Monthly Archives: November 2022

A Less-Known Lancashire Witch: Meg Shelton

Posted by kitperriman on

Aside from the infamous Pendle Witches who were put on trial in 1612 and 1634, there were other unfortunate victims maligned and persecuted throughout Lancashire.  Many of their names were never recorded.  Some were accused and later released – some went to court and were found Not Guilty – and some were undoubtedly dealt with by the locals in their own ways.

In these unenlightened times it was common for women denounced as witches, shrews, and gossips to be locked inside a scold’s bridle – a metal brank that caged the head and prevented eating or speech.

scold

(Photo: Kit Perriman)

Public floggings and placement in the stocks were also regular market-day events.  And tales of dunking suspected witches in near-by ponds and rivers to see if they were guilty (and floated) or innocent (and drowned) are part of local folklore.  So it is quite surprising that one other name still fills the local schoolchildren with terror – Meg Shelton, The Fylde Hag.

Born Margery Hilton, Meg (or Mag) Shelton is said to have lived at various times in Cuckoo Hall near Wesham, Singleton, Catforth, and Woodplumpton.  She was a poor beggar woman who survived mainly on a haggis made from boiled grouts and herbs.  Meg is infamous for her shape-shifting skills, and apparently could turn into a variety of animals and all sorts of inanimate objects at will.  One tale records her creeping into a barnyard at night to steal corn.  When the farmer ran out after her there was no one in sight, though he did notice an extra sack of corn.  So taking his pitchfork he prodded each bag, finally uncovering Meg’s disguise when she squealed and reappeared nursing a bleeding arm!  Another of her injuries was explained by an accident trying to outrun a black dog when she was disguised as a hare.  The dog nipped the hare’s hind leg – and Meg was said to walk with a limp thereafter.  Meg was often seen riding her broomstick at night.  She could turn milk sour, lame cattle, and  curse hogs.

But the reason folk remember the Fylde Hag today is because of the strange events surrounding her death.  She was killed in 1705, crushed between a barrel and the wall of her cottage.  She was buried on May 2nd, at night, by torchlight, in the grounds of St. Anne’s Church in Woodplumpton.  The following morning her hand had clawed its way to the surface and had to be reburied.  The same thing happened again and everyone was naturally terrified.  A priest came and performed an exorcism.  Then someone suggested they rebury her upside down so she would dig her way to Hell, instead of to the surface.  So they planted her head-first in a narrow trough, and then put a huge granite boulder on top to keep her in place.

In hindsight it seems odd that a known witch would be put to rest on consecrated ground.  Usually they were buried at a crossroad with no signposts so they could not find their way home.  Or their bodies were burned.  And it is entirely possible that the granite stone in  St. Anne’s graveyard is a harmless relic carried down by the ice age.  But superstition is often stronger than common sense – and we all like to believe in a little magic.

Over the centuries, the legend of Meg Shelton has survived and flourished.  I grew up being told that if you walked three times round her grave chanting, I don’t believe in witches, then that hand would rise up from the grave and grab your ankle.  But I cannot say if that actually happens or not as I never dared try!

Shelton Grave

Meg Shelton’s Grave (Photo: Brian Young)

Source:

Ashworth, Elizabeth. Tales of Old Lancashire (Berkshire: Countryside,2007)

Copyright © 2022 | KitPerriman.com | All Rights Reserved

Olde English Christmas Pudding

Posted by kitperriman on

Christmas Pudding2

Ingredients:

4oz plain flour

2oz breadcrumbs

4oz shredded suet

4oz brown sugar

4oz grated apple

1 grated carrot

4oz mixed fruit peel (candied peel)

3 eggs

4oz currants

8oz raisins

4oz sultanas

2oz chopped dried apricots

4oz blanched chopped almonds

1 lemon – grated rind and juice

1 tablespoon treacle

1/4 pint beer or milk

2 tablespoons brandy

1 teaspoon mixed spice

I teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon grated nutmeg

pinch of salt

nub of butter for greasing pudding bowl

Method:

1. Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl.  Stir thoroughly.  Cover and leave overnight in the refrigerator.

2. Grease a large pudding bowl.  Add the mixture and press down well.  Cover with pleated greaseproof paper (allowing the pudding to rise and expand) held in place with an elastic band.

3. Place in a steamer and boil for  6-8 hours until the center is cooked through.  Remove wet paper.

4. When the pudding is completely cold wrap in cling-film and store in an airtight container.

To Serve On Christmas Day:

1/4 cup brandy for firing

1 pint whipped thick fresh cream

5. Turn out pudding on to a microwave-safe plate.  Heat (full power) in a microwave for 3-4 minutes until steaming.  Place on dining table.

