would not harm mine and might cure theirs of King's Evil?
"During the early years that I have named, there were several notable white witches in Exeter who took lots of good fees for pretended good services. Superstition dies slowly, for within the last seven years a friend of mine with the same surname as the White Witch of 1840-50, but a comparative new-comer to Exeter, was startled by an application of which he, knowing nothing of old wives' stories of Devon, could not fathom the meaning until asking the writer if he could explain. About 1880 my wife was met at the door by a man who might by appearance have been a small farmer. 'Missus, be I gwain right?' 'Where do you want to go?' (A little hesitation.) 'I waant to vind thickey wuman that tells things. My cows be wished and I waant to vind out who dood it.' So he was told to go to a cottage behind Friars' Green, where old Mrs. —— had a crop of fools for clients every Friday, and told them their fortunes by tea-grounds and cards, much to her and their satisfaction; but I certainly was amused to hear my wife say, 'Oh, Jenny So-and-so, Polly What's-her-name, and various others, and I, have gone there lots of times, and had our fortunes told for twopence.' "
At the beginning of this article I mentioned a farmer, a tenant of mine, who professed to have been cured by "Old Snow," of Tiverton.
Nine years after this I wrote the article on our Devonshire White Witches in the Daily Graphic. This was transferred to one or two Plymouth papers. Shortly after that, at our harvest festival, the farmer turned up. He had left my farm and taken another elsewhere; but he had a hankering after Lew Trenchard, and at our festival he appeared, robust and hearty. He came to
