While this article, published in 1912, treats witchcraft as trickery and hallucinations, some of the historical facts are interesting and valid.
When Witches Were Not Mere Halloween Fantasies
But Hated Human Beings
WITCHLIKE Actions Would Have Meant Sure Death in the Old Days — Witches Have Now Ceased to Possess Actual Personalities — Hallucinations That Certain Persons Were Endowed With the Power of Conversing With Evil Spirits — In the Little Colony of Salem — Tottering Old Men and Women Were Executed — “Bad Luck” in Killing Certain Animals — The Witches of Various Sections of Europe — Cats Are Always Connected With Halloween Celebrations
WITH every Halloween the scrawny, hag like witch is brought into great prominence for the purpose of giving an atmosphere of mystery to the evening’s fun. At frolics on that night mock homage is paid to these black robed shadowy creatures who are respectfully consulted upon the all-absorbing subject of love and marriage. But when the fun is over for another year, to be forgotten with their mystic prophecies.
Time was when the masquerading of a maiden in a somber gown and her act of stirring a caldron as is provided at our Halloween fetes would have meant certain death to the luckless one. She might have been carrying out pretenses of sorcery, or the accomplishment of certain ends by mock magic, but in that age imagination and superstition changed such delusions into real acts and their agents into real creatures of magic.
It has not been until modern times that the witch ceased to possess an actual personality in the everyday life of the people. She was supposed to be in league with all Satanic forces and to walk abroad casting her vengeance upon all who would not divide their living with her. In many cases the approach of old age, especially if it was accomplished by poverty or helplessness, changed a kindly disposed, harmless old woman into a witch in the eyes of her neighbors.
Actions Of The Witch
If she was deformed, toothless or unkempt, so much stronger were the arguments for converting her into a creature of fantasy who might conjure the powers of evil against those about her. When such charges were made against these unfortunate villagers the women were frequently made more helpless because the parishes which had previously supported them then refused to give them help. When needy and friendless these poor, decrepit mortals began to believe that they could really summon the spirits of evil to aid them in revenging themselves upon the accusers, but, whether they believed in this power or not the “witches” demanded bribe for their good will in order to obtain substance to keep body and soul together.
Even in our own country the hallucinations that certain persons were endowed with the power of conversing with evil spirits ran riot in the little colony of Salem in 1692. At that time persons were put to death or imprisoned not only for being witches, but for asserting their unbelief in witchcraft. Today the people of the little Massachusetts town still point out Witches hill, where several innocent women were executed. The madness of the colony spared neither the weak-minded Indian maiden Tituba, who was seen practicing the ceremonials of her own heathen religion, nor such exemplary women as Sarah Cloyce and Rebecca Nurse of their own number.
Old Men
Even tottering old men were convicted for denying that there was any such thing as witchcraft, until at one time a hundred and fifty persons were cast into prison to wait their fate. Many others were tortured into confessing themselves guilty of false accusations, while several hundred other colonists were suspected of being a part of witchcraft and of exerting their efforts to protect it. Finally, when this fanaticism had spent itself, many of those who had taken active parts in the persecutions realized and confessed the great injustice they had done their neighbors, but this was not true of Cotton Mather, who was dissatisfied that witch courts had been abolished. He attempted to justify his actions of cruelty before the world by issuing a volume of thanks for the benefits he had bestowed upon his people for having spent so many witches to their doom. As this treatise was received approvingly at that time by the president of Harvard College, the horrible delusion of witchcraft must have obsessed even those who should have been most enlightened.
As ridiculous as these persecutions were, they sank into insignificance when compared with the witch executions of Great Britain is a modest estimate of the number of persons who were killed for having knowledge of the black art. Especially between 1450 and 1670 were the tortures of innocent persons most numerous, for thousands were then executed and treated in the most horrifying manner. For three hundred years there was a continual trial of persons accused of being in league with the powers of darkness, and most of them were tried by the codex entitled “Mallus maleficarium,” or the witches’ hammer, produced by Sprengel and his fanatical associates.
Persecutions
In German over 150,000 perished by various persecutions. One European official, after doing his part in sending30,000 miserable wretches to the stake for the forced confessions of deeds they were known never to have committed, taught his flock that he had done an everlasting service to the human race, for had such persons lived they would have brought utter ruin to the whole world.
An incident especially absurd in our age was the Swiss execution of 1782, when a maidservant was accused of giving pin seeds to a little boy, thus causing the child to choke on pins as they came out of bismuth. As late as the end of the eighteenth century witch executions were practiced in Poland and Hungary, while in Great Britain the last law relative to witchcraft was an Irish statute repealed less than a hundred years ago.