6. Pour over brandy.  Carefully set the alcohol alight with a long match to flavor the pudding.

7. When the brandy burns out the pudding is ready to slice.

8. Serve with fresh whipped cream.

(Photo: Public Domain)

Copyright © 2022 | KitPerriman.com | All Rights Reserved

Kit’s Crit: The Wise Woman (Philippa Gregory)

Posted by kitperriman on

Gregory

The Wise Woman by Philippa Gregory

This historical fiction begins in 1540 and follows the tragic life of seventeen-year-old Alys, a young peasant girl in Tudor England.  Alys grew up on the moor with a harsh foster-mother called Morach, the local wise woman.  But turning her back on superstition and the pagan arts, Alys decides to join a nunnery.  For a time she finds contentment in this orderly sanctuary.  She enjoys the rigid structure, comparative luxury, and the safety afforded to the Holy Sisters.

But Alys happiness is short lived.  One night the monastery burns to the ground, a casualty of King Henry’s Reformation, and the young woman is summoned to the local castle to work as a scribe for the ailing lord of the manor.   Here she falls in love with his married son and heir, Lord Hugo.  She grows intently jealous of the Lady Catherine, and seeks to replace her in Hugo’s bed.  Calling on all the cunning tricks she recalls from living with Morach, Alys devises a difficult, disturbing plot to gain her heart’s desire.  At this point the novel slips into magical realism.

Gregory’s story has many Faustian overtones.  Alys conjures up the powers of darkness to possess the man she fixates on, aware that her actions are prompted by self-promotion rather than genuine love.  By the end of the book the Wise Woman is exposed as self-centered, unlikable, and evil – and therefore she meets with a hellish end.

The Wise Woman can also be read as a morality tale.  Although Alys is a victim of historical circumstance, feudalism, and gender, she serves as a warning against forbidden love and obsession.  She tries to take the rightful place of another woman – a place where she can never truly belong.  Alys discovers she has the power to unleash terrible things on the world, but by the time she realizes she has little control over them, it is too late to go back.  She sinks further and further into witchcraft.

I enjoyed the atmospheric setting of Gregory’s novel, and not expecting to sympathize with the central characters I was pleased to find them portrayed in a refreshingly honest way – warts and all!  The historical research is sound and convincing, and any book set in the medieval era must acknowledge the common superstitious beliefs of that time.

This is not a feel-good story.  It suggests everything in Alys’ world is a sham – magic, life, love, faith, and family.  But one of the great joys of reading is the ability to close the book at any point and find yourself back in the twenty-first century!

Copyright © 2022 | KitPerriman.com | All Rights Reserved

Shape-shifting

Posted by kitperriman on

A shape-shifting spell from the Scottish wise woman, Isobel Gowdie:

I shall go into a hare,

With sorrow, and sigh, and much care;

And I shall go in the Devil’s name,

Aye while I come home again.

I shall go into a cat,

With sorrow, and sigh, and sudden pain!

And I shall go in the Devil’s name,

Aye while I come home again

I shall go into a crow,

With sorrow, and sigh, and convulsion!

And I shall go in the Devil’s name,

Aye while I come home again.

Shape-shifter

Adapted from Joyce Froome’s book, Wicked Enchantments (Lancaster: Carnegie, 2010)

(Picture: Public Domain)

Copyright © 2022 | KitPerriman.com | All Rights Reserved

Olde English Parkin

Posted by kitperriman on

Parkin is a chewy gingerbread cake that is very popular in Northern England, especially on Bonfire or Guy Fawkes Night (November 5th).

Parkin

Ingredients:

4oz plain flour

4oz fine or medium oatmeal / porridge oats

4oz softened butter

4oz soft brown sugar

4oz black treacle

4oz golden syrup

2 eggs

1/2 level teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda

2 teaspoons vinegar

1 teaspoon dry ginger

1oz crystalized ginger

1 teaspoon mixed spice

6 tablespoons milk

Method

1. Heat the oven to 325 / 170 / Gas 3.  Grease an 8-inch lined square tin.

2. Place the butter, sugar, treacle and syrup in a saucepan and heat gently until the fat melts.  Do not boil.  Set mixture aside to cool slightly.

3. Sieve all the dry ingredients (except the bicarbonate of soda) in a large mixing bowl and scoop out a well in the center.

4. Place the bicarbonate of soda and vinegar inside the well and wait for the fizzing to stop.

5. Add the milk to the slightly cooled mixture in the saucepan, and beat well with a wooden spoon until all the ingredients are blended together.

6.  Carefully add the contents of the saucepan to the ingredients in the mixing bowl and stir thoroughly.

6. Lightly beat the eggs.  Add to the mixing bowl.  Blend until it looks like a loose batter.

7. Pour into the tray and place in the center of the oven for about 1 hour.  The parkin will turn a dark brown color and spring back to the touch when cooked.

