THE BLACK ART

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19352, 4 September 1934, Page 8

THE BLACK ART

FEARED IN NORFOLK. SUPERSTITIOUS VILLAGERS. Norfolk is living up to Its reputation of being the most superstitious county in England, says the Daily Mail.

Superstition and fear of the prophecies of witches have returned to Norfolk since a woman scalded her foot after being cursed by one of the hundreds of gipsies encamped throughout the countryside. Every day these gipsies invade the cities, towns, and villages in the county to sell wicker baskets, clothes pegs, and other products of their nimble lingers. From door to door they move, offering their wares, sometimes ingratiating and pleasant to those wiio buy, at others scowling and threatening where purchase is refused. A consensus of opinion, particularly in the villages, would, it is said, find a majority seriously professing belief in witchcraft, gipsy curses, the potency of the evil eye, and the efficacy of both good and evil spells. Cannot Be Dispelled. There are areas of Norfolk where these thoughts are so ingrained that not even the arguments of the clergy can dispel them. An instance of this faith that had its beginning centuries ago is found throughout the Breckland, an area of thousands of acres of bracken and heath, miles away from the main road, where even me coming of the radio and the motor-car has riiade little difference. Here the peasants, descendants of superstitionridden families, are still said to pay away some of their hard-won money for spells that will drive away illness from a wife or some valued animal or crop. In most of the villages the old saying remains concerning gipsies, who are still thought of as witches: "If I offend ’uni, then she will do me a mischief.”

'There are women to-day, too, living in busy sections of Norwich who will recall fearfully such horrors as a gipsy’s prophecy of an accident in the sowing of corn, which surely presages death, and “the curse of the walking toad."

The curse of Sturston, a curse dating back to the lime of Queen Elizabeth, is another, which having never been disproved, continues to distress impressionable people. It is told that Sir Miles Yare, an Elizabethan “Vicar of Bray,” was the rector of Sturston. For the county folk he held a Protestant service in the church on Sunday morning' and then recited Mass in his parlour for the Roman Catholic gentry. Laying the Curse. An old Protestant woman, ns she lay dying, solemnly cursed this accommodating parson-priest, his church, his rectory, and the great folks’ hail. The curse seemed to conic true, and it was left to the scholarly rector of Sturslon, the Rev. Charles Kent. M.A., less than ten years ago, lo lay the curse at tiio request of his parishioners. The rector held a special service, using an old tomb in the ruipod churchyard as a lectern. People Hocked to the service from miles around, and it was proclaimed that lie had laid the curse, for nothing else “dreadful" happened. Another incident not long afterwards indicates the feeling of the people of Norfolk. The Rev. 'Charles Kent was called to the bedside of a woman thought to be dying, lie. olfered up prayers, and the woman began to levivc at once and eventually recovered. Later, when he told her that she should be thankful to the Almighty for sparing her life, the woman said: “I weren’t a-dying! I was bewitched, and your prayers laid the witchery. “I believe wicked people can do mischief, and so do you. Didn’t you lay the witchery at Sturston? "Well, it’s an old woman with a hook nose that bewitched me, and when you made the prayer I felt the witchery lifting." .

Stage Property. —Some amusement was caused at a meeting of the Wellington Technical College Board of Governors when the recent concert of the school was under review. The college director, Mr R. G. Ridling, recommended that, letters of thanks for assistance be forwarded to certain business firms which had lent articles for stage properties. Among these was New Zealand Breweries, Limited. "What did they supply?" asked Mr J. P. Luke. “A large barrel—empty," replied Mr Ridling, amid laughter.

Idiosyncrasies In Diet. —Speaking at the Home Science Conference recently on the subject of children’s idiosyncrasies in diet, Dr. Ada Paterson, director of school hygiene, instanced the case of a boy whose mother informed her when lie wa!s being taken to a health camp, that j whenever he ate butler he was sick, i "Immediately on arrival at camp,” ‘Dr. Paterson said, “he informed us 'very ostentatiously that he could hot eat butter. ‘Oh, is that so,’ we said, and commenced to eat hatter, taking no more notice of him. When he found that no one really cared whether he ate butter or not, he started to follow the fashion, and before he left the camp he was eating butter with the best.”

Silence Enforced.— 'Under regulations governing the New Zealand Military Forces, which appear in the Gazette, all persons subject to military law are forbidden to publish or communicate military information without special authority. The regulations state: "Any information of a professional nature which an officer or soldier may acquire while travelling or employed on duty is to be regarded as the property of tho Defence Department, and is not to be published in any form without the permission of the general officer commanding. When application is made for permission to publish any article or deliver any public lecture or wireless address, the document will be typewritten and will be submitted in duplicate direct to general headquarters. A statement will he enclosed from the authority under whom the applicant is immediately serving that such authority has no objection to permission being applied for. Permisison to publish will apply only to the article as submitted. It will not convey official, endorsement of its oontents, and no statement tending to imply official approval or endorsement is to be included in any part or the publication, nor is permission to be referred to in any way. Any communication affecting the New Zealand Military Forces generally, or any arm or branch of the service, which it may be considered desirable to make to the press will be made by the Minister of Defence. In commands, communications to the press may be made only when they affect solely the command' concerned, and in this case they will he made by command headquarters or by an officer authorised by command headquarters to do so."