WITCHES STILL.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16432, 6 May 1919, Page 8

WITCHES STILL.

STRANGE SURVIVALS IN BRITAIN

Only a week ago a farmer, giving evidence at the Swalfham Court, Norfolk, gravely told tho judge that ho had a cov bewitched, but that ho had put a red-hot poker into tho chum and the “Spirit’" went up in. a flume which lighted up the dairy ! There is a vast amount of witchcraft belief in our midst to-day, both in town and village, I know a resident in Leeds who, not long ago, was advised to “consult” a. so-called “wise woman,” about a sick child. Tho mother visited this woman, who muttered an incantation over the child, made up a strange potion of blood from some animal and other ingredients, and gave it to the mother for her baby to drink onco a day, with instructions not to allow the child to bo soon by a certain neighbour (supposed to have the evil eyed till it was quite better,. Tho wearing of mascots by our soldiers and sailors is nothing else but a belief—conscious or unconscious—in this same evil eye. Tho practice is also frequently seen where certain marks or signs, believed to be efficacious in warding off danger and ill, arc placed on houses and other buildings. In the East such mascots always take the form of a hand, known as the protecting hand of Fatima, th<>_ favourite daughter of the Prophet. Many of our soldiers and sailors who hare been in Egypt and Mesopotamia have brought back little models of this hand as their mascot, which they have adopted without knowing its origin

Not long ago an old woman near Peterborough was almost done to death by starvation and neglect because the neighbours in her village would persist that she was a witch, who was constantly making their pigs, poultry, and even children fall sick by the evil spells she threw on them. Absurd as this may seem to-day to us who fancy ourselves more enlightene<f, there is no doubt that many illfavoured and bad-tempered old women in such counties as Devonshire, East' Yorkshire. Somerset and Norfolk—that is, generally speaking, in lonely rural areas—arc regarded by those around them as little better than tho witches of the Middle Ages. It is only a year or so ago that one such lame old woman in Glamorganshire was stated by farmers in her district to have spoiled their milk at tho dairies hy her evil influence, which made the milk turn sour and worthless as it came from the cows which she was supposed to have bewitched. Wien in Devonshire five years or so ago, I was very solemnly warned hy tho landlady of an inn—by no moans an ignorant, boorish woman—not to have any dealings or argument with a certain gipsy man whom 1 might meet oh the moors near by, but just to give him a copper or two and a kindly word. She said that he was really a powerful wizard, who could bring about a lot of ill if he got cross and looked at one, askance. She averred that she had known this happen many a time. It is quite useless to tell many Cornish peasants and farmers that witchcraft is a myth. They will give you a score of instances to the contrary from their own experience. And the Welsh country-folk are almost as positive in tin’s belief. One told me gravely, near Montgomery, how “Farmer Smith” found that a sick horse of his had been bewitched by elves in a field 1 But one night he placed meat and drink there for the elves, with a written note asking them to cure his horse. And from that very night the animal began to get better I “Yes, witchcraft is not by any means dead in our islands to-day. Indoed ; it —or the belief in it!—is far more widei spread than many people would believe.