A Cure for Witches

By W. H. BARRETT (Illustrated by Jean Creswell)

In the far-off days of my youth a good story-teller was always welcome company in the riverside inns dotted about the fens. He would often entertain the company the whole evening—and need never go thirsty. The stories the fenmen told had a character all their own and have mostly, I suppose, now been forgotten. But here is one of them which I have put into writing.

IT was Saturday evening and the land-lord was reading aloud extracts from the weekly paper.

'Listen to this,' he said. ' "Three E hundred years ago a witch was boiled alive at King's Lynn." '

'They shouldn't have done that.' The words came from an old man who up to then had sat silent, nearly asleep.

'That worn't the proper way to treat a witch. I know a better one.'

A full, frothy pint was placed under his nose.

'Drink that up, grandfather, and tell us.'

The landlord retired to the cellar to fetch two gallon cans. These he placed on the table and then proceeded to collect the price of two pints from each of the expectant listeners. There were going to be no cash-and-carry interruptions while Old Dad was telling his story.

What I am going to tell you about (he began) happened just after the flood that drowned the fens in 1861. An old woman lived in a tumble-down shack down Sedge Fen drove. She was so old she remembered being at the Battle of Waterloo. How she got there was like this. She'd married a soldier and in those days a soldier's wife used to go along with him to cook his grub and look after his kit while he was righting. Her husband worn't killed in that battle but he wor in another one, so she came down here to live, taking up the job of a firster-and-laster, unpacking infants when they came into the world and packing up the old ones when they went out.

Then she got so old and dirty people wouldn't hev her. She used to go around the fen threatening people with her curses and if a farmer saw her looking at his pigs and one was a bit queer afterwards he didn't send for the vet—he sent for the butcher to turn it into pork before it got worse, being certain it had been bewitched.


The old gal was well aware of what people said she was, for children, after getting safely past her, would shout:

'Witch! Witch! Get home, you dirty old witch!'

She managed to exist and buy black shag for her short clay pipe on the few shillings she picked up by frightening people. One of her best-paying tricks was this. People opening their door first thing of a morning would find on their doorstones a heap of loam shaped like a grave mound. It would be of sandy loam and as all the soil round about was black peat it could only have come from a distance.

Then the old gal would come along and say it was put there by the devil to let them know it wouldn't be long before he came to fetch them. She often met him carrying a sack when she was out at nights, she would say. And being wise in the arts of that old black one, she could, for a shilling, remove the curse the devil had put on the house. After getting the money she would spit on the heap, then tell the people to let it lie there until the next new moon. They could then gather it up and put it on the garden for worms to play with.

Now up in the village lived Billy Brown. He never did any work unless obliged to. But he managed to get along quite well for there wasn’t a better poacher going.

One night—it was getting near Christ­mas—Billy had been out and the bag he was carrying was a bit heavy. As he neared home, which was down Church Lane, he heard the clock strike 12, then through the hedge he saw a light moving about in the churchyard. His eyesight was just as good among the tombstones as it was in the woods and he soon saw it was the old gal carrying a spade and a candle-lantern.

Peering through the hedge he saw her set down her light and kneel beside a newly made grave. So he nips home, dumps his bag, gets hold of his old muzzle-loading gun, rams a charge of powder into it, then pours a handful of saltpetre crystals that he used for curing rabbit-skins down the barrel, wadding it well home with paper. He worn't long getting back up the lane where he could see her shovelling soil off the grave into a sack. She had her back to him and her behind it was bobbing up and down as she got on with her job. It was a lovely target in the flickering light of the lantern.

'That will larn her,' said Billy to himself as he pulled the trigger.

On hearing the explosion and feeling the impact of the saltpetre she let out a hell of a shriek and leapt up into the air, kicking over her light as she came down. People living nearby, having been wakened by the shot and shrieks, opened their bedroom windows, then dressed themselves and in a short period gathered on the road outside the churchyard gates listening to the unearthly din going on inside.

One of the waiting group was the sexton who on being told he got paid for looking after the churchyard and that it was up to him to go in and find out what was the matter replied:

‘That may be so but that's day-work, not night-shift, and the only one who ought to go and see about things is the parson as he gets more money out of the churchyard than I do.'

So he said he would go and fetch him. He arrived at the rectory and threw a handful of gravel up to the rector's bed­room window. The rector put his head out and wanted to know what was the matter.

'Matter!' said the sexton, 'You come along and see. The churchyard is full of shrieking devils and the smell of brim­stone and sulphur is enough to choke you.'