As free as the civilized world is today from there is record that about fifteen years ago an old woman in Ireland was tortured to death as a witch by her own kinsmen. Two years later a Mexican woman accused of bewitching her neighbor was killed by two angry men. A queer case in our own land happened in North Carolina about ten years ago, when a housewife who could not make the butter come accused her neighbor of having used evil powers over the cream. To break this spell the churner’s husband shot a silver bullet through the portrait of the person suspected of practicing witchcraft. Since time has separated us from the horrors of witch executions we enjoy laughing at the folly of the people who wove strange stories around those who gained the distinction of being placed in the witch class.
Charms
By use of charms and incantations known only to themselves, the mumbling old women were credited with powers to aid in any scheme of malevolence. To doubt the word of such a person claiming supernatural powers in her ability to converse with the evil spirits would have been considered equivalent to subjecting one’s self to the spell of the hag. All calamities, diseases and unusual phenomena of nature were laid to the door of the witches, and thus they were said to cause long wet spells, lightnings, floods or droughts.
Often farmers who could not afford poor harvest or the loss of cattle would give yearly bribes to the witches to insure their protection against misfortunes. It often happened that these night prowling old women had butter and cheese, although they owned not a cow. This strengthened the ignorant to believe in the powers of the pretenders, but if the same peasants had connected the fact of the witches having butter and cheese with the fact that on certain mornings their own cows gave no milk the witches’ thefts would have been discovered and the secrets of their power unmasked. So varied were the powers attributed to these half crazed old women there there was scarcely anything that they were not supposed to be able to accomplish. They could bring fish to their own posts, give success to fishermen, raise storms, sink ships, drown whom they would and even sell winds to mariners.
Travel
As they themselves were reputed to travel by magic, the ignorant people believed that the witches could cross the sea in such crafts as egg shells, bowls and feathers. In producing diseases waylaying and plundering travelers their charms were said to work with great success. Nothing was impossible in witch lore, for superstition even went so far as to claim that withered old witches could turn themselves into ravens, cats, rats, black sheep, whales, hares and even into winds and waters, appearing and disappearing at queer times and in strange places.
Killing any of these animals was considered serious business, for who knew but by so doing he might encounter the spirit of a phantom creature who would vent her anger with an everlasting curse upon his life. These palsied sorcerers were said to always have with them such charms as colored threads, magic caps and staffs. Their reputation advertised them as able to carry plunder in needles and pitchforks. In the north of Scotland, where superstition reached its height, there was one witch who was supposed to have been able to obtain all the milk from her neighbors’ flocks by milking her own little pet sheep.
Hairy Donald, a masculine witch of the same country, claimed the power to kill or cure cattle by means of magic. The parish minister, unlike his people, held such an absurd profession in derision, but the village folk who doubted not that Donald could make good his claims shut the witch in a room while the minister was asked to name a certain cow over which the conjurer might show his control. When the unfortunate beast chanced to fall dead before Donald had scarcely finished reciting his mysterious dish doggerel the common folk belief in the witch’s power was confirmed.
In Scotch folk lore there is a story that a butcher once bought a cow from a stranger. When endeavoring to fell the creature with his ax the blows made no impression on the animal. When an old man who happened that way inquired into the cause of such an unusual circumstance he discovered a red string tied around the cow’s tail. When this was removed the butcher killed the cow with one blow, for the witch charm had been removed.
Counter Charms
To counteract evil spells invoked by the imaginary enchantresses the superstitious peasants invented an elaborate system of charms of prevention or counter charms. Thus juniper, pulled in a certain manner and in a special way, was burned before cows and put on the tails to prevent the witches from taking away their milk. On Lamas day, or on the Thursday after, every housewife dropped a ball of hair into her milk pail, so as to insure the milk on her farm furnishing rich cream during the rest of the year. An accommodating old Scotch villager, who prepared a number of small bags of herbs to be dropped into cream jugs for the same purpose, supplied many of his neighbors with such charms. In both England and Scotland the mountain ash furnished potent resistance to the influences of the witches, and so cow halters and church handles were frequently made of that wood.
The custom of nailing a horseshoe over the door for luck is of primitive origin. In witch days the horseshoe which was accidentally found was nailed over the barn door as a protection to horse and rider against the powers of the evil ones. If a sailor found the shoe it was fixed to the mast of his ship to insure safety to craft and crew. Even the nails possessed a charm, for when driven in the lowest hooks of milk dishes they were sure to keep the substance in the milk for the whole farm.
By using tar on cow sheds and behind cows’ ears cattle were protected from disease. It was thought that confessions could be wrung from the rickety old hags of evil if the country folk but put pins in a pan of milk which they let boil dry, for that tortured the witches, but as the people feared the vengeance of these creatures they refrained from trying this remedy. Often the witches themselves sold charms which they knew were useless, for starvation was ever teaching them new tricks of deception.
