Wicca's world

This Americanisation of Hallowe'en makes those of a nostalgic bent yearn for the old fashioned traditions: witches and warlocks rising up into blood-black skies, terrifying earthbound mortals with their cackling cries.

But these days, witches are hard to find. Although there are some still practising magic both black and white, if you are interested in the heyday of British witchcraft you must travel back to the 16th and 17th centuries.

Belief in the supernatural power of the sorceress began much earlier. But witchcraft was only made a felony in 1542.

Causing death by witchcraft became a capital offence just over 20 years later. The 1563 Act also set out the penalty for causing illness by witchcraft: a year's imprisonment plus four appearances in the pillory. It was supported by Edmund Grindal, who became Archbishop of York in 1570.

According to a paper written by Philip Tyler in 1969, more than 100 accusations of witchcraft and sorcery were put before the church courts at York between 1567 and 1640. Only four or five of these "involved suspicion of cursing or black witchcraft".

Thirteen people "were presented for claiming to be able to find lost or stolen farm animals and other goods, and a further eight for practising divination or fortune-telling".

According to Mr Tyler's research, the church authorities were generally lenient. Many of the accused were simply dismissed from the court; others were punished by being made to recite a declaration in church. Only in one instance was an offender made to pay a fine.

The ecclesiastical commissioners even treated certain claims of witchcraft as defamatory. In 1578, Robert Singleton of Yedingham confessed that he had thrown a can at Janet Milner's head and "called her a witch because she useth to heal cattle by charmings". He was ordered to seek her forgiveness, and he knelt before her in court declaring her an honest woman.

Not many of those accused of being a witch were treated so fairly. Some women convicted of witchcraft were executed at York. The harshness of the punishment reflected the fear in society. Many people were afraid of the supposed power of witches to do harm in an instant.

Those "bewitched" would often suffer fits. In his paper Witchcraft In Seventeenth Century Yorkshire, Professor Jim Sharpe, of York University, quotes the example of a Scarborough child spellbound in 1651.

"A woman child of about fower years of age that is strangely handled by fitts, namely, the hands and armes drawne together contracted, the mouth some tyme drawne together, other times drawne to a wonderfull wideness, the eyes often drawne wide open and the tong rite out of the mouth (almost bitten of), looks black and the head drawes to one side, the mouth drawne awrye, and makes noise, with trembling: and when itt is out of the fitts itt starts often as in feare."

Worse still was when victims began to vomit foreign bodies. Prof Sharpe reports how Elizabeth Mallory, daughter of a gentry family at Ripon, "vomited severall strange thinges as blotting paper full of pins & thred tied about & a piece of woole & pins in it and likewise two feathers and a sticke".

She also cried out the name of her supposed tormentors: a married couple called Mary and William Waide. This was often treated as enough to warrant a conviction.

Jennet Preston was hanged at York for witchcraft in 1612. Evidence against her included accounts of how her victim Thomas Lister "cryed out in greate extremitie; Jennet Preston lyes heavie upon me, Preston's wife lyes heavie upon me; helpe me, helpe me: and so departed, crying out against her".

Another common belief was that witches could change shape and appear in the form of an animal. According to Mary Williams' book Witches In Old North Yorkshire, Mary Nares of Pickering was reputedly able to turn herself into a cat. Others were said to become hares or dogs.

Anyone suspected of being a witch was supposed to be able to cast a spell almost surreptitiously, with the slightest of touches, or via the most harmless sounding incantations.

But the formal curse was feared most. In one case Wetherby widow Helen Hiley went down on her knees in front of her neighbour John Wood "and said a vengeance of God light upon thee Wood... and all thy children and I trulie pray this praier for so long as I live".

Prof Sharpe also recounts how a butcher, Richard Wawne, became embroiled in a dispute with two local women. One of them came up to him as he was selling meat at Whitby market "and bad an ill death light on him & his goods, cursing him with many such-like expressions". Immediately afterwards, one of his cattle died.

Although feared for their powers, witches were not immune from attack. There are recorded instances of them being beaten or even lynched: in 1667 three men were hanged at York for the murder of a Wakefield woman suspected of bewitching a man.

The witchcraft statutes were repealed in 1736, but the legends lingered on. Indeed, as late as the 1960s, an elderly man recalled a witch called Nanny Pierson from Goathland.

The story is related in Mary Williams' book. Pierson was called in by a local squire to dissuade his daughter from a love affair with a farmer.

The girl's legs were paralysed, as a direct result of her hex according to villagers. The young farmer consulted the Scarborough "wise men" who advised him how to end the spell.

It involved mixing drops of witches' blood with holy water and applying the mixture to his love's feet. But how to get the blood?

Simple. Nanny Pierson was known to turn herself into a hare. When she did, the man shot the witch-hare with a silver bullet and collected the blood. After applying the mixture to his young lady's toes, she recovered.

More surprisingly, witchcraft was cited as evidence in a sad case heard at Scarborough coroner's court as late as 1905. Investigating the death of a 17-month-old boy, the coroner asked the mother why her son was emaciated. Her reply came as a shock: "I think the child has been bewitched".

She said the woman next door had done it: "I can always hear her when there is nobody in the house, and there are terrible shadows from behind the doors."

The Daily Telegraph reported the conclusion to the inquiry.

"In summing up the coroner said they had heard an extraordinary story about witchcraft, and perhaps it appeared rather foolish on his part to take such notice, but he could not help it...

"The jury, in accordance with the medical testimony, returned a verdict to the effect that death was caused by convulsions, due to rickets resulting from improper feeding."

Updated: 11:32 Monday, October 28, 2002