WITCHERY IN NORFOLK

Shannon News, 11 May 1926, Page 4

WITCHERY IN NORFOLK

RECTOR'S STRANGE TATES. AN .VG RAT NED BELIEF. SERVICE TO LAY CURSE. Merton, in Norfolk, the viliage of the legend of tho "Babes in thG Wood,” holds to a still older belief, that of. witchcraft. This belief is not merely the lingering superstition of the peasantry, but the reasoned, though modified faith of dhe scholarly rector himself, the Itev. Charles Kent. M.A.

“I have lived here,” Mr. Kent told a press representative, "for 20 years and so I know ,tny people intimately. I am the rector of four parishes, Merton, Tottingtonf Sturston, and Tompson, and if I were to take a census of opinion in all four villages, lam certain I should And in all, a majority professing belief in witchcraft, the potency of the “evil eye,’ and the efficacy of both good and evil spells. "This is ingrained in the minds and it: the hearts of the people, amt is not confined to the immediate neighbourhood. It is to be met with all through the Brecklund —thousands of acres of health and bracken, honeycombed with rabbit warrens —land that years ago went to waste, throwing the 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 motors .and oven "wireless has not made over much difference. Witchery Explained. "My own belief in witchery, as they term it about here, is possibly , not so crude as that (if some or rhy Older parishioners. Not like, for instance, ithat of a labourer who not so long ago parted with a hardly-earned guinea to a local planet reader tor a spoil to cure his wife! I believe ! in the actual power to hate so working on the power of fa.m .that evil results. Witchery is . bate made manifest. Here, as elsewhere, the persons against whom the wicked charge of witchery is whispered are usually old women of dominant personality 2 — Roman-nosed women. Remember the nose of the Duke of Wellington. A big beak usually does denote' power, doesn’t it? “The common article of belief here is, ‘lf 1 offend ’un (the old womah) then she’ll do me mischief.’ Tihie and time again 1 have met with (it, and all I can say to the contrary has never shaken their belief. i “Curse of Sturston.”

"My first experience of the kind was connected with what is known las ‘the curse of Sturston.’ This story da'tes back to the time of Queen Elizabeth. Sir Miles Yare —an Elizabethan vicar of Bray—w 7 as then tne rector. For the country folk be held a Protestant service in the church on Sunday morning and then reefted Mass in his parlour for the Popish gentry. An old Protestant lady, ’as she lay dying, solemnly cursed this very accommodating parson-priest, in his church, his rectory and the Greajt Folk’s Hall. And the curse seemed to come true. "When I 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* feared that the curse migli/t 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 service from miles around. In the sequel nothing dreadful, happened. I had laid the curse. "Soon afterwards I was asked to visit a woman who was thought : to he dying. I found the usual deathbed scene, the whole .family gatnerea to take, farewell. I offered up the ordinary prayer-book prayers, and the woman began to revive, and eventually recovered. When I told her some time later tha,t she ought to be thankful to the -Almighty? for sparing her life, she said: T weren’t dying! I was bewitched, and your prayers laid the witchery. I be live wicked people can do a mischief, and so do you. Didn’t you lay the witbliery of Sturston ? Well, it’s an old wumroin with a hook nose that nett itched me; I sent fo you ’cause you know how to deal with that kind of witchery. When you made the prayer I felt the witchery reg’lar lifting ; up like, and I fared, better and beter- I ei ” I'it/.gcrald ,- Ghost. “Here, if you will, you have a clear case of white magic or faith healing. But tlu; -simple spirit of that old woman’s belief is as much alive roday as it was then. In this rectory Fitzgerald began ‘Omar Khayyam, and he died in the house. Tn the dell in the garden he did itvch of nls writing in the summer. “One Sunday after ) had preached a sermon on Fitzgerald. our cook eaniy to mt- and said: ‘T have often seen’ Mr Fitzgerald, sir.' ‘Pooh, nonsense!’ I said. You were not worn then.’

” ’No,’ she replied. M was not born tin'll, but I was born in the , churchUnit' hours, and so I have the gift or second siglijt. 1 saw my grandfather long after lie was dead. I was a child going for the groceries, and I drapped the pennies I had in my hand and ran home all of a tremble' with fright. I never saw granddad nut once. But this Fitzgerald, I nave oiten seen him.' “‘Toil me what li 0 was like,' i asked. ‘ 'Hr was rather fait,’ she said, -ana wit h his clothes shoved on anynowv (Fitzgerald was both stout' ana slovenly.) I have seen him upstairs in the little bedroom, and in the panIry, too. I know the look of him ns well as 1 kijbw you.’ " Thus hag-rid dm v Merton is also haunted.