To spell and back

It was the noted Victorian folklorist and true-bred Yorkshireman Richard Blakeborough who first seems to have recognised this problem. It struck him while he was recording a traditional Yorkshire charm for elder daughters who did not want to become old maids.

"If the youngest daughter in a family is married first, the eldest had better unravel one of her garters, knitting the same, mixed with other wool, into something a man can wear," he wrote in his book Wit, Character, Folklore And Customs Of The North Riding Of Yorkshire, published in 1898.

"This she must present to the one she has a special regard for, and it most likely will incline his heart towards her."

Even in 1898 there was a problem. It was difficult for passed-over elder daughters to avail themselves of this charm if they could not find the right kind of garter, Mr Blakeborough pointed out. "They once were articles in great request, to work charms and spells with," he wrote. "But that was in the days when either a long band with a buckle, or a knitted affair about an inch wide and a yard long, was universally worn.

"In these days of patent things and other inventions, some of which do not encircle the leg at all, the girls are disbarred from resorting to many of the old-time spells."

If this is what it was like in 1898 think how much more difficult it must be for today's girls. Back then, garters - when you could find them - weren't just a sure-fire way of getting your man, according to Mr Blakeborough. They had other uses too - such as discovering the identity of a thief. A bible and a key were also needed for this purpose. "The modus operandi was as follows," Mr Blakeborough wrote. "A key was placed within the bible; this was bound securely within by winding a garter round it, the whole being suspended from a nail.

"The name of the supposed thief was now mentioned three times - in some districts seven and, if the key turned round, the thief was discovered."

Mr Blakeborough is an inexhaustible fund of traditional charms such as this. And now, thanks to specialist folklore publisher Oakmagic Publications, the glimpse of old Yorkshire they afford is available for modern readers. They have produced a facsimile edition of part of Mr Blakeborough's book under the title Yorkshire Witchcraft, Charms And Cures.

It is stuffed with old folk tales, spells, charms and remedies gleaned during Ripon-born Mr Blakeborough's years of travelling throughout the north-east listening to old people's tales. There is some odd stuff among the remedies in particular - and, unexpectedly, the stern Victorian folklorist turns out to have a dry sense of humour which makes his book great fun.

Here, for example, is a remedy to gladden the heart of anyone who suffers from arthritis or rheumatism.

"For pains in the joints, a toad tied belly down over the affected part would enable the patient to walk as well as ever," wrote Mr Blakeborough before adding, deadpan: "Now this is something sensible. Just you find a poor body suffering from pains in the joints, and then produce a toad, and you will work a miracle. Long before you can tie it belly-downwards anywhere, the patient, if a female, will be beating her best running record; if a male, his joints will be right in an instant, and you will have to take the toad outside, minus dignity."

Modern medics please note.

There are plenty more remedies - some of them, as you would expect, fairly gruesome.

Frog spit rubbed on a wart is "said to be a certain cure", Mr Blakeborough reported. Here's another: "If you rub your wart with a black snail, sticking the snail on a thorn where you will never see it again, the wart, as the snail dies, will disappear."

Or how about this, as a remedy for fits?

"The tongue of a still-born calf, if dried and worn so that it touched the spine, would prevents fits of almost any kind."

If there seems to be more than an element of witchery about some of these latter remedies, there is good reason. Mr Blakeborough was an inveterate collector of stories about witchcraft and much of Oakmagic's slim 80-page pamphlet is made up of the doings of some of the North Riding's most famous witches.

The folklorist spent much of his life in Guisborough, tucked away under the northern edge of the North York Moors. So many of the witches he writes about hail from that neck of the woods. Witches such as Peggy Flaunders, who died in 1835 at the ripe old age of 85 and was buried in the churchyard at Marske-by-the-Sea.

Like most witches, Peggy was skilled in the exercise of the evil eye, reports Mr Blakeborough. But she also seems to have possessed a sense of loyalty too.

On one occasion she cast a spell against Marske farmer Tom Pearson. All his cattle promptly died and the farmer was ruined. His farm then passed to his cousin - who had once befriended Peggy. As he crossed the threshold of his new farm for the first time, Peggy passed by. Mr Blakeborough, who had a passion for Yorkshire dialect, takes up the story:

"She (Peggy) called out to him as he passed, 'Thoo 'ez mah good wishes,' threw her cloak on the ground, jumped over it, mumbled something, and walked away, and from that day everything prospered 'awlus wiv him.'"

She wasn't always so benevolent. She cursed Mary Parker so that her cow's milk dried up, and Mary's next door neighbour, Hannath Rothwell's butter turned out all wrong, no matter how long she churned it.

To counter Peggy's malice the two old crones visited Upleatham wise man Jonathan Westcott. He prescribed a complicated series of rituals which included reciting a charm nine times while turning nine times on the spot.

Mr Blakeborough doesn't record whether it worked.

Probably more famous even than Peggy was Guisborough witch Jane Grear, the folklorist writes. "She, like Peggy, was bitten by a dog, and bore the marks until the day of her death. She received her injuries when trying to jump through her own key-hole: it must have been either a very small hare she had turned herself into, or she must have owned an abnormally large key-hole."

As a young girl, Jane must have been very pretty, notes Mr Blakeborough - at least judging by an old rhyme. This, he says "tells of her various charms, perhaps a little too freely." So freely, in fact, that "only a few lines can possibly be given."

A pity. But here, for what they're worth, they are:

"Plump ez a suker war Jinny when young,

"Wi t' waast an' t' bust ov a queen;

"T' gallants an' t' bucks did all on 'em sweear

"Sha beeat owt 'at ivver tha'd seen."

Yorkshire Witchcraft, Charms And Cures is available direct from the publishers, Oakmagic Publications, PO Box 74, Church Stretton, SY6 6WD. Send a cheque for £6 which includes postage.

Updated: 10:22 Monday, March 28, 2005