The rector came down and opened the door, then, seeing his sexton was shaking like a leaf, poured him out a drink of whisky and, not knowing what lay before him, had a double himself. Then, just in case his sexton was right, he put on his surplice, grabbed a big stick and, with a lighted oil lamp in his hand, joined the waiting people, suggesting some of them should go with him and help to turn the shrieking devils out. He soon found they were all of the opinion that it was a job he could best manage alone, being well up in the knowledge of what bell, book and candle could do.

Calling for his sexton was in vain, for that worthy, not knowing what demands might be made on his services, had returned to the rectory where the rector in his hurry had left the whisky bottle on the table. The sobbing of the frighten­ed women and the trembling of the windy men convinced the rector that if he did not get a move on he would soon be in the same nervous condition as they were. So he opened the gate and, firmly grasping his stick with the lamp out in front, he strode down the path, keeping his courage up by shouting: 'Get out, you swine!’

'"THEN by the light of his lamp he saw a woman in black holding on to a tombstone with one hand and rubbing her posterior with the other. She, on see­ing something in white coming towards her, let out a terrific yell and ran down the path as hard as she could go, falling head-over-heels into the dyke at the bot­tom. The rector tore after her, stumbled over a grave, gave his nose a nasty smack on the stone kerb and lay still. His lamp, after rolling a few yards, exploded, send­ing a sheet of flame into the dark sky.

Billy, thinking it was time he had a hand in things, had crept through the hedge, entered the unlocked church and, getting a bell rope in each hand, pulled away for all he was worth. The din the bells made was too much for the fright­ened jackdaws in the steeple. Out they flew and, attracted by the lanterns held by the people in the road, swished their wings a few feet above their heads as they circled in the darkness.

Billy, creeping back through a gap in the hedge, was just in time to see the old gal crawling up the dyke to the lane. Getting behind her, he gave out a yell which sent her running off again until, on reaching the road, the prickly heat was so bad she sat down in the grit and tried to get ease from the terrible itch by sliding backwards and forwards.

He then went up to the waiting people, wanting to know what sort of a game they were playing at that time of night and why they were not in bed. He was quickly told what had fetched them out was a lot of devils having a party in the churchyard. The rector had gone in to turn them out, they said. Then the doors of hell had opened and they had seen roaring flames gushing out. As the rector had not returned they reckoned by this time he was nothing else but cinders and that swishing noise above their heads was made by those devils who did not get back before the door was shut.

'Well, well,' said Billy. 'That must have been one of those devils with a hurt wing that I nearly fell over down the road. I'll go and fetch it.'

So he went and picked up the kicking and spitting old crone, setting her down among them saying:

'I've caught this one. Hold it and I'll go and see if I can find another.'

It was not long before he returned holding up the sexton who was so drunk he couldn't stand. So he sat down and wanted the people to repeat after him the words of the burial service which he knew off by heart.

Billy, finding that all those standing around were firmly convinced the rector had gone to that place he had warned them about on Sundays, borrowed a lantern from one of them, telling them it was the black sheep of the flock that was going in search of the shepherd, for when he had last met the rector they had parted on unfriendly terms. It was just after Billy had returned home after serv­ing three months' hard at Norwich Castle for poaching. The rector had told him he was a disgrace to his father and the village. Billy had assured him he knew he was a disgrace to his father in getting caught after all the lessons he had received from the old man on how to avoid it. As for the village, the parson might spend a whole month white-washing his parishioners but most of them would still be piebald.

Finding the rector lying between two graves and smothered in blood from his bleeding nose, Billy sat him up and told him how surprised he was to find him fighting drunk and in the churchyard at that and wanted to know what had hap­pened to the other chap, as he must have been in a terrible mess, too, with all that blood flying about. All the rector could do was to hold his aching head and promise Billy that if only he would help him to get home he would do anything for him within reason. A bargain was quickly made that in return for help the rector would buy from Billy a brace of pheasants every week while the game season lasted.

By the time they reached the road there was nobody there. The old gal had told them that while she was kneeling gathering midnight dew from a new-made grave to cure her warts there was a big thunderclap and lightning had struck the path, spat­tering the place she used when sitting and making a real gravel rash of the whole seat. They were so wild on hearing this that they carried her to the horse pond and threw her in and as the sexton was now well away praying for those at sea they gave him the same treatment.

Then they all went home. The sexton soon sobered up and went, too, but the old gal was still sitting in the cooling water at noon next day when the parish beadle came along and pulled her out to take her to the workhouse.

So you see (concluded the old man, taking a long drink) there's no need to boil a witch. Just pickle their hams like Billy did. That will cure them, especially if you do it with saltpetre.

East Anglian Magazine, March1958