8.  Leave inside the tin until completely cold.

Hint: Parkin should be wrapped in greaseproof paper and stored in an airtight container for at least a day before cutting up and eating.  It keeps for about 2 weeks, growing moister and richer with time!

(Photo: Public Domain)

Copyright © 2022 | KitPerriman.com | All Rights Reserved

Anne Boleyn, the Witch: Part Four

Posted by kitperriman on

Anne Boleyn 4

 Witch Crime #4: Anne Boleyn was presented as a seductress by her early suitor, Sir Thomas Wyatt.

In Poem XI he writes –

“Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, hélas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about:
Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.”
Wyatt is thought to be describing his own romantic pursuit of Mistress Anne, in direct competition with the reigning “Caesar” (King Henry).  With his characteristic play on words he presents “an (Anne) hind (deer)” – “Dear Anne” as their beautiful prey.  But as Karen Lindsey points out, “everyone knew what happened to the wild creature at the hunt’s end”(59) – it was captured, possessed, and destroyed.  Further, by alluding to the ingrained imagery from the Malleus Maleficarum, Wyatt’s line, “Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind” unfortunately conjured up the witches described by the two Catholic Inquisitors: “Their face is like a burning wind . . . and when it is said that her heart is a net, it speaks of the inscrutable malice which reigns in their hearts” (46).  Yet while Wyatt’s word-choice was most likely an unconscious literary device intended to portray the beloved as an illusive free spirit, his subliminal portrayal of Anne as a wild woman was not in her best interests, especially when the courtiers familiar with the Malleus, who had access to his early manuscript poems, were most likely the same men who sat at her trial.  The pretty doe of the hunt soon turned into a dangerously seductive temptress.
Even Wyatt’s enigmatic riddle (Poem LIV) implicates the Queen –
“What word is that that changeth not,
Though it be turned and made in twain?
It is mine answer, God it wot,
And eke the causer of my pain.
It love rewardeth with disdain:
Yet is it loved. What would ye more?
It is my health eke and my sore.”
Again, not intentionally associating his “answer” (Anne, sir) with witch craft, the poet’s ambiguous phrasing lends itself to a potentially sinister interpretation.  For although both the “causer of my pain” and “my sore” are common terms from the Courtly Tradition, they are also reminders of the Inquisitor’s warning  that, “a woman is beautiful to look upon, contaminating to touch, and deadly to keep” (46), and one of her many “injuries towards men” is the agony of “bewitching into an inordinate love”(47).  Wyatt’s poems stand in acknowledgement of Anne Boleyn’s seductive powers.  They may further have reminded her enemies of the old Queen Catherine because of this statement from the Malleus: “. . . how many adulterers have put away the most beautiful wives to lust after the vilest of women!” (51).
Perhaps one of Wyatt’s most damning poems is XXV –
“The lively sparks that issue from those eyes
Against the which ne vaileth no defence
Have pressed mine heart and done it none offence
With quaking pleasure more than once or twice.
Was never man could anything devise
The sunbeams to turn with so great vehemence
To daze man’s sight, as by their bright presence
Dazed am I, much like unto the guise
Of one ystricken with dint of lightning,
Blinded with the stroke, erring here and there.
So call I for help, I not when ne where,
The pain of my fall patiently bearing.
For after the blaze, as is no wonder,
Of deadly ‘Nay’ hear I the fearful thunder.”
 
It is thought that “The lively sparks” may be a reference to Anne Boleyn’s “striking and unusual” dark eyes (Chapman, 21).  The second line, “Against the which (witch) ne vaileth no defence,” suggests that the lover has no protection against the sorceress, and the phrase, “Have pressed mine heart ” recalls one of the punishments dealt to witches when their bodies are “pressed” under heavy stones to extract a confession.  The speaker of the poem is “ystricken with dint of lightning” as if falling under a spell, and though he should say “Nay”(No), her power over him is too strong to resist. Ironically, this young man’s heart-felt love poems may have helped pave the way for his sweetheart’s execution.
It is doubtful if any of the Queen’s friends actually believed she was a witch.  And though she was condemned for treason and adultery, her own conscience was apparently clear.  Shortly before her death Anne told her jailor that she “would be a saint in Heaven, because I have done many good deeds in my days” (Lindsey, 100).   But unfortunately, over the centuries,  Wyatt’s damning words have reached far more ears than her last cry of innocence.
Sources for Part Four:
Chapman, Hester W. Anne Boleyn (London: cape, 1974)
Kramer, Heinrich; and James Sprenger. The Malleus Maleficarum (New York: Dover, 1971)
 (Worldwide: Addison-Wesley, 1996)
Wyatt, Thomas. The Complete Poems Ed. R.A. Rebholz. (Worldwide: Penguin,1978)
(Photos: Public Domain) 
Copyright © 2022 | KitPerriman.com | All Rights Reserved