraft. the potency of the 'evil eye,’ and the efficacy of both good and evil spells. “This is ingrained in the minds and in the hearts of the people, and Is not confined to the Immediate neighbourhood. It is to be met with all through the Brookland—thousands of acres of heath and bracken, honeycombed with rabbit warrens—land that years ago went to wasie, throwing tho peasantry back upon themselves. Even to-day our nearest main road is 12 miles away. We are cut off from the outer world, and the coming of the motor, and even wireless, has not made over-much difference. WITCHERY EXPLAINED. “My own belief In witchery, as they term Is about here, is possibly not so crude us that of some of my older parishioners. Not like, for instance, that of a labourer who not so long ago parted with a hardly-earned to cure ms wife 1 1 believe in the actual guinea to a local planet reader for a spell power of hate so working on the power of faith that evil results. Witchery Is hate made manifest. Here, as elsewhere, the persons against whom the wicked charge of witchery is whispered are usually old women of dominant personality—Romannosed women. Remember the nose of the Duke of Wellington. A big beak usually does denote power, doesn't iff “The common article of belief here Is. ‘lf I offend un (the old woman), then she'll do me mischief.’ Time and time again I have met with it, and all 1 can say to the contrary has never shaken their belief. “CURSE OF STURSTON." “My first experience of the kind was connected with what is known as The curse of Sturston.' This story dates back to the time of Queen Elizabeth. Sir Milos! Yare —an Elizabethan vicar of Bray—was then the rector. For the country folk he held a Protestant servicb In (he church on Sunday morning, and then recited Mass in his parlour for the Popish gentry. An old Protestant lady, as she lay dying, solemnly cursed this very accommodating parsonpriest, his church, his rectory, and the Great Folks' Hall. And the curse seemed to come true. “When 1 came upon the scene I was asked to lay the curse. For the Old Hall had become a farmhouse surrounded by a few cottages, and the people fearea that the curse might still be working Itself out. I held a public service, using an old altar tomb in the ruined churchyard as a lectern. People flocked to the services from miles around. In the sequel nothing dreadful happened. 1 had laid the curse. “Soon afterwards t was asked to visit a woman who was thought to be dying. I found the usual deathbed scene, the whole family gathered to take farewell. I offered up the ordinary Prayer Book prayers, and the woman began at once to revive, and eventually recovered. When 1 told her some time later that she ought to be thankful to the Almighty for sparing her life, she said: ‘1 weren t a-dying! 1 was bewitched, and your prayers laid the witchery. 1 believe wicked people can do a mischief, and so do you. Didn't you lay the witchery at Sturston? Well, it’s an oid wunmiin with a hook nose that bewitched me; 1 sent tor you 'cause you know how to deal with that kind of witchery. When you made the prayer 1 felt the witchery reg'lar lifting up like, and I fared better and betterer.’ FITZGERALD'S GHOST. “Here, If you will, you have a clear case of white magic, or faith healing. But the simple spirit of that old woman’s belief is as much alive to-day as it was t'.en. In this rectory Fitzgerald began ‘Omar Khayyam,' and he died In the house. In the ‘dell in the garden he did much of his writing in the summer. “One Sunday after 1 had preached a sermon on Fitzgerald, our cook came to me and said : T have often seen Mr Fitzgerald, sir.' ‘Pooh, nonsense !’ 1 said. ‘You were not born then.* “ ‘ No,’ she replied, ‘ I was not born then, but 1 was born in church-time hours, and so I have the gift of second sight. I saw my grandfather long after he was dead. I was a child going tor the groceries, and 1 dropped the pennies I had In my hand and ran home all of a tremble with fright I never saw grandad but once. But this Fitzgerald, I have often seen him.’ ‘“Tell me what he was like,’ 1 asked. “ ‘ He was rather fat,’ she said, 'and with his clothes shoved on anyhow.’ (Fitzgerald was both stout and slovenly.) T have seen film upstairs in the little bedroom, and in the pantry, too. 1 know the look of him as well as I know you.' ” Thus hag-ridden Merton Is also haunted.