Selling Winds
Many old Finnish and Irish women made a business of selling winds to sailors. It is said that once a fisherman was stranded a long way from home. While awaiting favorable winds, he courted a witch’s daughter, who told him that her mother could furnish him with breeze to fill his sails, and so he arranged to give the old woman pound of tobacco for aiding him on his journey. To accomplish this marvelous feats the old humbug gave him a string knotted in three places.
When ready for his journey the sailor untied the first, called “Come gently,” so he glided from the shore. When the second knot, called “Come better,” was loosed a stiffer breeze wafted the traveler in the direction in which he wished to journey. But this was not doing well enough for the sailor, who knew that there was still one more knot which he might take out. Alas for him, his curiosity led him into untying it, and at that moment such a strong blast was summoned that the ship was blown away and the sailor drowned. The treacherous old woman who had brought destruction upon him might have destroyed his ship by placing a round dish in a milk pan. It is said that during her incantations the dish would have sunk and at the same time the craft would have gone under water.
Cats
Halloween, without the suggestion of cats, would be unusual. In witchcraft there was a close association with these feline creatures. Friendless old women known as witches usually kept prowling cats as their sole companions. The treacherous and glaring eyes and the spiteful characteristics of these half fed animals matched the dispositions of their mistresses so exactly that witch and cat grew to mean the complement of each other.
It was said that no witch would harm a cat, and so a mariner usually carried one of these animals in his boat to prevent it from sinking. Folk lore claims that if a sailor wanted a certain wind he buried a cat alive, placing the head in the direction from which he wished the wind to blow. Even modern superstitions of this creature may be traced to the days of witchcraft, for the beliefs that it was unlucky to take a cat from an old to a new house, that a cat washing its face foretells rain, and sitting with its back to a fire prophesies a storm, are relics of the age of superstition.
Of the many cat fables in witch lore none is more amusing than the “Hurrah for London” story. It happened that twenty cats came in and seated themselves about the hearthstone of a Highlander. First one and then the other put on a cap, saying “Hurrah for London,” and with that vanished. When they had all gone the old shepherd himself put on the cap, repeating the same words. When he had finished he, too, sailed through the air, never stopping until he found himself seated in a wine cellar in London. There he indulged so freely that the next morning he was taken to jail.
The day after the judge pronounced a death sentence of hanging upon him and the noose had been adjusted when he asked that he be allowed to wear a cap to his doom, and so the judge unknowingly ordered the cap of magic placed upon the shepherd’s head. This was favor enough, for as soon as the Highlander wore the cap again he exclaimed “Hurrah for Pintail” and disappeared to his mountain home, to his own fireside, to laugh at the dismay he knew had fallen upon his would be executioners.
It would seem that the old adage, “Never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you,” would have sufficed to have kept the ignorant peasants from inquiring too closely into the lives of the supposed witches, but curiosity was stronger than reason. The superstitious people even sought to find the homes of the witches. For this purpose they would rise early on the morn of the first Monday of each quarter year and go upon some hill to observe the cabin chimneys. On that morning the smoke from the witches’ houses was said to go against the wind.
Secrets
In almost every village throughout Europe there was some old man or woman supposed to be wiser than his neighbors by knowing the secrets of healing and bestowing luck, or warding off danger, or of aiding his fellow creatures. This sorcerer resented association with black witches, for he even claimed the power of counteracting their evil. Usually these benevolent creatures, who gained their livelihood by imposing upon their neighbors, were versed in rhymes, incantations and ceremonials.
They had knowledge of plants, they could recite stories with high morals and could make most amazing observations of the weather. In some localities time has but recently removed such humbugs who were sought to cure sick cattle by means of ministering a few bottles of water over which a few meaningless verses were said. For rheumatism the white witches urged that the sufferer recipe certain verses on Thursdays and Sundays, while the recitation of various religious rhymes was supposed to relieve one of the toothache at any time.
In our age it is almost impossible to realize that many noblemen of Scotland and Europe finished their education by visiting these wise old characters in the hope of learning their secrets. Even the literature of that time was affected by this peculiar superstition of the people. One old book written about a hundred years ago is unique in our age in that the whole volume is devoted to teaching hundreds of strange secrets, from how to know a person’s thoughts in his sleep to the method of rendering one’s self invisible, and this book was probably taken seriously by thousands.
Thanks to enlightenment. our modern witches take the forms of locomotives, phonographs, airships and wireless stations, for these inventions accomplish wonders more staggering to the comprehension than any of the miraculous feats attributed to the supernatural abilities of the departed enchantresses.
Source: Evening Star. Newspaper. October 27, 1912.
