Taylor & Son's Northamptonshire Handbook.
Mear's Ashby, in this county, who was accused by some of her neighbours of being a witch, in order to prove her innocence, submitted to tho ignominy of being dipped, when she immediately sunk to the bottom of the pond, which was deemed an incontestible proof that she was no witch !" Some sixty years ago an old woman named Warden lived in St. John street, Wellingborough, and bore the reputation of being a witch. Some petty mischief happening, which was laid to her account, she was hauled down to what is now known as Butlin's, but was then called Warren's Mill, where, in the presence of a crowd of persons, she was thrown into the water, and it is said she swam. How long she would have continued to float is doubtful, but her son William, who was from home at the time of her abduction, on hearing that his mother had been taken to be ducked for a witch, said, "Witch or devil, she's my mother, and I'll have her," and arrived at the Mill in time to save her. She lived some years after, but was always looked upon as a veritable witch. Mr. Becke, in his lecture, remarks that "there are persons living in this town now who can remember having seen a woman ducked in the river on the charge of having bewitched the butter in the market." The persons who administered the rite took good care, we presume, that nothing serious came of it.
The last execution in this neighbourhood for the employment of the black art would thus appear to have been in 1705. Mr. Sternberg, in his "Folk-lore," mentions another execution on July 22, 1712, but this seems to be a mistake. Gough, in his Collection on the Topography of Northamptonshire, refers to a tract of the date 1712, detailing the punishment of the offenders, similar to those we have so largely quoted from; but no such tract is to be found in the Bodleian Library, and it is incredible that witches were hanged both on the 22nd of July, 1612, and the 22nd of July a century later.[1]
Hitherto the more tragical aspect of witchcraft has chiefly claimed our attention; but a volume might be written on the lighter fancies associated with the necromantic world, even as revealed in our own local legends. That these are numerous enough is evidenced by Clare's amusing lines, narrating how the old gossip sits by the hob, and-
"From her memory oft repeats
Witches' dread powers and fairy feats:
How one has oft been known to prance
In cow-cribs, like a coach, to France,
And ride on sheep-trays from the fold
A race-horse speed to Burton-hold;
To join the midnight mystery's rout,
Where witches meet the yews about:
And how, when met with unawares,
They turn at once to cats or hares,
And race along with hellish flight,
Now here, now there, now out of sight."
Sternberg has some highly interesting pages on the superstitions of the Northampton- shire peasantry. The profession of exercising a species of supernatural power, it would appear, was not at all uncommon, since the method of acquiring it, according to popular belief, was very simple. "The person desirous of becoming a witch was to sit on the hob of the hearth, and, after cleaning and paring her nails, to give utterance to the words, 'I wish I was as far from God as my nails are free from dirt;' whereupon the experimenter immediately becomes possessed of powers which place at her mercy all those who have had the misfortune to incur her displeasure."[2] Moreover, the person bit or scratched by a witch immediately becomes one. The belief that witches could easily transform themselves into cats, foxes, and other animals, was very common here, as in other places. They were generally detected by being maimed. "A woodman out working in the forest has his dinner every day stolen by a cat. Exasperated at the continual repetition of the theft, he lies in wait for the aggressor, and succeeds in cutting
- ↑ From all the evidence we have before us, the execution in 1705 would seem to have been the last for witchcraft, not only in Northamptonshire but in England. A Mrs. Hicks is said to have been hung with her daughter at Huntingdon, in 1716; but in No. 129 of Notes and Queries (2nd series) good evidence is brought forward that the assertion is incorrect. One argument against it, however, we have seen is of no value; that had there been such a trial and execution it is in. credible that Hutchinson should not have alluded to it."
- ↑ Sternberg's Glossary and Folk-Lore, p. 147.
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